Are you using a shower filter? How about a water filter for your drinking water? I confess: I do!
Today, I had to walk out of my house with a mask! Most of you know the air is really toxic in the Bay Area because of a series of unfortunate wild fires in the North and South of Beautiful California. You see most people with masks and so I decided to use one, too!
When I was walking, I was thinking about the air that was being filtered through my mask and getting ready for inhalation!
I thought we filter many things before we let them get into our body. Don’t we? We purify water for consumption and for shower, we filter air when it is toxic.
But we don’t do anything when we are in a toxic social environment and we inhale all in and let it get absorbed to our mind, body and soul without any filter!
Imagine if we could filter what we hear and see before it gets the chance to become a thought in our mind? Imagine if we could separate toxic attitudes and words we see and hear and let only the pure and clean gets through our mind and soul?
Can we do it? Is it possible?
Imagine you were assigned a project to work with a group of classmates and everyone including you is so nervous to finish the project for tomorrow. You meet today in the library to check where is everyone at with their assignments and you notice that many in the group are too far from being done!
Everyone is blaming others for the delay. They are mean and yell. You hear everything and you feel you need to defend yourself, too. So, now, you get to work. The circle of blames is now formed and it goes around the room..
You are done with the meeting and get back to your class. You are now angry at your friend who didn’t have your back or the other one who asked you why you didn’t respond to her email last week which caused a big delay for her to work on the piece she needed?
You are restless! You want to get back at them. You just look for the right occasion to get square.
You go home. You are not in mood to deal with your parents. You don’t feel like doing your homework.
You go back to school next day and you notice your friends pretend they didn’t see or heard you when you said hi. You feel betrayed and angry. You feel you want to stop being friends with them or.. These thoughts just go on and on and on like a vicious circle in your head!
And guess what! This is just a beginning because every action has a reaction.
I know this sound very familiar to many! This is how it goes for so many of us on a daily basis!
Now, I am asking myself what if we are able to filter what is said and done and could only keep the pure and clean and throw the toxic? What if we could choose what we wanted to keep before it has translated to a thought, before it has turned us on to show an attitude and act in certain manner?
What would be the result then?
Our thoughts are the source of our results. Whatever we think about, we become!
When we learn we can have control over our thoughts, by choosing and selecting them, we will get ahead in the game many loose.
Let’s filter what we receive from the world around us like the water or the air when we are in a toxic environment.
Let’s choose not to take in the anger, rejection, mean words and attitudes from our environment! Instead let’s filter it through the power of control to choose what is worthy of our mind before it is formed into a thought.
This is a delicate process but like anything else we will master it once we do it over and over. We can do it!
The Center for Youth Leadership 