~by Debbie Jacobs~
Change your thoughts, change your life. I heard this from Louise Hay in 2010 and decided to turn it into a Change Your Thoughts, Change Your Life challenge.
Yes, I committed to seeing if this statement rang true. I was an extremely negative thinker. My perspective was always, “the glass is half empty.” I habitually came from a place of “no.” Sarcasm was my best friend and fear was my constant companion. And where did this come from? Where else, my conditioning. My childhood, though perceptibly privileged, was predominantly negative. At the age of 39, I was unhappy, working the corporate grind, attracting bad times, in toxic relationships, and not living the life I had imagined.
So I set out to get my mind straight. If our thoughts create our reality — and this was the reality my thoughts had created — then I got to work creating new positive thoughts for a new reality of happiness, love, success and family. But boy, this was not easy. First, I had to get a handle on the negative thoughts already running amok on auto-pilot. This is known as “the monkey mind.” What was easy was stopping the negative self-talk. No more “stupid me” or ”I’m such a jerk” if something didn’t go right. No more negative self-talk about my looks or my weight, no more beating myself up, no more negative self-talk at all, in any way, not even in jest or jokes. I was rather surprised at how easy it was to stop this longstanding habitual behavior and how quickly this behavior pattern became a faded memory, one that has not returned. I reminded myself of this accomplishment many times as it took years to feel I gained control of my mind and the subconscious and, at times, thought that would be impossible and would never happen. I stuck with the challenge to “change your thoughts, change your life” with unwavering determination. My commitment was to stop the negative thinking. And to clean out my system of negativity, which was deeply rooted in my conditioning, like you would clean water of contaminates. My goal was to be positive, cleansed of all the negativity in my thinking.
Essentially, I trained my mind to stop the negative thoughts as soon as they arose, to nip them in the bud, and not engage the thought or start ruminating on a negative situation. I followed a simple cardinal rule: If the thought was negative, switch the thought like changing the TV channel. I was absolute in my discipline. And the important thing was to replace the negative thought with a positive, productive thought or affirmation. The mind likes and needs to be occupied and will choose thoughts, regardless if they serve you or not. Training the mind to think about subjects you choose is absolutely necessary for accomplishing your goals and living the life of your dreams. I also had to train my mind to see the good in situations, to look for the good because the default was to see the bad, the negative. I used my childhood to practice, and searched for all good memories. Changing my mindset to positivity took a huge effort at the beginning, was forced for a long time, and then one day became automatic. My perspective and mindset had shifted!
Using the My Inner Voice app I developed made the shift that much easier, but all it takes is unwavering commitment. When my sweet little dog peed on my vision board I knew the change had an impact. Old me would have been upset, mad, “she ruined it,” etc., but new positive-thinking me accepted the accident as my dog’s way of including herself on my vision board and it still hangs on my wall with her special touch included. For me, this was a big sign of progress.
Thinking positively releases the emotional burden that goes along with negative thoughts; we deal with much less emotional upset when we think positively.
Debbie Jacobs
Meet the Author: Debbie Jacobs
Debbie is a positivity mindset, transformational life coach, focusing on success and happiness. She’s been a certified Heal Your Life Workshop Leader, based on Louise Hay’s teachings, and is currently pursuing certification from the Napoleon Hill Foundation. Debbie studies the many principles of Universal Law and teaches alignment as fundamental happiness practices. Debbie is also a LifeSprings/Mastery graduate and developed the My Inner Voice App, designed exclusively for her coaching programs. For more information, visit her “My Inner Voice app page” on Facebook.
