DEVORAH GARLAND: I am a self-made optimist. I committed to a positive outlook toward life at the tender age of 14, while seeking a solution to the hell I was in. I had two very negative role models in my parents and was frantically looking for a way to stay alive despite their chaos. Today, I am choosing to share the secrets of my success with you.

It is said that, when the student is ready, the teacher will appear. I have experienced this many times over the years; the first came, during that very dark youth, when I got hold of The Power of Positive Thinking a classic book on Positivity. I don't remember how I came to own Norman Vincent Peale's book, but it helped me transform my life.

Since then, I have gone through a great many unpleasant experiences, but never have I abandoned my Positivity: that is how powerful this attitude adjustment has been for me. The book helped me understand that happiness is a choice and I can deliberately make that choice, daily. It was a very empowering concept for a helpless teenager.

I read it over and over again, and posted motivational sayings from it all over my room. They were my first experience with using affirmations. Bit by bit, over the ensuing years and decades, they worked incredible magic for me.

Create Your Own Oasis

Are you living a positive life? By observing your thoughts and your state of mind, you will know the answer.

Here are some questions to guide you.
1) Do you feel you go from crisis to crisis?
2) Do you tend to struggle in your relationships?
3) Do you often encounter nasty, cranky people who bring you down?
4) Are you disrespected by your boss or coworkers?
5) Are you simply not happy, deep in the very depths of your inner being?

If your life is filled with such heartache, you are definitely in need of more Positivity. You can't do anything about the traumas in life but you definitely can do something about how you choose to react to them. This, in turn, dictates how much peace, serenity and joy you have, no matter what is happening around you. You effectively create your own oasis of calmness amidst all the chaos.

You can't do this without guiding your thoughts into more positive channels. So it is time for you to choose:
1) Do you want to simply cope with your life? OR
2) Do you wish to live in a peaceful, joy-focused state, in which you welcome abundant goodness and smoothly manage the challenges that come your way?

It's up to you. Today is a very good day in which to make some simple but powerful changes to attract Choice Number 2. With patience and steady effort, you will create a future more satisfying than you have ever dreamed possible. But it is your choice and your responsibility to make this happen.

How Do You Like Your Life So Far?

To begin with, you must discover exactly what you want to change. What is stopping you from attracting greater peace, joy and contentment into your life?

Self-awareness and observation can offer key insights into how your life is going. This healthy practice helps you consciously identify what to change. Whenever you feel emotions that we often label as negative such as anger, despair or sorrow, this is the time to look carefully at the choices you are making.

Begin by accepting that everything you do, and are, lies directly within your control. You are not to blame for any crises or dramas which invade your world, but you are responsible for how you react to them. Self-responsibility is at the core of Positivity.

How you respond to life will determine your future far more than any person, place or thing that is currently aggravating you.

Today is the culmination of your past attitudes and outlook. What you projected then has led you to this current existence: you effectively created it by unconsciously expecting your days to unfold in a certain way. If you had the belief that you must be at war with life, struggling endlessly and never knowing peace with other people, then that is exactly what you now have.

To create a different future, you must consciously and deliberately transform your outlook, today.

It is well established that thoughts become things; your expectations have led directly into the results you now know. Not convinced? Try making a good day as bad as you can, snarling at everybody and expecting endless problems to arise; yup, that is exactly what will happen. Similarly, you can't have a good day unless you begin with the conscious hope that you will have one.

Discover, through self-observation, what it is that you must change in your own attitude toward creating more peace, serenity and joy for yourself. Then turn it around with Positivity.

This is your life; no matter what misfortunes are occurring, your level of joy and peace today depends on your focus. When you deliberately look for the positive, you see more of the joy in life. For example, during a bright winter day, you notice only the lovely sunshine and not the bitter cold. The cold is there, but your focus stays on what makes you more peacefully happy. To change your life, change your focus into Positivity.

Unlearning the Past

Usually, a person's negative outlook is taught by his or her early exposure to others' reactions, but that can all be unlearned...if you choose it. It mus t be unlearned if you truly desire a joy-filled and peaceful life. Just for today, commit to turning it around. See what happens to a bad day under the onslaught of a sunny, positive attitude. That war is already lost. You had better believe it!

In my past, I have known sexual violence, isolation, family rejection and abuse; I experienced a disconnection with life so profound that I nearly died from it as a teenager. I have struggled with learning disabilities, health challenges and other traumas. But I remain a self-made optimist.

Today, no matter what is happening, I value myself highly and am positive about each day. I feel safe and secure, and surrounded with loving friends and the family I produced. My two Positivity daughters, loving teenagers with high grades and ample self-responsibility, are thriving within the encouraging family I never knew. I deliberately created this for them.

From the age of 14, I chose to take control of my life by cultivating the belief that a positive attitude creates a positive life. I consciously found ways to look past the horrors and find the goodness within each day. There is absolutely nothing stopping you from doing exactly the same thing...except yourself.

In next month's column, I will share with you some of my Positivity Power Tools to transform your life. It truly is possible!

Did you find the above column inspiring or reassuring? Please drop me a line and let me know!

Apr 10, 2011 - 12:06 PM

Louise -

I was writing about this in my e-newsletter and came across this in one of Mary's FB postings so I'm going to include the link. thanks,