Thoughts are powerful,
And we know that,
But we tend to underestimate how important they are in shaping our experience in life.
Our thoughts become our beliefs,
And our beliefs inform the choices we make.
What happens though over time is that that becomes who you are,
It becomes the way you think,
And before you know it,
You really can't separate your negative thoughts from what is reality or what is truth.
Every single one of us right now is underestimating what we are.
No matter how much you've accomplished,
No matter how much you're accomplishing,
The difference,
The distance between who you are now and what you have the ability to be is beyond comprehension.
I think that our challenge and I guess our hope for ourselves or our goal should be to constantly have an idea of what our perfected self looks like,
Because if you can't see it,
You can't actualize it.
Welcome to Spiritually Hungry,
Episode 58.
Wow,
Special summer editions.
Yes,
We're going to do a few special editions this summer so that you can still have time to travel,
To sunbathe.
And so can we.
There you go.
So,
I think that some of the things we want to talk about are just important ways to be mindful of your headspace and consciousness,
Especially during summer when maybe we're living a less structured or scheduled.
If we're blessed to have that free time.
Those are our resources.
So,
I think we'll offer five steps to start thinking more positively.
I know you'd like three steps usually,
But we're going to do five today.
Five is a lot,
But we'll try five.
So I often talk about this and so do you in terms of consciousness,
Right?
Because your father always taught consciousness is everything.
Thought creates our reality.
So thoughts are powerful and we know that,
But we tend to underestimate how important they are in shaping our experience in life.
And our life.
Exactly.
And our experience of it.
Our thoughts become our beliefs and our beliefs inform the choices we make.
So we know when something's wrong with our body,
If we have a toothache or a pulled muscle,
It requires attention.
I don't think that mental health gets the attention that it needs.
And really the stability,
The health,
Right?
We're talking about somebody who didn't have kind of other issues or precondition to something else,
But we tend to let our thoughts veer to the negative,
Mostly about ourselves.
Well,
And we've spoken about this before.
We are actually hardwired to have a negative bias.
Correct.
So what happens though over time is that that becomes who you are.
It becomes the way you think.
And before you know it,
You really can't separate your negative thoughts from what is reality or what is truth.
And when it comes to our mind,
Right,
We choose to suffer in silence.
I think a lot of people have shame around what they feel or what they think,
Or they shouldn't have this kind of thought.
And it's riddled kind of in that self-judgment.
So people just really suffer.
They think there's no way out.
And we may not even recognize that we're suffering at all because negative thoughts are sneaky and they can work their way without us even realizing it.
So I love Doug and Melissa products.
They make children's toys.
It's in fact,
I think a $500 million empire at this point.
She has six kids and she really started the business.
She's a stay at home mom and she really liked to create this kind of,
It's like based on life things that we use,
Like brooms and vacuums and it's like great play,
But like made of wood.
I've just always liked it.
And it was really interesting when I discovered that she actually suffered from major depression her entire life.
In fact,
At three years old,
She had an overwhelming sense of powerlessness.
This is what she's recalling at three.
At five,
She wrote about how painful it was to be alive.
And she used to write on little pieces of tissue and stick it under her mattress,
These poems,
And she ended up printing it later.
They're really good,
Very dark,
But it's really intriguing that it's a young age.
She knew that she had this issue,
But she suffered in silence.
Eventually she ended up not being silent about it anymore,
Publishing her poetry and now her company and her life is really working for her.
She's been married to the same person.
Their relationships working.
Is this Doug her husband?
Yeah,
I'm pretty sure that would be his name,
But I am not sure.
No,
It was just Melissa and Doug.
Yeah,
Melissa and Doug,
They started together,
But I hope his name is Doug,
In fact.
I'm pretty sure it is.
But the point is,
Is that she took steps to really get out of that darkness and she got the help she needed.
She saw professionals,
But she also believed that she needs to find a way to exist because she always felt different than everybody else.
She said that she felt like everybody was moving forward while she was going backwards.
I also heard a podcast recently where a celebrity guest,
Who was it?
I think it was Seth Rogen and he was talking about mental health.
