More than a Good Thought

There is a strong correlation between being happy and optimistic to being physically well. Typically, people who express positive thoughts and emotions are at a reduced risk of becoming ill. Feeling happy or having positive experiences is linked with better general health or more content living. So is there more to this than just positive thinking?

Yes, this is more than just thinking a good thought. Positive psychology is a branch of psychology focused on the character strengths and behaviours that allow individuals to build a life of meaning and purpose. While many other branches of psychology tend to focus on dysfunctional aspects of the human mind, positive psychology is centred on helping people become happier on many different levels. This new branch of psychology encompasses a variety of techniques that focus on developing positive thoughts, positive emotions, and developing positive experiences. You can see how this new form of psychology extends beyond thoughts alone to bring forward the complete picture of the human system of wellbeing.

Positive psychology is often confused with positive thinking, which is purely about thinking positive thoughts, rather than changing your way of thinking into a different frame of mind. Positive psychology works at a deeper level on improving our positive character traits, such as loyalty, humility and integrity. It does not discount that there are negatives that impact our lives. Instead, positive psychology aims to look at the situation to better understand human experiences and determine how to best foster positivity and good thinking. These aspects of positive thoughts are then reflected and reinforced by positive emotions and feelings. As we live in a physical world, if these positive thoughts, emotions and feelings can be bolstered by positive experiences, it creates a more powerful narrative than any of the elements individually. We can all leverage aspects of positive psychology so that we can thrive rather than just survive.

♾ Awaken your Mind ♾

Why am I Anxious when Meditating?

A common feeling that you may experience when starting to meditate is that of being anxious or nervous. First up, do not worry, as many people experience the same feelings when they do meditation, especially when starting or if they have had a gap or lapse in doing meditation.

When you first start meditation, you may feel uncomfortably awkward or out of kilter in some undefined way. This can be especially true if you lead a busy life, or there are lots of things which typically occur around you. These feelings are completely expected and a natural sensation as your mind has been used to the normal hustle and bustle of everyday life. The change of pace when you begin meditation can trigger feelings of anxiety or nervousness to name just a few.

If you do feel uneasy when practising meditation, then be aware it is your mind which is generating these sensations. It can be common for your mind to generate a FOMO (fear of missing out) as it attempts to re-establish its control over your life and your way of thinking.

There are several different ways to address your anxiousness when meditating. One obvious, but often overlooked method is to simply tell yourself that you are not anxious and it is just in your mind. Another effective way to help you feel less anxious is to simply lower your gaze to a spot on the floor or ground before you, rather than closing your eyes. Some other breathing techniques, such as Breathe with Purpose or Life-Force Meditation can assist you to become more comfortable when you start out meditating through the use of specially structured activities.

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Stress is an Energy Overload

Identifying and managing stress can result in a more balanced and healthy life. All of us experience stress in different ways due to our own unique experiences and lives. Sometimes you may be able to immediately tell when you are feeling stressed, yet at other times you might keep going without recognising the signs. You might only comprehend just how much stress was present in a situation when it no longer exists. In these circumstances, it is typical that as soon as the reason for the stress has been removed, you may all of a sudden feel like a substantial burden has been lifted. Stress can impact you on many different levels, affecting the way you behave, think and feel.

The structure and function of the brain, our minds and the nervous system are vital to mental health. However, as humans, we are far more than our biology. There are countless schools of thought regarding the origins of stress. Each of us has different ways of handling stress. Some situations that motivate you, could generate the condition of stress in another person because of their personality and the emotions they hold within

A brand-new approach to understanding stress is that stress is simply an accumulation of energy. As you experience life, your thoughts, actions and responses can result in a buildup of energy within various areas of the mind and body. If this buildup of energy is not suitably removed, the overload of emotionally charged energy will create issues for the human mechanism. This overload of emotionally charged energy will lead to what we recognise as stress.

The energies of your thoughts and emotions, especially when to the negative, can increase and flow through your nervous system. Stress intensifies this energy into the body, which then produces additional emotionally charged energies. If you are under lengthy periods of stress, these energies can increase even more. As these energies accumulate within the human mechanism causing damage like that of an electrical short circuit. It is not unusual to hear nowadays that individuals state they have become “burnt-out” as a result of stressful situations in their lives. It is the overload of these emotionally charged energies which causes damage and resulted in this burnt-out feeling.

