Negative Influence Quotes

The mind can go either direction under stress—toward positive or toward negative: on or off. Think of it as a spectrum whose extremes are unconsciousness at the negative end and hyperconsciousness at the positive end. The way the mind will lean under stress is strongly influenced by training.

To be of good quality, you have to excuse yourself from the presence of shallow and callow minded individuals.

If you walked away from a toxic, negative, abusive, one-sided, dead-end low vibrational relationship or friendship — you won.

Accentuaute the positives - medicate the negatives.

Just because you have stolen someone's heart, luckily owned and occupied as a home, doesn't give you the audacity to enforce hurtful policies.

We are the sum total of our experiences. Those experiences – be they positive or negative – make us the person we are, at any given point in our lives. And, like a flowing river, those same experiences, and those yet to come, continue to influence and reshape the person we are, and the person we become. None of us are the same as we were yesterday, nor will be tomorrow.

Each day you are leading by example. Whether you realize it or not or whether it's positive or negative, you are influencing those around you.

Shout out to everyone transcending a mindset, mentality, desire, belief, emotion, habit, behavior or vibration, that no longer serves them.

It is better to dwell on the beautiful things in life than the negative.

You have too much social influence upon you. You are not going by your own nature. People do so many nonsensical life-negative things because they don’t want to be left out of the scene around them.

Not enough people realize that ADHD is not a disorder about loss of focus. It is a disorder of loss of emotional control, which is triggered by outside influences, self-esteem and our interpretation of events. Whether this is positive or negative it triggers us to hyper focus on what consumes our thoughts. Staying positive is critical and distancing oneself from hurtful people is essential, in order to live a life with purpose.

Just because you feel lost doesn't mean that you are. Sometimes you just have to relax, breathe deep, and trust the path you're on.

It is not a person or situation that affects your life; it is the meaning you give to that person or situation, which influences your emotions and actions. Your choice is to change the meaning you gave it or to change your response, in order to create the outcome you want.

Allowing both negative and positive thoughts to arise in life and acknowledging them for what they are, a secondary reaction within to what is happening outside, we grant our emotions free passage within without allowing external influences to impede our personal happiness. We cannot have control over everything that occurs in life, but that is simply not the goal, for we have control only over our relationship that we have with life.

I can’t afford to live in reaction to darkness. If I do, darkness has had a role in setting the agenda for my life. The devil is not worthy of such influence, even in the negative. Jesus lived in response to the Father. I must learn to do the same.

There is too much negativity in the world. Do your best to make sure you aren't contributing to it.

If God places a child before you, and you are too busy to wield either a positive or negative influence...you just did the later! You communicated that the child doesn't matter and isn't important.

By the end of the four-year term, Americans hold a bifurcated view of Mrs. Trump. Many Republicans, especially women, revere her as elegant, graceful, beautiful and wronged by the press. A pastor in Missouri held up Melania as a wifely model to which other women should aspire — or risk losing their men. At the same time some southern preachers referred to then-Senator and presidential candidate Kamala Harris as Jezebel, the Bible’s most nefarious woman and archetype of female cunning. There could be no surer sign that the life stories of prominent women affect the lives of private women than when pastors hold them up as positive or negative role models.

A negative attitude drains, a positive attitude energizes.

Your life is a trajectory. Every choice you make alters that trajectory, in a positive or negative way. Will you categorize that dinner with friends as a business expense? Will you be honest with your daughter? Will you take more credit than you’re due? These are just the small questions that we face every day, and little by little, the answers influence the trajectory of our lives and beings.

When you start loving, your character becomes like the positive side of a magnet and the one you love becomes negative, that pulls people close to you in union, and becomes very difficult to separate.

Your impermanence is a thing you should meditate on every day: There is nothing more sobering, nor scary, nor a faster-way-to-cut-the-negative-bullshit than to remember that you do not have forever. What defines your life, when it’s all said and done, is how much you influence other people’s lives, oftentimes just through your daily interactions and the courage with which you live your own. That’s what people remember. That’s what you will be known for when you’re no longer around to define yourself.

Anyone who is of sound mind and body can sit down and think of twenty things in their life that could have gone differently. Where maybe they didn’t get a fair shake and where they took the path of least resistance. If you’re one of the few who acknowledge that, want to callous those wounds, and strengthen your character, its up to you to go back through your past and make peace with yourself by facing those incidents and all of your negative influences, and accepting them as weak spots in your own character. Only when you identify and accept your weaknesses will you finally stop running from your past. Then those incidents can be used more efficiently as fuel to become better and grow stronger.

A lot is being said today about the influence that the myths and images of women have on all of us who are products of culture. I think it has been a peculiar confusion to the girl or woman who tries to write because she is peculiarly susceptible to language. She goes to poetry or fiction looking for her way of being in the world, since she too has been putting words and images together; she is looking eagerly for guides, maps, possibilities; and over and over in the ‘words’ masculine persuasive force’ of literature she comes up against something that negates everything she is about: she meets the image of Woman in books written by men.

Proactive people focus their efforts in the Circle of Influence. They work on the things they can do something about. The nature of their energy is positive, enlarging and magnifying, causing their Circle of Influence to increase. Reactive people, on the other hand, focus their efforts in the Circle of Concern. They focus on the weakness of other people, the problems in the environment, and circumstances over which they have no control. Their focus results in blaming and accusing attitudes, reactive language, and increased feelings of victimization. The negative energy generated by that focus, combined with neglect in areas they could do something about, causes their Circle of Influence to shrink.

Your attitude towards life influences your happiness, not what happens to you.

In order to reach your highest potential, it is imperative that you remove all negative people from your life.

Do not allow the opinions of others deter you. Be yourself and have faith in your abilities.

It is not safe to be with negative influences.

You must resist negative thoughts, negative criticism and negative influences.

Possession is not only when the devil plays hide and seek in your brain or poison your medula oblongata with negativity, but it is also when you are under the influence of the same specie as you!

If you were determined to get enjoyment out of every moment, you would learn to do whatever it took. What it takes is not listening to negative thoughts, yours or anyone else's. Disregarding negative thoughts isn't hiding our head in the sand, but simply not allowing the negative to clutter and influence over our experience of the present moment. The moment is never improved or helped by negativity, although we are programmed to think our negative thoughts, worries, and fears serve a useful function. When you really examine this idea, however, you see that negativity doesn't serve. Focusing on negativity and fears doesn't make anyone a better person, nor does doing that help us function better in the world. In fact, the truth is quite the opposite.

I was so angry with him, but part of me felt exhilarated by his sheer cockiness. Even under the influence of God knows how many rounds of drinks at Dave’s, Wild Bill still had enough charisma to charm away any negative thoughts. He never taught me to ride a bike, bandaged a skinned knee, or comforted me over bullies teasing me for wearing Salvation Army clothes. But Wild Bill was my dad. And that was enough. We both erupted into laughter as I wrapped my arms around him, breathing in the distinctive scent belonging only to Dad.

The words you use can influence your life. Positive words are well spring of life.

Opinions of others may temporary influence your decisions. But you ought to follow your own inner voice.

Negativity will distracts you from your goals, so don't entertain it.

Don’t accept any negative criticism and negative thoughts.

Leaders gather scattered people with the positive influence of intimacy while misleaders scatter gathered people with the negative influence of intimidation.

But that’s the magic of alone time! You are completely and 100 percent in control of your own happiness. You can imagine anything you want, transforming a bad mood into a good one. Or maybe you want to feel the bad mood fully, in which case you can cry all you want, and nobody can judge you. When you’re alone, there’s no pressure to be someone you’re not. For a while I actually used to need time alone in order to remember who I was. When we’re constantly surrounded by people—especially toxic influences—it becomes really easy to forget ourselves. We get caught up in drama, gossip, and negativity.

weeding out the harmful influences should become the norm not the exception.

Don't give people the chance to possess you with their negativity; their gibberish can look so charming, but it can't make you a better person.

The behaviour and attitude of another person's towards you reflect their state of inner self and mindset.

Most information is time-consuming, negative, irrelevant to your goals, and outside of your influence. I challenge you to look at whatever you read or watched today and tell me that it wasn’t at least two of the four. I read the front-page headlines through

The fact that most states are born of violent upheaval does not, of course, mean that disorder leads to order. In writing the history of events that are still unfolding in a state that is still unformed, it is impossible to know which tendencies will prevail and at what price. The safest position is the human rights position, which measures regimes on a strictly negative scale as the sum of their crimes and their abuses: if you damn all offenders and some later mend their ways, you can always take credit for your good influence. Unfortunately, the safest position may not necessarily be the wisest, and I wondered whether there is room--even a need--for exercising political judgment in such matters.

I have always been interested in this man. My father had a set of Tom Paine's books on the shelf at home. I must have opened the covers about the time I was 13. And I can still remember the flash of enlightenment which shone from his pages. It was a revelation, indeed, to encounter his views on political and religious matters, so different from the views of many people around us. Of course I did not understand him very well, but his sincerity and ardor made an impression upon me that nothing has ever served to lessen. I have heard it said that Paine borrowed from Montesquieu and Rousseau. Maybe he had read them both and learned something from each. I do not know. But I doubt that Paine ever borrowed a line from any man... Many a person who could not comprehend Rousseau, and would be puzzled by Montesquieu, could understand Paine as an open book. He wrote with a clarity, a sharpness of outline and exactness of speech that even a schoolboy should be able to grasp. There is nothing false, little that is subtle, and an impressive lack of the negative in Paine. He literally cried to his reader for a comprehending hour, and then filled that hour with such sagacious reasoning as we find surpassed nowhere else in American letters - seldom in any school of writing. Paine would have been the last to look upon himself as a man of letters. Liberty was the dear companion of his heart; truth in all things his object. ...we, perhaps, remember him best for his declaration: 'The world is my country; to do good my religion.' Again we see the spontaneous genius at work in 'The Rights of Man', and that genius busy at his favorite task - liberty. Written hurriedly and in the heat of controversy, 'The Rights of Man' yet compares favorably with classical models, and in some places rises to vaulting heights. Its appearance outmatched events attending Burke's effort in his 'Reflections'. Instantly the English public caught hold of this new contribution. It was more than a defense of liberty; it was a world declaration of what Paine had declared before in the Colonies. His reasoning was so cogent, his command of the subject so broad, that his legion of enemies found it hard to answer him. 'Tom Paine is quite right,' said Pitt, the Prime Minister, 'but if I were to encourage his views we should have a bloody revolution.' Here we see the progressive quality of Paine's genius at its best. 'The Rights of Man' amplified and reasserted what already had been said in 'Common Sense', with now a greater force and the power of a maturing mind. Just when Paine was at the height of his renown, an indictment for treason confronted him. About the same time he was elected a member of the Revolutionary Assembly and escaped to France. So little did he know of the French tongue that addresses to his constituents had to be translated by an interpreter. But he sat in the assembly. Shrinking from the guillotine, he encountered Robespierre's enmity, and presently found himself in prison, facing that dread instrument. But his imprisonment was fertile. Already he had written the first part of 'The Age of Reason' and now turned his time to the latter part. Presently his second escape cheated Robespierre of vengeance, and in the course of events 'The Age of Reason' appeared. Instantly it became a source of contention which still endures. Paine returned to the United States a little broken, and went to live at his home in New Rochelle - a public gift. Many of his old companions in the struggle for liberty avoided him, and he was publicly condemned by the unthinking. {The Philosophy of Paine, June 7, 1925}

The great danger of the media is that it gives us a very perverted view of the world. Because the focus and the repetition of messaging is on the negative, that’s what our minds start believing. This warped and narrow view of what’s not working has a severe influence on your creative potential. It can be crippling.

Our witness is only as strong as our freedom is real. We can have the most noble convictions in the world, but if we are snarky and impatient when we don't get our way, those things will interfere with our influence. If we gossip more than we pray, those misspoken words will demolish our influence. If our addictions get in the way of living out our convictions, we'll have mostly a negative influence.

To reach your full potential, you have to set goals that will stretch you. You must not be afraid of taking risks. You must learn to recognize opportunities and have the courage to pursue them. You have to make better choices that will provide better results. Finally, you need to avoid the negative influences of other people and surround yourself with successful people who will encourage you to pursue your dreams.

Reality is the manifestation of the inner workings, carried out by the supreme powers. Whatever you think and do right now, either positive or negative is working on your behalf because you are a co-worker of the divine.

They may not change your skins colour; they may not change your body odour; but once they can change your daily thoughts, they can influence your habits! Beware of evil companions!

Negative media reinforcements not only influence how cops, judges, employers, and others view black males, they affect how young blacks view themselves.

The pessimist reason that things just happen, where the optimist believe that things happen for a reason.

One excuse, could destroy a multitude of chances.

In all spheres of life, there are constraints. You have to develop your own strategy to overcome each constraint.

Most information is time-consuming, negative, irrelevant to your goals, and outside of your influence.

right nostril is a gas pedal. When you’re inhaling primarily through this channel, circulation speeds up, your body gets hotter, and cortisol levels, blood pressure, and heart rate all increase. This happens because breathing through the right side of the nose activates the sympathetic nervous system, the “fight or flight” mechanism that puts the body in a more elevated state of alertness and readiness. Breathing through the right nostril will also feed more blood to the opposite hemisphere of the brain, specifically to the prefrontal cortex, which has been associated with logical decisions, language, and computing. Inhaling through the left nostril has the opposite effect: it works as a kind of brake system to the right nostril’s accelerator. The left nostril is more deeply connected to the parasympathetic nervous system, the rest-and-relax side that lowers blood pressure, cools the body, and reduces anxiety. Left-nostril breathing shifts blood flow to the opposite side of the prefrontal cortex, to the area that influences creative thought and plays a role in the formation of mental abstractions and the production of negative emotions.

It is far kinder and smarter to show someone a better path in life than to darkly follow down their's with the self-righteous belief that you do so with the purer intentions of justly punishing them for their previous actions, making you hypocritically the same and thus influencing further negative repercussions.

according to Sonja Lyubomirsky, author of The How of Happiness, fifty percent of our happiness is determined by genetics, forty percent by internal factors, and only ten percent by external factors. These external factors include such things as whether we’re single or married, rich or poor, and similar social influences.

