How to Change Your Life - A High Regard For Life

Sometimes I think we want to change our lives because we don't truly appreciate them. What would happen if we began to have a high regard for life?

A friend of mine named Judy told me a story about her mom. Her husband had recently died and she was depressed for weeks and began to proclaim that she was an agnostic.. There couldn't be a God she kept saying. She began to talk about God as the God I don't believe in. Judy said to her, what if there is a remote chance that there is a God - wouldn't it be better if you believed in it? Her mom quickly looked at her and said, It's okay for me to not believe in God; the important thing is that God believes in me...

How very true! God believes in us so much that our very LIFE is God manifesting in, as, and through us at our level of awareness. The only God we can ever know will be discovered within ourselves.

In spite of the fact that all of the great mystics have said in effect, "The Father and I are one," why do we find this idea so difficult to comprehend? They have all said that we are one with all life, one with all that God is, yet for the most part, we've been taught that there is human AND Divine, as though we were something separate and apart from Reality. There is only One Life - that Life is God's Life - That life is MY LIFE NOW --

WOW - how profound our lives truly are... How HIGHLY do we regard our lives? Do we realize how significant they really are? As human beings, we are the only LIFE form that can be aware of itself -- can be aware of our GODNESS - all of us have a profound PURPOSE in being here..

I remember back to an amazing week in 1997. Largely unnoticed amidst the outpouring of grief over the loss of Diana, Princess of Wales, and the subsequent passing of Mother Teresa of Calcutta, was the death in Vienna on September 2, of internationally renowned psychotherapist Viktor Frankel.

Frankl is probably best known to most people who have heard of him for his book, Man 's Search for Meaning, first published in 1963, in which he recounts his horrifying experiences as a prisoner at Auschwitz and other Nazi death camps.

Out of this experience, Frankl developed a revolutionary approach to treating patients called "logotherapy." Central to Frankl's theory is the idea that what enables a human being to endure, and rise above, even the worst conditions imaginable is awareness of the spiritual truth that one's life has meaning.

According to Frankl, "meaning" can be discovered in three basic ways:

"by creating a work or doing a deed;
by experiencing something or encountering someone;
and by the attitude we take toward unavoidable suffering."

Most of us probably can't imagine finding our life's purpose through suffering. In the concentration camp environment, however, there was simply no other basis for survival. Frankl notes that each morning in the camp one could tell who among the prisoners would not last the day; the prisoner wore his fate on his face. More important to survival than a prisoner's physical circumstances was his attitude.

No one survived who believed that life was not worth living.

Chances are that no one reading this has exactly experienced the Nazi camps. Yet everyone has known pain and suffering of one kind or another, at least occasionally.

If Viktor Frankel could choose to see something positive--and, indeed, discover "meaning," purpose and, ultimately, the basis for leading others to emotional well-being-in such an environment, then surely we can turn our own brand of pain into a personal growth experience. This idea is certainly a good suggestion for how to change your life.

I would like to offer a support system to help you get clear on what you REALLY want in Midlife. When you subscribe to my free newsletter, you'll receive instant access to a special report called, "7 Secrets for Reinventing Yourself from the Inside-Out". You can do that now by putting your name and email in the box you'll find at http://www.midlifemessages.com

From Dr. Toni LaMotta, Midlife Mentor

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