Sophia's Children

Former Vice President, Spiro Agnew, called them “nattering nabobs of negativism.” I’ve used the term “diminishing mirrors.”

But we all know what that is, and we know too well the effect it can have.

This can apply to chronically discouraging people, or those dark little negative-juju bunnyholes that grab our attention and suck us in like a black hole and leaving us feeling diminished and slimed once we’ve grokked or mind-melded with it.

The Nattering Naysayers or Diminishing Mirrors go well beyond “constructive criticism,” to something more like what Larry Dossey, M.D. has called toxic prayer, and it can be a real energy, momentum, and vision crusher for the one on the receiving end of it.

But encouragement … believing mirrors … those who reflect the highest possibilities and our best magic back to us, and hold sacred the visions, aspirations, heart-truths, and fragile budding dreams we share with them? Who help to lift us out of “fear spin” and into the magic of the Heart-field?

These are in the “pearls of great price” or “price above rubies” category! And when we play that role, the very same Heart-magic gets activated.

So it’s always great to have a bit of wise counsel that reminds us, if we need it, to ignore the nattering nabobs of negativism and the diminishing mirrors, unless we feel called to live their particularly diminished, dreary, dystopian vision for us (whether it’s witting or unwitting). We don’t.

Instead, discern the guidance that comes to you, whether you call it Divine guidance, intuition, or following the omens. You’ll know it because your heart will feel ‘in it’; it’ll feel truly motivating, like one of those ‘Eureka Moments’.

Choose the encouragement of your believing mirrors and anam cara.

Here’s what the author Neil Simon advised in a commencement address he gave to graduating students at Williams College in 1984:

“Don’t listen to those who say ‘you’re taking too big a chance.’ Michelangelo would have painted the Sistine floor, and it would surely be rubbed out by today.

Most important, don’t listen when the little voice of fear inside you rears its ugly head and says ‘they’re all smarter than you out there. They’re more talented, they’re taller, blonder, prettier, luckier, and they have connections.”

I firmly believe that if you follow a path that interests you, not to the exclusion of love, sensitivity, and cooperation with others, but with the strength of conviction that you can move others by your own efforts—and do not make success or failure the criteria by which you live—the chances are you’ll be a person worthy of your own respect.” ~ Author Neil Simon.

Read another ‘vision zapper’ story in this Wake-Up Juice archives edition.

May the place and space around you be rich and fertile with believing mirrors, anam cara, and big-hearted encouragers.

Big Love & Audacious Dreaming,

Jamie

Find more of Gary Tonge’s beautiful cosmic work at his DeviantArt locale.