The Mind Leads The Body
I’ve found that changing the way you think can lead to the fundamental rearrangement of you as a person, either negatively or positively. So it’s integral that you focus on the positive, because the negative can tear you up. A great example is jealousy. Jealousy makes a shell out of a person. But in the same way, love also transforms someone fundamentally.
I’ve been jealous, and I’ve been in love. When you’re in love you’ll be nice to the homeless man on the street with the horrible smell and the tooth deficit. When you’re jealous you don’t even want to shake hands with an old friend, because they’re just another person that has something you want.
Here’s the thing: personal change sounds easier than it usually ends up being. If you don’t believe that, try to get into a regimen of exercise regularly. This takes time, discipline, sweat, and endurance. But it can be done. So can changing the way you think. I found this out the hard way by changing myself. I had to adopt new habits, and I had to revolutionize the way I thought.
The key to changing yourself is to take control of your mind. It’s integral to control your thoughts; as the site says: “At the most fundamental level, a positive mind is the springboard for action, inspiration, and a life that is full of joy, love, and peace. A positive mind allows you to live fully in the present moment.”
The present is all you have. The future is indecipherable, the past is immutable. The present is the only thing you can affect. As you go about changing the way you think, keep a journal to note how you are progressing. This can lead to surprising insights and also help you to direct your mental energies in future efforts.
You’ll have, in cut-and-dry “past-tense” language, evidence that you have changed. This is one thing that helps me a lot. My “journaling” is more “journalistic”, if you will, as I write a great deal; but I can look at where I’ve been, and where I am, and see the change.
How Do You Control Your Thoughts?
I’ve found this is one of the easiest and most difficult things to do. It takes practice, like a performance art, or a craft. You must continuously set yourself to thinking in the right way. In a word, you must “meditate”. What is meditation? Now that’s a subject of some controversy.
Some might say meditation is the act of getting one’s mind into a proper alignment through certain modes of thinking; the ultimate goal of which is to perpetuate a certain kind of consciousness. There are many schools of thought to this. Some define meditation as clearing the mind entirely. Some define it as focus on a set of ideals.
The latter is likely going to be more useful. You want to think of things that are beautiful, pleasant, inspirational, edifying, wonderful—you get the idea. In your daily life, you should continuously think about good things. In meditation, it makes sense to find some good thing worth thinking about, and concentrate on that one thing perpetually.
When you do this, you can catch yourself before a negative train of thought takes you down a bad pathway. A perfect example might be traffic. Anyone who drives has likely, at some time, been caught in a traffic jam. If you really want to know how “centered” and “at peace” you are, watch how your road rage manifests in traffic.
Traffic Transformation And Useless Corks
The most peaceful individual may transform into a bear of rage in the right traffic conditions. If you find yourself losing your mind in traffic, though ostensibly peaceful elsewhere, then somewhere inside you is a core of anger which needs to be overcome. At least, this is what I’ve found about myself.
When I get angry at nothing, it usually means I have some other issue in mind that is pressing on me. I found this out through my writings–ironically enough, through truly journaled work. I kept a journal in 2007/08, and in that journal I wrote of a cork that I kept from a date I had with someone who ended up breaking it off with me. In the journal, I thought I would keep the cork forever as a keepsake.
In real life, I “moved on with my bad self”, as the saying goes. My present self in the past misunderstood reality, and expected that which wasn’t definitive to work in a definitive way. Looking back, I realize it was good the relationship broke, because it wasn’t substantive.
This led me to realize much of my present frustration was just emphasizing the wrong parts of life. I was getting angry over that which affected my emotions now, rather than looking at the domino effect my emotions would have on myself and others later. I was making trouble for myself that I didn’t need because I was allowing the little things to get to me, and this was coming out in minute mistreatment of strangers.
I later realized my negative behavior was a stress manifestation. Stress fundamentally damages you, at the genetic level. It erodes telomerase from your DNA, which keeps your genetic code together. The less stress you have, the younger you will be mentally, spiritually, and physically. The more stressed you are, the faster you will age. Control your thoughts, and you can control your health. There are even multiple solutions that help getting into more peaceful, harmonic life. Products from EMF Harmony are some good examples – they help you reduce electromagnetic radiation, therefore – get your ming in a peaceful stage.
As I realized this about myself, I began to work to catch my emotions before they got away from me, and remember the cork: it didn’t really matter, even though at the time it seemed like the cog around which all the world turned.
Many things I get mad about in the day-to-day now are of the same variety: useless, except in the moment I’m consumed by them. But if I can transcend that, I can transcend the stress, and thereby that which negatively comes from it.
Controlling your thoughts through meditation on that which is good can help you in daily life, and I’ve found that one of the best ways to meter your meditation is through journaling. Journal what you’ve meditated on, or anything that seems important to you in the “now”. You can look back over that journal over time and see your progress. You may be surprised to see how your thinking changes over time; what was important, and what still is important.
