The Power of Positive Thinking
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Jean A. Costa / Posts tagged "The Power of Positive Thinking"
April 25, 2015 In Affirmations

Choosing My Words

Affirmation: I carefully choose my words.

WTRCover_left-2The May/June 2015 Issue of Where to Retire had an article about things recommended to help oneself develop habits to improve the quality of one’s life. One of the suggestions was to “create affirmations.” The example they used revolved around the discipline of daily exercise. Now, everyone knows that a body needs to move in order to stay healthy. There are some that say exercise is “the fountain of youth” and others have said that if there were a way to bottle all the benefits and turn them into pill form, it would be like an “elixir of the gods.” Knowing and doing, however, are two very different things. What guidance could the article offer to get people more involved in exercise? I was pleased to see their approach was to reframe what one said to oneself about his or her activity. According to the article, if you tell yourself you’re a swimmer, runner, walker, tennis player, golfer, etc. you will be more likely to actively pursue that activity. Not only will you be telling yourself, you’ll probably use those same words to describe yourself to others. It’s the process of labeling ourselves and don’t we do that all the time, with or without intention and sometimes to our detriment, not to our benefit?

The sub-title of my book, Creating Positive Affirmations is, Living an Intentional Life. I believe with my whole heart and mind that what we choose to say to ourselves affects every aspect of our being, all the way to our cellular structure. When we choose those words and phrases that nurture and empower us, our whole being responds to them. It’s no different when we choose to degrade and demean ourselves. My husband, Sandy, is always reminding people to be compassionate with themselves. He reminds them that we are usually our own worst enemy. We can treat ourselves harder than we would treat even an enemy, no less a friend. We filet ourselves over something we did or said over and over whereas we have already forgiven and probably forgotten something someone else mistakenly did.

positivethinking-2I’m not speaking here of becoming narcissistic. We aren’t here to live lives of conceit and contempt. We are here to be powerful through humility and service. One way to achieve that balance is to carefully choose your language. Louise Hay has been guiding us to powerful words and phrases for decades. Norman Vincent Peale wrote about “positive thinking.” It’s no different than exercise. It’s a simple concept but it can be hard to put it into practice but once you do; once you start to see the amazing uplifting impact it has on your life, you won’t want to live any other way.

That’s why I began writing this blog. It was because I felt I had discovered the best “shoe store in the world.” These shoes were so good looking and you could wear them forever and they would never hurt and they were on sale!” That’s how I felt about discovering positive affirmations. My life shifted. My mood shifted. My health and my relationships became better. I felt I had an obligation to share this tool with others. I know not everyone is interested in what I have to say but I don’t really care. I’m so excited about how this skill has made me feel, I need to shout about it.

I have a dear friend who once told me she has “a healing body.” She’s had several serious ailments that she has overcome and she truly believes that her body likes to heal. Now, I know it can be foolish to not seek help when one is ill. I don’t believe in denial but I can tell you from experience that if you believe your body is supporting you in your efforts to heal, you will heal. You may not be cured of all that is affecting you but healing will definitely take place. I’ve watched many friends go into life threatening illnesses with attitudes of powerful warriors and been amazed by the outcome of their battle. Inspired would be a better word. So many have overcome and for those that didn’t, their strength and courage brought their world to a whole better place.

ScreenShot2015-04-24at11.27.08PMSixty Minutes did a special segment in March of 2015, on the latest successful research being done at the Robert Tish Brain Tumor Center at Duke Hospital. Dr. Mattias Gromeief has been modifying the polio vaccine and injecting it into tumors. He’s been working on it for over twenty-five years. The tumor dies. The center has been using the virus to successfully treat glioblastomas, an up until now always terminal brain tumor. Sandy and I know a lot about this since both his father, Joe Costa and my father, Frank Grolimund died from a “glio.” The TV special interviewed two people who were completely cured. It was a miracle! They also interviewed people who were part of the clinical study who died because of not yet knowing the correct dose of the virus to administer. They were all brave battle ready warriors. Their strength and courage lifted all in their story to new heights and hopes.

Words! What words do you choose to label yourself with? My daughter, Melissa, has given me several very meaningful gifts. She had a tote bag and a shirt made for me that said, “Happy is a habit” and this Christmas I received a teapot hand decorated with the phrase, “I am a bold adventuress.” I can as easily fall into, go down into those places of despair, sadness and self pity as the next person but I have discovered that I can also recognize what I’m doing, thinking and saying and with some effort and practice, I can turn those phrases around and choose to create not just sentences that sound cheery and upbeat but a life that is rich and meaningful and marvelous. And, who among us would not want to share those tools with others? Who does not want to help the world to a better place? Who doesn’t want a cheap pair of the nicest, most comfortable “shoes” ever?

