The importance of positive life energy (or Ch'i) is something that both the Asian culture teaches and which the self-healing industry has picked up on.
I remember when my cousin had a brain tumor, and people used to tell him to envision himself healthy and cancer free; he fought for a decade of survival before the tumor eventually took his life.
His mother too died from cancer at a young age, hers was leukemia and she didn't have a fighting chance.
While surrounding yourself with positive people and energy helps us to stay focused, positive, and strong, it, in and of itself, is not a cure-all.
Many extreme athletes and hyper-achieving professionals are often told or tell themselves to envision actually performing unbelievable feats--they do this until they can literally see it happening in their "mind's eye"--this then supposedly helps them to ultimately perform accordingly.
On Sunday mornings, Joel Osteen's popular message is the same idea--you are not what others say you are or criticize you to be, rather "you are what G-d says you are."
Today, Osteen compared us to computers, where often our external hardware is functioning okay, but our internal software is messed up and needs reprogramming. Osteen said you need to hit the delete key--delete those who say that you cannot or will not succeed, and instead fill yourself with faith that you can become what the almighty has designated you to be. One story, Osteen told, was about the father who always told his kid that he was a good-for-nothing, and even on his deathbed, he said, "your brother is a nothing, and you are and always will be a nothing too."
These words hurt and can haunt people all their lives; the words echo in people's heads and souls and prevent them from fulfilling their life missions, unless they "hit the delete key" and refocus themselves on the positive message that they are a child of the G-d most high who has breathed life into them, not for nothing, but to achieve their destiny.
I remember hearing a crummy boss at work yell at a subordinate in front of the rest of the office and tell them "you are not half what you think you are." Similarly, at school, children are notorious for tearing at other kids for being too fat, too thin, too short, too tall, too dumb, and too smart.
At work, at school, and at home, people can be vicious in bringing others down and the impact of these negative messages on people's lives is crushing.
So surround yourself with positive people and positive energy--people who tell you that you can do it and are genuinely rooting for you to succeed, not in a fanciful way, but in a sincere and loving way; these are your biggest allies in life.
Groucho Marx joked that "behind every successful man is a woman, and behind her is his wife." Seriously though, behind every successful person are all those who love, believe, and support them to be able to achieve what they do or as the poet John Donne wrote, "no man is an Island entire unto itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main."
In the movie Saints and Soldiers, a group of American and a British soldiers in World War II are on a trek to reach allied forces with vital information to save them from German attack--in one scene the British airman get the others to tell him their personal life secrets, and then when they turn around and ask him what his story is, he says "I'm not going to tell you that, I barely know you."
While it's sort of humorous, in life a lot of people are unfortunately that way--they take from you, but then do not give back. For example, at work, the worst bosses may "use you and spit you out" and when you say oh, I'm been loyal to you for X years, the response is cold and muted, like I the British soldier that after taking in their personal stories, responds that he barely knows them.
In families too, this happens when for example, parents sacrifice to give their children "everything", but later in life, the children don't even have the inclination to call or visit or "give them the time of day."
This is like one of favorite songs by Harry Chapin called "Cats In The Cradle," in this case though the father was always too busy for the son and then later in life the son had no time for his dad--"and as I got off the phone it occurred to me, he'd grown up just like me."
We can rise above the selfishness, the coldness, and the negative attitudes, and we can be giving to others in our lives--the words we speak and the actions we show have lasting impact.
Rather than being the target of someone's "delete" button in their life, wouldn't it be nice to be cherished for their "save" button--and help them to achieve in life what they came here for to begin with.
Reprogramming Your Inner Software
