Timeless Words from the Past

Years ago, my father encouraged me to write down my thoughts and experiences. He was a very good writer. He taught that subject at a university and even wrote for a national magazine. Although I didn’t do those things, I did a lot of writing in my life as well.

I began writing many years ago and have written six books as well as writing this blog for over 15 years now. When I was looking for what I would write for the blog’s post this week, I came across one of my journals and started reading through it. That’s when I came across what I had written on March 29th of 1998. I thought I would share some of the lines from it with you here.

We value so many activities—games, sports, work, relationships, eating, drinking, etc.–to distract ourselves from ourselves. Is making it in the world the important thing about our being?

Climbing and coming back down from Mountain Everest is a perfect metaphor for life. Note that when you get to the top, you’re really only halfway. But it’s easy because it’s almost all downhill. The basic message of life is… RELAX.

Love is what we are born with; fear is what we learn. Love is our ultimate reality and our purpose on earth. To be consciously aware of it, to experience love in ourselves and others, is the meaning of life.

Meaning doesn’t lie in us. We overvalue what we perceive with our physical senses and undervalue what we know to be true in our hearts.

Time only exists in the moment of right now. Time is a series of “Now”. The way we spend each “now” creates our destiny.

All those thoughts really got me thinking but it came down to a single idea we can all work on, and I’ll share that with you today: The challenge to myself (and to you, my readers) is to love yourself, RELAX, and live in the “right now” time.

The Important Stuff

On my wall, I put up a great poster that has, in large letters, that old USA symbol on it, but it’s not what you think. You may recall my writing about that USA thing some time ago. Do you remember what it stands for?

The large letters don’t stand for the United States of America, not in this case. They stand for Unconditional Self- Acceptance!  That big chart on the wall lifts my thinking and my mood and even if it’s just a short glance and a quick thought, it still lift my mind. So, I’ve made a habit of looking at the big sign on my bedroom wall almost every day and thinking about what it means. It’s amazing what those 3-letter do for my mind.

I would strongly suggest you get a sign like that up on your wall too. It could be the USA sign or make you own sign with those letters. Or choose something else that has been helpful for you. Just give yourself a reminder that makes you stop and think and appreciate yourself and what you have.  It’s so good for your mind and can help raise your mood.

Here are a few other thoughts that have helped lift my life, my mood, and my mind and that you might want to put up as a reminder in your own life.

1. Be grateful.
2. Stay physically active.
3. Don’t let your social life slip. In fact, try to make it bigger and better. Be an instigator of your social life by calling and inviting friends to do something with you and have them invite their friends.
4. Think about how you can motivate your family and friends to get out and join you for breakfast lunch, and dinner. Doing this not only raises your mood but the mood of the people who come along.
5. Stay healthy and eat smart.
6. Do what works for you. It might be reading certain books or writing your own book, even if you are not planning to have it published. Such goals can give you a huge boost of confidence and can lift your mood.
7. Travel and experience new places and people. Wow, I sure loved my around the world trip with my wife, meeting all those wonderful and interesting people, some who were very famous and successful people.
8. Teach your kids and friends what works for you to lift your mind and your life and explain how it can help them too.
9. Be sure to live in and appreciate the great right now moments!

That’s just a short beginning list. I could add many more items to my list but I don’t want to bore you or take any  more of your time. However, I bet you can add a ton to the list as well. And you should! They might all be things you are already very aware of but we all need reminders to keep focused on all the great important stuff.

A Sign for Unconditional Self-Acceptance

A few weeks ago, I wrote about “USA”, an acronym for Unconditional Self-Acceptance, discussing how we should think about what that stands for anytime we are down on ourselves for doing something stupid or worrying about tomorrow. When a psychologist introduced me to that term and encouraged me to think about that when I’m down on myself, I put that to work on my brain. It turned out to be very, very mind boosting.

After a while, however, I realized I wasn’t thinking about that as often as I used to, so I did something to help me remember it, putting it into regular use when needed.

What did I do different? Well, I kept in mind that when I set a goal and write it down, I am so much more likely to work on that goal. I figured I could make writing things down work for this too. I took a large piece of paper and a black magic marker and wrote in big capital letters: USA. I put it on my bedroom wall where I could see it every day, many times a day.

That little step has helped a ton. The human brain can be so fantastic and little things like posting a reminder on my wall really helped my brain to keep it at the front of my mind as well as helping me to not be so hard on myself. 

Yep, positive self-talk is such a great thing for us humans and little things like a piece of paper with a message on it can help more than you might expect.

So, if you are being hard on yourself for some mistake you made, or worrying needlessly about something in the future, just take time to think about “USA”. Go a step further even and post a reminder in a location where you’ll see it often. Go ahead and do it now and see how well that works! 

Unconditional Self-Acceptance

I do a lot of self-talk, as I’ve said before, saying all kinds of positive things to myself. I use things like, “I’m happy and healthy,” “I am very upbeat and positive,” and many more.

You probably know that self-talk can lift the brain to greater heights, so you can imagine how happy I was when, just last week, I came across another great thing to say to myself every day, several times a day.

It was something that a wise coach and counselor from years back said to me. He had asked if I had ever heard of USA.

Of course, I said, “Yes, we all live here, right?”

“No, not that USA,“ he said.

As it turned out, he was talking about it being the abbreviation for “Unconditional Self-Acceptance”. Remembering this, I thought, wow, I like that saying and thought.

So, last week, I started reminding myself of the concept of unconditional self-acceptance. I repeated the phrase many times each day and, yes, it lifted my spirits and confidence in myself. It’s so simple but so effective.

The thing is, when you totally accept who you are and accept what you have done so far in your life, your life feels better and, yes, it builds up your confidence. And while you’re accepting yourself and your life in a more positive way, you can start accepting your friends and even people you don’t like for who they are and the good that they’ve done in their lives. This acceptance of others, as well as yourself, will lift your spirits and happiness factor.

Looking back at the famous and super successful people that I’ve met, like the Dalai Lama, Joe Biden, other past presidents, and other accomplished people, it almost always strikes me that they seem to believe in themselves immensely, even when they failed at different things or at different stages in their lives. Yes, they all seemed to believe in “Unconditional Self-Acceptance”.

I will certainly stick with that saying. It’s already making a difference. Maybe you should consider saying that to yourself and see if it makes a difference in how you think about yourself and your world too.