10 STOP, THINK AND SILENCE YOUR INNER CRITIC

STOP 🛑✋🏾

Stop and think before you let that inner critic fly. Think about how much others don't know about you. How so few know your story and your struggles. They couldn't tell by looking at you. The same is true for those you see, observe and encounter. So, before you give permission to that inner critic, the one that always has something negative to say, that consistently tears down and laugh at others, remember when you look at them, you don't know their story just as they don't know yours. Practice self-restraint, hold your tongue, hold your thoughts, censor your judgements and humble your opinions because the truth is, you do not know the depth or breath of their struggles.

Be accountable for what comes out of your mouth and how much real estate you surrender to germinating toxic notions about people you don't know. If what you have to share is not with the intention to uplift, inspire, motivate, congratulate, affirm, keep it to yourself.

Be mindful of the energy you put out into the world.

0 POLITE OUT OF COURTESY

The chosen act of Politeness

I am being polite when I say, 'excuse me' more than once when you insist on standing in the way.

I am being polite when I say, 'I am not abled' as you continuously badger me to get your way.

I am being polite when I say, 'my schedule does not allow for the opportunity to hosts guests in my home' as you attempt to pry entry with self invites to my home.

I am being polite when I say 'it's personal' when you insist on knowing my affairs.

I have allowed politeness to dictate my responses out of courtesy. However, if you insist on ingratiating yourself without discretion. Your indiscretion will be all the encouragement required to drop the politeness and say exactly what I mean ...

Get out my way!

No, I don't wish to go anywhere with you!

I don't want you in my house.

None of your damn business!

Take the hints that my polite subtlety provides, it is for your consideration. Do not wait for deliberate rudeness to prevail and the course of your humiliation to being due to your intrusive insistence.

---D.S.B.S.Rhaosody Phoenix

2 RE.SIL.IENCE

Resilience - the capacity to recover quickly from difficulties. 

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Quickly is not necessarily a prerequisite, recovery is...

The ability to recover is what you need to cultivate in order to MANIFEST. 

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Traversing through the Covid-19 pandemic and navigating the multitude of people's reactions and behaviors requires a steady dose of resilience. In fact i will go so far as to say that there needs to be a steady diet of resiliency consumption as many people seem to be flying off the edge of the earth due to the surgence, resurgence, replications and variant multiplication of the Covid virus. Its like the world is descending into madness and there are little implosions occurring in pockets of the cities around the world. 

As the world implodes in little degrees, we see these manifestation in pockets. Groups of willfully defiant people marching in protests refusing to exercise precautions by wearing masks (anti-maskers) and practicing social distancing creating super spreaders. To other's disobeying no travel order and stay at home orders in preference of going out. Its like mass hysteria and the downward spiral seems insidious. In Toronto: 

• One woman put a leash on her husband to walk him like a dog so she could go out during the stay at home order. She was fined in violation of the stay at home order. 

1. In another incident a man confronting another man for not wearing a masks, punches him in the face breaking some of his teeth. 

• At Walmart a man was arrested for assaulting an employee who asked him to wear a mask 

1. in a grocery store a fatal shooting occurred that started out as to the police over a man refusing to wear a masks and in a fit of rage started assaulting people. 

• A man was choked unconscious for not wearing a mask, in the video you can see him screaming, "i can't breathe, I can't breathe."

To say we need "Jesus" is an understatement as the safety measures, restrictions and fear takes a toll on our psyches. We have to find better ways of coping. Its not easy. I am mostly confined to my home (thankful that i have one), traveling through the city on for the essentials, medical appointments, groceries etc.). I am blessed in that in the mean time I am able to work from home. I am grateful to all things that enables me to be HERE, the breath of live, ability, mobility, vision, movement, music, books, family and friends. We must look at our blessings and not bow to our frustrations and limitations. Focus on what you have and not on what you don't have, on what you can do and not on what you can't do. Be thankful that we are alive and well as appose to the alternative, sick, dying or dead. 

Moment to Moment:

I do a lot of reading. I make a point to laugh a lot, outrageously, uproariously, unapologetically. I find something to smile about at the end of each day, even if it was a horrendous day.  If i experience difficulty finding that smile, i pick up my camera and go outside and take a snap of the universe at my finger tips. I pray, to keep my spirit up, to cultivate my resiliency with positive affirmations and to keep hope alive because the alternative is not an option for me. 

What are you doing to keep yourself resilient? 

14 ONE DAY AT A TIME

Blessings

Everyday we must find at least one thing to be thankful/grateful for. 

