Daily Ramblings – Spiritual Saturday – Religious Study

Tags

Benefits, Christianity, community, emptiness, Hinduism, Islam, Judaism, mores, norms, Religion, spirituality, Values

The Global Religious Landscape

I put the link to an article that provides some data on religion today across the planet. Religions with the largest number of followers are Christianity, Islam, and Hinduism. Interestingly, 16.3% of the world’s population are not affiliated with any religion, a higher number than the number of Hindus presently.

There are many advantages to religious practice. Religion provides a community of support that individuals can depend on in times of trouble. Religions offer the ability to connect with other like-minded individuals in a social context. These organizations also offer a system of values that one can rely on when moral dilemmas arise in one’s life.

If you consider yourself non-religious, that’s ok. As the above information shows, there are many who do not affiliate with any religion. I would recommend pursuing a religious belief system if you find that your life is missing something or is empty. You can’t put your finger on the “why” of this emptiness, you just know that it exists.

If you believe you would like to try religion or explore religion as a solution to this emptiness, I would recommend learning about the various religions to figure out which one fits you the best. Learn about Hinduism, Islam, Christianity, Buddhism, and any other religion you have an interest in.

There are many books out there that can give you an idea about the basic tenets of each religion, what they believe, and how each one operates. Next, you could visit a religious institution and meet with the religious leader of that organization to discuss when they meet and so on.

If you attend the meeting, get to know people in the group that attend the meetings. Ask them why they believe what they believe. Read through the books they use. Once you have been there for a while, you can make a judgment about continuing your attendance and pursuit of this religion or decide to move on and try something else.

I’m confident you’ll find something that aligns with you. If you are still in doubt, about the benefits of having religion and spirituality in your life, do a Google search on benefits of spirituality, benefits of religion, or something along these terms. Test out what these articles claim.

If you find something, congrats! If not, keep searching. It is a worthwhile endeavor. I enjoy the religion I follow. It provides many benefits to me and my family.

I hope you have a terrific Saturday!

Until next time…

Dave

Daily Ramblings – Wisdom Wednesday – Complainers

Tags

Beliefs, Complaining, Delete, Distort, Generalize, habits, Limiting beliefs, Neural Pathways, Problems, Values

Image by Prettysleepy2 from Pixabay 

“When you are complaining, you become a living, breathing, crap magnet.” – T. Harv Eker

Have you ever worked with someone who blames others, complains constantly, and never gets anything done? They are toxic and uncomfortable to be around. What’s even more sad is that they don’t even realize what they are doing half of the time.

If you don’t think your thoughts are real, tangible things that create your destiny. Think the worst thing you can think of happening every day for the next month and find out where that thinking will take you. You see, the brain is an economist. It likes to save energy, because it consumes more energy than your body does. It conserves energy by automating everything you show it you want to do all the time. It does this by strengthening neural pathways each time they are used.

Complaining, playing the “blame game”, and all the rest, are habits. If you habitually complain, blame, and all the rest, your brain will continue to show you every reason possible that you are justified in your complaining and blaming. Your mind will delete inputs from your senses that counter this belief. Your mind will generalize inputs to reinforce the same thoughts across many areas. Your brain will alter inputs to satisfy what it already believes. Subsequently, if you believe that everyone is out to get you, things will always go wrong, and you will never get this or that, your brain will make sure you are right. Once these thoughts and beliefs are hard-wired in your brain, you are stuck with them, and your life will literally be a living hell.

The only way to salvage this situation is to take responsibility for yourself. You are 100% responsible for everything that you have in your life. You are 100% responsible for your results. You are 100% responsible for your attitude and mindset. Everything in your life as it is, is the result of your actions, your beliefs and values, your decisions, and your attitude.

If you are unhappy with your life, change your beliefs and values. Change your attitude. Take your time and make better decisions. Act differently. You have to do this. Your friends can’t. Your relatives can’t. Your husband or wife can’t. It’s all up to you. You dug the hole you’re in, you can dig your way out.

Stop looking for proof to justify your feelings. Your mind is already sabotaging you. It will find the proof, because you have hard-wired it to do so. Look at your beliefs. How can you make yourself happy? How can you make yourself calm and collected? How can you make yourself less worrisome? It all starts with your current beliefs and values. If you believe all of your problems are caused by other people (bad boss, stupid people, uncooperative support personnel), your brain will prove it to you. It will identify every weakness of the people around you and prove to you that they are all brain-dead and are out to get you. Change that belief to I have a great boss, the people I work with all want to win, and support personnel will do all they can to help me succeed in my role, and your brain will slowly but surely begin to prove that to you as well. You see how this works?

Changing your beliefs is not easy. You have built these beliefs over and over and over again. You can change them. You do this the same way you built them. You repeat a new belief you want to create over and over and over again. My boss is great. My boss isn’t perfect but wants to win like I do. My boss is there to support me. My boss takes care of me. My coworkers are friendly and supportive. My coworkers are fun to be around. Support personnel do all they can to accommodate my needs. Support personnel are nice to work with. Support personnel are just like me–they want to do their jobs well.

You can literally do this with any of your belief systems. You can rewrite them. You can feed them and stop feeding the limiting beliefs that cause you to suffer. Look for pain in your life. Look for suffering. These are both huge clues in finding your limiting beliefs. If you complain, are unhappy, and believe that everything and everyone is out to get you, these are all limiting beliefs. A negative person will find something wrong in every situation. A positive person will find something right in every situation and the people they work with. Guess who is the happier person who will continue to look for more right things in their life? You guessed right.

A positive person’s beliefs work the same way a negative person’s beliefs do. They distort, delete, or generalize all of their inputs to satisfy their belief system. Change your beliefs and you’ll change your results.

Until next time…

Dave