Lighting a Candle?

I am deeply disappointed today that America seems to have taken a backwards step, and it would be really easy to become despondent and gloomy about what this means for the future of our world. However, it doesn’t help.  It’s a clear majority and what’s done, is done. Now it’s necessary to focus on the way forward.

There will be a lot of negative rhetoric and doom-mongering and I could easily be one of those expressing major concerns.  So I have made a decision not to do that. I’ve decided that instead of shrouding myself in the same gloom, I will hold the light of hope.  The more we make a stand for the goodness that exists in the world, the more we are beacons of light.  Like lighthouses that warn ships away from danger, we can be the beacons for a brighter world.

With my psychotherapy hat on, I firmly believe that embracing our shadow is important because the more we know ourselves ‘warts and all’, the more choices we can make as to how we behave and show up in the world. Equally I also believe in positivity and know from research that the expression ‘where the mind goes, the energy flows’ has a lot of truth.  So where we choose to place our thoughts, will lead us along the related path.  If those thoughts are negative and dark we not only affect ourselves, but that energy flows out and joins with other negatives.

Let me give you an example. 
Have you ever been around someone who is just moaning and complaining all the time? Who truly believes that ‘life sucks’, and whose glass is always half empty, rather than half full?  How does it make you feel? Do you feel like your life force is draining away? Do you breathe a sigh of relief when they’ve gone?  Well multiply that billion fold and imagine that negativity beginning to enfold the planet, like a creeping vine gradually strangling vibrancy, goodness, kindness, and love.

So much goodness
Today I am reminded of the Greenpeace strapline: ‘It is better to light a candle than to curse the darkness’. There is so much goodness in the world, so many people doing wonderful things against all the odds, so many unsung heroes.  Let’s be part of that vision and vibration to create a unified world. It might seem almost impossible in these times of increased separation, aggression and hatred, but it isn’t. If we buy into that, we buy into all that’s wrong with the world.   So instead let’s buy into possibility and positivity.  This doesn’t mean ‘head in sand’ about what’s happening, but it does mean not letting it swallow us up.  Life mastery is about awareness and choices.

I’m off to light my candle.  You joining me?