{"id":5350,"date":"2009-10-16T03:53:56","date_gmt":"2009-10-16T08:53:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/horizonsmagazine.com\/blog\/?p=5350"},"modified":"2015-04-12T04:37:27","modified_gmt":"2015-04-12T09:37:27","slug":"choosing-your-thoughts-is-a-daily-yoga","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/horizonsmagazine.com\/blog\/choosing-your-thoughts-is-a-daily-yoga\/","title":{"rendered":"Choosing your thoughts is a daily yoga.  Recognize the reflections around you."},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I wrote in <a href=\"http:\/\/horizonsmagazine.com\/blog\/?p=5332\" target=\"_blank\">Getting so caught in our own spin that we don\u2019t see our own wobble<\/a> about friends on the fast track whose lives are a routine of hurried sameness. They don\u2019t have time to think about what they\u2019d prefer instead, it\u2019s all they can do to think about everything they have to think about to keep their current life in motion.\u00a0 No room for new thoughts.\u00a0 No time for new thoughts.\u00a0 That\u2019s what their programmed mind keeps telling them.\u00a0 <em>I\u2019m not much different.\u00a0 I have the same thoughts, I just act on those thoughts far less often than I used to. <\/em> I still feel rushed.\u00a0 I still feel the sense of urgency to do, do, do. I just recognize now that they are simply thoughts, and<em> I can choose to release the thought and not act on it, and not react to it. <\/em>A friend told me she was surprised and glad to read that I have the same thoughts.\u00a0 She said I always seem so calm and centered, she imagined I only had calm thoughts.\u00a0<em> That really made me laugh.<\/em> The only difference is that &#8211; now &#8211; I just recognize they are simply thoughts, and I release the thought. I am the one in charge of what thoughts I choose to think.\u00a0 I am not always in charge of what thoughts pop into my mind, but I am in charge of what thoughts I <em>choose to continue to think<\/em>.\u00a0 I am in charge of how I react to each thought.<!--more--><\/p>\n<p>Choosing my thoughts used to be a daily yoga, back when I had lots more karma to burn up than I do now.\u00a0\u00a0 I had boyfriends and husbands back then, so staying solitary has definitely added to the peace and serenity of my life \ud83d\ude42\u00a0 I also had a full time career as a criminal defense paralegal in large Miami law firms, dealing daily with a lot of people and a lot of personality conflicts.\u00a0 Now I don&#8217;t even think about the stuff that used to fill my daily thoughts &#8211; making judgments about this one and criticizing that one; being passive aggressive with this one, secretly favoring that one.\u00a0 What a clusterf*k of useless thought time that was.\u00a0 And that was years of my life spent that way.<\/p>\n<p>I used to be involved in a lot of discussion groups and meetings &#8211; about 4 times a week, for decades.\u00a0 In so many of them, there was a constant political posturing going on that took the group&#8217;s focus off what I was attending for.\u00a0 A constant complaint was being surprised that would happen in such a group of supposed lightworkers.\u00a0 LOL\u00a0 Not realizing that&#8217;s what we&#8217;re here to work out, that&#8217;s why we&#8217;re thrown together, that&#8217;s why the person is sitting next to us at the meeting.<\/p>\n<p>We all end up together in the same room, the same meeting, the same house, the same family, the same workplace, the same social group, because we vibrate in harmony with each other.\u00a0 We are all dialed to the same station, attuned to the same dial. And, until we understand that, it will piss us off because we don&#8217;t like what we see.\u00a0 We don&#8217;t recognize it as a mirror.<\/p>\n<p>In computer science, <em>reflection <\/em>is the process by which a computer program can <em>observe and modify its own structure and behavior.<\/em> When we begin waking up and getting conscious, we do the same thing.\u00a0 We may call it spirituality, we may call it self help, we may call it new age, personal development, metaphysical, personal growth, yoga, meditation, contemplation.\u00a0 We may not call it anything.\u00a0 But when we begin getting conscious, we begin doing it.<\/p>\n<p>And the problem with a reflection is that it takes time to figure out how it works.\u00a0 Everything is backward because it&#8217;s facing us. We can get caught up in studying every little image we see in it, that we can&#8217;t see the big picture. Sometimes all it takes is a little distortion to hide something in plain sight.\u00a0 So here are are with this group of grumpy, know it all misfits and wondering how we ended up here.\u00a0 We don&#8217;t recognize that the sooner we work it out with <em>these people <\/em>on <em>this small scale<\/em>, the sooner we become of value and a source of strength to the ones who don&#8217;t have our combined thought power.<\/p>\n<p>But I found through the years that most of these groups chose to keep an undercurrent of infighting and posturing in place, because that is what they are used to.