Change Your Thinking. Change Your Life.

10 people walk by a house.

The first one looks at the souped up car in the driveway and thinks “hot wheels”.

The second one looks at the well-manicured front-yard and thinks “I need to get my front-yard and my backyard into shape.”

The third looks at the trees lining both sides of the road and thinks “Marianne said this area was farmland when she bought her house here 30 years ago.  And now look at all these trees!  I am very grateful to the folks who planted these trees for the shade they provide when I go on my walks.”

The fourth one looks at the house and thinks “the feng shui of this house is not right.  “I would move the entrance to the right. “

The fifth one notices the “McCain Palin” bumper sticker on the car in the driveway and thinks “another gun-toting right wing nut job.”

The sixth one is startled out of his preoccupations by a dog that barks loudly from inside the house and is annoyed because he nearly jumps out of his skin and it also makes him lose his train of thought.

The seventh one wonders whether real estate values have come down in the area and what this house might be priced at now.

The eighth one wonders about the people who live inside. Do their lives match or contrast the well-manicured exterior and the fancy car?  “Keeping Secrets”, Suzanne Sommer’s best-selling, candid and eminently readable book about her father's alcoholism pops into her mind.

The ninth one hears the dog bark and thinks about her cat.

The tenth person is you.  What would be running through your mind if you were walking that same street, passing that same house, looking at that same car, running your eyes over the same well-manicured lawn and the same car in the driveway with the McCain-Palin bumper sticker?

Life is a state of mind.

We choose what to focus on.

Our vision can be narrow or broad.

We usually pick one element out of any experience and focus exclusively on that.

More often than not, it’s a utilitarian element, a pet peeve or a hobby horse.

Our mind runs in well-worn grooves.

Often determined by our conditioning, or what the French call idée fixe.

So what’s wrong with that?

Because your thoughts are the horse which draw the wagon of your other thoughts and your emotions.

So maybe you need to watch them like hawks.

They are capable of ruining a perfectly normal and good day.

Besides why would you want your mind-life to consist of the same old same old rehearsals and replays?

When there are so many new and wonderful things to think about.

Change your thinking. Change your life.

P.S.  There are a number of different ways you can control your thought processes...meditation, self-hypnosis and prayer are 3 of them. Developing perspective is helpful too.  My post Lessons From My Personal Heroes might help you in this regard. And if your thinking on certain issues is stuck and causing you grief and interpersonal problems, you should also consider reading Feeling Good, which is a self-help tool-kit to correct faulty thinking and the emotions that arise out of faulty thinking. 

Written by Dr Burns, one of the most well-known cognitive psychotherapists and currently an adjunct Clinical Professor Emeritus of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at Stanford University School of Medicine, the book will help you tackle not just unhealthy emotions such as depression, guilt and anger, but self-sabotaging behaviors such as procrastination, perfectionism and seeking validation through other people’s approval, by addressing the root cause of them – faulty thoughts. (Example: just because you believe and follow the Golden Rule, thinking that others should too is faulty thinking, per Dr. Burns).

P.S. 2: Interested in Behavioral Psychology as a field of study? Feeling Good will introduce you to some of the current thinking and practices, as well as giants in the field, including...

Aaron T Beck, who is considered the father of Cognitive Therapy. An emeritus professor in the Department of Psychiatry at the University of Pennsylvania and the director of the Aaron T. Beck Psychopathology Research Center, his current research focuses on cognitive therapy for suicide prevention, dissemination of cognitive therapy into community settings, and cognitive therapy for schizophrenia.

Stewart Agras. He has established a comprehensive eating disorders treatment program at the Stanford School of Psychiatric Medicine where he currently works.

P.S.3:  As always thanks for reading and if changing your thinking in any area of your life has changed your life, I would love to hear about it.