Positive Thinking vs. "Attachment Thoughts"

Thoughts control much of what we do and have a tremendous impact on our ability to live effectively and produce desired results. Thoughts have energy and the energy is carried inside of you pouring out into your actions. Positive thoughts are higher in energy than negative thoughts and your actions reflect this difference.

When you have negative thoughts, your energy is low and you are a poor performer. Thinking, "life sucks", brings with it lethargy, slower walking, talking, and responsiveness. These are not effective actions that produce results. The despair people feel inside is translated into energy that runs through their body. People that are continuously anxious, sad, depressed, or angry don't have effective actions. They don't act in faster, higher energy ways that are associated with positive thinking and better results. Instead, they are caught up in a vicious circle of feeling like crap, acting in low energy ways, and thus getting poor results. So, then they feel like even more crap than they did before. If someone thinks that things are too hard and they can't reach their dreams, then that is exactly what their experience in life has to be.

The way to overcome negative thoughts is to have positive, high energy thoughts that produce effective results. Here's how to jump start positive thinking:

1. Take ownership. Positive thinking is your responsibility. Your thoughts originate with you and, yes, that means that you are the one creating all the negativity in your life. Some people will find it hard to move away from negative thoughts. They have spent years or perhaps a life time feeling that their despair is caused by the world or someone else or that no one really "gets" who they are.

Self pity can be powerfully addictive because it is a crutch. Self pity means that someone else is responsible for your pain. However, each person is responsible for their own thoughts and actions. This is so crucial to understand because once you turn the corner and begin thinking positively, you are going to want to know that you are responsible for that shift! Shifts require the ability to step back and evaluate where all the crazy or wonderful things you say to yourself are coming from. Developing this self awareness is a critical component of taking responsibility for yourself and getting your thoughts and actions in alignment to acheive your dreams.

In order to begin developing self awareness, delegate a day to paying attention to the language of your thoughts. Notice when you feel happy as well as when you are feeling despair, anxiety, or sadness. As soon as you notice it, ask yourself, "What thought led me to feel this way?" Some people might find it helpful to carry a journal and jot all of this down as it happens. I am not that organized and besides, I discovered that all (yes, all) of my bad feelings derived from one of two negative thoughts. I was literally walking around every day repeating the same two bad thoughts over and over again. I also noticed that these thoughts had the same language pattern as discussed in point #3 below.

2. Don't create "attachment thoughts". Don't attach your happiness to things. You don't need a certain car, more money, or a significant partner in your life in order to be happy. If you think, "I need to have more money before I can be happy", then the root of your thought is focused on what is missing. Attaching happiness to things means that you are defending your right to be unhappy because things are "missing" from your life. With this line of thinking, you are destined to be unhappy.

For example, you can never have more money than you have at this precise moment; it isn't possible. The present moment is all you have, so you can only have what you have in this moment. Sorry to break it to you, but that is the way it is. If you have $100 in your bank account, then that is the amount of money that you have right now. Tomorrow, if a paycheck posts to your account and you have $1,100 in your bank account, then tomorrow that is all the money that you have. Either with $100 or $1,100 you can be happy and think positively.

3. Remove "attachment thoughts" from your life. Practice stop saying to yourself flawed "if, then" statements such as, "If this person loved me, then I would be happy" or, "If I had the house by the beach, then I would be happy". When an attachment based "if, then" thought pops into your head, recognize that it is a false belief. Literally say to yourself, "STOP!" and then, "I am no longer attaching my happiness to this thing! I was just having a momentary false belief that my well being is dependent on what or who is in my life". It is this false connection with things and the focus on what is missing in your life that leads to bad feelings.

4. Focus on the positive. Put your emphasis on your successes rather than on things that bring you discontent. If you are struggling on a diet and keep going off of it, focus on the fact that you ate healthfully for 10 of the last 30 days.

The act of focusing on what you are accomplishing is extremely powerful. Your focus may only last for 30 seconds, but that is long enough to experience a different mind frame and way of being. Your mood will lift, you will feel better, even if it is just for those few seconds. This is where you make a crucial connection that feeling good is linked to good thoughts, instead of to things or people. You begin to recognize that you have control over what you think about. You will also notice that you move from being inactive to active. Your thoughts are faster and more positive, you reach out to people and want to accomplish goals. In that powerful space of focusing on success, hope becomes a very real component of your life. You cannot suffer while feeling hopeful. In hope's presence, self pity and suffering are not possible.

The knowledge that you can stop negative thoughts, create positive thoughts, and allow hope into your life is a powerful lesson. Stopping attachment thoughts and focusing on your successes is a skill that can be used to facilitate real, long lasting change in your life.

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