How do I stay positive while experiencing the life of a human being with all its different facets? Sometimes we suffer physically. Sometimes we lose those close to us. Sometimes we lose a love relationship through betrayal. Sometimes we look out at the world and see the suffering of others or injustice or war. How do we still stay positive? I am pondering this question this morning, because I think it is really important to find the answer for ourselves. If we don’t we might lose the whole point of this life’s journey.

When I think of the word positive, it has a superficial quality to me. It might mean just keeping a stiff upper lip no matter what is happening. It might mean saying all is well when we do not feel it really is. What does it really mean to be positive or to be a positive thinker?

I remember when I first came to the Science of Mind and Spirit back in 1998. I was in probably one of the lowest and at the same time highest points of my life. I’d just ended a 27-year-old marriage. I had no money. I was in severe back pain due to seven months of sciatica. On the other side, I’d just moved to Los Angeles and was beginning to pursue an acting career at the age of 45. I was also falling in love with the person who would later be my husband. How did I stay positive at that low point, and what made me stick to this new philosophy, which was telling me I had the Power to change my life by changing my thinking?

As I look back, I see it was because I wanted change in my life more than I wanted to give into my physical experience. I might not have fully believed it, but I wanted to believe what I was learning about the power of my thoughts. I wanted to believe that God was within me and not somewhere out there in the heavens. I wanted to experience something greater than what I was experiencing, and I was willing to do what it took to win. From the first day that I walked into that Religious Science Church and heard that I could have my heart’s desire, the truth of those words began to work upon me and I began to work with a new idea.

It took me many more months to move through my sciatica. I remember doing a performance where I had to stand for rehearsal for a couple of hours. I was in pain, but somehow the need to experience the joy of performing was greater than giving into my pain. Was I thinking positively? No, I wasn’t, but I was knowing that there must be a greater possibility than what I was experiencing. I believed what I was reading and began to work on it. I was following my joy. I was humble in that I wanted to learn.  The things that were ailing me weren’t as important as the things I was learning. I finally had hope.

So, when someone asks me now  how do you stay positive while at the same time experiencing the trials and tribulations of being human, I would say stop trying to be positive and begin to go within and learn about yourself. Practice the principles. I remember I spent a lot of time trying to make my physical pain go away. It didn’t work. What did work was the greater work on myself that I was doing.

It’s a journey and we all approach it differently. However, what I know is that we are assured success. I have never been more happy in the whole of my 65 years. Yes, I still have moments of life’s trials, but my belief in good is stronger. It’s stronger because of the practice I’ve put in. God does change our brain and the way we think. As Ernest Holmes wrote, “A sense of real completion can only come to that soul that realizes its Unity with the Great Whole.”

I know it is true for all of us, and that we all have our own way of coming to this point. I also know it is a journey that never ends. There will always be a deeper knowing and more expansion.

Love and Aloha,

Rev. Rita