Author: Pete Jones

THE SAME WALL THAT KEEPS OUT HURT CAN ALSO KEEP OUT HAPPINESS.

Many times in life we are hurt by others.  This is simply a fact of life which is bound to happen sooner or later.  Our misperceptions, misunderstanding, misinterpretations, and the meanings and definitions we choose to attach to all that is happening can really cause a lot of suffering.  Many of us build walls, emotionally, to deal with situations, abusive people, and other problems.  We stop being friendly.  We stop trusting.  We stop trying to form bonds and connections with others.  We develop habitual practices, patterns, and survival skills to weaken and lessen the emotional trauma.  Many times, these useful survival patterns become addictive patterns that comfort and protect us, temporarily distracting us from our suffering.

Building this wall may protect us for a while, or even for the rest of our lives.  It may also hinder us from the progressive learning experiences and exquisite enjoyment opportunities which life has to offer.

PAIN is something that happens to us ONCE.  SUFFERING happens when we choose to relive that one painful moment, over and over again, in our minds.

It is okay to get hurt and to feel bad and to learn to deal with hurt and disappointments.  It is okay to learn to forgive, and give others the second and third chances we sometimes wish for and need ourselves.  It’s okay to forgive ourselves for the survival skills we picked up along the way and have practiced for so long.  It is okay to begin practicing trusting our own judgment again.  

It is normal to get hurt.  It is a part of the process of life.  Pain is inevitable.  We WILL BE victimized.  Suffering and remaining a victim, however, is a choice WE get to make.

The most incredibly documented case of this that I have found is Viktor Frankl’s book, MAN’S SEARCH FOR MEANING, where he beautifully and descriptively tells the horrific story of his own, personal, unique experiences as a persecuted and tortured Jewish man in the Nazi camps, during World War II.  I highly recommend listening to this book, or re-reading it, even if it has crossed your radar before.  It could be especially helpful during THIS particular point in time, with all that is going on in the world.

Sometimes, nothing is more helpful than a simple shift in the way we are choosing to look at things, or a DAILY PERSPECTIVE SHIFT.  With a slight alteration and upgrade in perception, our world can quickly go from dark, hopeless, and miserable, to beautiful, incredible, full of LOVE, and something to be incredibly grateful for.

You can quickly and easily find a free link to MAN’S SEARCH FOR MEANING, on YouTube.

If we are to fully enjoy ALL of the emotions and experiences of life, we simply need to start working towards breaking down our walls.  We can allow ourselves to trust and to feel.  We can trust and allow ourselves to let it all go and to heal.  By doing so, we open ourselves up to being and feeling vulnerable.  We open ourselves up to being hurt or damaged again.  That is okay.  This is how we also enjoy finding and trusting the people in our lives that become our own personal miracles.  This is how we fully experience all that life has to offer.  Without the one, we cannot have and enjoy the other, as we are meant to.

EVERYTHING is information, allowing us LIMITLESS opportunities to learn practicing skills like pivoting, adopting new beliefs and habits, recalibrating, and constantly upgrading our abilities to more beautifully create and more effectively interact with EVERYTHING and EVERYONE.

LIFE IS TOO SHORT TO NOT ENJOY IT MORE FULLY.

Today I will break down my walls, step out of my safe and protected “norm” and allow myself to be vulnerable, but I will also remember to be wise with WHO I choose to allow myself to be vulnerable around.  I will learn how to practice more fully enjoying all that this life has to offer me.

Lisa Bilyeu started a show on YouTube called, WOMEN OF IMPACT.  This interview, in particular, has helped me to tear down my wall and empowered me with some tools to enjoy life more fully.  I hope it does the same for you.

goodinthehead is also on Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, and Twitter.  The goodinthehead Podcast can be found on YouTube.  Follow me there, as well, for daily messages, inspiration, motivation, and reminders.  Please pay it forward, and share this, and ANY message, which may empower someone you love or may care about.  It is through adding value to others by sharing and spreading wisdom, that we become more valuable as individuals, and collectively, as a whole, we all become wiser.

