Compassion and Gratitude:

Options for Everyone...

The basics are these:

Free Will – you can choose at any given moment in time, the thought that fills your conscious mind.
 

Singularity of Thought – your mind can only deal with one thought at a time. This is not to say that your mind does not flit from thought to thought in milliseconds. It means while one thought is held in the forefront of consciousness, no other thought can share that focus.

 
Extended Focus Time – with practice, a thought can be held in the forefront of consciousness longer and longer – as you can dwell in anger or worry, you can dwell in gratitude or love, for prolonged periods, with ever expandable limits through repetition and intention.

I am intrigued at how, while I’m thinking about a book, or a song, or a painting, I can not, at the same time, think about dinner, or the weather, or a baseball game. Only one thought at a time, please. That’s all my brain can handle.

I have worked with a concept I call Internal Positioning. This contends that I can position myself in life much like a company positions itself in its marketplace or industry.

I like the exercise of combining or merging concepts, techniques, even philosophies, and playing with the resulting situations or options. In It’s Your Movie!, I brought together the concepts of Critical Mass and The First Domino.

Here, I’ll be exploring what happens when you stir the three above-mentioned basics into the same pot. The delicious end result is that you have a major say in the quality of your life because you can manage your thoughts, which determine the emotions you experience from moment to moment. The implications are beautiful: you can produce and reproduce moments of whatever you’d like, over and over again, just by exercising these powerful, yet common options – Free Will, Singularity of Thought, and Extended Focus Time.

Over the years, I have prioritized, on a scale of joy and peace of mind, the character traits or qualities that are possessed by all, and compacted them into the ones I felt most responsible for a rewarding life. After years, I settled upon Kindness and Honesty as the most primary factors.

And now, I have changed my mind. Not to say I was wrong, but more to say that I shifted my perspective from strictly a person-to-person consideration, to a person-to-person-to-God relationship. When I expanded my viewpoint to include a divine component, the tide rose, and all ships of a rich, rewarding life rose with it.

It was akin to opening all the windows and letting the great outdoors mingle with the inside air of the house. To me, a more complete environment.

So, Honesty and Kindness, while still way up there in terms of value to me, bow to Compassion & Gratitude as the core elements that contribute the most towards a rich life experience.

• Nov. 13 - Dec. 4, 2007 -- Tuesday evenings at 7pm (pacific) Lose Your Mind, Find Your Heart Teleclass

• Nov. 15, 2007 at 6pm (pacific) -- FREE Monthly "Third Thursday" Teleclass. The number to call is (231) 644-8000 and the code to enter is 201157#.

• Jan. 8, 2008 at 8pm (central) -- First Take Care of You! 10 Keys to Self-Care for Caregivers, a short program at Moose Lodge, Rt. 83, Mt. Prospect, IL

• Jan. 11-13, 2008 -- Intentional Health Workshop at the Crossings, Austin, TX

• Jan. 15 - Feb. 5, 2008 -- Four successive Tuesdays at 7pm (central) First Take Care of You! 10 Keys to Self-Care for Caregivers, full program at Prospect Heights Park District Senior Center, 110 W. Camp McDonald Rd., Prospect Heights, IL

• the personalized songwriting service, has it’s own website: www.giveusasong.com Check it out to learn how you could give someone “the coolest gift I’ve ever given!” Imagine surprising that special person with an original song written for and about them! It really is a unique and thoughtful gift.

Let Out The Joy CD – featuring 10 original songs written and performed by Peter.

Easy Sounds of Sedona CD – easy listening, instrumental versions of Peter's original music.

Both are available at www.peteschroeder.com

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Acknowledge yourself for all that you are. C’mon, let yourself see your contribution to the whole. You can be so hard on yourself sometimes! Admit you have a long list of great qualities! Take a little time today, just for you, and write down all you bring to the world, which is a lot of great things! Everyone is born with useful character traits, in a unique combination. If ever you’d like to feel a bit more confident (and who doesn’t!), this is one sure-fire way to boost your self-esteem and lift your attitude about yourself. You are many things to many people. You make a difference! We’re all human, so we make mistakes and fall short, and... we all deserve love and acknowledgment. So, why wait for others, love and acknowledge yourself! Try it, just for today.

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Nothin’ Beats Enthusiasm
Express enthusiastically with a child, and watch them join in! It’s always contagious. Kids need to see genuine enthusiasm.