I think he was really talking about the importance of smoking pot and marijuana and that helps his mental- The importance?
Probably the benefits for some people.
For him,
Right?
But that helps him with his mental state.
But he made the point also that I'm making is that not enough attention goes to the health of our brain and our thinking and our thoughts.
There's five steps as I've identified them,
But maybe you have different ones or maybe you just want to jump in and- Not in a short summer podcast,
But I'll follow your lead.
The first is know that you can do anything with the help of the creator,
With the help of something higher.
Every one of us has the ability to connect with our source.
This means that there's nothing we can't do or manifest.
When we're faced with the challenge,
Know that you have the entire force of creation behind you helping you and guiding you.
I think that's also tapped into the idea of appreciating your greatness because it's where you've come from.
Right.
I think the two opposite statements are true.
I alone can do very little.
I strongly believe that.
Meaning our ego would like us to think that we are all powerful,
But in reality that is certainly not true.
There's very little that we can do on our own,
But one of the great gifts in life is that there are both people,
But more importantly,
As you said,
A creative force that we can tap into.
And there are ways to do it,
But it begins with consciousness,
With the understanding that it actually exists there.
And then it's interesting because a lot of people speak about the concept of flow and we spoke about it in the last two podcasts,
But flow is when you are really in line,
In tune with nature,
With the light of the creator.
And I know for me,
It's one of the greatest inspirations,
Certainly in times when things are overwhelming or difficult or challenging,
To know that I and you,
Every one of us,
Has the ability to exponentially grow our power,
Our strength,
Our ability by simply knowing that this creative force of the universe,
We call it the creator,
You can call it nature,
Is there and available for us to tap into,
But it begins with consciousness.
But if you do that,
If you have that consciousness and you tap into that force,
There's nothing that I can't do.
There's nothing that can overwhelm me.
The second is understand you're worthy and powerful.
Many of our negative thoughts are about ourselves.
That's the truth.
And then of course,
From that space,
You might as well have negative thoughts about other people because that's the realm in which you're living and thinking.
We tend to be our own harshest critics.
Some of these thoughts begin in our childhood,
Which I often tell people I work with,
Right?
But we continue to give them energy as we become adults.
And that's where we have free will.
That's where we can actually change,
Reshape,
Rethink how we view life,
Change our actual belief systems because usually they're not even ours,
Right?
They're either formed from survival,
Right?
You're maybe in an abusive home and you're going to think whatever you can just to get through that.
Or it's the belief of usually our parents and if they grew up in a hard life,
It's usually their parents and then that gets passed on from generation to generation.
Or really,
Or people we're around,
Right?
We are unfortunately very impacted.
By our environment.
Certainly at younger ages,
But really throughout our lives,
What people are thinking and saying about us.
Right.
This idea is something that I think is something that is not enough to know or to hear.
Every single one of us right now is underestimating what we are.
No matter how much you've accomplished,
No matter how much you're accomplishing,
The difference,
The distance between who you are now and what you have the ability to be is beyond comprehension.
And I find that very inspiring because rather than,
Again,
Either reiterating in our own mind the negative statements,
Comments,
Thoughts that we heard,
Let's say from parents growing up or from anywhere,
This inner dialogue of repeated a thousand times a day,
My potential,
My essence is tremendously beyond anything that I've accomplished.
Even those of us who have a positive self-image,
Even those of us who are accomplishing,
I think it's so exciting to know that our potential far exceeds exponentially anything accomplished so far,
Anything understood so far about ourselves.
And one of the biggest mistakes we make in life is not appreciating ourselves enough.
Well,
I think it's tied to most of us believe that we're the last bad thing we did.
So that's a great example of a false belief system,
Right?
That we maybe developed as a child because that was what was reinforced at home.
You did this,
You're a bad girl.
You did that,
You're a good girl.
And if you tend to act out more than others,
It's just that's the child you were and you hear you're bad,
You're bad over and again,
You really start to believe that you are innately bad,
Right?
So while there's areas we all need to grow and to change,
We might identify those.
Nothing will take away from the perfection of our soul.
And we've talked about this too.
It's not about being perfect.
