These days, we are inundated with books, coaches and New Age Speakers pontificating on the importance of staying positive? My mother used to say to me, “I just want you to be happy.” It sounded good when she said it, but when I wasn’t happy. I thought there was something wrong with me.
Let’s start with the concept that we are perfect at this very moment. Whether we are sad, angry, depressed . . . whatever. Now, we can stay with those thoughts that are creating these feelings or we can shift gears.
Today, discrimination is more important than ever. We have so much on our minds. Besides our personal emotional ups and downs, we are bombarded by politics, wars, global warming, poverty, and inequality. Need I go on? If we want to get out of our personal and societal funk, we must control our minds.
It’s time to tell our minds what we want, by using very specific words. “I want to be informed and keep an emotional perspective.” “I am an amazing artist.” I am an outstanding dancer.” “I am a brilliant writer, entrepreneur, software developer.” “I am creating wealth for a sustainable life.” I take positive actions with my money and use my finances judiciously. ““I take excellent care of my body.” You get the picture.
If you want a healthy body, tell yourself, “I love eating nutritious foods. I love walking away from the table a little hungry.” Not,” I am so out of shape, I’ll never get toned.”
I remember working at the American Film Institute in the 70’s and we needed a doll for one of the video scenes. A young woman who was helping us on the set was the daughter of a famous playwright. She enthusiastically said, “I have a doll! Well, It’s actually my father’s doll.” I was stunned to hear that her famous father had a doll. She said, “It’s not an ordinary doll.” She brought in the doll the next day and it was one of those dolls that had a string you could pull in the back of her neck. I, of course was eager to pull the string. The doll said, “You are SOOO great.” The next time I pulled it, it said, “You are SOOO creative.” The next time, “You are Brilliant.” “No one can stop you from fulfilling your dreams.” I was blown away. For years, this famous playwright heard these words over and over. No wonder he succeeded.
I think about people like Nelson Mandela who kept his mind one-pointed while living in prison for 27 years. He studied law, kept to himself, and continued to strengthen his mind. When he left the harsh, bleak environment of jail, he said:
I learned that courage was not the absence of fear, but the triumph over it. The brave man is not he who does not feel afraid, but he who conquers that fear.
Anne Frank had to hide from the German Occupation in a concealed room behind a bookcase with her family. She wrote in her famous diary:
I keep my ideals, because in spite of everything I still believe that people are really good at heart. How wonderful it is that nobody need wait a single moment before starting to improve the world. Whoever is happy will make others happy too.
Take a moment and compare your life to Anne Frank’s or Nelson Mandela’s. Perhaps your life is not so bad after all.
As an experiment for one week, start to watch your thoughts. Become the scientist of your own mind and weed out those thoughts that no longer serve you. Before your automatic knee-jerk reactions shift into high gear – see if you can catch those negative patterns and reverse them into positive ones.
You may start with the practice of meditation. Meditation has the quality of revealing all our thoughts to us. It magnifies them, and cautions us from traveling down the rabbit hole of destructive thinking and behaviors. When we become cognizant of our thoughts, we are empowered to control them and eventually master them.
Tell your mind what YOU want!
With great love, andrea