Compliment or Criticism: Choose Your Focus

For some reason, it seems humans are more inclined to focus on the negative, rather than the positive.  While we appreciate compliments, a single criticism, no matter how small, not only tends to erase the good feeling brought on by the compliment, but makes us angry, frustrated or sad.  I had this experience this morning.  I ran into a friend of mine, who told me that she started reading my novel last night and couldn't put it down.  "Really engaging," she said.  Of course, that made me feel great!  Less than thirty minutes later, I ran into someone else, who criticized something I did yesterday, behavior that he clearly misunderstood, but his comments were enough to piss me off.  At home, I came into my office and sat, staring at my computer screen for 10-15 minutes, so angry that every time I started typing something, I deleted it.  Nothing seemed right.  Then, I realized what had happened.  I decided to ask the Runes how to allow the positive into my life, while letting the negative roll away.

Othala, the last Rune in the Futhark, offers a very interesting overview, focused on the positive.  While Othala is the Rune of inheritance and the homestead, we must look beyond this face value to find its underlying meaning.  It is about the foundation for the way we live our lives.  It is not an entitlement, rather reminds us to appreciate the gifts we receive that allow us to create the life we want.  Although the meaning tends to be geared toward the gifts we've received from ancestors in the form of traditions, property, and inherited characteristics, when we are building our homestead (the life we want), we also receive gifts in the present from friends and family.  This is where our focus should be, but how do we do it?

Well, Raido reminds us that life is a journey.  The Rune of riding or a carriage, travels on the path we take to establish our homestead on a foundation of the gifts we receive.  We must move forward; that is how we progress.  However, what we must be aware of is that the path our journey takes us on is not going to be straight and smooth.  It will contain bumps, curves, dips, hills, bridges, a whole variety of things that make our journey interesting.  Unfortunately, we will hit potholes and other disruptive features in our road, but our challenge is that we must manage and get past those annoyances, so that we can enjoy the rest of the ride and the amazing scenery that surrounds us.  Again, we ask how to do it?

 Can you guess the answer?  It is, of course, Jera, the Rune of the harvest.  As we have seen many times before, a bountiful harvest represents the fruits of a long process.  This means that there is no easy answer to our question, that removing and not allowing negative energy to chip away at our homestead's foundation will take time.  What we can do is make a commitment to the process.  Realize that the power is within us to dwell on the things we choose.  Therefore, as I starting point, I choose to dwell on my friend's positive words about my novel and build on that.

Before I end this post though, I'd like to offer something positive to you.  Simply by reading my blog, you have done two positive things.  First, you made me feel good by reading my writing.  Second, and more importantly, you have given yourself a tool to help you shed negative energy.  So, when someone says something negative to you, stop and think about all the positive things people have said to you and feed on that instead.

Have a positively beautiful week.