Waiting for others to do something negatively affected the gift of leadership within me.

You can cease to be influenced by people who tease you... Just neglect their helps and elevate your steps... You can do it!

Removing a pebble is sometimes enough to change a destiny.

Anytime, someone gives you advice, rethink if it will lead to personal progress.

Don’t believe the negative criticisms.

The only way to understand the reason behind someone's hurtful behaviour is - Understanding that every action is driven by an underlying emotion. Emotions especially the negative one's are our reactions to the conflict between our beliefs and reality. The influence of these negative emotions, causes us to act in ways that hurt others. So if someone hurts you, it actually indicates that they have an unsatisfied need or a wound that needs attention.

The reason rituals are so effective at helping us manage our inner voices is that they’re a chatter-reducing cocktail that influences us through several avenues. For one, they direct our attention away from what’s bothering us; the demands they place on working memory to carry out the tasks of the ritual leave little room for anxiety and negative manifestations of the inner voice. This might explain why pregame rituals abound in sports, providing a distraction at the most anxiety-filled moment. Many rituals also provide us with a sense of order, because we perform behaviors we can control. For example, we can’t control what will happen to our children throughout their lives, and we can protect them only to a limited degree, which is a source of chatter for many parents. But when they are born, we can baptize them or perform any other of a variety of birth rituals that provide us with an illusion of control.

I wish there were strict laws to stop people from corrupting other people's mind with their negativity thus influencing them to form biased opinion of someone, some situation or overall way of living.

It is as though when we are in the proximity of the auras of people with certain capacities, some transfer of ability can take place. Simply put, we are either positively or negatively influenced by the company we keep. It is unlikely that we will overcome an inhibition if we choose to be in the company of others who have our same problem.

Subdue. Fruitfulness, increase, and filling lead naturally to the end result of subduing. To subdue means “to dominate or control,” not in the negative sense of oppression, but in the positive sense of administration. Using business terminology, to subdue means to dominate the market. As we learn to manage our resources, God expands those resources and enlarges our influence. He increases our “market share,” so to speak. There is no limit to what the Lord can do in and with and through any individual or any married couple who surrender themselves and their resources completely to His will and His way. He wants to cover the world with His “orchards” of human fruitfulness.

Rain falls on the just and the unjust.” No one is exempt from difficulties.

Perspective alone can make an experience positive or negative, but regardless of which you let it become, it can only have as much power over your outlook on life as you give it.

The more attention you pay to a behavior, the more it will be repeated. Accentuating the positive and redirecting the negative are the best tools for increasing productivity.

Focusing on the negative often creates situations that demoralize people. When good performance is followed by a positive response, people naturally want to continue that behavior.

Never allow anyone to stop you from pursuing your most cherished dreams.

Words are life. Positive words create positive life.

Your habits are influenced greatly by your thoughts. Negative thoughts limit mental and emotional growth, while positive thoughts inspire and influence the way you live life.

Do not doubt thyself, have faith in thy soul.

I’ve gone through my life drawing from my experiences both positive and negative to try and influence others for the good.

Without doubt, the most common weakness of all human beings is the habit of leaving their minds open to the negative influence of other people.” --Napoleon Hill

Thus, the "memories" that people reported contained little information about the event they were trying to recall (the speaker's tone of voice) but were greatly influenced by the properties of the retrieval cue that we gave them (the positive or negative facial expression).

If you let negative people define you, you yourself will become negative. If you let mediocre people influence you, you yourself will become mediocre. If you let wretched people inspire you, you yourself will become wretched. If you let positive people help you, you yourself will become positive. If you let exceptional people support you, you yourself will become exceptional. If you let enlightened people advise you, you yourself will become enlightened.

The problem, that is to say, is educational. It is a problem of continuously moulding the consciousness both of the directing group and of the larger executive group that lies immediately below it. The consciousness of the masses needs only to be influenced in a negative way. Given

Resilience is a precious skill. People who have it tend to also have three underlying advantages: a belief that they can influence life events; a tendency to find meaningful purpose in life’s turmoil; and a conviction that they can learn from both positive and negative experiences.

Several psychologists (L. Armstrong, 1994; Enns, McNeilly, Corkery, & Gilbert, 1995; Herman, 1992; McFarlane & van der Kolk, 1996; Pope & Brown, 1996) contend that the controversy of delayed recall for traumatic events is likely to be influenced by sexism. Kristiansen, Gareau, Mittleholt, DeCourville, and Hovdestad (1995) found that people who were more authoritarian and who had less favorable attitudes toward women were less likely to believe in the veracity of women’s recovered memories for sexual abuse. Those who challenged the truthfulness of recovered memories were more likely to endorse negative statements about women, including the idea that battered women enjoy being abused. McFarlane and van der Kolk (1996) have noted that delayed recall in male combat veterans reported by Myers (1940) and Kardiner (1941) did not generate controversy, whereas delayed recall in female survivors of intrafamilial child sexual abuse has provoked considerable debate.

What forces are we unable to sense that nonetheless influence our existence? Is it possible for us to become aware of these forces? And, perhaps most terribly, what do these forces intend for us?

How the mind gears itself for its environment, she thought. And she recalled a Bene Gesserit axiom: “The mind can go either direction under stress—toward positive or toward negative: on or off. Think of it as a spectrum whose extremes are unconsciousness at the negative end and hyperconsciousness at the positive end. The way the mind will lean under stress is strongly influenced by training.

Negativity is contagious. Life the flu, or some snotty, head-pounding cold. That’s why it’s best to keep a good distance from negative influences. And to keep conscious so that we don’t become one.

Orwell's 1984 [...] is political thought disguised as a novel; the thinking is certainly lucid and correct, but it is distorted by its guise as a novel, which renders it imprecise and vague. [...] the situations and the characters are as flat as a poster. The pernicious influence of Orwell's novel resides in its implacable reduction of a reality to its political dimension alone, and in its reduction of that dimension to what is exemplarily negative about it. I refuse to forgive this reduction on the grounds that it was useful as propaganda in the struggle against totalitarian evil. For that evil is, precisely, the reduction of life to politics and of politics to propaganda. So despite its intentions, Orwell's novel itself joins in the totalitarian spirit, the spirit of propaganda. It reduces (and teaches others to reduce) the life of a hated society to the simple listing of its crimes.

Most of us are unaware of the words we use on a regular basis. We weren’t taught that the words we regularly use to describe our experiences and conditions in life impact and influence our emotional states.

There was so much dark, negative energy surrounding Dragan’s family and his paternal ancestral bloodline. These dark influences seemed to have attached to his father’s existence through his cruel and violent upbringing.

If parent-figures have not healed or even recognized their unresolved traumas, they cannot consciously navigate their own path in life, let alone act as trustworthy guides for someone else. It’s very common for parent-figures to project their own unresolved traumas onto their children. When even well-meaning parent-figures react under the influence of their own unconscious wounds they, instead of offering guidance, may attempt to control, micromanage, or coerce a child to follow their will. Some of these attempts may be well intentioned. Parent-figures may consciously or unconsciously want to keep the child safe and protected from the world so that the child will not experience the pain that they, themselves, have. In the process, they may negate the child’s wants and needs.

Boys are suffering, in the modern world. They are more disobedient—negatively—or more independent—positively—than girls, and they suffer for this, throughout their pre-university educational career. They are less agreeable (agreeableness being a personality trait associated with compassion, empathy and avoidance of conflict) and less susceptible to anxiety and depression,172 at least after both sexes hit puberty.173 Boys’ interests tilt towards things; girls’ interests tilt towards people.174 Strikingly, these differences, strongly influenced by biological factors, are most pronounced in the Scandinavian societies where gender-equality has been pushed hardest: this is the opposite of what would be expected by those who insist, ever more loudly, that gender is a social construct. It isn’t. This isn’t a debate. The data are in.

The First Amendment codifies a ‘negative liberty’; that is to say, it affords citizens the right to freedom from government interference. While this is essential, it means that it is ill-equipped to tackle many of the free speech battles of the digital age. Historically, censorship has been enacted by the state, but with the rise of social media as the de facto public square, big tech corporations now have dominion over the acceptable limits of popular discourse. We are rapidly moving into an age in which unelected plutocrats hold more collective power and influence than any national government, only without any of the democratic accountability. This is why the argument that private companies should be free to discriminate at will is no longer persuasive or viable. They claim to be platforms committed to the principle of free speech, and yet at the same time behave like publishers who seek to enforce limitations on the opinions that may be expressed.

If you’re going to be an eagle, if you’re going to soar, you can’t go back to the dead things in your life that will poison you. Too many people are feeding off what didn’t work out, reliving the disappointments, the failures, the bad breaks.

When you start reconnecting with these missing [parts of yourself], you tend to realize that, until then, you had never really been incarnated on the planet. You thought you were, but if one considers the totality of your being, you were hardly there. You were literally all over space. The result was that you were sleeping your life instead of living it. Only when a gathering of all the parts has taken place inside your heart can you be fully present and find your real purpose on earth.

We are always sure that the heroine is fiery and passionate, which is quite an achievement when the plot has had to keep her passive, inactive and loveless for long stretches. Up to the point when Jane's love declares itself, the novel establishes the passion largely by negatives—a method very prophetic of that of D. H. Lawrence, who was in many ways influenced by Charlotte Brontë.

Many people become confused and frustrated because they allow themselves to be influenced by negative thoughts of others—this is a weakness of many salesmen—when they absorb too much of what the prospect says about his reasons for not doing something such as buying.

Not enough people realize that ADHD is not a disorder about loss of focus. It is a disorder of loss of emotional control, which is triggered by outside influences, self-esteem and our interpretation of events. Whether this is positive or negative it triggers us to hyper focus on what consumes our thoughts. Staying positive is critical and distancing oneself from hurtful people is essential, in order to live a life with purpose.

In its individual manifestation the character of a man's anima is as a rule shaped by his mother. If he feels that his mother had a negative influence on him, his anima will often express itself in irritable, depressed moods, uncertainty, insecurity, and touchiness. (If, however he is able to overcome the negative assaults on himself, they can serve to reinforce his masculinity.) Within the soul of such a man the negative mother-anima figure will endlessly repeat this theme: "I am nothing. Nothing makes any sense. With others it's different, but for me...I enjoy nothing." These "anima moods" cause a sort of dullness, a fear of disease, of impotence, or of accidents. The whole of life takes on a sad and oppressive aspect. Such dark moods can even lure a man to suicide, in which case the anima becomes a death demon. She appears in this role in Cocteau's film Orphee.

Everyone is valuable and powerful beyond anything they are capable of imagining. My advice is to let go of anyone who you perceive as a negative influence in your life, and know that it’s not about you, it’s about them. Life is a gift, so don’t waste it. Learn to value yourself and your life, and live every day as though it’s a gift and that you matter and you have a purpose. Find out who you are, and be who you are, express yourself, and shine your Light as brightly as you can. If you don’t express yourself and be yourself fully then you’re depriving the world of who you came here to be.

Foreword: Life is tension or the result of tension: without tension the creative impulse cannot exist. If human life be taken as the result of tension between the two polarities night and day, night, the negative pole, must share equal importance with the positive day. At night, under the influence of cosmic radiations quite different from those of the day, human affairs are apt to come to a crisis. At night most human beings die and are born. Sleep Has His House describes in the night-time language certain stages in the development of one individual human being. No interpretation is needed of this language we have all spoken in childhood and in our dreams; but for the sake of unity a few words before every section indicate the corresponding events of the day.

The repeated finding that people with happier, less troubled thought patterns can suffer more illness seems to defy common sense. The general belief is that positive emotions must be conducive to good health. While it is true that genuine joy and satisfaction enhance physical well-being, “positive” states of mind generated to tune out psychic discomfort lower resistance to illness. The brain governs and integrates the activities of all organs and systems of the body, simultaneously coordinating our interactions with the environment. This regulating function depends on the clear recognition of negative influences, danger signals and signs of internal distress. In children whose environment chronically conveys mixed messages, an impairment occurs in the developing apparatus of the brain. The brain’s capacity to evaluate the environment is diminished, including its ability to distinguish what is nourishing from what is toxic.

Humans are biased machines, and we are especially influenced by negatives. We want to believe the worst about ourselves and will pick those scraps up throughout the day and piece them together until we have something that we can look at and say, 'Look, arent I terrible' even if everyone else says otherwise. Maybe that's just me.

The right nostril is a gas pedal. When you’re inhaling primarily through this channel, circulation speeds up, your body gets hotter, and cortisol levels, blood pressure, and heart rate all increase. This happens because breathing through the right side of the nose activates the sympathetic nervous system, the “fight or flight” mechanism that puts the body in a more elevated state of alertness and readiness. Breathing through the right nostril will also feed more blood to the opposite hemisphere of the brain, specifically to the prefrontal cortex, which has been associated with logical decisions, language, and computing. Inhaling through the left nostril has the opposite effect: it works as a kind of brake system to the right nostril’s accelerator. The left nostril is more deeply connected to the parasympathetic nervous system, the rest-and-relax side that lowers blood pressure, cools the body, and reduces anxiety. Left-nostril breathing shifts blood flow to the opposite side of the prefrontal cortex, to the area that influences creative thought and plays a role in the formation of mental abstractions and the production of negative emotions.

Human beings remember "firsts"- the first time something happens, or the begining of an experience- and we tend to remember "lasts" as well. So when you are about to make a critical/negative delivery , start your criticism with a positive begining, it will affect the rest of the experience. Start by giving them solid ground to stand by expressing the fact that you value them and they matter. Once they are reassured of their own worth, people will accept your comments far more easily and they'll get less defensive.

It was something Brynna had done a report on in school last year. At the time he’d thought it stupid, but he finally got it. Visualization. In order to make something happen, to become something else, you had to see it clearly in your mind. That was the first step of achieving success. Vague dreams never amounted to anything. Only those that were fully seen could manifest. Just like with the dagger. Thoughts had power. Negative and positive. They influenced everything. They could empower a person or rip them to shreds.

