Marie T. Russell's Daily Inspiration

The focus for today is:  I am developing a healthy state of mind.

In common belief systems and behavior patterns, we tend to lay responsibility for our state of mind on others. However, while we may say "he pissed me off", "she upset me", "they made me so angry", ultimately, no one chooses our reaction other than us.

We can see this by observing, let's say, someone like The Dalai Lama. If someone threw rotten tomatoes at him, do you think he would start cussing out the person, and throwing stuff back at them, and stomp around all day angry and resentful saying "that person ruined my day"? While I've never met the Dalai Lama, I would venture to say rather unequivocally that he would not react that way.

So the next question is... how would we react if someone did those things to us? I would also venture to say that we would not react quite as calmly as the Dalai Lama. What's the difference? He realizes that he has a choice in how he reacts, and he chooses a reaction that keeps him in a peaceful state of mind. The good news, is that we don't have to be The Dalai Lama to make that same choice. It just takes intention, practice, and growing into making that choice a habit, bit by bit, day by day.

Today's Focus was inspired by the InnerSelf.com article:

The Dance of Divorce: Important Ingredients in Healing from Divorce
Written by Richard Carlson, Ph.D.

Read the original article...

This is Marie T. Russell, publisher of InnerSelf, wishing you a day of maintaining a healthy state of mind (today and every day)

Join me again tomorrow for the Daily Inspiration and focus of the day.

Today, we are developing a healthy state of mind.


About The Author

Marie T. Russell is the founder of InnerSelf Magazine (founded 1985). She also produced and hosted a weekly South Florida radio broadcast, Inner Power, from 1992-1995 which focused on themes such as self-esteem, personal growth, and well-being. Her articles focus on transformation and reconnecting with our own inner source of joy and creativity.

Creative Commons 3.0: This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 License. Attribute the author: Marie T. Russell, InnerSelf.com. Link back to the article: This article originally appeared on InnerSelf.com