Keeping Positive Thoughts
Three practices in self-compassion
Keep your thoughts positive because your thoughts become YOUR WORDS.
Keep your words positive because your words become YOUR BEHAVIOR.
Keep your behavior positive because your behavior becomes YOUR HABITS.
Keep your habits positive because your habits become YOUR VALUES.
Keep your values positive because your values become YOUR DESTINY.
—Mahatma Gandhi
On August 15, India celebrated its 73rd Independence Day. As I listened to India’s Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi deliver his Independence Day address from the Red Fort in Delhi, I remembered and offered gratitude to the Father of the nation, Mahatma Gandhi. His words and his life continue to inspire.
The above quote is one of my favorites, as he put into words the path that he walked.
Keep your thoughts positive because your thoughts become YOUR WORDS. Indeed my mind truly can be the most powerful asset I can have. Our entire life experiences are based on the perception of what our mind tells us to believe.
So how do we know that what our mind is telling us is correct, is real, is the truth?
For me it’s more important to realize that I have to trust my feelings and not just my thoughts. I have to constantly, intentionally and truthfully question all my patterns and thoughts. This is hard! This is a life long practice!
What helps me are rituals, reflections and relationships.
To ensure that the mind becomes a friend is a journey. It’s a journey that is hard, one that many times will condemn me, criticize and blame me. However this journey will also teach me and force me to be kind, compassionate and forgiving to myself and others.
Self-compassion requires practice, a daily ritual to make it into a habit. To be able to do this with kindness and forgiveness requires intentional reflection on my actions and on my thoughts that lead to my actions.
I cannot do this alone. I need to have a relationship with a community that accepts me for who I am, with whom I can be who I am, where I can belong! More importantly, I need to have a relationship with myself, with my values, with the constant thread that I hold on too—my faith and conviction to surrender unconditionally to this faith.
Intentional reflection with myself and in community helps me understand and question my thoughts, my behaviors. My community helps me discern the deeper meaning behind my thoughts and actions.
While I am very early in this journey, I have realized that my attitude, my mindset, is so crucial. I have to remind myself of my own mantra: “Happy Thoughts.” These happy thoughts start with my self-talk, yet the self-talk often starts with my negative emotions speaking. I found that if I just let those emotions have a voice, I can filter and not magnify the negative emotions. Rather, I try to understand their meaning and learnings with kindness and self-compassion. It also gives me an opportunity to intentionally practice positive self-talk—I am my worst critic.
What helps me with a positive self-talk and a positive attitude?
Practicing the ritual of prayer and intentionally offering gratitude each day,
Surrounding myself with positive people—a positive community, and
Reading something positive each day.
Keeping an attitude that is positive, one of optimism, helps me reframe and redirect my reflections to find their meaning and understanding rather than making me retreat into a spiral of negativity. This helps me reimagine new ways of being. I can recover, rejuvenate and even rejoice. If I do that for myself, it helps me behave that way and offer the same in my relationships.
I am grateful for the kindness and compassion offered to me by so many in so many ways on my journey. A deep bow to you all! Namaste.
How is the coronavirus and civil unrest around racism changing the way you think of self-care, community and resilience? As this challenging time unfolds, I am posting a quote on this blog with a reflection prompt. Please join in the conversation here or on Twitter with your thoughts or what you are doing for self-care and care of others. My book explores such ideas too: Resilient Threads: Weaving Joy and Meaning into Well-Being.
This is one of those rare posts by Mukta that has no question requiring answer, or has no prompt requiring reflection.
As a matter of fact, the post itself is a reflection of her own thoughts. Her message relates to the most fundamental reality of life, which is that, I am what I am, period.
My thoughts, and all that follows from them such as actions, habits, values and even my destiny, all belong to me. Only I am responsible for all these, no one else. So is the case with everybody. We are all like dots on the canvas of creation.
Good news is that we as dots are all connected by lines or waves of communications. The dots of life and the dashes of communications complete the picture of life on the planet. These waves may vary in amplitude, frequency, directions, lengths, and magnitude. It is these waves that can influence our path towards our destiny, although that itself is predetermined. Since all waves of communications start from us and with our attitude, only we can decide their character and their effect on the targeted object, which can be positive or negative, constructive or destructive. What most of us do not realize is, that the energy along these waves travel in both the directions, forwards towards the object as well as backwards towards us. We too cannot escape their effects.
We must remember that only we are responsible for our thoughts and actions, and hence we cannot escape their consequences. If we are positive, the world will be happy and will laugh with us; if we are negative it will not only hurt and harm others, we ourselves will collapse under the burden of our own unhappiness.
If we want to see a happy world, let us start with positive and optimistic attitude. Mukta has enumerated so many ways of developing positive attitudes inspired by Mahatma Gandhi. I can only support what she has already prescribed as the blueprint for acquiring positivity in everything, for being happy and spreading happiness around us.
As she says, let us all have ‘Happy Thoughts’.
Mukta’s post is an expression of gratitude. It comes from her introspection. Her attitudes lead to her self-contentment and internal bliss. These are assets which are precious than any other material and worldly possession. God bless her.
Thank you for the reminder! 💗🌹