Morning Mindfulness - Two Positive Minutes To Start Your Day

I think Labor Day is a great day to talk about a very important secret: how to be successful in life, in business, in training, in whatever you do. Yes, there’s a secret. I learned it from John Maxwell.

positive emotion may become bitter, negative, and even depressing. The person get a mix of bitterness with the self-blaming for not doing anything. Unless...

Our mind has an amazing ability to talk us into or out of any condition. And our body will respond according to the symptoms we program into our brain. So stop looking for the things you don’t like, because you may find them eventually. 

Fear can be overcome. But the only way to do it is by action. My teachers and my coaches told me, “every day do something you are afraid of.” It does not have to be a whole lot, but I try to do something that stretches me out of my comfort zone.

My friends, how often are people running around and looking for the opportunity, or for the chance? We’ve heard famous “Ask and you shell receive”. What happens when we do receive? Will we recognize the blessing if it does not always look the way we expect it to look?

I am sure most of people, if not all, are familiar with Robin Hood story. I remember it since I was a kid. Fun story, many movies were made. But today I’d like to discuss what I call "Robin Hood Syndrome". 

Did you read your horoscope for today? I usually don’t. But let me read yours.

I see so many people constantly in a hurry. As a result they keep spinning the wheels, they get tired and frustrated, and often they don’t even accomplish much. After three decades in martial arts, there are several principles I'd love to point out today. I think they are very important both for martial arts and for every day life.

“We do not inherit the Earth from our ancestors, we borrow it from our children.” What a powerful quote!

My friends, how often we create an image of perfection in our mind, and we get so upset if how we look and what we do does not reflect our own imagination. However, our images are so limited. We don’t know the bigger picture.

I’ve seen fights initiated by this question. I’ve seen internet conversations literally exploding, overloaded by quite aggressive pleasantries. Perhaps every early Chinese martial art movie is based on a single statement: My Kung-Fu is better than your Kung-Fu. And the rest of the movie is just a long fight, which is so appealing to the macho spirit of masculine half of the society. That would be all right. I like watching those movies too, like a nice fairy tale. But they also create a serious question people have been asking me for years. Which martial art is the best for self defense? 

No matter where you are, there will be good and bad. All depends what are you looking for. We will find what we expect.

What World are we creating for ourselves and those around us? Can we see the best when odds are agains us? I know I’ve been guilty. How about you? 

We have the ability to program our brain. I am not aware of possibility to make structural changes, like to grow back an amputated arm or leg. But I believe that any functional or reversible disorders are programmable, from feeling tired, scared, depresses, to eliminating many conditions, including early stages of cancer.

We have an amazing power, a key to happiness and suffering, even life and death. We can talk ourselves into or out of practically any disease. Good news - it is totally up to us. Bad news - it is totally up to us.

So, is Qigong real? Or is it just a form of a self hypnosis? I can easily feel my hands getting warm and heavy, you cannot argue with that. But is it real?   I get this question from people periodically.

When I have to look at causality in my life, I am trying to dig to the deepest link I can identify and control. I cannot control much the time needed to get from point A to B, but in most of cases I can control at what time I leave point A. And if I can’t, then what’s the next link in the chain I can adjust?..

...I began practicing meditation in 1982. My perception at that time was that meditator has to stay cool all the time, like un-emotional or un-disturbable, so to speak. And if I couldn’t keep my mind still, I was taking a guilt trip. In my mind, all my meditation training was useless. This would actually pull me down emotionally. A little bit, but still every time it happened it was affirming my own faults...

People often sit and wait for the good wind that helps them to get from point A to point B in life. "Oh, if I only had this or if I only had that.”   I’ve done this myself more times than I like to admit. But the truth of the matter is that it's irrelevant if circumstances are against us. It is not even that important if we are going through the storm. As long as you know how to sail you can use any wind to your advantage. 

There one weak link we may easy overlook. That is our friends. Especially childhood friends. Or even relatives. We know them, we trust them. We are so used to socializing with them, and we may not even realize that they can be the biggest source of harmful emotions. And since we trust them, we don’t set any guard to protect ourselves.     That’s right, my friend. If you step on the Path of Mindfulness, if you are trying to develop a positive mental attitude, if you set and try to pursue your goals, you may notice that your positive attitude is literally getting neutralized and overpowered by negative emotions from the people closest to you.