I was in the theater watching Avatar and I thought about how we all are connected in some form. Relationships connect like forms of enery traveling the pipelines of human thought and emotion. At a point some of the energy travels right back to you based on the overwhelming amount of negative or positive energy you have put out. I used to hear about " You get what you put out" all the time. I didn't really get the point and couldn't understand how I could control it. But, the ironic thing is that you can control what comes back to you.  But it takes practice and a great deal of self awareness, most of all, it takes honesty. So am I saying, that bad things don't happen to good people? Absolutley not. I am saying, good people don't really acknowledge bad things. Let me clarify, people who are in tune with what they put out into the universe don't allow negative things to enter or cause a reaction from them. They are focused with being who they are and stay steady on the stream of positive thought conciousness. Don't get confused with the term good and bad I use it not in the context of right and wrong. But more for people who have great clarification of self-being. This exercise of giving or sharing positive thought creates harmony. For example try this exercise, walk into a room of people you dont know. Don't say anything and look angry. You will illicit, more than likely, negative responses. If you try the same exercise and look happy you will probably illicit the same response in return. This holds true with the daily walk of life "experiences". Try it.

I had to make a hard decision and go against my backward way of thinking.Reach out to people who I felt embarrassed and afraid to reach out to. I should probably address how could a backward way of thinking be good or even hard for me to realize that its wrong. Well, the answer is simple. If you condition your mind to process information in a particular manner you will react to certain external issues in a particular way. As I wrote in an earlier blog you will develop a naive theory. Which is just, a way of fooling yourself that what you think is correct is correct but in actuality is completely false or wrong. The fear of embarrassment and fear of anything can be argued good or bad. However, the fear to completely give in and overcome and not dig out the hole your in can lead to a cause and eventually an effect that can lead to turmoil, arguing, and loneliness. But the interesting thing about this is, you don't realize that these things may happen because of your decision and you become so self absorbed that you focus on your internal and have no care for your external world. Sounds terrible. It is. But we all do it. The idea is being cognisant of the effect. Once you take a step back and realize what you are causing, becomes very ugly and shameful. In fact you will want to change for a brief second and then slowly go back to the comfortable naive practice which has got you where you are today. If your like me, and want the best you to be seen. You know what you have to do. I was in a meeting yesterday and the facilitator expressed the idea that we don't take time to listen anymore. Many people tend to listen to a person for a second and then began to talk about themselves. If you take the time to observe and listen it makes a world of good and the cause and effect will bring a welcoming change to your external and internal worlds.

I thought about the phrase " If your not happy, how can you make someone else happy". I thought about, if the person who came up with this phrase is referring to, if I am unhappy I will make everyone else around me unhappy or maybe I am not showing myslef, so my true happiness never comes out. The truth for me is when I am truly happy, I am truly honest and at peace with myself about all the decisions I have made. Happiness is something that you have complete control over. As we develop from childhood to adulthood we learn to control what we allow to make us happy or not. The funny thing is we spend alot of the time trying to be happy. Which infers most of the time we are unhappy or we are strunglling to hold on to the little bit of happiness we do have. I have read a few ideas on the subject of having control over ones happiness and have concluded for myself that my actions create the flow of happiness I experience. It's about choice. But how do we get to have that control. It's an individualistic experience. For me, I had to lose alot to gain alot. Sometimes when we are pushed off the branch we fly or we scramble back to the ledge and get pushed off again, till we realize we don't belong on that branch anymore and it's time to create our own happiness.

When I was told or confronted about being wrong,I would feel a certain spine tingling sensation. This would automatically force me to put up a defense. I had to protect myself from feeling embarassed or in my head ashamed that I may not know what it is I believed I knew. In our lives we have relationships that are based on many things. For example, family, friends, professional, etc. How we let people influence our pool of personal knowledge is different from each relationship category to the next. But what should not differ is our personal wanting to learn from others. And to allow others to correct us when we are wrong. In some instances the embarassment that I felt, fueled the fire for me to be right about something. So in essence I began to find weakness in an conversation or change he subject matter that I had superior expertise in. What is paramount was to identify that because I am wrong and your right I am not less of a person. It in fact means that if I am smart I will acknowledge the lesson learn and apply it next time. We as human-beings tend to focus on what's right and wrong. And not what's important.

