I was reminded again this week of just how destructive negative thinking can be. This year has been pretty good for me so far, but this last week everything went tits up. It all started on Monday, which was a public holiday where I live. I woke up feeling OK, but as the day progressed I started feeling really shitty. I was thinking about going back to work the next day and all the things I needed to do during the week, and it really depressed me. I couldn’t be bothered to do anything so I was just sitting on the sofa for ages, feeling miserable. That’s when everything spiraled out of control: one of my friends messaged me with some news I really, really didn’t want to hear; my partner and I had a massive argument which lasted all day; then woke up the next morning to yet another crisis in our flat. I was late for work due to this, and the issue at home made me think of loads of other problems which I have been putting off. I felt so overwhelmed and stressed that at one point I thought I was going to faint at work.
The next day I felt slightly better, and that’s when I decided to take control of the situation. I remembered someone on the forum had mentioned an ‘Abraham-Hicks Focus Wheel’. I have read some of the Hicks’ books but didn’t know what a focus wheel was. I made a cup of tea, googled it, and then got to work. After I had completed one I felt much, much better. I saw the situation for what it was, and was now in the frame of mind where I just KNEW everything would sort itself out. The next day things started looking up- the crisis ended up not being such a big deal after all, and I finally received an answer to a problem which has been bugging me for months. The rest of the week was OK, not quite 100 percent yet, but deffo improving.
The events of this week have reminded me of how important it is to be aware of your thoughts, and the energy that you are attracting into your life. ‘Coincidentally’, yesterday I read something which I thought was quite relevant to this theme. Its from Rachel Pollack’s 78 Degrees of Wisdom. In the chapter on readings she writes: ‘The fact is, the future does scare most people. They do not expect anything good to happen. They settle for things staying the same- a balance of pain and happiness with a large measure of boredom, frustration, and low-level misery; but even such stability appears unlikely. In most peoples eyes things can only get worse, and probably will.’ This really struck a chord with me. I think this is a very accurate description of the sheeple of the modern day/ corporate world. I guess you can’t really blame them as we are constantly bombarded with bad news via the media: wars, crime, the economy, problems, hopelessness etc etc.
Personally I try to distance myself from this sort of thing as much as possible-for example, I don’t read the newspaper every day anymore (I make sure I know what’s going on in the world, but only what I really need to know), and I try to avoid contact with the general population as much as I can. How do you guys deal with this? How do you keep positive in such an overwhelmingly ‘negative’ society?
I was skeptical for SO LONG when I read LoA people online saying “Don’t watch the news” because I figured they were sticking their heads in the sand, but then I gave it a trial for a month and the effects on my internal mental chatter and mood blew me away.
These days I skim the news once or twice a day (with sporadic days off - funny enough, the world gets by fine without me) and I feel like the intentional news-fast helps me keep that shit in perspective.
I also keep a bunch of positive books, I love Nap. Hill and all that kind of stuff, and I read them through regularly, plus get the daily mailouts from their site, and online I basically track down everything and anything to support that empowered state because the rest of the world is trying to bathe us in negativity 24/7.
The funny thing is, every time I’ve slipped and then realised it and recommitted to taking control of these things, it’s always heralded some quantum leap in my magickal abilities, so I think there’s more to this than just “feeling good”… it’s hard to become the god of your own creation if you’re lending time and mental energy to the fucked up creations of the half-aware, which is what the news usually presents.
I used to read the paper every day on the way to work on the train, but then I thought to myself ‘why the hell am I doing this?’. So these days I use the time to read books (usually something occult related) instead. We’ve got BBC news on at work in the kitchen all day so Ill have a quick look at the headlines while I’m making a cup of coffee just to keep up with current world events, but that’s it.
It’s not just news that I avoid these days, I hardly watch any TV anymore. Never really been a big fan of tv anyway but there used to be a few shows that I watched regularly. But then I realised that although not really ‘negative’, most shows are just so, I don’t know, ‘mediocre/mundane/superficial’. Really not inspiring or entertaining at all, just a waste of time really. Same with celebrity mags etc. I just don’t like the way that sort of thing makes me feel- but I can’t really describe the feeling in words. I guess anything like that lowers your vibration.