JeanCostaTeapot

August 28, 2014 In Affirmations, Women, Yoga

Following Your Destiny

Affirmation:  I am following
my destiny.
At 7:00 p.m. on September 9th of this year, 2014, at Barnes and Noble
in Cary, NC., I’m going to have a book signing of my book, Creating PositiveAffirmations, Living an Intentional Life. 
It’s my first event of this type and I’ve been asking others for advice
about what to say.  Most people tell me
to explain why I wrote the book.  The
book has developed from writing this blog, Creating Positive Affirmations.  Why did I begin writing a blog?  I didn’t know how to blog and to be honest
I’d never even read a blog but I understood the concept and I had found such
strength and peace by creating my affirmations, I wanted others to have that
same sense of well-being.  I began
writing with the hope that I would make a positive difference in other
lives.  I decided that even if my writing
only helped one other person, I would consider it a success.
Have you ever had the seed of an idea that you nurtured and then
saw it grow?  I believe we all have had
the experience of getting an idea and wondering if it’s worth investing
in.  I’m sure there have been both good
and bad ideas that people came up with and went ahead with.  Have you seen the movie or the play The
Producers?  It revolves around two
men whose idea it is to produce a flop of a play in order to keep all the
investment money.  To them it seems like
a great idea and they go to all sorts of lengths to make sure the play will not
succeed.  They buy an offensive musical
script about Hitler, hire a terrible actor to play the lead and get a group of
inept performers for the chorus.  It’s so
bad, it’s funny and it becomes an immediate success.  Now, they are in trouble.  It’s one example of a bad idea.  Certainly, there are many other examples of bad idea especially those terrible ideas that
injure another in any way.   

There are, however, many many examples of good ideas.  Have you see the car commercial when they
show all the great businesses that began in a garage?  Amazon, Apple, Google, Disney, Hewlett
Packard, Mattel and Harley Davidson are just a few, not to mention all the
famous bands that began in garages.  I
find it inspirational that some people are willing to listen to those inner
urgings and follow through with creating something new and wonderful.   

I’ve had at least two obvious times in my
life, other than when I chose to marry Sandy, when I followed that inner voice,
or maybe God’s voice and seen something wonderful come about.  The first of these was the creation of the
Pink Ribbon Yoga Retreat.  At the time of
this entry we are just finishing our tenth retreat, thirty four women breast
cancer survivors attended for four days at the NC beach.  The seed of the idea was planted in me and it
must have been meant to be because once it began to take root, it grew and grew
until we now have this wonderful yearly event to benefit any woman who wants to
come who has been treated for breast cancer. 
It’s been miraculous. 
 

The second time was when I kept writing this blog until I had
enough entries to put together into a book. 
I’ve listened to many people share their desire to write a book.  I never had that desire.  While I love to sit and journal, that’s just
for me.  It’s my way of centering,
clearing and focusing.  I don’t concern
myself with the grammar or the punctuation. 
I just write.  I love the feel of
the ball point pen on the paper and watching the miracle of the words appearing
on the paper.  Writing for an audience
was never part of my plan but here I sit   Sometimes there are things we are simply supposed to do.  I am supposed to write about
affirmations.  I am supposed to share with
others my failings and fears and challenges and how I’ve come to not just
handle those imperfections, but how I am able to neutralize them or perhaps
even turn them into blessings.  I
consider myself to be a fairly normal average person and I believe if I can
make myself better off because I’ve found a way to perceive life from a
positive perspective, most people will also be able to accomplish that and if I
can be of service to even one person and maybe to many more, then that’s what
I’m supposed to do and so I write. This is my 185th blog post.

I write with the hope that I lift the spirits and the hopes of anyone who chooses
to take the time to read these pages, who chooses to read my book.  I write because I feel like it’s my
responsibility, my mission, my destiny. 
I know I cannot cure the world but I can offer what I have learned about hope and about the the tools
necessary to live a fuller, richer more blessed life.  May these words and stories do just that for
you.  May they give you the gifts of
peace and strength and make the world seem less onerous and more beautiful.  May these words empower you and may they help
bring you to a place of serenity and hope. 

