Nadine Love’s Blog

I was ready before dawn. I sat in my favorite blue chair to greet 2013, as my man and little girl slept on.

Share the start of my year. In your mind’s eye, together let’s look at our expansive views, out to sea. Join me now as we relive the moment when the first rays of new year sunlight painted the sky pink and gold. What was I doing?

Setting my focus for the year ahead. I was writing in my journal, clearly and specifically, what I intend to bring in over the next 12 months. My quiet contemplation was preceded with a meditation of gratitude and setting of intention – and followed by sending love, vitality, peace – and gratitude ahead of me into the year to come.

How fabulous is that? As I arrive at each day – love, vitality, peace and gratitude are already set to greet me. What would you like to meet you?

The time is now to set it up! It’s true that energy flows where the focus goes! It’s said: What you focus on you get.

One of my favorite conversations about focus is the time Tony Robbins met Nelson Mandela.

Tony asked Nelson Mandela how come he was not furious with his incarcerators after having spent over a quarter of a century of imprisonment on Robben Island – he looked at Tony incredulously “I was focused on how I could bring my people to freedom”

The same year Viennese Viktor Emil Frankl married, his father, mother, brother and new wife were arrested. It was 1942. They were brought to the concentration camp at Theresienstadt in Bohemia, where His father died. His wife was transported to Bergen-Belsen, where she died in 1945.

Painfully thin, starving and stumbling on predawn march to work on laying railroad tracks:  Another prisoner whispered that it was a good his wife could not see him this way.  The young doctor began to think about his own wife, and realized that she was present within him:

He realized that if he focused on his love for his wife, even in a world where a man is stripped of everything, he could feel bliss – even if only for a brief moment.

Throughout his ordeal, he noticed , among those given a chance for survival, it was those who held on to a vision of the future –– whether it be a significant task before them, or a return to their loved ones — that were most likely to survive their suffering.

Have you ever thought that someone was deliberately ignoring you or putting you down, or deceiving you behind your back? How did you feel in that moment? Were you frustrated, hurt, angry or upset?

How about when you found out that they had not done it to begin with? How did you feel then? Did you feel embarrassed or upset with yourself?

How were you able to feel those emotions initially, even though the deceit never happened? Now.

Think of someone you really love for a moment. Really feel them next to you. Take a minute, close your eyes and imagine their presence.

What did you notice? Were you aware of their voice quality or a sound you associate with them? Did you just feel full of love, as if that person was actually there with you?

The reason this happens is because your mind doesn’t differentiate between something you are actually experiencing, and something that is only in your mind.

You have around sixty thousand thoughts each day. Think about that. Some say that they have the same handful of thoughts over and over again, repeating 10 000 times – could be true!

Your thoughts emerge out of energy patterns set in response to the events in your life. Your inner dialogue is shaped by the voices of people in your past, mingled with the vast echo of all the influences in your life. You then filter information and comment, in line with the rules of your beliefs and values.

Let’s look at your life: See your life as it is and take a moment to consider the types of realities you’re focusing on in your own life.

If you’re not enjoying success in all areas of your life, then something you’re focusing on and saying to yourself about your achievements and your capacity to achieve may be reinforcing a pattern of self-sabotage.

On average, you’ll only remember five percent of the positives, the compliments, and the constructive perceptions people share with you. This is in contrast to ninety-five percent of the negative comments that stick fast and grip your memory.

Our thoughts determine so much of what happens in our lives. If we absorb ourselves in our thoughts of fear, not being good enough, loss, regret, anguish, shame, dissatisfaction, disappointment, disagreement, of being let down, and of what people haven’t done for us, how do you think we’re going to feel?

If you choose to focus on problem, problem, problem – what do you think you’ll attract more of?

What if you immerse yourself in thoughts of how generous people are, how wonderful, how gifted, how kind people are, of how supported you feel, and how much you enjoy the company of the people around you. How much you are growing by virtue of making resourceful choices that support your vision, goals and intentions?

How do you imagine you’re going to feel then?

If you were to fill yourself every day with these thoughts of support, what influence do you think it would have on the choices that you would make, on your decisions, on your reactions, your responses, on all of your behaviour? What difference would this focus make on your reality and your experience of life ?

Your mind is an incredibly powerful magnet, and as such, attracts to you whatever corresponds to its ruling state.

Focus can, literally, turn your life around for the better. Optimists achieve more, perform better, persist longer, live longer, take more risks, have more confidence, enjoy better health, and have a more positive experience of life than pessimists.

What you focus on you’ll feel. By knowing you have this power, how quickly can you choose to change the way you feel?

In order to fully enhance the quality of our lives, and achieve at our peak, its important to choose wisely in the way our attention is being focused.

As an evolving species we human beings strive for: health, to live in peace, security, fairness, equality, opportunity, prosperity, happiness , love. Where do you imagine we must focus if our lives are defined by the fact that our minds will find what we focus on?

Now let’s consider your very best 2013 – What are the top three things you’ll focus on to bring in your most magnificent year ever?

Here’s to your magnificent, happy, healthy – love filled 2013!