LIVINGwell
by Donna Burick Are Your Positive Thoughts Making You Feel Bad?
"One must marry one's feelings to one's beliefs and ideas. That is probably the only way to achieve a measure of harmony in one's life." Napoleon Hill
sticky, funny, uplifting, inspirational, dev- astating and crippling. We give our thoughts too much credit. We believe they are our guides but in reality, our feelings are our true guides.
O
How We “Head” Into Trouble Anytime we are led by our head we
are “headed” for trouble. You see it is our ideas and beliefs that create our problems. You know that on some level – your gut level. To explain, our thoughts are so tricky that even the good ones like, “I want to accomplish something important in my lifetime” or “I want to discover my life purpose” can be very self-destructive. They can be as damaging, if not more, than the ones we acknowledge are damaging like “I’m so stupid” or “I can’t believe I did it again”. The way you know these are the same is by the way you feel. Your feelings are your true guidance
system. If thoughts are making you feel “bad” in any way then they are damaging. Don’t be fooled by their false positiveness
ur minds are like a vast universe fueled by the dark matter that are our thoughts. They are tricky,
like those referenced above. It doesn’t matter what the thought is, just how it makes you feel. So, if the thought that you want to do something important in your lifetime excites and motives you, then it’s a good thought. However, that very thought can paralyze and degrade other- wise bright, talented people. Same thought two different feelings.
A Personal Challenge Here is an example from my own life.
My youngest son has developed a new habit of leaving his shirt on his bathroom floor every morning. He is a teenager so he’s very tired in the morning and after his shower he just can’t seem to remember to pick it up when he leaves the bathroom. This new habit of his was very stress-
ful for me. I was annoyed that every week there would be 5 or 6 “invisible” shirts on the floor. I assumed that as they built up they would be more noticeable or maybe perhaps when he went in the bathroom in the afternoon or evening then he might notice them then and pick them up. Sadly, no. None of these things took place. They seemed reasonable assumptions on my
part, but they are apparently utterly foreign to my beloved offspring.
As this trend continued and I made repeated attempts at correcting this behav- ior to no avail, my anger and frustration grew. This small issue was growing and consuming my energy and attention. Every time I walked past his bathroom and saw another infraction, I had a negative emo- tional reaction. What irked me most of all was my son’s unwillingness to understand how monumental this issue really was. To my utter amazement, to him this was just no big deal. Which, of course, set me off on another tirade all by itself.
The Ah-Ha Moment I was talking about this struggle (and it is important to note only I was having it - the only struggle my son was having was with me and my ever increasing reactions) and a close friend of mine said to me, “Maybe that’s just his personality. Perhaps you should just let it go and not make such a big deal about it.” I just stood there with my mouth open. I was stunned. If it had been a movie there would have been a quelling of music in the background. I
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