You all know I hate that word,
But it's about,
Again,
If we go back to number one,
Going back to the source,
Right?
To the creator,
You want to go back to the full creation of you and your totality,
There is a perfection that does exist.
It's kind of like if somebody was going to build a house,
Right?
They decide where the kitchen's going to be,
How many stories it's going to be,
How high the ceiling,
They have the whole layout,
Right?
From the kitchen,
You're going to have a view of here,
From the bathtub,
You're going to see this and that.
And then that's the view of it,
Right?
Now in the perfected house,
It's complete and it's as you want.
But then when you go into building in with the architect,
The pitch is too high,
This is measured too shortly,
That didn't work out as well,
We have to redo this or that.
Of course,
It's a process of what you have to work through,
But the vision,
The inception of it was perfect and still is,
Right?
And through process,
Through life,
If you use that analogy,
We're going to go through times as we're growing,
Just as a home is being built,
Where it's very far from the view or the vision that you had from it.
I think that our challenge and I guess our hope for ourselves or our goal should be to constantly have an idea of what our perfected self looks like.
Because if you can't see it,
You can't actualize it.
To be able to actually view it.
And so even if you did a really bad thing that day,
You slipped up or you lost your temper or you reacted or whatever it was,
First,
I fundamentally believe that you can restart your day at any time.
But also,
I think it's easier when you go back and you constantly look and remember or write or rewrite,
What is the perfected version of you look like?
Or at least to know that nothing I ever do ever diminishes what I am,
My essence.
Essence can't be changed.
Essence can't be damaged.
But my point is some people don't know what that is,
Right?
Well,
And again,
By the way,
I don't know what it is,
Right?
Because I have some inkling of it.
But you know it's good.
I know it's amazing.
But some people don't.
Oh,
That.
Yes.
Yes.
That for sure.
But my point is,
It's not that you can even have a perfect vision of how awesome you are,
Right?
But what you can do is know that I am amazing and pure and perfect.
No matter what I did today,
Yesterday or tomorrow,
Who I am doesn't change.
And even different,
Even though that's a beautiful analogy with the building of the house,
You once used the analogy,
I think it was- You're picking a different analogy.
Michelangelo,
Right?
Because where he was asked how he creates his beautiful sculptures,
Right?
And he would often say,
I'm not really creating the,
Say,
The David or.
.
.
But what I'm doing is removing all the parts that aren't the David.
And what was actually there becomes revealed.
And I think that's the understanding that whatever we go through in life is the process of either covering or hopefully uncovering what I am.
But what I am,
From the second I was born and even before that,
And no matter what else I do,
That beautiful,
Perfect,
Powerful essence,
Always there,
Always there.
The work of life is to do what I can to allow that powerful light potential to be revealed to the world,
Even to myself.
Yes.
Is that two or three?
I forgot.
That's two.
Wow.
Three is nip negative thoughts in the bud and work to identify limiting beliefs and stories.
So how many negative thoughts do you have throughout the day?
You're not going to be,
It's not a fair gauge if you answer that question.
I'd say most people,
I had to guess,
Probably have 15.
I think it very much depends on the person.
And I think also the day.
Well,
You're going to guess.
Exactly.
No,
I was going to say it could be hundreds,
Right?
It could be tens,
It could be hundreds.
I think it depends on the day.
Yeah,
I guess you're right.
It depends on what's happening in life.
And most of the time we don't even notice them,
Right?
They just come through and go right back out and they aren't distracted by something else.
Then the next negative thought and then that's just the loop.
So I guess you're right,
Really.
These smaller pre-thoughts accumulate and become larger dominant thoughts over time.
And that's the danger here.
And I think this is a really powerful idea because we don't think as those thoughts as being that big of a deal,
They're not really impacting our lives.
We don't understand the actually are becoming like if you have a layer and then another layer and then another layer and then another layer.
So all those pre-thoughts,
If you have one or two or three,
Not a big deal.
If you keep doing that time and time and time again,
Imagine you're Xeroxing a paper and you have now hundreds of sheets of paper,
If those represent thoughts,
You're actually in pretty big trouble.
