Vincent AcelingI am my Friend..first...
November 25th 2007 04:58
Making Friends With Your Mind
By: John H. Fairhart
All experiences of life are determined by the quality of one’ s mind. Your mind is either your best friend or worst enemy. When you make your mind your best friend, you open the door to your highest potential, to every great opportunity, to enjoying success, meaningful relationships and life itself. A mind filled with negativity, doubts, worries, criticisms, condemnations, etc., sabotages our ability to enjoy life. However, most of us are not aware of the nature of our minds because we are unaware of our habitual thought patterns. If we have not made friends with our mind, we frequently experience frustration, anger, despair, dissatisfaction, hopelessness, etc. A mind that is positive, hopeful, contented, confident, peaceful, tranquil, etc. leads to feeling life is rewarding, worthwhile and fulfilling. The nature of your mind is a product of past mental conditioning. Your predominant thoughts, feelings and attitudes became instilled in your subconscious mind and became part of your character. This causes you to have automatic reactions to your thoughts, feelings and actions, to those of others and to your circumstances. So, how do you make friends with your mind? By understanding the nature of your mind, you learn how to use your God-given personal power in a positive and constructive manner.
First, the mind’ s function is to generate thoughts. It produces one thought after another, like a “thought-making machine”. This explains why your mind will generate distasteful or unpleasant thoughts even when you don’ t want it to. Most people think that they should not have any negative thoughts or feelings and strive to eliminate all negativity. This is a failed approach. The wise person sees thoughts and feelings as surface activity like waves in the ocean. There is a deeper, more calm Self beneath the surface level of thoughts and feelings. Thoughts, positive or negative come and go, feelings positive and negative come and go. But the deepest part of your Self is always the same. The part of you that has thoughts and feelings is never affected by them. It is this deeper Self that contains true joy, profound love and peace, not to mention inner strength and courage. By shifting your attitude towards thoughts and feelings by having a more accepting perspective about them, you eliminate the old habit and pattern of reacting to the contents of your mind. We also have an ego. The ego is that part of ourselves that acts like an intimidating judge by always evaluating, critiquing, judging, or complaining about what we think or feel. Because of ego, we typically have a negative reaction to having had a negative thought or feeling. We usually have a thought such as, “Don’ t think that!” In this way, our ego is reacting to our habitual thought patterns by condemning our mind. The inherent problem with this interaction is how can you change a thought or feeling after it has already happened? You can’t. All you can do is either react or respond to it. If the reaction is to condemn yourself for having had a negative thought, you are fighting with your mind. The better approach is to respond to your mind with love and acceptance. Growing up, I felt a great deal of frustration and anger. These unresolved negative feelings caused me to have over-reactions to insignificant occurrences.
During a meditation session, I saw to young boys. They were brothers and I was visiting their home. I could see one little boy was very angry and his brother was afraid and withdrawn. I asked the angry boy why he was so upset. As he was giving his explanation, I put my arms around them. I felt so much love and compassion for those two little boys. I told them that as bad as it had been, they should feel “grateful” they hadn’ t been physically abused like so many other children. In this way, I was healing these two wounded aspects of myself by giving them the love and support I had missed growing up.
I applied this experience to my everyday thoughts and feelings by giving love and acceptance to my mind. Instead of condemning my mind for having a negative thought or
feeling, I choose to become a witness to my thoughts and feelings without judging them. If a judgment about a thought or feeling did arise, I told myself that this judgment too was just part of old habitual thought patterns. In watching the thoughts and feelings come
up without reacting or judging them, I became identified with my God-given personal power of love and acceptance. Remember that your intent to eliminate being judgmental means giving up being judgmental even about your own thoughts! There must be a total and complete elimination of all judgments. When you are totally accepting of yourself and others, you live in heaven right now. By giving love and acceptance to yourself, in time the old habitual ways of reacting to what you think and feel falls away and you become restored to your true, whole Self. The old pattern of being judgmental towards yourself will eventually fall away like old habits do. And when it does, you live at the source of your true inner love, lasting joy and supreme contentment. This inner love is strength. This inner love makes you content and satisfied.
