In my experience, whenever I give any attention to that kind of negative energy, I’m giving that negativity a portion of my power. The intention behind the phrase might be one of motivation or empowerment, but I’d prefer not to lose some of my power to the idea that somebody is hating on me or to the chance that there might be people that are wanting to drag me down.

I’m not saying that doesn’t exist. I know that hate happens. However, one of the things that I have really come to understand is that I never can really know anyone else’s intentions. It doesn’t matter what it seems that somebody else must be thinking or feeling or imagining or planning because I can’t read somebody else’s mind–even if I feel like I know the other person well. In fact, other people can’t even really describe to me what they’re thinking or feeling with 100% accuracy because I can’t see the images they see in their mind or feel the feelings they feel in their body when they describe it. There is no real way to know somebody else’s line of consciousness or their stream of thought. So anything--A.N.Y.T.H.I.N.G.–that I think or that I believe about my past or my present are in a lot of ways made up by me. So why does it benefit me to focus on the idea that anybody is trying to attack me, even if they are?

Here’s my way of looking at it.

I just know that my number one hater is myself–not my real self, but my imposter self. All of the wiring that I’ve developed throughout my life span , all of the negative messages that I’ve fed to my subconscious mind, have become my “Negative Nellie,”–my number one hater;  So, my number one focus is to quiet that voice and to strengthen the voice inside of me that represents the truth of who I am.  I love to look at other people not as having an intention to hurt me but as doing the best they can with what they have. I know that I wouldn’t want anyone to consider me as a hater, because I don’t hate on people, and I honestly believe (again, I know there are exceptions to every rule) it’s not my job to judge whether or not someone has bad intentions toward me, but rather to nurture the good in myself and to look for the good in others.

I’m not saying I don’t get my feelings hurt sometimes, because I do. I’m not saying that every once and a while I don’t get upset and wonder why some people act the way they do. However, when I stop and take a minute and remember that other people are just like I am, I recognize that chances are, they are probably being attacked by their own worst hater inside their own mind. I remember that oftentimes people are so busy focusing on themselves that they don’t have any room or energy to think hateful things about me. I get to choose to take their words or their actions as an act against me–or NOT!

So rather than the arrows people may be shooting at me, or rather than the “haters,” I like to focus on being my best self and seeing the best in other people. It just feels so much better!! It makes me feel like I have a team of people who are like me and who understand me instead of feeling like I need to hide or need to lash out at anybody in any way. That energy drags me down. It doesn’t help.

So those are my thoughts… Instead of “haters gonna hate” why do I even have to have haters? I would rather focus on that part of me that believes in me and focus on helping that side be louder and stronger than my negative critic. I know I have God on my side. I have a lot of friends, I have family, mentors, coaches– people like that to rally around me. I like to surround myself with people who lift and support me– whether that’s a book, an audio, or in-the-flesh people. With so many supporters, the haters (if there are any) will fade away.

The post My Thoughts On Haters first appeared on Cary MacArthur.

The post My Thoughts On Haters appeared first on Cary MacArthur.

• I started with my morning meditation, which includes scriptures and other good, inspirational books, journaling, and prayer.
• I found some of my favorite music, went down into my basement, and I danced. I got my blood pumping in a way that’s fun for me—not force, just free fun.
• I gave my husband a really big hug and thought of all the reasons I am grateful to have him in my life.

By finding all the reasons that I could have energy today, I also found reasons that I could feel excited about the day–even with all the things on my to-do list– without needing to feel tired or overwhelmed about it.

It’s so cool how that works, isn’t it?

To some it may seem like it could be coincidence or a “fluke thing,” but I’m going to tell you why it works. Basically, it’s because our brains are cool! Our brains are programmed to only see the things we look for.  According to Darren Hardy in the Compound Effect:

“We are bombarded with billions of sensory bites of information each day. To keep ourselves from going insane, we ignore 99.9 percent of them, only really seeing, hearing, or experiencing those upon which our mind focuses.”

And thank goodness!! Think about it, if we had to notice and process every single piece of information that came our way, we would be overwhelmed with information! There are sights, sounds, smells, and life going on around us all the time! There’s always something coming at us and wanting our attention, so our brains are wired to ignore a lot of things. I don’t have to notice every time I need to take a breath, I don’t need to tell my body how to move. My brain does that habitually, and it also shuts out information habitually. Yours does too!

• If you’re a parent and you’ve ever been in a room full of kids making all kinds of noise and the only sound you notice is your own child’s cry, it’s because you’ve been trained to only listen for the noises that you need to hear.
• If you’ve ever bought a new car or learned a new word and suddenly you notice them everywhere, was it a serendipitous coincidence that all of a sudden everyone has learned the word or bought the car? I mean, maybe—but most likely, it’s just you didn’t notice it before; it wasn’t in your awareness.

Incredible, right?!

Just imagine! if we understand just this little piece about how our brains work, we could program it to notice more of the things we want to see!

Which brings up another important point: do you know what you want to see?

If we could know for sure what we value–things that are virtuous, lovely, praiseworthy, of good report, perhaps–then we can choose to see those things.
When I woke up this morning, I could have chosen to focus on all I had to do. I could have chosen to focus on all the reasons why I deserved to be tired; I could have focused on the fog on my brain, I could have focused on my eyes being heavy—and, to be honest, Sometimes I DO! Today, however, I didn’t want to. So I chose to focus on reasons to be excited and to have energy, and it really made all the difference.
How do you want to feel today? What if you could choose to live the life that you value every single day?
 

The post The Power of Awareness: How to attract more of what you want first appeared on Cary MacArthur.

The post The Power of Awareness: How to attract more of what you want appeared first on Cary MacArthur.