Being a curator and a cultivator of good thoughts, I’ve always found it necessary to understand the effect of thought on a person’s day-to-day living. Our minds are the arena for the great competition of life whereby we may win, lose and everything in-between. Sadly, most people lose in this competition from ignorance concerning the importance of right thought and an associated refusal to monitor, modify and change those thoughts. No matter how seemingly sad, lonely, boring, unhappy, or unfulfilled your life may be, all may be swiftly remedied by stepping out of the shadows and into the light!
The peculiar thing about thought and emotion is that people conclude those thoughts are circumstance driven. In other words, they assume they feel happy because the circumstances are happy and thus turn over the reigns of thought to whatever circumstance or situation they might find themselves in. If you will investigate your thought a little further, you’ll recognize, somewhere buried in your lightning fast processor, a decision you made to be or feel that way. The same applies to unhappy and unpleasant thoughts. At your core, you are weighing and sifting, analyzing and processing, then coming to a conclusion about how you should feel. The trouble sneaks in by not being clear on what you are weighing, sifting, analyzing and processing. Just because you think a certain thought, does not make that thought true. It’s not just how you “feel” or any other statement that removes you from being the initiator of the process. You, no matter what is going on all around you, are deciding how you are going to feel, think and eventually act!
The wrong conclusions, the erroneous analysis, the false measures are all components of darkness that make up the shadows. The shadows shield the sun from shining into our hearts. The sun is aways shining, so it’s our responsibility to position ourselves to where we can feel the light. So the question becomes, is that thought light or is it dark? If it’s dark it’s not going to help you get to the light. And don’t you tell me you are just “being honest!” Negative events, negative circumstances call for access to the light, not a resolving of yourself to curl up in the shadows until the trouble is over. Doing so ends in losing in the great competition for life and happiness over misery and death.
Most of us, if we are honest, don’t get defeated in the grand dramas of life. We lose the smaller skirmishes that kick up day by day. We sit on our mental porches rehearsing some aspect of our lives that isn’t complete or fulfilled, as if running it through our minds in earnest will somehow bring about a change. Mental complaining and whining is just more shadows, gaining access by our persistence in allowing it. “Dwelling on the darkness won’t bring forth the light!” (Dr. VPW) Rehearsing and ruminating over some aspect of our lives we don’t enjoy will not lead us to the solution. Instead it will simply attach itself to our sifting and weighing, analyzing and processing, leading us ever to the wrong conclusions; I’m unhappy, sad, lonely, bored, unfulfilled! Our lives, our feelings, our thoughts are all just that – ours!
Stepping out of the shadows is making the mental decision to be happy, to be blessed, by refusing to spend time entertaining the dark thoughts. It’s not running around all day shouting, “I’m happy, I’m happy!” It is refusing access to darkness by refuting those thoughts inspired and encouraged by the darkness. It is the decision to live above the negatives not by hiding your head in the sand, but by recognizing the negatives yet not rehearsing and embracing them as your own. You find yourself feeling some kind of way about some scenario and in that very moment you choose not to fan it or explore it, but instead change your thoughts over to something good, something true. The great deception, the ultimate ruse, the profound trickery is accomplished by appealing to your ego or limited understanding to try and unravel a spiritual issue with your five senses reasonings. You “think” you are actually getting somewhere by investigating some negative feelings or chronic problem when in reality you are simply being cajoled into permitting darkness to stick around in your head! This has worked on mankind for over two thousand years and will continue to work as long as unknowing people cooperate with it. Stop cooperating with it!
Being happy and blessed has always been God’s intention for mankind. God knows you and also knows everything that is holding you down and stopping you from living the life you really want to live. And as Emerson aptly noted, “We need only obey.” We obey not by following some prescribed creed or rules for good behavior, but by thinking and living how God says to live and think. The renewed mind, putting off the old man and putting on the new man, walking in the light, are God’s solution for how to get you where you want to go. It is how to defeat this opponent you cannot see or accurately discern. It is how to win in the spiritual competition of life; the competition for your life and happiness and fulfillment! We need only obey!
Step out of those shadows that have been limiting and minimizing your life. Get up and get out of that darkness. Don’t try to wrestle with the darkness in the darkness. Just stand up and turn on the light. Once you have turned on the light don’t allow anyone or anything to turn it off again. And when by chance you realize it’s off, just get up and turn it back on again. This is life people. This is the answer to whatever has gone wrong for wherever you may have ended up. Step out of the shadows and see! Choose light!
Just some good thoughts…
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