The Power of Positive

Recently I read a wonderful book called The Monk Who Sold His Ferrari, about a former hot shot lawyer named Julian Mantel who, after suffering a massive heart attack while in court, leaves his successful yet miserable life to find, well, the meaning of life. Years later, Julian returns from his stay with the Sages of Sivana in India unrecognizably healthy, youthful and peaceful, with a mission to share his journey with anyone who will receive it.

The book is full of all sorts of interesting and useful bits to help guide the 'lost soul' to a life of meaning. What I personally enjoyed was the continual importance of purging the heart, mind and soul of the negative.

The mind/body connection is a very real and powerful thing. Through my continual studies of anatomy and structural integration, I am able to make sense of the physical ramifications that a negative mind can have on the body. Consider stress: We all know what it is... quite intimately, in fact. We read stories or hear special health reports on the news about how stress causes heart attacks, strokes and stomach ulcers. We also hear that it is our busy lives and intense jobs that create all of this stress. Yet, we certainly cannot all afford to drop everything, leave our families and jobs to make a personal journey to India to find the meaning of life. So, what are we to do?

In short, and in my opinion, it all begins with choice. We all possess the power to choose a good day or a bad day. Although bad & stressful things will happen on any given day, is it not fair to say that our perception on those things is what changes the degree of their damage?

My former boyfriend is a good example. He used to begin his day by saying out loud "This day is going to suck." Wow... Seriously?

Being the recipient of this proclamation, I would attempt to encourage him to turn it around, telling him, "well, sure, if you say that, you are guaranteed to have a bad day. But how bad can it be, really?" He would look at me like I was a dumb little child unable to understand the ways of the world and say again, "This day is going to suck."

So, off he would go into his miserable day and I was left with a bit of it on my conscience. Now I had a seed of negative energy in my head! I would then go to work in a less-than-jovial mood because I had allowed someone else's negativity to penetrate my brain.

I eventually purged the miserable boyfriend and all of his negativity from my life. Within a week, I was lighter, happier and healthier, as if I had a giant malignant tumor removed from my being. I could see that life was indeed beautiful and that no day was ever going to suck because I was given the gift of life. I was able to choose to live it without negativity because I had the power to do so.

I am not suggesting that merely repeating positive affirmations will make your life change. However, a positive thought, said out loud or in silence, is filled with power once you make the decision to have it be so.

Take a good inventory of your thoughts. Make a list of them and note how many are negative. Take fifteen minutes in the morning to sit in silence and notice what flows through your brain. Write your gripes in a journal and then finish the entry with your decision to turn them around. Notice the changes you feel physically as you begin to change your attitude. You may find that you sleep through the night, your heart doesn't race and your stomach stops hurting.

It shouldn't take so much effort... too much effort is too stressful, yielding frustration and ultimately more negativity on your inability to process a positive thought. Instead, it is surrender to circumstance and being bold enough to choose to live with joy.

Worry will not add a single hour to your life. Negative and anxious thoughts are thieves that will rob you of the gift of life that you were so generously given.

You are allowed... no, meant to... live a life of joy. Change your mind from negative to positive and live your life with the best case scenario in tact, because you have decided that is the only reasonable option.