Positive Thinking - Why Change Your Habitual Thoughts

By Adelaide Kwaning

"Such as your habitual thoughts, such also will be the character of your mind; for the soul is dyed by the thoughts"-Marcus Aurelius

In other words, what Aurelius is saying is your thoughts become your actions and your actions your habits. Thus, if you want to change any habit, you must first start by changing your thoughts.

Psychologists and self help fanatics have long since been preaching this message. Yet, many people fail to heed this good advice. Perhaps it's because despite the fact that people want to plan, most folks are doers first and thinkers second. This wouldn't be a problem if the success of any action was not dependant on the motives behind it.

However, everything we do has some reasoning behind it even if we are unaware. The trouble is most people are just that-unaware. They are not conscious of the habitual thoughts that are making up their character.

For example, if you wanted to lose weight simply to appear more attractive then you have not tuned your mind for long term success. What happens after you lose the weight and you don't feel anymore attractive than you did before you lost it? Chances are you will go back to your old habits.

However, if you wanted to lose weight to become healthier and live a better lifestyle, you would then be training your mind for long term success. Because staying healthy, requires long term motivation.

Before you can create new habits and true success, you must change your attitude and thinking about whatever it is you want to accomplish. Change the way you think about something and you can change the way you feel about it. In most cases, this results in changing the actions that follow these feelings.

If you want to change your size, you have change the way you think about your body, not just your weight but your body as a whole. Your weight is merely a symptom of your habitual thoughts.

The same applies if you're in debt. Do not just change your spending habits, but change the way you think about money. Once again debt is a symptom: a consequence for the way you've been thinking about money.

In order to relieve yourself of any symptom - debt, obesity, low self esteem, whatever - you have to be ready and willing to convert your mind and commit your heart.

This, for many, is much harder than just running on a treadmill or doing affirmations in front of the mirror. Because changing your thoughts means you first have to admit that you have a problem. You need to become introspective and start having some serious conversations with yourself. While we can admit to not being perfect, not many people want to own up to their problems. But understand that you can have a problem without it damaging the amazing person you are.

You may be thousands of dollars in debt, but you're not a bad person. It's just that you have not learned how to develop your thinking so you can build a healthy relationship with money.

Same goes if you're an addict. You, as a human, are not bad, but you do have bad habits and this is probably the cause of bad thinking.

The number of resources for changing your thinking is plentiful. SmartSolutions-ezine, for example, works on encouraging people to work from the inside out, regardless of what you're facing. Because loving yourself enough to make the mental change, is the first step to true success.

Website: http://www.smartsolutions-ezine.com/you-smartsolutions.html
Adelaide Kwaning is an author and publisher. If you would like to learn how to develop positive, successful thinking visit her website today and subscribe to her newsletter http://www.SmartSolutions-ezine.com

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Adelaide_Kwaning

Control Your Thoughts - A Meditation Misconception

By Darin Searcy

A common misconception about meditation is that the goal is to learn to suppress, cease or otherwise control your thoughts. You are told that meditation will quiet the mind so this misconception is quite understandable - How can you quiet the mind if you don't stop thinking? It is true that meditation will quiet the mind, however, you don't arrive at a quiet mind by learning to force your thoughts away.

The idea, rather, is to not get involved with your thoughts. In other words, when a thought enters your awareness, you can either observe the thought and allow it to pass or you can allow your attention to follow the thought into an inner dialogue (also called mind chatter). The difference is significant. Suppression of thought will lead to an inner struggle and will surely lead to a frustrating meditation session. Conversely, observing thought is a much gentler practice - it is an allowing rather than a forcing. When you simply observe thought and allow it to pass, there is a natural settling of the mind. This is the key. The mind will settle like a body of water. You've heard the comparison, "That lake was smooth as glass." A lake doesn't become smooth by force - you cannot squash the waves and force them to settle.

An analogy is that of a snow globe - you know, those little glass bubbles filled with a wintry scene, fake snow and water. When the snow globe is a shaken, the snow flakes swirl about chaotically. Your mind is normally like this. Thoughts, like the snow flakes, are randomly flying around the mind creating a cloudy environment. Clarity within the snow globe will not come through force. You cannot reach into the globe and push the flakes down. On the contrary, any action you take will likely stir up the chaos further. The only way to settle the contents of the globe is to allow it to settle without action on your part. Similarly, if you allow your thoughts to settle, a stillness will find your mind. Just observe and allow.

Don't try to force away your thoughts. Don't take the bait when a thought enters your awareness - you'll end up following the thought far away from the present moment. Instead, be gentle to yourself. Allow thoughts to come. And just the same, allow thoughts to go.

Darin is a meditator and software developer. He created a free online meditation timer to help others in their meditation practice: http://www.meditationtimer.net/

Positive Thoughts

By Marc F.

Positive Thoughts
A lot has been written about the effects of our thinking on our life. By now many people know that in some way or another their thinking affects their life.

We hear things like: “Think positive, there are two sides to the coin, the glass is either half empty or half full”. Does this sound familiar? And yet, how many people, including yourself, have you encountered who you would truly classify as positive thinkers? Probably not many, right?

As soon as we get up in the morning we usually get busy doing things and let our thoughts flow freely as the day unfolds. The amount of information our brain processes in a day is unbelievable. Therefore, it is not easy to constantly monitor our thoughts and make sure they are always positive. Unfortunately, reality is such that not everything we see and hear is positive, even if we’d like it to be.

Where we can make a true difference, however, is in the way we process both positive as well as negative information. Try and be more conscious on the effects information has on you. For example, if you see a beautiful tree, flower, car or whatever it is that strikes you as being beautiful, acknowledge it and make a conscious positive comment to yourself. Something like:
“Wow, what a beautiful tree”. Every time you see something you like, make a positive comment about it. Try and do this for a week. This will create positive energy and make you feel good.

But what do we do with negative information? Let’s acknowledge that this or that happened and make a conscious decision on how much energy we want to invest in processing the information.
For example, the less energy we put into thinking that Mr. Rude insulted us, the weaker the effect of the thought on our life. Every time you notice that you’re about to process negative information, make a conscious decision on how much energy you want to put into it and stop the thought process from affecting you. Try and do this for a week too. It will minimize the amount of negative energy in your life and leave more energy for positive thoughts.

The kind of information we’ll encounter during the course of a day is sometimes hard to predict. The way we process information, however, is under our full control.

The happiness of your life depends upon the quality of your thoughts.

Marcus Aurelius Antoninus

Published with permisson of Inspirized - ©2007 Inspirized ®, www.inspirized.com

to learn more abut how to use the power of positive thinking visit http://www.inspirized.com