11th May, 2012
One has to be sincere enough to admit that the process of controlling or mastering your thought pattern is not an easy one. Asking someone to write out all the things they say within twenty four hours is considered a great task; then imagine having to track your whole thoughts for the day- impossible, isn’t it?
An unknown author wrote:
Watch your thoughts, they become words
Watch your words, they become actions
Watch your actions, they become habits
Watch your habits, they become character
Watch your character, it becomes your destiny.
Dwelling on negative thoughts is a quicker way to jeopardise happiness. The more you spend time analysing the things that are ‘wrong’ with you, the farther you drive yourself from the possibility of being fulfilled. Thoughts like fear of break up, pains of broken relationships, loss, lack, self pity, regret, defeat or constantly expecting something to go wrong tend to make you drift to the negative pole of life and it’s seriously unhealthy for you.
Balancing your relationship for optimal satisfaction entails cultivating a positive attitude; knowing, though there may be challenges, there will also be a way out. Life has not promised anyone a hitch free ride as much as I know, so thinking everyone would celebrate and love you or you’ll control everything/everyone at the snap of your fingers is a tall dream. People will always be people-including your spouse and you have to be ‘a person’ to get the best out of them.
John Harrison believes that creating and achieving success relies very much on perception and that the appearance of success and affluence often precedes actuality. Perception is simply what you think of something-your sincere opinion; therefore, injecting fears of what you heard happened in another relationship can only cause more harm; yours is different, the people involved are different so why expect similar negative results?
Human minds have the capability to create. The things we enjoy today are all products of thoughts. Counting from the very house we live, cars, air planes, phones, technologies of all sorts including computers and the engaging world of internet are things people thought of and experimented. This constructive part of human existence is present in every person and can be explored to birth your dream relationship as well. Anything you focus on and devote time to is likely to grow, multiply and expand. The power to see things in a good light lies right within you and until you tap into this; your relationship will continue to face crisis and failure.
Let the positive thinking begin with you. Change the way you read meanings to things, stop seeing problems where none exists, don’t be governed by suspicion and sincerely believe others have the right to be happy.
Ways to cultivate positive thinking:
1.Evaluate your thought pattern: Taking a look at what kind of thoughts flood your mind within a day and trying to classify them either as positive or negative will be throwing more light on what you do.
2.Why do you think you are engaged in those thoughts? Is it as a result of what had happened to you earlier in life? Does it relate with what you want to become? Can you trace it to pains, disappointment, failure, poverty, wealth, position or people’s expectations of you?
3.What can you then do to change negative thoughts to positive ones or develop the positive thoughts to your advantage?
… (a) Learn to love yourself: Any relationship might break or end but you cannot separate yourself from ‘you’. If you are to live with ‘you’ all the days of your life, it would be wise to start loving ‘you’ as you cannot be happy with a person you are uncomfortable with. This might involve doing a few things like; education, weight loss, change wardrobe, attend social gatherings, make new friends, take holiday, exercise, participate in counselling and psychotherapy sessions, etc to bring out the ‘dream you’. Whatever it takes; explore it and come up a better person.
(b) Start loving others and respect their views; be less judgmental.
(c) Appreciate the fact that we are meant to be different.
(d) Don’t use other people’s standard to judge yourself
(e) Have your own definition of success. It will help to know that success can be measured by what you had set out to do and how far you went at it; it’s not about what someone else had done or would have expected you to do. It’s about doing what you needed to do in a fulfilling way.
(f) Discover what makes you feel good and do it often.
(g) Remember life does not have a straight line plot; the curves are different: sometimes it takes you really deep, at other times it comes to an acceptable level, yet there are times you find it so high. Being able to go through all these with the mind that every experience is necessary for growth, development and maturity will help you live each day at a time without feeling overwhelmed.
(h) Learn to expect something good not bad and have an attitude of a person who turns everything to his/her advantage.
(I) Try to bury yesterday, live today and expect tomorrow.