Bishop Be the Boss of Your Thinker

1. Auflage 2024
ISBN: 978-1-7383137-1-6
Verlag: BookBaby
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: Adobe DRM (»Systemvoraussetzungen)

E-Book, Englisch, 322 Seiten

Reihe: Be the Boss of Your Thinker

Are you, or a loved one struggling with grief, relationships, difficult people, finding purpose, or thinking life is too hard? Would you like to experience more joy, peace, and fulfillment instead? When we suffer-and we all do-we can become wise or wounded. This book will make you wise. The way we think influences our life more than anything that happens to us. Our thoughts can be extremely powerful, which is why they are so important. While we don't always have control over the events of our lives, we can be in control of our thoughts. As you read the incredible, yet true, life stories, amazing adventures, and fun personal parables in this book, you will learn how to use the principles of Healthy Thinking to create a wonderful life. A keen awareness plus the courage to challenge and change our thoughts can lead us successfully through personal difficulties for a joyful life and healthy relationships. You will find answers to many Family situations you may face, like: Overcoming a difficult childhood. Building loving relationships. Making agreements and taming disagreements. Empathy, the essential element. Emerging from the loss of a spouse or loved one. The New, Healthy Stages of Grieving. Or you can go through strong Personal Transformations with these topics: Dealing with pain. Becoming a Victor not a Victim. Coping with serious illness. A new view of forgiveness, maybe we don't have to do it. Offense is useless. Embracing Hope. Or you can pursue stellar Character Development with these principles: Lovely lessons from nature. Conquering anger. The importance of being honest and kind. Stop using excuses or blame; own it! The danger of perfection. Discover and amplify our purposes in life. Learn to be aware of your thoughts and how to direct them so you can view the world in a healthy and positive way. By the last page, you'll know the secret to Becoming Unstoppable. Finally, a book that knows how to be serious and fun. It helps you improve with laug

The bio is already combined.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Bishop, Mark