Choice—to do and think right Refusal—of temptation Yearning—to be better Repulsion—of negativity, of bad influences, of what isn’t true Preparation—for what lies ahead or whatever may happen Purpose—our guiding principle and highest priority Assent—to be free of deception about what’s inside and outside our control (and be ready to accept the latter)

There are four independent brain circuits that influence our lasting well-being, Davidson explained. The first is “our ability to maintain positive states.” It makes sense that the ability to maintain positive states or positive emotions would directly impact one’s ability to experience happiness. These two great spiritual leaders were saying that the fastest way to this state is to start with love and compassion. The second circuit is responsible for “our ability to recover from negative states.” What was most fascinating to me was that these circuits were totally independent. One could be good at maintaining positive states but easily fall into an abyss of a negative state from which one had a hard time recovering. That explained a lot in my life. The third circuit, also independent but essential to the others, is “our ability to focus and avoid mind-wandering.” This of course was the circuit that so much of meditation exists to develop. Whether it was focusing on one’s breath, or a mantra, or the analytic meditation that the Dalai Lama did each morning, this ability to focus one’s attention was fundamental. The fourth and final circuit is “our ability to be generous.” That was amazing to me: that we had an entire brain circuit, one of four, devoted to generosity. It is no wonder that our brains feel so good when we help others or are helped by others, or even witness others being helped, which Ekman had described as the elevation that is one dimension of joy. There was strong and compelling research that we come factory equipped for cooperation, compassion, and generosity.

you and me today. Do you know that when He blesses you, no one—no prophet, no sorcerer, and no devil—can reverse it? You are irreversibly blessed! You can never be cursed! No generational curse or any other curse can come upon you because God has already blessed you! That includes being redeemed from the curse of the law as recorded in Galatians 3:13: “Christ has redeemed us from the curse of the law, having become a curse for us (for it is written, ‘Cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree’).” When God blesses you, no one can reverse it. When your enemies say negative things about you out of envy, jealousy, and fear, or if there are people spreading nasty lies about you to assassinate your character, know this: the Lord is your defender. It is God who gives influence to words, and He can cause their words to fall to the ground. He can even, as we have just read, turn their curses into blessings. You don’t have to get all flustered, agitated, and angry. Just know that the Lord is on your side and that when He has blessed you, no one can reverse it. Amen!

The consciousness of the masses needs only to be influenced in a negative way.

As you begin to walk away from negativity and toxic people, it will inspire you to embrace positivity and your life will become more rewarding and fulfilling.

When I was younger, I thought “rise above it” meant swallowing negative feelings, pretending nothing was happening.

What if our common sense has been negatively influenced by our addiction to comfort?

Faulty values negatively influence the soul. If a person is not careful, they can be brainwashed without knowing it.

Ignore self –doubt and inner conflict. Dwell on positive thoughts.

Negative thought saps a person’s strength.

Why play, lounge or labour in a social wasteland? It's toxicity is contagious, and no respecter of persons. Fall back!

Devaluation of the Earth, hostility towards the Earth, fear of the Earth: these are all from the psychological point of view the expression of a weak patriarchal consciousness that knows no other way to help itself than to withdraw violently from the fascinating and overwhelming domain of the Earthly. For we know that the archetypal projection of the Masculine experiences, not without justice, the Earth as the unconscious-making, instinct-entangling, and therefore dangerous Feminine. At the same time the projection of the masculine anima is mingled with the living image of the Earth archetype in the unconscious of man; and the more one-sidedly masculine man's conscious mind is the more primitive, unreliable, and therefore dangerous his anima will be. However, the Earth archetype, in compensation to the divinity of the archetype of Heaven and the Father, that determined the consciousness of medieval man, is fused together with the archaic image of the Mother Goddess. Yet in its struggle against this Mother Goddess, the conscious mind, in its historical development, has had great difficulty in asserting itself so as to reach its – patriarchal - independence. The insecurity of this conscious mind-and we have profound experience of how insecure the position of the conscious mind still is in modern man-is always bound up with fear of the unconscious, and no well-meaning theory "against fear" will be able to rid the world of this deeply rooted anxiety, which at different times has been projected on different objects. Whether this anxiety expresses itself in a religious form as the medieval fear of demons or witches, or politically as the modern fear of war with the State beyond the Iron Curtain, in every case we are dealing with a projection, though at the same time the anxiety is justified. In reality, our small ego-consciousness is justifiably afraid of the superior power of the collective forces, both without and within. In the history of the development of the conscious mind, for reasons which we cannot pursue here, the archetype of the Masculine Heaven is connected positively with the conscious mind, and the collective powers that threaten and devour the conscious mind both from without and within, are regarded as Feminine. A negative evaluation of the Earth archetype is therefore necessary and inevitable for a masculine, patriarchal conscious mind that is still weak. But this validity only applies in relation to a specific type of conscious mind; it alters as the integration of the human personality advances, and the conscious mind is strengthened and extended. A one-sided conscious mind, such as prevailed in the medieval patriarchal order, is certainly radical, even fanatical, but in a psychological sense it is by no means strong. As a result of the one-sidedness of the conscious mind, the human personality becomes involved in an equally one-sided opposition to its own unconscious, so that actually a split occurs. Even if, for example, the Masculine principle identifies itself with the world of Heaven, and projects the evil world of Earth outwards on the alien Feminine principle, both worlds are still parts of the personality, and the repressing masculine spiritual world of Heaven and of the values of the conscious mind is continually undermined and threatened by the repressed but constantly attacking opposite side. That is why the religious fanaticism of the representatives of the patriarchal World of Heaven reached its climax in the Inquisition and the witch trials, at the very moment when the influence of the archetype of Heaven, which had ruled the Middle Ages and the previous period, began to wane, and the opposite image of the Feminine Earth archetype began to emerge.

When one rotten apple is exposed to ones that are not, it will cause the fruit to ripen faster and eventually rot. This is because as apples ripen, they give off a hormone in a gaseous form called ethylene which is a catalyst for ripening fruit. So too, life, when you are surrounded by people who have a bad influence on you, their negative energy will sooner or later affect you.

If people's night fears of sorcery - which negatively influences their decision to use mosquito nets - fail to impress the outsider, the brute everyday reality remains; in a number of rural African villages it is still much too common for very real hyenas to snatch people, especially children, out of their own homes as they lie sleeping at night, because of the lack of a good front door.

In preparing litigation on behalf of the children we were representing, it was clear that these shocking and senseless crimes couldn't be evaluated honestly without understanding the lives these children had been forced to endure. And in banning the death penalty for juveniles, the Supreme Court had paid great attention to the emerging body of medical research about adolescent development and brain science and its relevance to juvenile crime and culpability. Contemporary neurological, psychological, and sociological evidence has established that children are impaired by immature judgment, an underdeveloped capacity for self-regulation and responsibility, vulnerability to negative influences and outside pressures, and a lack of control over their own impulses and their environment.

Enter the problem-solution construction. All it is, is this: “Here’s the problem, and the negative consequences of it. Here’s the best solution, and the positive benefits of this.” It’s that simple.

Sometimes I think Earth has got to be the insane asylum of the universe. . . and I'm here by computer error. At sixty-eight, I hope I've gained some wisdom in the past fourteen lustrums and it’s obligatory to speak plain and true about the conclusions I've come to; now that I have been educated to believe by such mentors as Wells, Stapledon, Heinlein, van Vogt, Clarke, Pohl, (S. Fowler) Wright, Orwell, Taine, Temple, Gernsback, Campbell and other seminal influences in scientifiction, I regret the lack of any female writers but only Radclyffe Hall opened my eyes outside sci-fi. I was a secular humanist before I knew the term. I have not believed in God since childhood's end. I believe a belief in any deity is adolescent, shameful and dangerous. How would you feel, surrounded by billions of human beings taking Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny, the tooth fairy and the stork seriously, and capable of shaming, maiming or murdering in their name? I am embarrassed to live in a world retaining any faith in church, prayer or a celestial creator. I do not believe in Heaven, Hell or a Hereafter; in angels, demons, ghosts, goblins, the Devil, vampires, ghouls, zombies, witches, warlocks, UFOs or other delusions; and in very few mundane individuals--politicians, lawyers, judges, priests, militarists, censors and just plain people. I respect the individual's right to abortion, suicide and euthanasia. I support birth control. I wish to Good that society were rid of smoking, drinking and drugs. My hope for humanity - and I think sensible science fiction has a beneficial influence in this direction - is that one day everyone born will be whole in body and brain, will live a long life free from physical and emotional pain, will participate in a fulfilling way in their contribution to existence, will enjoy true love and friendship, will pity us 20th century barbarians who lived and died in an atrocious, anachronistic atmosphere of arson, rape, robbery, kidnapping, child abuse, insanity, murder, terrorism, war, smog, pollution, starvation and the other negative “norms” of our current civilization. I have devoted my life to amassing over a quarter million pieces of sf and fantasy as a present to posterity and I hope to be remembered as an altruist who would have been an accepted citizen of Utopia.

There’s only one chance in two billion that the elevator will get stuck,” he would have focused on that one possibility. Remember, the brain is hardwired to search for danger and the negative in order to survive.

Since self-esteem is based most importantly on the amount of respectful, accepting and concerned treatment from significant others, it is logical to assume that the inconsistency of the presence of these conditions in an alcoholic home would negatively influence one’s ability to feel good about him or herself. Interestingly enough, a variable such as the age of the subject was insignificant as a determinant of self-esteem.6

I don't believe some teachers consider whether their classroom instruction fosters the development of reading habits in their students. Reflecting on the landslide of crossword puzzles, dioramas, annotations, and reading logs assigned to their students for every book they read, teachers might realize that instead of encouraging students to read, these mindless assignments make kids hate reading. Primarily assigned to generate grades and give teachers a false sense that they are holding students accountable for reading, these counterfeit activities—that no wild reader completes on his or her own—guarantee that their students will avoid reading. If we care about our students' reading lives, we must foster their lifelong reading habits and eliminate or reduce the negative influences of classroom practices that don't align with what wild readers do.

To illustrate how an individual can attain the goal of being submerged in physical reality while transforming it into holiness, we can use an analogy of a man who finds himself in a cold room. There are three ways that individual can maintain his body temperature: first, he can put on a warm coat; second, he can leave the room to go to a warmer environment; or third, he can light a fire. Similarly, if this individual finds himself in a "cold" environment, one which is detrimental to him, he can preserve his integrity through these three methods. First, he can put on a warm coat, which symbolizes strengthening himself inwardly so as not to be influenced by his surroundings. This however, is an incomplete victory, for if he were to relax his self-control he would capitulate. Second, he can leave the room, which implies separating himself from the negative influences surrounding him. Once again, this victory is only through removing himself from temptation and is, therefore, not permanent. He has not met the challenge by improving his surroundings. The third approach, lighting a fire, involves influencing the environment and raising it to a higher level. This is a complete triumph over one's surroundings for the dangers have not only been avoided, they have been entirely removed.

Quotations from ‘“THE STRENGTH IN KNOWING” *** Convey to others more compassion, sensitivity, understanding rather than judgementalism” To find pity shall enable forgiveness to surface There are good bones in everyone’s body, what varies are the number Cause and effect from the very smallest act by one individual can change mankind for all time Devastation can be a reward, and a path to regeneration Emotions May Inhibit our Ability to Find Peace One must conquer One’s insensitivity to sensitivity True peace maintains strength and calm in the face of discord and tension Wisdom is not guranteed to be achieved with age but rather realized with ones sensitiviy to man and the universe Opposites create duality. The ego creates opposites. Therefore, the ego creates duality One should not permit his or her life path to be influenced by the expectations of others. Doubt is the archenemy of the purity of thought and it inhibits the essence of all that is Our, emotions and perceptions determine our attitudes and ultimately our choices Don’t do it later; do it now. True love is unconditional and everlasting and it cannot cease. Reframing from negative speech is a path to reduction of negative thought Uncontaminated understanding and awareness is the purity of essence and the essence of purity

All elements, animals, and people influence each other. Due to that correspondence, one person’s negativity affects others. The same can be said about the healing effects of good emotions, especially the glorious feeling of love.

If there is one ruler that can harmonize and unify the mob of characters [in our astral body], it is the Ego (the Higher Ego, or Self, or Spirit). The more the Ego shines like a sun at the center of gravity of the astral body, the more the different characters start orbiting around it. Instead of working only to satisfy their own selfish desires, the characters start manifesting the purposes of the light and of the Spirit. Instead of plotting for the success of their own ambitions, they start accomplishing the works of the Higher Self... The unveiling of the Self begins a process of unification--a new astral body slowly develops. In this new, or transformed, astral body, the different parts are penetrated by the light of the Self. Therefore they are not only united around the Self, but are also cemented to it... [Before this process], one is nothing more than an appearance: it is the illusion of being one person...

Stress and anxiety influence our way of reducing the ambiguity of the world around us, as well as, therefore, our biases. Studies have shown that people with anxiety21 reduce the ambiguity of certain words in a more negative manner than others. If we ask someone with anxiety what the word “mug” means, they will have a tendency to answer it means to attack (as opposed to the more neutral synonym for “cup” or slang for “face”). This is what we call interpretation bias.

If I don’t respond, will there be negative repercussions? Are they trying to make their problem my problem? Am I being baited into an argument? Is this distracting me from more important tasks? Sometimes the unnecessary stress in our life is our own doing, because we intentionally engage with the people or situations creating it. Although we often don’t mean to, we find ourselves instinctually catching the ball out of habit or obligation or because of our history with that person (ex-spouse, childhood friend, overbearing parent). You may not be able to control what another person says or does, but you can always control your response, or lack thereof, to it. If you don’t like drama, then don’t invite it in.

