Dear Dr. Norquist:
I am troubled by a friend of mine who I care deeply about. We grew up in the same neighborhood and went through school together. He is a good person at heart, but gets caught up in situations that bring him down. He has the worst luck of anyone I know. Recently I heard he was hanging around the wrong crowd and was arrested for being in the car with a “friend” who had drugs on him. My friend doesn’t do drugs. He needed a ride home and asked the wrong “friend” for a ride. This is just my friend’s type of luck. Wrong place, wrong time. Now it looks like he will also lose his job. As I said, he is a good person at heart, so I feel really badly for him. I don’t know how to help him. If I told you all the bad luck he has had, this letter would be way too long. Is there anything I can do to help him?
Dr. Norquist responds:
Often, our outer circumstances reflect the state of our inner consciousness. Your friend is a good person who does not know how to take good care of himself. Ultimately, good self care requires maintaining a watchful eye upon the quality of our inner state. Your inner state is fed by the thoughts and feelings you nurture, either consciously or unconsciously. Expecting the worst begets the worst. Conversely, expecting good things attracts good things into your life. Truly imbibing this knowledge will allow your friend to experience better “luck”.
Your friend needs to know that the outer conditions of his life are influenced by his habitual thoughts, feelings, and beliefs. Negative thoughts, beliefs and feelings attract negative experiences. As an analogy, he can think of his habitual thoughts and feelings as a radio that is tuned into a particular station. We all receive whatever is on the “station” we are most often tuned into. It is up to each of us to pay attention to the station we are listening to, as this eventually determines what we manifest in our lives. Mental and emotional vigilance in this regard will serve your friend well.
Hopefully your friend will be open to this information because if he is able to become more positive in his outlook, he can begin to turn his life around. Thank you for caring about him. A good book on this topic is “The Game of Life and How to Play It,” by Florence Scovel Shinn.
(Dr. Sallie Norquist is a licensed psychologist (NJ #2371) in private practice and is director of Chaitanya Counseling Services, a center for upliftment and enlivenment, in Hoboken.)Dr. Norquist and the staff of Chaitanya invite you to write them at Chaitanya Counseling Services, 51 Newark St., Suite 202, Hoboken, NJ 07030 or www.chaitanya.com or by e-mail at drnorquist@chaitanya.com, or by fax at (201) 656-4700. Questions can address various topics, including relationships, life’s stresses, difficulties, mysteries and dilemmas, as well as questions related to managing stress or alternative ways of understanding health-related concerns. 2012 Chaitanya Counseling Services