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One of the topics that spirits often speak about through mediums is
the power of thought. Reality is subjective in many ways,
and you have control over these subjective areas by the way you think.
Positive Thinking
Affirmations
Perspective
Your Thoughts Affect Others
Positive Thinking
Using positive thinking to develop a positive attitude towards other people.
Much of what has been written on the subject of positive thinking has
been about how to use it to accomplish material goals. However,
positive thinking is an important technique (in addition to meditation ) that you can use to develop a
positive attitude towards other people and in doing so, reduce the
unpleasantness of negative feelings such as anger and hate. This helps
one to developing love for other people which is an important step in
spiritual evolution and is an important purpose for which spirits
incarnate on earth.
"The Power of Positive Thinking" by Norman Vincent Peale is a good
general reference on positive thinking. The discussion here which you
are now reading focuses on the specific application of how to use
positive thinking to help develop a positive attitude towards other
people.
Positive thinking is simply the process of creating a positive thought
whenever you notice a negative thought occurring in your mind. This
practice has been advocated by spirits in "Confessions of a Psychic" and
"The Book of James" by Susy Smith and in "The Betty Book" by Stewart
White. Ways of thinking are to a large extent determined by habit and
by what has been learned and practiced over a lifetime. You can use
positive thinking to learn a new way of thinking about other people.
With practice, positive thinking becomes automatic.
To use positive thinking in this way, you must first notice when you are
thinking unloving thoughts about other people. Insight meditation can help you
increase your awareness of unloving thoughts like anger or hate because
it helps you become more aware of emotions. When you find yourself
thinking an unloving thought, you need a way to create a positive
thought in a way that will help you break the habit of negative
thinking.
A practical solution to this is to simply say a prayer for the benefit
of another person when you find yourself thinking an unloving thought
about them. You might think it would be difficult or insincere to say a
prayer for the benefit of someone you dislike or are angry at. However
if you pray, for example, that the person be protected so that only the
highest and best forces can influence them, then the prayer is not
only an unselfish request for the benefit of the other person,
it is also a prayer for the benefit of humanity and for yourself.
Another characteristic of a prayer like this is that it can help you
keep in mind that every one is a child of God and that all are evolving
on the same path of development even if some are further along than
others. In addition to replacing a negative thought with something
positive, it should also help you to forgive the other person. You can
say the prayer for a person or a group of people.
Such a prayer can be something like:
Oh God, please watch over and protect them so that only the highest
and best forces can influence them.
Please may they have, hear, and heed the highest and best guidance.
(Instead of "them" or "they" you can say the name
of the person or group.)
If you are thinking a negative thought about someone you
otherwise love or are friendly with, you might want to add something
for their benefit like:
Please may they be happy and healthy.
or whatever else you feel is appropriate.
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Affirmations
Affirmations can be used to help you accomplish goals that you set
for yourself. They work by helping you to replace self
defeating and self limiting thoughts with enabling thoughts through a
process of mental rehearsal and visualization of the accomplishment of
your goal. Athletic trainers understand this principle and teach their
athletes to mentally rehearse an athletic skill through visualization.
Here is a hypothetical example: Suppose someone wants to write a
book. If he is afraid that he won't finish the book, that he can't
write well, that no publisher will publish the book, that it will be
unpopular, and that he will be cheated by the publisher, all these fears
will interfere with accomplishing his desire. He will procrastinate in
writing, he will be reluctant to put in a whole hearted effort, he will
be contentious with prospective publishers, and he will be afraid to
promote the book.
However he can overcome such self limitations by visualizing the thing
he wants to achieve with the help of an affirmation. An affirmation
that could be used in this situation might be: "I finished my book
according to schedule, it was accepted by a successful publisher, my
book is on sale and in demand everywhere." At the same time he would
visualize having completed the book, its acceptance by a
publisher, the book for sale in a store window and a long line of people
waiting to buy it.
Notice that in this example, the affirmation says "I finished my
book" rather than "I can write a book." There is a reason why the
affirmation is phrased as if the desired outcome was already
accomplished. With an affirmation you should create more than just the
belief in your ability to do something, you should create the belief
that you will actually do it and be successful. Nothing can be more
convincing than an accomplished fact. It will release your whole
potential. In our example, this would enable the person to put in a
100% effort on the book, work constructively with his publisher and
whole-heartedly promote his book.
The affirmation in the example is not used to influence
one's emotional state. The information in the section on
Insight Meditation
on the
Meditation
page is better suited to working with emotions.
There is also a spiritual side to this. If you pray for help you
will receive it in proportion to the effort you put in. Once you
start making a whole-hearted effort through the use of affirmations and
positive thinking, the help you receive from spiritual forces will be
that much greater. While you are working on the book, your spirit
guides may help you in writing it and get you connected with the right
publisher.
Your motivation for accomplishing your goal should be unselfish. If your
motivation is good and pure you will attract the right kind of spirit
guides.
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Perspective
What you think about has a very large effect on how you experience
reality. There are a number of things you can do to help maintain a positive
perspective in life.
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Your Thoughts Affect Others
Your thoughts affect other people. On a physical level, your
thoughts affect what you say and do, and that affects other people.
Your thoughts affect your posture, your tone of voice, and your facial
expressions all of which have an effect on others.
However, there are also reasons to believe that your thoughts can
affect people on a spiritual or psychic level too. People are spirits
incarnated in a physical body. Since spirits can communicate with each
other it is also possible that incarnated spirits can communicate on a
spiritual level. Have you ever known what someone was going to say
before they said it? Many people have had at least some small psychic
experience. So, even though you might not be aware of being psychic,
there is good reason to believe that at some level mind to mind
influence can occur between people.
This is one reason why you should try to be charitable in your
thoughts of others. Try to understand why other people do the things
they do. Don't suppress your thoughts, but try to understand why you
might have negative thoughts. Let your thoughts and emotions express
themselves, but still try to see things from another's point of view.
Also, in your own mind try to make the distinction between your emotions
and your intentions.
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