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As I look back on this year, I come to realize that the best moments have been when I have FALL(en). More precisely, when I have been able to Forgive, Accept, Love, and Laugh.
 - Photo – Jasmign Hormann
1. Forgiveness – in a season focused on giving gifts, forgiveness may be the most special gift you can give to anyone. It’s also the the most important gift you can give to yourself. That’s because the act of forgiveness gives you emotional freedom:
“When you hold resentment toward another, you are bound to that person or condition by an emotional link that is stronger than steel. Forgiveness is the only way to dissolve that link and get free.” – Katherine Ponder
When someone or something has upset me, I will quietly say to myself – “forgive and forget”. More often than not, the emotional link will dissolve and freedom will return.
2. Acceptance – things are changing from moment to moment in our material world. Yet, we feel great distress when something that is happening in the moment is not going our way. But we forget that it is fleeting. It is not permanent. I find the practice of acceptance opens up the beauty in the world. Instead of my mind fighting what is happening it starts to enjoy the experience. The two dimensional distinction between good and bad starts to dissolve and a richer multi-dimensional picture emerges. Gratitude and appreciation start to emerge and replace the fear and distress.
“Life is a series of natural and spontaneous changes. Don’t resist them; that only creates sorrow. Let reality be reality. Let things flow naturally forward in whatever way they like.” ― Lao Tzu
3. Love - As December 25th nears, one has to remember that the key message of Christ was to love others as you love yourself. Our society seems so far off from that at times. Our media, our politics, our economics, and our entertainment routinely reinforces the ethic of Us versus Them, Winners and Losers, The Haves and Have Nots, and The 1% vs. the 99%.
My understanding of what Jesus was saying is that we are all One, the same, and all interconnected. How and what we do to others is essentially the same as doing it to ourselves. The world then is essentially a mirror of our actions, intentions, and emotions. Love others, and love flows back to you. Hate, injure, insult, and cheat others, and that comes back to you as well. Or as another saying said, “Give What You Seek to Receive“. If we all operated on this level of universal love for all, seeing that the “other” is an illusion, how would that change the world?
“If we are the same, if we are connected, then a good way to view others is that we are co-creators in this life we’re sharing. In any situation you encounter, if you believe the others participating with you in that moment are co-creators who have come together and have the ability to collaborate and raise or lower the energy level of a situation, it can dramatically alter your approach to life.” From Think Smarter in a Digitally Enabled World: A 21st Century Life Manual for Amplifying Your Knowledge, Achieving Your Potential & Changing the World
4. Laughter – Is there a better medicine? Having a good laugh with my family cures all. I forget this from time to time as my work or any of the million serious things happening in the world takes over my psyche. Usually when I am not getting enough laughter, it is because I am not fully practicing steps 1-3 above. I vow to change that right now and it will certainly be on my list of resolutions for the new year.
“Laughter is carbonated holiness.” ― Anne Lamott
So here’s wishing that you F-A-L-L often this holiday season and well into the New Year!
By Jay Kshatri
www.ThinkSmarterWorld.com
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If you want to gain more insight into the topics in this post, please see Think Smarter in a Digitally Enabled World: A 21st Century Life Manual for Amplifying Your Knowledge, Achieving Your Potential & Changing the World. The book is about changing the world through mastering holistic systems thinking. With massive technological change and globalization affecting almost every facet of our lives, the “Killer App” in the 21st century will be the ability to Continuously Learn and leverage our capability for Proactive Thought. With the Internet, we now have instantaneous access to the world’s collective knowledge – which grows exponentially every year. Those who can access it, analyze it, make sense of it, organize it, and put it into action will deeply accelerate their personal and professional success. It will require using a new set of thinking tools, fully harnessing our digital technologies and apps, understanding how to see the systemic interconnections in our daily lives, and learning to maximize the combination of our logical left brain and our intuitive, creative, and spiritual right brain. The book gives the reader the tools, techniques, and strategies to accomplish this goal. The post The 4 Steps to F-A-L-L (ing) well this Holiday Season appeared first on Think Smarter World.
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