LIVING WITH JOY - Chapter 4
IV. Changing the Negative into the Positive
The ability to see all situations, people and events from a positive perspective will help you to rise out of the mass thoughtforms and the denser levels of energy, onto your path of joy. You can bring to those you associate with the belief that everything happens for their good. It is common to hear people complain, speak of being victims, or go on and on about the negative things that have happened to them. Most speaking and communication—on TV, in conversations in restaurants, buses and public places—centers around what is wrong and bad. A way of thinking and relating to others has developed that has strong overtones of righteousness, of right and wrong, and the emphasis is usually on what is wrong. This has at its root your system of polarities, where something is either good or bad, positive or negative, up or down. Changing negatives into positives is part of the propagation of the belief in higher good.
Because you exist in a system of polarities I cannot speak in a meaningful way without using that framework, so I will use that system in communicating to you. You can take on the responsibility of educating those you come in contact with about the positive reasons why things are happening to them.
If you wish to be aware of the higher
good happening in your own life,
be willing to let go of a limited
perspective and enlarge your
view of your life.
In many ways your past acts as an anchor until you release and let go of any negative beliefs about it or memories of it. Some of you have relationships from the past you feel you did not handle in the best way you could. Maybe there is an old hurt in your heart or a feeling of being let down. You can go back and change negative memories by looking at the gifts people had for you and seeing the good you did for them. You then can telepathically transmit forgiveness and love to those people at whatever age they were when you knew them. You will heal yourself and others by doing this. The healing will occur in present time also, and erase any projection of negative patterns into your future.
I will start by speaking of the past, for many of you hold negative images about your past selves. Every day you are growing and evolving and learning new ways to handle your energy, and yet, if it had not been for those incidents in the past you would not be who you are now.
Everything that happens is meant
to help move you into your greater self.
Now that you have reached a new level of being, you may be tempted to look back at the past with regret. You may think of many higher, more loving ways you could have handled somethings. Yet those very incidents provided you with the growth that allows you now to see a better way of behaving. Some lessons may be more painful than others, depending upon how willing you are to face them. When I speak of enlarging your scope of vision I am speaking of being able to step outside of present time and see your life as a whole rather than as a series of unconnected events.
When I, as Orin, view a person, I stand above his or her entire life and look at each incident not as a separate event, but as a part of an entire life path. You have the ability to do this also. You may resist or feel unwilling to take the time, and yet, the gifts that await you are great if you are willing to see your life from a larger perspective. To reframe into the positive, the conscious mind will need to see the larger picture. The spiritual body does see the larger picture. You can learn to move into that larger perspective and out of the emotional and mental body. That will assist you in seeing your life positively.
Most people's emotional bodies are much younger than their spiritual or mental bodies, and are the most caught in dense energy. The emotional level of most people in this country is evolving but is still young. It is not being aided in its evolution by the current belief systems of fear and pessimism. It is our intent, through holding a constant focus of peace and love, to contribute optimism and hope to the emotional atmosphere and belief systems of the people.
The newspapers and the mass media often communicate a feeling of doom that pervades the mental images and emotional feeling tones of the nation. As I am speaking of reframing into the positive, I will add there are good reasons why this is happening. If you look at the country from a larger perspective you will see you as a race are changing the path you are on because of these fear-based messages. People respond to certain kinds of messages, and most react to the negative ones that are being put out, including those that warn and those that trigger fear. Right now it has been decided by you as a race that fear works more effectively in changing people than hope; and yet, once the tide has been turned it will be time for new communications of hope and optimism.
When you look around at your society, become aware of the way people are speaking, see the ways they are learning about their energy. Broadcast to them your belief that they can experience growth in positive ways. There are some belief systems right now that are under going change and I will mention them so you may assist in bringing through these higher systems of reality more rapidly.
One is a belief that growth comes through pain and struggle. This is one you are getting ready to let go of on a mass level. However, there are many who are not yet ready to exist without pain and struggle so they must be allowed to live in that arena until they are willing to move on.
