Here are two good reasons to learn to be more careful about which thoughts you allow into your brain: First, what you think is a direct cause of how you feel. Your mood at any particular time is always the direct result of what thoughts you are thinking. No exceptions. Next time you find yourself in a foul mood, pay attention to the thoughts that are running through your brain. Odds are you're in a rant of some kind, and the words you're telling yourself are feeding your funk. Ever notice how you can be in a really good mood and someone will say or do something that ruins it and leaves you grumbling and angry? It wasn't that outside event that changed your mood, it was, as the friends of Bill W like to put it, your own stinkin' thinkin' that bummed you out.
As a recovering emotional basketcase, this first reason is why I eventually learned to control my thoughts. I tend to brood, darkly. So darkly, that I developed a terminal illness: a depression so profound that for over three years it was always a miracle when I made it through the day without taking my own life. I would call my best friend and ask her, "Cindy, explain to me again why it is that I need to stay alive?" And she would always list reasons for me until she finally hit on one that my brain could believe and focus on. It wasn't always the same one; most often it was my cat, Pearl, who needed me because she was afraid of everyone else. Between them, Cindy and Pearl kept me alive; they both stayed by my side long after everyone else I knew had backed slowly away from the crazy woman that I had become and left me alone to wallow in the darkness. I will always be grateful to Cindy for her patience and her compassion during that time.
My psychiatrist got rich off of me. Well, he got $400 a month; the medication he prescribed cost me another $350. While I was under his care I got progressively worse. It got so bad at one point that he actually told me that "we" wouldn't be able to manage this for long as an outpatient. He told me to prepare for the fact that eventually I would be living out my life in the State mental hospital as an indigent patient. No, he wasn't trying to scare me; he was just being clinical. Somehow, though, even through my medicated fog, there was a part of me that refused to accept that. Oh, it would have been easy to give up and allow his proclamation to become my reality. If would have been easy to just be crazy and locked up, letting the state feed me and clothe me and give me a place to stay, rent free, for the rest of my life. It would have been even easier just to die and put everyone out of their misery. But there was still a tiny part of me that wanted to fight for my life. That small part of me THOUGHT that somehow I could beat this thing.
One day, Mr. Psychiatrist Moneybags gave me one of his textbooks. I was in graduate school at the time, and he knew me well enough to know that I devoured textbooks. I was obsessed with soaking up knowledge, a fact that was both a symptom of my pathology and ultimately the thing that brought me back into the light. The textbook was called Cognitive Therapy. It was a new concept to me at the time, and it really opened my eyes. Basically, the theory is exactly what we are talking about here. Some people are crazy because they think crazy thoughts. All you have to do is teach them to think better thoughts and they'll be OK. Apparently my doctor had never actually read this book, because he had never tried this on me. His job was to write prescriptions. At any rate, that book saved my life.
So, the first reason to control our thinking is to control our mood. We do not have to believe everything that we think. We can choose to stop thinking thoughts that make us miserable and choose instead to think pleasant thoughts that keep our mood and our vibrational energy high. Second, the graduate level reason for choosing our thoughts, is that what we habitually think eventually becomes what manifests in our world. Again, no exceptions.
Wallace Wattles, that Law of Attraction guru, states this as his First Law:
"There is a thinking stuff from which all things are made and which, in its original state, permeates, penetrates, and fills the inner spaces of the universe. A thought in this substance produces the thing that is imaged by the thought. A person can form things in his thought and, by impressing his thought upon formless substance, can cause the thing that he thinks about to be created."
The universe responds to our thoughts and turns them into "things." Thoughts are things. As Einstein put it, E=MC2 ... Energy and Matter are made of exactly the same stuff. What that means is that if you are always thinking things that stress you out and make you unhappy, angry, depressed, or worried, those very things you are thinking will be what crosses your path out in the real world. Is it just irony that people who spend a lot of time worrying about being robbed, who spend money on security systems and who are afraid at night to be in their own home alone, are the very people who get robbed? People used to yell at me for always leaving my doors unlocked. They would show me news reports of home invasions just blocks away from where I lived. I would always ask, "Was the house locked up, or did they break in?" Without exception, the intruder had to bust his way in. Now, I'm not telling you to unlock your doors, I'm just saying that you get what you think about most.
This is the reason that visualization is such a powerful tool. We did some powerful visualization last month when we did the Prosperity Project together. Do you remember how it felt to imagine yourself spending all that money? I recommend that you spend a few minutes every day deliberately visualizing yourself in your happy place, whatever that may be for you. See yourself doing the things you will be doing after you have finally achieved your dreams and made your fortune. That exercise alone is very powerful and will serve to move you in that very direction.
Today, though, what I'm wanting to suggest here is that even when you're not actively visualizing that you become aware of each thought as it enters your mind. As you go through your day, become the silent observer who watches your thoughts. For now, don't judge them as good or bad thoughts; simply observe what you think and how your thoughts make you feel. When you find yourself thinking a negative thoughts, notice it. Say, "Hmmm. That's a negative thought." And then go about your day. If you do that consistently, two things will happen: First, by observing your thoughts you are no longer identified with them. Negative thoughts will no longer have the power to destroy your mood. Second, you will find yourself discarding negative thoughts in favor of better thoughts. You Spirit wants to soar free and wants to be light and happy.
Eventually, as you become more and more aware of the connection between your thoughts and your reality, you will begin to ask yourself this question: "If what I am thinking about right now became my reality, would that be a good thing or a bad thing?" I guarantee that when you become aware enough to ask yourself this question, you will quickly begin to cast down destructive thoughts and to focus on more positive stuff. As Paul writes in Philippians 4:8, "Whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things." For that, my friends, is what your life will become. No exceptions.
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