Day 96 – The Next Step

If I am honest with myself, I believe I have accomplished thinking positive in most situations, although I know there are unconscious patterns of thinking I haven’t uncovered and redifined yet.

The thing is that I find kind of easy to think positive, the hard part is now to ACT positive. Therefore I am redifining my New Year Resolution to an Acting Positive Diet. That basically means doing the right thing, what I know it should be done. It is an exercise in will and courage, for one thing is to be positive in the private realm of my mind, and another one to commit out there in the real world. It is scary for me because it implies facing a few fears, maybe facing people, and raising my standards.

Anybody can think positive. But a positive mind that procrastinates is no good whatsoever. I have done too much thinking over the years. Now is the time to step up and act.

J

Day 88 – Changing it all

Yesterday I went to a party and felt very weird, like that was not my place. The people I was supposed to meet weren’t there and they were not going to be there for another good couple of hours, so basically I am there waiting, standing… I tried to start conversation with people but the groups were already formed and I wasn’t in my social peak. I started to feel anxious and disconnected, and then I realised that was me running a familiar pattern and that it was the time to change it all and commit to my mental diet.

It is funny, once I start a downward pattern, it makes more sense to keep on it than change it because it feels real to me. So, at that moment, I forced myself to list 10 positive things about the situation.

The first one: “it has been my choice to come to this party”. That made me own the situation, and was the trigger to changing it all.

Second one: “hey, a few hours ago I didn’t have any plans and now I have three to choose from”. Again, that put me in an abundance mindset.

So after a few of those, I decided that what I really wanted to do was to get out of the place and go home. Immediately I started thinking about what other people would think of me not going to the other parties they had invited me to, and I changed that to: “I can do whatever I want and I owe explanations only to myself”. I felt much more powerful then. I called my girlfriend and told her I wasn’t going to the party she was going to, but that I wanted to see her, so we decided to meet at my place a couple of hours later.

I used that time to work on a video project. Putting my creativity to work changed my mood, made me felt useful, productive, and I was having fun. By the time my gf arrived at my place I was in an excellent mood, feeling self confident, much more grounded, connected, and we enjoyed a greeeeaaat night.

So tip for myself: list 10 things that are great about the situation. Take charge. Dismiss what others will think. Act.

Day 80 – The worst days of my life

It might seem like a paradox that a positive thinker like me starts the post with “the worst days of my life”. Well, it is true, I have a pattern of going back to two or three things that happened to me, and also things I did to other people. It is funny, the bad things that happened to me I label them with the “I deserved them” tag. The things I did to other people I block myself around them, as in “I don’t deserve anything good to happen to me because I did x and y”.

Guilt, are you there? I am looking at you now, go run, I have discovered your game!

In trying to reframe those things that happened to me or that I did, I looked for the positive things I got from them. For starters, I went into my path of personal growth thanks to them. Also, I went back to the times when that happened and I discovered I wouldn’t treat people that way again, that my insecurities have faded away and I am much more open and trusting to people.

I couldn’t explain it but extracting the positive from something that bothered me for so long had a liberating feel to it. Like if the whole thing was there waiting for me to get the positive stuff so it could go. If I am honest with myself it is not entirely gone, but that can only mean there are more lessons to learn and more positive stuff to come across, more liberating experiences…

J

Day 76 – A state of mind

I discovered a few days back that thoughts are not merely words but a whole feeling, a sensation, a perception. When a whole bunch of thoughts run through my mind the resulting effect is very much like the effect a bunch of lines of code have on a computer, they create a piece of software. That piece of software is created to do something properly.

I guess insanity could be seen as defective coding. Maybe the code runs in a loop and the computer crashes, it may be the software is perfectly designed… to format the hard drive. Maybe the software has a simple purpose, like sending an email, but eats up a lot of resources in the way.

A good piece of software needs to be clean, comprenhensive, efficient, clever, easy to modify and update… The same way our thought-software needs to serve us. I do not need 3 hours to send an email the same way I should not need 10 years to recover from depression, or to decide to quit smoking, or to pick myself up after a dissappointment. Whenever I do not like the software, the smartest thing is to click “uninstall” and try another one out. Somehow we humans believe we shouldn’t do that with ourselves. We marry our thought software, and if we ever want to change, we get pop up windows that sells us the old stuff at half the price.

One great way to test out new software is through a change in state. That, for me, means playing uplifting music, closing my eyes, and thinking, moving, acting and becoming the software I want to run. For me that means a powerful person, grateful, limitless, joyful, loving, free, happy, intelligent, fun, smart, purposeful and enthusiastic. The more I give into this, the more I think like that, the more I act like that, the more I connect with my deepest desires and potential. By then I am in a much more powerful and confident state to handle my current challenges (they are no longer problems)

The key, of course, is to finally manage to install the new software and delete the old one. I can only pressupose that with use and practice, the new software will get easier to use, and i will wonder why didn’t I upgraded earlier.

