The Power of Thought

 

“A man is what he thinks…”

~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

So how we can use the power of our thoughts to have success in life?

Each of us remembers a phrase we heard about ourselves long time ago, probably in our childhood that we can summon to our minds. However, not everything others say to us is positive.

Expressions like "you will never succeed in it" or "You have two left hands" can very much discourage us and hold us back. When someone has something like that as a forecast through life, it is dangerous because it is always in his/her subconscious. Whenever he/she wants to start something it is there.

And negative thoughts, especially those about our own behavior, are poisonous. I’ve noticed that, when I became myself more aware of the thoughts I’m thinking. They really feel like a poison is going through my body. And just recently I’ve read why that is. Negative thoughts, words and attitude bring up negative and unhappy moods and actions. When the mind is negative, poisons are released into the blood, which cause more unhappiness and negativity.

You know when you are angry and say something bad to a person or cuss somebody but after that you don’t feel good at all and feel even worse, that is when your negativity is getting in a way of your well-being.

I was forbidden to use bad language around my parents’ house for a long time. Even now I don’t feel good saying something bad in my mom’s or dad’s presence. But when I left my parents’ home for the first time, as a teenager, it felt so good to cuss, say bad words and not be punished for that. I felt at that time I was more part of the world of grownups. However, with time bad language lost its allure. And sometime I felt even worse using bad words and saying bad things. When I became more cautious of my thinking that’s when I’ve realized that cussing and using bad language really hurts me. It might hurt another person but in the process I was really hurting myself.

This is how negative thinking works. We first think bad thoughts, then we feel bad and at the end we say something bad. Many times we are not aware of our thought process, but we are aware of our feelings and what we say. So, we can always choose good thought instead of a bad one. Easier said than done, but the benefits of consciously choosing your thoughts are tremendous. And plus you have nothing to lose but only to gain.

Once a negative thought enters your mind, you should practice to be aware of it and endeavor to replace it with a constructive one. The negative thought will try again to enter your mind, and then you have to replace it again with a positive one. Rhonda Byrne, in her book “The Power”, compares her positive and negative feelings and thoughts with horses. Every time she feels bad or thinks bad thought she deliberately chooses to climb down a bad-feeling-horse and climb up a good-feeling-horse. Persistence will eventually teach your mind to think positively and ignore negative thoughts.

The worst kind of thoughts can be negative thoughts we think about ourselves. What to do with those.

In case of negative thinking about our own behavior it is important for us to cross out negative thought we think, in our mind or on paper, and to choose a "good" thought.

To become more conscious about your thoughts you can do the following:

Every time you start doing something, you can explore your mind with the question "What do I believe?"

When you’re cooking dinner, for example, do you believe it will be delicious? If you think "I will fail," immediately revise that with a positive thought. Say that positive thought out loud if you need.

“Search” your past to call to mind the time when you’ve succeeded, when you’ve cooked something delicious or when you’ve done something right. So, look at successes, not failures.

Deal with the issue of "What is that I need to do to succeed?" If you’re cooking dinner you can decide to follow the recipe to a t.

And the most important thing, don’t sweat it. You are going to get the results either way. To return to our example, if you’ve cooked delicious dinner you’ll know that you’ve been on the right track and have chosen positive and encouraging thoughts. If the dinner wasn’t that good you’ll know that your thoughts were still more aligned with a thought that ‘you will fail’, which is still good coz you know you need to practice more.

When you feel an inner resistance in replacing negative thoughts with positive ones, do not give up, but keep looking only at the beneficial, good and happy thoughts in your mind.

It does not matter what your circumstances are at the present moment. Think positively, expect only favorable results and situations, and circumstances WILL change accordingly. It may take some time for the changes to take place, but eventually they do.

Another method to employ is the repetition of affirmations. My favorite affirmation is “all is well”. So simple and yet so powerful. It is a subject of another post on this blog if you wanna read about it.

So, think positive thoughts say positive things and feel positive. A positive mind anticipates happiness, joy, health and success. And whatever the mind expects, it finds.