Is It All Doom and Gloom?

My son, typically, hates listening to the news - he cannot understand why only murder, bombs, terrorism, and economic disaster reach the air waves.

'Why do they not focus on good things that happen?' he has despaired on many an occasion. In this he is not unusual. Children begin their lives, innately optimistic which some sadly lose, over time. There are many adults who share his perspective too. If you think of the recent riots - yes, they were shocking. The wide range of walks of life represented in the rioters - stunning. The coverage was huge, and nothing else appeared to be happening.

So, is the world all doom and gloom? Is every bit of information (apparently 134 million bits of information per second, reduced to a more manageable 112 bits per second by our minds) that we are bombarded with every second of our waking lives - dire disaster?

What is it that you notice in each moment of your day? Do you notice the birds singing, the leaves fluttering in the breeze, the lovely smile that someone had on their face as you walked by, the colour of someone's tie or dress, the sun shining, or that the clouds are particular shapes and colours, or how many people were in a cab as it went by, the cyclist staying fit and getting paid for it, the shape of the bricks in the buildings, their colour, the paving stones you are walking on, whether there are stars in the sky tonight, or what phase the moon is at? etc Or have you walked, driven, or sat and barely noticed anything about where you have been or come from, engrossed in your own thoughts - frequently about something that you cannot affect right now?

When we are so deeply engrossed, and aware of so little around us, we are in an unresourceful trance. At such times, we are often looking down, enwrapped in our emotional thoughts and seeing very little, or perhaps, we are looking to the side - listening to our internal chatter - neither of which are giving us peace or benefit. In that process we have deleted, distorted, and generalised much of the information that is bombarding us - to focus on what we have chosen. So, just as the media chooses to feed us only dire tales, we also choose our own focus, our own subjective 'reality'.

So here is the good news - you can choose to focus differently - if you need to, and choose emotions and thoughts that are helpful to you, and will enhance your effectiveness rather than limit you. I am not talking hypothetically, from the top of my lofty-detached head, but from experience. I have experienced tragic events - and at such times it is hard to see that the sun shines and the clouds are not just a mass of solid, heavy grey. The sky has always fascinated me. I would find myself gazing up at it - I realised that doing so took me out of grief - (looking up actually takes you out of your feelings of despair - truly) and so I learned that I could change my emotional state - that I could be catastrophically despairing, and then find myself distracted and unaware of the grim 'reality' I had, moments before, been lost in. I had, inadvertently discovered that I could manage my emotional state and thoughts. I discovered that I could choose to find the positive aspects when dealing with multiple bereavements, and in the process I got to grips with my emotions.

Since I have studied many types of psychotherapy, life coaching and lastly and most wonderfully - NLP. I discovered that I, unwittingly, had come upon many realisations of neuro linguistic programming. NLP and coaching really do work. They have provided me with an array of tools and techniques to do work that thrills me and enables me to assist others to deal with their thinking and emotional states, and to enhance their effectiveness in any way they wish. NLP and coaching have amazing tools for learning to move forward, and to develop your own resources. Psychotherapies typically keep people focussed on what is past - that is not where any of us are heading. We are all living today, moving to the future, which in time will become our past.

So let us start work right now, taking action to make our present as effective and wonderful as we can, by focusing on what we can do now, and how we can make anything better. Create your goals, and turn your dreams into reality. If we always do the best we can, at any given moment (according to the circumstances of each moment) we can only get better and better. And it is true - life does. So come on, choose to take charge of your life and your world - wake up and choose your reality, and make it the best it can be.

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