Self-Confidence Formula First. I know that I have the ability to achieve the object of my Definite Purpose in life, therefore, I demand of myself persistent, continuous action toward its attainment, and I here and now promise to render such action. Second. I realize the dominating thoughts of my mind will eventually reproduce themselves in outward, physical action, and gradually transform themselves into physical reality, therefore, I will concentrate my thoughts for thirty minutes daily, upon the task of thinking of the person I intend to become, thereby creating in my mind a clear mental picture of that person. Third. I know through the principle of auto-suggestion, any desire that I persistently hold in my mind will eventually seek expression through some practical means of attaining the object back of it, therefore, I will devote ten minutes daily to demanding of myself the development of self-confidence. Fourth. I have clearly written down a description of my definite chief aim in life, and I will never stop trying, until I shall have developed sufficient self-confidence for its attainment. Fifth. I fully realize that no wealth or position can long endure, unless built upon truth and justice, therefore, I will engage in no transaction which does not benefit all whom it affects. I will succeed by attracting to myself the forces I wish to use, and the cooperation of other people. I will induce others to serve me, because of my willingness to serve others. I will eliminate hatred, envy, jealousy, selfishness, and cynicism, by developing love for all humanity, because I know that a negative attitude toward others can never bring me success. I will cause others to believe in me, because I will believe in them, and in myself. I will sign my name to this formula, commit it to memory, and repeat it aloud once a day, with full faith that it will gradually influence my thoughts and actions so that I will become a self-reliant, and successful person.

There is no man,’ he began, ‘however wise, who has not at some period of his youth said things, or lived in a way the consciousness of which is so unpleasant to him in later life that he would gladly, if he could, expunge it from his memory. And yet he ought not entirely to regret it, because he cannot be certain that he has indeed become a wise man—so far as it is possible for any of us to be wise—unless he has passed through all the fatuous or unwholesome incarnations by which that ultimate stage must be preceded. I know that there are young fellows, the sons and grand sons of famous men, whose masters have instilled into them nobility of mind and moral refinement in their schooldays. They have, perhaps, when they look back upon their past lives, nothing to retract; they can, if they choose, publish a signed account of everything they have ever said or done; but they are poor creatures, feeble descendants of doctrinaires, and their wisdom is negative and sterile. We are not provided with wisdom, we must discover it for ourselves, after a journey through the wilderness which no one else can take for us, an effort which no one can spare us, for our wisdom is the point of view from which we come at last to regard the world. The lives that you admire, the attitudes that seem noble to you are not the result of training at home, by a father, or by masters at school, they have sprung from beginnings of a very different order, by reaction from the influence of everything evil or commonplace that prevailed round about them. They represent a struggle and a victory. I can see that the picture of what we once were, in early youth, may not be recognisable and cannot, certainly, be pleasing to contemplate in later life. But we must not deny the truth of it, for it is evidence that we have really lived, that it is in accordance with the laws of life and of the mind that we have, from the common elements of life, of the life of studios, of artistic groups—assuming that one is a painter—extracted something that goes beyond them.

As for the problem of overproduction, which has been latent in our society since the development of the machine technique, it is solved by the device of continuous warfare, which is also useful in keying up public morale to the necessary pitch. ... The problem, that is to say, is educational. It is a problem of continuously molding the consciousness both of the directing group and of the larger executive group that lies immediately below it. The consciousness of the masses needs only to be influenced in a negative way.

So the invention of atheism (in the negative sense of the word) in fifth-century BC Athens was rooted in a politically influenced desire to stigmatizee certain individuals. But perhaps there was more to it than that. What if what began as an insult was in time reappropriated as a badge of honor? This is a phenomenon well attested by modern social scientists: think of “queer,” “nigger,” or even “geek.” In such instances, the connotations of an initially negative term shift, and the label becomes associated with positive attributes.

The attitude of those who live from the triumph of Christ is different than those who live under the influence of their past. The only part of the past that we have legal access to is the testimony of the Lord.11 The rest is dead, buried, forgotten, and covered under the blood. The past should have no negative effect on the way we live, as the blood of Jesus is more than sufficient. Living from the victory of Christ is the privilege for every believer. This realization is at the foundation of a Church that will triumph even as He has triumphed.

Despite what you might think, NORMAL people do NOT cause problems, misfortunes, conflicts, distress or accidents. And when they do, they CAN apologize and recognize their negative influence. A person that causes these things and can’t assume any responsibility for them is, apart from showing the cognitive and moral level of a child, deserving nothing more than abandonment, because she is dangerous at all levels and can hurt, or even kill, someone BY ACCIDENT, including herself and whoever is with her. A person like this DOES NOT deserve any TRUST for ANYTHING, ABSOLUTELY ANYTHING.

And when small cellular disturbances happen in every cell, at every moment, the effect is outsized—rippling up into the tissues, organs, and systems of your body and negatively influencing how you feel, think, function, look, age, and even how well you combat pathogens and avoid chronic disease.

Instead of feeling sidelined by the sucker punches of post-Christianity, Christians are called to practice radically ordinary hospitality to renew their resolve in Christ. Too many of us are sidelined by fears. We fear that people will hurt us. We fear that people will negatively influence our children. We fear that we do not even understand the language of this new world order, least of all its people. We long for days gone by. Our sentimentality makes us stupid. We need to snap ourselves out of this self-pitying reverie. The best days are ahead. Jesus advances from the front of the line.

That’s why I’ve come to see you today, in the hope that there might be some other function in which I’d have less responsibility, without having to relate to the overall workflow to the same extent. I’d like to be assigned to that kind of position. I realize the abilities I’ve been allocated won’t be fully exploited in that case, but does the pain I feel not mean anything? I venture to suggest that such pain impacts the quality of my work and moreover may negatively influence the work of my colleagues. OK. I see. So I wouldn’t have the power of speech? No, I understand. I hereby consent. When

However, the man who is centered and established in right thinking, the man who sends out only good-will to his fellow-man, and only is without fear, cannot be touched or influenced by the negative thoughts of others. In fact, he could then receive only good thoughts, as he himself, sends forth only good thoughts.

Depression, which lives below the horizon, is the result of painting and entertaining negative imagery - most of which has not taken place in reality. Get up, move, and appreciate that which is given. What is lacking is usually material and heavily influenced by external forces. Don't play yourself, save yourself.

Everything starts from home. If the father isn’t there, then the friends are going to step up to influence the young boy astray. This is where the problems come in, because in my community the majority of the children do not have any fathers in the home. I can only speak for my community. This is why with the young guys who do hang around me, I always do my best to encourage them. I have already lived the negative side on the streets, so I prefer to encourage them on the positive side - to encourage them to get a job, save their money and to do something for their families.Franco ‘Co’ Bethel, former gang leader and right hand man to Scrooge.

No matter where you are in your life, no matter what struggles you’re currently experiencing, you can improve your circumstances. You can achieve greater levels of success. This fact should fill you with practical optimism. After all, you have tremendous influence over your mindset. Control that, and the battle is nearly won.

Darkness seems to have prevailed and has taken the forefront. This country as in the 'cooperation' of The United States of America has never been about the true higher-good of the people. Know and remember this. Cling to your faith. Roll your spiritual sleeves up and get to work. Use your energy wisely. Transmute all anger, panic and fear into light and empowerment. Don't use what fuels them; all lower-energy. Mourn as you need to. Console who you need to—and then go get into the spiritual and energetic arena. There's plenty work for us to do; within and without. Let's each focus on becoming 'The President of Our Own Life. Cultivate your mind. Pursue your purpose. Shine your light. Elevate past—and reject—any culture of low vibrational energy and ratchetness. Don't take fear, defeat or anger—on or in. The system is doing what they've been created to do. Are you? Am I? Are we—collectively? Let's get to work. No more drifting through life without your higher-self in complete control of your mind. Awaken—fully. Activate—now. Put your frustrations or concerns into your work. Don't lose sight. There is still—a higher plan. Let's ride this 4 year energetic-wave like the spiritual gangsters that we are. This will all be the past soon. Let's get to work and stay dedicated, consistent and diligent. Again, this will all be the past soon. We have preparing and work to do. Toxic energy is so not a game. Toxic energy and low vibrations are being collectively acted out on the world stage. Covertly operating through the unconscious weak spots and blind spots in the human psyche; making people oblivious to their own madness, causing and influencing them to act against–their–own–best–interests and higher-good, as if under a spell and unconsciously possessed. This means that they are actually nourishing the lower vibrational energy with their lifestyle, choices, energy and habits, which is unconsciously giving the lower-energy the very power and fuel it needs—for repeating and recreating endless drama, suffering and destruction, in more and more amplified forms on a national and world stage. So what do we do? We take away its autonomy and power over us while at the same time empowering ourselves. By recognizing how this energetic/spiritual virus or parasite of the mind—operates through our unawareness is the beginning of the cure. Knowledge is power. Applied knowledge is—freedom. Our shared future will be decided primarily by the changes that take place in the psyche of humanity, starting with each of us— vibrationally. In closing and most importantly, the greatest protection against becoming affected or possessed by this lower-energy is to be in touch with our higher vibrational-self. We have to call our energy and power back. Being in touch with our higher-self and true nature acts as a sacred amulet, shielding and protecting us from the attempted effects. We defeat evil not by fighting against it (in which case, by playing its game, we’ve already lost) but by getting in touch with the part of us that is invulnerable to its effects— our higher vibrational-self. Will this defeat and destroy us? Or will it awaken us more and more? Everything depends upon our recognizing what is being revealed to us and our stepping out of the unconscious influence of low vibrational/negative/toxic/evil/distraction energy (or whatever name you relate to it as) that is and has been seeking power over each of our lives energetically and/or spiritually, and step into our wholeness, our personal power, our higher self and vibrate higher and higher daily. Stay woke my friends—let's get to work.

The reasons why a counterpart will not make an agreement with you are often more powerful than why they will make a deal, so focus first on clearing the barriers to agreement. Denying barriers or negative influences gives them credence; get them into the open. Pause. After you label a barrier or mirror a statement, let it sink in. Don’t worry, the other party will fill the silence. Label your counterpart’s fears to diffuse their power. We all want to talk about the happy stuff, but remember, the faster you interrupt action in your counterpart’s amygdala, the part of the brain that generates fear, the faster you can generate feelings of safety, well-being, and trust.

I think that the media and its influencers send out a negative message to young girls these days, when it comes to the relationship between power and money. The message that young girls receive these days, from watching reality t.v. shows and such, is that the more money you spend, the more powerful you are. But I'd like young girls everywhere to know that it's not about the money that you spend; but what it's really about is the money that you have! Financial power lies in actually having money and your intelligence is determined by how you spend it. And it's not even about buying only what you need, because we should have the things that we want, too, not only the things that we need! But it's more about knowing the value of material things because without the knowledge of the value, things aren't going to make you happy, because there's always something more that you can buy! So you've got to know how to buy what's really going to make you happy and not just buy things for the sake of spending.

The anima in her negative aspect—that is, when she remains unconscious and hidden—exerts a possessive influence on the subject. The chief symptoms of this possession are blind moods and compulsive entanglements on one side, and on the other cold, unrelated absorption in principles and abstract ideas. The negative aspect of the anima indicates therefore a special form of psychological maladjustment. This is either compensated from the conscious side or else it compensates a consciousness already marked by a contrary (and equally incorrect) attitude. For the negative aspect of the conscious dominant is far from being a “God-given” idea; it is the most egoistic intention of all, which seeks to play an important role and, by wearing some kind of mask, to appear as something favourable (identification with the persona!). The anima corresponding to this attitude is an intriguer who continually aids and abets the ego in its role, while digging in the background the very pits into which the infatuated ego is destined to fall.

Spiritual disciplines more easily introduced into daily activities ▪   School calendar formulated to dates that work best for our family’s needs ▪   Free time in our days for relaxation, family fun and bonding (instead of time spent driving from school to school) ▪   Strong parent-child bonds and sibling-to-sibling bonds more easily developed ▪   Removal from negative influences and peer pressure during the early impressionable years ▪   Difficult subjects discussed at the appropriate age for each individual child ▪   Difficult subject matter presented from a biblical worldview and within the context of our strong parent-child bond. ▪   Real world learning incorporated into lesson plans and practiced in daily routines ▪   Field trips and “outside the book” learning available as we see fit What We Hope to Give Our Kids: ▪   A close relationship with Christ and a complete picture of what it means to be a Christ-follower ▪   A strong moral character rooted in biblical integrity, perseverance and humility ▪   A direction and purpose for where God has called them in life ▪   A deep relationship and connection with us, their parents ▪   Rich, ever-growing relationships with their siblings ▪   Real-world knowledge in everything from how to cook and do laundry to how to resolve conflicts and work with those that are “different” from them ▪   A comprehensive, well-rounded education in the traditional school subjects

This produces teen vulnerability to peer pressure and emotional contagion. Moreover, such pressure is typically “deviance training,” increasing the odds of violence, substance abuse, crime, unsafe sex, and poor health habits (few teen gangs pressure kids to join them in tooth flossing followed by random acts of kindness). For example, in college dorms the excessive drinker is more likely to influence the teetotaling roommate than the reverse. The incidence of eating disorders in adolescents spreads among peers with a pattern resembling viral contagion. The same occurs with depression among female adolescents, reflecting their tendency to “co-ruminate” on problems, reinforcing one another’s negative affect.

We are also taught to guard our body, speech, and mind against the influence of unwholesome companions. We do not judge people who are unruly or negative, but we are advised to protect the mind from swinging, which naturally happens when we continuously associate with such companions. On the flip side, the tradition offers us a beautiful metaphor about associating with virtuous people. It is said that if you place a normal piece of wood in a sandalwood forest, in time that normal piece of wood will begin to take on the sweet smell of sandalwood. In the same way, even if we are a normal person, if we associate with noble companions, we will naturally begin to give rise to the qualities of virtue and wisdom.

At one A.M. we are learning over a bar, Jim and I, and I am stressing the primary importance of the wish. Not knowing what we want, not wishing for it , keeps us navigating along peripheries and tributaries formed and shaped by external influences. I said: "Forget about the probable and improbable. Just a few hours ago I met Shirley Clark. She had no money at all but wanted to go to India. She is a film maker. The wish was the orientation. When an offer came to make a film about French children for UNESCO, she accepted, and it led to her being asked to make film on an Indian dancer. Her wish, for years, was the beacon. The probable and improbable are only negative concepts we have to transcend, not accept.

