Contemplation: August 11, 2020: Respect
Respect
When I learn to respect myself, other people will respect me. How can I develop respect for myself? By keeping my mind positive and encouraging myself to grow and change for the better. Demanding respect because of my position or background is simply arrogance. On the other hand, listening with humility and valuing other people's advice naturally earns me respect. I get back exactly what I give out.
Crossing Negative Situations (Part 1)
There are periods of life in which it seems to us that there is someone or something who gets in the way of our path. Circumstances, instead of going in our favor, go against us. They are barriers that make it difficult for us to reach our objectives; they are interruptions that prevent us from feeling satisfied; they are situations that seem to reduce our feelings of success.
When we find ourselves with these scenes that appear to block our progress towards the aims and objectives that we have set out for ourselves, we tend to have negative thoughts; we feel anger and rage, or we feel sad and unenthusiastic, as if we don't have the strength to either overcome or transform the situation. Rather it is the situation that overcomes or overpowers us and leaves us exhausted. Some people are not prepared for this to happen and put all their strength into fighting the situation. They do so with feelings of anger, revenge and injustice. Often it becomes a process that wastes their energies and leaves them exhausted, without achieving a true solution.
It is possible to live through situations without them causing such an emotional energy loss. That does not mean that we become cold and insensitive to what happens around us. It is a question of living through situations without drowning into them. If we drown ourselves in them we won't be able to help others or ourselves. We will be lost, like the shipwrecked, at the mercy of the waves, the tides and the winds. We will have lost the control of the steering wheel of our ship – our life.
(To be continued tomorrow …)
Why Worry?
If you're worrying about something, address the worry, there's obviously something that needs your attention.
Worrying serves no purpose unless it spurs you to move into action.
Ask yourself, if what you're worrying about were to happen: How bad would it be? How would you deal with it? Is there a positive possibility within the worry?
Turn the worry into something positive and make the worry work for you!
Message for the day
To have accurate understanding is to be cheerful.
Thought to ponder: Just like a scientist who has love for truth, will spend hours together, and repeat experiments to find the truth, we too need to make effort to get to the truth of things. The truth is always beautiful and will make me positive and cheerful. If I am not able to be cheerful, it means I need to experiment some more.
Point to practice: Today I will make a special effort to see the beauty in everything. I will also check if I am able to be constantly cheerful or not. I'll also make special effort to understand the deeper aspects. I will not give up till I get to the beauty of things.
In Spiritual Service,
Brahma Kumaris
