It Is Not Hard To Let Go of Negative Thoughts

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Once again I was replying to a comment and I found a post coming on so here it is. My friend Judy Evans commenting on my latest post It's All About Perspective left this comment ...I can understand how negative thoughts eventually consume us. It's not always easy to let them go though. So here I go and as usual I want to give you an example of how easy it is to let go of negative thoughts in a way that I think you might be able to identify with, and maybe have a smile at my expense then hopefully you will see clearly that you can let go in an instant. Plus in reality it is easier to let the negative thoughts and feelings go than it is to hold on to them. But that is not how we feel, instead we feel we can't and the story we tell ourselves in our mind will often confirm this feeling of we can't. When we try to put those negative thoughts and feelings out of our mind and try not to think about them ironically it ends up with us paying attention to the very thing that we are trying not to think about. So we can easily think more about them just because we are trying not to, it can then feel like there is no way we can do it. We very closely identify with our thoughts and feelings as though our thoughts and feelings are us rather than they are just the feelings and thoughts that we have. If we are not aware that we are not our thoughts and feelings, those thoughts and feelings will rule us, and we will be the victim of those thoughts and feelings. Every thought that floats through our mind in not ours, we just have to watch enough TV or hear enough criticism and we will soon see how people and things outside of us influence our thoughts. Well I said I was going to give you an example of how I turned off a stream of negative thoughts, words deeds and feelings mid-flow instantaneously. My husband and I had recently moved to a new town I had a new baby and another just a year old, just an aside don't believe the old wives tale that you can't get pregnant while you are breast feeding, now back to my tale. We had more month than money, my husband and I were physically frazzled coping with the stress of a new home, new baby, and so we were feeling at the end of our tethers most of the time. We had just had a new carpet laid, which we really couldn't afford and my husband was up a ladder painting the walls with emulsion. I can't remember what we were arguing about but we were in full swing, the baby was crying, when the door bell went, the bell was very loud and it made my hubby jump, and he knocked the paint tin off the ladder onto our brand new wool carpet. Could this day get any worse. I answered the front door I was about to blow my lid, and there stood the Priest making a visit to his new parishioners. The shock of seeing him stood there brought my focus off everything, I smiled sweetly and invited him calling to my husband telling him that father Whatisname is here (that is not his name I can't remember what it was, I didn't stay at that church long). I took father Whatisname into the lounge where my husband was busy trying to scrape the spilt emulsion paint off the new carpet. The priest said I hope I've not come at a bad time, and my hubby smiled at him and said “No not at all father please come in sit down” The Priest stayed for about half an hour, we had a pleasant chat with him and by the time he left so had all thoughts and feelings of returning to the fight that was halted in mid-flow. In fact after the Priest had gone my hubby and I fell about laughing at the absurdity of it all. So if I was able to switch thoughts, feelings and focus when I saw the priest standing at the door, who was in charge, those thoughts and feelings or me? Yes I was in charge so I obviously was not those thoughts and feelings, I just had them, and when I changed them to something else I had those thoughts and feelings instead. So the trick is not to try not to have them, but instead, choose to have some other ones instead. Like I said in an earlier post where your attention goes your energy flows.