FAST FORWARD TO THE WORLD OF POSITIVE THINKING. How did the pop culture get here so quickly? What drove us all to re-examine the importance of deliberate control or management over our thoughts? Isn't this in conflict with the action-based materialistic society of the traditional Western world that demands products and tangible productivity? Well, product demand has contributed to positive thinking, in a round about way, because the corporate world discovered that productivity could be increased if the culture of the work place and the workers were more positive and supportive to each other. So corporations started investing huge sums of money into providing their workers with training inservice sessions such as attitude development, positive relationships, cooperative team strategies, positive self image and the like. This is where we have come. And these concepts have spilled over into common society.
SO NOW THERE IS A FLOOD OF SELF-HELP INFORMATION COMING OUT ON HOW TO ELIMINATE NEGATIVE EMOTIONS AND MENTAL BLOCKS AND BELIEF OBSTACLES THAT CONSTRICT THE FLOW OF QUALITY LIVING AND HAPPINESS. Intuitives are speaking out. Insightists are now being asked for their expertise to help us with control and management of our thoughts. We also have learned from experience how important thinking is. We have found that we may have intentions in one direction, and those intentions could be very strong and deliberate, but that in the end, there is another self, another mind-set or construct of thoughts that sabotages that intention: in other words, we find it difficult to carry out our personal intentions.
THOUGHT MANAGEMENT IS THE BASE OF PERSONAL TRANSFORMATION. If you follow someone like William Buhlman's work, you will find that work in the out-of-body experiential world is nothing more than management of the mind and then more subtle mind. If you look at the work of intuitives like Ines Martens or Danielle MacKinnon, you will find that we create what they call "soul contracts" that manipulate us on subtle levels that we may not even be aware of, but which we can detect because of destructive repeated patterns of behavior that we can't seem to shake off. Here again, they suggest that we explore these thoughts, try to face the causes of our destructive energy, change our thinking and thus be able to change our life.
THOUGHT MANAGEMENT HAS ITS OWN LAWS OF OPERATION. Thought management sounds easy at first...just don't worry; be happy. Yeah, right. Thought management is simple, but not at all easy. When we are on a job, we have an outside force insisting that we concentrate or control our thoughts: in order to succeed on a job, we have to bring our attention into focus. But the problem comes as soon as we get off work and the mind is joyous, feeling that now it doesn't have to control its attention; it can think whatever it wants. Right? Wrong. Free time is the arena that separates the winners from the losers. Free time is where we have to double up our attention and make deliberate, conscious thoughts that work for us and not against us. It is in this arena that we can buck the system, so to speak, and transform our lives into ones that accomplishes our personal goals. Afterall, do we really want to come to the end of our life and realize that all we have accomplished is doing a good job at working for these companies and organizations, that we have done a good job at serving humanity, and have done a good job in pleasing our family and friends?...all noble ideas...but gees louise, what about me and my personal growth and happiness....how does that fit in? Can't I also have a little piece of the pie of my life for myself and my personal goals? Is that too selfish? Hell no! It is insane not to pursue our own quest of transformation,but no one will really encourage us to do it, because in the end, they would rather have you for themselves, either as a worker, a server or a playmate. So personal transformation is something we have to deliberately plot out for ourselves. And as the Alchemist tells us, once we make a deliberate commitment to our own growth, the universe conspires to see that that plan become successful. (pardon the paraphrase) So that leads to dynamic #1 of the laws of thought management.
1, Have an idea of the the goal of your personal transformation...hey, if you can't muster a formal goal..."happiness" as a goal is a good place to start.
2. Have an idea of some path you want to pursue, which you want to realize, can be changed at any time if you find a more effective technique.
3. Learn to monitor your thoughts....you may first want to start with just tracking your thoughts for a period of ten minutes...writting down every little thought that pops into your brain. (In ten minutes you may be exhausted!)
4. Look at all the negative thoughts that you entertain in your mind, write them down and then burn them from your mind. Some people like to physically burn a list as a symbolic gesture...which gets into the next idea.
5. Set up symbols of affirmation for yourself, or metaphors that represent thoughts.
6. Slow down your thoughts and cut down your analysis time. When you enter your free time arena, often you overbook yourself. You want to make up for lost time and think that frantically impacting your schedule is the key to success and happiness. Practice thinking one thought at a time. If you are, for instance, trying to decide on the right private school for your child and you have collected all the data, sit down and make a decision right then and there as soon as the data has been collected. You may have to slow down your mind and organize your thoughts by putting things into written pro versus con columns. But once you have looked at all the aspects, make a "working decision", meaning, you will decide and then give your decision an incubation period, usually 24 hours, and test your decision at that time and then go back to the drawing board and gather more facts if you don't like the idea or start action if you like the idea.
7. You must accept your positive thoughts. This sounds redundant, but remember that we are not always thinking thoughts that are in our best interest. Avoid worry. Avoid fear...the two tools of the negative power. Our sabotage mechanism does not want us to always stay in a positive, worry and fear-free environment. It can get us with comments like, "get real, the world is a dark, negative place...we should be afraid.", "we can't always be positive; we have to face facts." Yes, the world may be negative, but your world doesn't need to be, and that is the only world that counts for you, for afterall, you will be marching out of this world alone and at that time you will not have to answer for the rest of the world, only yourself.
8. Change may not feel good at first. If you have said good-bye to old habits and invited new habits in, know that the old was there because it did provide some sort of comfort and stability, however distorted. In the same way a person gets off of drugs, the transition is sure to be uncomfortable, because there was a false sense of security in taking those drugs; they filled a gap. Now that you have set your goals to a higher standard, you may still feel the void of the old destructive track:this is natural. Don't confuse simple withdrawal from negative ways of thinking and the discomfort as a sign that you are not on the right track.
9. Surrender to the change. Be patient and allow yourself time to digest the positive benefits of your new way of thinking. Breathe and become vulnerable to the new transformation that is taking place. Be open, be open and when you think you can open no more, open more. Allow the manifestation of your change of thinking to work its magic in its own time.
10. Adopt an ongoing attitude of gratitude, humilty, and begging for increased insight. You have seen how your choices can change your life and your happiness, peace and success quotient; now become addicted to that good feeling of aligning with truth and growing into a larger self. Make the love of growth your new friend and enjoy the relationship.
So that's a start. ...thanks, S. W.