“Mankind has a moral duty to seek joy.“  ~Shirley MacLaine, “The Camino”

• Identify your priorities and stick to them.  Your priorities are those things that are most important to you right now.  Your priorities are your decision making tools.  If something is not on your priority list, why are you putting your energy there?
• Know what you need to do to stay “centered” (in a state of joy and enthusiasm) – make a list of things you like to do that make you feel better when you are down and do those things as often as possible.
• Live in the moment – don’t future think or past recall.  The “present” is where the miracles occur.
• Be an observer of what is going on around you as well as of yourself and your own emotions.  Self-awareness is the key to self-actualization.
• Protect your power – know what people, places, thoughts and things take your power and adjust accordingly.
• Engage in self-nurturing activities – make sure to have some kind of self time every single day (5 minutes while in the bathroom does not count!).
• Take in nature and its beauty as often as possible.  Nature has its ebbs and flows for a reason.  It follows the energy of the earth instead of working against it.  Learn from her.
• Don’t take things personally.
• Don’t make assumptions.
• Define what the holidays mean to you and the type of experience you want to have and make it so!  Live into the reality you want to create – not the one presenting itself to you.
• Allow your internal reality to drive your external reality – not the other way around.  You choose your thoughts, feelings and actions…no one else.

Never forget that this is not a dress rehearsal…this is your life.  You get one shot, so make it a good one!

Joyfully yours,

Chris

Chris Sopa is founder and owner of Chris Sopa International, Inc. You can learn more about her at www.ChrisSopa.com. Find her at Facebook.com/ChrisSopaInternational, Twitter @ChrisSopa, LinkedIn, and Google+.

Still on the Balboa Press best seller’s list:  ”Choosing the Life You Were Born to Live:  How Changing Your Thoughts Will Change Your Life” by Chris Sopa.

Click here to purchase your copy or a gift for a friend!

“I believe that everything and everyone is healed right now.  I choose to focus on this truth instead of on illusions of fear.”

Everyone has seen a magician at some point in their life.  David Copperfield is my all time favorite.  I still remember watching when he made the Statue of Liberty disappear.

Even though I do believe in magic, or some may call it miracles, I also know that the brain is an amazing organ.  With a small shift in attention and focus, an entire reality can change…making a several ton statue in the middle of one of the busiest cities in the world seem like it disappeared.  Did it really disappear or were you just distracted enough to shift your attention?

Where we place our attention is the very energy that creates the reality we see in our lives.  Do you look around and see hatred or love?  Do you see the good in people or only judge the bad?  Do you choose to focus on what can go wrong or what can possibly go right?

The way to change what we see in the world is simply with one thought at a time.  Reacting to others programmed behaviors only keeps us all in the same energy that got us here in the first place.  Be the one to shift your attention first.  Change the “illusion” and create a new reality.  If so many follow such a negative one, as we have created, imagine what would happen if someone, anyone, shifted their attention to a positive illusion?

If you are going to be living in an illusion anyway, why not choose one of healing and joy rather than fear?  Why not choose one that is your own that benefits all of mankind so we can finally come out of the darkness we have created?

No harm shall befall you, my friend, for Divine Presence attends your way and guards you into The All Good.
Loving kindness awaits you at every turn of Life’s road.
Guidance is yours along the pathway of experience,
And an Infallible Power protects you.
~Ernest Holmes, “The Science of Mind”

Living in a beautiful “illusion” of my creation,

Chris

Purchase your copy of Chris Sopa’s new book, “Choosing the Life You Were Born to Live:  How Changing Your Thoughts will Change Your Life” published by Balboa Press.

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“It makes no difference how many peaks you reach if there was no pleasure in the climb“.
~Oprah Winfrey

A group of graduates, well established in their careers, were talking at a reunion and decided to go visit their old university professor, now retired.  During their visit, the conversation turned to complaints about stress in their work and lives.  Offering his guest hot chocolate, the professor went into the kitchen and returned with a large pot of hot chocolate and an assortment of cups – porcelain, glass, crystal, some plain looking, some expensive, some exquisite – telling them to help themselves to the hot chocolate.

When they all had a cup of hot chocolate in hand, the professor said, “Notice that all the nice looking, expensive cups were taken, leaving behind the plain and cheap ones.  While it is normal for you to want only the best for yourselves, that is the source of your problems and stress.  The cup that you are drinking from adds nothing to the quality of the hot chocolate.  In most cases it even hides what we drink.  What all of you really wanted was hot chocolate, not the cup; but you consciously went for the best cups…and then you began eyeing each other’s cups.

Now consider this:  Life is the hot chocolate; your job, money and position in society are the cups.  They are just tools to hold and contain life.  The cup you have does not define, nor change the quality of life you have.  Sometimes, by concentrating only on the cup, we fail to enjoy the hot chocolate.  God makes the hot chocolate, man chooses the cups.  The happiest people don’t have the best of everything.  They just make the best of everything they have.

Live simply.
Love generously.
Care deeply.
Speak kindly.
Enjoy your hot chocolate.

Enjoying every sip,

Chris

Chris Sopa is founder and owner of Chris Sopa International, Inc. You can learn more about her at www.ChrisSopa.com. Find her at Facebook.com/ChrisSopaInternational, Twitter @ChrisSopa, LinkedIn, and Google+.