Leseproben

CHAPTER 1 LIVING INTENTIONALLY One Christmas I wrote my traditional letter. I raved about our many blessings, my great kids, good memories, fun (and free) activities we enjoyed together, and the numerous personal growth opportunities of “a wonderful year.” I read it to my dear friend, Kathy, who had stood by me the whole time. My BFF looked at me dumbfounded. “Are you kidding me? You had the worst year ever!” I was shocked! Why would she say that? We’d been so blessed. Then she reminded me of just a few incidents of the previous twelve months, such as: I had gone through a complicated divorce when my husband drained our bank accounts and was institutionalized after a total mental breakdown. My children and I were homeless for a time and faced significant financial challenges. We lost nearly all our possessions in a terrible flood, followed by a windstorm (that swept our drying belongings to Oz), while I hobbled on crutches recovering from a painful accident. Now we were renting, but the kids and I slept and sat on the floor because we didn’t have any furniture. I had been robbed at gunpoint three times on my night job at a convenience store. We were in desperate financial difficulties and food and clothing for my growing kids was an ongoing battle. Some days, we lost. A doctor informed me my seven-year-old daughter faced probable death, due to a kidney issue. My children had received numerous stitches required from several, different accidents. My daughter had been hospitalized with a serious concussion after a fall on the ice. We experienced a terrifying fire in our apartment, scorching my sleeping daughter’s pillow as I scooped her up and away from the flames just in time. All of this and more in twelve months. Yet, I had viewed it as a wonderful year. Intentionally aware, I centered on the good events and experiences. We had found a temporary place to live in a miraculous way: housesitting that provided a small income and supplied food for us. What joy! It sheltered us while I struggled to get back on my feet after an extremely difficult, unexpected, and life-changing catastrophe (that’s a long story). My daughter lived through another dire prediction. We were saved from a house fire by divine intervention, and we quickly extinguished the flames. How could I not notice the many lovely wonders in life? Our perceptions are generated by how we choose to interpret circumstances. Did I see the year as difficult because we were homeless, or as a blessed and wonderful year because we found a place to live? While keeping all the lessons learned, in association with gratitude for the positive outcomes in our life, my focus on the good colored my world lovely. Also, a naturally optimistic mindset influenced my thoughts, which I control. Fortunate to be born with a happy outlook, my continuous efforts to be aware of thoughts and think that life is grand, made it true for me. Each thought we entertain adds to how our hearts and souls view everything we see, hear, and experience. I try to choose positive, healthy thoughts but sometimes negative, ugly, unkind, or unhealthy ones creep into my mind. But I am The Boss of My Thinker! I made those original thoughts, and I can change them. My thoughts are influenced by past experiences, reading, movies, conversations, or observations—even at a subconscious level. I ask challenging questions when a thought occurs that could lead me down dark roads. Such as ‘Is this true?’ or ‘Does this idea help or hurt?’ or ‘Does this concept reflect who my Creed says I am (more about that later)?’ or ‘Is this the way I choose to view life?’ Each time I change my thoughts and intentionally think the way I truly desire, makes it easier to do so in the future and decreases the time I spend in harmful musings. We have options to live in fear or faith. For example, fear that people don’t like us or faith that if we love others our relationships will generally be strong. Sad things do happen. They make for a challenging hour, not a ruined life. We can cry in a dark room or go outside and experience the beauty of the world. We can make a truly bad incident much worse by how we deal with it. We can choose to remain wounded by another’s words, wallow in self-pity, or be entrenched in ‘why me, poor me’ thinking—or not. Our thoughts can cripple us more than the original problem. “Marriage is hard. Divorce is hard.
Choose our hard. Obesity is hard. Being fit is hard.
Choose our hard. Being in debt is hard. Being financially disciplined is hard. Choose our hard. Communication is hard. Not communicating is hard. Choose our hard. Life will never be easy. It will always be hard.
But we can choose our hard. Pick wisely.” —Unknown It’s All How We Think About It Even if we’re experiencing a large problem, we can have an easier time by thinking in a more positive/grateful way versus facing it with a victim mentality or a negative, self-limiting, ‘poor me’ mindset. We can always choose our response. We have options. Let’s be intentional and scrupulously honest about how we view situations, what we can do to overcome trials, and even consider who we may become by developing strong, optimistic character traits. We decide what our life will be like by choosing how we think about it. We can decide, despite experiences that happen, if our life is joyful or miserable. The way we think is the key. It’s fabulous to know we are the Boss of Our Thinker! Though Mark and I have had many challenges, our Big Picture View of life is one of wonder, gratitude, and joy. We choose not to dwell on scattered moments of misery as a reason to view our lives as a miserable existence. Our thoughts and outlook are geared towards gratitude and goodness; and as a result, we think of our lives as joyful. But if we can’t write the script the way we want it and stick to it, how can we be joyful? Doesn’t everyone experience challenges, illnesses, hurts, setbacks, betrayals, and losses? How can those types of incidents result in happiness? We’re not saying we won’t have times of sadness or difficulty, but the way we think about it will definitely make our souls healthy or unhealthy. We can choose to see life in the best possible, courageous way—as an amazing adventure, filled with opportunities to grow and learn but with challenges to overcome, OR we can see it as a nightmarish series of problems and disasters. The truth is that the same life can be viewed either way and be correct. It’s all in how we think about it—our perspective. We may insist we think about events the way anyone would think of them. If it’s a bad deal, then we feel upset about it. We can only think positively if the occurrence is positive. How could anyone think of a ‘bad’ thing as ‘good’? Let’s be aware of each thought. Is it a good way to think? We can challenge our thoughts by asking ourselves this: is thinking of this situation as miserable going to make our existence better or worse? Go for better. Worse is, well, worse. We may not be able to erase all unpleasantness but can still enjoy our life as basically a grand adventure filled with all types of events, challenging ones, sad ones, surprises, romance, loss, suspense, overcoming, learning, etc. Life is a glorious time of opportunities for growth, as well as days with fun, laughter, love, and joy. Sounds like an interesting movie, right? And we can be the hero or die in the first scene and just hover as a sad ghost in the background. Let’s make the most of life. The good, the bad, and the ugly. Jump in with both feet. Let’s not hold back in fear of getting hurt, or worried about what someone may think of us. Barely limping along does not make life better, just smaller. This is not a practice run; this is our only life! Be bold. Be intentional. And we’ll live Happily Ever After. Mark’s Story of the Bees My biking brothers and I had a lot of fun when we rode a particular pathway in Fish Creek Park, Calgary, Alberta, Canada. One springtime, a section of the trail became the domain of a nesting hawk. Periodically when we came through that area, you could hear the bird screeching overhead. With talons drawn out, it swooped down from behind to hit the lead cyclist’s helmet. The mini pterodactyl would gouge your head, and your helmet would be knocked over your face. It really hurt when you were struck. (What Mark doesn’t tell you is that the guys always gave the ‘honor’ of being the lead to any new biker that rode with them. Hey, it’s tradition. So, ride with them at your peril.) One day, we were heading up that trail, and I led the way, when I heard the hawk screech. Fearing what would happen, I swerved off the single track and plummeted downhill fast as gravity got ahold of me. I saw a tree stump and thought, If I run into that with my handlebar stem, I’ll stop. I have used this technique in the past, so I aimed the front tire towards the stump and then I leaned the...