Thought for today

When you hurt others, you hurt yourself, too. But when you help others, you help yourself, too. You lift your own life.

When you give good things, you get good things in return. If you give your best each day, you experience the best that life has to offer. If you think and act with respect, you are respected. If you offer unconditional love, you are loved.

When you make your choices in every moment; what you honor, what you value or appreciate, or what to discard, you make a decision to give and receive what is best for you.

AMEN - i second that thought of the day.... hence why i am here, to HELP!


LoVe,
Rhapsody -

So true!! Thank you for this positive post..... (((((( Tomi ))))))

This is possibely lifting my spirits
Thanks sweet lady

Thanks for writing down this thought SeptemberMorn. I want those good things in my life, but I may have been trying to get them in the wrong way.

Great positive thought for the day! I've always felt that helping others is the best way to help ourselves.

With ya on that!!! thus my response to my dog loss. put out good around you and you will feel the good. Thanks

Good thought. I miss volunteering because of lack of time. I keep thinking about trying to make time to do some volunteering again.

I'd like to add a little something here to balance the "giving" part. There are things that we must discard at times. This was a hard lesson for me to learn:

You are in charge of what you allow into your boundary. If something comes at you that you agree with or fits your experience of yourself, you can choose to allow it in and incorporate it into your "I" messages and self-talk. If, however, something is not a part of you or is not true for you, you can choose to leave it outside of your boundary.

Many of us struggle with "You" statements or critical comments that may be thrown our way. Often, people share with me their deep hurt from what others say or think. They have not developed an internal mechanism for disarming these potentially toxic messages.

If you remember that your boundary is in your control, you can choose to let other's thoughts and opinions stay outside. Their negative statements are not automatically "Yours." If they are not brought in and owned by the "I" they remain in the real of the "Other." You do not have to take them on. If someone pays you a compliment, you can choose to take it in, but it is still about the other. If I say I like something about you, I am telling you something about my preferences, values or opinions. If I tell you that I hate the same thing, I am still telling you something about me.

Remembering that other's opinions tell us something about them, not about us, is very important! --Sheila Worman

I like this one Tomi. I have missed your thoughts of the day. Glad to see you posting again.

Love ya!!

Hi Tomi,

What an excellent post, especially the added bit about what we choose to let in.

I've noticed that the criticisms that hurt us most are the ones we already believe about ourselves. These can get inside our boundaries very quickly indeed.

But even these criticisms, so very enticing, are coming from another person and are another person's point of view.

If I see that a friend or acquaintance is struggling with something, do I point out their weakness? No way, I point out their strengths.

So, I would say that the most convincing, relevant and accurate criticism is still criticism. We should always look at the critic and consider their motives - 99% of the time the motive is not very pretty.

Cheers

Fuzzy

great post tomi and interesting thoughts myzen......thanks

Myzen, thank you for your thoughts! They're very interesting and thoughtful.

While in therapy, realizing I had much to change about myself and having to listen to the T tell me that I had acquired many unhealthy coping mechanisms, I'd get very angry at anything that remotely sounded like a critizism.

At the same time that I was replaying old tapes out of most of my earlier years, it became exceedingly necessary that I try to be objective if I was going to better handle my own life. One thing I learned to do was "Consider the source..." before I got defensive and angry.

I've gotten pretty good at this. When I receive what someone would call "constructive criticism," I put away whatever feelings I'm having and as soon as I feel able, I look at the criticism and see if there's any truth to it. There are times when I've found it loaded with truth and that's when I start to let it in by changing that aspect of what could be true for me.

When I find that the criticism is mostly just that, a criticism, I discard it and accept the fact that the giver of hurtful words was telling me about THEM and how THEY perceive things. Their comments were not about ME. That's when I "... then forget it."

And yes, you bet there's a time and a place to give that constructive critisism. It's NOT when the other person is hurting too badly to be receptive.

Rhapsody
Fuzzy
Angie
Greenleaves
Susan
WW
Hopeful
Jen
Julia

Thank you all for your responses. I truly appreciate them!

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