Do you want to feel empowered?
Do you want to consciously and deliberately create the life you have always wanted?
In this article, I’ll give you a quick and easy way to identify your thoughts, and replace them with more empowering thoughts of your own choosing, so you can start living the life you want… today!
Thoughts Are Everything
There’s no lack of quotations from world leaders, famous people, and scholars — all pointing to the fact that with our thoughts we create our world!
Known as the Prophet of Meditation James Allen said: “[As a man] thinketh..., so is he.”
Author of The Strangest Secret Earl Nightingale said: ”We become what we think about most of the time.”
Noted literary humorist Prentice Mulford said: “Thoughts are things.”
Religious Science movement founder Ernest Holmes said: “Just imagine yourself surrounded by mind, so plastic, so receptive, that it receives the slightest impression of your thought. Whatever you think, it takes up and executes for you. Every thought is received and acted upon. Not some, but all thoughts.”
In 2005, the National Science Foundation published in a study that individuals have approximately 12,000-60,000 thoughts per day.
With so many thoughts, we might as well put them to good use in creating the life we’ve always wanted.
Why Is It Hard to Change Our Thoughts?
As simple, powerful and hopeful as that all sounds, why is it easier said than done?
Why do we walk around all day lost in our thinking, rather than deliberately creating it?
Why do we get swept away by our thoughts without even knowing it?
As soon as we wake up, it seems to start all over again on its own.
Why do we totally forget what thoughts we’re trying to get rid of, and what thoughts we’re trying to replace them with?
Why do our thoughts never feel like they’re being generated by us?
They just seem to pop up on their own, of their own creation. Thoughts that we don’t even want to be thinking about!
Why are our thoughts each day, all day long, usually concerning the same things — over and over again, day after day?
Who Has the Power to Change Thought?
We, ourselves, are the thinkers of our thoughts, which gives us the power to create whatever
thoughts we’d like, and eliminate the ones we don’t like!
Life is not the result of the events that happen to us, but rather, what we think, believe and feel about those events.
Our thoughts determine how we feel, the decisions we make, and actions we take, which make up the experiences of our life.
It’s not that one thought is truer or more valid than another thought, but certainly one thought might be more empowering and preferential for the life we’re desiring.
How to Be Gatekeepers of Our Own Mind
We need to be careful about what we say to ourselves, how we feel about ourselves, and how we see ourselves.
Self-blame is extremely destructive, and immediately closes down consciousness.
Negative self-talk sabotages our self-image, while feelings of not being good enough destroy our self-confidence.
This all comes from our thinking, and it’s solely our choice!
However, we have to practice deliberate choosing.
We have to be the gatekeeper of our own mind.
It’s not easy, because we are both prone to and trained to simply work hard and it will all work out.
We’re not brought up to take the time to get quiet and contemplate our own life, and be deliberate in our choices.
It’s time to change that!!
All day, we walk around lost in our own thinking, rather than deliberately creating it.
We don’t believe we have that power, or we feel it’s too much work, or we don’t have the time, or we don’t have a very good plan for our own life, so we just keep running on the treadmill, accepting whatever comes our way.
Be careful about the company you keep, the conversations you have, the TV shows you watch, the movies you go to, the books you read, the websites you surf, and the music you listen to.
Where you put your attention has a huge impact on what shows up in your mind, and in your life!
3 Steps to Use Your Thoughts to Create a Life of Your Own Choosing
The following practices are meant to slow you down, so you get a chance to deliberately and consciously choose your thoughts, feelings, and actions, to experience the life you want!
Spiritual teacher and author Eckhart Tolle said: ”Rather than being your thoughts and emotions, be the awareness behind them.”
We have to become the witnesser, the observer, the watcher of our thoughts and actions.
Step 1: Be the Witness
Witnessing is the act of training yourself to get still and sufficiently present to stand back from yourself — like watching an actor on a stage.
Doing this gives you the ability to stop grasping at your thoughts, actions and emotions.
You do this by simply watching your thoughts, actions and emotions, and then silently calling them out to yourself, hence “witnessing” them.
This process can prompt you to develop your awareness behind your own thoughts. It slows you down, and brings you into the present moment where you can choose more consciously and deliberately the life you want to create.
Next, take time to listen to your deepest self, as mentioned in the article How to Listen and Open the Door to Our Deepest Self.
Step 2: Practice Pausing to Create Choice
Most people get prodded by some occurrence in their life and then react on autopilot.
It’s entirely a knee-jerk reaction.
If, rather than reacting, you practice “pausing” right after being stimulated, you will create an opportunity for deliberate conscious choice that will greatly affect the outcome, rather than it being just an automatic reaction.
Within that space of “pausing” is where change occurs.
Practice choosing… Choose practicing.
A great book that discusses this is The Handbook to Higher Consciousness, by Ken Keyes, Jr.
In this book, Ken Keyes, Jr., gives astonishingly simple, and most of all, functional ways to identify and transform ways to unlock our consciousness.
Keyes illustrates how individuals can create a life of their own choosing filled with freedom, power, love, joy and full self-expression.
Step 3: Keep a Thought Journal
Each morning, and twice more throughout the day, spend just five minutes, writing a list of the thoughts you’ve had.
You will quickly see the repetitive ones, the disempowering ones, the trite ones, the negative ones, etc.
Make a list of empowering statements you can use to replace that thinking.
Think about: “What would you say to a friend to whom you wanted to be a positive inspiration.”
Reperceive your thinking into positive, empowering statements.
My 17 Sayings of Practical Enlightenment can give you a blueprint of statements to help elevate your thinking.
Choose Your Life Now
If you are ready to take action and choose your life, then my free download of 3 Steps to Feeling Great Right Now is a great tool to help you on your journey.
To learn more, download my Free Ebook “3 Steps to Feel Great Right Now Regardless of Your Circumstances.” Get started mastering your mind and transforming your thinking.
