Who maintains your ENERGY?

by Joan C King

Who maintains your internal energy? The media shows us as happy
when good things happen and devastated when they do not.
|If we live like this, our internal state of being will
go up and down frequently
with each change of an external circumstance.
We’ll live on a roller-coaster.
This becomes distressing over time.
There is another way. Listen to the words of Goethe.

“All force strives forward to work far and wide,
To live and grow and ever to expand;
Yet we are checked and thwarted on each side,
By the world’s flux and swept along like sand:
In this internal storm and outward tide.
We hear a promise, hard to understand:
From the compulsion that all creatures binds,
Who overcomes himself, his freedom finds.”

AH, what glorious words, “who overcomes himself his freedom finds.”
But how do we do that?  Overcome ourselves? The psychologist Csikszentmihalyi
tells us, “A person can make himself happy, or miserable,
regardless of what is actually happening ‘outside,’
just by changing the contents of consciousness…
one must find ways to order consciousness
so as to be in control of feelings and thoughts.
It is best not to expect shortcuts will do the trick?”
If this assignment appeals to you this week,
each day, choose the thoughts you would like
to think and the energy you would like to create.
Focus on those throughout the day.
When a contrary thought or feeling emerges disregard it;
allow it to float out of your consciousness.
This skill takes time to master; however, the effort is greatly worth it.
Remember, do not expect that shortcuts will do the trick.
Yet isn’t your freedom worth it? Have a great week.