While you should also bear in mind the more traditional elements of stress, this different view on the underlying mechanism of stress provides you with a new way to manage and control stress before it becomes a major problem in your life. When you begin to experience stress building up, find a means to release this build-up of these emotional energies for the wellbeing of yourself and others around you.

Some simple methods can be used to help you destress by draining away these emotional energy overloads. One effective method requires you to take several minutes out in meditation or mindfulness to see yourself near a lake or sea. Then while maintaining the image of the lake or sea, try to visualise this overload of emotional energy draining off into the water. Another equally effective technique is to stand on the ground as you perform your meditation, then envision the overload of emotional energies being drawn out of you into the earth. Alternatively, if you are practised in conscious breathing, then attempt to see the overload of emotional energies flowing out from you as dark clouds as you exhale each breath.

♾ Awaken your Mind ♾

What You Think You Become

How many times have you become aware of the expression “You become what you think” or variants on the same concept? Your thoughts are more than simply thoughts, they are what guide you through life and define you. They shape your perspective of the world and those around us. If you believe you can be successful, typically, you will achieve some form of success. However, if you believe you will fail, then more often than not you will face challenges and not succeed. This does not imply that you are prophetic, it just means that you generally believe and act out what rattles around inside your head.

Your mind is a powerful tool when used correctly, but it can also be your own worst enemy. You may not know it, but for most people, your mind can play tricks on you. If you think you cannot do something, at that point you have set yourself up for failure. Before you have even begun you are questioning whether you will be successful, it is a formula for calamity.

Buddha stated, “The mind is everything. What you think, you become“. As you probably have picked up from the above paragraphs, there is an honest truth in this statement. It then follows that if you can control your mind, you can help to direct and guide the direction of your life. We live what we think about constantly. These thoughts might be intangible, however, their power lies in the way they affect and influence us. For every thought or action, there is a reaction or effect. This correlates to the observations made by Newton when he detailed his third law of motion. Realise that your thoughts and reactions all have effects and consequences. There is always an effect even if you do not witness the result. Your thoughts and reactions in life can result in an accumulation of emotionally charged energies within you. These energies can have damaging or detrimental effects on your body, sometimes bringing about illness.

We have the capacity to choose how we feel and to dictate how we will live our lives. That is why our thoughts are so significant, due to the fact that they determine virtually every element of our lives. You can either be shackled by your thoughts or set free by them. If you want to transform your thought process and improve your quality of life – you must take action. So begin to take control of your thinking and reactions to make sure that you only build beneficial energies of thought.

♾ Awaken your Mind ♾

Understanding Your Emotions

The challenge for any kind of advanced meditation is that many individuals are not taught, or realise the significance of knowing one’s own thoughts and emotions. You need to make the effort to recognise and understand yourself, your thoughts, emotions and dreams as an indispensable part of any means to awaken the inner self via endeavours such as meditation. Knowing yourself and building mastery of your thoughts and emotions is an often forgotten aspect in your journey to awaken your Inner self. You should aim to transform every adverse or negative emotion into positive aspects and come to be the master of your life.

People frequently wonder what is the true nature of emotions anyway? Thoughts and emotions are energies, like light itself, they are all an energy particle and energy wave at the same time. At the simplest level, emotions are lower-level responses taking place within areas of the brain and mental form, in response to stimuli and thoughts. Emotions themselves are usually brief in duration, yet can cause longer-term mental associations which are stored within various component parts of your being. Gradually, your emotional responses become subjectively combined with your personal experience, beliefs and memories to produce your feelings.

It needs to be understood that subduing or suppressing emotions can be detrimental as you proceed with any kind of spiritual development. Suppressing an emotion means that the emotion still exists within you, however, it is concealed behind the scenes. Then as you advance and the energy of your Life Force or inner being enlivens, these energies will be transformed into magnetic energies by your physical mechanism. Such magnetic energies can then feed any kind of hidden or concealed emotions. Such emotions will continue to grow through this energy source and can turn into an explosive outburst of emotion. As this emotional outburst now has more energy than formerly possible, it can cause more damage within your body mechanism in addition to causing increased strife and repercussions in your life. Take the opportunity to observe and be aware of your emotional reactions, so you can choose how to respond, instead of just reacting in life.