Naive Theory  is a concept which I was recently intorduced to by my chair. It deals with misconceptions people have in life, and how they grow up believing these misconceptions are truth and not misconceptions at all. For example in my research I discuss certain misconceptions people conclude about African Americans, in particular, our family structure. There are a few people who my have heard, read, or had a friend tell them about certain misconceptions that had no factual data to back it up. But they grew up believing these misconceptions as truth and not only treat African American according to these misconceptions in a certain way but also spread the misconception to other indviduals. Many researchers have juggled with the idea on how to stop this from happening. Possibly, changing the way people process information and learn new cognitive ways of learning. I thought about myself and experiences I have been in where I was at fault for doing this. Sometimes staying comfortably with what you think you know and not stepping outside the box is "safe". The real growth and strength comes from change and fundamental acquisition of new knowledge. The truth for many people is an obstacle and for others a certain freedom. Life give us the opportunity to learn everything we possibly can and to have an open door to obtain new insight. Have there been instances where you let misconception guide any part of your life?

I often recollect about the times in my life when I felt like I had it bad or that my the experience I was going through was the worst thing that could possibly happen to me. The idea that there is no hope and that the life we are living has too many constraints for us to avoid failure is untrue. I realize that as long a you have options life and your "bad experience" isn't really that bad at all. Sure, we have all heard that what doesn't kill you makes you stronger. But, what I am talking about is the ability to open your eyes, walk, smell and make conscious decisions. The ability to say I will or I won't. It sounds so simple but comes at bit of a cost. The cost is in fact self realization to "make yourself". In many instances we are the cause of our own sadness. I have been guilty of boxing myself in and when things don't fit into that box I get sad. I wouldn't try different methods based on being scared of the unknown. So in a sense I was my own prisoner. Have you taken your options away? Have you not looked at all the vast and great things that encompasses who you are and put too much attention on what you do not have? If so, this is deleting your options.

 Do you give back what you ask for? Recently, I have had some close friends do things that I found offensive and in my early years would have probably never talked to them again. I had to take a personal inventory of myself and realize that in many cases I have asked for my friends to be "perfect", a position as a friend, I had no intention of reciprocating. Being a friend means you take the good and the bad, the high and the lows. I would say it's similar to a marriage. It's not always perfect, but the foundation that it is built on is solid. Have you asked for perfect friendship and have not given what you asked back?

Taking Personal Inventory I have been very attracted to the phrase "personal inventory" and how to go about taking a personal inventory of myself. After, a dozen conversations with friends I have realized this is one of my least favorite life choirs to do. I apparently assume that I control my actions and they are based on decisions that I make and not actions made by other people. Not always the case. Taking personal inventory deals with many different aspects of one's life and how you go about taking personal inventory depends on how honest you are with yourself. Some of the best questions to begin taking personal inventory are:

Who are the people in my life that I learn from and invest my time in?
What are my goals?
Am I happy with my life?
Do I contribute positively to people around me?

This is just a small list of some of the questions I use to do a personal inventory.

What I have learned that truly impacts taking a personal inventory is to look at why negative and positive things may occur. For instance, we as human beings love to take credit for positive things that happen in our lives, but like to blame someone for the failures that occur. In our relationships, we tend to blame the other party for our unhappiness and discomfort. We don't see how our actions may have lead to the situation that we are currently experiencing. The perplexing thing about taking a personal inventory is you see the problem and discover your hiccups. But, how do you prevent yourself from doing the same thing over and over again? Lesson 1 The Break-UP Technique: It's not you it's me. Stop and look at why you are hurt, angry, uncomfortable and work on understanding where these feeling are truly coming from. It takes time and considerable practice, but you can see results.
Have you taken a "personal inventory"?