How Our Thoughts Be Only Ours to Master

_stEP riGHT ^uP 2 _sTe^p 3 with me.

I am the only person who decides if I am going to fly.

So don’t mind my mistake of thinking step 2 to this in-creation design to a life program was a multi-parter rather this step is the correct one for that aspect but I’m going to try to keep it all in one blog post since I’ve been busy with my crazy life and haven’t gotten to posting in longer than I had meant for.

_sTE^{P 3} is putting this taking control of our thoughts idea into action. I’m not going to lie or sugarcoat it and say that this is by any means easy or a quick fix because it is not! But like anything in like the more we put in the better we get out of things I do believe and have seen work in my life. Also, my anxiety and insomnia nagged my life for the better half of it until I implemented this reprogramming of my thinking and the last handful of years since have been wonderfully free of unnecessary anxiety and I sleep soundly and wholly whenever I want to (like during the day I can nap! and if I want to sleep early I can!!!) and my life is still not easy or where I want it to be.
^{I say “unnecessary” anxiety because anxiety is a necessity to getting things done to an extent and without any I at least became lazy and lacked any and all motivation and I’ve found many a medication regimen that has cured me of anxiety but in turn took away any drive for life and personality that I love about myself with it. We need to have a normal workable amount of anxiety to keep us doing things that need doing just not to the point of overwhelming us and causing us to lose sleep (ie being unable to sleep due to) over. And also I am being clear on the fact that my life still has its shitshow moments or months but I can fully enjoy life while dealing with these things because that is just part of life it isn’t always going to be roses and rainbows or trust the many an addicted millionaire it wouldn’t be as wonderful as we think it would be. We need to have issues to overcome and be able to cope and find happiness within ourselves to not allow those issues to take away from.} But alas I digress, which is how I do more often than not and often times comes some brilliant thoughts in doing so so bear with me, or better yet learn with me and teach me what I’m missing too, please!

So this isn’t the hardest part of getting control of my thinking but it was/is the most time-consuming and took the longest of everything else to not just grasp and put into action but then to create a habit and in turn unconsciously or subconsciously do eventually out of. I never realized how negatively I thought and how often I judged people without even realizing I was doing so more often than not until I took on this total overhaul in my thinking. James Allen drives home that everything begins with my thinking and what I allow myself to think is what I allow my life to be and thus my choice and responsibility. THAT challenged me and my lackadaisical way of attempting to overcome my anxiety up until this point in my life. And that my dad had brought this book to my attention very meaningfully having me really take it in – he’d been on me the past few years about taking responsibility for my actions and my life but this really drilled it home. No more excuses! Thank you James Allen for really making clear that I was only harming myself with them anyway!

Part A of Step 3 – Reframing Negative Thoughts

Amongst my research on human thinking and probing into my own thought processes and just day to day thinking I learned that it isn’t just me when it comes to thinking negatively being a more natural and regular way of thinking. Majority of people think more negatively than positively and for whatever reason it has become the more natural way of thinking and this isn’t even going into our judgmental natures as human beings. I doubt that it was always this way and it isn’t everyone by any means that thinks negatively over positively as a majority and what comes more naturally but nowadays it seems to be. So be understanding with yourself as we delve into changing this in this step and don’t get down on yourself if it takes a few go rounds to get this mastered. Also, it takes doing more work inward in the 4th step and beyond, for me at least and I think many will relate, to fully master thinking positive instead of negative as a majority and without consciously doing so which is how we will start by purposefully reframing our thinking.

James Allen

It goes like this I wake up in the morning and within my waking moments I have an overwhelming amount of thoughts I came to find out, I don’t so much anymore but sometimes I forget to slow them down and at least now they’re mostly positive versus befores onslaught of negativity as soon as I would arise. And it isn’t just big ideas or negative self talk but little things like “my feet hurt” or “my guy didn’t kiss me goodbye before he left for work” [which usually after getting flustered over this thought I’d eventually find out he did but I didn’t fully wake up to remember him doing so so it was a really pointless negative thought and path I’d grumble down frequently] and often things we worry about flood during the first waking moments to start are days off on a very frustrating foot and then it just would seem to pile on as the day progressed. In reality it did because negative thinking attracts more negative thinking and negative thoughts turn into negative actions and attitudes and that does not invite for positivity around me as I embark on the day, quite the opposite. By lunchtime I’ve started to build up a resentment against my man who come to find out had actually kissed and hugged my half awake self AGAIN that morning! Just that thought every morning for about two weeks I had to stop and reframe consciously and I may be giving myself too much credit that one has crept back around from time to time too and I have to overcome it again but that is where this starts. For me the first time working on reframing my thoughts I took a good two months of starting and forgetting and starting again until I finally started creating a habit of doing so and then a few months of still consciously reminding myself often but then subconsciously starting to really see a difference in my thinking becoming more positive out the gate and negative thoughts seeming to reframe themselves when they’d start to crop in. I still have times when I backslide but every time it is just that much easier and faster to get back to the habit and not having to consciously stop and reframe my negative thoughts because I don’t let them get as overwhelming as they used to be in frequency or amount but also because I prefer this way of living with a positive mindset and getting to choose to be happy no matter what.

