When you can focus on your feelings, you are able to understand what is coming into your life and the option to change it. We aren’t taught in our society how powerful our thoughts and feelings are. Once you know your thoughts turn into things, you can use this leverage to your advantage in your life.
I often find that people who are generally sarcastic and pessimistic do not realize they are bringing more negativity to them. What you project out into the world is what you attract and see more of. Basically the more you complain, the more you will find things to complain about. The troubling part is that it can become a habit that hurts you more than you may notice.
The good news is that you have a choice every day in each moment of how you look at things and what you feel. You can change any habit around, but it doesn’t seem to happen immediately often. To change any habit, it requires practicing it repeatedly. Once you do this long enough, you reprogram your subconscious mind to develop the habit into the better one. Then it becomes second nature in your thoughts and reactions.
For example, let’s say you are predominantly negative. If you notice yourself mostly complaining or saying pessimistic things, you are pulling this from other people you interact with and from the universe. It really helps to pay attention to the thoughts you are thinking, the feelings you are feeling, and the words you are saying. Once you are aware of these habits, you can better understand what you are experiencing in life. You may also be able to understand the people whom you have attracted in your life.
If you are feeling predominantly positive and good things continue to improve for you, you have a strong foundation to build upon. I highly encourage you to keep up the good work. You will reap more and more rewards for the kindness and positivity you put out into the world.
If you feel like things look pretty gloomy or you just notice how bitter and negative you feel, you can slow it down and start turning it around. It doesn’t happen all at once, and often baby steps are the easiest. I can tell you from experience and in practicing my better thoughts the past few years, it took patience and persistence. Science also shows you can turn it around and reprogram those pesky habits.
The more you practice and the more you can pivot the negative feelings around, the easier it gets. Just like going to the gym and building muscles, you get stronger. As we find ourselves in the New Year, we often see it as a new start with new opportunities. Many people take this time to create new goals, discover improved ways of living, or set their minds to accomplish better intentions. Some of the top changes that many intend to make are to lose weight, eat healthier, go to the gym, quit smoking, and reorganize their homes.
All these goals can be beneficial goals if they’re the changes you desire, but some helpful tips can make it easier for you to accomplish these changes. Many times we start out with some strong momentum and find ourselves falling off the wagon or not seeing our goals through. It feels like a crushing defeat when you accomplish your goals only to return to the old ways before the end of the year.
To truly change our habits requires retraining and rewiring in the brain. We are often taught it’s action oriented, but if you do not successfully retrain those subconscious habits, our brain is setup to return to our old default patterns simply because we have practiced them for so long. We trained them that way to begin with. The more we can understand how our minds work and are designed, the more we can use it to our advantage. It takes some cleaning up of the mind’s habits to reach our goals.
It really is changing our mindsets first. And they take practice to see the manifestations. Think of it like cleaning out and organizing your closet. We get rid of things we don’t use anymore and organize our belongings to be more functional. The same goes for our minds as well. If we can recognize the patterns that aren’t serving us well, we can catch them before we act on them.
It takes awareness and practice. As we are aware of the habits we would like to change, we can then notice how we sabotage ourselves with our own thinking. To turn it around we have to slow the momentum of those habits and continue practicing the new changes repeatedly. Over time we can see and feel the improvements. It may be a slower process, but in the long haul it is how we permanently make the changes that are often temporary. It is a bit more than just reading inspirational quotes that make those changes.
The inspiration can certainly help get us going, but it’s the repeated practice in our thinking that aligns us with our goals. Often we do not take the time to identify why we are doing the habits we want to change to begin with.
It starts with our emotions. Many times we overeat, smoke, or live more in chaos in response to stress. Until we tackle the emotions behind the stress, our brains fall back into those subconscious habits. It helps to start slowly and gently. Be aware of how you are feeling when you are performing the habit you want to change. Are you present during these moments? Start to break down what relief you get when you do the habit. When you can become aware of your triggers, you can either replace or create a different way of responding.
Setting intentions is only the beginning of change. It takes the daily practice to receive the turn around. The good news is that your brain is capable of rewiring anything. Really! There is much research and scientific evidence now that proves anything is possible. There are reports and studies of people healing diseases and disabilities and attracting their dreams into their lives, all using their minds. The healing starts in the mind first.
I’m not saying actions never produce results, but when you get down to retraining and rewiring your habits from your mind, you leverage much more power than trying to hammer them out like a drill sergeant. It is the difference in trying to force things to happen versus allowing the flow to sail you.
We are usually very motivated and excited in the beginning, but when it seems to get challenging, I encourage you to work with your mind and emotions. If it’s worth it, it helps to understand it’s worth the time to change it. You are also more powerful when you can love yourself more during the process. When you are negative towards yourself and your emotions, you are struggling uphill against them. When you are loving towards yourself, you get a periscope look into what you’re trying to heal or avoid.
This takes time, patience, and love. You most likely developed the habits over time and replacing these ways of thinking takes time as well. Remind yourself of that, and of how powerful and capable your brain really is. Talk to yourself like you are your friend on this journey. Your body and mind need your support to perform their miraculous new changes! . In those first steps when we don’t get the results quickly, we may disbelieve the change is possible. That is how we easily slide back into our old habits. Just like weeding a garden so new growth can come through in the spring, we need to do the same for our minds.
It may take some time to replace our weeds with seeds. If you observe or study a garden, it takes some time, love, and patience to grow our fruits, vegetables, and flowers. Remember this as you feel challenged in the process of change. You have to be as gentle with yourself as if you are caring for your own plants and gardens. Just as they respond more positively with love, so do you.
I encourage you not to give up on yourself and keep going. Setbacks and falls are just feedback in what you’re thinking. Rather than getting frustrated or beating yourself up, use the knowledge to see where you can heal those triggers. Treat yourself with loving kindness so you can bounce upwards to those higher vibrations and better feelings. The better you feel, the better life can get. Focus on those feelings.
When you feel good, focus on all the things working well. When you feel bad or negative, work on rotating those around by noticing your responses and figuring out how you may can change them for the better.
It’s a daily practice. It requires paying attention and focusing on your feelings each day. The more aware you are, the better you can choose what is best for you.