Making A Difference In Your Life

Posted on 07.29.07 to Personal by Joan

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I love watching Oprah. I feel that I get exposed to a different side of life I wouldn’t normally see living in my sheltered world, I also learn lessons from the various speakers on the show and sometimes, it’s just good entertainment during her ‘Favourite Things’ show or when she interviews celebrities. It’s a lovely diverse mix of topics, which I like very much.

I watched a recent episode of the latest season of the talkshow that is currently running on the Hallmark Channel. It talked about The Secret. The Secret is defined as “the law of attraction, which is the principle that “like attracts like”… The principle explains that we create our own circumstances by the choices we make in life. And the choices we make are fueled by our thoughts—which means our thoughts are the most powerful things we have here on earth… The law of attraction means that everything that happens to you—good or bad—you attract to yourself.”

And it’s not just about thoughts. It’s a three-pronged thing: thoughts, feelings and action. We’d have to think positively about a situation first, then feeling good that we want to do something about and finally, actually doing it.

My favourite expert on the show is this woman called Lisa. “Lisa Nichols grew up on the tough streets of South Central Los Angeles. She admits that as a self-conscious teenager, she often used sex to feel loved by men. After hitting rock bottom at age 19, Lisa prayed for a better life. Now, she has made her fortune by motivating more than 60,000 teenagers to make better choices in their own lives.” She shared a lot of precious gems throughout, which I found to be very inspiring.

“Lisa says this perspective applies to weight, family, friends and other aspects of life. She says too many people who want to make things better focus on what’s wrong with the present. “Instead of wanting to change it, appreciate what’s there,” Lisa says. “Find the things about it that work … and by doing that, you create a space for it to get better.”

“Lisa decided to stop being a victim. She stopped looking for love elsewhere and fell “madly in love” with herself. Now, she teaches people how to treat her. “I’m the first example of how the world is supposed to love me and I have to give them the best example ever,” she says. “We expect someone to show us our greatness when [instead] I’m supposed to show up understanding my greatness and allowing you to celebrate it with me.”

Beautiful way of expressing that. Many a time, we forget to love ourselves. And in that light, people follow that example and treat us accordingly. In turn, our self-esteem plummets and we keep on wondering what it is about ourselves that make people not treat us well or love us. Without realising, that the root of the problem is because we don’t love ourselves that way either. So if we love ourselves, we take care of our spiritual growth, in turn, we are able to think more positively, feel positively and act positively, which would eventually lead to our lives being more fulfilled and happier. It’s such an amazing thing, isn’t it?

I must say, these are things that I’ve experienced and sometimes thought about, but could never put it in words as eloquently.

They also talked about forgiveness. I’m a poor example of offering the other cheek after one side’s been slapped. I could never understand how Jesus could do it and I’ve questioned my Catholic friends countlessly the principle behind it but it somehow is never able to register into my consciousness. The experts say, that “True forgiveness is when you can say the following to the person who hurt you: ‘Thank you for giving me that experience.’” And while we can grief from being hurt really badly, we should look for the lesson to be learnt in the experience, and grow and move on in life.

That’s actually one lesson in life that the husband taught me. Again, something I try to practise most of the time, but never put those thoughts in such a concise explanation.

I think it’s amazing how sometimes, (even though we are already aware of them), these lessons just pop up into our life again, reminding you of them so that you don’t forget and lose track.

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