Think Results NOW: You Are What You Think book 1

You Are What You Think book 1

Article #24

My life is an Excellent Adventure from using “You Are What You Think”

Think Well Of Yourself

IT IS AMAZING how many of us have a poor opinion of ourselves. One of the happiest days of our lives will be the day we learn to accept ourselves as we are. This doesn’t mean we should stop striving to improve. It means that we should look upon the person we are at this point in a different light.

There are two sides to our nature. The worst of us have a better side that we are not expressing. The best of us have what you might call a lower side to our natures, that we express occasionally.

Those who have a poor opinion of themselves are giving more power and attention to their lower nature than it deserves. At the same time they are neglecting their finer qualities, and so these qualities fail to develop.

IT IS a matter of training one’s mind. We should form an ideal picture of ourselves and accept that as real, rather than creating a picture of ourselves that is anything less than ideal.

Everyone’s nature contains many fine qualities. The only difference is that these qualities are more highly developed in some than in others.

We all have within us the potential to be calm, poised, assured, confident, and powerful. When we express our lower nature we are nervous, afraid, unsure of ourselves, weak and limited in power.

IT IS WONDERFUL that we can deliberately choose which part of our nature we would like to express. You will probably agree that the qualities of one’s higher nature are more desirable than those of the lower, but you might ask, “How do I express these ?”

Every thought that is positive, uplifting, and encouraging should be nourished. Such thinking enables you to use your creative powers for your own good and the good of all concerned.

The lower nature is negative. If you prefer to live that way, cultivate thoughts of doubt, fear, blame, regrets and irritability.

I REPEAT, you can choose whether you wish to develop qualities of either your higher or lower nature, but it will take a certain amount of discipline if you decide on your higher qualities.

Throughout our lives we have developed habits of thinking. After a while these thinking patterns become automatic. So unless we make a definite effort, our thoughts will continue to follow the same pattern.

To make this more understandable, I will repeat briefly from an earlier column what the Yoga masters taught on the subject; they said (long before there were x-rays) that the human brain is like soft clay, and therefore subject to impressions. As a thought is repeated many times - the impression, or groove, becomes deeper.

ONCE A PERSON establishes habit patterns of thinking it is easy to see why his thoughts would automatically continue to fall in the same grooves. One would have to put a great amount of extra force behind a thought to direct the thought in a new direction.

Imagine diverting a river from one pat of the country to another before a new channel had been dug, and expecting it to flow smoothly. That is how difficult it is to channel our habit patterns of thinking in a new direction.

Up to now perhaps we have allowed our thoughts and emotions to rule us rather than our controlling them. They are ours to control just as much as our hands and feet, but we will have to work at it.

THE BEST WAY to start is to change our opinion of ourselves. Charity begins at home. The true meaning of charity is love, so we should love ourselves more. Not in an egotistical or selfish way, as most people think of self-love, but love your higher nature. Constantly practice expressing your best qualities at every opportunity.

In order to make a change in your outward life you must first change the way you have been thinking about yourself. The thoughts you have entertained about yourself in the past have made you what you are. Wishing for a change will not be enough. If you are going to make new impressions, or grooves, in your brain you will have to have deep conviction and belief behind your thoughts.

There are channels or grooves in your brain that you now realize you no longer want. They will level off and disappear only if they are no longer used.

HERE ARE SOME suggestions: First, see if you can go for 24 hours expressing only thoughts and actions that would pertain to qualities of your higher nature. You must become consciously aware of your thinking. Do this 24 hours at a time until your whole pattern of thought is changed.

You can’t believe how happy you will become !

Next, write down on one side of a piece of paper the good qualities you now have. On the other side write down the qualities you would like to have but feel you lack. Now, concentrate on the qualities you have for a few minutes and be thankful for them.

Next, concentrate on the qualities you would like to have and imagine yourself in possession of them. The best time to do this is bedtime, because the subconscious mind never sleeps. If you persist, you will awake some morning and find that the qualities you have aspired to are yours.