Remember:  Mindset matters.  Character counts.  That which we choose to consistently focus on is what EXPANDS in our lives.  WE CREATE our personal realities.

“You can study the root, or you can pick the fruit.” – Jim Rohn

It matters a great deal which actions we choose to take in our daily lives.  Whatever we choose to do has a direct result.  We receive IMMEDIATE feedback, data, and information in the form of results that allows us to pivot, recalibrate, and re-think our actions.  Results are a blessing. Results don’t lie, even if they are a little painful at times.

Our experiences will have a positive or a less positive consequence.  We will either progress towards our goals with our actions in a rapid manner, or we will not.  We can choose to do things which work for ANYONE which will optimize us as an individual, and which will then naturally and easily optimize our lifestyle.  We can choose to do things that will help us create a life of beauty, meaning, abundance, and purpose.  We can choose to take the actions which will create a safe environment, in which healing, connections, and success comes easily.

Our lives are OUR responsibility.  It is not for someone else to save or rescue us.  We must save and rescue ourselves, at first learning to merely survive, until we can learn to THRIVE.

Many times, we get so caught up in how something works that we become distracted trying to figure it all out, and overthinking, and we overlook the fact that it really works.  We become distracted and don’t take advantage of something that can help us to progress, or we spend too much time studying the root, instead of picking the fruit.

This is especially true in sales.  It is easy to get so caught up in someone’s “no” and wondering what we did wrong and how we can improve, that we forget to simply and quickly walk over to the next door and knock, or simply and quickly make the next phone call.  We must remember to not get caught studying the root for so long that we have no time or energy left to pick the fruit.

Life is the same way.  We can get so caught up in the drama of the moment that we forget to enjoy the moment and let the drama go.  We can spend all our time ruminating on, thinking about, focusing on, and giving ALL our attention to something that upset us, or we can decide to spend all our time and energy enjoying the smiles and laughter of children, a deep discussion with a loved one, or supporting someone in need.  I have been guilty far too often of getting stuck in my head, unnecessarily and unknowingly spending minutes of my time wasted, only to realize later that all the minutes each day I spent over a year’s time, added up to quite a huge chunk of my life, seemingly wasted.

Time is precious.  Let us not waste it.

What are some ways we can, ‘”Pick the fruit,” instead of merely studying the root?  What are some actions we can begin to take each day to get the most out of each day, no longer unnecessarily and unknowingly wasting our precious time?  What is something that all successful people do consistently, that we can also do, benefiting ourselves and those around us?

Today I will take immediate action towards things which will help me progress towards my goals.  I will remember not to think or talk about it, but to simply and quickly, take action.  I will make it a habit to QUICKLY DO.  I will remember that knowing is not the same as doing.  I will remember: IT IS NEVER TOO LATE TO BEGIN AGAIN.

Jim Rohn’s book, 7 Strategies for Wealth and Happiness outlines easy actions ANYONE can take to create an amazing, fulfilling life of purpose.

goodinthehead is also on Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, and Twitter.  The goodinthehead Podcast can be found on YouTube.  Follow me there, as well, for daily messages, inspiration, motivation, and reminders.  Please pay it forward, and share this, and ANY message, which may empower someone you love or may care about.  It is through adding value to others by sharing and spreading wisdom, that we become more valuable as individuals, and collectively, as a whole, we all become wiser.

Remember:  Mindset matters.  Character counts.  That which we choose to consistently focus on is what EXPANDS in our lives.  WE CREATE our personal realities.

This morning, as I climbed into the shower and started going over my personal gratitude list, my kids came to mind.  I’ve always asked myself and wondered how I can be the best father I can possibly be for them.  Yesterday I put out a question on social media: “In your opinion, what makes a great father truly great?”  Most of the answers were about the father simply being there and being present and providing.  It made me think of the idea of God that I was raised with.  I was brought up and taught to believe that God is our father, the father of all mankind.