Right.
Because I would use the example of plaque,
Right?
Or you're hardening a reality.
Every one of those thoughts is sort of another level.
That makes it almost impossible to change.
You're adorable.
I love how you change.
I said layer,
You said level.
We're saying the same thing.
Yes.
What were you going to say?
I like that you find me adorable.
Even when you're not in your bunny outfit.
Yes,
Even not that often,
But every once in a while.
There's a capitalistic concept that anything that is a desire in a previous state becomes a rule in a lower state.
Meaning that.
.
.
Say that again.
Everything that is a desire,
A choice in one state becomes a rule,
An unbreakable rule in the next state,
In the next phase.
So state by meaning levels.
Yes,
A person state.
The point is when you are young or even as we're building these levels,
Hardening our consciousness in some ways,
There's a certain point of no return almost.
Where that belief of myself becomes so predominant,
So strong because it has been reinforced so often,
It almost becomes beyond my ability to change it.
I think what you're talking about is so important.
The fact that most people don't spend enough time,
Not just thinking about their thoughts,
But my beliefs about myself,
Especially the negative ones,
Where do they come from?
What are the other thoughts that reinforce that negative story that I've brought into?
The sooner we can attack that at its root,
The more possible it is for us to really change,
And stories change,
And I believe in them for changing our lives.
If you're not actively,
Not just thinking about your thoughts,
But really think about the bigger life,
I'm a failure.
People think like that about themselves or I'm stupid.
Where did that come from?
I'm damaged,
I'm dirty.
I mean,
It's too long.
And really,
We have to,
And this is,
We say,
I was going to say,
You need to have,
For example,
When you're 20 or 30,
If you've had a person that say,
Maybe their parents weren't positive,
Didn't use positive words,
Or their friends,
And now they've heard 100,
000 times,
Let's say you're stupid,
Right?
You need to hear at least internally to yourself 100,
000 times,
If not more,
I'm not.
Find out where it started and do the intense,
Consistent work of uprooting those thoughts.
What's so interesting as you're speaking is I really think it's important to give examples to these so people,
Our listeners can access their own.
Usually when we hear somebody else's story,
It's like,
Oh yeah,
I get it.
I have that issue.
But it reminds me,
There's two things I want to say.
One,
This week,
Abigail,
Our youngest daughter,
Came home from camp and she was sharing that there was a bully and we're talking about how you handle bullies and what's the point of them and what do they respond to and what's the opportunity for you.
So Abigail is already learning to advocate for herself at a young age.
And there was another friend that was also being bullied.
And so this child that was the bully,
But now I'm really proud to say like five days later,
Abigail and this girl are friends now.
So she was able to navigate that very well.
But this other girl,
So the bully said to Abigail and her friend,
They're supposed to do something together,
The three of them.
And she said,
No,
I'm going to pick the two of you.
This is taking too long,
This process,
And just one of you will be my partner.
And then the girl,
The other friend said,
You know,
Abigail,
I know she's going to choose you because I'm fat.
Now this child is eight years old.
And the devastation in hearing that is not just because this child's in pain today,
But if she doesn't speak about it,
This is the pre-thought and she's probably not going to talk to an adult about it or her parents about it or do something about it now.
She has that pre-thought every day until she's 28 or 20.
How is she going to feel then?
And that's really where the pain,
Like I'm thinking,
Should I go talk to the,
How can I help?
But then it's a fine line.
I don't know if the parents,
Right?
So I think that's a really powerful example of why it's important though,
Even if you're now,
Let's say you were that eight year old and now you're an adult,
You can still go back and change that thought and what it means to really love yourself and accept yourself.
And the other thing that came to mind is again,
Abigail,
She,
Today in camp,
The girls,
A bunch of them are saying,
You know,
Who likes to read here?
Are you good at reading?
And two girls raised their hand saying they're not good.
And so they asked Abigail,
You know,
Are you good at reading?
And she said,
You know,
I like to read and she's like,
Yeah,
I'm good at it,
But I have dyslexia.
So I read differently and I just learned a different way.
Now- I think the exact quote was I'm not bad at reading.
