Changing your mind set, the power of thought
You will have read many times on this site how I write about the power of positive thinking and how its now actually been proven scientifically that optimists are healthier and live longer and how stress and negative thinking damages our health in two ways. Firstly in the holistic approach how negativity affects the balance of the chakras and scientifically negative thinking depletes the immune response by damaging the specialised lymph cells 'T'lymphocytes and makes us more likely to pick up infections and how it also renders the immune system from filtering out mutant cells. This is only a small part of how negative thinking affects us.
Changing your mind set i.e. is not easy if you have spent your entire life being pessimistic, but it can be changed. We tend to learn a pattern from our parents, so chances are if you were raised pessimistically you will be influenced to think this way. However small steps can gradually be taken and over time you can do a lot to change this.
One way is through Affirmations, the trick here to make a positive statement and if you say it enough repeatedly eventually you will come to believe it. When you think about it, if you drip water regularly repeatedly over time on a rock, eventually you will wear the rock away. You just have to look at the coast line to see that. However an affirmation wont take as long as the sea takes to wear away the coast line.
Affirmations are simple statements that we make, positive or negative. They may be made on purpose like when we do to change some aspect of our life. They may also be made automatically like when we tell ourselves "Oh, this is scarey", when we see a big spider drop down from a cobweb on the ceiling. What is fascinating about them is that the more we use them, the more our behaviour becomes like them! Affirmations reinforce our behaviour, either negatively or positively. So we can harness the power of positive affirmations to change our negative mind set to become a positive one.
Another way is to use a technique from NLP (Neuro linguistic programming) Neuro linguistic Programming often known as the science of excellence is a vast subject and I dare say I will talk about how we can use the techniques in many ways in future. One of NLP's techniques is known as 'Anchoring' and we can use this technique to 'anchor' a positive thought within our minds in lots of different ways. It's a bit like creating a bookmark in our memory files.
It's often easier to enlist the help of a friend to help you achieve this, I used to use this technique to help my students remember a lecture, by creating an anchor for the lesson, so it could be flagged up again for revision in studying and used in this way it helped the students remember the lecture. However is can be used very easily to create an 'anchor' for positive thinking.
First of all you need to create an 'anchor' this is something you do to jog your memory to take it immediately to what you want your memory to flag up. The anchor could be pinching your ear lobe, touching your nose, anything you feel comfortable, but remember you have to use different anchors for different bookmarks. You don't want to use pinching your earlobe to remember a lecture on history and they same one for a lecture on science for example, you need a separate one for each thing you want to flag up.
Ok you've chosen your anchor, lets just say you are going to touch the tip of your nose with your forefinger.
- Next think of something and it can be way back, where you were full of confidence and happy, it could be when you passed an exam or gained a degree or passed your driving test, anything you like as long as you were in a positive mind set.
- Now focus on what happened, can you visualise this in your mind, make the colours you see brighter, can you remember what people at that time said to you, can you remember them speak? Anything to make the memory as strong as you can, recall how happy you were, smile and relish the moment.
- Ok now touch the the tip of your nose with your forefinger. (thus you create your anchor)
- Now go and look out the window, sit down stand up, run around on the spot anything else to take your mind else where (that's why its often better to enlist a friend for this to talk you through it.
- Ok that done touch your nose with your forefinger, what do your feel? what should happen it that instantaneously it flags up that memory where you were positive and happy.
- The purpose of this exercise? well everytime you find yourself thinking negatively touch the tip of your nose with your forefinger, it will jog you back to that time when you were thinking positively in an instant.
Remember don't use the same anchor for different memories else when you want to think positively you might find yourself remembering a history lecture!
