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Does it really matter what we think? Go Back
Yes, yes it does. Nothing exists in physical without first having existed in thought. Thought drives our every action or inaction and determines the course of our lives. The state of humanity is what it is today because of our thoughts. The problems currently facing us are many, but all boil down to a few crucial thought patterns, chiefly anger, fear, and greed. To change these, we must stop blaming the devil, the moon, other people, circumstances, etc. for our problems. Accepting our responsibility empowers and elevates us, while not doing so prevents us from entering the next stage of humanity’s spiritual evolution; those failing to do so must repeat the lessons they have failed to grasp. Paying attention to our thoughts, attitudes and emotions, and learning about our beliefs and desires enables us to start changing them.

We all think, all the time

Food for thought
To truly change self requires changing our thoughts, attitudes, emotions, beliefs and desires.

What are 'thoughts' anyways? Go Back
Our thoughts express our spiritual reactions to whatever is going on within us and around us. Thought patterns start forming as soon as soon as a soul settles into its human form. The Universal Intelligence (The All), hears every single one of our thoughts, and knows the pattern each thought expresses. For example, thinking something as simple as, "At least I'm not like that person" expresses an attitude of self-righteousness. Our guide flags this as a lesson to be learned, and future experiences will provide us with opportunities to learn humility. Our spiritual reactions are expressed in the following ways:

Thoughts are ideas formed into language using either words, images or symbols. Our thoughts produce the attitudes, emotions, beliefs, desires and behaviours that we all have.

Attitudes arise from our thoughts and belief systems.

Emotions arise from our thoughts and attitudes, albeit at lightning fast speed.

Belief systems are stories we use to justify our attitudes, desires and behaviours.

Desires result from our thoughts, attitudes and beliefs.

We behave in the ways we do as a result of our thoughts, attitudes, beliefs and desires.

What do you think? Go Back
This may be hard to believe, but we hardly hear even one tenth of our thoughts. The simple exercise below will help to dip your toe into the deep waters of your thoughts.

Review the following self-assessment list, noting any pattern applying to you. If three or more, your spiritual diet may be placing your physical health at risk:

• I want/need everyone to like me
  
• I pretend to be happy but I really am not / I cry easily but I'm not sure why
  
• I blame others if things do not go my way
  
• I give up if things do not work right the first time
  
• I am always in pain
  
• I have a hard time falling asleep and it is even harder to get up in the morning
  
• I fall asleep fast but wake up after a couple of hours and cannot get back to sleep
  
• I hate me and I hate my life and I’m pretty sure God hates me too
  

This is the doorway into learning how our thoughts affect our lives. Behind each statement above, there is a story. Take for example, “I want/need everyone to like me”. In order to change such a thought pattern, we must bring into conscious focus our backstory. How many times did we go without love, or compassion, or understanding or encouragement, when we most needed it, from the person from whom we most needed it? What conclusions did we reach as we came to believe we were not loved or respected? Maybe we just felt invisible. We may have thought “Nobody likes me.” Or “I’m unlovable.” We may also think, “Since I was treated this way, it is all right for me to treat others this way.” We may have taken out our pain on a younger sibling, or a pet. We may have manifested eating disorders or self-harming behaviours. We may also have reacted by deciding, “When I grow up, I’ll never treat anyone this way.” Or “When I grow up, I’m going to help people.”


Negative thoughts? Who, me? Go Back

We are as unaware of our dreams upon awakening as of our thoughts during the day.

Before we can change our negative thoughts, we must acknowledge that we have them. If humanity is ever to take its next evolutionary leap forward, we must first change ourselves; we cannot change ourselves unless and until we change our thoughts.

Note: If you want to change negative thought patterns but do not know which ones you might have, or if you think you have none, look up the spiritual component of your physical ailments.

A healthy spiritual diet enables us to feel joy, love and optimism, and to be kind, generous, patient and tolerant - not only with others, but with ourselves. Spiritual malnutrition occurs with chronic negativity, and prevents us from living well. Paying attention to our thoughts reveals a steady stream of fear, anger, worry, guilt and even resentment. A poor spiritual diet also contributes to many of life's negative life experiences such as addiction, chronic pain and disease, co-dependent relationships, repeated failures and feeling like a victim.

It is all too easy to deny we have negative thoughts, but it is seldom our intention to have them. They just seem to happen, almost like a reflex. (Just try watching television for two minutes without judging or criticising someone.) It is not that we are bad for having negative thoughts; rather, it is up to us to recognize and change them. Our thoughts, positive or negative, are the great equalizer. We all think, all the time. Our thoughts drive our every action or inaction, so if humanity is to take its next evolutionary leap, we must first change ourselves; we cannot change ourselves unless and until we change our thoughts. Here are some common phrases and the negative thought pattern they express:

This phrase is this thought pattern

This phrase	...	is this thought pattern
I’m mad at you so I’m not talking to you	...	Abandonment
It’s ok if I break the rules. Rules are for everybody else	...	Arrogance
It’s good, except	...	Criticism
I don’t want or need this, but I’m keeping it anyway	...	Greed
It has to be done this way, my way, the right way	...	Perfectionism
I hate you and I will never forgive you	...	Resentment
I will make you pay for hurting me	...	Revenge

*NEW*  Naming the thought patterns
A reader asked, "Why is the name important? Is it important? If I understand what it is, what it means, is the word/naming important?"
The name is important when working to resolve, reduce and refine negative thought patterns. Naming it helps to quickly identify it for correction (re-patterning). Not identifying it risks losing it in one's constantly flowing stream of consciousness where it will continue to resurface. Naming it enables us to find the triggering event, which we can then resolve. Repeating this process numerous times builds a new neural pathway leading to ultimate release of the pattern.



