What Do You Let Get Inside?
Are you using a shower filter? How about a water filter for your drinking water? I confess: I do!
Today, I had to walk out of my house with a mask! Most of you know the air is really toxic in the Bay Area because of a series of unfortunate wild fires in the North and South of Beautiful California. You see most people wear masks and so I decided to use one, too!
When I was walking, I was thinking about the air that was being filtered through my mask and getting ready for inhalation!
I thought we filter many things before we let them get into our body. Don't we? We purify water for consumption and for shower, we filter air when it is toxic and the list goes on.
But we don't do anything when we are in a toxic social environment and we inhale all in and let it get absorbed to our mind, body and soul without any filter!
Imagine if we could filter what we hear and see before it gets the chance to become a thought in our mind? Imagine if we could separate toxic attitudes and words we see and hear and let only the pure and clean gets through our mind and soul?
Can we do it? Is it possible?
Imagine you are dragging yourself to that staff meeting and everyone including you is stressed to meet the deadline for that project the boss has set last week. You team is so behind and there is no way you could finish it on time.
Everyone is blaming others for the delay. People are mean and sarcastic. You feel you need to defend yourself, too. So, now, you get to work. The circle of blames is now formed and it goes around the room.
You are done with the meeting and you go back to your cubicle or office. You are now angry at your colleague who didn't have your back or the other one who asked you why you didn't respond to her email last week which caused a big delay for her to work on the documents she needed?
You are restless! You want to get back at them. You just look for the right occasion to get square.
You go home. You are not in mood to deal with the kids homework and you tell them they need to take care of that by themselves. The dinner will be a takeout. You tell the story to your spouse and they tell you, they have enough problems at work, too and you need to take it easy!
You go back to work the next day and you notice your colleagues pretend they didn't see or heard you when you said hi. You feel betrayed and angry. You feel you have wasted your time in this office and that people don't know the value of your hard work. These thoughts just go on and on and on like a vicious circle in your head!
And guess what! This is just a beginning because every action has a reaction.
I know this sound very familiar to many! This is how it goes for so many of us on a daily basis!
Now, I am asking myself what if we are able to filter what is said and done and could only keep the pure and clean and throw the toxic? What if we could choose what we want to keep before it has translated into a thought, before it has turned us on to show an attitude and act in a certain manner?
What would be the result then?
Our thoughts are the source of our results. Whatever we think about, we become!
When we learn we can have control over our thoughts, by choosing and selecting them, we will get ahead in the game many loose.
Let's filter what we receive from the world around us like the water or the air when we are in a toxic environment.
Let's choose not to take in the anger, rejection, mean words and attitudes from our environment! Instead let's filter it through the power of control to choose what is worthy of our mind before it is formed into a thought.
This is a delicate process but like anything else we will master it once we do it over and over.
We can do it!