When I was in Africa 5 years ago, I witness a large flock of cape vultures. Wherever you see vultures, you can expect there is a carcass somewhere nearby.

Vultures are most common in dry, open country where they can soar effortlessly in ascending air currents. To be able to soar at great heights, the heavy-bodied vultures make use of thermals, the ‘bubbles’ of hot air that rise from the ground as it heats up. The dependence of vultures on thermals is shown by their daily habits. They do not take off in the morning until the ground has warmed up and thermals begin to form. Despite their heavy bills, most vultures have difficulty in ripping the hide of the carcass; therefore, they have to wait for it to decompose.

Hi. This is Peter Ng. Welcome to my festive edition of ‘Awakening the Power Within You’ – Chase Away the Vultures.

Too many people have vultures circling us. No, not the airborne variety, but the emotional vultures that keep preying on us: those old fears that keep coming back, the memories of the pain of your past, old bitterness, or old hurts. Maybe some of the vultures of your life have continually cast a shadow over you; they have made you depressed, disabled, and discouraged.

Here’s the good news, vultures appears only when there are carcasses (dead body of an animal); therefore, when you removed the carcasses, the vultures will be gone! If you take steps to remove some of the dead stuff that the vultures love to feed on, maybe you can finally get free of them. If you can deal with the root of some of those old fears, failures, and hurts, they don’t have to paralyze you; they don’t have to feed on you anymore.

Those carcasses usually trace back to some painful things that have happened to us in our past: a betrayed relationship; family breakup; abuse; abandonment or some serious personal failure – that’s the carcass. Obviously, you can’t just pretend it never happened, but there are steps you can take – courageous steps (I didn’t say it is easy steps) – that will help ‘throw off’ the carcass that has hindered and entangles you for so long. You have to be sick and tired of the vultures winning. You have to really want to be free, and then you will finally tackle the unpleasant but liberating job of removing that carcass.

Your past does not make you who you are, and we cannot let wrong mindsets, negative past, or other people’s opinions discourage us or cause us to give up and quit moving forward. I am always saddened when I see the number of people living far below their potential just because of their ‘carcasses’. How somebody has treated you or what he or she said about you or done to you doesn’t change your potential. Many people have had negative comments spoken over them, such as “You don’t have what it takes. You’re not very talented. I don’t think you’ll ever be successful.” If we are not careful, we will allow such negative words to play over and over in our minds. They can create a stronghold.

Regardless of who has spoken negative words into your life, you must cast those words down, and challenge every negative thought by reversing the process. Tell yourself “I am talented. I am unique. I have what it take to be successful!”

Too many people don’t have the confidence and the self-esteem they should because they are constantly dwelling on the negative thoughts about themselves. “People dislike me. I don’t deserve the promotion. I cannot take responsibility as I am useless. I don’t seem to have any form of discipline.”

Understanding the Six Guiding Principles of Life

Our lives are actually tuned by the 6 guiding principles – which are our life experiences – the demands; constraints that limit our capacity; available support; and how we grow out of each and every situation. The combinations of the 6 guiding principles make up our personality, our beliefs, our self-esteem, and our self-worth – this explains your life and everything that happens to you – you become what you think about – most of the time.

The Principle of Cause and Effect say that for every cause, there is an effect. Everything happens for a reason. Nothing happens by accident. Nature is neutral. Nature does not favor one person over another. What cause you in your early stage of your life will have an effect on your life today – be it weaker or stronger.

The Principle of Control stated that people feel happy to the degree to which they feel they are in control of their own life. Therefore, people have more control in their life are happier people. For example, if you have a solid internal locus of control, you will feel strong, confident, and happy. You will think with greater clarity and perform at higher levels. On the other hand, if you feel that your life is controlled by other factors and people, you have an external locus of control. You will feel like a victim. You will feel helpless and unable to change or improve your situation. You will soon develop the habit of blaming others and making excuses for your problems. This type of thinking leads inevitably to anger, frustration, and failure.

The Principle of Belief stated that whatever you believe, with conviction, becomes your reality. The fact is, we do not believe what we see, but rather, we see what we already believe. Your deeply held beliefs form a screen of prejudices that distort your external reality and cause you to see things not the way they are, but the way you are. Your negative beliefs soon become habitual ways of thinking. You may believe you lack intelligence, creativity, personality, the ability to speak correctly, the ability to earn a high income, or the ability to achieve your goals. As a result of your self-limiting beliefs, you continually ‘sell yourself short’, give up easily in the pursuit of goal, and even worse, tell other people around you that you lack certain qualities or abilities. Your beliefs then become your realities.

The Principle of Expectations says that whatever you expect, with confidence, becomes your own self-fulfilling prophecy. If you confidently expect something to happen, this expectation has a powerful effect on your attitude and your personality. The more confident your expectations, the more likely it is that you will do and say the things that are consistent with what you expect to happen.

The Principle of Attraction states that you are a living magnet, you invariably attract into your life the people, ideas, and circumstances that harmonize with your dominant thoughts. Successful, happy people continually think and talk about what they want to attract into their lives. Unsuccessful, unhappy people are continually talking about the people and situations that cause them to feel angry and frustrated.

The Principle of Correspondence says that your outer world is a reflection of your inner world. It is as though you live in a 360-degree mirror. People treat you the way you treat them. The way you think about people and your relationships will be reflected back to you in the quality of your friendships and your family life. The way you think about success will be reflected in the results that you enjoy in your career. In every case, your outer world reflects back to you, like a mirror-image, exactly what you are thinking in the deepest recesses of your mind.

