February 19, 2010

You will notice that I have not been writing my blog on a consistent regular basis. To be honest, it’s because I have been feeling a little bit depressed and deeply wondering how much this positive thinking stuff really works. I have been uninspired and it’s been hard to look at things positively, much less ask other people to do so.


This weekend I had a rare opportunity to run into a bookstore all by myself (no children). I was just kind of browsing around when a colorful book caught my eye. It was written by Louise L. Hay and entitled “The Power Is Within You.” It is a book of hers that I have not read and I knew instantly that I needed to read it. I thought that I would read through the entire book in one night, but when I got home and started to read it, I realized that it was something that I would go through very slowly. Why? Because it is incredibly powerful and makes you stop and seriously think about your life. While the reading is easy, the content is deep and requires a lot of contemplation.

One of the most important things that I have grasped from the book thus far is the power of affirmations. The point of affirmations is to focus on what you want in life and help you remove any limitations you have from negative beliefs and self-talk. Hay points out that we must believe that we deserve good in order to receive it. Thinking and believing negative thoughts impedes our goals and dreams. I have always thought of myself as a pretty positive person, but after reading her information on affirmations, I spent a day paying close attention to the thoughts running through my head. I was shocked at how negative they were. Negative thoughts were literally bombarding me several times every hour. My mind is a constant track of worry and negativity. While I may appear to be a positive person on the inside, the inner workings of my mind paint a very different picture. After seeing how many negative things were running through my mind during a day I started to realize – no wonder things are not working out for me. I am not spending this year thinking in a positive way. I may have thought I was doing so, but I am really just a walking piece of negative energy.

After realizing how many negative thoughts were coursing through my body, I then decided to write down one of my biggest goals/worries. I wrote down all the negative thoughts I was thinking about this subject and then on the opposite side of the page I wrote down two positive thoughts. I then immediately started saying these thoughts. Sometimes aloud and other times quietly to myself. It’s been a couple of days since I started this and I will say that at first it didn’t feel authentic. But I kept saying them because that is the only way to change our thought patterns. It still doesn’t feel authentic, but it is starting to bring peace to me when I say them. Part of all of this is that the negative thoughts are still there. In fact, they seem to be even more prevalent. I think the thoughts are testing me. Every time a thought or worry penetrates my mind, I immediately counter it with a positive thought. And, like I mentioned, it doesn’t seem true yet, but the positive thought instantly relaxes me and pushes the negative thought out of my mind.

I have been quite concerned about money, so I have been affirming a better financial picture. It’s only been a couple of days, and at this point nothing has changed. But Hay reminds us “affirmations are like planting seeds in the ground. When you put a seed in the ground, you don’t get a full-grown plant the next day. We need to be patient during the growing season.”

And that is where I am at – growing seeds of prosperity. I can’t tell you how powerful this exercise has been for me. While nothing physically has changed, yet, I can feel my mind and spirit changing. I will say, this is really hard work. It’s hard to change years and years of negative thinking and patterns that have led you to where you currently are. But I am tired of being run by negativity and I desire to have change. Changing my thoughts is the only way this will be possible.