When you’re truly in charge of creating your life’s destiny, you become confident and assured because your mind is nurturing rather than tearing down and preventing you from enjoying life to the fullest extent possible.
In the beginning, it sometimes takes a conscious decision on your part to stop the flow of negativity, but eventually you’ll come to the place where the negative thoughts simply ‘ping’ off your mind before they can cause damage.
You may believe that a negative thought has already done its damage by simply entering your mind. But, a thought only damages your thinking process when it’s allowed to linger – to become a strong and powerful force in your mind, repeating itself when necessary to keep you under its ‘spell.’
To lessen the impact of negative thoughts, begin to think of them as separate from yourself. Only when you begin to realize that negative thoughts are foreign invaders and not part of your true thought process will you be able to release them quickly and effectively.
One way to control thoughts, especially negative ones, is to immediately concentrate on something else. Pick up a good book that’s hard to put down, put on some music that makes you sing and/or dance or exercise your body to clear your mind. It works almost every time.
Letting a negative thought linger in your mind can be appealing to you – especially when you’re in a particularly vulnerable state of mind. When you find yourself entertaining a negative thought, think about the origin of it. Once you know that the thought is from a place of despair, lack of confidence, fear or lack of self-esteem, you can consciously choose to reject it.
Meditation is one of the best ways to control your thought process. As you calm the mind, you can better concentrate on the powers you possess within. These unique powers can ‘harness the universe’ and bring about positive thoughts that will bring you abundance and clarity.
Try meditating at a time when your mind isn’t running rampant with thoughts, either positive or negative. Meditation will bring you peace of mind – and you’ll find it easier to prevent any negative thoughts that come your way.
Actions Speak Louder than Words to Our Minds
“As ye think, so shall you be,” is an old saying that would be great if it worked. But, just because we think the good thoughts doesn’t mean that we’ll perform the same actions. Again, it takes hardworking effort to act as we think.
For example, if you’re trying to get in shape for the New Year, simply thinking it won’t make it come true. You have to give birth to the thoughts and make them come true by keeping a watchful eye on your diet and getting into an exercise program that will turn the dream into a reality.
Use your own inventiveness to think of ways you can act on the positive thoughts that come your way. Also, think about what it would mean if you acted on the negative thoughts that enter your mind. Use your imagination to raise up ways that will highlight the affirmative things in your life and you’ll be that much closer to controlling your thoughts.
We sometimes don’t act on positive thoughts because of opinions. Try to keep an open mind about events that happen and people who come into your life. Acting in a positive way toward something or someone you’ve already formed a negative opinion about can open our minds in a way that helps us to listen and better understand an ocean of possibilities.
Joy vs. Sorrow
We’re all periodically visited by joy and sorrow in our lives. What we do with the experiences, set apart the survivors from those who let either one overtake them. If you never experience sadness, you’re missing one of the great character-building elements in your life. If you never experience joy, you’re missing one of the greatest building blocks to success and true happiness.
Sorrow can turn you into a bitter person and ruin what chances you have at true love and abundance of good things in your life. It can keep you from unlocking the door to the part of you that contains your spiritual guide.
Everyone experiences sorrow in a lifetime of experiences. You may be having trouble getting over the death of a loved one or the ending of a relationship. You may have gone through an awful tragedy that has altered your life and the lives of those you love. This is where your spiritual guide can be the most benefit.
Grief is a normal part of life, the same as birth and deaths, but if you dwell on the grieving times of your life, you’ll never experience the joy that your spiritual guide has in store for you.
But how can you be happy most of the time when there are so many terrible things going on in the world? Perhaps you’ve lost your job and face eviction from your home and are confronted every day by bills you can’t pay and phone calls demanding that you do.
It may sound simplistic, but when you feel that sorrow saturates your life and you just can’t rise above it, think about times in your life when you felt truly happy. It doesn’t have to be a major, money-spending session – think about the smile of a child when you read a book to her. Think about taking a walk with your dog and seeing her delight in every smell that came her way.
Those are just a few samplings of the little things that you can think about and do to get your mind off the sorrow you’re feeling and back to the happiness that’s still available in your life.
You may even want to write down some things you’re happy about – a gratitude journal about what’s positive in your life. Listening to beautiful music, watching a funny or gratifying movie or reading a good book are just some of the things in your life that you can be grateful for.
Eventually, you’ll have to deal with situations like unpaid bills or evictions notices, and you’ll experience sadness when this happens. But deal with them as best you can and then move on.
It doesn’t help at all to focus on self-pity or ‘what ifs,’ – only driving you further into a rut. Choose to think about happier times and those to come or you’ll continue to live a life without the proper spiritual guidance.
By choosing to focus on happiness rather than sorrow, you’re choosing to control your thoughts and when you do that, the spiritual guide that may be laying dormant in your mind will listen and respond.
Don’t Become Victim to Your Thoughts
You can become a victim of your thoughts as easily as you can become a victim of identity fraud if you’re not diligent about protecting your mind. Just as you’re careful to shred documents that could become dangerous if they land in the hands of an identity thief, so should you be especially diligent about letting thoughts enter your mind that are going to make you a victim of negativity.
It takes real effort to reject negative thoughts. It’s tempting to succumb and wallow in the self-pity they sometimes bring, so practice ‘catching’ them just as you would catch a ball.
That skill took practice – you probably missed the ball on the first try, but as you practiced, you became more adept. When you find a negative thought about to enter your mind, catch it as soon as possible and give it a good swift kick to the outside.
Communicating with Your Spiritual Guide
Communicating with your spiritual guide is the best way to develop a relationship with this powerful force in your life. When you know the proper and most effective way of communicating, you’ll begin to develop and nurture the intuition you were born with. Unless you’re constantly engaged in forming a relationship with your spiritual guide, the ability wanes and – just like muscles that are seldom used – it loses its power.
When you don’t communicate with family, friends, boss, coworkers and other people in your life, the relationships become weak and you eventually become out of touch with what’s going on and problems will ensue.
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