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by Phylis Clay Sparks
An election year, more than any other time, is saturated with polls and surveys. When I hear the results of a poll or survey, I usually say, “Hey! Nobody asked me!” Not that I care about being asked, but it’s obvious these samplings never include my personal viewpoint – or that of anyone else I know. Polls and surveys attempt to predict the future by reading trends that, if continued, will lead to an inevitable end. Likewise, polls attempt to reveal the trends going on in the minds and behavior of people that, if continued, will lead to an inevitable result. Some trends are positive, some are negative and some are just a waste of time and energy.
If polls have any value at all it is in bringing to a conscious level the positive, negative or fruitless direction in which we may be heading as a nation, as a people or as a planet. The value to each one of us, individually, is to ask, “Am I participating in that particular trend? Where am I focusing my mental, emotional and spiritual attention?” The next question is, “Am I heading in a positive, negative or fruitless direction?” The bottom line is — how we experience our lives is all about the trends; the trends of our thought, the trends of our feeling, the trends of our belief and the trends of our behavior.
When we become aware of these trends, then like any poll, we can predict where we’re going to end up. If we don’t like the prediction, we had better get busy changing the trend! After all, we are each blessed with the power of choice and decision. That means we can change the negative trends of our lives into something much grander.
Basically, trends are based upon the universal law of cause and effect. Science would describe this law by saying that for every action there is a reaction or similarity, for every cause there is an effect, and for every effect there must have been a cause. The world of spirituality would describe this law by saying that you reap what you sow. Karma is also a common word used to describe the law of cause and effect. This law is primary to all other universal laws, whether it is the law of attraction, law of circulation or some other law. Whatever label you give it, the law of cause and effect operates just as surely as the law of gravity — and it is always operating in our lives whether we are consciously aware of it or not.
Negativity in today’s world is perhaps the most obvious “trend” that is consuming the media, politics, economics, attitudes, behavior and the focus of conversation in general. Fear has a vice-grip on the minds of most people. Fear leads to a negative attitude toward life and decision-making. Fear and negativity are undermining the trust we have in life, each other, our Higher Power — and the future. The bottom line is, unless we change the trend of our negative outlook, we will reap what we have sown, we will get back what we have given out, and we will expand that to which we are giving our attention.
I don’t care whether it’s talking or thinking about our health, what we think and feel about other people, how we approach our decision making, how we evaluate our political leanings or what we’re going to have for breakfast, our personal experience of life is determined by the trends of our consciousness. That means, when we perceive things as negative or bad or ugly or evil, our experience of life is going to prove to us we're right! And we walk around like proud peacocks saying, “I told you so!”
Well the joke’s on us, because it has nothing to do with being right. It has to do with how we put into motion a law that causes our experience to reflect that very energy we have put into motion. That’s simply the way it works. The sooner we “get” how this universe responds to our every thought, feeling and belief, the sooner we will learn how to improve, enhance and otherwise upgrade our experience of life. When we shift our attention away from the negative to noticing the beauty rather than the ugliness, appreciating what is good rather than what’s “bad,” allowing each other to have opinions without judging them and honoring the essential goodness of all life, we will set a trend toward a more joyous, wholesome and prosperous experience of life.
It’s time that we stop taking negative trends so lightly — especially our own. When we get right down to it, what better way is there to influence positive trends in the world and in our nation than to start by setting our own?
Phylis Clay Sparks is the Spiritual Director and Founder of The Soul-Esteem Center, now in its eleventh year. She is a speaker, teacher, spiritual counselor and author of SOUL-ESTEEM: The Power of Spiritual Confidence (available in The SEC Bookstore).
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