A New Perspective and Paradigm for A Fulfilled Life
By Dr. John Demartini

The new mainstream movement toward so-called ‘positive thinking’ has left millions of people worldwide with unrealistic expectations, depressed, and asking questions such as ‘why can’t I stay positive all the time?’

The solution: In place of expecting only a one-sided ‘positive thinking,’ it is wiser to expect a more balanced thinking. This expectation is more realistic and ultimately leads to more ‘gratitude’ which is one of the keys to a fulfilling and meaningful life.

Fulfillment is therefore the result of accomplishment based upon more realistic expectations and a balanced way of thinking. My book, “The Gratitude Effect,” explores exactly how a balanced perspective and heartfelt gratitude leads to self-awareness, personal achievement and wealth ‘in all areas of life.’

The main tenet is for people to be grateful for what they are realistically able to accomplish. By doing so they will be able to give and receive much more in return. Balance is also involved in the way we perceive others.

The old adage, ‘if you can spot it, you’ve got it,’ has great application and meaning. If there is something about another person you are having difficulty appreciating or loving, there is the same part in you that you are having difficulty loving.
According to John Archibald Wheeler of Advanced Studies at Princeton, New Jersey, because the universe originates from a single source, everything is connected and entangled. All of us are connected and entangled and as Aristotle emphasized, we are all reflections of each other. We become our selves, to the degree that we make everyone else our selves.

We develop our priorities or values based upon what we perceive or assume to be missing or lacking in our lives. If we think or feel we are lacking money, we tend to value and seek money; if we imagine ourselves as lacking affection, we value and seek affection; if we feel we lack a nice home, friends or a quality job, we place them higher on our value system. We value whatever is most perceived as missing.

Then we see those who appear to have all that we perceive we lack — a movie star or a business leader — and we subordinate ourselves to them and their values. Now our own true values recede into our unconscious. We are now trying to be someone else, someone we are not. Now our world is filled with ‘shoulds,’ ‘ought tos’ and ‘have tos’ — the imperatives, instead of living congruently with our true priorities.

But we still have our own values deep inside, though now they are unconscious, and we are attempting to act like somebody we are not. This raises a moral dilemma. Our desires must be true and congruent with our highest values if we are to create the reality we are meant to live.

When we are true to and congruent with our highest values, we become inspired from within and do not require motivation from without, nor are we as likely to be as envious and or as imitating. Our confidence grows and we awaken our inner, though often hidden leader.  
In relationships, we attract in-to our lives the things we need most and challenge us. When a partner’s values are different, you need to look at how those different values still contribute to our life and allow us to do the things we love. Only then can we truly appreciate the one we are with. It’s about appreciating someone for who they are and discovering how their values truly serve yours.

There is a common ground if your care enough to truly look. If you do not, you may end up bored or burned out, and choose to move on to someone else to dance another pair of opposites with.
Love involves a balance of support and challenge. When you feel more support than challenge you become infatuated. When you feel more challenge than support you become resentful. When you feel a balance of support and challenge you experience true love.

A NEW WAY TO HANDLE STRESS
There are many events that occur in daily life which can be perceived as causing or creating varying degrees of stress, both emotionally and physically. Stress may arise from having more month at the end of your money than more money at the end of the month, or having your car break down on the way to an important meeting. A distracted mind, closed heart, tensed muscles — particularly in your jaw, face, arms and hands — and erratic speech and breathing are key indicators that you are experiencing stress in your life.

Stress boils down to imbalanced muscular or physiological reactions resulting from imbalanced sensory perceptions about the world, usually those of fear and guilt. Fear arises when you assume that in the future you are going to experience more pains than pleasures, more losses than gains, or more negatives than positives.

Guilt arises when you assume that in the past you caused more pains than pleasures, more losses than gains, or more negatives than positives to someone other than yourself. When we unwisely exaggerate and minimize the daily pains and pleasures of life, we experience hormone-related anxiety, guilt-ridden stress and feel that life is momentarily spinning out of control.

Every event in life has two sides — a positive and a negative. Anytime we perceive only half of an emotional equation instead of loving and appreciating the whole, we become stressed physically and emotionally. Ralph Waldo Emerson once said every sweet has its sour and every sour its sweet. Pains and pleasures, drawbacks and benefits, losses and gains, and negatives and positives come in pairs throughout your life.

The real key to dissolving stress is to realign your mind by bringing your perceptions back into balance. I call this The Demartini Method®, which is a process I developed to assist in balancing
these imbalanced perceptions and assist individuals in clearing imbalanced emotions that cause them to feel stressed. My trained facilitators and I have used this process with tens of thousands of individuals worldwide to help them set themselves free of their past guilt and future fear to help them feel more inspired by and present with their lives.

This stress solution can be accomplished in a matter of minutes or hours. This means that stress can now be considered to be just a small temporary obstacle and yet a catalyst on the path to living a fulfilling life.

Dr. John Demartini is a human behavioral specialist, educator, internationally-published author, and sought-after authority on maximizing human awareness and potential. For more information about upcoming events visit: www.drdemartini.com, contact the Demartini Institute: info@drdemartini.com , or call (713) 850-1234.