June 12, 2012 In Uncategorized

Love and Grief

Affirmation: We are spiritual beings having a human experience.

What do you think happens after someone dies?  
It’s interesting that we here in America seem to act like death isn’t a reality.  I often get the impression that most American’s simply avoid the topic.  I wonder if most people believe that as long as they don’t think about it or talk about it, it won’t happen.  

My dad, Frank Grolimund, died when I was 34.  He was 62.  He died from a glioblastoma brain tumor.  At the time, I didn’t recognize how young we both were.  Now that my age has passed his by several years, I am fully aware of how young he was.  The diagnosis was a mystery to us and to him.  They did the surgery and then we had one meeting with his doctor who explained to us that my dad would be alright for a short while and then the tumor would return.  He didn’t explain what that meant but we knew it wasn’t a good thing.  He never told us, “He’s going to die.”  I’m not sure we would have heard him or believed him.  My dad was not in the room for this conference and no one came to offer us guidance about how to deal with all this.  He died about 18 months after the surgery.  His death had a profound effect on my life.  I don’t think I ever stopped thinking about death after he died.  He had such a zest for life.  It was remarkable!  He was my hero and I loved him dearly.  It’s been over 30 years and it still makes my heart ache that he’s no longer on this earth.  

My father-in-law also died of a glioblastoma brain tumor.  It was 20 years later but not much had changed except now we knew what it was and we knew what the doctor meant when he told us after the surgery that it would return.  I, for one, had no doubt about what the doctor was telling us.  My father-in-law, Joe Costa, fought a valiant battle with his wife, Yolanda next to him every step of the way.  He too died about 18 months after his diagnosis.  He too was a remarkable man very much loved by his family and many friends.

Yes, I have many other friends and relatives who have died but these two men were dearest to me.  My father’s death left me with a sense of urgency.  I fully recognized that I didn’t want to miss a thing.  I also don’t put many dreams on hold.  One of the questions in my monthly review is, “What did you want to do that you didn’t get to do?”  I must admit most months I don’t have an answer to the question.  Most months if I had something I wanted to do, I went and did it.  I know there may not be a next month.  That was the gift I was left with after my father’s death.  I was left with an awareness of how important life is today.  I’ve been gifted with the appreciation of the people I love and how fragile their existences are.  

Sometimes there are concentrated periods of time when death is more present than others.  There was one two week period in my life when I received notice of two friends dying, the mother of another friend & the sister-in-law of another.  During that time, I was also invited to sing for our church’s Resurrection Choir.  The funeral was for a 75 year old woman.  I kept it together until the dead woman’s daughter hugged her father and the deceased’s husband of 57 years.  57 years!  That’s a lifetime.  How does one go on?  How do widows and widowers do it?  How do parents who lose a child continue to live?  
I did my Masters in Social Work training at Hospice of Wake County.  I was one of the bereavement counselors.  I had been a patient care volunteer for years and was very excited to be accepted into their organization.  What I observed during my time with Hospice and have continued to see is that people heal from grief.  Some people heal more quickly than others but at some point people get back to living their lives. It’s actually one of the Five Stages of Grief, first introduced by Elisabeth Kübler-Ross in her book On Death and Dying.  It’s the last stage, “acceptance.”  

In the Irish movie, A Shine of Rainbows a widower is left with the care of a young boy that his wife was in the process of adopting.  The young woman who dies loved color.  She herself had red hair and bright green eyes and she wore bright rainbow colored clothing and decorated her home with lots of bright colors.  One day the young boy comes home from school to a house denuded of all the woman’s things.  The husband has gathered them all together and is burning them.  The young boy runs to the fire and saves his “mom’s” favorite scarf.  They grieved in two very different ways.  One was trying to erase all his memories (which, of course, one cannot do) and the other was trying to hold onto all of them (which, of course, one cannot do).  Eventually, they find healing.  They find it by sharing the love they both have for their dead loved one.  They come full circle and you can see them entering the final stage of grief, healing is taking place.

That was the wonderful part of being a bereavement counselor,  I could see people heal.  It left me with such a sense of hope.  There are so many strong, brave, loving people who have suffered such loss and grief but who manage to continue to live full, rich lives.  It’s inspirational.  
For me, the greatest gift my faith has given me is a belief in the afterlife or perhaps a better phrase is the eternal-life.  I believe we are pure spirit and while our bodies die, our spirits live on.  In The Power of Positive Thinking, Norman Vincent Peale writes, “Another profoundly curative element in the prescription for heartache is to gain a sound and satisfying philosophy of life and death and deathlessness.  When I gained the unshakable belief that there is no death, that all life is indivisible, that the here and the hereafter are one, that time and eternity are inseparable, that this is one unobstructed universe, then I found the most satisfying and convincing philosophy of my entire life.”  I too believe as he does.  While the heartache of losing a loved one can be unbearable, the belief that they are not gone, but in a place I cannot yet be, brings me comfort and with that comfort, acceptance.  

