Be aware

Yesterday I happened to be home when the last episode of the Oprah Winfrey show was being broadcast. I haven't watched the show in years, but did watch it some when my children were younger and I was not working outside our home. (Ok - don't start calculating, I know it was right at the beginning of her 25 year stint!) Anyway, regardless of your opinion of the show or the things she had on, you must admit she accomplished quite a bit - from where she came from to where she is today. One of the things she reminisced about (and forgive me, I remember no details) was something someone said, then had made into a plaque for her to hang on her wall - it was "Please take responsibility for the energy you bring to this space". Now, before you get all worried about the woo woo and new age stuff, let me just say whether you believe it or not, it is an absolute fact of truth that we carry "energy" with us as human beings. This blog is not a discussion on the validity of that fact, it's true - whether you call it a "sense", or a "spirit" or "energy" or just a "feeling", you know what I'm speaking of here - you go to a visitation at a funeral home to express your condolences to the family and friends of a loved one who has passed on, the "energy" in that place is usually quiet, solemn, sympathetic, etc. My point here is that the statement "Please take responsibility for the energy you bring to this space" got me to thinking - it's something one might take for granted. Have you ever been in a great mood, ran into someone who was not having a great day and let you know that, and without you even consciously thinking about it, your great mood is gone? Then you know what this statement means. Take responsibility for the attitudes and feelings you put out there on others. Yep, sometimes I'm having a bad day - sometimes, I let people know that. But as a general rule, how much more pleasant to live out our time here, if we all make an effort to be responsible for our own energy, attitudes, comments, expressions. Just a thought - I can't control my feelings, but I can control how I express them and what I do about them. It's something I'm going to try to be more aware of.