In the first years of Covid when most of humanity was faced with a sense of isolation, a spotlight appeared on the nation’s mental health issues and highlighted the levels of dysfunction in how people relate to each other and more importantly, how they feel about themselves.
For the first time in our history, the importance of one’s mental health took the headlines.
How people feel about themselves will determine to a large degree how happy or content they are on a day-to-day basis. Unfortunately, there are no universal words or mantras we can say that will make us automatically feel good about ourselves.
Buddha taught that people were born happy, but the dualities of life can knock us out of balance into extreme levels of negativity and we have a tough time getting back to a balanced state of mind.
Life hands each of us a different can of worms to live through and learn from, and for better or worse, we live in environments that are heavily negative from an energetic perspective. The result is that we fall into patterns of thinking that are habitually negative in nature.
One of the reasons humans are here on the planet is to learn how to balance their thinking when faced with extreme perspectives. Buddha called this the noble middle path.
Modern science considers the human body to be electrical in nature now that technology is able to chart its complex systems of communication. Just like any electrical device in our homes, the body needs both positive and negative currents to efficiently run the system. Too much one way or the other and things don’t work as well.
Our thoughts and emotions create strong electrical currents that can drive the body out of a healthy balance through worry, criticism, anger, self-judgment, etc.
Each person’s journey is unique to them and we’ve all developed our own patterns of negative thinking based on our personal experiences. Strange as it is, this was supposed to happen so not to worry, none of us screwed up.
Our job is to learn how to balance out our own negative perspectives. No one else can do it for us, and it’s probably not an easy task but there is a universal technique one can apply that just might help us find our happy mojo.
This technique involves tracking or noticing how many negative thoughts we have during the day and comparing that list to the number of positive thoughts. These thoughts can be about ourselves, others, newscasts, articles, world situations or things we daydream about.
The odds are that you’ll have a long list of negatives and a short list of positives.
The goal is to become aware of how much negative energy you are creating in a day. This energy builds up in your body and when it gets overloaded, the body has to discharge somewhere. If a person is feeling agitated, irritated or angry then that’s a good indication there is a negative charge build-up within the body.
Sometimes the people we care about the most take the brunt of that release, which leads us to feel bad about our actions. It’s a vicious cycle, but there is a simple way to release the charge of our negativity without any mayhem.
The key to balancing out too many negative thoughts is to add some positive ones. Simple yes, easy not so much but only because it’s habitual. Persistence wins the day.
This exercise can be done once a day or as many times as one chooses. Once a person gets the hang of noticing negative thoughts in the moment, they can simply neutralize it with a positive thought right then and there. Eventually you will train your mind to do this automatically and it becomes your new pattern of thinking.
One must use sincerity when adding in positive statements. The body knows when you are lying because it’s about the electrical charge attached to the thought. This is where one’s creativity comes in handy.
For example, if a coworker is getting on your last nerve and you’re thinking about what an idiot they are, try to find something positive or nice to say about them. Perhaps they have nice hair or provide a value you appreciate in other areas of the workplace, like fixing the printer or they always make a new pot of coffee when it gets low. It just has to be a real thing to you in order to balance out the electrical vibrations.
Negative thoughts are a part of life and it’s not a wrong thing to do, we just want to balance it by seeing something positive as well.
Maybe we can all join together this holiday season and give ourselves the gift of happiness through balanced thinking.