Practicing Eckhart Tolle’s advice to “watch the thinker” as described in his book The Power of Now showed me how often my mind was overrun with trivia. It was enlightening to find my thoughts dominated by the refrain of a song or a scene from a sit-com. It took conscious, persistent work to retrain my mental habits. I still enjoy humming a favorite tune or thinking about some show’s witty or memorable dialog; just not incessantly.
This quote caught my attention because my current studies have me reflecting on my reactions as an indication of my beliefs. Watching my own reactions and finding the implied belief takes watching my thoughts to a different level. Of course, I started with my most uncomfortable and disagreeable reactions. Modifying them I thought was the best way to improve my life.
My beliefs supporting contrary, querulous and dismal responses weren’t too surprising. Common-sense and a little analytical thinking showed the limitation and absurdity of the beliefs that don’t serve me. Using a few practical techniques and tactics to re-direct my habits is moving me toward more pleasant perspectives.
This morning I was struck by my tendency to focus on dark impulses before turning to thoughts and beliefs that are joyful.
“.. what you see when you look at something depends not so much on what is there as on the assumption you make when you look.” – Neville Goddard
In The Power of Assumption’s chapter on Attitude, Neville Goddard counsels a woman frustrated by her contentious relationship with a coworker. Goddard asks about her mental conversations with her colleague; suggesting she most likely was having exchanges with him in her head that were critical and acrimonious. She admitted as much; saying she forcefully told him off every day on her way to work.
“.. others only echo that which we whisper to them in secret.”
“.. many people are mentally engrossed in conversation and few appear to be happy about it, but the very intensity of that feeling must lead them quickly to the unpleasant incident they themselves have mentally created and therefore must now encounter.”
Goddard explained that she could change this dynamic by imagining her conversations with him as pleasant and congenial. He encouraged her to hear the man praise her, and her responding with thanks. By doing this, methodically, with good intent, she reported a total turn-around with this relationship.
Giving attention to building my own joyful thought muscles I create that energy in my life. Momentum like this will improve my life more than simply pruning dead-end thoughts. Both are probably needed, but their order could be reversed.
“Our life is what our thoughts make it.”
“Reject your sense of injury and the injury itself disappears.”
― Marcus Aurelius, Meditations
