1.       Develop new, better habits

Give yourself 90 days to learn how to:

Eat better (educate yourself).

Exercise more.

Surround yourself with positive people and influences.

Stop watching the news.

Stop habitually talking to yourself (silently or out loud).

Stop whining.

Stop all mood-altering drugs, potions, poisons.

Make a plan.

Create goals.

Take ACTION: Especially this one, my favorite Life-Changer that worked miracles for me 30 years ago:

Repeat silently, in whatever fashion you can figure that will work for your beliefs and temperament, some phrase that simply says, “I honor my Higher Self.” Keep repeating this affirmation you create over and over, until it becomes a habit. It will take a minimum of 90 days to create any new habit, so please do NOT give up. When you forgot just remind yourself, gently, and start again, repeat your own-worded phrase that means, roughly, “I honor (respect) my Better Side, my Higher Self.”

2.         Stop judging

Give yourself credit that you’ll take 90 days to truly believe and know that All are part of the One. This is another way of saying that We are One, “We” being literally, everything—everything!—in existence).

This means, even though it may appear that someone or something is really awful, wrong, creepy, or even evil—their existence is part of the bigger, whole picture that you have no control over, but only the (unknown, un-named) consciousness that connects us all has. It’s like we’re in a giant ping pong match and the player is “Consciousness” (which some call Higher Power, others call Great Spirit, or God, or the Mystery) and our only job is to keep focused on the ability to CHOOSE to keep ping-ing and ponging, to live naturally (without drugs/alcohol/addictions). When we do this, and live naturally, we are living according to our Higher Self, and we have chosen to turn our backs on the ways of the lower self (to be explained below).

3.         Awareness — Acceptance — Action

In any category of your life (personal, work, social, health) once you have identified a challenge (let’s not call them problems shall we?), you have become AWARE of some area of your life that needs fine-tuning, change, improvement, or dismissing if appropriate. After a while, you may forget about it or slip into a state of denial about whatever is troubling your life. Until — Bam! It pops up again, and again, only worse each time. This time, right here and NOW — ACCEPT the situation that needs bettering. Once you have done this, you’ve practiced two out of the three steps of how to make a change: you’ve done awareness and acceptance, so the next step of changing is easy: and that’s to ACT. Take small steps. Make one simple goal. Do one phone call. Make one little change. Create an affirmation for your intent to change and pin it up somewhere you can see. Repeat it as often as you can. Do the above for ALL areas of your life that you’re working on. Become aware of the issue, accept that you need to change it, and then you’re ready to take action.

4.         You’re only as great as the company you keep!

Look at your life. Look at your friends. Look at your family. Are you surrounded by negatives? Well then, it’s time to either make some changes (if you can) or learn how to DETACH (more on that later).  Try shutting the TV off more often. Give yourself a break from the news. Glance at a newspaper if you must, but turn the TV news off (it’s all focused on negative aspects of any story).  Make efforts to get to know some new people. Visit your local health food store, ask them about groups that discuss positive things in life. Go to open-to-public AA meetings and become familiar with the wonderful spiritual fellowship that the 12-step programs use to live in harmony with difficulties and how they detach from life’s hassles.

5.         Train yourself to not stress!

Yes, you can, too! I know this sounds impossible, but with time (the 90 day-period, remember) anyone can learn to change. No doubt you tend to focus on negative aspects of life rather than the positives (otherwise you wouldn’t be reading this, now would you?).  How do you not worry, be afraid, be sad, be depressed? Choose! Choose it and IT will be yours. Awareness – Acceptance – Action (remember these three steps with ALL the new positive choices you want to make in your life). Stress is only a matter of where the mind is focused. We can train our minds, just like a person can train a bad, unruly dog to be obedient and calm. How? Gently remind yourself that you choose not to focus on negative thoughts. When you feel yourself slipping, gently remind yourself that, “Oops! There I go again,” and bring your mind, that “bad unruly mind” of yours, gently back to the positive, mantra-like statement you chose to develop as a habit in #1: “I honor my Higher Self.” Do this as often as you have to until not “buying into” stress becomes as much a habit as the positive statement of “respecting my Better Side” that you’re teaching yourself to BELIEVE. Don’t forget! It will take a minimum of 90 days’ effort so please be patient with yourself. Don’t give up! A mental pattern (thinking negative thoughts) is a habit. And ONLY a habit. A very bad, very destructive habit that you can choose to change.

6.       Laugh, Love, and Lighten up!

Life is only a matter of a few years, decades, then poof! It’s over. So why not enjoy what you’ve got, even if you’ve got hassles, problems, health issues, or bad relationships. Why not? You deserve to be happy! Even rich and healthy people can choose to be unhappy if they wish. So choose to be happy and you will be, it’s that simple. Every person who is happy will tell you that they choose to be that way. Everyone has problems. A person with no problems could choose to be miserable if he or she chose to be that way.  If troubles come to you, please find someone you can share them with, not to burden them with your problems, but to share the burden. All humans have problems. People who care about others want to help the ones who are troubled to become less burdened. By becoming familiar with and visiting the 12-step rooms of recovery (in all the various forms of the Anonymous programs available everywhere) you will learn how this is done. Informally, easily, and honestly. It’s no big deal. Just spill the beans. Don’t keep troubles inside! They just fester and poison your mind, poison your heart, and ruin your chance for any happiness in life.