We owe it to ourselves to keep our hope alive 

Our faith strong

Our spirit fed

Our mind focused

Our soul soothed

We must do it for ourselves

We must do it for each other

Because we are WORTHY

Because we are ENOUGH

Because we are LIFE

If you are overwhelmed and cannot lift up yourself, lift another & another will lift you up

We are each others keeper

We are each others champion 

Do it because

Do it instinctively

Do it unconditioned

By D.S.B.S.Rhapsody 

18 SURRENDER

Sometimes the deepest challenge is keeping the Faith high when we're feeling low. In slivered moments of turmoil we forget • In those moments • I look up • I surrender

Keep the Faith.

This too shall pass

YOU

Are not alone

12 HONOR YOUR INTUITION

Believe in yourself

•

Do not discredit your intuition

•

often we have a foreshadowing on the landscape of what is to come

•

Understand the value of your gut instinct

 

D.S.B.S.Rhapsody©all rights reserved

 

8 Let not your heart be consumed by troubles

There is beauty even when times are cloudy and dark . Trouble does not erase ones beauty nor does it dim your light though it may feel that way. You magnificence will triumph even as the murkiness of trials threaten to consume. 

Just remember the presence of tribulation does not mean the absence of beauty and light, they coexists as the sun, the moon and the stars share the sky. 

Let not your heart and light be consumed by your challenges rather let them be a reminder that betters days are always ahead. Choose to be happy in spite of it all.

I took these photos standing in the same place from different angles, East, West, North, South each tell a different story about the climate of the evening, each equally true. It is about perspective. Sometimes you got to look at life from a different angle while standing in the same position.

D.S.B.S. Rhapsody Phoenix © all rights reserved.

33 WANTS: LOST IN THE “I WANT”

A reminder to self: Do Not Dismiss the "I" 

Too often we get lost in the “I want” of our desires that we erase the “I” in “me.” We “want” someone to slay our dragons, rescue us, love us unconditionally, make the monsters in our lives go away, Teflon us from the wicked challenges life can at time throw our way. At times we are so submerged and entrenched in it that we get lost in the dream of “I want” rendering ourselves by default irrelevant, powerless, inefficient, insufficient, inadequate, not enough.

If we are to be triumphant and be conquerors in our lives it would be benefit us to understand that when we begin the litany of “I want,” in the privacy of our minds wishing “somebody” would…

Love you as you are

Support you

Accept you

See you

Hear you

Acknowledge you

Take you out

Buy you things

Make you feel ten feet tall and invisible

That you DO NOT dismiss the “I” in that somebody

YOU ARE SOMEBODY too

And loving you,

Providing for you

Accepting you

Supporting you

Is YOUR responsibility

It should be YOUR priority

It begins with you

YOU

Set the example

YOU

Lay the foundation of how you are too be treated

YOU

Set the standard

YOU

Are the template

Everyone that encounters you must be required to meet that standard or elevate it

For

If YOU don’t do for YOU

If YOU don’t advocate for YOU

If YOU don’t have your own back

Accept YOU, as you are

Whom do you expect to?

YOU

Are the key to your destiny, desires, wants and aspirations

Do not dismiss the “I” for the possibility of a maybe.

D.S.B.Rhapsody©All rights reserved.

16 Love–Living 1 Corinthians 13:4

Love, embracing the bible’s definition (1 Corinthians 13:4) and examining how it applies in my life, in my everyday thinking, being, living, speaking, interacting. My intention is to keep my heart and mind in this positive loving space.

I have deliberately doubled up on some of the verses, using other versions breakdown because it just makes sense to have them there. I dare say I also added a couple and I know you will know what they are.

LOVE

Love is patient, love is kind.

It does not envy,

It does not want what belongs to others

It is not jealous

It does not boast,

It is not arrogant

It is not proud

It is not conceited 

Love is not controlling

It does not dishonor others,

It does not humiliate

It does not coerce

It does not hold malice 

It is not self-seeking, 

It is not easily angered, 

It is not violent

It does not perpetrate violence

It keeps no record of wrongs.  

Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. 

It always protects,

Always trusts,

Always hopes,

Always perseveres.

48 NEGATIVE THOUGHTS

Negative thoughts are insidious

They are the plague to a peaceful existence

They are the 'Yangs' to the positive 'Yings'

There is a flip side to everything

Light/Dark,

Up/down, .

Back/Front,

Right/wrong

Love/Hate

In the spirit of that

Be persistent!

Do not let negativity own you

Do not let it take root

Be proactive,

take charge …

Cancel it out with positivity

if you lack the strength or...

Cannot muster the courage

Then surround yourself with those that will lift you up

Until you can lift yourself

There is nothing wrong with asking for help

No one person is an island

& even an island needs the water, weeds and wild life to exist

Keep your head up, breathe

And….

Keep on keeping on even when you feel otherwise

Peace

QPQPQPQPQ

D.S.B.Rhapsody© All Rights Reserved.

12 Beware of 3 Types of Friends Bishop TD Jakes

God is so faithful that he will never leave you without a witness. He will send somebody for you.