The people who are most discouraged and made despondent by the barbarity and stupidity of human behaviour at this time are those who think highly of Homo Sapiens as a product of evolution, and who still cling to an optimistic belief in the civilizing influence of progress and enlightenment. To them, the appalling outbursts of bestial ferocity in the Totalitarian States, and the obstinate selfishness and stupid greed of Capitalist Society, are not merely shocking and alarming. For them, these things are the utter negation of everything in which they have believed. It is as though the bottom had dropped out of their universe. The whole thing looks like a denial of all reason, and they feel as if they and the world had gone mad together. Now for the Christian, this is not so. He is as deeply shocked and grieved as anybody else, but he is not astonished. He has never thought very highly of human nature left to itself. He has been accustomed to the idea that there is a deep interior dislocation in the very centre of human personality, and that you can never, as they say, ‘make people good by Act of Parliament’, just because laws are man-made and therefore partake of the imperfect and self-contradictory nature of man. Humanly speaking, it is not true at all that ‘truly to know the good is to do the good’; it is far truer to say with St. Paul that ‘the evil that I would not, that I do’; so that the mere increase of knowledge is of very little help in the struggle to outlaw evil. The delusion of the mechanical perfectibility of mankind through a combined process of scientific knowledge and unconscious evolution has been responsible for a great deal of heartbreak. It is, at bottom, far more pessimistic than Christian pessimism, because, if science and progress break down, there is nothing to fall back upon. Humanism is self-contained - it provides for man no resource outside himself.

1. A DEFINITE PURPOSE BACKED BY BURNING DESIRE FOR ITS FULFILLMENT. 2. A DEFINITE PLAN, EXPRESSED IN CONTINUOUS ACTION. 3. A MIND CLOSED TIGHTLY AGAINST ALL NEGATIVE AND DISCOURAGING INFLUENCES, including negative suggestions of relatives, friends and acquaintances. 4. A FRIENDLY ALLIANCE WITH ONE OR MORE PERSONS WHO WILL ENCOURAGE ONE TO FOLLOW THROUGH WITH BOTH PLAN AND PURPOSE. These

Imagine yourself in your counterpart’s situation. The beauty of empathy is that it doesn’t demand that you agree with the other person’s ideas (you may well find them crazy). But by acknowledging the other person’s situation, you immediately convey that you are listening. And once they know that you are listening, they may tell you something that you can use. ■​The reasons why a counterpart will not make an agreement with you are often more powerful than why they will make a deal, so focus first on clearing the barriers to agreement. Denying barriers or negative influences gives them credence; get them into the open. ■​Pause. After you label a barrier or mirror a statement, let it sink in. Don’t worry, the other party will fill the silence. ■​Label your counterpart’s fears to diffuse their power. We all want to talk about the happy stuff, but remember, the faster you interrupt action in your counterpart’s amygdala, the part of the brain that generates fear, the faster you can generate feelings of safety, well-being, and trust. ■​List the worst things that the other party could say about you and say them before the other person can. Performing an accusation audit in advance prepares you to head off negative dynamics before they take root. And because these accusations often sound exaggerated when said aloud, speaking them will encourage the other person to claim that quite the opposite is true. ■​Remember you’re dealing with a person who wants to be appreciated and understood. So use labels to reinforce and encourage positive perceptions and dynamics

Living on the Earth where there is so much negativity, it is essential to find tools, to constantly clear your fields. The best and easiest tool I have found to do this is to call forth Melchizedek, the Mahatma and Metatron, and ask for a Platinum Net. This Platinum Net will move through your 12-body system and cleanse it of impurities. I recommend doing this at least twice a day. The color platinum is the highest color frequency available to the Earth. The fact that the net is made of platinum insures that no imbalanced energy will escape its sphere of influence! To make this Platinum Key even more unbelievably profound, Melchizedek, the Mahatma and Metatron have told me that this Platinum Net upon request, can be placed in all the doors, windows and arch ways of your home and office.

One thing I know from personal experience: nothing in my relationship with Walt Disney or his brother was influenced either positively or negatively because I'm Jewish... Walt had called one day when I was attending services at our synagogue during the Jewish High Holy Days, Rosh Hashannah and Yom Kippur. When Tommie told Walt where I was, she let me know his reaction: "That's where he should be, with his family.

The word power typically signifies a capacity for action. The Oxford English Dictionary tells us power lies in an 'ability to do or effect something or anything, or to act upon a person or thing'. The person who has power may influence the material or social environment, generally on the basis of possessing high-tech weapons, money, oil, superior intelligence or large muscles. In war, I am powerful because I can blow up your city walls or drop bombs on your airfields. In the financial world, I am powerful because I can buy up your shares and invade your markets. In boxing, I am ,ore powerful because my punches outwit and exhaust yours. But in love, this issue appears to depend on a far more passive, negative definition; instead of looking at power as a capacity to do something, one may come to think of it as the capacity to do nothing.

the KGB was working hard to try to ensure that Thatcher lost the 1983 general election. In the eyes of the Kremlin, Thatcher was “the Iron Lady”—a nickname intended as an insult by the Soviet army newspaper that coined it, but one in which she reveled—and the KGB had been organizing “active measures” to undermine her ever since she came to power in 1979, including the placing of negative articles with sympathetic left-wing journalists. The KGB still had contacts on the left, and Moscow clung to the illusion that it might be able to influence the election in favor of the Labour Party, whose leader, after all, was still listed in KGB files as a “confidential contact.” In an intriguing harbinger of modern times, Moscow was prepared to use dirty tricks and hidden interference to swing a democratic election in favor of its chosen candidate.

I fancy my father thought me an odd child, and had little fondness for me; though he was very careful in fulfilling what he regarded as a parent's duties. But he was already past the middle of life, and I was not his only son. My mother had been his second wife, and he was five-and-forty when he married her. He was a firm, unbending, intensely orderly man, in root and stem a banker, but with a flourishing graft of the active landholder, aspiring to county influence: one of those people who are always like themselves from day to day, who are uninfluenced by the weather, and neither know melancholy nor high spirits. I held him in great awe, and appeared more timid and sensitive in his presence than at other times; a circumstance which, perhaps, helped to confirm him in the intention to educate me on a different plan from the prescriptive one with which he had complied in the case of my elder brother, already a tall youth at Eton. My brother was to be his representative and successor; he must go to Eton and Oxford, for the sake of making connexions, of course: my father was not a man to underrate the bearing of Latin satirists or Greek dramatists on the attainment of an aristocratic position. But intrinsically, he had slight esteem for "those dead but sceptred spirits"; having qualified himself for forming an independent opinion by reading Potter's Aeschylus, and dipping into Francis's Horace. To this negative view he added a positive one, derived from a recent connexion with mining speculations; namely, that scientific education was the really useful training for a younger son. Moreover, it was clear that a shy, sensitive boy like me was not fit to encounter the rough experience of a public school. Mr. Letherall had said so very decidedly. Mr. Letherall was a large man in spectacles, who one day took my small head between his large hands, and pressed it here and there in an exploratory, suspicious manner - then placed each of his great thumbs on my temples, and pushed me a little way from him, and stared at me with glittering spectacles. The contemplation appeared to displease him, for he frowned sternly, and said to my father, drawing his thumbs across my eyebrows - 'The deficiency is there, sir-there; and here,' he added, touching the upper sides of my head, 'here is the excess. That must be brought out, sir, and this must be laid to sleep.' I was in a state of tremor, partly at the vague idea that I was the object of reprobation, partly in the agitation of my first hatred - hatred of this big, spectacled man, who pulled my head about as if he wanted to buy and cheapen it. ("The Lifted Veil")

Then he launched into a classic statement of his political philosophy. I appreciate all you say about what Bryanism means, and I also … [am] as strongly opposed to populism in every stage as the greatest representative of corrupt wealth, but … these representatives … have themselves been responsible for a portion of the conditions against which Bryanism is in ignorant, and sometimes wicked revolt. I do not believe it is wise or safe for us as a party to take refuge in mere negation and to say that there are no evils to be corrected. It seems to me that our attitude should be one of correcting the evils and thereby showing, that, whereas the populists, socialists and others really do not correct the evils at all … the Republicans hold the just balance and set our faces as resolutely against improper corporate influence on the one hand as against demagogy and mob rule on the other.66

Albert Ellis, who founded Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy, a precursor to cognitive behavior therapy, taught me the extent to which we teach ourselves negative feelings about ourselves—and the negative and self-defeating behaviors that follow from these feelings. He showed that underlying our least effective and most harmful behaviors is a philosophical or ideological core that is irrational but is so central to our views of our self and the world that often we aren’t aware that it is only a belief, nor are we aware of how persistently we repeat this belief to ourselves in our daily lives. The belief determines our feelings (sadness, anger, anxiety, etc.), and our feelings in turn influence our behavior (acting out, shutting down, self-medicating to ease the discomfort). To change our behavior, Ellis taught, we must change our feelings, and to change our feelings, we change our thoughts.

By simply not mentioning certain subjects, by lowering ... an iron curtain between the masses and such facts or arguments as the local political bosses regard as undesirable, Totalitarian Propagandists have influenced opinion much more effectively than they could have done by the most eloquent denunciations, the most compelling of logical rebuttals. But silence is not enough. If persecution, liquidation and other symptoms of social friction are to be avoided, the positive sides of propaganda must be made as effective as the negative. The most important Manhattan Projects of the future will be vast government-sponsored inquiries into what the politicians and the participating scientist will call 'the problem of happiness' - in other words, the problem of making people love their servitude ... The love of servitude cannot be established except as the result of a deep, personal revolution in human minds and bodies.

To tip the cognitive hurdle fast, tipping point leaders such as Bratton zoom in on the act of disproportionate influence: making people see and experience harsh reality firsthand. Research in neuroscience and cognitive science shows that people remember and respond most effectively to what they see and experience: “Seeing is believing.” In the realm of experience, positive stimuli reinforce behavior, whereas negative stimuli change attitudes and behavior. Simply

real difficulty comes when we are doing something that we don’t want to be doing. For example, if we must work when we want to be home, or if we are staying home when it is driving us crazy, then our parenting will tend to be influenced by guilt, resentment, and a whole range of other negative emotions. We need to make our best choices at each moment. We can’t always have what we feel would be ideal, but we can actively do the best with the options as we see them.

One of my goals is to reduce the possible negative moments in life that I can have direct influence over. Bad situations and events will inevitably happen in everyone's life, at some point, but your reaction can affect the situation more than the initial problem if you allow it to. You have power over your actions. A negative moment can ruin your life, or be the foundation of your success. Being nice and smiling allows you the most opportunities to gain positive experiences in life.

I am in control of myself in every way—at all times and in all situations. Each time I sit down to eat, I reaffirm my determination to achieve my goal. By eating right, and never giving in, I am reaching the weight I want. Whether eating in or eating out, I really enjoy eating less. I never feel the need to finish the food in front of me. I eat only what I should—and never one bite more. One way to weight-loss that’s easy and works, is less food on my plate, and less on my fork! By ordering less when I eat out, and by serving myself smaller portions at home, I keep myself aware of the importance of staying with my goal—each and every day. “Less on my plate means less on my waist.” When I sit down to eat, at no time do I allow anyone else to influence, tempt, or discourage me in any negative way. What I eat, and the goals I reach, is up to me. And I give no one the right to hinder or control my success. Although others may benefit from my success, I am achieving my weight-loss goals for my own personal reasons—for myself, my life, my future, and my own personal well-being. I am never, at any time, tempted to take one bite more than I should. I am strong, I am capable of reaching my goal, and I am doing it! Being in situations which put a lot of food in front of me is not a problem to me now. I simply say “No!” to the food and “Yes!” to my success. I enjoy sitting down to eat. Each time I do I conquer my past, and I create a trimmer, happier, more self-confident future in front of me. When I sit down to eat, I do not need someone else to remind me of my goal, or to keep me from eating something I should not. I take full responsibility for myself, and no one else has to do it for me. Controlling my weight, and my appetite, is easy for me now. I enjoy smaller portions, smaller bites, and a slower, healthier, more relaxed way of eating. I have set my goal and I am staying with it. I have turned mealtime into “achievement time.

You know, of course, that as prophesied by Moroni, there are those whose research relating to Joseph Smith is not for the purpose of gaining added light and knowledge but to undermine his character, magnify his flaws, and if possible destroy his influence. Their work product can sometimes be jarring, and so can issues raised at times by honest historians and researchers with no “axe to grind.” But I would offer you this advice in your own study: Be patient, don’t be superficial, and don’t ignore the Spirit. In counseling patience, I simply mean that while some answers come quickly or with little effort, others are simply not available for the moment because information or evidence is lacking. Don’t suppose, however, that a lack of evidence about something today means that evidence doesn’t exist or that it will not be forthcoming in the future. The absence of evidence is not proof. . . . When I say don’t be superficial, I mean don’t form conclusions based on unexamined assertions or incomplete research, and don’t be influenced by insincere seekers. I would offer you the advice of our Assistant Church Historian, Rick Turley, an intellectually gifted researcher and author whose recent works include the definitive history of the Mountain Meadows Massacre. He says simply, “Don’t study Church history too little.” While some honestly pursue truth and real understanding, others are intent on finding or creating doubts. Their interpretations may come from projecting 21st Century concepts and culture backward onto 19th Century people. If there are differing interpretations possible, they will pick the most negative. They sometimes accuse the Church of hiding something because they only recently found or heard about it—an interesting accusation for a Church that’s publishing 24 volumes of all it can find of Joseph Smith’s papers. They may share their assumptions and speculations with some glee, but either can’t or won’t search further to find contradictory information. . . . A complete understanding can never be attained by scholarly research alone, especially since much of what is needed is either lost or never existed. There is no benefit in imposing artificial limits on ourselves that cut off the light of Christ and the revelations of the Holy Spirit. Remember, “By the power of the Holy Ghost, ye may know the truth of all things.” . . . If you determine to sit still, paralyzed until every question is answered and every whisper of doubt resolved, you will never move because in this life there will always be some issue pending or something yet unexplained.

