Practicing forgiveness, along with compassion and love, will fortify your positivity and inner peace.

By Emil Nazaryan

It’s a glorious morning! You wake up to singing birds, a ray of sunshine resting on your face. You treat yourself to a warm cup of delicious coffee and recite your favorite happy song in your head. You feel positive and happy. You are ready to conquer the world. It feels like nothing can bring you down. Life is amazing!

When you get to work, the first thing out of your coworker’s mouth goes something like this: “Did you see on the news that five people were shot dead last night?” The next coworker remarks: “Gas prices have gone up by a dollar! This is just outrageous!” The third one storms in and complains about how horrible the traffic was that morning. The fourth one reminds you that it’s Monday, and that you have to go through the entire week just to get to Friday. Suddenly, you spill your coffee on your brand new shirt. To top it all off, your boss yells at you for not completing your project on time.

By this time you have completely forgotten about the beautiful morning. The smile that was hovering on your face is gone. The happy song in your head is replaced by thoughts of anger, frustration and worry. You can’t wait to go back to sleep tonight in hopes of a better tomorrow.

Does this scenario sound familiar? In a nutshell, it’s a case of your environment dragging you down into negativity. The environment can be your family members, your friends, coworkers and even people in public places.

A thought is starting to arise in your mind. “I see where you are going with this, but there is nothing I can do to change my environment and people.” In a sense, you are right! You can’t change them. However, you can change yourself. And when you change, your surroundings can’t help but conform to your new attitude. It can be done. It’s done every day. How do I know this? You guessed it! From personal transformation.

“Yes, but…” you may say “I often feel positive, but when I do others shut me down.” What’s your reaction to that? What is it exactly that brings you down? Becoming defensive? Angry? Feeling resentment towards that person for dragging you down from your high? Blaming them for ruining your day?

Now pay close attention here because this may be life changing: The reason you feel negatively affected by other people is because you are not aware of your secret weapon yet, the most powerful one indeed. This power is a gift given to you by God, and it’s within you, within all of us. It stays dormant deep inside until it is discovered and used. The name for this transformative weapon is FORGIVENESS coupled with compassion and love. When you forgive, others lose all power over you! Read the preceding sentence again, contemplate it, feel it. Put all reason aside and intuitively comprehend the full might behind those words. Now marvel about the implications!

With this understanding, you can take additional actions to fortify your positivity and inner peace. Intentionally plan your day to stay under positive influences. Place mottos and affirmations in your physical environment. Set calendar reminders on your phone throughout the entire day to deliver empowering messages to yourself. Get associated with more positive people. Listen to podcasts, motivational seminars and inspiring audiobooks while you drive or perform mechanical tasks. Keep on keeping on day in and day out.

A question invariably arises. “But what if my family members or close people are the ones that are negative? I’m not going to get rid of them, am I?” It’s a tough question, and it has merit. How can this be overcome?

When you change and become more positive, you may notice initial distancing arising between you and your circle with a negative attitude. They start feeling that you’re not their tribe any more. Don’t worry. This is a natural part of the growth process. Keep using forgiveness and love for them as your defense. The people that truly love you and care about you will hang around. In fact, they may get so inspired by the changes in you that they will subtly change themselves. And the ones that fall off…just wish them well!

Congratulations! You have learned of your inborn power today, and I hope you start using it to transform your life and the lives of others. Do you see that you’re not quite the same person now as you were before reading this article? Next time you think it’s your environment keeping you down, remember my advice: Other people have been where you are now, and they have overcome the obstacles you are facing now If it can be done by others, why can’t it be done by you?

Emil Nazaryan is a motivational writer and a contributor to the monthly Motivational Corner column of HR Realtor Magazine. He has undergone a spiritual transformation which has led the way to sharing the insights he has experienced with the others. He is well acquainted with all major spiritual traditions of the world, but it is the direct experience of the essence of these teachings that is responsible for the altered life outlook and the motivational articles that stem this. In his daily life Emil is a successful REALTOR and he resides in Norfolk, VA, with his wife and two children. Contact him by email at emil.rw@gmail.com.

By Jo Mooy

This is a kind of love story of three unrelated life threads that somehow merged in a most remarkable way. On an unmarked side street off a fourlane highway, tucked away in a decrepit area that looks like it was bombed out, sits an auto body repair shop. A huge white rooster loudly assaults customers who dare to cross the uneven, brokendown driveway, enroute to the corner of the garage that passes for an office. But when my mechanic tells me that shop will get the love bug damaged paint on my car fixed at a reasonable cost, I go.