I get e-mails from readers who say, “Oh, I have such terrible thoughts. I feel that I am never going to feel great because I am always so filled with anxiety and depression! I feel powerless to overcome these negative feelings…! I know exactly how you feel and what you are going through, because there was depression in my family and I had it too. What typically happens is that the primary focus becomes about how you are feeling. Everything that happens or doesn’ t happen is judged on how it makes you feel. This pattern of anxiety and depression is a habit. The habit can be changed. That is the good news. The approach most people who suffer with anxiety or depression take is to try to stop those feelings or change those feelings. Hey, you can’ t. You should know that by now. And in realizing you can’ t, that too causes one to feel hopeless and depressed! So, that approach is a waste of time. So, what do you do? You accept it. That is the most difficult thing to do because no one wants to feel that way. This makes accepting it almost impossible. Yes, impossible to the mind! The mind will think like that. But, you are not the thoughts that arise in your mind. You are really that which has the thoughts and the feelings. The thoughts and feelings change but you don’t. So, in accepting the negative thoughts and feelings, you take yourself to the deepest part of yourself. And if you will add gratitude for the negative feelings, like anxiety or depression, then you are going to get to the goal sooner. Having gratitude as your attitude takes you to the goal faster. Why? Your anxiety and depression are habits that developed and became part of your subconscious mind. One of the ways to purge an old negative habit from the subconscious mind is to have the opposite thought repeated over and over. What will purge the negativity even faster is to have an intense feeling associated with the opposite thoughts and feelings. So, when anxiety or depression spring up, instead of feeling bad about it (re-enforcing the old habit), you have an opposite feeling such as acceptance intensified with the positive emotion of gratitude. And what is acceptance and gratitude? They are both different forms of love. It is love that is the means to healing yourself and it is love that is the goal. The typical person suffering with constant anxiety or depression will tell themselves, “Ok, I accept this and I am going to just let it be ok that I have these feelings.” Then when the feeling continues they get upset that the negative feeling wasn’t eliminated immediately. They go back to hating the negative feeling. That is not accepting the negative feeling. That is still just the mind doing what it has always been doing. When you truly accept a negative feeling, you don’ t wish it would leave. You take the attitude you don’ t care if it hangs around. You also practice maintaining a positive attitude towards it. You can learn more about what having a positive attitude means in my article, “The Importance of Attitude” found on the list of free articles on this website.
The truth is you must actually have gratitude for your anxiety and/or depression. Be thankful for it. This will confound the mind and your conditioning – it won’ t make sense. But it doesn’ t have to make sense to the mind. It just has to work and it does. It worked for me. I developed a new habit of acceptance and gratitude. I replaced the old habit of feeling depressed with a new habit of feeling acceptance and gratitude. It takes time to replace the old habit, but let’ s face it. Time is all we’ ve got. I know you have heard it so many times before, but you haven’ t put it into practice: Love yourself. This is the key. In Discover The Self, you were learn in more detail how to love your true Self and accept your humanness. Acceptance is a big part of loving yourself. Don’ t think about this as another concept and then keep doing what you have always been doing, which is just feeling the negativity. Be grateful for it. Change your feelings towards it. You don’ t have to understand how you are going to have gratitude for that which makes you feel so miserable. Stop living in the thoughts of your mind. You’re so mental. Get down to your heart. Practice gratitude in everything. That is another good way to practice the discipline of gratitude. Be grateful for everything, even for that which your mental conditioning would tell you is ridiculous. Don’ t listen to your mind. What has that gotten you? Lastly, I want you to give up the notion that there is going to be some easy way out or that someone or something is going to suddenly save you from yourself. It is not going to happen. You are going to save yourself. There is no other way. So, you are searching for answers to empower yourself to save yourself. That is great. I congratulate you on being determined to discover the secrets of becoming a master of your life. For you are the one that I honor. You are the one that I respect. You are the one that I love.
