I'm using the affirmations!

When I joined Mary Kay a few years ago, instruction was given to write a description of who you are and who you're going to be in glowing terms.  Then to write a few affirmative sentences like, "I am a positive woman, I see beautiful women everywhere I go, I am successful, I am going to be a director," etc.  Post them on your mirror and say them to yourself several times a day.  Another source, can't remember where, said to put pictures of what you want where you can see them every day and imagine yourself having what are in the pictures. 

Napoleon Hill in his book "You Can Work Your Own Miracles (How to Condition Yourself for Success), printed in 1971, talks about conditioning your mind.  He had an experience at the dentist's office where he immersed himself in thinking of something so strongly that he forgot to focus on the pain.  Considering the fact that he was having six teeth taken out at the same time, I think that's an amazing demonstration of a conditioned mind. 

Though focusing, as Hill did, and affirmations seem to be two different things, they have a connection in that they are both thoughts that are being fed to the mind.  One type of thought is to distract, the other to train.  Right now I think it's important for me to train, or continue training my mind to think of certain things, and it doesn't hurt to have reminders of the positive because the negative still has a strong foothold.  So I'm putting a note on my bathroom mirror.  It will say things like "I am a likeable person, I plan to be prosperous, I plan to be focused, I will have an organized life."  Maybe I'll use those, maybe I'll use others.  That's a personal thing. 

I once told a finalist for a beauty pageant that the self-doubts she was beginning to show were of her own making.  "Your mind doesn't know if the thoughts you're feeding it are good or bad.  If you want to win, remind yourself of all the attributes you have that got you this far."  In taking my own advice, if I list the attributes I already have, and add the attributes I want to have, and talk myself through the list a few times a day, my mind is going to believe what I tell it.  I'll let you know the results next week.

It was staring me right in the face, and I never noticed!

You know how you can buy a car of a certain model and color and then notice that lots of other people have the same model and color as you do?  Yet, you never noticed those cars before.  Well, entering into the power within has proven to be like that.  I started searching within because of a couple of Cd's, and was intrigued to find that, apparently, only a very select group of people were aware of the ability to tap into the power within and had been willing to share that "secret," that "key," that "wondrous ability."  And then, after immersing myself into the works of that select group, I find that the secret, the key, the wondrous ability, is being taught by many, in subtle ways.  I just hadn't paid attention until now.

At this point, after reading, listening, and practicing the varied suggested methods, this is what I've concluded:  The pursuit of happiness is the base for the use of the power within.  The process is to eliminate negative thinking and focus on the positives, which then leads to overlooking obstacles and seeing possibilities; and this leads to believing those possibilities can be realized.  By this time, a person will have established a pattern of thinking that reverberates, creating endless possibilities.  And then, because what energy you project attracts more of the same, the positivity compounds itself. 

Positive thinking, then, is the generator for the power within.  The secret, the key, the wondrous ability plugs into that generator and uses every single amp to focus the energy derived to achieve all things possible.  The result is that energy--in turn--generates positive thinking and so the circuit is contiguous.  Plus, the output of the generator can be increased by, among other things, touching another person positively.  In essence, by the continuous positive use of the power within, there is no limit to it's output.  And we're all given that power.  That's amazing!

It's a pendulum

Yesterday I hit a dip, a big dip, and I started to cry.  The thing I asked for, the one thing I asked for by the end of the month, didn't materialize. "Ah. There you go." you say.  And if you're someone who was so sure all along that this was bunk.  You can say, "I told you so."  But what I wrote the other day is absolutely true.  Though things haven't come as others say they do, or will, I've still managed to make a difference in how I approach each day.  So what's the harm in believing, or continuing to believe?  We're told to have faith in God; that he hears our prayers and answers them in his way, in his time.  And sometimes, something we wanted to have, or have happen, doesn't or won't. This is an exercise in faith and I should expect the same process.

My dip yesterday came from doing a printing job for a client.  I had put it off until the last minute and when I was half-way through the job, the printer wouldn't print the copies right.  And still won't, and I'm still in the middle of the job.  When I figured out what was wrong, and that it would take over $100 and 5 days to fix it, that's when I dipped. All of the doubts were pushing each other out of the way so they could come in first, and a few of them made it.  It was through a concerted effort that I was able to pull myself out of the dip within a half hour, and the thought that helped the most--I think--was that by acting fine, and acting positive, I would BE fine and I would BE positive.  I ended the day being fine, but as for the positive--I think I'm stuck on pragmatic.