Weakness

Affirmation:   I avoid all thoughts that weaken me. 

I am an optimist by birth.  I have a dear friend who is a yoga teacher like me and is involved with the planning of the Pink Ribbon Yoga Retreat.  We’ve not only done the yearly four day beach retreat but we have presented several day retreats.  Our concern is always the same. “Is the space big enough to hold all the people who will want to attend?”  We laugh at ourselves now, because the space has always been big enough and it has always been the perfect space.  My experience has been that when things are done with the right intention and lifted up to a Higher Power for their blessing, they usually not only turn out well, but better than you ever dreamed possible. 

Another example of this in my life is when my eldest daughter married.  This is her second marriage.  She is a remarkable woman and has weathered situations no one should have to experience.  But, she experienced them with grace and dignity.  She was unmarried with two small children and her father and I prayed daily that her life would be abundantly blessed.  We never prayed that she’d remarry, unless that was her plan and what she wanted.  We wanted whatever she wanted and that was our prayer.  She did meet someone, a wonderful man with two terrific teenage boys.  (I bet you wondered if there is such a thing.  I am here to tell you, there is.)  They form a marvelous blended family.  If her father and I had prayed for a man for her to marry and a family for her to love, we could not have imagined a situation as blessed as the one she now has. 

But, it is true, I sometimes obsess.  I get caught up in thoughts that repeat themselves over and over.  And, normally they are not thoughts that empower or lift me up.  They can be doom and gloom or questions to which I have no answer and may never have an answer.  That’s when I reroute my thoughts.  Prayer is usually the first step even if it’s a single word.  It turns off the thoughts and turns me around back to those things that are important to me and those thoughts that empower and do uplift. 

When I’m obsessing, I call upon; I avoid all thoughts that weaken me.  It helps to remind me of how I want to perceive the world, at least my world.  I don’t have space for things that deplete my energy.  One of my goals in life is optimal health and that definitely begins with how and what I am thinking.