Life is a series of ups and downs for all of us.  We have no choice about where and into what era we're born, who we will encounter throughout our lives, and what circumstances we may face.  Our navigation system APPEARS to be the thoughts we have about life, but it isn't.  Thoughts are the ideas and images we bring to mind, sometimes intentionally, sometimes randomly.  But the feelings engendered by our thoughts are the true navigation system.  What we make of our thoughts, how seriously we take them, whether we recognize negative thoughts as red flags, matters.  When negative thoughts and feelings appear to be important and meaningful --  things we must take seriously and deal with -- we slip into a downward spiral unintentionally.  When we wake up and remember negative thoughts and feelings are Caution signs on the road of life, we can slow down, quiet our minds, allow those thoughts to pass, and soon we get fresh ideas and a better perspective.  We pass through "thought storms" just like travelers on a road trip pass through thunderstorms.  The same advice works: slow down, trust yourself to get through it, and soon you'll see the sun again.

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Beliefs are thoughts we have taken seriously over time, so that they appear increasingly less malleable and come to look like truths to us.  They take on power in our minds.  When a group of people share certain beliefs, they drive actions, both good and bad -- for example, placing service to humanity as a priority, or turning away from certain groups of people they consider not deserving of mercy or compassion.  Once a thought is entrenched in our minds, it can lead to prejudice as well as favoritism, or exclusion of others as well as clinging to identity with certain others.  Groupthink takes us away from seeing the shared humanity at the heart of being, and leads to sorting and separating -- or worse, prejudice and even violence.  It keeps us from connection heart-to-heart.

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The essential message we receive from the Principles of Mind, Consciousness, and Thought is that all people, always, have access to insights.  But we also have the ability to ignore in-the-moment fresh thoughts when we are caught up in habits or memories.  If we start to recognize and trust the ease and certainty we feel when we are guided by the flow of fresh thought, we feel confident and present, even in the face of challenges.  We are relying on wisdom beyond our intellect and learning as we live.  When we override the inner voice of insight, we can get stuck repeating past errors or feeling inadequate to handle life situations.

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It may seem counterintuitive that we accomplish more and enjoy what we're doing more from a state of ease and a quiet mind.  But effort, drive, and urgency come from fear of failure, not from wisdom.  Inspiration, fascination, and pleasure in our activities are positive feelings that arise from a quiet mind focused on what we're doing in the present moment.  We don't need to create pressure, anxiety, and drive to succeed.  We succeed when we are fully engaged and in touch with our own innate wisdom as our guide, not muddying the activity with worry or over-thinking every move.  When we learn to trust wisdom, we can enjoy what we do and approach challenges without fear.

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Hope, as we are discussing it here, is not "wishful thinking" or "unrealistic optimism."  Hope is a deep, uplifting feeling we have that things will work out fine, regardless of how they may look at the moment and regardless of whether they work out as we may have predicted.  People who generally experience hope are buffered from dread or disappointment.  The gift hope offers is that it keeps us in the present, accepting life as it unfolds.  It allows us to forget about our issues or concerns and just live.  When we get involved with our thinking about what might happen, we end up going in circles in our minds because we don't know and it's easy to slip into worst-case scenarios.  The feeling -- the attitude -- of hope, keeps us curious and open, without fear.

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Without intending to, we often put pressure on ourselves from trying too hard and seeking to achieve goals that may be unreasonable, which amounts to doing more and more and becoming increasingly frustrated.  Many "accomplished" people live on the edge of exhaustion and get no joy from what they do.  If we turn in the direction we want to go, and then quiet our minds and listen for our own wisdom, we'll see what to do, at what pace, and we'll enjoy the journey as much as appreciating the destination.

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Natural self-esteem is built into humanity; it's just being ourselves and embracing life.  Once we start to analyze ourselves, or become self-conscious about perceived flaws or worried about what others think about us, we lose touch with our connection with life and others.  Whether we think we're great, or fear we are awful, we live in insecurity.  We live in our head, not from our heart.  That doesn't mean we don't want to develop our knowledge, or take interest in staying fit or looking our best.  It simply means that we are born with all we need to be at ease with moment-to-moment life.

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The term "Innate Health" refers to the pure life energy that is the essence of our power to recognize when to turn away from non-constructive thinking and negative feelings.  It is mental well-being that is natural to us.  We lose touch with it when we get caught up in our thinking, but we can't lose it.  It is who we are.  The Principles describe it.  We determine whether to acknowledge it, appreciate it, and listen to the common sense and wisdom it offers when we don't override it.

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When we refer to deep feelings, we are talking about the quietude, inner ease, and sense of connection and appreciation innate to all people.  It's a feeling natural to us, our spiritual essence, unconditional love.  We sometimes try to attribute our deep feelings to things outside ourselves: people, situations or outcomes.  But nothing outside has power to "make" us feel.  The harder we try to find them, the farther we take ourselves away from them.  Deep feelings are not caused by circumstances, but awakened within us when we quiet our intellect and listen to our heart.

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Our life is a neutral sequence of ideas and events; how we think about life determines our experience of it.  So the details of daily living are not the "cause" of our felt experience.  Our thinking about them is.  We forget that, as the thinkers, we can "color" our thinking about life any way we want.  A lunch with someone we used to work with can be a light-hearted sharing of memories, or a depressing rehearsal of things that went wrong.  Remembering a failure can generate reflection about lessons learned, or a moment of regret or self-recrimination.  We are the "artists" who interpret and color our own life via the gift of thought.  Our memories, our moment-to-moment experience, and our plans look different to us in different states of mind.  So when we aren't satisfied with how life is going, maybe looking within rather than trying to alter the outside world, would make a big difference.

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