You Become What You Think About

If you are unsure about what you are thinking about, just look around to see if you are surrounded by mostly positive or negative people and situations. Ralph Waldo Emerson expressed it as, “You become what you think about all day long.”

If you want to change what you see around you or are experiencing in your life, you must first change your thoughts. Sometimes we think we don’t have any power over our thoughts, but we certainly do! Many of our thoughts are unconscious, meaning they just appear in our minds without awareness that we are thinking them. However, we do have the power to think what we want to think, we just don’t execute that power very often. Close your eyes and say “Hi, how are you in there?”. If you did it and you heard your voice saying that in your head, then you can see the control that you do have. Below are some techniques you can use to help you become a more positive thinker and experiencer.

The first technique you can adopt in order to do this positive thinking. Whenever your mind thinks a negative thought, simply replace it with a positive one. For example, instead of thinking “Darn, it’s supposed to rain today and it will totally ruin my plans”, you can replace that thought with “The rain is so nourishing for the plants, animals and mother earth”, or even something like “Great, the rain is going to wash all of the pollen and grime off of my car!”. The key to this process is to bring awareness to your thoughts, so that you can catch yourself when you think a negative thought and then replace with a positive. Practicing this technique regularly can really help you shift from an overall negative outlook to a positive one in a relatively short period of time.

Another technique you can implement is the use of a mantra. A mantra is just a positive word or phrase that you can repeat over and over to uplift you. You can choose one word to represent you as a spiritual being. That may be a word like Alah, Jesus or you might just repeat the word God, God, God. If this is too spiritual for you, then you can pick a phrase such as “Everything is working out for me,” “I am fine”, or “All is well”. Typically, the process involves sitting or lying down in a quiet place, focusing on your breath and mentally repeating the mantra silently in your head. The use of a mantra can feel like a gift, or a vacation for your mind. If you repeat it often enough, then when you think a thought that causes you distress, you will have access to bringing up that mantra to stop the negative energy before it gets any momentum.

Lastly, you can use a technique called witness consciousness. This is designed to help you relax and release when you feel some sort of resistance caused by a negative thought pattern. The process is that as soon as you feel the resistance, allow your body to relax and then just take some deep breaths in and out. A classic relaxation breathing count is four counts in, hold for three, then breathe out to a count of five (this breathing rhythm is also very helpful for your mantra repetition). As you are doing this, set an intention to allow the resistance pass through you. In other words, don’t suppress it, or respond to it, just recognize it for what it is and allow it to be there until you literally breathe it away. This normally takes just a couple of minutes, but it’s worth any discomfort you might feel in order to allow that thought to release its power over you.

Putting these techniques into practice can allow you to surrender your negative thoughts and the resistance that comes along with them. We often use the example of a fishing bobber floating on top of the water. When you are floating, you feel joyful and free. However, your thoughts cause resistance just like when a fish pulls on the fishing line and takes the bobber under water. Being pulled under creates a lot of negative energy.

Bottom line is, let’s be like the bobber floating happily on top of the water by implementing these techniques starting today!