January 28, 2012 In Uncategorized

The Power of Prayer

Affirmation:  I pray unceasingly.
Do you believe that prayer makes a difference?  Do you have a theory about why it does or doesn’t work?  Have you ever “tested” your theory?  
The older I become, the more I pray; the more I value prayer.  One of the popular comedians said that’s very normal because as we age we realize we’re getting closer to death and we’re “hedging our bets.”  That could be true.  I also have more time to pray.  I don’t have to rush out every morning or get the children off to school.

I get to begin my day before I even rise with a prayer of thanksgiving and with the invitation to God to join me throughout my day & to bring blessings and favors on all those for whom I have promised to pray.  I pray for my spouse, my children and grand-children by name and then go on and list my siblings and their families.  Next, I include all my “dear, dear friends” and especially those who most need God’s mercy.”  I try to recall each of those special people by name who I know need extra prayers.  I can usually remember them.  If not, I do keep a prayer list.  After my friends I include all “the special intentions of those in my Small Christian Community.”  I then go on to add “all the support people in my life, seen and unseen and their loved ones.”  I so value all those people who make my life so much easier and richer because of their hard work.  I include our “fighting men and women and their families” and finally I pray for “wisdom for our world leaders and peace for this world.”  Then, it is time to rise.

Am I making a difference?  I’m making a difference in how I value those in my life and how I perceive them and the world.  I sometimes think this aspect is the most powerful effect of prayer; the change that takes place in me when I take the time and spend my energy to pray for others.  But, I believe prayer makes a difference in ways we cannot even fathom.  It is one of the most powerful tools available to us to tap into the Divine.  If we are spiritual beings having a human experience, why not connect with spirit and let that power work the miracles we are asking for in our lives?
According to Norman Vincent Peale in The Power of Positive Thinking, the whole world is made up of vibrations and prayer is one way to activate and send out positive vibrations to create change in the world.  Energy and how it can by directed and controlled has been written about to name just a few, by Eckhart Tolle and Gary Zukav.  That’s what prayer is.  It’s a form of energy.  Several years ago Duke Health did a study on prayer.  They had two groups prayed for by a variety of people from all different religious theologies.  The results of their study did not show any difference in the recovery of the patients.  But, I wonder what did change for those who were receiving the prayers?  Do you think it might have been something that wasn’t measurable like grace, peace, hope and other non-tangibles; things we all value and look for but for which there is no measurement?

Prayer changes lives.  The greatest challenge is believing in its power; believing that it really can have an effect on the situation.  The second challenge is believing that it will be a positive effect, even if it’s not the apparent answer for which we prayed.  Prayer and the belief in it and the ability to tap into the Divine do not remove our difficulties but it can make our difficulties, our challenges, easier to bear.  It can bring us a sense of peace and hope believing that there is a kind and loving Supreme Being who wants what’s best for us, especially if we’re willing to ask and then to listen. 

When we first moved to North Carolina I said a prayer that God would lead us to the best house and neighborhood for us.  And, then I asked for a “sign.”  I asked for some sort of burning bush.  Yes, I was testing.  Well, we drove everywhere and I never saw that bush.  We finally settled on a lovely house in a new neighborhood and I let go of my search for the perfect place for us.  I actually loved our new home and our new neighbors, so all was good.  Several years later, we were taking my in-laws around showing them the area and we saw a beautiful house that was for sale.  We were able to tour it on the spot and I loved it!  Soon, we had sold our other house and moved into the new one.  One day, I was walking with someone who knew a lot about shrubs and he was telling me about the different bushes around the house.  I stopped dead when he pointed to the bushes at the bottom of the driveway and told me they were called Burning Bushes (Euonymus).  There were six of them!  Was that answered prayer?  As far as I was concerned it was. 

I don’t go around testing God any longer.  I simply expect my prayers to be answered.  I know they are answered and I know they make a difference, a difference in my life and a difference in the world but I must remind myself that God’s plan may not be my plan and that God’s timing is something I will never be able to fathom.