Can changing our thoughts and responses affect our life?

It is time to pay attention to your thoughts, and to your responses to other people.

How often do you catch yourself thinking thoughts of resentment or anger towards another person? How often do you dwell and obsess about ‘negative’ things that have happened? How often do you thoughts go round and round about similar things? How often do you attract more of the same, so that those thoughts can continue to go round and round and round?

This is where the change needs to be made.

Stop the negative thoughts. Each time you catch them starting to go round, replace then with something positive, something about the kind of future you would like to have.

If, for example, someone ignored you when you spoke to them, instead of letting the resentment start to go round and round in your mind, simply acknowledge ‘oh…they didn’t listen to me…ah well….I envisage a future for me where people do listen, a future where I am happy and feel fulfilled.’ You see the difference there? The old pattern will drag you down and keep you in the mud, so to speak, but the other, envisaging the future, feels much more positive and filled with hope and excitement. This tactic can be used every time you catch yourself thinking negatively.

It is a universal truth that what you focus on you draw to you. You may focus on love and patience and expect that from your partner, but it may come from friends and family and not your partner. It may be that the reason they continue to push your buttons is so that you can continue to learn, to recognize your buttons and to resolve them. Learn what you can, and you may find that once you stop resenting your partner’s behavior, it stops arising as much as it used to.

With regard to your responses to other people, this is an interesting thing for you to watch. Observe how you respond when people criticize something that is important to you. Observe how you respond when you yourself feel criticized. Observe how the people you are with interact with you. Observe your physical, mental, and emotional responses to them. When you feel those old buttons being pushed, pause, take a mental and emotional step backwards, and think for a moment. That is all it takes to break the cycle. Think carefully about the best response and then speak, calmly and clearly, words of wisdom. Often other people are not used to you standing up for yourself or for what you believe in. They will, at first, be surprised that they did not get to walk all over your beliefs as they used to.

In the past when someone has condemned you or your beliefs, or something you care about, you may have felt the anger immediately rise, your resentment may have kicked in, and your mind may have started getting into ‘verbal attack mode’, whilst perhaps you also felt a light sweat break out over your body because there was a part of you that was afraid to stand up for yourself. Maybe you got into an argument, maybe it got all nasty, and maybe you walked away feeling ‘crushed’ and ‘valueless’.

How about we replace that with, you speaking quietly and calmly to the person, putting across your views, or simply saying that you acknowledge that not everyone else shares your beliefs, but they are yours to hold, and you embrace them, and that you fully support and encourage that person in whatever beliefs they hold. Smile. Walk away. The way you have spoken has been gentle, and it has not inflamed their desire for a good argument, and you have acknowledged their own beliefs—whatever they may be—and because you spoke so calmly and confidently, you have left no room for debate. You expressed yourself clearly. This often ends an argument, because an argument cannot progress if inflamed passions are not fully involved.

Now, take a look at the two responses in those paragraphs. Does not the second leave you feeling lighter, more in control, more in the embrace of your own power?

This is all as simple as flicking a switch and then paying attention. You may find yourself slipping back into old reactive patterns, but the more you become aware that that is what you are doing, the more you will be reminded to choose the new way, the peaceful gentle way. The result will be: more peace and gentleness for all involved, and the full embracing of your own power.

Do you think it is worth trying? We do!