I still pray every day.  For a long time, when I was going through rough, dark times, I felt abandoned and alone.  I stopped praying and connecting.  Call God what you want to-supreme energy, everlasting light, the Oneness we are all connected to, or by the name any religion on this earth calls God.  I choose to pray to a loving, wise, all-knowing,  father in heaven.  Most likely because that is the idea I was raised with and most comfortable with.  I then thought, “What makes God the perfect father?”

He created this world and gave us life with the opportunity of experience.  He is always there for us whether we want him there or not.  With all of the evil, bad, harmful, hurtful, painful, devastating, destructive, negative, life-altering things present in this world he created for us, we can find comfort in knowing that the opposites of all of these things also exist.

God allows for failures, successes, and learning.  It is part of the life  experience.  Dermot Buffini says, “We become successful in life by overcoming adversity, so why do we try to remove it from our children’s lives?”  His brother, Brian Buffini agrees: “Isn’t that so true?  If we wrap our children in cotton and protect them from every knock and scrape, they won’t ever develop the grit and guts they need to survive and thrive when they encounter difficulties.”

I think what makes a great father truly great is the ability to provide what is needed, not wanted, and then allowing his children to figure things out on their own.  There is a lot of wisdom in this.  It is tempting to rush ahead of our children and brush away all of the possibilities of difficulties, problems, and potential harm, but by doing so, as parents, we do them a disservice.

By allowing his children to figure things out on their own the father allows his children to develop moxy, intelligence, wisdom, strength, and the ability to connect with others and ask for help.  The children learn things in their life journey like love, kindness, forgiveness, warmth, gratitude, humility, the importance of focus, consistency, strength, personal routines, and boundaries.  As children, we can learn so much by being left to ourselves to learn about and develop ourselves the best we can.

As a father it is difficult to know what is right and wrong or good and bad at all times for each, individual, unique child.  It is difficult to have and keep balance in all things at all times.  It makes me think of the chaos theory and how if I just relax and let things be and simply be present that things will automatically work themselves out in the end, no matter how chaotic they may seem in the present moment.  We try so hard to control everything when the only thing we can control as individuals in our own minds, and even that is a huge challenge at times.

As I finished my shower, and my personal gratitude list, I realized I had never wished the God I believe in a Happy Father’s day.  The perfect father, in all his wisdom, probably knew, when he created this world for us and allowed us this life,  that we would love him and hate him.  He probably knew what pain we would endure and have to overcome and learn to cope with or alleviate from our lives.  He probably knew what we were in for, but knew that by allowing us to go through it we would develop, become, and learn to create for ourselves through such methods as visualization, gratitude, prayer, connections with others, and meditation.  He probably knew what we were in for, but also knew it was needed for us to grow and become and improve.

All the years I spent hating him were wasted.  I spent years refusing to communicate with him or even think of him.  I read books and participated in discussions about atheism, not wanting to believe in him.

Looking back, I now realize the things he allowed to happen in my life that caused me so much pain and anguish were eventually for my greater good.  I almost didn’t make it through those dark times, but through the miracles of the presence and connections of other people I was blessed to have  in my life, I did make it.  I learned to overcome.  I learned to cope.  I learned to heal and how to really live.  I learned tools, tips, tricks, methods, routines, and practices from others which I strive to share with those in my life any way I can, hoping others will somehow learn from my failures and mistakes and successes.  I hope others can learn from my lessons without having to experience the pain I did while learning them.  It has been said that a stupid man never learns from his mistakes.  A smart man does learn from his mistakes.  A wise man learns from the mistakes of others.  After spending my first 40 years being a stupid man, and suffering the consequences from it, I am now trying to be wise and somehow inspire others (especially my kids and loved ones) to do the same so they won’t have to suffer by making the same mistakes and having the same failures that I did.

God was always there.  He loved me despite me.  He always blessed me with what I needed, despite the fact I never earned it, worked for it, or even wanted it.  That which I want is entirely up to me to acquire and create for myself.

