“How do we keep our inner fire alive? Two things, at minimum, are needed: an ability to appreciate the positives in our life – and a commitment to action. Every day, it’s important to ask and answer these questions: ‘What’s good in my life?’ and ‘What needs to be done?’”
– Nathaniel Branden
Thoughts have strong magick. Positive thoughts help us grow and achieve our desires, while negative thoughts are limiting and often destructive. As a magickal person, I realize that I am interconnected with the world around me and I also recognize the power of thought. Thoughts about ourselves define who we are and what we become. They are the driving force of our creativity, our health, our attitudes, our actions, our character, and our future. Thoughts are contagious and can cause others to react differently around us. Thoughts can be self-controlled or you can allow others to think for you. Thoughts can be fleeting or stay with us for the rest of our lives. Thoughts may be conscious or reside in our subconscious. Thoughts allow us to manifest our reality.
How we think is important. One the basic precepts of Paganism is that each of us are responsible for what we think and that we have the power to change our reality. Positive thought can liberate you from false ideas about yourself and the world around you. It can align you with deeper truth and demonstrate your incredible power to affect your world! You can actually gain power over what you see around you. Negative thought on the other hand tend to be limiting and often destructive. They point out what you did not accomplish rather than what you could. They dwell in the past preventing you from enjoying the present. They influence others to think negatively about you or the world of which you are a part.
Often our negative thoughts are unconscious. We know that that our subconscious is like a child. It is very trusting and it is unable to differentiate between good and bad, truth and false, real and fantasy. It relies on the conscious to guide it. That is why it is so important to be aware of what you are saying to it. The subconscious does have a prodigious memory though and seems to store everything it hears, touches, smells, tastes, and feels. Every experience is kept in its vast memory storehouse. Even if the sensory inputs that do not enter our conscious awareness may be recorded here. This is especially true of the persuasive messages we receive from the mass media as they are often designed to imprint on the subconscious.
One way to combat negative thoughts is to ensure that we consciously seek to have positive thoughts as often as possible. To improve the potency of your thoughts, consider the following traits of Positive Thinking:
1. Present Tense. You thoughts should be present tense. Do not dwell in the past. The future is unknown. Practice present moment awareness and acknowledge the the positive aspects of your life.
2. Positive. Think about the positive aspects of your life and be grateful for it, and not on what you don’t want. Thoughts that are framed so that they affirm the positive help fill the emptiness that negative thoughts often create. Seek to refill your tank so that you have the energy to face the challenges of life.
3. Uncomplicated. Make sure to enjoy the simple things. Remember, your inner child is listening and it can relate to the little things. Any one that has watched a child knows that it is the little things that make them happy. If you reflect on what makes you happy, you will find it is the little things that make you happy also.
4. Viewpoint. Try looking around from a fresh perspective. Though it is sometimes easier to look at someone less fortunate than yourself to realize that life could be worse, try instead to look at the positive aspects of yourself versus the negative. When we increase our awareness of those things around us, we often find many wonderful things that we have been unaware. Often bringing those things into our awareness provides us material for positive thoughts.
5. Authentic. If you are sad, do not try to convince yourself that you are not. Emotional pain should be acknowledged and healing steps should be taken to help bring you back into emotional balance.
6. Inspiring. Positive thinking should affect you emotionally and make your feel excited and thrilled with life. Life is a wonderful gift that we have been given and we should intensify our desire to participate in it.
7. Calming. Positive thinking should help you escape unwanted stressors. Often our stress can come from unreasonable expectations and worry over the negative aspects of our life. Though stress can be useful for motivation and providing that extra push we need to accomplish our task, occupying our minds with positive thoughts helps us maintain balance so that we do not attain stress overload.
8. Personal. Internalize these positive thoughts. Make sure that you recognize that there are wonderful things happening around you because of YOU! Acknowledge your gifts to the world.
9. Immersion. Positive thoughts should be communicated with all of your senses. Appreciate the beauty around you, smell and touch the roses, listen to the wind rustling the leaves above your head, take time to appreciate the taste good food and drink. By immersing yourself in your positive thoughts, you not only take time to enjoy them but reinforce them as well.
Positive thinking is important to improving your travels on you life path. Equally important though is the commitment toward self improvement. Have patience as change does not often happen quickly, but even as barriers appear on your road, take the time to acknowledge positive thoughts and enjoy gains already achieved.
Unfortunately, those of us in the United States will be unable to watch the unusually long 100-minute total lunar eclipse that begins at 1:20pm CDT here in Kansas City. To truely enjoy its natural beauty, you unfortunately need to be in South America, Europe, Africa, Asia or Australia.
