Saanams Mind

When asked if you have forgiven anybody ever, the answer most likely would be yes. But would that be really forgiveness because when you forgive you should not remember the incident at all. The dictionary explains Forgiveness is the process of ceasing to feel resentment , indignation or anger against another person for a perceived offense, difference or mistake, or ceasing to demand punishment or restitution .But in reality how many of us do really forgive, we may make excuses, accept it, learn to live with it but deep down do we forgive completely , by that I mean even forget the incident??

Mother Theresa said ‘ If we really want to love, we must learn how to forgive.’ Actually if we learn to forgive we are doing ourselves a very big favor .If we hang on to the incident without forgiveness, you build so much of stress, resentment, hurt & a whole load of negative energy.So as a good deed to your self you need to learn to forgive.

How can we do that. By first understanding that we forgive for ourselves not for the person who has hurt or upset you. Making a commitment to yourself that you will do whatever it takes to make you feel good. Then thinking what is it about the incident that hurt you, putting it into words & talking about it to trusted friends. Forgiveness need not mean you need to make up with the person who you feel has hurt you. Forgiveness is for your peace of mind & so trying to try a different way of looking at it & understanding the issue & then deciding it is not such a big deal after all helps. When upset try a physical activity as a stress buster & as you work on it, tell yourself the person hasn’t hurt you , your perception of what they said or did hurts you. Overlook little things that you don’t like in that person who hurt you n look at the good in them. Accepting that everybody or everything cannot be as you wish it to be helps too . Use all the energy you waste feeling sad on doing something constructive for time is precious & lost moments don’t come back.

Lastly believe in yourself & have faith in having a well lived life. When a hurt is intentional nothing upsets a person more that seeing his act of vengeance is not reacted upon at all. Have that power & faith in yourself not to waste time over the wasted energy of hurt, revenge etc & learn not to react. That way you will have mastered the art of forgiveness.

Were politics ever actually about societal issues? I mean, sure it’s no surprise that a great deal of politicians are just after money but there are a few who aren’t and actually do want to do what they can to better things… and regardless of their reasons behind what they do things tend to get done or they lose their position.

What surprises me though is what people focus on. Sure the politicians are the ones who are doing the job, but it’s the people who are voting for them who are supposed to be looking at the politics and aligning themselves with the candidate who they feel best represents the direction they want things to go. It’s the voting publics job to look into the views of those who may be responsible for our city/region/state/country and decide accordingly based on that persons past record and what they say they want, right?

For past six or so months, American Politics has gotten a lot of attention due to two very strong candidates of the same party. So today I was discussing the campaigns of Obama and Clinton, giving facts and opinions on things with someone I’ve known for a long time. After a lot of debate on why I would’ve voted for Hillary Clinton, had she been the canidate from the party. I asked who would this particular person vote for?  I’m told “I wouldn’t vote for Obama.” I asked why and I’m told “because he’s black.”  

So what does this mean? Once again we’ll be having a Republican president who will once again ruin United States with his nonsense because people are still ignorant and judge someone based on their skin color. This country would rather care about the skin color than the real issues. That just makes me sad.

This statement made me angry enough to make me feel ill. Is this personal really serious?

When will people just realize that we’re all people. The color of our skin is a part of who we are, sure, but in the long run it doesn’t mean anything – we’re all still human, we all have families and feelings, dreams and hopes, happy times and heartbreak. Why hate someone because they look different? It’s just sad. For that matter take it further – religion, sexual orientation – we should still be united by our humanity and it disgusts me that so many people can’t look past these differences and embrace them.

Charles Swindoll says….
The longer I live, the more I realize the impact of attitude on life.

Attitude, to me, is more important than facts. It is more important than the past, than education, than money, than circumstances, than failures, than successes, than what other people think or say or do. It is more important than appearance, giftedness or skill. It will make or break a company… a church… a home.

The remarkable thing is we have a choice every day regarding the attitude we will embrace for that day. We cannot change our past… we cannot change the fact that people will act in a certain way. We cannot change the inevitable. The only thing we can do is play on the one string we have, and that is our attitude… I am convinced that life is 10% what happens to me and 90% how I react to it.

And so it is with you… we are in charge of our attitudes.

This above Quote I read a few years ago & set me thinking…ISNT IT PERFECTLY TRUE??? Attitude is what gives us our outlook in life. Having a good attitude, bad attitude, neutral attitude…isn’t that what makes us who we are?? Isn’t it what sets us apart from others??? We deal with our situations in life with our attitude, if optimistic we have a positive outlook, if negative not only do we crib & make it look worse than what it is but we seem incapable of handling difficult situations in life.

