Think Yourself into Health
July 7th, 2010
By Martha Lee, DHS
Click here to contact Martha and/or see her GoodTherapy.org Profile
The Buddha is purported to have said “What we think, we become.” If your thoughts could change your life for the better, wouldn’t you do it? Of course! But, what thoughts do you change?
All of us have an inner voice that speaks to us and us alone. Self-talk is that inner running dialogue you have with yourself. When you allow this voice to become overly negative or critical, it can deplete your energy and destroy resiliency.
Your subconscious mind does not discern mere negative talk from reality, and accepts as true what you keep saying. Ultimately, you might find yourself attracting corresponding events and situations into your life, irrespective of whether they are good or bad for you. Hence the saying, “Control your thoughts and you control your life” holds some truth.
You may be skeptical about all this, and you certainly don’t have to take my word for it. However, if you practice the four steps below for 21 days, you just might begin experiencing positive changes in your life:
1. Pay attention to what you tell yourself about life’s situations. Begin doing some self-observation and listen for that inner voice.
2. Decide what area of your life you want to work on and then decide what you want to result from this work.
3. Reframe your negative thoughts by writing short, specific, positive statements in the present tense.
4. Repeat them as many times as you can. This helps cement them in your memory and begin to sieve into your unconscious being.
Positive self-talk (also known as ‘affirmations’) is basically positive statements that describe a desired situation. The positive statements are repeated many times, in order to impress upon the subconscious mind and trigger it into positive action. To ensure rapid results, I encourage you to repeat them with attention, conviction, interest and desire.
In this fast-paced society we live in, it is not uncommon to witness people around us trying to optimise every single second of their time. Somebody out walking their pet is, more often than not, also on some audio device, be it their mobile or some mp3 player. Similarly, you might see commuters on buses and trains doing their homework, reading, texting away, playing electronic games, and/or listening to music – often taking in some combination of audio and visual stimuli.
Make use of your time – commuting, exercising, or during non-mind-engaging lapses – to fill your mind with positive thoughts and impressions, and truly optimise your time, instead of just ‘zoning out’.
I encourage you to read any of the books written by Louise L. Hay, a motivational author and the founder of Hay House, a publishing company. She is a leading advocate of the power of affirmations.
I leave you with one of her affirmations, which you can recite mentally while exercising:
“My body is a glorious place to live. I rejoice that I have chosen this particular body because it is perfect for me in this lifetime. It is the perfect size and shape and colour. It serves me so well. I marvel at the miracle that is my body. I choose the healing thoughts that create and maintain my health body and make me feel good. I love and appreciate my beautiful body!” – From Love Your Body by Louise L. Hay
Begin thinking your way to better health, and consequently, a better life today.
©Copyright 2010 by Dr. Martha Lee, therapist in Singapore, . All Rights Reserved.
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2 Comments | Click here to leave a comment.
Comments
But this is another one of those areas which cannot be done alone. It is so important when you commit to making helthy changes in your life that you let other people in your life in on what you are doing and get them on your side in terms of support and encouragement. This is not something that you need to try to do by yourself. When others know the changes that you want to make in your lige most of them are going to be supportive and will be there for you when the going gets tough. When you don’t let them know what you are trying to achieve they may unknowingly sabotage your efforts, and in these cases many of us need all of the help that we can get!
I work for a weekly and as you may understand, we have tough deadlines towards the weekend and most often work in the weekend as well. This often leads me to difficult situations wherein the deadline is real close and a lot of work still needs to be done.
I would not be able to handle any of these situations if it were not for my practice of telling myself that I can do it and kind of encouraging myself that I can do it. This gives me the strength to put in a lot of effort and meet deadlines.
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