He said: “I don’t think there’s much doubt at all now amongst those few of us that have worked on the problem, that the system is in the course of moving to its stable hot state, which is about 5 degrees Celsius globally higher than now. Once it gets there, negative feedback sets in again, and the whole thing stabilizes and regulates quite nicely. What happens is, during that period, the ocean ceases to have any influence on the system, or hardly any. It’s run entirely by the land biota. That’s what happened in the past, anyway.

If you’re growing a garden, you need to pull out the weeds, but flowers will die if all you do is pick weeds. They need sunshine and water. People are the same. They need criticism, but they also require positive and substantive language and information and true support to really blossom. If you’re perceived as a negative person—always picking, pulling, criticizing—you will simply get tuned out by those around you. Your influence, ability to teach, and opportunity to make progress will be diminished and eventually lost. When that happens, you become useless, a hindrance to progress. When your feedback is interpreted as a personal attack rather than a critique with positive intentions, you are going backward. Constructive criticism is a powerful instrument essential for improving performance. Positive support can be equally productive. Used together by a skilled leader they become the key to maximum results. Most of us seem to be more inclined to offer the negative. I don’t know why, but it’s easier to criticize than to compliment. Find the right mixture for optimum results.

The ones to fear are those who cannot realize it: the ones who just see the structure and bind themselves to it because they are otherwise afraid. They look at the structure, and they just see no other way. They cannot seek anything beyond it or do not want to. Yet, they will also vehemently deny that they are unable to venture beyond the structure and castigate others they perceive to have that inability so as to make themselves feel superior. They will even delude themselves into assuming that they are free of structural influence and will violently oppose any who say otherwise. They will say that the structures are a pragmatic necessity for social cohesion, but that they, even as willing participants in it, remain capable of acknowledging external terms and associations. They just choose not to—that’s the line they go with. They choose the structure for a lack of any better alternative and will not go without one. Perhaps they are naïve, in that sense, and it is easy for them to believe that those who seek to negate their structures are either unscrupulous, foolish, or ego-driven.

It's not really negativity or sadness anymore, it’s more just this detached, meaningless fog where you can’t feel anything about anythingeven the things you love, even fun things—and you’re horribly bored and lonely, but since you’ve lost your ability to connect with any of the things that would normally make you feel less bored and lonely, you’re stuck in the boring, lonely, meaningless void with-out anything to distract you from how boring, lonely, and meaningless it is. ...I noticed myself wishing that nothing loved me so I wouldn’t feel obligated to keep existing. The absurdity of working so hard to continue doing something you don’t like can be overwhelming. And the longer it takes to feel different, the more it starts to seem like everything might actually be hopeless bullshit. I don’t like when I can’t control what reality is doing. Which is unfortunate because reality works independently of the things I want, and I have only a limited number of ways to influence it, none of which are guaranteed to work. I still want to keep tabs on reality, though. Just in case it tries to do anything sneaky. It makes me feel like I’m contributing. The illusion of control makes the helplessness seem more palatable. And when that illusion is taken away, I panic. Because, deep down, I know how pointless and helpless I am, and it scares me. I am an animal trapped in a horrifying, lawless environment, and I have no idea what it’s going to do to me. It just DOES it to me. I cope with that the best way I know—by being completely unreasonable and trying to force everything else in the world to obey me and do all the nonsensical things I want.

One field Faraday studied was the electric field. This is not a number but a vector, which we may visualize as an arrow and which can vary its direction and length. Imagine such an arrow at each point of space. Imagine that the ends of the arrows at nearby points are attached to one another ny rubber bands. If I pull on one, it pulls on the ones nearby. The arrows are also influenced by electric charges. The effect of the influence is that the arrows will arrange themselves so that they point to nearby negative charges and away from positive charges.

To realize we love another to get love because we do not love our own self is one of our core human wounds. For each of the two parts of this prayer meditation, express out loud or silently these sentences. Let the feelings and memories come. Express the feelings intuitively, changing and adding to the sentences if it helps. You can repeat one sentence several times in a row until you feel it, or go straight into the next one. You can improvise sentences that may better fit your feelings. One may also experience spirit interference in this prayer meditation. This can manifest as voices and feelings disagreeing with it. Unless you are living as unconditional love, you can be sure these are negative spirits trying to dissuade you from traveling deeper into your own wounds to release them, thereby banishing these spirit influences forever. Do each part for one hour. This meditation prayer can be about two hours long. Center yourself and drop into a prayerful, silent heartful space. Ask to become vulnerable and open your heart. Part One: I am not loved I am not loved I am not loved I have never been loved My parents did not love me I need love I need love I need love Please love me My quest for love has never worked My quest for love will never work Nobody really loves me Nobody really loved me How do you feel? Part Two: I am love I am love I am love God loves me God loves me God loves me God desires me God desires me God desires me I am love I am love I am love (from your heart) I am not loved I have never been loved I am not loved I am not LOVED I am just not loved No one has ever loved me No one loves me I am not loved I am not loved I do not love myself I do not love myself I do not love myself I am loved I am loved I am loved I am LOVED God is not here for me God has never been here for me God is not here for me God has left me I am not loved I have never been loved No one loves me God loves me God LOVES me God wants me God wants me God LOVES me God WANTS me God desires me I don’t want God I don’t want God I don’t want God I want fear I want fear I want fear I AM LOVED I AM LOVED I AM LOVED God wants me God desires me God loves me What does this make you feel? The experience of love and need in co-dependent relationships In such a relationship, one or both partners cover each others emotions by giving false comfort, false ‘love’ and other placating behaviors that prevent the other in deeply feeling and owning their own emotions. When you want to get out of this pattern, this prayer meditation will help. It will let both partners feel the truth of the unspoken demand of love and how they respond to it. Simply sit in front of your partner and express out loud these sentences as a way to reveal the unconscious behavior that is being played out between you both.

The mother is downloading emotion programs into the infant’s right brain. The child is using the output of the mother’s right hemisphere as a template for the imprinting, the hardwiring, of circuits in his own right hemisphere.”2 You’re even determining the size of his hippocampi3 (more development confers better learning, stress management, and mental health), anterior cingulate (emotional regulation), and amygdala (emotional reactivity). This early brain wiring influences happiness levels and mood later in life, because better wiring means a better ability to connect with others, regulate positive or negative emotions, and soothe ourselves.

There are well established and easily understood historical reasons why every legitimate influence should be brought to bear on the removal of this roadblock from the pathway of normal human advancement. This must be done for the sake of the Homo-Marxian as well as the rest of humanity. He is the victim of a man-made experiment, trapped in his own self-perpetuating cycle of human negation. As long as free men are the prevailing majority in the earth there is a very good chance of breaking this cycle. To do so, however, free men must achieve an intelligent and dynamic solidarity at least as strong as the illusory but firmly fixed purposes of Homo-Marxian.

Women of the world, our time has come! Our leaders have taken us down a road of destruction. Aggressive, masculine reflexes have created more violence and rage, have left us with little hope for remedy in the Middle East or anywhere else. Our hope of survival lies in honoring the feminine, that which a patriarchal society has tried vehemently to squelch. Their legacy has left us living in a deluded universe, a world that worships a fixed and righteous view. In order to feel secure, we only welcome change that men in power determine for us. Our patriarchal religions are prime examples of this, creating a one-sided world gone from static, brittle believes. Let us remember that patriarchy is founded on division not unity. We concentrate on the differences instead of giving importance to the similarities. There is good and bad, there is black and white. We are constantly in a state of opposites. Where does unity come into the picture? It is no wonder women have been seen as evil, an abhorrent influence that must be destroyed. Intuition, psychic energy, spiritual force, the unknown, creation itself…merely feminine mockeries of sanity—or so it has been claimed by religious men in power. Women have died at the stake for challenging such beliefs, and to this day dogmatic religious views have persisted in undermining the feminine. Therefore it is up to us to develop a balance between the feminine and the masculine. That’s the formula for a stable democracy. Wisdom and compassion working together will swing the pendulum away from aggression and fear toward peace and conciliation. I’ll venture to say it’s already begun. We have reached a critical mass. Now the energy of woman is being powerfully unleashed. Negative powers have reached levels where enough of us are reacting against them to instigate change. The critical mass that we have reached cannot be turned back, and the force of it will literally shift the energy of our planet, creating a new paradigm.

The failure of the fight with the father-dragon, the overwhelming force of spirit, leads to patriarchal castration, inflation, loss of the body in the ecstasy of ascension, and so to a world-negating mysticism. This phenomenon is particularly evident in Gnosticism and Gnostic Christianity. The infiltration of Iranian and Manichaean influences strengthens the martial component in the hero, but because he is still a Gnostic at heart, he remains hostile to the world, the body, materiality, and woman. Although there are certain elements in Gnosis that strive for a synthesis of oppo-sites, these always fly apart in the end; the heavenly side of man triumphs and the earthly is sacrificed.

[There is] a widespread approach to ideas which Objectivism repudiates altogether: agnosticism. I mean this term in a sense which applies to the question of God, but to many other issues also, such as extra-sensory perception or the claim that the stars influence man’s destiny. In regard to all such claims, the agnostic is the type who says, “I can’t prove these claims are true, but you can’t prove they are false, so the only proper conclusion is: I don’t know; no one knows; no one can know one way or the other.” The agnostic viewpoint poses as fair, impartial, and balanced. See how many fallacies you can find in it. Here are a few obvious ones: First, the agnostic allows the arbitrary into the realm of human cognition. He treats arbitrary claims as ideas proper to consider, discuss, evaluate—and then he regretfully says, “I don’t know,” instead of dismissing the arbitrary out of hand. Second, the onus-of-proof issue: the agnostic demands proof of a negative in a context where there is no evidence for the positive. “It’s up to you,” he says, “to prove that the fourth moon of Jupiter did not cause your sex life and that it was not a result of your previous incarnation as the Pharaoh of Egypt.” Third, the agnostic says, “Maybe these things will one day be proved.” In other words, he asserts possibilities or hypotheses with no jot of evidential basis. The agnostic miscalculates. He thinks he is avoiding any position that will antagonize anybody. In fact, he is taking a position which is much more irrational than that of a man who takes a definite but mistaken stand on a given issue, because the agnostic treats arbitrary claims as meriting cognitive consideration and epistemological respect. He treats the arbitrary as on a par with the rational and evidentially supported. So he is the ultimate epistemological egalitarian: he equates the groundless and the proved. As such, he is an epistemological destroyer. The agnostic thinks that he is not taking any stand at all and therefore that he is safe, secure, invulnerable to attack. The fact is that his view is one of the falsest—and most cowardly—stands there can be.

control our lives and to powerfully influence our circumstances by working on be, on what we are. If I have a problem in my marriage, what do I really gain by continually confessing my wife’s sins? By saying I’m not responsible, I make myself a powerless victim; I immobilize myself in a negative situation. I also diminish my ability to influence her—my nagging, accusing, critical attitude only makes her feel validated in her own weakness. My criticism is worse than the conduct I want to correct. My ability to positively impact the situation withers and dies. If I really want to improve my situation, I can work on the one thing over which I have control—myself. I can stop trying to shape up my wife and work on my own weaknesses. I can focus on being a great marriage partner, a source of unconditional love and support. Hopefully, my wife will feel the power of proactive example and respond in kind. But whether she does or doesn’t, the most positive way I can influence my situation is to work on myself, on my being. There are so many ways to work in the Circle of Influence—to be a better listener, to be a more loving marriage partner, to be a better student, to be a more cooperative and dedicated employee. Sometimes the most proactive thing we can do is to be happy, just to genuinely smile. Happiness, like unhappiness, is a proactive choice. There are things, like the weather, that our Circle of Influence will never include. But as proactive people, we can carry our own physical or social weather with us. We

Freud eventually developed his theory of transference, one that would play a key role in his method of treating emotional disorders and that still today gives us some insight into how we choose both our friends and the person we marry. Feelings in relationships as we now understand them run on a double track. We react and relate to another person not only on the basis of how we consciously experience that person, but also on the basis of our unconscious experience in reference to our past relationships with significant people in infancy and childhood—particularly parents and other family members. We tend to displace our feelings and attitudes from these past figures onto people in the present, especially if someone has features similar to a person in the past. An individual may, therefore, evoke intense feelings in us—strong attraction or strong aversion—totally inappropriate to our knowledge of or experience with that person. This process may, to varying degrees, influence our choice of a friend, roommate, spouse, or employer. We all have the experience of seeing someone we have never met who evokes in us strong feelings. According to the theory of transference, this occurs because something about that person—the gait, the tilt of the head, a laugh, or some other feature—recalls a significant figure in our early childhood. Sometimes a spouse or a superior we work under will provoke in us a reaction far more intense than the circumstances warrant. A gesture or tone of voice may reactivate early negative feelings we experienced toward an important childhood figure. *

A woman by the name of Terry Cole-Whittaker wrote an incredible book entitled What You Think of Me is None of My Business. This title bears remembering and repeating every day because, regardless of the goals, intentions, and dreams you aspire to, there will always be someone to shower you with negativity. They might tell you that it can't be done, that you'll never achieve it, or that you lack the ability or intelligence. They might even laugh at you because of your optimism. Regardless of the person, if you run with a crowd that doesn't support your goals and intentions, you might want to get away from them as soon as possible. Their presence in your life will kill your attitude, smother your energy, and snuff out your dreams. If you can't get away from them, before you allow them affect you, keep in mind that the influence and power they have over you is what you allow it to be.