There is a mass belief that the outer world is more important than the inner world and this is undergoing change also. There is a mass belief in scarcity, that there is not enough for everyone. It is one of the underlying beliefs of your civilization and always is a source of competition and power struggles. There is no negative judgment implied here, only an observation that some people learn in certain ways that make life hard for them. You can be in the forefront of the new thought- forms, so I am calling to your attention the mass beliefs you exist in. Once you recognize them, you may choose whether you agree with them and want to live by them or not.
Are you willing to believe
in ideas of abundance,
of validating the inner world,
and of learning to grow through joy?
Starting with your own past, think of a time in which something happened you did not understand. Now, as you look back as an adult, as an older, more mature self, you can understand precisely why you drew that incident to you and what you learned from it. You can see as you look back with the larger picture in mind that when you did not get what you thought you wanted, there was a reason for not having it. Perhaps not having it changed your life path. Maybe having it would have held you back in some way, or maybe it was something you wanted from a smaller, less evolved part of you. As you look back with your memories, reviewing past relationships and career paths (even those you are still in but letting go of), see how they served you. What you have now would not be possible without those experiences. You cannot leave something until you love it. The more you hate something the more bound you are to it, and the more you love it the freer you are. So as you love your past, you are free from it.
When you can think of your childhood and your parents and know that they were perfect for the path you are on, you are then free of the effects of your past. You can believe that you chose your parents, relationships, and careers so that you could be where you are now. As you change your negative memories into positive understanding, you can go even faster into your new future.
You can release the past
by loving it.
Every time you think of a bad memory that makes you feel sorry for yourself, or bad about how you acted, or makes you see yourself as a victim, or makes you hold a negative picture of yourself, Stop! See what good you created from that experience. It may be that you learned so much from it you never again brought that kind of behavior back into your life. It may be that because of that situation, you changed your path. It may have brought you an important connection or helped develop new qualities and personality traits. You may have served and helped many people in that job. Your parents may have developed your strength, or your inner will, by creating obstacles for you. People who want to develop muscles, for instance, may use weights to push against. Your parents may have acted as a "weight" for you to push against to develop your inner strength. Everything in your past happened for yxmr good. If you could believe that the universe is friendly, that it is always helping you to create your highest good, you could live a life of more peace and security.
Look at your present time existence. If you wish to see the larger picture you can sit and imagine that you are going into the future. If you are facing a new challenge, one for which you have not yet acquired the necessary skills, imagine yourself going into the future and uniting with your future self, drawing to you the knowledge that future self holds. It may not come into your conscious awareness until the moment you need it, but the energy and knowledge your future self can send you can make what you are going through today seem easier. If you are facing decisions or troubles, imagine yourself five years from now looking back at today, viewing the overall picture. Then link with that self of the future, for from that perspective it would be much simpler to know what to do today. You could even imagine you are that future self and talk to your self of today from that future perspective. You could make things up, telling yourself why you are going through what you are experiencing and affirming to your present self the rightness of everything that is happening. Your future self is real and separated from you only by time. It can talk to you and help you know what to do right now, how to get where you want to go even more quickly.
When you imagine your future,
do you not think you will be
the same then as you are now?
You will be more evolved, wiser, expanded; problems that exist now in your life will be solved. Problems create a focus of attention. They are labelled as problems because you do not yet have a solution, nor is that new part of you yet activated or matured that knows how to deal with the situation effectively. Often you create problems to originate new forms of behavior and evolve parts of yourself. You can do that without creating crisis, by paying attention to the whispers of your mind and by spending time imagining yourself in the future. You can draw to you new images of who you want to be, but you will also want to be willing to release the situations and things in your life that do not fit those images.
The emotional body has the most to gain from reframing everything into the positive, for every time you say a negative word to yourself or make yourself wrong, your emotional body changes its vibration and your energy drops. When the vibration becomes lower your magnetism changes and you attract to yourself people and events that amplify this drop in energy. Once you take responsibility and attune your awareness to higher thoughts, creating joyful images in your mind, you can raise the vibration of your emotional body. Then you will want to have the people in your personal life contribute to and share those high feelings. If you find, however, the people you know are constantly depressed or angry or in a negative emotional state, ask yourself what belief you have that says it is good for you to be in that personal environment.