By: John H. Fairhart
All experiences of life are determined by the quality of one’ s mind. Your mind is either your best friend or worst enemy. When you make your mind your best friend, you open the door to your highest potential, to every great opportunity, to enjoying success, meaningful relationships and life itself. A mind filled with negativity, doubts, worries, criticisms, condemnations, etc., sabotages our ability to enjoy life. However, most of us are not aware of the nature of our minds because we are unaware of our habitual thought patterns. If we have not made friends with our mind, we frequently experience frustration, anger, despair, dissatisfaction, hopelessness, etc. A mind that is positive, hopeful, contented, confident, peaceful, tranquil, etc. leads to feeling life is rewarding, worthwhile and fulfilling. The nature of your mind is a product of past mental conditioning. Your predominant thoughts, feelings and attitudes became instilled in your subconscious mind and became part of your character. This causes you to have automatic reactions to your thoughts, feelings and actions, to those of others and to your circumstances. So, how do you make friends with your mind? By understanding the nature of your mind, you learn how to use your God-given personal power in a positive and constructive manner.
First, the mind’ s function is to generate thoughts. It produces one thought after another, like a “thought-making machine”. This explains why your mind will generate distasteful or unpleasant thoughts even when you don’ t want it to. Most people think that they should not have any negative thoughts or feelings and strive to eliminate all negativity. This is a failed approach. The wise person sees thoughts and feelings as surface activity like waves in the ocean. There is a deeper, more calm Self beneath the surface level of thoughts and feelings. Thoughts, positive or negative come and go, feelings positive and negative come and go. But the deepest part of your Self is always the same. The part of you that has thoughts and feelings is never affected by them. It is this deeper Self that contains true joy, profound love and peace, not to mention inner strength and courage. By shifting your attitude towards thoughts and feelings by having a more accepting perspective about them, you eliminate the old habit and pattern of reacting to the contents of your mind. We also have an ego. The ego is that part of ourselves that acts like an intimidating judge by always evaluating, critiquing, judging, or complaining about what we think or feel. Because of ego, we typically have a negative reaction to having had a negative thought or feeling. We usually have a thought such as, “Don’ t think that!” In this way, our ego is reacting to our habitual thought patterns by condemning our mind. The inherent problem with this interaction is how can you change a thought or feeling after it has already happened? You can’t. All you can do is either react or respond to it. If the reaction is to condemn yourself for having had a negative thought, you are fighting with your mind. The better approach is to respond to your mind with love and acceptance. Growing up, I felt a great deal of frustration and anger. These unresolved negative feelings caused me to have over-reactions to insignificant occurrences.
During a meditation session, I saw to young boys. They were brothers and I was visiting their home. I could see one little boy was very angry and his brother was afraid and withdrawn. I asked the angry boy why he was so upset. As he was giving his explanation, I put my arms around them. I felt so much love and compassion for those two little boys. I told them that as bad as it had been, they should feel “grateful” they hadn’ t been physically abused like so many other children. In this way, I was healing these two wounded aspects of myself by giving them the love and support I had missed growing up.
I applied this experience to my everyday thoughts and feelings by giving love and acceptance to my mind. Instead of condemning my mind for having a negative thought or
feeling, I choose to become a witness to my thoughts and feelings without judging them. If a judgment about a thought or feeling did arise, I told myself that this judgment too was just part of old habitual thought patterns. In watching the thoughts and feelings come
up without reacting or judging them, I became identified with my God-given personal power of love and acceptance. Remember that your intent to eliminate being judgmental means giving up being judgmental even about your own thoughts! There must be a total and complete elimination of all judgments. When you are totally accepting of yourself and others, you live in heaven right now. By giving love and acceptance to yourself, in time the old habitual ways of reacting to what you think and feel falls away and you become restored to your true, whole Self. The old pattern of being judgmental towards yourself will eventually fall away like old habits do. And when it does, you live at the source of your true inner love, lasting joy and supreme contentment. This inner love is strength. This inner love makes you content and satisfied.
