Mastery is not measured by the number of terrible things you eliminate from your life, but by the number of times you eliminate calling them terrible.
– Neale Donald Walsch

That quote was in my inbox this morning, via Neale Donald Walsch’s newsletter. I found it so powerful and insightful that I shared it with Bere, who – as some of you may already know – is the Director of Administration at LifePath Center. She loved it and suggested it as an inspiration for this message.

It’s true that we have to be really careful with who we let into our lives. However, the ‘mind space’ is just as important – or perhaps even more important – than the actual physical presence. Sometimes we let situations or people live inside our head without even paying rent! We don’t realize how much time or how many words we devote to negativity. It’s so sad, because a minute spent like that is a minute wasted.

Here’s the catch, though: many times, we add to the drama because we focus and expand on its ‘terrible’ dimensions. So, it’s not enough to just eliminate negative things from our lives – we must also change our approach and see them as challenges and opportunities for growing. The only way we will ever know what we’re truly made of, what we really are inside, is by staring at the ‘ogre’ in the face – and then telling it that we won’t fall for its negativity. We have to see what we are not, and what we don’t want to become; and then act so that we can grow from the challenge.

So – let’s stop calling everything that annoys us ‘terrible’. We don’t need drama – we need kindness, and self growth. Do you agree? How many ‘terrible’ things can you shift in your life right now? I’m listening at docbeverly@aol.com.