Getting Control of Your Thought Life
I just did a search on “thought life” and it turned up a lot of Christian and religious web sites. I don’t really intend to preach at you, so stick with me. Yes, your thought life can have spiritual ramifications. And those consequences could be negative or positive. It depends on what you think about.
Do I Have A Thought Life?
If you are a human, you have a thought life. Whether or not you intend it, you think about things. A lot of younger people think about how their life will be better when: they move out, they get married, they get a better job, they have a baby, or they buy a house. A lot of things they think relate to how they are unhappy but it will be better when the next event happens.
Older people often think of their past more than their future. We live in glory days, conquests, regrets, and or grief. The past often seems more desirable than the future. Or maybe you still think like a younger person, and look forward to retirement. I prefer to be happy in the moment, but I still do have thoughts about the future.
What Thought Life Hurts And What Helps?
When you do an audit of your thought life, i.e. what things you think about, what keeps coming up? What feeling does that give you? If you feel pain, frustration, regret, grief, or depressed, those are negative feelings. Often, being practical now, these negative feelings will be reinforced with negative in your life. You are attracting the negative.
On the other hand, if your thoughts produce positive feelings, such as love, happiness, thankfulness, or joy, those feelings will attract positive things in your life.
How Do I Turn My Thought Life Around?
You could replace negative feelings with positive, just by changing what you think about. For instance, if you lost your grandmother, rather than think about the negative loss, think about how she made Thanksgiving wonderful with her homemade sweet pickles and stuffing. Think about your long talks about how she grew up during the great depression. Most of the time you can change how you think about something to make it positive rather than negative, but other times you need to replace thoughts with completely different thoughts purposefully.
Reinforce Your Goals With Your Thought Life
Would you like to be a better Christian? Ok, I said I wasn’t going to preach but here I go… Really, you could take any kind of goal and incorporate it. I think being a better Christian or being closer to God is a great goal. If this is your goal, write it down. Then think about some thoughts that reinforce your goal. Practice your thoughts daily, maybe just for a few minutes, or for an hour or more if you have the time.
Love of money is the root of all evil. But money isn’t evil. As Bob Proctor says, “We use money and love people, not the other way around.” So if your goal is to have more money, I think that is great. Money is not easy to incorporate into your thoughts. What would you like to do with that money? Travel? Buy a new car? Buy a house in cash? I think that each of these is a nice picture we can incorporate into our thoughts. So put down your goal along with thoughts that make you feel good about your goal, and practice your thoughts on a daily basis.
What will your positive thoughts about your goals do? Being practical rather than spiritual, it focuses your energies on your goals rather than being scattered to the wind. You tend to work out how you will get there and you set out on the journey.
What Do You Think In Your Thought Life?
If you would like to share, feel free to comment below.
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good article.
thanks you for sharing.
Thanks for a great article