Chapter 5
PEP:
Positive Energy Power
What is“PEP?”“
PEP” is an acronym for “Positive Energy Power.” It is the power that comes from using positive energy to think, feel, act, respond and behave. When one chooses to live positively with PEP, one's life is transformed. While it sounds great to be able to live life only with PEP, most people don't know how to make this happen. All around us, we find a mix of both negative and positive energies. Sometimes people and circumstances force us to respond negatively. Then, how can we live with PEPall the time?
We cannot control others' behavior and circumstances, but we can surely control our own reactions to these. When you choose PEP, you are actually choosing the power of positive energy that then helps you respond with a positive attitude toward people and circumstances. PEP will, therefore, make you think, feel and act positively. If you do not choose PEP, negative people or circumstances may naturally derive a negative response from you. But by choosing PEP, you ensure that even the negative is confronted with the positive. Confronting the negative with the positive brings you growth and fulfillment in the long run.
PEPis a matter of choice. It is a way of life that only youcan choose. PEP is based on the concept of living life with positive emotions and energy, rather than letting negative poisons consume life. When you choose PEP, you automatically develop positive habits and your responses will be positive. While PEP is not directly positive thinking, a positive attitude or a positive habit, it is a power that leads to all the three. It is a power that channelizes your life into being positive by you making positive choices even in negative situations.
What creates PEP?
PEPis created when one makes a conscious choice to live only with positive emotions. Emotions are Energies in Motion that flow in our life through our Thought Chain. The cumulative positive energy that we choose to live by creates PEP. Once our life is full of PEP, we become equipped to face the negative and transform our response to positive.
PEPis a powerful force that takes charge of our attitude, thoughts, feelings and actions. Many positive emotions cumulatively build PEPinto our life. Some of the positive emotions and attributes that can create PEP are faith, hope, love, joy, courage, confidence, passion, inspiration, cheerfulness, compassion, optimism, appreciation and enthusiasm. Let us understand these emotions that create PEP.
Faith
The word “faith” is born from the Latin word fide. It implies sincerity of intentions and connotes firm belief and trust. People with faith have strong convictions and inbuilt loyalty. Faith gives rise to courage, confidence and enthusiasm. Generally, faith is talked of in relation to God and religion, but can be used in other contexts too. To me, the word “FAITH” is best understood as an acronym for “Full Assurance In The Heart.”
Faith is a positive emotion. It eliminates doubt and destroys fear. It suppresses the negative and gives rise to all that is positive. People with faith naturally respond positively. Their firm belief is the key to their positive energy. Faith is the foundation of PEP. Without faith, the negative emotion, doubt, enters our life and creates skepticism, hesitation and indecision leading to negative reactions, thoughts and feelings. We must carefully fill our life with faith.
Hope
What is hope? “HOPE,” to me, is an acronym for “Having Only Positive Expectations.”
With hope, one is more confident of the future. Hope generates belief and trust. It makes people's emotions positive and fills their lives with positive energy. While a person without hope may react negatively in any situation, a person with hope always responds positively. Hope creates optimism and influences our emotions and feelings by giving us the assurance that something positive will definitely happen. Positive expectations make a person's attitude positive forever. Therefore, hope is one of the most important keys to unleash PEP.
When the positive emotion, hope, is absent, the negative emotion, despair, creeps into our life creating a poison within. This makes us lethargic and drains us of joy and cheer. Hence, we must choose hope to live with PEP.
Love
Love has different meanings, but in the context of PEPit implies a deep sense of caring and being affectionate toward others. Love builds strong relationships and carries no price tag. In its higher form, love emerges as a positive emotion. When you love someone, your attitude toward that person is kind, compassionate and understanding. That is, love emits positive vibrations that ensure a positive response toward others no matter what. Love is the energy that lets PEP take root, bloom and spread positive radiance all around.
Love is a positive emotion that creates PEP. Love also builds strong and genuine relationships that can serve us in times of crisis. Love emits positive vibrations; with love as a dominant emotion, our thoughts, feelings, reactions and actions will always be positive.
