There are two ways to live:

you can live as if nothing is a miracle;

you can live as if everything is a miracle.

Attitude is everything. It is the catalyst for change. I have seen this in my own life. When I shifted how I reacted to people, when I changed me, my life changed. At times it requires inner work that is causing the way we react to the world around us. I figured this out in my twenties when I realized that everywhere I went, the issues of my life repeated themselves until the last few years.

What changed for me?

I did alot of work on forgiveness. I meditate quite a bit and am very intuitive. I also prayed. I have found God to be a best friend to me in so many times- good and bad. As I worked on issues of forgiving others who I felt wronged me I had quite an epiphany after asking for God to help me to forgive. I was shown a vision(I get visions often) where I saw the people I needed to forgive and was shown them with the filter of mirrors being removed. I could see them clearly which brought me to the realization there was nothing to forgive. God let me see that they were doing the best they could as I have done my entire life and I realized in that scenario what is there to forgive. I was also shown why they made the choice they did that hurt me and I felt compassion in my heart towards this other person freeing me from feeling a need to forgive them. This all came about with rigerous and tenacious work on forgiving. For some reason I was having a difficult time releasing the anger I felt at that time.

Once I did this, my life began to shift. I began to react differently to people around me. I stopped enaging in drama slowly until eventually I felt quite detached from what used to cause me grief. I began to feel gratitude. Many blessings came to me as a result. I then discovered "the secret" to having a happier life. I realized that it was based on my attitude. I have known this since I was a teenager but somehow it never helped me to manifest less drama until I did the inner work that created the outer changes in my life.

If we wish change in our world around us, we have to be the change. If we want peace, we must be peace.

A great prayer I love that applies to this is:

The St. Francis of Assisi prayer



Lord, make me an instrument of Your peace.
Where there is hatred, let me sow love;
where there is injury, pardon;
where there is doubt, faith;
where there is despair, hope;
where there is darkness, light;
and where there is sadness, joy.
O, Divine Master, grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled as to console;
to be understood as to understand;
to be loved as to love;
for it is in giving that we receive;
it is in pardoning that we are pardoned;
and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life.

CD I recommend: Grace and Gratitude by Olivia Newton John

She sings this prayer beautiflully on that CD

I have it and listen to it often on my ipod.

Be the change in your world! You will be glad you did as your life shifts.

Book I recommend: The Four Agreements by Don Miquel Ruiz

  Here is a cute story that goes with this concept:

Attitude is everything
Current mood: cheerful

Attitude is Everything??..By Francie Baltazar- Schwartz

Jerry was the kind of guy you love to hate. He was always in a good mood and always had something positive to say. When someone would ask him how he was doing, he would reply. "If I were any better, I would be twins."

He was a unique restaurant manager because he had several waiters who had followed him around from restaurant to restaurant. The reason the waiters followed Jerry was because of his attitude. He was a natural motivator. If an employee was having a bad day, Jerry was there telling the employee how to look on the positive side of the situation.

Seeing this style really made me curious, so one day I went up to Jerry and asked him. ?I don?t get it! You can?t be a positive person all of the time. How do you do it?? Jerry replied, ?Each morning I wake up and say to myself, Jerry, you have two choices today. You can choose to be in a good mood or you can choose to be in a bad mood. I choose to be in a good mood. Each time something bad happens, I can to choose to be a victim or I can choose to learn from it. I choose to learn from it. Every time someone comes to me complaining, I can choose to accept their complaining or I can point out the positive side of life. I choose the positive side of life.

"Yeah, right, it's not that easy", I protested. "Yes it is,"Jerry said. ?Life is all about choices. When you cut away all the junk, every situation is a choice. You choose how you react to situations. You choose how people will affect your mood. You choose to be in a good or bad mood. The bottom line: ?It's your choice how you live life.I reflected on what Jerry said. Soon thereafter, I left the restaurant industry to start my own business. We lost touch, but I often thought about him when I made a choice about life instead of reacting to it.

Several years later, I heard that Jerry did something you are never supposed to do in a restaurant business: he left the back door open one morning and was held up at gunpoint by three armed robbers. While trying to open the safe, his hand, shaking from nervousness, slipped off the combination. The robbers panicked and shot him. Luckily, Jerry was found relatively quickly and rushed to the local trauma center.

After 18 hours of surgery and weeks of intensive care, Jerry was released from the hospital with fragments of the bullets still in his body. I saw Jerry about six moths after the accident. When I asked him how he was, he replied, If I were any better, I'd be twins. Wanna see my scars?

I declined to see his wounds, but did ask him what had gone through his mind as the robbery took place. ?The first thing that went through my mind was that I should have locked the back door,? Jerry replied. ?Then, as I lay on the floor, I remembered that I had two choices: I could choose to live, or I could choose to die. I chose to live. Werent you scared? Did you lose consciousness?I asked. Jerry continued, The paramedics were great. They kept telling me I was going to be fine. But when they wheeled me into the emergency room and I saw the expressions on the faces of the doctors and nurses, I got really scared. In their eyes, I read, Hes a dead man. I knew I needed to take action.? What did you do? I asked.

Well, there was a big, burly nurse shouting questions at me,said Jerry. She asked if I was allergic to anything. Yes,? I replied. The doctors and nurses stopped working as they waited for my reply?.I took a deep breath and yelled, Bullets!? Over their laughter, I told them, ?I am choosing to live. Operate on me as if I am alive, not dead.? Jerry lived thanks to the skill of his doctors, but also because of his amazing attitude. I learned from him that every day we have the choice to live life fully.

Attitude, after all, Is Everything.