Overcoming Negative Thoughts

Firstly a wonderful passage from Equanimintyandpeace.

I used to think life was ONE LONG EMERGENCY. I still believe life can seriously give hardship. I still “feel” just as I always did. If I was in a war refuge camp with you eating soup made of tree bark and we had hungry crying children around us…that IS a problem. I don’t think just anything and everything painful can be “wiped away” so easily after a 30 minute meditation, or a weekend retreat in nature, or some book on quotes that does magical things, but I think we can institute choices that can make our lives easier.

Life can be a difficult battlefield of problems, but I think we have some control over the degree of suffering we subject ourselves to. Once you realize that, you can really learn to live simply and calmly and rediscover the magic you first probably saw in your youth....

It is only through conscious intervention that you can make your mind change course from automatically recycling negative thoughts. This is just like your breathing. You breathe automatically, but you CAN choose to influence your breathing, you can hold your breath if you are going to dive deep in the water, or you can consciously “slow down” your breath if you are relaxing in meditation and prayer.

Once I realized I did in fact have “some” ability to control my own thoughts, I consciously redirected the thoughts to positive uplifting notions. I noted that I had built such a large ego over the years that the collapse of it dragged me down in a catastrophic fashion. A big ego is different from self esteem. Both were destroyed, but I learned to regain self esteem through positive affirmations and knowing that the negative thoughts are not reality. I believe having a positive self esteem is important, a big ego…not so much.

Equanimintyandpeace

Bringing Stillness Into Everyday Life

Some parallels:

The human body sustains itself automatically, regardless of the mind (i.e. involuntary and mindless mental chatter.)

The environment sustains itself automatically, regardless of human talk (i.e. mindless human talk.)

Fear Sells...

Republished from Patricia Robinett @ Blogspot

Sex Sells? So Does Fear!

"What I feared has come upon me; what I dreaded has happened to me," said Job. "I have no peace, no quietness; I have no rest, but only turmoil.”

Fear, my friends, is hell in a nutshell. There need be no greater hell than fear and dread.

Problem is, when we feel threatened, we stiffen and hold our breath and suddenly -- there is that dog – right there – that one! -- and he wants to bite us! – and he does bite us! On the other hand, when we feel safe and easy and we are breathing fully and freely and deeply, the same dog wags his tail and licks our hand.

When we feel safe, when we choose peace, the world is a safer place. And we send out a powerful signal that we are safe. What we feel, we draw to us; this law is bigger than human laws. People can break human laws, but no one can break this law. What we feel, we draw to us. It behooves us to entertain only the thoughts and feelings we truly want to see show up in our lives.

Today the New York Times editorial, "Our Unnecessary Insecurity" lists numerous things we should fear, including power plants, chemical plants, nuclear plants, ports, borders, and others. How do we find peace of mind when even editorials entitled "Our Unnecessary Insecurity" tries to sell us on the idea that there are many things we need to fear?

The colors of fear and dread cover a narrow range of the palette of life and if we paint our lives from that limited area, the quality of our lives diminishes greatly. How to find and choose personal peace in the midst of seeming chaos?

"The only thing we have to fear is fear itself." -- Franklin D. Roosevelt in his 1933 inaugural address. How very kind he was to his own audience, to put fear into perspective.

Threat is not a constant. Threat is a very infrequent thing. Let’s definitely take care of things that need attention. If our power plants, transportation systems, etc need repair, let’s take care of them. Let’s talk to our legislators, the administration, about things that are important to take care of in our own backyard. It’s only wise to take care of business. And while we’re doing that, let’s also take care of ourselves.

“Grant me the Serenity to accept the things I cannot change,
Courage to change the things I can,
and Wisdom to know the difference.”

Let’s practice reminding ourselves that we not bodies, that we are spiritual beings having a temporary human experience. We’re not the characters; we are actors in costume. We’re get caught up in the drama and trauma of this very convincing walkie-talkie, smellie, touchie, tastie, feelie, 3-D – and more -- movie, being thrown hither and yon by fear and dread, when all along there is a still, small, quiet, private place inside our hearts where peace has never left. All we need do is remind ourselves we are safe here and now. No matter how the movie ends, the lights will come on at the end, we will stand up and walk out, safe and sound and sane.

Let's practice choosing peace here and now, no matter what is happening in external circumstances. Peace is your natural condition. To get back to the peace that you are, you’ll simply need to ignore the conditioning, the temptation, the manipulation to latch on to fear and follow a one-way, downhill, dead-end road to adrenalin exhaustion.