I have dyslexia.
Exactly.
That's what it was.
And I've thought,
I mean,
We've talked a lot about this because Abigail and I,
You know,
We've written some books about,
You know,
It's in the works of dyslexia and other superpowers that we have as humans.
But I thought that was so powerful that she,
Right,
Was able to take something that initially when she was struggling and she got the diagnosis or whatever you want to call it,
Because I don't like that word,
That it was dyslexia.
She now sees it really as,
You know,
It's just different and I'm good at everything.
I'm just different in this way.
And I think that those are two examples,
Right,
Of where most of us start or still are and where we can go to with it.
So it's really important to catch those pre-thoughts.
Again,
They're fleeting,
But we can catch them.
So I was going to,
And this is still the example,
I think for all of us,
Right,
If again,
You look in the mirror and every day you're like,
I don't like the way my pants fit.
Is it a bad damaging thought in that day?
Not necessarily,
But if you have that thought every single day,
Eventually the thought is I'm fat,
I'm ugly,
People don't find me attractive,
I'm not worthy of love.
And that's really what the story ends up looking like.
You know,
I think it's a really good opportunity to kind of check ourselves.
Okay.
So again,
I want to just give some little tools on how people can address this and kind of turn it around.
So we can rewrite the unproductive stories that you tell yourself by,
For example,
If you have the thought that you were only having fun at the party because you were drunk,
Then that could lead to alcoholism.
But I mean,
Ideally,
Again,
If you started to tell yourself lies and you believe them to be truths,
That's going to change the way you live your life.
So I think it's a really good opportunity for everybody,
Our listeners,
Just to stop and ask themselves,
What are the thoughts?
Like,
What are five thoughts that you had today or 10 thoughts that you had today that were negative about yourself and about the world we live in or about people?
I often think it's not good to have,
Like,
Even just to say something negative about other people because negative words,
Negative thoughts,
They are an energy that remains with us if they extend from us,
If they come from us.
And also strengthen your yes brain.
So when you're in the yes brain state,
You're receptive and you're open.
You feel at peace and you're able to connect to others.
On the other hand,
The no brain state makes you feel reactive,
Agitated and disconnected from others.
The no brain state also prevents you from connecting to your own internal experience,
Making you less self-aware and able to communicate your needs,
Thoughts and desires.
So it's just a simple shift.
Okay.
So number four,
Find the opportunity and the obstacle.
Positive thinking doesn't remove the obstacles from our lives,
But it changes the way we feel when we go through them.
Your reaction,
Not the problem is your real issue.
And I think that you can look at any scenario if you're willing to be honest with yourself,
That that's usually what it comes down to.
Yeah.
And there's actually a deeper spiritual concept here.
And again,
Without going too deep,
The idea that there's two forces in this world,
They're called judgment and mercy.
And when something,
A challenge happens,
Something that is difficult,
That is what we call judgment.
It's coming from a place that does not feel merciful.
How do you turn judgment into mercy?
How do you transform a situation that seems to be on its face a difficult,
Challenging,
To whatever degree?
So the capitalists teach that when you find a point of mercy in the judgment,
That acknowledgement,
That consciousness has the power to transform the entire situation from being one of judgment or negativity to a positive one.
So I know a friend of ours had this happen.
They come home one day and the house is flooded.
And the first thing is,
Oh my God,
This is thousands of dollars of damage.
What's going to be,
How are we going to pay for this and so on and so forth.
And then sometimes they start to think about it.
Okay,
Well there's insurance and actually we can actually make it even look nicer than it did and so on and so forth.
So rather than just the initial,
Oh my God,
What a chaos we have in our lives.
Our house now has so much damage to it.
You say,
Oh wow,
There's a blessing here.
People call it the silver lining.
Actually this can be,
Our house can wind up being nicer and so on.
You can start finding.
And that's the point.
The idea is that that consciousness,
Finding the point of mercy,
Call it the silver lining within the judgment,
Not only is it a very positive mental attitude to have,
It actually has the power to transform the situation completely.
So it's a very,
Very important,
Again,
Fundamental spiritual concept.
