Recently I worked with two different people who experienced difficult love relationship issues.  While the equally painful circumstances were unique to each person the responses were quite different.

One person chose to focus on the hurt while the other chose to bless the situation with love and forgiveness.

The angry person relived the experience over and over.  Thoughts of who did what to who kept feeding the anger and turned to deep inner hurt, pain and despair.

Having traveled the path of the angry person more than once in her life the other person knew it would lead her right back into illness and depression.  She was not willing to allow the experience to rob her of her new-found life filled with love, peace and joy.

Determined to find her way back to joy she chose to forgive herself and the other person.  She offered prayers of blessing for the other person.  And, she congratulated herself for seeing the truth and making the choice to love herself no matter what was happening in her life.

 As I reflected on the atmosphere of both discussions I was reminded of how simple it is to change our life in a single moment.

We can choose to look at what we label as “bad” and dredge up memories of the past that support our view.  The painful emotions follow and we find ourselves in a state of self-imposed punishment.

Or, we can choose to examine this mess we find ourselves in and look for the “good”.  Focus on the parts of the mess that are better than the last time we created one and love and bless ourselves for having grown.  

Then, focus all our thoughts and attention on being grateful for anything and everything we can think of that we love about our life now.

A simple shift in focus can bring us out of the past and future into the love, joy and peace of the present moment.

 Is your focus on loving yourself or hurting yourself?  

You have the power to choose right now.

What are you choosing?