The bonus of choosing peace here and now in this moment, in your heart, is that the more you choose peace, the more you will attract peace to yourself. Your feelings are magnets and you can use them to draw to you whatever you wish. Do you wish to attract more threat? Or do you wish to attract more ease, safety? Take a moment right now and choose peace. How do you choose peace? It’s in your own heart. Just say, “I choose peace.” String those golden moments together and your life will start looking better and better.

When it comes to our internal climate, our own personal peace of mind, no one can do it for us. It's an inside job. Only we can choose peace for ourselves when there is so much clamor in the opposite direction. No one is going to hand us peace of mind. But how? How do we find peace of mind in very troubled times? How do we find peace of mind when the media is selling us fear, daily? “I choose peace.”

Hints for today:

1) How immediate is the threat? Do I need to run now? Or can I sit for a moment? Can I breathe?

2) Ask yourself: “What would be the worst possible outcome?”

3) Where in your body do you tense up when you think that thought? Chest? Stomach? Shoulders? Head?

4) Put all – all! -- your awareness on that area. If there’s more than one, take care of one area at a time.

4) Allow your natural breath to move in and out. Breathing into the tension in that area.

5) Tell yourself, "In this moment, here and now, I am safe." You can honestly tell yourself that, because 99.999999% of the time we are all safe. How rare true danger is!

Wishing you all the best!

Love, patricia
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About Patricia Robinett:

Renaissance woman Clinical Hypnotherapist in Eugene, Oregon, author of "As the Waters Cover the Sea" and "Rape of Innocence", teacher, speaker, healer, Patricia Robinett is comfortable wearing many hats. She has always been curious about a variety of subjects, loves a mystery, and consequently asks a lot of probing questions into every area of life.

Patricia is the author of two published books with several more in the works. She is an award-winning visual artist who now designs books and websites for herself and others. She invented an ingenious, technical tool that accurately measures the complex geometry of an astrological chart with a companion workbook. She has written numerous published magazine articles. As a clinical hypnotherapist, she has functioned as a past lives therapist for over 18 years. She has led study groups on metaphysics for the same amount of time. - Ezine Articles

Myrkothum

Peace that Passeth all Understanding

RECYCLED FROM 2008...

INTRODUCTION: Real peace has no reason, or foundation, or rationale, because it emerges from a place much deeper than thoughts. Real peace requires no anchor (as in god, or teacher, or a mental position)

Sometimes in life situations arise that put you in a storm. This storm can and will blow you away and sometimes does.

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I don't know how it happens, but it just happens. No books can teach you how, no one can explain why, but it comes. 'The peace that passeth all understanding'.

My experience with this 'peace that passeth all understanding' is that it has a beautiful tinge of silver to it. When I say silver, I mean the 'feeling' that this peace is silvery in nature. Very difficult to explain in words, but it is beautiful and intense, silent and calm.

My experience reminds me of a book I read recently. A book on Tibetan Buddhism named 'Luminous Emptiness' by Francesca Fremantle, an associate of Chogyam Trungpa, the founder of Naropa University. This book talks of 'wrathful compassion' and 'crazy wisdom' that it's deities/dakinis use, to 'force' their student into stillness and mental peace.

The author talks of 'sanity and insanity' working simultaneously, 'cruelty and compassion' working together. Under ordinary circumstances, 'sanity and insanity' working together is nonsense, it is just insanity.

But, under special circumstances, when there is love and trust between the partners, sanity and insanity working together can do wonders, like Francesca Fremantle explains.

The thread of love holds people together, when 'sanity-insanity' operates. Without love, it would all be insanity.

When sanity and insanity, cruelty and compassion, all work together in the envelope of love, 'peace that passeth all understanding' starts manifesting, for brief periods at first, and slowly the time for which this peace stays keeps on increasing. But only if you don't expect it to.

Human relationships are sane and insane, both. There is cruelty in them, there is compassion in them, both at the same time. But this is immature love.

In mature love, there can be no cruelty, no revenge, no brutality. Love is not about beating each other black and blue(emotionally or physically) and then weeping and crying and apologising later.

If love enters the cruel-compassionate-sane-insane relationships that humans strike with each other, they will all heal in time, and 'peace that passeth all understanding' will manifest.

Love can heal everything.
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