As I tried to dodge the rooster, a man who looked to be in his mid-sixties limped out of the “office” and shooed it away. He could barely walk, but the obvious pain that was hobbling his gait was camouflaged by a bright wide smile and a charming hello. “I’m Ricky,” he said. I explained how the love bugs had embedded themselves into the car hood and my feeble attempt at cleaning them off had resulted in more damage to the paint. He assessed the damage, called his cousin from the back of the small garage to take the car and said I should wait as it wouldn’t take long to buff it out.

He invited me into the office to sit with him a while, as he too needed to rest his body. The interior was cluttered and full of car photos and trophies, some with Ricky and famous people. Vintage Matchbox cars, prized by collectors, had a special display shelf. Piles of old car magazines were cleared from the chairs and added to even higher piles on the floor. He shoved two old coffee makers that were waiting to be fixed out of the way.

Then something miraculous happened. For the next 90 minutes, all the physical clutter in the office disappeared as Ricky wove his life story for me. He came from a poor family in South America where he was destined to have a limited future. Yet he had a great desire to come to America because of all the opportunities he saw on TV, though he didn’t know how that would ever happen.

Then, one day in the 60s, he was watching an American evangelist named Robert Schuller on the single “neighborhood TV.” He was captivated by everything Schuller said about making your dreams come true and living a life filled with possibilities. After the show, he went to the library to find all of Schuller’s books that had been translated into Spanish. With tears in his eyes he told me, “Those books became my guide, my friends, and they changed my life.”

He read all the books in Spanish but knew, if he was going to come to America, he had to learn English and to speak it well. He spent two years doing that, though his friends made fun of him and told him it would never happen. Schuller also taught him that a person needed a good skill to make a living and that he must give back to his community. Ricky was already good at repairing cars, but he worked diligently and spent another few years becoming an expert. Then he applied for a visa at a time when they were only given to the wealthy. Despite being turned down many times, he finally got one that was given out because of his car repair skills.

“Mr. Schuller’s books got me that visa,” he told me.

Throughout our conversation, he quoted a verse from one of the books and explained how the power of thoughts or being one with prayers to God or believing all things were possible allowed him to overcome many adversities. He shared that he had a deep trust and believed totally in the power of the possibilities of his dream. He knew that if he stayed focused on his dream, putting in the effort and doing the work he needed to do, the dream would come true. It did.

Today, because of an evangelist, Ricky owns his own business in America. He reminded me that he did not do this alone. Mr. Schuller helped him and taught him to give back, which he does by teaching members of his community how to repair cars. They need a skill, too, he told me. In the process of running his business, Ricky saved enough money to send his only daughter to the University of South Florida where she recently graduated with honors. He proudly showed me a photo of his daughter and said as a little girl she always cared about nature and taking good care of the earth. He taught her about Schuller and to dream, too. Today she’s a climate activist with a state job working in environmental protection. This isn’t the end of Ricky’s story. He continues to learn by taking online classes. He reads and writes poetry. He quotes Shakespeare with ease. He sings Leonard Cohen songs on his guitar, and he keeps believing in life and new dreams. When I asked him about his pain he said it was rheumatoid arthritis but assured me he was ok. “My pain is nothing and not more than I can manage. God has given me a wonderful life. He sent me Robert Schuller, who taught me how to make dreams come true. I learned a skill. I came to America. I opened my own business. I married a wonderful woman and

Conscious Living with Jo Mooy

have a beloved daughter. I can read and learn and sing. What pain?” he asked me with a huge grin.

All the threads of his connections and mine were suddenly displayed with clarity in my mind’s eye. The love bugs I encountered on a road trip were just little irritants to take me to a shabby side street where I met an astonishing spiritual maestro.

A man named Ricky met an evangelist in the 60s who touched his soul and turned his life around. Ricky, in turn, touched my soul with his grace, kindness and his extraordinary love of life which is now entwined in my life story.

Jo Mooy has studied with many spiritual traditions over the past 40 years. The wide diversity of this training allows her to develop spiritual seminars and retreats that explore inspirational concepts, give purpose and guidance to students, and present esoteric teachings in an understandable manner. Along with Patricia Cockerill, she has guided the Women’s Meditation Circle since January 2006 where it has been honored for five years in a row as the “Favorite Meditation” group in Sarasota, FL, by Natural Awakenings Magazine. Teaching and using Sound as a retreat healing practice, Jo was certified as a Sound Healer through Jonathan Goldman’s Sound Healing Association. She writes and publishes a monthly internationally distributed e-newsletter called Spiritual Connections and is a staff writer for Spirit of Maat magazine in Sedona. For more information go to http://www.starsoundings.com or email jomooy@gmail.com.

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