It is pretty simple of an idea and putting it into practice just takes desire and discipline and not getting down on yourself when you forget to or back slide into negative thinking instead just starting at that point that you realize what you’re doing and stop that next negative thought. I mean literally consciously STOP the first negative thought that comes into your brain big or small doesn’t matter STOP THAT THOUGHT. Maybe you’re thinking as I often did “this isn’t going to work” so lets take that one and while you are stopping this thought focus just on it and weirdly those pestering incessant thoughts can’t get in until you lose focus so now take this negative thought and reframe it into something positive: “giving this idea a try definitely can’t hurt me and even if it isn’t some big life changer I could benefit from thinking more positively” or simply “let’s give something new a try!” However you see this thought being flipped on its head will make sense in your life reword/rework it to fit and then let it go. Now as you do this you’ll notice that that positive thought you reworked it into is followed by more positive thoughts and ideas but at first there often will follow more pessimism or negative refractory thinking. As often as you can each thought you can stop and reframe do so and the next one after that. It sounds tedious and it can be but this will pay off and the more often you practice like anything else in life the better and easier and more second nature it will become.
So that is what we do with the basic negative thinking and thoughts that we have on our day to days but even more impacting and difficult to annihilate from our way of thinking is judgmental thinking. . .

Part B of Step 3 – Taking on Judgmental Thinking

So I’m going against what I’d thought to do earlier and going to post this so its not overwhelming and just start working on consciously reframing your thinking and next post we will tackle reframing judgmental thoughts and tackling the more introspective aspect of judgmental thinking.

Like me this idea is a work in progress and I would love to hear any of your ideas or critiques! Have a stellar day and help me spread positivity one kind act at a time, please and thanks a million!!

Thank you Mr. James Allen
& graciousquotes.com

How to CHOOSE HAPPINESS.

So for step 1 in my previous blog post I gave the simple task of listening to/reading As A Man Thinketh by James Allen in it’s entirety in one sitting (preferably but so long as you read/listened to the whole book however you accomplished it is fine and works). I don’t expect that you had the same experience or epiphany that I did, although if you did too that wouldn’t surprise me as it has had a huge impact on a few people I’ve recommended it to who actually heeded my recommendation. It’s a very old book and the author is unapologetically redundant, I think with a purpose, which he succeeded in doing, in driving home his message. So did you get it?

Mr. Allen gives examples of how thought affects every aspect of our lives and of our selves. He explains best in the book’s forward:

“It is suggestive rather than explanatory, its object being to stimulate men and women to the discovery and perception of the truth that—
‘They themselves are makers of themselves.’ —
by virtue of the thoughts, which they choose and encourage; that mind is the master-weaver, both of the inner garment of character and the outer garment of circumstance, and that, as they may have hitherto woven in ignorance and pain they may now weave in enlightenment and happiness.”

James Allen Foreword of As A Man Thinketh

From the day I read this book my life was and is forever changed in the best of ways. Of course as is life it wasn’t simply having the knowledge of how my thoughts affect everything in my life and in themselves create my world that brought about my ability to choose happiness every day; that took action and training my thinking. Which is the third step in how I took control of my thinking and have found consistent happiness despite, and often in spite of, my circumstances. Next up, and importantly before any real work towards our goals is started we must figure out what we are striving for personally and define our desired outcomes aka D.o! D.o!

Step 1 Choose Happiness introduction to the Thought Life by way of Jame’s Allen’s As A Man Thinketh

Step 2 Define Our Desired Outcomes :: Do! Do!

Choose happiness

Because why not?

The crazy reality is that we do have the choice. It took me over 30 years experiencing life tormented by anxiety and insomnia that I believed I had little to no control over until finally I learned that I have complete control over my thoughts. Even crazier – this epiphany came from listening to my first audio book and first self empowerment type writing I’d ever actually completed; which are two things I had, up until that point, vehemently disapproved of and thought were gimmicks or, to be completely honest, too much effort without a guaranteed or instantaneous reward. My dad actually called me up out of the blue one day and said, “Daughter I’m sending you a link to an audio book I want you to sit down and listen to the whole thing right now, it’s only 45 minutes long, and then call me back after you do.” I didn’t even disagree and he was still trying to convince me to just do what he was suggesting and call him right after because he knew my aversion but just the complete determination and confidence in his demand of me had me intrigued to say the least. He didn’t tell me what it was about or any type of synopsis or clue as to what I was about to hear and when we hung up I did what he said. He had text me a link to Audible’s version of As A Man Thinketh by James Allen and for the next 45 minutes I sat and listened with a weirdly open mind curious as to what had my dad so intent on me hearing.

Now I’m not going to pretend like all it took was listening to the book and wham bam thank you ma’am I was choosing happiness and free of anxiety as though just hearing James Allen’s words hypnotized my life into alignment. And as weird as it sounds I’m really glad it wasn’t magic or an easy fix because 1. Nothing worth a damn is ever that easy or without some sort of effort and 2. Enduring the journey it took me on to get to the reward of being able to choose happiness every day makes it more fulfilling and real/actual and oops 3. The lessons I’ve learned parallel to accomplishing control over my thinking amongst so many revelations and insights about myself I am so grateful for acquiring as young as I am especially since I can see that some people may never have these realizations in their entire lifetimes. On the flip side of that though it also didn’t take an enormous amount of time. However because I was so moved upon hearing my first read through of this book I dove in at full speed to adapting the concepts described in As A Man Thinketh to my life and ridding myself of the anxiety I had so long believed was a lifelong curse I’d been afflicted with. So, as with anything in life results and time-frames will vary, oft drastically from one person’s experience to the next. I can guarantee one thing: you can control your thinking and choose happiness every day if you so choose.

I’m not selling anything, I am simply sharing my experience in hopes that even just one person may benefit from hearing about it. As A Man Thinketh by James Allen is free and a public domain book and in my post I’ve linked to with the audio and written book versions that I made pretty at the bottom of the post are links to other places to download either version free as well.

Step ONE: READ/LISTEN TO AS A MAN THINKETH BY JAMES ALLEN and come back for my next post on how I began implementing Mr. Allen’s simply brilliant concept into my life and the changes I started to see and feel right away!!! ENJOY!!