LYNN PATNER'S COLUMN: To Grumble or Not To Grumble, That is the Question...

To Grumble or Not To Grumble , That is the Question…
By SrMeetUp! Featured Columnist Lynn Patner

All around me I am hearing grumbling. I hear grumbles from my students, from my clients, while I am standing in a grocery store and at dinners with friends. There are the economic grumbles, the physical grumbles and of course the relationship grumbles. I cannot go anywhere anymore without hearing someone grumble. All this grumbling is affecting me, and even at the dog park, the dogs are getting into the grumbling mood. Fights are breaking out right and left.

Now granted, the world situation is less than perfect. The collapse of the economy, the housing debacle and the loss of jobs, et cetera, only brings around more grumbling, nothing else. It goes like this: one starts to grumble, then another adds their grumbles and soon there are many grumbles. Now grumbling would be fine if it solved something or was of good use, but grumbling does nothing. It’s like sitting in a rocking chair and expecting to go somewhere. It doesn’t even make one feel better.

Do you remember the cartoon character in the Charlie Brown series, Pigpen? Wherever he walked little clouds of dust followed. That is exactly what happens with grumbles; they are like little clouds of dust that follow behind you collecting more grumbles as they go forward. The problem is they keep attracting only negativity.

In 1994 I stepped onto a path and began an amazing journey. I learned that our thoughts, either verbalized or not, create our experiences. That new information took a very long time to penetrate my mind. But then I saw what thoughts and beliefs produced, and it opened an entirely different world of reality. The reality is, I am the producer, the director and the star of my own life. This revelation did not make me happy because I could no longer be the victim in my own life drama. I couldn’t blame my parents, nor the environment and worse yet I couldn’t grumble about any of it anymore. If I was not a victim, then I must be the creator. Creator is definitely a better option.

What I have learned about my thoughts and the power of them, my emotions, and my beliefs is they literally create my reality. And it is now being proven by scientific methods no less. Wow! All you doubting Thomas out there read on.

In 2005 Bruce Lipton Ph.D., a cellular biologist, published “The Biology of Belief.” This book was awarded 2006’s Best Science Book of the Year. In the book he presents scientific evidence showing that genes and DNA do not control our biology. Instead, our genes are turned on and off by signals from outside the cells in our bodies, including the energetic messages emanating from our positive and negative thoughts. The significance of this shift in belief is vast, in that the original view held for a long time was that we were victims of our own biology. The ‘new’ sciences show that we are actually masters of our biology.

An earlier book, “Timeless Healing: The Power and Biology of Beliefs,” published in 1997 by Dr. Herbert Benson, M.D. tells about a study conducted in 1957 at Cook County Hospital in Chicago. This study found, according to Dr. Benson, that 30 percent of the patients with rheumatoid arthritis benefited from placebos. Their placebo relief lasted at least three months. In 1995 more research was conducted confirming this study. The results were published in the Annals of Internal Medicine, where 40 percent of individuals suffering with rheumatoid arthritis had a 50 percent reduction in both swelling and tenderness in their joints by simply taking a placebo. These effects lasted for six months or more.

There continues to be scientific evidence that states that we are powerful creators in our lives and the world in which we live. So, less grumbling is important as our beliefs about ourselves and the world, regardless if they are true or false, positive or negative affect us on a multitude of levels. So, I say, " just say no to grumbling."

A few tools to assist you any time you are in a grumbling space…

• Listen to uplifting music
• Think positive thoughts
• Walk in nature
• Relax in water
• Read an inspirational book
• Play with a child
• Laugh often
• Go shopping

What is important to remember is that our thoughts are creating our reality all the time. Most of the time we are creating these thoughts with our unconscious mind. As a matter of fact, I just recently heard that we are creating our lives around 95 percent from the unconscious mind. That is important information to notice. So you ask, what is the answer. The answer is: become aware of your thoughts and redirect them when you start to grumble.

Do anything that opens your heart and fills you with joy and you are on the path to bring about a life transformation.

-- Lynn

BRIEF COMMENTARY By ELAINE INGIS:

It is amazing how much we accomplish out of sheer vision and the will to make things happen. Lynn Patner offers both a tremendous opportunity and a challenge to every Boomer -- since we have the ability to transform our state of physiological health by out thoughts about life, why do we waste time dwelling on negative possibilities? There may be more to the Law of Attraction (the force behind those "self-fulfilling prophesies" many of us learned about in Psychology 101) than many of us have ever realized. We are blessed and burdened by the obligation to create our own reality by our thinking processes.

Being aware of this, we owe it to ourselves, each of us, to surround ourselves with positive influences and to avoid energy vampires who seem to thrive on complaining, suffering and misery. Carrying this one step further, we can enrich and improve our lives by becoming vitally involved in a social group or community that has a courageous, problem-solving orientation, instead of by sitting alone and talking to some well-intentioned friend on the telephone who reaffirms and prolongs our misery by fueling our outrage or by encouraging us to retreat from what life has brought us. We each have great personal power; this power is multiplied when we combine forces with other positive people.

At the risk of sounding like a shameless self-promoter, SrMeetUp! was created to bring about a positive, supportive and strengthening community environment for our Members. Positive thoughts are contagious -- why not share them? - E.I.

[Douglas Castle, a Director of SrMeetUp! and the Developer of both the Braintenance and Links 4 Life Blogs contributed to this Commentary]