Lucky for me, I grew up disinterested in the majority of the world, and easily ticked off by people dumping their problems on me. So I quit watching mainstream tv, and the news by the time I was a preteen. Around that time I also told my parents to keep their money arguments to themselves and I forbade (lol I have a very strict personality at times, ironically it gets great results) them from talking about any of their issues infront of me anymore. Now my life is mostly positive, I watch funny shows that make me laugh and smile, I avoid negative people and situations like the plague since I know how easily depression can hit me (another reason I fight hard to maintain positivity). Currently the only real obstacle is my current partner of 4 years. They are a very negative individual that views every little problem as the world is ending, and literally freaks out at the mention that I dont watch the news, they feel its almost a law that has to be followed. Safe to say I plan on getting rid of them soon from my life, and the chain reaction from lack of negativity should have astounding results hahaha.
@ Lady Eva: Heres a Viral MEME for you. All those people just sticking their heads in the Sand are really saying that the LoA is attracting attention to their arses stuck up in the air waiting to be shafted.
@ Akasha: How do I get away from negativity? Here is something you can do. In order to Negate a Negative emotion… you utilize an Emotion of a Positive nature that is potent enough. The easiest ones are Love and Lust. So what you can do is find a Partner, or focus on someone and establish a “Magickal Relationship” with them where you have psychic sex (choose a fantasy). This has the added oomph of you being able to slip into a Trance whenever needed and just completely dissolve away all negativity while getting into a Sexual State. After that you figure out what you want to do with the sexual energy.
How do I keep positive? I’d have to say originally it was a “fake it 'till you make it thing”. There came a point that I hated who I had become (I was like 11 at the time) and I wanted to be more positive and kind than I was. So I just switched my mind around. I started telling people close to me that I loved them: friends, relatives, my mom. At first it was really nerve wracking. I remember going up to my cousin Adam who was this country kick and saying, “I love you Adam, you’re a good cousin.” And he was like, “I love you too, Ashton.” It was really cool, I have a theory that people need to hear people say “I love you” to grow up properly. Despite our societies claim on individual worth, we really do need validation and affirmation from others to develop properly. Even if it’s only one or two people. There was this psychology book a friend of mine was reading, and it was talking about how in the presence of a loving environment humans flourish and mature, they can’t help it. Love calls out the life in everyone. So that was a big step in my journey to stop being a little shit bag, was to tell people I loved them and then hear that I was loved. My mom and I for example, we still say I love you to each other every time we talk.
Secondly, is I don’t watch the News. It does absolutely nothing for my life, and my Facebook friends are verbose enough that if I need to know anything they’ll usually post about it. The News is just so negative and it spreads fear and those aren’t things I need in my life.
Thirdly, is volunteering or at least doing something nice for someone who can’t repay you. Studies show that people who do a good deed are suddenly rushed with endorphins, and the same result happens to those who merely watch a good deed happen.
If you do these three things, then you too can be an incurable optimist like myself. Now, sometimes stress and worry are inevitable, for example I have to move out at the end of the month but don’t have a secured place yet. Well, I allow myself an hour of time to worry, to release that emotion and think about all the terrible things that might happen. And then, I stop, and realize that so far I have survived 100% of the bad situations I have encountered so far, so I shouldn’t be worried, it will work out. It always has.
I totally agree, it won’t come from waiting for permission or whining that you can’t start until the world cuts you a break, you HAVE to make a conscious decision to live your life in the way you want, and then reality complies - it can’t NOT.
What we have in our lives now is like the shell of an oyster, it’s the dead already-manifest accretion of our previous thoughts, beliefs, and the actions that sprang from them.
To change that in future, we need to act on what generates our reality, ourselves, and then it will automatically begin to alter - but what’s out there right now is the end-product of our “old selves” and we can’t look to it for permission or anything like that, because they weren’t in the program it was written in - a true case of “garbage in (in our minds), garbage out”!
My hero David Neagle did much the same thing, took that simple but scary decision to think differently, and look at him now, he’s like a millionaire several times over and changing people’s lives all round the planet.
I know when I made this choice foir myself, years ago, it took me out of a tailspin of bitterness and resentment (and, of course, bad luck and a ton of other crap), and gave me a fantastic life, and I keep renewing that commitment to myself and discarding any toxic ideas or programming I find that counteracts it, it’s the one thing I’ve stayed true to all these years while exploring different philosophies and beliefs.
