We’ve heard it before, “The rich get richer and the poor get poorer.” The age-old aphorism reminds us that, like attracts like, similar to how the happy get happier and the sad get more depressed.
Like the flu, negative energy is contagious – it seeks out low-frequency emotions that match it. This is why we commonly witness cycles of abuse rather than one-off occurrences. The pain often stems from our childhood and then festers into our adult years, creating an illusion of confinement. Our misery then latches onto someone else’s bitter resentments, bruised ego, and aching heart. Just the same, our torch of sunshine that emits a glow of love, laughter, and liveliness attracts all its relatives. This is why patterns of healthy relationships often prosper from those whose parents also manifested a strong union.
So what does that mean for the majority of us who are broken soldiers losing this battle called life? It means we have to keep fighting. Though we cannot wave a magic wand and change our past, we can radically change our present and everything that comes after it. It always starts with the words we tell ourselves. Are we kind, uplifting, and hopeful? Or are we cruel, discouraging, and pessimistic? Are we surrounding ourselves with those who celebrate our existence? Or are we surrounding ourselves with those who bleed on us, even though we didn’t cut them? Until we face our own demons, we will always threaten the wellbeing of our neighbors. Our demons make us raise our weapons at people who aren’t even trying to start a fight. They keep us isolated in self-torment, knocking down the structures we’ve built faster than we can reconstruct the rubble.
You deserve a fresh start. You deserve a boundless supply of generosity. You deserve the love you feel you were never given. And as soon as you start to believe that, those exact blessings will follow. Start small if you need to. Just tell yourself you deserve to eat a good meal for breakfast one morning. Cook yourself bacon and eggs rather than only remembering to nourish your body long after noon. Take yourself outside because you know you deserve fresh air in your lungs. Then call someone you care about and remind them of what they mean to you. It’s the little things we fall behind on. And falling behind on the little things makes the big things untouchable.
Your own children or those you influence will watch carefully for the way you treat yourself. So carefully, in fact, that they will start to mimic it. So be mindful of every toxic thought. If you want to break the cycle, you have to break the bad habits. At first, the transition will feel like work, but after a while you’ll start running on autopilot, building yourself and others up to new heights. You won’t be rebuilding the rubble anymore, you’ll be governing an entire city. And just as money grows for those with money, so does evolution for those who are evolving.
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Photo by Priscilla Du Preez on Unsplash
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