Some of us are blessed to still have our fathers around.  Some of us may not want our fathers around.  Some of us don’t have fathers still alive today.  Others have fathers who have made mistakes, hated themselves, and removed themselves from the lives of their children with the false belief that their children would be better off without them in their lives.  Some of us may never have met or known our father.  No matter our situation, no matter what we have experienced so far, we are not alone unless we choose to be, the future is as bright as we allow ourselves to create it to be, and everything that has happened or ever will happen has a purpose behind it that is geared and focused toward our greater good, if not soon, then eventually.  These things I do believe.  When in dark, difficult times, these things seem like a joke, but after passing through the darkness, experiencing the pain, and being blessed with everything earned from going through such things, it is likely that we will all come to the same conclusions.

This life, this world, this experience, is but a brief moment in time which passes quickly and leaves us better off, if we so choose.

Happy Father’s Day God.  Thanks for being the father we need instead of the father we all think we want.  Thanks for the help we never see or recognize but that is always, somehow, there.  Thank you for letting us learn so much on our own and blessing us with the opportunity to learn to connect with others and network and ask for help while we strive to help others we may be able to help.  Thank you for the health and healing we do experience, and the knowledge that we could be so much more worse off than we are today.  Thank you for the life we do have and the ability we have to create a day more beautiful and enjoyable each and every day through things like visualization, dreaming, desires, meditation, and by the sweat of our own brow.  Thank you for the opportunity we have to work hard and earn our blessings.  Thank you for the opportunity of this life and all of the beauty in it that is inter-dispersed, sometimes disguised, awaiting us to discover it, and thank you for the ugliness, difficulties, despair, anguish, and pain, that allows us to recognize and enjoy the beauty, that much more.  Thank you for the opportunity to learn by doing.  Thank you for the failures we learn from and for the opportunity each of us has in this life to help others avoid the pain we have experienced, if they so choose.  Thank you and Happy Father’s Day.

These are my thoughts and ideas and you don’t have to agree with them.  I only hope something you read resonated with you and benefited you in some way.  Happy Father’s Day to all you fathers out there.  May we ask ourselves each and every day how we can be a better father, and then go and do it.

Through change we progress.

Progression equals happiness.

Change comes from the belief that there is always something we can learn, practice, improve upon, and become better at.  But not all change results in positive outcomes.

If we implement a change and the direct result is improvement, the change was useful.  We keep implementing it.  We keep doing what we are doing, and seeking out other alternative ways of being that will optimize our personal life experiences.

We can choose to 

ALWAYS BE UPGRADING.

If we implement a change and the direct result is pain, hurt, suffering, or a disaster, and it doesn’t result in improvement, then we are perfectly capable of pivoting, readjusting, and recalibrating.

They say a stupid man NEVER learns from his mistakes, while a smart man eventually does-but a WISE man learns from the mistakes of OTHERS.

History repeats itself, unless we study it, learn from it, and choose NOT to repeat the mistakes others have made, but instead, choose to change, improve, expand, and progress, creating something more beautiful than has ever before existed.

WHEN WE BOND OURSELVES TO THE WOUNDS AND PAIN OF OUR PAST, WE DISABLE OURSELVES FROM CHANGE, IMPROVEMENT, EXPANSION, AND PROGRESSION.

Today I will re-commit to keep doing the things which are benefiting me and those I love.  I will make necessary changes and improvements in order to experience less pain and suffering in my daily life.  I will remember that there is always something I can do to improve my life circumstances, and expand into MORE of what I really am.  I know by doing this I will add more value to my life, and the lives of those I love.

goodinthehead is also on Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, and Twitter.  The goodinthehead Podcast can be found on YouTube.  Follow me there, as well, for daily messages, inspiration, motivation, and reminders.  Please pay it forward, and share this, and ANY message, which may empower someone you love or may care about.  It is through adding value to others by sharing and spreading wisdom, that we become more valuable as individuals, and collectively, as a whole, we all become wiser.  

Remember:  Mindset matters.  Character counts.  That which we choose to consistently focus on is what EXPANDS in our lives.  WE CREATE our personal realities.

We all have the need, desire, and ability to enjoy the beauty in life.  We are all uniquely different.  Our ideas of beauty differ.  What are some of your ideas of what is truly beautiful in life?