Whenever you're experiencing judgment,
Whenever you're experiencing a chaos,
Challenge,
Endeavor to find the point of mercy because that thought and focus can transform the entire situation into a positive one.
Powerful.
And number five,
Practice,
Practice,
Practice.
Make commitment to changing your thoughts of daily practice because it's not something that you can kind of do and,
Oh,
I just was negative this day and tomorrow I'm going to be positive.
If you really want things to shift,
You need to put in the work.
And I love,
I've talked about Malcolm Gladwell's book,
10,
000 Hours to be Great at Anything Takes 10,
000 Hours,
Which equates to 10 years.
So if you want to be somebody who's thinking really positively 10 years from now and you're not reacting constantly to the whims of the universe,
Then this is what it takes.
And I would add to that that it's not just that to be good at anything,
It's going to take 10,
000 hours.
You have to understand you're also fighting against maybe some historical baggage.
Stories your parents told you that weren't positive,
Stories your siblings might've told you,
Stories your friends might've told you,
Stories you might've told yourself.
It's not that we are in a state of equilibrium and now we choose to have positive thoughts and negative thoughts.
Most of us have taken on upon ourselves,
Either parents,
Friends,
Or ourselves throughout our lives,
However long we've lived,
This baggage of negative thoughts.
So we have to fight that,
Number one.
Number two,
We are hardwired as we've said to have a negativity bias.
So it is not as easy as,
Okay,
I'm going to choose to be positive today.
I'm going to choose to have positive thoughts today.
No,
It's a fight.
It's a battle.
It's a battle against all of my historical negative thoughts.
And it's also a battle against my innate nature to see things as negative.
So this focus,
Like you said,
Practice,
Practice,
Practice.
One of the most important things that we must do every single day is to fight this battle of positive thoughts.
And to take the time to think about it,
I think that's one of the biggest,
Biggest problems.
Most of us don't even ask ourselves the question.
Today,
This week,
How many negative thoughts did I have?
Where did they come from?
Why do I have them?
What can I do to fight them?
This internal dialogue,
Personal dialogue must be a consistent and constant part of our lives if we are to get to a state where our thoughts are more positive than negative and more importantly,
And therefore how our life manifests becomes more positive than negative.
There's a section in the Zohar that says,
Man's thought is the beginning of everything.
Ways and paths emanate from that thought that turn his ways in the world and in the world to come,
In this world and in the world to come.
So according to Kabbalah,
Our thoughts plant a seed for everything we experience in life.
And it's a beautiful way of saying it.
And I think for those of us who need a little bit more impetus,
Think about aging because honestly that does age people.
There's something called telomeres.
When I discovered this a couple of years ago,
It really actually motivated me to just be more positive in general and less stressed.
Like I'm just not going to stress about anything.
So it's the repeating segments of non-coding DNA that exist at the ends of our chromosomes.
And they do a few important things,
Like making sure our genetic material doesn't unravel.
And most importantly,
They shorten with each cell division determining how fast that cell ages.
That's what telomeres do.
It's really fascinating.
So when they become too short,
They stop dividing altogether.
Not only that,
They're listening to you.
They're listening to the thoughts you think,
The way you eat,
How you feel about what you eat and every other thing you do for that matter.
Isn't that crazy?
Based on your thinking,
You either shorten them or lengthen them.
A shift from negative thinking to positive thinking can quite literally halt your aging process.
Right.
And certainly extend your life or.
.
.
Well,
Yeah.
If we needed more impetus to fight the battle of positive thoughts,
Right?
And actually,
As you said,
And I think it's so important to realize,
It is one of the secrets of longevity.
So who doesn't want to live longer,
A day longer,
A year longer?
And one of the most powerful ways that we can impact that is through our thoughts,
Positive thoughts.
Yes.
So we hope you are enjoying this special summer edition of Spiritually Hungry.
I don't think it was as short as we intended.
No,
It is not as short as we intended.
It's true.
But maybe next episode will be a little bit shorter,
But very important topics.
And we hope we are your companion wherever your summer takes you and that you enjoyed listening to this podcast as much as we enjoyed recording it.
Bye.
