“Who you are speaks so loudly, I can’t hear what you’re saying”

--Ralph Waldo Emerson

Things sure have changed. I used to walk down a certain street of cute little shops and small businesses and see so many people, smiling, talking and laughing, hustling about, exchanging “hellos” and going about their busy lives and simple errands. Not anymore.

Now it seems many barely look at you as they scurry past. Life feels different and people seem different. No more smiles and hugs on the street, just “Walking Dead” zombies like you see on the AMC show, moving about with masks on and guards up, staying away from each other in some sort of stifling prison this pandemic has become.

Thoughts can easily be felt as we cast them out into the universe, according to scientist Dr. Bruce Lipton. Yes, thoughts are things so we need to watch what we’re sending out. Are you broadcasting peace or panic? Fear or adversity? Hope and resilience or resignation and surrender? Victims or victorious?

As we broadcast out into the world, what we are thinking about the collective universe can BECOME the Universe as it mirrors our minds.

You make your beliefs then your beliefs make you. And a belief is merely a thought you keep thinking. Here are some tips to turn your “stinking thinking” around.

--Focus on the things that are going right.

--Prioritize. Use this earthly retreat to figure out what matters and what’s working.

--Reinvent yourself. Use this time to do what you’ve always wanted to do.

--Reflect. As Socrates once wrote, “An unexamined life is not worth living.” Yours is.

--Reach out. Connect with those you love. Don’t grieve alone. Be a best friend.

--Stay in solution NOT the problem.

Change your thoughts and change the channel. Don’t be “The Walking Dead”. Smile behind your mask. Send out love. Broadcast hope. Be a beacon of light in these dark times. Be the architect of your own life. My new life guide, “Mixed-Up to Fixed-Up” can help. Act as if you won’t just survive these unprecedented times... but you will thrive mentally, physically, emotionally and spiritually.

Believe it and it will happen. Believe it and make it happen.

Some things we cannot change. But we can always change ourselves and thus the world in which we live.