♾ Awaken your Mind ♾

Understanding Karma

Karma is a core notion in many Eastern beliefs, including Hinduism and Buddhism. Today, people often incorrectly make use of the word karma to denote luck, destiny or fate. However, if you take a look at the traditional meaning of karma, it means action. Modern science and Newtonian Physics reveal that for every action, there must be an equal and opposite reaction. So the energy created by action needs to be returned, and this is the basis of karma. Karma in itself is neither good nor bad, it is merely labelled that way by people. An often misunderstood aspect is that karma applies to your thoughts and words and not just your actions. So karma very simply explained is, the principle of cause and effect emerging out of any thought or action.

In addition to the karma created from your own actions, you are subjected to the Karmic influences of your family, faith, race, nationality, and more. Every circumstance you encounter in life is the result of some karma and can generate more. You constantly create karma from your actions, thoughts, and words, as well as from your attitudes, expectations, and lifestyle. You create karma from the intended actions you perform knowingly, and likewise from actions carried out unconsciously, whether they be through ignorance or even lack of knowledge. It is additionally possible to take on another person’s karma, which generally is not a good idea since most of us have enough of our own.

Whether you believe that karma depends on continuing cycles of reincarnation, or not, karma implies that you have created and continue to create karma in your life. Karma can have both short-term and long-term effects as it impacts you on many various levels, some of which are not perceived nor immediately evident. Unfortunately, many of us allow ourselves to continue to be controlled by our karma, frequently destined to perform the same habits over and over within this lifetime.

Like it or not, karma cannot be avoided; however, it can be diminished or prevented. The most important thing to remember is that karma can be transmuted or changed. Not only can your choices determine the quality of new karma being created and stored to be released as future events in your life, but there are ways to reduce karma. The best way to reduce karma is to be proactive in your thoughts and actions to decrease the cycle of cause and effect. Each and every moment you should make every effort to be aware of the possible effects or ramifications of your thoughts, actions, or inactions at any point in time. Instead of instantaneously reacting to life, pause to consider your various courses of action, before proceeding. This careful application of containment will aid you to reduce the accumulation of karma and permit you to break free of the karmic chains which bind you into a set pattern within your life.

♾ Awaken your Mind ♾

Change to a Higher Frequency

What you may consider an emotion is often the experience of energy progressing through your physical body. This energy is derived from your original thought or the replaying of feelings associated with thought, or past experiences, especially if they have strong attached feelings. We all experience emotions differently, however they all occur as energy frequencies within the component parts of the human mechanism. Feelings are the perception and also the labels we apply to the respective emotion, such as happy or sad. It is the feelings which are stored within the human mechanism at the associated frequency of the emotion, and which are called upon when we dwell on thoughts or emotions of the same frequency.

Emotions per se are neutral, is in they are an energy form. However, coarser, or what some would definitely label as negative or adverse emotions resonate at lower frequencies. Make the effort to shift the frequency of your thoughts, emotions and feelings to a higher frequency, to bring more positivity right into your life.

♾ Awaken your Mind ♾

More than Enough

It has become incredibly easy to be engulfed in your anxieties, concerns, and insecurities when a great deal of today’s culture and social norms seems to be based around the perception that everyone deserves something, whatever that may be. Sure it is alright and perfectly fine and reasonable to have big ambitions or goals in life. Where many of us struggle resides in balancing our hopes & dreams with the world in which we live. Aspects of depression, stress and anxiety can creep into your life and overwhelm your thoughts and emotions; result in being bogged in a quagmire of decreased pride or self-worth, as you become stuck in a self-defeating cycle of measuring your life to someone else’s.

If you find yourself in such a state of mind, then one simple little phrase of “I am enough” can be used to transform your thoughts. Repeating this thought on a regular basis can help give you a sense that everything is okay. This allows you to instil a new found sense of happiness or inner contentment, transforming the direction of your life for the better.

♾ Awaken your Mind ♾