Self-Confidence Formula First. I know that I have the ability to achieve the object of my Definite Purpose in life, therefore, I DEMAND of myself persistent, continuous action toward its attainment, and I here and now promise to render such action. Second. I realize the dominating thoughts of my mind will eventually reproduce themselves in outward, physical action, and gradually transform themselves into physical reality, therefore, I will concentrate my thoughts for thirty minutes daily, upon the task of thinking of the person I intend to become, thereby creating in my mind a clear mental picture of that person. Third. I know through the principle of auto-suggestion, any desire that I persistently hold in my mind will eventually seek expression through some practical means of attaining the object back of it, therefore, I will devote ten minutes daily to demanding of myself the development of SELF-CONFIDENCE. Fourth. I have clearly written down a description of my DEFINITE CHIEF AIM in life, and I will never stop trying, until I shall have developed sufficient self-confidence for its attainment. Fifth. I fully realize that no wealth or position can long endure, unless built upon truth and justice, therefore, I will engage in no transaction which does not benefit all whom it affects. I will succeed by attracting to myself the forces I wish to use, and the cooperation of other people. I will induce others to serve me, because of my willingness to serve others. I will eliminate hatred, envy, jealousy, selfishness, and cynicism, by developing love for all humanity, because I know that a negative attitude toward others can never bring me success. I will cause others to believe in me, because I will believe in them, and in myself. I will sign my name to this formula, commit it to memory, and repeat it aloud once a day, with full FAITH that it will gradually influence my THOUGHTS and ACTIONS so that I will become a self-reliant, and successful person.

You have no idea where Anne’s office is?” I asked, grouchy and beyond footsore, seriously envying Jack’s completely healed feet. We’d already been here for an hour and had nothing to show for it other than a few close calls with security patrols. I’d figured since I couldn’t check every room for Raquel, searching Anne-Whatever Whatever’s office for records was my next best bet. “Surprisingly enough, I do not make a habit of concerning myself with the locations of offices of people I neither know nor care anything for.” “I thought you had some big vendetta against IPCA for controlling you.” “Have you seen anyone who ever once used my name against me? Present company excepted.” I frowned, checking around a corner to a hall that was, as usual, empty. This was so much less exciting than I had been afraid it would be. Reth walked calmly forward, never pausing, never frantically checking over his shoulder. I wondered what he did to those poor suckers who had trapped him with his true name. I almost asked, but honestly, I didn’t really want to know. “Wait—you didn’t do anything to Raquel.” I inwardly cringed. Raquel had used his name against him, and there I went reminding him. “Hmm. An uncharacteristic oversight.” I snorted. “Yeah, mister always has a plan, you’re constantly missing details.” I shouldn’t push the issue lest I convince him that he still had some vengeance waiting, but I couldn’t help it. It was so unlike him. He waved an elegant hand through the air as though brushing off my observation. “Some things are beneath my attention.” “Liar.” He stopped short, and I walked a few paces before realizing he wasn’t beside me anymore. I turned and found myself sucked into his golden gaze. “You are quite blind sometimes, my love.” “What do you mean by that?” I snapped. Then my jaw dropped as he actually rolled his perfect, gigantic-bordering-on-anime golden eyes. That was so not a faerie gesture. “You just rolled your eyes!” “It would appear you are a negative influence after all.

1. Each husband’s section opens with an illustrative moniker (for example, “Poor Ernie Diaz,” “Goddamn Don Adler,” “Agreeable Robert Jamison”). Discuss the meaning and significance of some of these descriptions. How do they set the tone for the section that follows? Did you read these characterizations as coming from Evelyn, Monique, an omniscient narrator, or someone else? 2. Of the seven husbands, who was your favorite, and why? Who surprised you the most? 3. Monique notes that hearing Evelyn Hugo’s life story has inspired her to carry herself differently than she would have before. In what ways does Monique grow over the course of the novel? Discuss whether Evelyn also changes by the end of her time with Monique, and if so, what spurs this evolution. 4. On page 147, Monique says, "I have to 'Evelyn Hugo' Evelyn Hugo." What does it mean to "Evelyn Hugo"? Can you think of a time when you might be tempted to "Evelyn Hugo"? 5. Did you trust Evelyn to be a reliable narrator as you were reading? Why, or why not? Did your opinion on this change at all by the conclusion, and if so, why? 6. What role do the news, tabloid, and blog articles interspersed throughout the book serve in the narrative? What, if anything, do we learn about Evelyn’s relationship to the outside world from them? 7. At several points in the novel, such as pages 82–83 and 175–82, Evelyn tells her story through the second person, “you.” How does this kind of narration affect the reading experience? Why do you think she chooses these memories to recount in this way? 8. How do you think Evelyn’s understanding and awareness of sexuality were shaped by her relationship with Billy—the boy who works at the five-and-dime store? How does her sensibility evolve from this initial encounter? As she grows older, to what extent is Evelyn’s attitude toward sex is influenced by those around her? 9. On page 54, Evelyn uses the saying “all’s well that ends well” as part of her explanation for not regretting her actions. Do you think Evelyn truly believes this? Using examples from later in her life, discuss why or why not. How do you think this idea relates to the similar but more negatively associated phrase “the ends justify the means”?

From another corner of neuroscience, we’re learning about a neurotransmitter called dopamine. Though there are more than fifty neurotransmitters (that we know of), scientists studying substance problems have given dopamine much of their attention. The brain’s reward system and pleasure centers—the areas most impacted by substance use and compulsive behaviors—have a high concentration of dopamine. Some brains have more of it than others, and some people have a capacity to enjoy a range of experiences more than others, owing to a combination of genetics and environment. The thing about dopamine is that it makes us feel really good. We tend to want more of it. It is naturally generated through ordinary, pleasurable activities like eating and sex, and it is the brain’s way of rewarding us—or nature’s way of rewarding the brain—for activities necessary to our survival, individually or as a species. It is the “mechanism by which ‘instinct’ is manifest.” Our brains arrange for dopamine levels to rise in anticipation and spike during a pleasurable activity to make sure we do it again. It helps focus our attention on all the cues that contributed to our exposure to whatever felt good (these eventually become triggers to use, as we explain later). Drugs and alcohol (and certain behaviors) turn on a gushing fire hose of dopamine in the brain, and we feel good, even euphoric. Dopamine produced by these artificial means, however, throws our pleasure and reward systems out of whack immediately. Flooding the brain repeatedly with dopamine has long-term effects and creates what’s known as tolerance—when we lose our ability to produce or absorb our own dopamine and need more and more of it artificially just to feel okay. Specifically, the brain compensates for the flood of dopamine by decreasing its own production of it or by desensitizing itself to the neurotransmitter by reducing the number of dopamine receptors, or both. The brain is just trying to keep a balance. The problem with the brain’s reduction in natural dopamine production is that when you take the substance or behavior out of the picture, there’s not enough dopamine in the brain to make you feel good. Without enough dopamine, there is no interest or pleasure. Then not only does the brain lose the pleasure associated with using, it might not be able to enjoy a sunset or a back rub, either. A lowered level of dopamine, combined with people’s longing for the rush of dopamine they got from using substances, contributes to “craving” states. Cravings are a physiological process associated with the brain’s struggle to regain its normal dopamine balance, and they can influence a decision to keep using a substance even when a person is experiencing negative consequences that matter to him and a strong desire to change. Depending on the length of time and quantities a person has been using, these craving states can be quite uncomfortable and compelling. The dopamine system can and does recover, starting as soon as we stop flooding it. But it takes time, and in the time between shutting off the artificial supply of dopamine and the brain’s rebuilding its natural resources, people tend to feel worse (before they feel better). On a deep, instinctual level, their brains are telling them that by stopping using, something is missing; something is wrong. This is a huge factor in relapse, despite good intentions and effort to change. Knowing this can help you and your loved one make it across this gap in brain reward systems.

A penny for your thoughts? Many of us devalue the power of our thoughts. We fail to fully comprehend that our thoughts are highly influential things that have the power to shape our very lives. Our greatest and smallest achievements all begin with a simple thought. A thought can shape our minds, our emotions, our bodies and ultimately our circumstances. Our thoughts have a huge bearing on our health, our relationships, our spiritual well being, right along with our successes and failures. Our thoughts are valuable commodities that have spiritual influences that attract blessings as well as misfortune. As “mystical” as it may sound, the old adage “What we think about…We bring about!” is absolutely true. Negative thoughts spawn negative results, positive thoughts spawn positive results. Again, God’s Word gives us perfect advice on how we should think. Philippians 4:8 says “Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things.” If we do I promise you…there will be no currency, on this earth, great enough to purchase our thoughts. ~Jason Versey

An example can clarify this point. Suppose in our childhood we had role models who demeaned or ridiculed us rather than teaching us how to live and how to flourish. Such an experience will undoubtedly influence the development of our character. Self-inhibiting thought patterns and negative emotions such as hate, anger, and anxiety are likely to shape who we become. But these negative thought patterns and maladaptive emotions are not hermetically sealed off in the mind. Our thoughts lead to action, or abstention of action, and action is a bodily phenomenon. Emotions are felt in the mind but they also have a somatic form of expression and this expression influences the structure of our body. The baggage of our youth will not just weigh us down psychologically, but it can also weigh us down physically and inhibit the functioning of our body, or as Lowen explains: “If a person has a strong and secure sense of himself, he will naturally stand erect. If he is frightened, he will tend to cower. If he is sad or depressed, his body will droop. If he is trying to deny or compensate for inner feelings of insecurity, he will stand like a martinet, and his posture will be unnaturally rigid. Alexander Lowen, The Spirituality of the Body

The purely philosophical influences on Plato were also such as to pre-dispose him in favour of Sparta. These influences, speaking broadly, were: Pythagoras, Parmenides, Heraclitus, and Socrates. From Pythagoras (whether by way of Socrates or not) Plato derived the Orphic elements in his philosophy: the religious trend, the belief in immortality, the other-worldliness, the priestly tone, and all that is involved in the simile of the cave; also his respect for mathematics, and his intimate intermingling of intellect and mysticism. From Parmenides he derived the belief that reality is eternal and timeless, and that, on logical grounds, all change must be illusory. From Heraclitus he derived the negative doctrine that there is nothing permanent in the sensible world. This, combined with the doctrine of Parmenides, led to the conclusion that knowledge is not to be derived from the senses, but is only to be achieved by the intellect. This, in turn, fitted in well with Pythagoreanism. From Socrates he probably learnt his preoccupation with ethical problems, and his tendency to seek teleological rather than mechanical explanations of the world. 'The Good' dominated his thought more than that of the pre-Socratics, and it is difficult not to attribute this fact to the influence of Socrates.

Let us pause for a moment and consider the structure of the atom as we know it now. Every atom is made from three kinds of elementary particles: protons, which have a positive electrical charge; electrons, which have a negative electrical charge; and neutrons, which have no charge. Protons and neutrons are packed into the nucleus, while electrons spin around outside. The number of protons is what gives an atom its chemical identity. An atom with one proton is an atom of hydrogen, one with two protons is helium, with three protons is lithium, and so on up the scale. Each time you add a proton you get a new element. (Because the number of protons in an atom is always balanced by an equal number of electrons, you will sometimes see it written that it is the number of electrons that defines an element; it comes to the same thing. The way it was explained to me is that protons give an atom its identity, electrons its personality.) Neutrons don't influence an atom's identity, but they do add to its mass. The number of neutrons is generally about the same as the number of protons, but they can vary up and down slightly. Add a neutron or two and you get an isotope. The terms you hear in reference to dating techniques in archeology refer to isotopes—carbon-14, for instance, which is an atom of carbon with six protons and eight neutrons (the fourteen being the sum of the two). Neutrons and protons occupy the atom's nucleus. The nucleus of an atom is tiny—only one millionth of a billionth of the full volume of the atom—but fantastically dense, since it contains virtually all the atom's mass. As Cropper has put it, if an atom were expanded to the size of a cathedral, the nucleus would be only about the size of a fly—but a fly many thousands of times heavier than the cathedral. It was this spaciousness—this resounding, unexpected roominess—that had Rutherford scratching his head in 1910. It is still a fairly astounding notion to consider that atoms are mostly empty space, and that the solidity we experience all around us is an illusion. When two objects come together in the real world—billiard balls are most often used for illustration—they don't actually strike each other. “Rather,” as Timothy Ferris explains, “the negatively charged fields of the two balls repel each other . . . were it not for their electrical charges they could, like galaxies, pass right through each other unscathed.” When you sit in a chair, you are not actually sitting there, but levitating above it at a height of one angstrom (a hundred millionth of a centimeter), your electrons and its electrons implacably opposed to any closer intimacy.

Red: Maintaining health, bodily strength, physical energy, sex, passion, courage, protection, and defensive magic. This is the color of the element of fire. Throughout the world, red is associated with life and death, for this is the color of blood spilled in both childbirth and injury. Pink: Love, friendship, compassion, relaxation. Pink candles can be burned during rituals designed to improve self-love. They’re ideal for weddings and for all forms of emotional union. Orange: Attraction, energy. Burn to attract specific influences or objects. Yellow: Intellect, confidence, divination, communication, eloquence, travel, movement. Yellow is the color of the element of air. Burn yellow candles during rituals designed to heighten your visualization abilities. Before studying for any purpose, program a yellow candle to stimulate your conscious mind. Light the candle and let it burn while you study. Green: Money, prosperity, employment, fertility, healing, growth. Green is the color of the element of earth. It’s also the color of the fertility of the earth, for it echoes the tint of chlorophyll. Burn when looking for a job or seeking a needed raise. Blue: Healing, peace, psychism, patience, happiness. Blue is the color of the element of water. This is also the realm of the ocean and of all water, of sleep, and of twilight. If you have trouble sleeping, charge a small blue candle with a visualization of yourself sleeping through the night. Burn for a few moments before you get into bed, then extinguish its flame. Blue candles can also be charged and burned to awaken the psychic mind. Purple: Power, healing severe diseases, spirituality, meditation, religion. Purple candles can be burned to enhance all spiritual activities, to increase your magical power, and as a part of intense healing rituals in combination with blue candles. White: Protection, purification, all purposes. White contains all colors. It’s linked with the moon. White candles are specifically burned during purification and protection rituals. If you’re to keep but one candle on hand for magical purposes, choose a white one. Before use, charge it with personal power and it’ll work for all positive purposes. Black: Banishing negativity, absorbing negativity. Black is the absence of color. In magic, it’s also representative of outer space. Despite what you may have heard, black candles are burned for positive purposes, such as casting out baneful energies or to absorb illnesses and nasty habits. Brown: Burned for spells involving animals, usually in combination with other colors. A brown candle and a red candle for animal protection, brown and blue for healing, and so on.

