The Power Of Positive Thinking

In this fast paced world, where do we stand? Each of us have our own lives, our own journeys to make and in our journeys we might find ourselves struggling to crack a homework problem, making a weekend trip with friends, spending quality time with family or just having a quiet supper after a day’s toil. In this endless reel called life we create a thousand thoughts every day but when do we ever pause to think what we are thinking?
Surveys show that a person on an average creates around 30,000 thoughts in one day. Thoughts come to us so spontaneously in such an uncontrolled manner that we never realize when one fades and another arises. Hence, in the hustle bustle of our everyday life, we forget to pay attention to our thoughts and fail to realize what ‘kind’ of thoughts is created in our minds.
Thoughts, as defined by Raj Yoga Meditation, are of four different categories, namely positive, negative, necessary and waste. Positive thoughts include happiness, love, peace, hope, mercy. negative thoughts are mostly anger, stress, egoism, criticism. Necessary thoughts are related to work, family, career, routine and waste thoughts are the most prevalent and include those of past, future, brooding, worrying. If you pay little heed to your mind, you will know what type of thoughts are being created in your mind. This reminds me of a very nice quote,
‘Eliminate the negative, Accentuate the positive, Act immediately on the necessary and Clean up the waste.’

A very interesting research carried out by Dr. Carolina Leaf, a communication pathologist from Johannesburg, South Africa, says, ‘Every negative thought degenerates the cells of our body and every positive thought regenerates the cells of our body.’ The research showed that fear, all on its own, triggers more than 1,400 known physical and chemical responses and activates more than 30 different hormones. Consequently, toxic waste generated by toxic thoughts causes the following illnesses like diabetes, cancer, asthma, skin problems and allergies to name just a few. Now, you can imagine how much negative thinking a person must do to develop cancer! The study gives us a very subtle message that we can be the healers of our own body by creating the right type of thoughts.
A question that often arises in our minds is how to remain positive all the time. The answer is to take control of the thoughts. It seems to be very simple but is not especially because we are so used to our thoughts flowing that we do not really know when to add a full stop. How many of us believe that we are what we think? This simple but accurate statement indicates that what we say, what we do, and what we feel – all have their origin in the mind. Once we start realizing this, we start watching ourselves and hence try to modify our thoughts to make them positive. We will gradually develop a positive attitude and a positive outlook towards everything around us. However, one area where we tend to fail is with negative and critical thoughts such as anger, worry and pessimism. Such situations are our testing times. So, if we try to keep ourselves calm and cool on the face of the situation and try to look at it positively, we are actually helping the situation heal and also ourselves by not creating negative and waste thoughts.
As we know the ever so powerful SOS signal used as a distress signal, we can actually adopt it in our everyday lives when there are chances of conflict, distress, discomfort. The only difference being, we slightly modify it to expand as:
S- Stand back i.e. step back from the situation
O- Observe i.e. study the situation carefully
S- Steer i.e. take the right course of action

By doing so, we are not sending distress signals to another party but communicating with ourselves. Here in we first try to withdraw ourselves from the situation so that nothing influences our thinking, then observe and analyze the situation carefully and finally take the right decision. In this way, we come to a better understanding of ourselves as well as others without really giving away the power to control to anybody or anything else. So, is this not as effective as the Save Our Souls signal used to save people?

As we start thinking positive, we start becoming positive and begin to see more positive in the ordinary. We will then be able to make clearer and more definitive decisions. So, detach a little, become centered within yourself and then nothing and no one will be able to shake you.

-Beautiful Mind

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