Whether we know it or not, we each have a box within our mind where we stuff away some of our thoughts, ideas, dreams, fears, and prejudices. We started when we were young, not even aware of doing it. It could have been something like your fear of water, or an old saying such as “if you step on a crack, you break your mother’s back,” or the idea that you’re not successful unless you are rich, or the belief that you’ll never amount to anything, or the dream of becoming a doctor despite coming from a low-income family, or so many other things. Those thoughts or ideas we unwittingly hold onto and have held close have influenced our way of living.

Do you believe your hopes and dreams cannot become real, so it is best not to bring them out of your box? Do you feel your prejudices are the only way to think? Have you allowed whatever you have put into your box to stay there without thought or review, or are they stuck there because you are unwilling to see them differently?

Maybe it is time you look inside your box to see what you have placed inside and whether any of them are worth keeping. Time sheds new light and perspective on our life experiences, so those beliefs, prejudices, hopes, and dreams may not be the same today as when you put them inside…yet they remain there.

Sometimes, it takes courage to look inside your box. Most humans don’t like change, nor do we like to be wrong about anything. We’ll fight to the end to prove our thoughts are the only way for people to think or act.

Once you take the leap and open your box, you may be surprised that it contains more negative than positive ideas and beliefs. When you consider each thought or belief, you must evaluate whether those destructive ones have become a part of who you are. This review can be painful, but when you study them, you will realize that the negative ones are based on fear, and by exposing them as that, they lose their fearfulness and power.

By exploring your box, you can tell how you live your life. Do you live like the glass is half-empty or half-full? By releasing some of what you have stuffed into your thought box that no longer serves you, you will find yourself feeling freer and less burdened in your everyday living.

This is a crucial time in our history when every thought matters. It has become so easy to blame everyone and everything for anything negative in our lives that we feel we have no power over how we live. We have forgotten that it is us alone that creates how we live. Our life is nothing more or less than a chain of our choices. Knowing this, it’s a time to get out a broom, open your mind box, sweep out what no longer suits you, and live the way you want with love, peace, gratitude, and happiness.

JOAN S. PECK is an editor and author of short stories, spiritual books, and novels and a contributing author in several anthologies. She served as former Editor in Chief for Chic Compass magazine, an international magazine based in Las Vegas.

Joan is a writer of both non-fiction and fiction books. She first began writing in 2008 as an author of spiritual non-fiction books. Prime Threat Shattering the Power of Addiction, written with her son after his death in 2005, won a Top Shelf Book Award Nominee.

Nine years later, she published her first fiction books under the pen name J.S. Peck and won a Top Pick for Spirited Woman for Death on the Strip, the first book of her six-book mystery Death Card Series. Through her strong, likable characters, Joan has become known for expressing addiction and human sex trafficking concerns throughout her fiction books. She has an extraordinary writing ability filled with humor and tenderness that brings readers into each book’s storyline, holding them hostage until the end.

Her books are available on all book sites, and her website (Writing with Soul) – www.JoanSPeck.com

Most of us have played the “Monkey in the Middle” game as kids. For those who may not know the game, it is where one stands in the middle and is designated as the monkey. The other players throw a ball to each other, back and forth, keeping it away from the one in the middle. The challenge is for the monkey to get the ball back.

That is what the problem can be for entrepreneurs who are continuously involved with their businesses. Others try to grab their attention and distract them from what they should or could be doing, and, in time, they become the monkey in the middle!

And it’s so easy to get caught like that. It usually begins with small requests from friends or business colleagues needing your assistance or wanting to socialize with you. But, like anything else, those requests may become demands unless curtailed. And by the simple fact of being a woman with our innate desire to be helpful, you may find it challenging to set boundaries and make room for yourself and your business, which continuously needs your attention.

I’ve discovered that if I give too much of myself away to satisfy another’s needs, I resent the time taken from me. Whose fault is that? I must remind myself that it’s certainly not the person asking for my attention because I control my life and choices alone.

Another perspective about becoming the monkey in the middle is that you stand alone, heightening the thought that you, as an entrepreneur, must do everything yourself. That idea is a downward spiral that gets you nowhere, for once you are afraid to let go of controlling all aspects of your business, you limit its growth and perhaps even cause its death.

As the monkey, getting those around you to support you and your business becomes your challenge. And it’s not as difficult as you may think. When you loosen the reins of your company, you release the stress and tension of doing everything yourself and begin to enjoy the camaraderie brought on by having others supporting you and creating with you.

The question often arises as to how you gather those people around you. It’s pretty simple…you ask for their support. Once they are on board, it is up to you to acknowledge and thank them in all the ways you can. Appreciation gives flight to creativity while it soothes the soul.

Like that poor monkey in the middle, no one wants to be excluded from everything around them. No one wants to feel alone—especially you, as an entrepreneur. It’s crucial to gather like-minded people around you, give back, and share the knowledge with them and others, the things you’ve learned that will help them succeed. The more you give, the more is returned to you.

Yet, the bottom line of everything in life is our choices. As a fan of Dr. Seuss, I’ll sometimes read through some of his quotes. I read this one and thought it was perfect for this article. What do you think?

“You have brains in your head. You have feet in your shoes. You can steer yourself any direction you choose. You’re on your own. And you know what you know. And YOU are the one who’ll decide where to go…” – Dr. Seuss, Oh, the Places You’ll Go!