Replace love with hate and the heart is instantly filled with a poison! The poison initiated from hatred creates anger and hostility that makes us react with cruelty. Hate kills kindness and mercy and makes us brutal and ready to inflict pain on others. We are at our best when we love and feel loved. Living a life rich with love is a wise choice, which will fill us with PEP.
Joy
Joy is a positive emotion that fosters happiness and bliss. It is a state of being wherein one smiles, has a twinkle in the eyes and feels the heart dancing with excitement. One is filled with joy if one is continuously cheerful and in good spirits.
Joy eliminates gloom and worry not only from one's life but also from others' lives. Joyful people subconsciously develop the habit of being positive because their feeling of cheerfulness eliminates the possibility of being negative; they naturally respond with optimism. When one is cheerful, one cannot be negative, just like one cannot be crying when one is laughing and smiling. Therefore, joy, cheerfulness, bliss and happiness are the basic ingredients of PEP.
The absence of joy opens the door of our life to sorrow. This creates distress and regret and leads us to a life of dullness. The body sinks into a poisonous state as if it is stung by a reptile. Once we sink into sorrow, we have no option but to live an unhappy life. It is wiser, thus, to bounce back and consciously choose joy instead of sorrow and live with PEP.
Courage
The word “courage” is derived from the Latin word corage, which means “heart.” Over time, it has come to signify a “strong heart.” People with courage have the mental and moral strength to face opposition, danger and hardship. Courageous people can overcome any difficulty.
Those who are courageous eliminate fear from their lives and hence are able to face dangers with a strong heart. With this state of mind, they respond positively to all the occurrences in life. Though many things perceived as difficult or unfair may happen to them, they don't let those unfavorable incidents interfere with the way they respond. Courage makes them respond positively. Courage is the guts and the steel that forms PEP.
The opposite of courage is “FEAR” – “False Expectations Appearing Real.” This negative emotion appears because our life doesn't have enough PEP. It creates anxiety and exaggerates our dangers. While the dangers may not be real, fear is real. This negative emotion both poisons and paralyzes us with the negative energy it possesses. Fear can kill, and thus, we must always choose courage over fear.
Confidence
Confidence is a positive emotion that quite instantly creates PEP. Confidence is to do with belief in oneself. It is about trusting one's own abilities. The word “confidence” originates from the Latin word confidentia, which means firm trust. When one has confidence in oneself, one is said to have self-confidence. However, confidence, belief or trust is not something restricted to one's self alone; it can be placed in others as well.
When one has confidence, one's responses are naturally positive even when the situation, circumstance or person they are dealing with is essentially negative. A person with confidence responds positively.
Lack of confidence welcomes the negative emotion called hesitation. Hesitation is indecision and doubt in disguise. It corrodes faith and trust. It causes us to miss opportunities with its toxic power. Conquer hesitation with confidence and live a life of PEP!
Passion
Passion is the root of PEP, because it is one emotion that creates all other strong emotions. One who is passionate can truly love, live with faith, be inspired and can live with enthusiasm. Therefore, passion is the root foundation of PEP. However, this positive emotion if improperly used can lead to great disasters. For instance, when love becomes lust and inspiration becomes overconfidence, it leads to disastrous results. If positively implemented, passion can create the power that can fuel PEP.
Lack of passion leads one to a state of dispassion, wherein there is no desire, no life. One who is dispassionate doesn't possess the energy that can drive PEPforward. Slowly, a poison develops along with indecision, lethargy and lifelessness. Choose positive passion as you power your life with PEP.
Inspiration
The word “inspiration” is born out of the word “in-spire,” meaning to create within us a spiraling energy that will arouse our mind to creative action. Inspiration ensures that we are always in action. One who is inspired is full of energy, courage and confidence. Those who want to live with PEP must choose inspiration over boredom. Boredom drains us and makes us lose all the power that inspiration creates. Abored person can never respond with PEP, but will surely make room for negative poisons to fester and destroy growth. Eliminate boredom and live a life of inspiration and PEP!
Cheerfulness
Do you want to live a life full of PEP? Then, choose cheerfulness over depression in your every thought, word and deed. Cheerfulness eliminates gloom and worry and creates ripples of happiness in those around us. Cheerfulness destroys the possibility of NEP and other negative emotions. It is a strong expression of positive power, joy and bliss. This emotion is far better than its opposite: depression.