Attitude according to Jung is the readiness of the psyche to act or react in a certain way.According to him there are two attitudes one is conscious & the other unconscious attitude.There is extrovert, introvert, rational, irrational , individual & social attitudes.Having understood this … its easy to realize that we are in complete control of our attitude. Since our mind is what decides what attitude we need to have we can completely have control in the way we want to look at life & react to situations.

Often people associate the word attitude to huge egos ,I beg to differ. To me having a healthy & positive attitude towards anything I do, makes me who I am. Having an attitude , specially a constructive , positive one cannot be bad. Having a healthy attitude towards yourself, acceptance of your weaknesses & your strong points does build ones self esteem & confidence. That necessarily does not mean you have an inflated ego- its just that you are self assured & have confidence in your ability to face all the bumps n pitfalls, the curves & hurdles, the mountains & valleys you have to get past to go forward in your journey of life.

According to the ancient Indian Practise of Yoga the 3 ‘A’s are very important to approach life in a very positive way.

Awareness-Of who we are, how we think, our thought processes. In other words after a bit of introspection one is more aware of who they are.

Acceptance-Normally we see that it is the lack of acceptance that makes us judgemental, be it acceptance of ourselves or another. The next step towards a positive you would be accept YOU as you are- unique & different, with your strengths & weaknesses & tell yourself you are that way because you were meant to be that way.I am not saying do not work on your self to improve towards an improved YOU, but accept that you can get angry sometimes, can get irrational sometimes. I mean to say forgive yourself for slip ups that happen sometimes. Acceptance always leads to a more compassionate & loving You & helps chase negativity faster.

The third A is Attitude-By this I mean develop a positive attitude towards everything.Tell yourself that you are getting more positive each day. Look at good in everything around, be it people or situations it definitely would help in looking at life in a brighter & happier way.

Ultimately, positive thinking affects the body vibrations in a positive manner. This in turn, affects the vibrations around us, which, in turn, affect the situations around us. This helps in relieving our suffering and leading a harmonious life.So develop a great attitude & see how life around shapes up exactly how you envision it to be .Dare to dream & develop a positive attitude to make those dreams come true .

Over the years I’ve met a lot of people in person and online. Friendships have been formed… some have faded from sight, some simply fell apart as our paths took us in opposite directions, some were broken due to fights, and lucky some are stronger than ever.

It was a slow realization but it hit me today that really the people I’ve been turning to lately haven’t been my old friends.

At one point over the past few months I had one of those old friends tell me that she didn’t feel like she knew me any more. Part of me, of course, wonders how well the ‘older’ friends really know/knew me to begin with since I was so closed until more recently. I think that the dissolving of some of these relationships lately has been because I am more open, I am more positive, I don’t hold back, and maybe it’s just too much. My opinions before were stated but often muted a bit… but were still considered to be blunt, when now it’s been upped a few notches to what I really think… I don’t believe in sugar-coating, never have and probably never will.

Really though I’m finding that a lot of people don’t like it when you’re straight-forward about what you think or believe. We live in a society, it seems, where people prefer you to lie to them so they can believe whatever it is they want to believe instead of being faced with what you really think. That’s not the kind of friend I prefer though – I’d much rather have one who I can always know where I stand with. We might not always agree, things might not always be pretty – but it’s not glossed over and watered down or, worse yet, just completely false. I can handle truth, but absolutely feel ill when I find out someone’s going to different people with different stories (and there’s always someone who’ll do this – sometimes though you find yourself disappointed by the one who decided to play all sides of the fence and pretty much just screw everyone over).

It was in evaluating my friendships with a few people that my thoughts began coming down this road, but that’s not to say that it’s all pertaining to any certain individual or individuals. My thoughts to this point really have been very general, and as they’re beginning to feel more specific I’ll end.
One thing, though, is for damned sure. Right or wrong I’m true to myself. I never pretend. What I say is what I really think and feel.

To reflect this though I’m trying to change a few things in my life and that includes cleaning up a lot of things. If I’ve not had a real conversation with you outside of few comments here and there in a while or there hasn’t been some sort of other interaction you’ve been removed, regardless of how long I’ve known you or the type of friendship we’ve had in the past. I have decided to start afresh & so in order to do that would want to start off with only the people I have a personal connection with. I don’t mean to make it personal, so please don’t take it as such. I feel that I would rather relate to people I connect with no matter how my relation ships have been in the past.

If you think you can relate to the new me and want to connect with me, you are more than welcome to do so.