Freda Chosen as One of Chicago’s Edgiest Women!

I am very excited to share with you that at the beginning of March, I was chosen by N’Digo Magazine as one of Chicago’s Edgiest Women! I will be featured with Suzie Orman as well as ten other fabulous Chicago women. I am delighted and honored to have received this nomination. At first I was shocked and didn’t believe that it was for real, until I got the photo shoot appointment!

Make sure to grab your copy of that issue on March 26th. Thanks to N’Digo and Zondra Hughes, editor at large!

As if last week’s Twitter Elite Nomination wasn’t exciting enough–now this. I am humbled and delighted in the same breath!

Are You Stuck On The Third Floor?

My dear friend, George Pransky, has been trying to get me to read Sydney Banks, author of The Enlightened Gardener, for a year now. Regretfully, I never made the effort to actually follow his recommendation—until recently.

Stuck on the Third Floor of Life
Do you feel as if you are spending most of your life stuck on Floor 3, or worse, in the basement. I can hear you thinking, “What does that mean, Freda?” I am talking in an emotional sense, not in a physical sense. You see, our emotions are very similar to elevators. We each have an emotional elevator, if you will, and like elevators, our emotions can go up and down on a regular basis. In addition, similarly to riding in a glass elevator, our view can get cluttered by a lot of junk, that is, our emotional state of mind. In fact, where we are on our emotional elevator has a direct impact on how we view life, how we see others, and how we view our circumstances and situations.

When I interviewed George I asked him if he experienced more good days than bad in his life to which he responded with an emphatic “YES!” That conversation made me very intrigued and curious. I asked him what the secret was and that is when he shared the elevator story with me.

The View from the Top
Let’s think about this for a moment. When you are in an elevator with a view, and you reach the top of the building—let’s pretend you’re in the Empire State Building, for instance—and you look out of the window, you can see for miles. Your view is unobstructed by trees, other skyscrapers, or any of the clutter found on the lower levels, including the noise, the traffic and the filth. The scenery is breathtaking from the top of the building. On a clear day from the Empire State Building Observatory you can enjoy an unobstructed view of the magnificent New York City skyline and the George Washington Bridge spanning the Hudson River. According to the Empire State Building Web site, you can see New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Connecticut and even Massachusetts from the observatory—and there is nothing getting in the way of your view as far as the eye can see.

Now compare that to a third-floor view. What do you see? A view that is cluttered by trees, buildings and other obstructions that keep you from seeing the big picture. You don’t have all the information or the same information as you do from the penthouse view. Go to the basement. What is the view from there? Awful. There is no view.

My point is this: your thinking directly affects how you view life. When we constantly think about or focus on our miserable condition or problems, those are what we will get more of. We will relive those old experiences in the here and now. The basement and third floor represent skepticism, cynicism, pessimism, narrow-mindedness, anger, contempt, blame, and hopelessness. Our outlook is greatly hindered by the darkness.

The penthouse view, on the other hand, represents optimism, a healthy sense of self and good moods; we are open, aware and are able to assess situations with more clarity because we have a better view without all the obstructions.

As Syd Banks says in his book The Enlightened Gardener:

All you have to do is realize that the past is now only a ghostly memory kept alive by digging into the archives of your own stagnated memories.

It is our thoughts that dictate our final actions.

Going back into the past to fix today’s problems is like psychological suicide because those past experiences no longer exist. Only in memory do they remain alive. Only in our heads. Your past may appear as realistic representations, but they are not real now. They are merely memories. Don’t you see that holding on to such harmful memories and feelings—and constantly retrieving them from the archives of your mind so that you can revisit them–holds you a prisoner of your now-departed past?

Negative memories are and feelings are like scratches on your spectacles. They obscure your vision. Naturally, if your spectacles are full of scratches, it can be very difficult to see through them. Your vision becomes impaired, preventing you from seeing life with any clarity.

Creating a New Reality by Changing Your Thinking
You see thoughts are directly linked to your emotional well-being and state of mind. When we realize we can at best  dismiss thoughts, like we do on a moment to moment basis, or at worst ignore them we start to see that we have the free will to change our minds and when we change our thoughts our feelings will follow suit, but for these thoughts I wouldn’t be feeling this way. Realize that you are responsible for your present reality and that reality will be dark if you override and don’t respect your own happiness more than focusing on your problems. Thoughts require attention. The more attention you give them the more they feed on themselves.

Don’t get me wrong, you can’t stop negative thoughts. We all have bad days, bad things happen, but the question becomes how long do you stay in that place? How long do you stay stuck on the third floor, emotionally? When you truly understand the power behind your thoughts, when you realize the power of the spoken word, you will wisely consider what you choose to think about and put in your brain.

As Sydney Banks says in his book The Missing Link:

Thought is a divine tool, nothing more, nothing less, only a tool. A wise person, like a good tradesman, uses this tool to the best of his or her ability.

Your thoughts are like a paintbrush, and the reality you survey is the picture it creates.

If it is our own thoughts that paint our realities, then it is safe to say that we create our own limitations. You can’t feel insecure unless you have the thought first. Therefore, wouldn’t it be safe to say that when a thought like that pops into your head to nail it and kick it back like we do with so many other thoughts that pass through our minds?

Another example is when we think something is too hard to do. Aren’t we giving up on ourselves? This same thought could be turned around to, “I can do this. I choose to do the work necessary to accomplish this goal”!

The more I read, the more I understand the power of our thinking and the less time I want to spend thinking negatively. I realize that when I am in the penthouse, I see life and people from a completely different perspective and  now I understand why.  When we are operating from a high moods our innate confidence, self-esteem and happiness kicks in which gives us new eyes to view life from and we are more generous giving people a lot more room to realize they just might be stuck on the ground floor in their own emotional elevator.

A Word About Moods
I also realize that any time someone says something negative to me, it is never about me. I take a moment to assess the situation, the person, what was said and chalk it up to that person having a bad day or bad moment. I don’t need to run to therapy or make an issue out of everything that is said to me.

George told me a story that was a perfect example of this when he and his wife had one of the biggest fights in their marriage. “It was the lowest point in my life,” George said. They were coming home from the airport, both were exhausted and ended up talking when they shouldn’t have and said some pretty hurtful things to each other, verbally jabbing each other below the belt. However, knowing what they know about thought, they were able to look at each other in the car and say, “Aren’t you glad that we know what we know about thoughts!” They laughed and went about their business, never mentioning the incident again. For many couples that would have been a turning point in the relationship, often prompting major therapy and a potential divorce after analyzing their relationship to pieces.

Don’t you sometimes say things that you just don’t mean? You are just tired or in a bad place emotionally or your elevator is stuck between 2 and 3. When I am there I make it a point to distance myself from everyone. I am afraid my fuse is so short I am going to say something that will hurt someone. I am now very frank about it, “I can’t talk right now. I am not in a good place. I will catch up with you later or when I am OK.” I don’t get into the whys or try to figure it out or dig into my past. I just know that this will pass and it does.