Those of us who have experienced the 1950s and the somewhat naïve living portrayed on television with shows like “Father Knows Best,” “Leave It to Beaver,” and “The Donna Reed Show” are dismayed at how far we’ve departed from what they represented. For many, those shows highlighted the importance of loving and spending time with your family and reaffirming manners and etiquette.

Men held doors for women; we played and got along with the other kids in our neighborhood because they were our neighbors; we watched over the elderly by carrying their groceries, mowing their lawns, and shoveling snow for them, and without any formality, a neighborhood watch existed because everyone watched out for everyone else at that time. If we did something we shouldn’t be doing, it was reported to our parents without them becoming defensive. Right was right, and wrong was wrong …. unlike today.

Today, few seem to own up to the consequences of their own making. Today, our society lives in the shadows, where people do not live their highest good, where the unacceptable has become acceptable. We live in fear. If those in power don’t like what we have to say, we are threatened with retaliation. Because of social media, anyone can say, do, and threaten another person or group without proper guidelines or consequences. Truth is often wholly misrepresented, and the unhappy, discontented folks grab onto the lies to ease their anger or sense of powerlessness or injustice.

We have fostered the false idea that our children are or should be perfect and no one is a loser; for example, whether their sports team wins or not, they are still winners. We have modeled for our children a sense of feeling slighted if they don’t constantly receive praise for whatever they do, even cleaning up their room or taking out the garbage, even though it is their responsibility. We have demonstrated and allowed our children to believe that if something doesn’t go their way, it is someone’s fault … not their own.

We want to blame anyone but ourselves for things that have happened in our lives, not to our liking. We are unwilling to accept responsibility for where we are in life, and therein lies one of the problems. We have forgotten that life is a chain of choices … made by us. Only we are responsible for the choices we make.

One of the most significant downfalls from softer times is that no one is allowed to disagree with another without staking a side. Instead, we want others to agree with whatever we believe, period. We demand consensus for whatever we express. If not, those who disagree with us become our enemies. We name-call, ridicule, and humiliate our enemies, and some go so far as to threaten their health and lives for not agreeing with them. We fail to acknowledge that differences exist to broaden our perspective from a different angle, and we need that to grow and expand our horizons.

So, where does that leave you and me? If we, along with everyone else, would sit, relax, and let our minds connect to our inner energy … the soul energy… we would rediscover the knowledge that we are all one and understand that anything negative we do to another affects us all.

The good news? The reverse is true as well. Anything positive we do for another affects us all as well. When that happens, the love energy … the highest energy … of what you’ve done with kindness spreads love into the ether and around us all. And it doesn’t take much, either. It can be a smile, a kind word, a listening ear, and so much more. All it takes is for us to think before we take action.

We need to claim the power of love and change the world. We can do it!

Who doesn’t want to feel good about themselves, and what is going on in their life?  Yet, many times something pops up in what others may say or think about us that brings us to a low point, and we wonder what life is all about.  Some of us may even wonder if life is worth living. When we reach that point, and, let’s face it, most of us have at some time in our life, it forces us to re-assess where we are and how we got to that place.  For many of us, that is not easy to do, for we have been taught to act and present ourselves as something we are not. So how exactly do we regroup and move forward in life with joy or, if need be, without the thought of escaping life in some form?

Most of us arrive on earth howling at the indignity of being forced to leave a warm, nurturing space into an outside world of bright lights and noise. Soon, things begin to get better as we are being held and loved, allowing us the freedom to become curious about everything around us. As we grow and can move around a bit and voice our needs, we soon are steeped into watching and responding to others’ reactions regarding what we do or say. Those reactions then become deep-seated as to how we conduct our lives – whether to please or displease. Much of the time, we try to please others, and at other times we displease as a subconscious reaction to our own needs not being met. So, where does all of this lead?

Having come into this earth plane from a space of unconditional love and acceptance, we find ourselves at odds with our true self when we step outside of who we really are to search for unconditional love and acceptance from others.  As long as we look to others to provide that, we will never have it. We can’t truly accept unconditional love and acceptance from anyone else unless we feel that way about ourselves. That becomes harder and harder the more we are exposed to what society throws our way in what they present as the ideal – excessive money, power, beauty – all the things that most people in this world will never have. We are taught by society and through social media that we will never have enough money, power, or beauty – those things are reserved only for a few. That leads many of us to believe we must not deserve them and creates a sense of “lack” within ourselves, making it easy to push away gratitude for all the good things we do have in our life.

Understanding why many of us perform in society as a response to others’ reactions to what we do and say can free us to make different choices.  We no longer have to be restricted and focused on pleasing others.  We are empowered to explore our own talents and gifts to do things differently and succeed if we believe we have the right to be our own person – one that deserves all the best life has to offer. If you aren’t feeling good about yourself or things aren’t working out in your life the way you want them, it is time to choose differently.  Remember, life is simply a chain of choices.  Make one small choice in the direction you want, add another, then another is how you get to the place you want, one choice at a time. If you are escaping life and are trapped in a cycle of drinking alcohol or taking drugs or both, you may think there is no way out, and you are stuck in that emptiness that can only be eradicated when it is filled by loving life.  But the reality of it all is that all you need to do is make one choice not to drink or drug and then add another until it becomes a chain of choices to become addiction free. That is the beauty of life as a chain of choices. As you climb up that ladder of being addiction free, you are better able to look at life differently and see how exquisite it is to experience what it has to offer.  Believe, trust, and make it happen.

“I have found that if you love life, life will love you back.” – Arthur Rubinstein