7.        Help Others

The best way to get out of your own problems is to help another. You think you’ve got it rough! Wait till you see so-and-so. This sharing of life’s burdens won’t increase your troubles, on the contrary, it will lighten the load of both you the helper and the other person you’re helping, increasing both your levels of self-esteem in the process. Compassion is the great glue of humankind. “Do to others what you want them to do to you.” If you’re hurting doesn’t it feel great if someone takes the trouble to help? Well … initiate the exchange and go find someone to help, even if it’s just taking a moment from your busy life to speak to a homeless person as if he or she is a real human being and not some pitied object people try to avoid.  Join the Charter for Compassion if you wish (Info on Charter for Compassion HERE) and help spread compassion throughout the world with this international grassroots movement that bridges all people, in all countries, no matter what culture, faith, or political situation they live by.

8.        Learn to Detach

Wha?? What gives? How can I help others if I’m detached. Isn’t that an oxymoron?

NO! Detachment does NOT mean you don’t care. Detachment means that you train yourself to not let any person, place, or thing rock you off that center of peaceful mental attitude that some call serenity, others call equanimity, some describe as contentment, and others think it’s just plain happiness. Let me explain serenity: it is not being in denial, or indifferent to what occurs (whether good or bad) but rather detachment is not letting any extreme (either good or bad occurrences) alter the well-earned peaceful state of mind some have even called bliss. Even when bad news happens, if a person has trained themselves NOT to react to bad news, a person will accept the bad news but NOT let it throw a wrench in their commitment to living life from as evolved a state of mind as they can. Of course this type of detaching-thinking takes practice.

How can a person practice or develop detachment?

Learn to become the “witness” to life’s events. Just pretend you’re watching yourself go through whatever is happening, but you’re not really “IN” it. Some would call this type of thinking, being “the Witness” a form of meditation, where the mind is urged to be emptied of thoughts. Others call “witness consciousness” a form of concentration or contemplation, where you urge your “bad unruly mind” to be still instead of letting it get bounced around by others’ weirdnesses. Train your mind to rest in a place that can be described as the Big Heart. THIS is “the Witness” that will help you keep detached from others’ behaviors, or life’s upheavals. It is that warm, fuzzy feeling that yes, does feel like it comes from your heart — when your heart and your mind have been opened and are fully in synch with your Higher Self.

9.       Commit to Living in Collaboration with your Higher Self

Life is all about choices, right? We’ve already established that with mundane habits such as bad vs. good diets, right amount or inadequate amounts of exercise to maintain good health, the company we choose to keep, detaching from difficult situations that would ordinarily ruin any chance of happiness one might have. Here, we’re now talking about the “Real Secret” to transforming your unhappy life into something like “Heaven on Earth.” I’m not being corny! Believe me, I’m speaking from personal experience. Please open your mind and believe what I’m about to say. We all have the choice to believe we are lowly humans, destined to lousy lives, pain, financial insecurity, conflicts, wars, gross injustices, political scams, etc. – in other words: we can believe that we are what some call “the lower self.” This is also known as the ego. That part of you that has been programmed to believe what you’ve been handed, beginning with your parents’ beliefs, your culture’s, your faith’s, ending with the government and society in general.

Well—get ready! Here too, in this category of “Who Am I?” you have a choice. You can choose, as I have, as countless scores have and will continue to do so, more and more in this coming age of enlightenment that is NOW — that we are much more than what we appear to be. WE have a Higher Self. That part of our human nature that is part of and intricately interwoven with ALL that is in existence.

Scientists have already proven that cells communicate from far corners of a person’s body, within each person’s body. Soon they will confirm the already suspected hypothesis that ALL in creation is connected by an invisible, unknown energy that can only be described as Oneness or Unity Consciousness. THIS is the part of you that you can choose to embrace. This consciousness within you is the Real YOU! You are within and part-of, and are equal to the consciousness that permeates all things. You have within you a Higher Self, a built-in communicator, enhanced and deepened profoundly, exponentially, by the amount of time you spend in thought-less (the “Witness”) meditation. This is how to awaken the Real You.

Learn to meditate. Learn to dwell on your Inner Self, which is part of and ONE with the consciousness that is within all of creation. If you don’t believe me, learn about the discoveries made by Stephen Hawking (click here for a TED talk by Stephen explaining the Universe) and other quantum physicists, expounding on the theory that was begun even before Einstein wrote about it. That we are all One. The Native Americans said so long ago: “We are part of the web of life. If one does something to the web, the entire web is affected.”

And finally, the ONLY thing you have to do to have a happy, fulfilled, impervious-to-fears-and-troubles life, IF you can’t do any of the other 9 above ….

10.      See God in All

This is not some rote religious command. This statement is a synthesis of all the discoveries, actions, new positive habits that one CHOOSES to practice described above. When a person is in good health, mentally, physically and spiritually — they see that we are connected to ALL in existence. This connection is energetic and has yet no name other than (a few examples) Spirit, the Divine, the Web of Life, and there are many others. People throughout history have been trying to describe this connection of energy, sometimes in myths, sometimes in legends, sometimes in ascribing magical, mystical, or divine powers to others who have tapped this Inner Power and spread the Good Word of its existence, and how easy it is to access, if only a person chooses to embrace it, use it, honor it, never forget it.

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Note to my reader:

I hope the above has helped you to courageously approach whatever situation you’re facing, and choose to change. I support your endeavors and will do anything I can to help you on your journey. If you have any personal questions or issues you’d like to share with me, I invite you to drop me an email: dearlordflea@gmail.com

With Great Love, Light, and Laughter shared with ALL,

Your pal Lord Flea