Some of my ideas of beauty include:

• Beautiful pictures of nature that soothe my mind and grow my soul, but being in it is the ultimate enjoyable pleasure.
• The human body.  People who work hard to take care of their bodies and sculpt them, diet properly, and who are clean, are attractive in two ways:  Their outer, physical body is beautiful and visually stimulating, and their inner strength, self-control, discipline, and attitudes of mind which helped them attain their goals is even more beautiful and mentally stimulating.  The more difficult the struggle, the more beautiful the triumph.
• It’s amazing how a beautiful piece of music can alter ones’ mood and change ones’ state of mind.  Music can invoke anger and rage one day, and another day it may have the ability to incite an emotional, internal riot that moves us to tears.  Music can bring back vivid memories, inspire us to greatness, and make our lives more beautiful and enjoyable every day, if we let it.  The beauty of music is in all of the choices.  WE get to choose what to listen to and how we want to feel through the music we choose.  Some days, others can tell how we are feeling by listening to our choice of music.
• Certain smells can do the same thing as music, bringing back a flood of memories that heal and calm.  I love the idea in aromatherapy where we can meditate to a certain smell, then carry a small vial or something with that smell on it inside a locket around our neck or in a bracelet on our wrist, and during difficult or stressful times throughout the day, smell it, and be calmed, as if we are instantly put back into that meditative state by the simplicity of a smell.  Sometimes, when my wife is cooking, I feel so grateful to be alive and healthy enough to enjoy a good meal.
• Looking at art can do the exact same thing for us that music and certain smells do.
• My children. And my grandchildren.  They are the most beautiful thing in my life.  Watching them learn and grow and enjoying the ups and downs of life with them has been my most extreme and rewarding pleasure in life.
• The daily practice of gratitude is something I consider incredibly beautiful.  Whether it is a habit formed over time to go over a mental list in the shower each morning while preparing for the day, or a sign on the dinner table asking the question, “What was the favorite part of your day,” that starts a dinner conversation about the best parts of everyone’s day, gratitude is beautiful.  Gratitude is an opportunity to invite beauty into our lives and the lives of those around us.

There are so many things that are beautiful in this life.  The beautiful things in our lives will alter our moods in a positive way and make us smile.  They will outshine ANY difficulty, traumatic situation, pain, or the most challenging of moments, if we choose to focus and think about them more than the bad times.  They will move us to tears, grow our souls, and connect us with others.  We all deserve to have and enjoy beauty in our lives each and every day.

That which we focus upon becomes more prominent in our lives.  If we choose to focus on, and are grateful for, the beautiful things in our lives, we create an emotional and physical world for ourselves that literally invites and attracts beauty into our lives.  We become what we think about.

What is it that you consider beautiful in your life?

What are some ways you can invite beauty into your life?

One of the most effective habits I choose daily is to repeat this to myself and others: NO JUDGMENT. NO CRITICISM. I LOVE YOU JUST THE WAY YOU ARE AND I KNOW YOU ARE DOING YOUR BEST. YOU ARE PERFECT EXACTLY AS YOU ARE AND YOU CAN GET EVEN BETTER.

Today’s challenge for myself:  Today I will decide what I consider to be beautiful in my life that I can enjoy every single moment of each day and I will choose to incorporate and enjoy the beautiful things in my life more fully.

Women of Impact is an incredible, beautiful, and empowering show on YouTube that I watch often.  Here is one of the many shows that speaks about beauty.  It is titled, You’re Beautiful, with Lindsey Hahn.

goodinthehead is also on Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, and Twitter.  The goodinthehead Podcast can be found on YouTube.  Follow me there, as well, for daily messages, inspiration, motivation, and reminders.  Please pay it forward, and share this, and ANY message, which may empower someone you love or may care about.  It is through adding value to others by sharing and spreading wisdom, that we become more valuable as individuals, and collectively, as a whole, we all become wiser.  

Remember:  Mindset matters.  Character counts.  That which we choose to consistently focus on is what EXPANDS in our lives.  WE CREATE our personal realities.