We remark, first, that in all ages, and especially in primitive philosophy, words such as being, essence, unity, good, have exerted an extraordinary influence over the minds of men. The meagreness or negativeness of their content has been in an inverse ratio to their power. They have become the forms under which all things were comprehended. There was a need or instinct in the human soul which they satisfied; they were not ideas, but gods, and to this new mythology the men of a later generation began to attach the powers and associations of the elder deities. The idea of good is one of those sacred words or forms of thought, which were beginning to take the place of the old mythology. It meant unity, in which all time and all existence were gathered up. It was the truth of all things, and also the light in which they shone forth, and became evident to intelligences human and divine. It was the cause of all things, the power by which they were brought into being. It was the universal reason divested of a human personality. It was the life as well as the light of the world, all knowledge and all power were comprehended in it. The way to it was through the mathematical sciences, and these too were dependent on it. To ask whether God was the maker of it, or made by it, would be like asking whether God could be conceived apart from goodness, or goodness apart from God.

Dear PrettyKitty29, Hi, my name is Liam Brody. From the looks of your charming website, you've heard of me. Believe it or not, I've heard of you too. I was recently tipped off about your little gossip community. I probably shouldn't call it little. You are one of the busiest gossip communities on the Internet. Congratulations. I'm always impressed with people who manage to stay indoors so much. You must have a sufficient amount of Vitamin D. I noticed that you seem to have an odd and probably unwarranted agenda against me. Almost every bitter post about me is put up by lovely you. I also noticed that your hatred has spread successfully among your users. Wow. What an influence you have on gossip hungry teens and housewives. Again, congratulations. I apologize for dating models, PrettyKitty29. I just think they're more attractive than other people. Some people steal, some people do drugs, some people sell them. I date models. It could probably be worse. I could be someone who makes bribes. Speaking of those, I was emailing you to let you know that despite the sarcasm throughout this email, I find your strangely influential website interesting and am willing to make a substantial payment to you if you stop posting negative stories and put a few nice ones instead. I don't know what a gossip community moderator gets paid, but I'm sure that regardless, you could use a few extra bucks. It would pay for food delivery, movies On Demand, and other indoor pleasures that I'm sure you partake in. Please let me know. Best, Liam Brody.

Still others assert that they have grown enormously as a result of their traumatic experience, discovering a maturity and strength of character that they didn’t know they had—for example, reporting having found “a growth and a freedom to…give fuller expression to my feelings or to assert myself.” A new and more positive perspective is a common theme among those enduring traumas or loss, a renewed appreciation of the preciousness of life and a sense that one must live more fully in the present. For example, one bereaved person rediscovered that “having your health and living life to the fullest is a real blessing. I appreciate my family, friends, nature, life in general. I see a goodness in people.”12 A woman survivor of a traumatic plane crash described her experience afterward: “When I got home, the sky was brighter. I paid attention to the texture of sidewalks. It was like being in a movie.”13 Construing benefit in negative events can influence your physical health as well as your happiness, a remarkable demonstration of the power of mind over body. For example, in one study researchers interviewed men who had had heart attacks between the ages of thirty and sixty.14 Those who perceived benefits in the event seven weeks after it happened—for example, believing that they had grown and matured as a result, or revalued home life, or resolved to create less hectic schedules for themselves—were less likely to have recurrences and more likely to be healthy eight years later. In contrast, those who blamed their heart attacks on other people or on their own emotions (e.g., having been too stressed) were now in poorer health.

Interactions with the world program our physiological and psychological development. Emotional contact is as important as physical contact. The two are quite analogous, as we recognize when we speak of the emotional experience of feeling touched. Our sensory organs and brains provide the interface through which relationships shape our evolution from infancy to adulthood. Social-emotional interactions decisively influence the development of the human brain. From the moment of birth, they regulate the tone, activity and development of the psychoneuroimmunoendocrine (PNI) super-system. Our characteristic modes of handling psychic and physical stress are set in our earliest years. Neuroscientists at Harvard University studied the cortisol levels of orphans who were raised in the dreadfully neglected child-care institutions established in Romania during the Ceausescu regime. In these facilities the caregiver/child ratio was one to twenty. Except for the rudiments of care, the children were seldom physically picked up or touched. They displayed the self-hugging motions and depressed demeanour typical of abandoned young, human or primate. On saliva tests, their cortisol levels were abnormal, indicating that their hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axes were already impaired. As we have seen, disruptions of the HPA axis have been noted in autoimmune disease, cancer and other conditions. It is intuitively easy to understand why abuse, trauma or extreme neglect in childhood would have negative consequences. But why do many people develop stress-related illness without having been abused or traumatized? These persons suffer not because something negative was inflicted on them but because something positive was withheld.

1. I know that I have the ability to achieve the object of my Definite Purpose in life. Therefore I demand of myself persistent, continuous action towards its attainment, and I here and now promise to take such action. 2. I realise the dominating thoughts of my mind will eventually reproduce themselves in outward, physical action and gradually transform themselves into physical reality. Therefore I will concentrate my thoughts for 30 minutes daily upon the task of thinking of the person I intend to become, thereby creating in my mind a clear mental picture of that person. 3. I know through the principle of autosuggestion that any desire I persistently hold in my mind will eventually seek expression through some practical means of attaining the object. Therefore I will devote 10 minutes daily to demanding of myself the development of self-confidence . 4. I have clearly written down a description of my Definite Chief Aim in life. I will never stop trying until I have developed sufficient self-confidence for its attainment. 5. I fully realise that no wealth or position can long endure unless built upon truth and justice. Therefore I will engage in no transaction that does not benefit all whom it affects. I will succeed by attracting to myself the forces I wish to use, and the cooperation of other people. I will induce others to serve me because of my willingness to serve others. I will eliminate hatred, envy, jealousy, selfishness and cynicism by developing love for all humanity because I know that a negative attitude towards others can never bring me success. I will cause others to believe in me, because I will believe in them, and in myself. I will sign my name to this formula, commit it to memory and repeat it aloud once a day, with full faith that it will gradually influence my thoughts and actions so that I will become a self-reliant and successful person.

The imperialist found it useful to incorporate the credible and seemingly unimpeachable wisdom of science to create a racial classification to be used in the appropriation and organization of lesser cultures. The works of Carolus Linnaeus, Georges Buffon, and Georges Cuvier, organized races in terms of a civilized us and a paradigmatic other. The other was uncivilized, barbaric, and wholly lower than the advanced races of Europe. This paradigm of imaginatively constructing a world predicated upon race was grounded in science, and expressed as philosophical axioms by John Locke and David Hume, offered compelling justification that Europe always ought to rule non-Europeans. This doctrine of cultural superiority had a direct bearing on Zionist practice and vision in Palestine. A civilized man, it was believed, could cultivate the land because it meant something to him; on it, accordingly, he produced useful arts and crafts, he created, he accomplished, he built. For uncivilized people, land was either farmed badly or it was left to rot. This was imperialism as theory and colonialism was the practice of changing the uselessly unoccupied territories of the world into useful new versions of Europe. It was this epistemic framework that shaped and informed Zionist attitudes towards the Arab Palestinian natives. This is the intellectual background that Zionism emerged from. Zionism saw Palestine through the same prism as the European did, as an empty territory paradoxically filled with ignoble or, better yet, dispensable natives. It allied itself, as Chaim Weizmann said, with the imperial powers in carrying out its plans for establishing a Jewish state in Palestine. The so-called natives did not take well to the idea of Jewish colonizers in Palestine. As the Zionist historians, Yehoshua Porath and Neville Mandel, have empirically shown, the ideas of Jewish colonizers in Palestine, this was well before World War I, were always met with resistance, not because the natives thought Jews were evil, but because most natives do not take kindly to having their territory settled by foreigners. Zionism not only accepted the unflattering and generic concepts of European culture, it also banked on the fact that Palestine was actually populated not by an advanced civilization, but by a backward people, over which it ought to be dominated. Zionism, therefore, developed with a unique consciousness of itself, but with little or nothing left over for the unfortunate natives. In fact, I would go so far as to say that if Palestine had been occupied by one of the well-established industrialized nations that ruled the world, then the problem of displacing German, French, or English inhabitants and introducing a new, nationally coherent element into the middle of their homeland would have been in the forefront of the consciousness of even the most ignorant and destitute Zionists. In short, all the constitutive energies of Zionism were premised on the excluded presence, that is, the functional absence of native people in Palestine; institutions were built deliberately shutting out the natives, laws were drafted when Israel came into being that made sure the natives would remain in their non-place, Jews in theirs, and so on. It is no wonder that today the one issue that electrifies Israel as a society is the problem of the Palestinians, whose negation is the consistent thread running through Zionism. And it is this perhaps unfortunate aspect of Zionism that ties it ineluctably to imperialism- at least so far as the Palestinian is concerned. In conclusion, I cannot affirm that Zionism is colonialism, but I can tell you the process by which Zionism flourished; the dialectic under which it became a reality was heavily influenced by the imperialist mindset of Europe. Thank you. -Fictional debate between Edward Said and Abba Eban.

So, instead of venting hurt pride, he preferred to speak in a way that would be of some profit for me. “There is no such thing,” he said, “as a man, however clever he may be, who has never at some time in his youth uttered words, or even led a life, that he would not prefer to see expunged from memory. He should not find this absolutely a matter for regret, as he cannot be sure he would ever have become as wise as he is, if indeed getting wisdom is a possibility for any of us, had he not traversed all the silly or detestable incarnations that are bound to precede that final one. I know there are young men, sons and grandsons of distinguished men, whose tutors, since their earliest high-school years, have taught them every nobility of soul and excellent precept of morality. The lives of such men may contain nothing they would wish to abolish; they may be happy to endorse every word they have ever uttered. But they are the poor in spirit, the effete descendants of doctrinarians, whose only wisdoms are negative and sterile. Wisdom cannot be inherited—one must discover it for oneself, but only after following a course that no one can follow in our stead; no one can spare us that experience, for wisdom is only a point of view on things. The lives of men you admire, attitudes you think are noble, haven’t been laid down by their fathers or their tutors—they were preceded by very different beginnings, and were influenced by whatever surrounded them, whether it was good, bad, or indifferent. Each of them is the outcome of a struggle, each of them is a victory. I can understand that the image of what we were in an earlier time might be unrecognizable and always irksome to behold. It should not be rejected for all that, as it is testimony to the fact that we have lived, that, in accordance with the laws of life and the spirit, we have managed to derive, from the common constituents of life, from the life of the studio and artists’ cliques, if we’re talking of painters, something that surpasses them.”91

First: I know that I have the ability to achieve the object of my definite purpose, therefore I demand of myself persistent, aggressive and continuous action toward its attainment. Second: I realize that the dominating thoughts of my mind eventually reproduce themselves in outward, bodily action, and gradually transform themselves into physical reality, therefore I will concentrate My mind for thirty minutes daily upon the task of thinking of the person I intend to be, by creating a mental picture of this person and then transforming that picture into reality through practical service. Third: I know that through the principle of Autosuggestion, any desire that I persistently hold in my mind will eventually seek expression through some practical means of realizing it, therefore I shall devote ten minutes daily to demanding of myself the development of the factors named in the sixteen lessons of this Reading Course on the Law of Success. Fourth: I have clearly mapped out and written down a description of my definite purpose in life, for the coming five years. I have set a price on my services for each of these five years; a price that I intend to earn and receive, through strict application of the principle of efficient, satisfactory service which I will render in advance. Fifth: I fully realize that no wealth or position can long endure unless built upon truth and justice, therefore I will engage in no transaction which does not benefit all whom it affects. I will succeed by attracting to me the forces I wish to use, and the co-operation of other people. I will induce others to serve me because I will first serve them. I will eliminate hatred, envy, jealousy, selfishness and cynicism by developing love for all humanity, because I know that a negative attitude toward others can never bring me success. I will cause others to believe in me because I will believe in them and in myself. I will sign my name to this formula, commit it to memory and repeat it aloud once a day with full faith that it will gradually influence my entire life so that I will become a successful and happy worker in my chosen field of endeavor.

Self-Confidence Formula First. I know that I have the ability to achieve the object of my Definite Purpose in life; therefore, I DEMAND of myself persistent, continuous action toward its attainment, and I here and now promise to render such action. Second. I realize that the dominating thoughts of my mind will eventually reproduce themselves in outward, physical action, and gradually transform themselves into physical reality; therefore, I will concentrate my thoughts for 30 minutes daily upon the task of thinking of the person I intend to become, thereby creating in my mind a clear mental picture of that person. Third. I know that through the principle of autosuggestion any desire that I persistently hold in my mind will eventually seek expression through some practical means of attaining the object back of it; therefore, I will devote ten minutes daily to demanding of myself the development of SELF-CONFIDENCE. Fourth. I have clearly written down a description of my DEFINITE CHIEF AIM in life, and I will never stop trying until I shall have developed sufficient self-confidence for its attainment.4 Fifth. I fully realize that no wealth or position can long endure unless built upon truth and justice; therefore, I will engage in no transaction that does not benefit all whom it affects. I will succeed by attracting to myself the forces I wish to use and the cooperation of other people. I will induce others to serve me because of my willingness to serve others. I will eliminate hatred, envy, jealousy, selfishness, and cynicism by developing love for all humanity—because I know that a negative attitude toward others can never bring me success. I will cause others to believe in me because I will believe in them and in myself. Sixth. I will sign my name to this formula, commit it to memory, and repeat it aloud once a day, with full FAITH that it will gradually influence my THOUGHTS and ACTIONS so that I will become a self-reliant and successful person. Back of this formula is a law of Nature which no one has yet been able to explain. It has baffled the scientists of all ages. The psychologists have named this the “Law of Autosuggestion” and let it go at that.