Change your thoughts, change your life.

We think we should trust our feelings not knowing that feelings are not as solid as we thought. Once you realise that you create your own emotional state with your thoughts, you realise that intentionally changing what you think can change your feelings. Yes, I am saying that happiness is a decision. The day I realised this a whole new world opened up to me regarding emotional control. This does take practice and awareness, and few people are perfectly successful at this all the time. However, should you make the decision of being aware of negative thoughts and commit to change these to positives, your life would immediately benefit greatly.

For example, if you bump your foot getting out of bed and the thought ‘oh boy, this is going to be on of those days’ goes through your mind  - how would you feel? Not very enthusiastic and optimistic about your day. Should you choose to catch that thought and decide that there are no reason not to have a great day you will feel more energetic and confident about your day. The added effects are that negative thoughts cause anxiety and stress, steal your energy, distort the facts and leave you feeling powerless and immobilised. Positive thoughts there against give energy and increase your personal power. Are you feeling tired and without energy quite often? Perhaps your thought processes are contributing to this. Don’t waste energy on stressing unnecessarily.

We also realise that it is not the situation but our thoughts about, or our interpretation of, the situation that make us unhappy and powerless. Let’s say in your work situation the new manager of your division seems quite distant and unfriendly. You can now choose to think that he is not happy with your work and that hard times are ahead, thus making you feel anxious and less confident about your work and in the process you would feel less powerful and energetic. Should you however choose to think that it might be stressful for him fitting into his new position and that he needs time to get to know the division and yourself, and that you can assist by doing your work really well and possibly help out where you are needed, you will end up feeling positive, confident, energised, powerful and probably rather get promoted as the confidence and good attitude shows!

Should your partner appear quite grumpy you can either decide that he/she is looking for a fight and in turn behave aggressively, or choose to react in a loving manner thinking that something must be amiss. A spouse / partner / colleague / manager cannot make us upset, we choose to respond with the thoughts, feelings and behaviour that we respond with. You choose whether you are going to get angry and offended or simply not accept the parcel.  Offence is thus rather taken not given.  Should one decide to respond to a situation with positive thought, inner peace, clarity and grace chances are you will not regret your reaction later on. I would encourage you not to give your happiness and joy away or allow it to be stolen by anybody or anything. You decide, you are in control.

Better to avoid suffering either by endeavouring to solve the problem in the here and now or, when that is not possible, by changing one’s attitude toward the same problem.

You cannot both feel lousy and think good thoughts as you simply cannot feel great and think negative thoughts. If you want to know what you are thinking have a look at what you feel and you will very quickly realise if you are feeling empowered, energised and happy or not. Good thoughts equals feeling good.
Negative thoughts and emotions bring harm to someone else and/or yourself in terms of unhappiness or suffering. Negative in the sense of less happiness less well-being, impaired judgement, less lucidity and freedom, more distortion, those thoughts and feelings that don’t make you feel empowered. In order to not be enslaved by negative thoughts and emotions and progress towards freedom you can use counter terms. E.g. ‘I am a failure’ countered by ‘I am good enough as a person and doing my best is good enough’. The key however is awareness of your feelings and thus the thoughts that led to those feelings. Once you are aware of those negative thoughts you can choose to change the thought or self talk and so affect a preferred emotional state that gives energy, power and even has a positive effect on health. When you think about negative thoughts and emotions you will find that they are not as solid and as rational as you once thought.

Happiness is a deep sense of fulfilment accompanied by a sense of peace. A deep sense of fulfilment does not depend upon time, location or objects. It is a state of mind that grows the more you experience it. Thus in freeing yourself from destructive thoughts and emotions you obtain inner stability, clarity, fulfilment and control.

Reference:
'The Secret' Rhonda Byrne.
'Destructive Emotions and how we can overcome them.' A dialogue with the Dalai Lama. Narrated by Daniel Goleman.

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About the author

Petro offers individual counselling/coaching on anxiety, social competence, lifestyle change, self-esteem, career development, goals, motivation, achievement, stress management, and optimal functioning in the workplace. She enjoys relationship, marriage, couples counselling/coaching and has a passion for assisting couples to rebuild their connections. With her Masters degree in clinical Social Work, her main approach is Positive Psychology and Solution Focussed therapy.