Depression is a killer. It is amongst the most dangerous of NEPand is born only in the absence of cheer. One who is depressed has no interest in living, is bored of life and is slowly, but surely, sinking with NEP. Before depression attacks us increasingly and digs deep into us, we must create the foundation of cheerfulness and live a life full of PEP.
Compassion
Compassion is a positive emotion that kills indifference and apathy. It is born with the sympathy we nurture and express toward others; it's a sense of care and mercy. People who have compassion understand other people’s pain and problems and empathize with them instead of ridiculing them, and this understanding creates a positive energy.
There are others who are indifferent toward the problems that their fellow humans face, they are unconcerned, aloof and detached. This insensitivity creates negative poison. If you fill your life with compassion and eliminate indifference, you will notice PEPand its other positive emotions taking charge of your life.
Optimism
Optimism is about expecting the best possible outcome. An optimist simply believes that all is going to turn out well. Generally, an optimist will look at a glass that is half full as half full, whereas a pessimist will find the same glass half empty.
Optimists do not react with negativity because they expect good things to happen. They know that if they respond negatively, then things will not happen the way they want them to. Both optimism and PEP march in the same direction and work hand in hand; they both are about believing, hoping and achieving. One cannot have PEPwithout optimism, and one cannot be optimistic without PEP!
When optimism is absent, pessimism rules the mind. One is always apprehensive and lives with doubt and hopelessness. Obviously, this creates poisonous thoughts and leads us to a poisonous destiny. Flip over from pessimism to optimism, now!
Appreciation
Appreciation is the recognition or the highlighting of the good in someone or something. It is a positive emotion that creates positive energy. It is magical, since one who receives appreciation becomes very happy and excited. When we appreciate somebody, we create a positive aura around us and deposit positive energy within us as well. I believe that every day we have the choice between appreciating or condemning someone or something. A positive person chooses appreciation and uses it as a tool to never lose sight of PEP.
When PEP is missing and NEP takes charge, one is always criticizing and condemning. Criticism creates poison because it focuses on only the negative and ignores the larger positive picture. Such an attitude can never result in positive energy. To live a life of positivity, learn to focus on the positive and appreciate others and yourself instead of concentrating on the negatives and indulging in criticism.
Enthusiasm
“Enthusiasm” is born from the Greek word entheos, which means “in God.” People who have enthusiasm usually place their trust in God. Such people believe in the existence of the power that gave them life. Enthusiastic people are happy, energetic and always positive because they live with faith in God.
People who display enthusiasm can never be negative; they always respond with a positive attitude. Enthusiasm creates a large amount of positive energy. Once you choose to be enthusiastic and believe in the divine power, you will joyously accept whatever happens as the work of the Master Craftsman. Instead of being in denial and resentful, you will positively accept whatever comes your way with happiness and a welcoming spirit. Such an approach makes anyone respond enthusiastically and builds PEP.
Lose enthusiasm and you will see lifelessness entering your thoughts, feelings and actions. Instead of a positive energy, a negative poison will rule your life. So choose to be enthusiastic always. Live with faith, hope and belief in God!
Cumulatively, all the positive emotions discussed in the preceding text create Positive energy Power or PEP. Let us observe the working of these positive emotions and attributes and use them to create PEPin our life.
By choosing these positive emotions, which then lead to positive energies, we will be eliminating the negative opposites that maybe constricting our life. For example, choosing compassion will eliminate indifference from our life and the many other negatives it would have produced as its by-products in the course of time. Similarly, choosing faith will remove doubt and lead to hope, enthusiasm and love.
Let's recall what all these positive emotions do cumulatively. Positive emotions create an environment of positive energy. This positive energy or happy aura we develop, in turn, makes us feel and think positive. In such a positive environment, it is unlikely that we will react negatively to people and situations. Therefore, Positive Energy Power ensures that we continue to plant positive thoughts and habits through constant positive attitudes and emotions. When we start living with PEPand eliminate all the negative poisons, we start the process of being ever positive and convert all our negative habits into positive ones. All our responses steadily become positive; so also our thoughts, feelings and actions. PEPgives birth to a positive circle, and this will definitely lead us to a positive destiny!