You Have What It Takes – either to Fail or to be Successful

Some people miss the great things in life because they talk themselves out of believing for better things. Too often, when we suffer some kind of rejection or disappointment, we get so discouraged that we settle right where we are.

Remember the vultures flying habit? They cannot soar effortlessly without the ascending hot air currents or ‘thermals’. These ‘thermals’ are the daily happenings in our lives, for example, when we see someone we don’t like because of a similarity of that someone who cause you hurt, or certain personality we hate because you have been cheated by an almost similar character-behavioral partner, or a part of the movie that reminds us of our betrayed past relationships, we started to get angry, aggressive, abusive, depressed, frustrated, etc. You allow your daily circumstances, which is not a reality but a reminder of your past, to affect your emotions and mental health. You allow those ‘thermals’ for the vultures within your mind to soar effortlessly, and choose to live in an angry, disappointed and depressed life.

Often, out of our greatest rejection comes our greatest direction. When you come to a closed door, or something doesn’t work out in your life, instead of seeing that as the end, regard that as an indicator into a better direction. Too many people get bitter, and they get angry. Let that hurt go. Don’t look at it as the end. Look at it as a new beginning.

If you keep ‘Retain and Remember’ of your past hurts, you will lose much more good things today than you have already lost yesterday. Live in the power of now. You cannot change the past, but you can do something about your present, and choose a better future. What’s in front of you is far more important than what is behind you. Dump away your carcasses and your vultures will move away. Live your life with a ‘Forgive and Remember’ attitude – forgive is important for ensuring that you are willing to admit you messed up, and is able to forgive yourself, and to give up your resentment against your enemy; and remembering, if that memory gets institutionalized to be much wiser, and is essential for preventing the same mistake from occurring again. Both uncovering past hurts and learning from them is essential for life learning and growing process. Whenever you quit grieving over what you have lost, nothing will keep you from the good things in your current life, and you will start to see the positive side of everything, every person, and on every issue.

Vultures have difficulty in ripping the hide (skin) of the carcass, and they have to wait for it to decompose. Our past can only make us stronger, wiser, and better. Many people have a tough time letting go of their past bitterness. They are always focused on who hurt them or how unfairly they have been treated. Meanwhile, their gifts, talents, and dreams are pressed down. All the potential is lying dormant. Dwelling and grieving over our hurts, is similar to waiting for it to decompose, and when that happen, the vultures will dwell together with you. Let go of your bitterness, bury it and quit talking about it, and the vultures will stay no more!

Stop realizing your past in your life today. Quit talking about it. Quit reliving every negative experience. Quit mourning over something you cannot change. Get rid of that ‘poor me’ mentality. Quit being negative and critical toward yourself and the world; and start enjoying yourself as the unique creation. You have got to believe in yourself and believe that you have something to offer this world that nobody else has,

Another important key to reaching your full potential is putting yourself in an environment where you can get rid of your vultures and live with the eagles. You cannot hang out with negative people and expect to live a positive life. Let’s be honest, you are probably not going to pull them up, more likely, if you continue to spend too much time in their presence, they will pull you down.

There is nothing in your life that you cannot overcome; no hurt is too deep that you cannot forgive. You have the power to let go of the negative things of your past. When you fail – and we will – that does not make you a failure. Stop talking about the way you are, talk about the way you want to be.

We should not use our past as an excuse or a rationalization for continuing that pattern. We must recognize what has happened, and we need to be more determined than ever that we are going to be the ones to put a stop to it, and start casting away your carcasses.

Don’t ignore it or try to sweep it under the rug and hope that it will go away. No, it won’t, it gets decompose and your vultures are going to have their ball of fun. If you are lazy and undisciplined, don’t make excuses; just admit it and say “I’m going to deal with this.” If you have an anger problem, or if you don’t treat other people with respect, don’t try to convince yourself that everything is okay. Admit it and deal with it.

Take responsibility for your own actions. You may have experienced some unfair things in the past that have made life more difficult for you, but your attitude should be, “I am not going to sit around and moan and complain about how I was raised or about how somebody mistreated me. I am going to make the most of this life and I am going to make good choices starting today.”

In Summary:

• Our past does not make us who we are
• We cannot fully love others when we cannot even love ourselves
• If we cannot love ourselves, how can other people love us?
• Procrastination are caused by low self-esteem and low self-worth
• Keeping the bitterness and hurts obstructs us from moving forward
• We cannot work with others because we cannot even accept ourselves and do not belief in our own abilities
• When we lock ourselves in, we are also keeping others out.
• We will not take risk and lack courage whenever we relive our past failures

• Live life with a sense of humor – learn to laugh at yourself and the mistakes made
• Let go of your bitterness and resentment – Live the life you love
• Refuse to live with guilt an condemnation because of your past mistakes
• Believe in yourself as an unique individual with unique talents and potentials
• Live in the power of now
• Choose to live in a positive and healthy environment
• Challenge every negative thoughts and have a good opinion of yourself
• You have what it takes to live a fulfilling and positive life
• Turn the six Guiding Principles to your favor and enjoy the best of what life has to give
• Keep reminding yourself that “I deserve a good and happy life; and I can expect good things to happen in my life.”

It’s okay if you fall as long as you learn something as you get up.
When you believe in yourself, you are free to focus on improving yourself and reaching your potential.