A NEW LEASE—on Life!
By Judit Rajhathy, B.A., RNCP, D.Ac.
Fake It ‘Til You Make It
People often ask me how I can be so upbeat all the time. Like anyone else I also have my ups and downs - the difference is that I do not allow my down times to last long because I have learned that life is just too short to be wasted on negativity. Given that my physical health is optimal via diet and supplements, I try my best to live in the moment, knowing the past is gone, the future is not yet here and that all we have is the very moment in which we find ourselves.
Living in this consciousness isn’t easy, so I often ‘fake it ‘til I make it’ without repressing my feelings but at the same time not paying too much attention to them since most feelings are generated by thoughts—thoughts that come and go all the time—like clouds passing in the sky.
I choose to focus on the sun above the clouds. So the days that I wake up with challenges, I switch from choosing to focus on them to focusing on the positive—ensuring that before the day is over I have performed some kind of service to another—what better distraction than helping another human being? The energy expended in this direction is infectious and can totally change the direction of the day. I also try to surround myself with positive energy either through uplifting music, exercise, dance, a good conversation —anything passionate!
We cannot control external influences—what we do have full control over is our reactions to these influences. Knowing and fully accepting also that there is nothing constant in life but change, we need to get ourselves to the point where we can be adaptable and able to adjust to changes in life.
Partners come and go, dear friends become sick and die, our children can experience hardships, we can experience financial issues—the list is endless. We can choose to argue with reality and swim against the stream or we can accept reality and swim with the current. As Byron Katie, best selling author and developer of The Work often says, “You can argue with reality but reality will win—always.”
Suffering is optional. Why choose to suffer when you can choose in any given moment to be happy? The one thing we do have control over is our mind, our attitude. As Victor Frankl points out in Man’s Search For Meaning, “We who lived in concentration camps can remember the men who walked through the huts comforting others, giving away their last piece of bread...they offer sufficient proof that everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms—to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way”.
Hopefully you will also choose to take care of yourself by proper diet and regular exercise. See you at the gym!