Retrain your brain Go Back
The brain is the soul's wheelhouse during physical incarnation, and is the first part of the human body to react physically to our thoughts, attitudes and emotions. Our oft-repeated thoughts imprint on it forming neural pathways. If you’ve ever tried (but failed) to stop from having a thought, you’ll know what I mean when I say the pathways can seem impossible to reroute. We can retrain our chaotic thought patterns by resolving the issues causing the chaos.

Change your brain - and your future

Steps in becoming spiritually aware Go Back
In large part, we are who we are because of our reactions to, or our thoughts about, our early childhood experiences. Paying attention to our thoughts and acknowledging that we, ourselves, really do have negative thoughts enables us to change them. Meditating to find the root issues causing them, and then resolving the inner conflicts resulting from our experiences brings inner peace. Being at peace frees us to make wiser choices about our lives, enabling profound change. That’s it. That’s the process.

Steps in becoming spiritually aware

Spiritual decluttering (cleaning up our thoughts) Go Back

Resolve, Refine, Reduce
Spiritual decluttering is the process of cleaning up our chaotic thoughts. Resolving inner conflicts, refining our understanding of our thoughts and finally, reducing our thoughts, enables us to feel better, to pay better attention to ourselves, and to better hear our guide.

Spiritual decluttering: Resolve, refine and reduce the thoughts

Resolve inner conflicts Go Back
What is an inner conflict? Let’s say a child suffers abuse by a sibling. The child tells their caregiver the sibling "hates me" but the caregiver says, "Don't be ridiculous. Your sibling loves you." The child knows this to be false, yet feels compelled to believe the caregiver. An inner conflict results and a belief forms that says "Love hurts" / "I am not worthy" / “My feelings cannot be trusted”. The child grows up craving loving relationships yet is continually drawn to abusive people. The conflict resolves upon accepting a newer truth that says, “I can trust my feelings. I can trust myself.” In fact, sibling abuse does not arise out of ‘love’. Abusive behaviour arises from fear, anger, resentment and other negative thoughts. These are issues for the abuser to address. Of course parents do not think any of their children could harm a sibling, so the child is taught to believe their sibling is just playing, or she or he is not actually trying to harm them. The child knows better, but learns instead to not trust self. Most importantly, the child learns "I am not worthy."

Inner conflicts keep us stuck. They create negative behavioural patterns and generally prevent us from being able to live life well. Such conflicts result from having core beliefs based in untruth. We cling to the beliefs formed in our childhood. We may have been taught them by authority figures, or we may have developed them on our own in the absence of input from our caregivers. Once we have them though, changing them can seem next to impossible. Resolving inner conflicts is also known as inner child work and is the means whereby we build a strong spiritual foundation for ourselves.

Refine your thoughts Go Back
Refining the thoughts means understanding at ever-deeper levels just what a particular thought pattern sounds like, so that it can be gradually reduced and maybe even eliminated. For example, judgment can take many forms:

• You see someone eating. Based on the time of day, you 'decide' they are obviously eating their breakfast. There are other options though. The person may have worked a late shift and this is supper for them. The person may have a disease requiring them to eat several times per day, and this may be their third, fourth or even fifth meal of the day so far. The fact is we cannot possibly know, unless we ask them directly. To assume we know is judgment.
• You look at this same person and decide they should not be eating because they are overweight, or they should be eating more because they are too thin. To assume we know what their diet should be; to assume we know what their correct weight should be, to assume we know what is best for them is to assume we know which spiritual lessons are being presented for them in this particular lifetime; these are all matters of judgment.
• You look at this same person and decide, based solely on their physical appearance, they are not worthy of your respect, or of enjoying life, or of receiving God's unconditional love. Now suppose the person you just judged is yourself. Do you think your words do not impair your self-esteem?

How many times in a day do you make such judgments? You might be surprised. Negative thoughts like judgment, criticism and condemnation are refined by paying attention to the physical signals the guides give us, and by gaining understanding of the signals in meditation. What we consider to be judgment and what our guides consider to be judgment are quite different, hence the reason for physical signals reminding us to pay attention to our thoughts and ask questions to gain understanding.

Reduce your thoughts Go Back
Have you any idea how much time we spend worrying about things over which we have utterly no control? Or how often our thoughts return to past events and rehash them, searching, wishing somehow for a different outcome? The refinement process enables us to gradually reduce the number of such thoughts. The fewer we have, the more we are able to simply be in observation mode and achieve the overview effect, bringing order from the chaos of our thoughts.

Food for thought
Our capacity for change is limited if we believe we do not need to change.

Next steps Go Back
Learn how to change our automatic responses (Section 2) and learn to meditate (Section 3). Gain resolution of inner child issues, strengthen low or unstable self-esteem and increase your spiritual awareness. Pain from the past will seem to magically disappear, not because we are ignoring it or medicating it, but because we are dealing with it.



Self-test Go Back
Click buttons to show or hide content...

1. What are the five components of our spiritual diet?

2. What are the steps in becoming spiritually aware?

3. What thoughts, attitudes and/or emotions are expressed by the following:

I'm mad at you so I'm not talking to you.

It's ok if I break the rules. Rules are for everybody else

It's good, except ...

I don't want or need this, but I'm keeping it anyway

It has to be done this way, my way, the right way

I hate you and I will never forgive you

I will make you pay for hurting me

At least I'm not like that person

4. Define each of the following:

Thoughts

Attitudes

Emotions

Belief systems

Desires

Behaviours

⇐ Introduction   Section 2 ⇒