I get e-mails from readers who say, “Oh, I have such terrible thoughts. I feel that I am never going to feel great because I am always so filled with anxiety and depression! I feel powerless to overcome these negative feelings…! I know exactly how you feel and what you are going through, because there was depression in my family and I had it too. What typically happens is that the primary focus becomes about how you are feeling. Everything that happens or doesn’ t happen is judged on how it makes you feel. This pattern of anxiety and depression is a habit. The habit can be changed. That is the good news. The approach most people who suffer with anxiety or depression take is to try to stop those feelings or change those feelings. Hey, you can’ t. You should know that by now. And in realizing you can’ t, that too causes one to feel hopeless and depressed! So, that approach is a waste of time. So, what do you do? You accept it. That is the most difficult thing to do because no one wants to feel that way. This makes accepting it almost impossible. Yes, impossible to the mind! The mind will think like that. But, you are not the thoughts that arise in your mind. You are really that which has the thoughts and the feelings. The thoughts and feelings change but you don’t. So, in accepting the negative thoughts and feelings, you take yourself to the deepest part of yourself. And if you will add gratitude for the negative feelings, like anxiety or depression, then you are going to get to the goal sooner. Having gratitude as your attitude takes you to the goal faster. Why? Your anxiety and depression are habits that developed and became part of your subconscious mind. One of the ways to purge an old negative habit from the subconscious mind is to have the opposite thought repeated over and over. What will purge the negativity even faster is to have an intense feeling associated with the opposite thoughts and feelings. So, when anxiety or depression spring up, instead of feeling bad about it (re-enforcing the old habit), you have an opposite feeling such as acceptance intensified with the positive emotion of gratitude. And what is acceptance and gratitude? They are both different forms of love. It is love that is the means to healing yourself and it is love that is the goal. The typical person suffering with constant anxiety or depression will tell themselves, “Ok, I accept this and I am going to just let it be ok that I have these feelings.” Then when the feeling continues they get upset that the negative feeling wasn’t eliminated immediately. They go back to hating the negative feeling. That is not accepting the negative feeling. That is still just the mind doing what it has always been doing. When you truly accept a negative feeling, you don’ t wish it would leave. You take the attitude you don’ t care if it hangs around. You also practice maintaining a positive attitude towards it. You can learn more about what having a positive attitude means in my article, “The Importance of Attitude” found on the list of free articles on this website.
The truth is you must actually have gratitude for your anxiety and/or depression. Be thankful for it. This will confound the mind and your conditioning – it won’ t make sense. But it doesn’ t have to make sense to the mind. It just has to work and it does. It worked for me. I developed a new habit of acceptance and gratitude. I replaced the old habit of feeling depressed with a new habit of feeling acceptance and gratitude. It takes time to replace the old habit, but let’ s face it. Time is all we’ ve got. I know you have heard it so many times before, but you haven’ t put it into practice: Love yourself. This is the key. In Discover The Self, you were learn in more detail how to love your true Self and accept your humanness. Acceptance is a big part of loving yourself. Don’ t think about this as another concept and then keep doing what you have always been doing, which is just feeling the negativity. Be grateful for it. Change your feelings towards it. You don’ t have to understand how you are going to have gratitude for that which makes you feel so miserable. Stop living in the thoughts of your mind. You’re so mental. Get down to your heart. Practice gratitude in everything. That is another good way to practice the discipline of gratitude. Be grateful for everything, even for that which your mental conditioning would tell you is ridiculous. Don’ t listen to your mind. What has that gotten you? Lastly, I want you to give up the notion that there is going to be some easy way out or that someone or something is going to suddenly save you from yourself. It is not going to happen. You are going to save yourself. There is no other way. So, you are searching for answers to empower yourself to save yourself. That is great. I congratulate you on being determined to discover the secrets of becoming a master of your life. For you are the one that I honor. You are the one that I respect. You are the one that I love.
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