For me, that means practice, practice, practice with loading up the new software as often as possible.

J

Day 75 – Courage

Today I had the chance of being a coward. I have played a game with my ego and won. I wanted to pull out, to play it safe, and I went ahead anyway, knowing I could fail, knowing it happened just hours ago and failed, but I looked at fear in the eye, said “hi” and went ahead, and succeeded. The past does no equal the future and I can laugh at fear. Fear is a monster that gets bigger the more you hide from it, but when faced to the strength of courage, it gets smaller and makes the human spirit grow. Fear is just the noise an opportunity for growth makes. Every time I hear that noise I will gratefully make the most of the opportunity, and then even in failure, my courage would have succeeded, and I would have grown.

Day 69 – Reality vs Fantasy. Present vs Future.

This experiment is giving me lots of knowledge about positive thinking. It is almost as if we humans didn’t need education, we just need enough time to focus on something and we start learning the ins and outs of it.

Another bit of knowledge I have gained about positive thinking could be considered a mistake in procedure. If there is a recipe for positive thinking then I have not been following it 100% right.

It all happened yesterday, while I was in bed. I thought that, now that I am in bed, I could use the time to do some positive thinking. Somehow I started to create all these pictures in my mind of all I wanted, all the feelings, the freedom, the health, vitality, sense of purpose, abundance… Etc. And then something funny happened, there was too much tension in that way of thinking, too much resistance, maybe some issues with what I believe I deserve, but basically I realised I was projecting into the future. I was fantasizing. I was hoping someday, somehow, all of that would be mine to enjoy. Of course I do not know the conditions under which that future will become my present, but really thinking that way is a denial of the present moment, it is wishy-washy, and doesn’t feel real. It is delusional to a certain extreme. It doesn’t apply to my day to day reality so it has no ways to take root. It is basically saying: “I want all of what is not here right now. I need a different reality for me to be happy.” and that seems to me like negative thinking in reverse, it is saying NO to who I am right now, where I am, and what I do. I am not honoring this time, and I guess that is a no-no for a better future.

What happened is that, at that moment, I started applying all the feelings I wanted in the future to the present moment. For example if what I was thinking about was abundance, I started to realise how much of everything is around me. Not only I have this technology to write my blog from a mobile phone, but I have good relationships with workmates, I live in a city with 6 million people, each of them could become a great friend, lover, partner, groupie, who knows. I can walk 10 meters and get all the food I need, I have both a father and a mother, all of this is real and it is not side benefits thinking, is feeling abundance and wealth and, if I want more, it is already within my reach. That way I feel abundance the same way I can feel water when I open the tap.

That was applied to several feelings I was fantasizing about. Somehow it felt more real to know that what I want is already here, than to think that someday, somehow, by some kind of miracle… I would feel different. Also I was happier, more peaceful, and it just felt RIGHT.

So that is basically it. Positive thinking happens in the here-now. Denial and fantasy go to the past or the future, as all good ghosts do.

J

Day 68 – Anatomy of a thought

Today I had a breakthrough abouth the shape of thoughts. I was having my cigarrette break and then I realised that I tend to think in words. I then broadened my perception of thoughts and came to the conclusion that, even if I summarise or translate a thought into words, that is not the whole deal, the same a score is not the music, or a script is not the film, or a description of a landscape is not the landscape. A sentence said to myself is not the thought, a sentence that pops into my mind is not the thought either.

The complete thought is stranger to define. It definetely comes as a form of energy, bodily sensations, background reasonings, analysis of a certain situation, images, sounds, etc.

So if I am to think positive, just speaking to myself in a positive way is not enough. It would be like trying to be an excellent cook by just writting recipes, or a swimmer by practicing the movements in my bed. At some point a cook needs to get into the kitchen and a swimmer into the water.

Therefore, I will explore this issue further, by putting energy into those sentences, creating body postures, feeling the positive thoughts, taking action, using a tone of voice that conveys the positive energy of what I am thinking, seeing things as positive. Something tells me that this will be the difference between reading a script and walking into a great movie theatre to get the full experience of a big production. It’s a training, of course.

There is something else I am experiencing lately, and that is some sort of sweet emptiness. I can only guess it is the emptiness buddhists talk about. It is a space in awareness where there is no right or wrong, positive or negative, there is no judgement nor evaluation. Things just ARE.