\u00a0 That is what feels familiar to them.\u00a0 They like to dream about taking the next step up the ladder, but it feels so safe on the ground floor, even if they have to share it with a gang of disgruntled others.\u00a0 When they can make themselves take the next step, those gripey people and those fighty circumstances will move out of their experience.<\/p>\n<p>But for those who recognize we&#8217;re all in this together, we can make good use of our time.\u00a0 We can skip all the personality conflict nonsense and band together for whatever we signed up for.\u00a0 We can be there to use our combined thought power to bring about understanding and change so that we can all live happy, fruitful and meaningful lives.<\/p>\n<p>Yes, choosing our thoughts is a daily yoga.\u00a0 But since choosing our thoughts is also choosing our relationships, our environment, our career, our social life, our health, our happiness, it&#8217;s a practice worth cultivating. When a conflict arises, and it will, recognize that <em>it is simply a thought<\/em>, and you can choose to release the thought and not react to it, and not get cuaght up in the distraction.<\/p>\n<p>The result?\u00a0 Whereas I spent years of my life in frantic, hamster wheel thought patterns, now I spend very little time in thought about anything other than what&#8217;s delightful, right here, right now in this moment.<\/p>\n<p>Upgrade!<\/p>\n<p>RELATED: <a href=\"http:\/\/horizonsmagazine.com\/blog\/?p=40180\">You are the Vortex, Be a Visionkeeper\u00a0<\/a><br \/>\n<a href=\"http:\/\/horizonsmagazine.com\/blog\/?p=31924\">Why I schedule thought time to hold your vision <\/a><br \/>\n<a href=\"http:\/\/horizonsmagazine.com\/blog\/?p=26233\">Scheduling thought time<\/a><\/p>\n<div id=\"s-share-buttons\" class=\"horizontal-w-c-circular s-share-w-c\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=http:\/\/horizonsmagazine.com\/blog\/choosing-your-thoughts-is-a-daily-yoga\/\" target=\"_blank\" title=\"Share to Facebook\" class=\"s3-facebook hint--top\"><\/a><a href=\"http:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=Choosing your thoughts is a daily yoga.  Recognize the reflections around you.&url=http:\/\/horizonsmagazine.com\/blog\/choosing-your-thoughts-is-a-daily-yoga\/\" target=\"_blank\"  title=\"Share to Twitter\" class=\"s3-twitter hint--top\"><\/a><a href=\"https:\/\/plus.google.com\/share?url=http:\/\/horizonsmagazine.com\/blog\/choosing-your-thoughts-is-a-daily-yoga\/\" target=\"_blank\"  title=\"Share to Google Plus\" class=\"s3-google-plus hint--top\"><\/a><a href=\"http:\/\/www.linkedin.com\/shareArticle?mini=true&url=http:\/\/horizonsmagazine.com\/blog\/choosing-your-thoughts-is-a-daily-yoga\/\" target=\"_blank\" title=\"Share to LinkedIn\" class=\"s3-linkedin hint--top\"><\/a><div class=\"pinit-btn-div\"><a href=\"\/\/www.pinterest.com\/pin\/create\/button\/\" data-pin-do=\"buttonBookmark\"  data-pin-color=\"red\" title=\"Share to Pinterest\" class=\"s3-pinterest hint--top\"><\/a><\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<script type=\"text\/javascript\" async defer src=\"\/\/assets.pinterest.com\/js\/pinit.js\"><\/script><a href=\"mailto:?Subject=Choosing%20your%20thoughts%20is%20a%20daily%20yoga.%20%20Recognize%20the%20reflections%20around%20you.&Body=Here%20is%20the%20link%20to%20the%20article:%20http:\/\/horizonsmagazine.com\/blog\/choosing-your-thoughts-is-a-daily-yoga\/\" title=\"Email this article\" class=\"s3-email hint--top\"><\/a><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I wrote in Getting so caught in our own spin that we don\u2019t see our own wobble about friends on the fast track whose lives are a routine of hurried sameness. They don\u2019t have time to think about what they\u2019d prefer instead, it\u2019s all they can do to think about everything they have to think [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5350","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/horizonsmagazine.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5350","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/horizonsmagazine.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/horizonsmagazine.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/horizonsmagazine.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/horizonsmagazine.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5350"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"http:\/\/horizonsmagazine.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5350\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":40185,"href":"http:\/\/horizonsmagazine.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5350\/revisions\/40185"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/horizonsmagazine.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5350"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/horizonsmagazine.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5350"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/horizonsmagazine.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5350"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}