Changing all thoughts that hurt

Loss is not loss when properly perceived.  Pain is impossible.  There is no grief with any cause at all. And suffering of any kind is nothing but a dream. This is the truth, at first to be but said and then repeated many times; and next to be accepted as but partly true, with many reservations. Then to be considered seriously more and more, and finally accepted as the truth.
ACIM-W-284:1:1-6

I'm back. 

Truth is I never left you...all through my wild days, my mad existence...I kept my love for you don't keep your distance...lol...do you know what that is from?  

Okay I am back...not like a normal focused human being who understands what she is writing or why...like I had hoped to return to you. I am  still as confused and 'all over the place' as I was before I left. I am just a little bit more accepting of it, I guess.  :)

Truth is...the week away did not answer any questions for me. I am still not sure why I come here but I find joy, purpose and passion for whatever reason and that is enough. 

I also find escape from my stressors out there.  When I use the word 'escape' I do so with reverence as in 'finding freedom'.  I find a way through the muck and mire of day to day existence in the physical world of limitation, scarcity and 'dukkha' to a peace that exists in the inner world. I don't have to spin my tires here no matter how stuck I may feel out there.  Everything just makes sense. That has to be a good thing, doesn't it?  And if I am not spinning my tires maybe others can stop spinning theirs. Wouldn't that be the next course of action then...to share what I am learning so others can find a certain peace as well?

So here I am.

I can elect to change all thoughts that hurt.

What I am learning is that I can change the way I think.  If I change the way I think and perceive the world, I change the way I live.  I am not saying I have mastered the lessons yet...I am just stepping beyond my reservations into serious consideration.  I cannot  apply them with 100% efficacy out there...but I am learning and I am gaining a little bit of mastery in practice  bit by bit. That has to account for something, doesn't it?

I listen to the wisdom that comes my way.  I do my best to interpret and make sense of it (what you get here) and then I practice it.

We can choose to change all thoughts that hurt.

I came across this video yesterday from my mentor (though he will never know he is my mentor lol), Eckhart Tolle, on getting beyond negative thinking. This is not the first time I spoke of this.  I believe I have a video on negative thinking somewhere on this blog.  But to believe it, sometimes we need to hear it from an expert.  I am, after all, no expert ...just a student of Life, like many of you are.

Tolle, in this video, explains how we get sucked into negative thinking...the muck and mire of our life situations which exists only in our minds. Negative thinking is an addiction.  Something in us does not want to let it go.  We get something from it.  We cling to the thought pattern at certain times in our lives because it serves a purpose.  We want to spin our tires in it.  We want to get stuck in it.  We resist letting it go because ego loves it.  Ego wants us in that mud.  The emotions brought about by negative thinking  like anger, for example, inflate the ego and give identity to it.  

Not on a conscious level, of course, but on some level....we can become " a grievance looking for a cause."  

Tolle offers us steps to follow to help us get out of the negative thinking ruts we may find ourselves in.

 Steps

1.       Be aware.  We need to find that small stream of awareness that allows us to see self while we are in the stream of negative thinking.  We must recognize that  a part of us  “likes it” and does not want to let it go.

2.       Notice part of you that likes the negative thinking and is identified with it and is getting something from it as your ego

3.       See how mind activity of this nature is absolutely futile and serves no purpose.  Ask “Does this thinking pattern change anything in my life for the better or does it  just continue to drag me down and keep me in this hole?”   “Do I have a conditioned belief that I learned that expression of unhappiness will bring reward of some kind…that things will change to my favor if I express unhappiness to self and others?"

4.      Question the truth of those old beliefs and thinking patterns. Need to see how unhappy thoughts actually make life worse and harder, not better.

5.       Question what life would be like without unhappy and negative thought?  “Could I actually feel peaceful presence without this type of thinking?”

6.       Choice comes in…choose to put down  the pattern of negative thinking. 

 

7. If you decide to seek peaceful presence be patient…negative thinking doesn’t go away that quickly.  It has taken years to develop its power and strength and it will take time to let go of it.

8.       Don’t fight negative thinking…don’t resist the thoughts as they  come…just be aware of them. Likely they will come back…it is a familiar pattern that was developed over a life time…just go back to being aware of the futility

9.      Continue to honor and appreciate moments of awareness. When you see what you are doing, you are the awareness…you have separated from the negative thinking.  When you don’t see it…you are the negative thinking, the depression, the anger.  You have identified with it.  Awareness detaches the reality of who you are from that false identity with ego's thinking pattern.

10.  Have faith.  Freedom from negative thinking will come eventually.

 

It is good to be back. All is well in my world.

 

References:

ACIM-W-284

Tolle Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j91ST2gtR44