In those moments I reach a deeper peace and connection with life and myself. There is no really a difference between me and anything else, it is like I am part of everything. Positive thinking doesn’t have a place there, the same way a piece of software doesn’t have a place in an italian salad. Probably there are people out there who can live like that all the time, and it would be great to evolve in such a way that I could experience life in that fashion, but for the sake of everyday life, and to deal with daily awareness, I will still pursue positive thinking as my major goal this year.

J

Day 64 – Direction of thoughts

It is quite amazing how the mind works. There is no thought without certain purpose or direction. At worst, negative thinking happens with an apparent lack of purpose, but looking at it closely it does have certain destination. Normally it is a destination I wouldn’t pick for any of my loved ones, or for myself if things were to be “of my choosing”.

So given that thoughts have their own destination, I find it easier and easier to pick a destination I like and let the thoughts and feelings reorganise themselves with that I have chosen.

Example. As I am writting this I am waiting for a friend to go to a concert, where I will meet the girl I am dating lately. Suddenly all these doubts about how she is feeling about me, and how many things could go wrong and in how many ways start playing in my mind. I stop and I realise the final destination of that is bitterness, lack of enjoyment, emotional distance from this girl, and so on. The purpose of those thoughts is to keep me protected from major pain, and to try and find some kind of security through manipulation and second guessing. That is simply not cool.

So there I go, all positive, and pick my destination and purpose for tonight, which is simply to have a great time with my mate, this girl, and some other people that will be there. In a heartbeat everything becomes lighter and easier, and my enjoyment does not depend on this girl’s feelings or choices. I am letting her be and I know I will have a great time, or at least I have the attitude and thoughts necessary for that to happen.

So whenever I feel one way or another, or a negative thought enters my mind, I know I have the choice of picking a better destination, and somehow I get more connected to what I really want, because positive thinking forces the mind to constantly choose outcomes and alternatives consciously, so I keep deciding lots of times a day where do I want to go, which kind of person I am becoming, and setting that in motion.

It is the beautiful thing, and the hardest, of this experiment, I am constanly forcing myself to drive my car and switch the automatic pilot off. It has done its job up until recently, but now it is on me and me alone, and that is such a gift to excersise every day.

The negative goes where I have already been. The positive opens new way, expands the mind, forces to choose, to take action, to define and lead, and to realise that I am not what I have always been, but what I am doing, feeling, choosing, and thinking right now.

Every thought is a new opportunity for a brighter destination, and they are quite cheap too.

J

Day 63 – What does your authority say?

As I start to write this entry I remember the scene from Dead Poets Society when Robin Williams jumps on top of a table to see things from a higher angle.

In this experiment of mine I have been facing moments in which I felt my own reasons and ideas weren’t getting me any higher than where I was. Like for example if I am dating a girl and she is quite a hottie, there is this thought crossing my mind: “she is too beautiful for me” “i wont keep her interested in me” “she will go with another guy”. Then i counterattack this with all the positive stuff I can think of, dismissing the old programming, but here comes the little trick that serves me as a shortcut: I imagine an authoritative figure, someone whose words I would believe without a doubt, some kind of father or mentor, someone who imposes his or her criteria with the power of truth and wisdom, and I make this figure deliver the message I need to hear. For some reason this figure I imagine loves me, values me, respects me more than what I could experience 2 minutes ago. Then I take that message and I make it mine, it becomes my own voice, it is my message, my thinking, and I do not need anyone from the outside to validate it. Opening my imagination up with the help of that figure helps me reach higher with my thinking, and I can own something new inside my mind, believe it, and start making it real. It’s really self-defining. I start to determine my own worth based on my own reasons.

Another way to open my imagination up to positive thinking is to “reverse engineer” from the desired result. This is done by asking myself questions like “what would I need to hear, know, make happen, so I would feel/act as I want to?”. Then new stuff starts going into my mind. These are powerful ideas that, when locked inside my brain, can take me to a completely new place, hence directing my life towards something always better.

J

Day 61 – Always possible, always worth it

Positive thinking is indeed a habit. It is always possible, even when it is difficult. It might not always be clear, feel natural or right, but it doesn’t matter, because the benefits will show up in another situation. Very much like when going to the gym. Lifting weights may feel useless, dull, difficult or unnatural, but it pays when moving stuff around and you go “aha! That’s the gym in action!”.

I might feel bad one day or another but i keep on persisting, tracing my new ways of thinking, not spending a second in indulging myself with negative stuff that only feeds self pity, anger, revenge, or any other negative pattern that has been stuck there for years in what i have come to call identity, or my own name.

Every blow of being down is another opportunity for training, for envisioning new ways, and i know of my own ability to master my emotions little by little.

Also, thinking is empowered when a positive action is taken

J