Most of you have habits and patterns in your personal relationships that repeat themselves regardless of who you are with. If you are willing to release those patterns you will find many new ways of deepening the ties between you and others. If you focus on something wrong with another person you can make it even larger. The things that were working in your relationship before will start not working. On the other hand, if you focus on bringing out the good in other people, seeing their beauty and speaking to them of what you love about them, you will find the areas which were giving you problems beginning to resolve themselves, even though you haven't worked directly on finding solutions. The more you focus on problems between you, or on what is wrong with other people, the more you will find relationships going downhill. When people first get together they are so focused on the good in each other it is said that they wear rose-colored glasses. This is a great gift to each other, for as each pays attention to the good in the other they help each other create it.
Loving people is a commitment
to holding a high vision of them,
even as time and familiarity
take their toll.
Many of you, when you see something that is different from you in another person, a lover or friend, go into power struggles or competition to deal with it. If, instead, you accept another's world view and know that it is simply different from yours, you will not need to do anything other than love him or her. You do not need to convince people you are right, for that only draws you into power struggles with them. Nor do you need to be convinced that they are right. Being positive does not mean being blind. It means being willing to see the good in others and to turn the focus away from what is wrong (to you) or different.
The more you point out to others all the ways they are bad or wrong, the more insecure you make them, and from that base of insecurity you actually create and enlarge the problems you focus on. You can tell everyone in your life how good they are, and help them recognize how much they are growing. Whenever they complain of a problem or something wrong you can help them see how the situation is helping them, the positive changes it is giving them, and what it is teaching them.
You may be thinking of your job or lack of one as a problem, or wishing you were out of a career or that you could create one. Your higher self is always watching over you. It is always monitoring you to see if your attitudes, if who you are at the personality, emotional and physical level, are developed enough to have what . you want. If it sees you are not ready, it will sidetrack you while it evolves those parts of you that need to be developed. You may need certain skills, to meet new people, or change your environment.
Your higher self will guide you
in the right direction so that you can
make the changes you are asking for,
or have what you want.
If you come from the larger perspective, you will understand that what is happening to you right now is preparing you for more. When you catch people complaining this week, simply say to them, "Stop." Learn to use your voice to halt people's energy when they are giving you their complaints. If you listen to people gripe, if you listen to their negativity, you are putting yourself in a position of being affected by their lower energy. You do not need to listen. By stopping people from telling you their stories, particularly if they are not good ones, you assist them in coming out of it. Watch people this week. Do they go on and on about their sad stories? If so, you are connecting with them at the personality level when you could be relating to them in a higher way.
Ask them what they want and where they are going. What higher purpose can they create? Refocus them on the positive and you will be doing the same for your own energy. This week be willing to listen alertly to everyone who comes your way. Listen to conversations in public places. If you notice that they are not positive, tune them out. But first, mentally send people the thought that the . level of development they are at now will evolve, and send love to them for who they are.
Notice the TV, newspapers and books you read—do they use positive words? Do they bring up your energy or do they take it down and plant negative images in your mind? You are absolutely free to choose what you read and hear. No one makes you do anything. This week use that freedom and free will to put yourself in the highest, most supportive environment you can create. Observe and watch what level people are coming from. You will see that you have much to offer by helping others into a higher space. Know that you can carry light and bring it to all those people you contact.
CHANGING THE NEGATIVE INTO THE POSITIVE
PLAYSHEET
Think of someone you have felt critical about lately. What especially did you feel critical about?
What do you criticize in yourself that is the same or opposite of what you criticize in this person? For example, perhaps you criticize a friend for always being late. You may pride yourself about being on time, but find on closer examination that you are very critical of yourself about issues of time.
Think of a time you did the same thing you are criticizing the other person for. For instance, say you are criticizing your friend for not returning money to you. Was there a time that you did not return borrowed money to someone?
Think of a time you felt warm and loving. Get into that feeling. Now think of the person you're criticizing again. How do you feel towards him or her as you view him with this warm and loving feeling? As you see your friend through loving and compassionate eyes, so do you forgive yourself.
Keep that warm and loving feeling. Think of what you have criticized yourself for. Do you feel more warm and loving towards your own behavior?