The Art and Science of Positive Thinking

Guess what? Are you aware that you hold the power to changing your thoughts? Do you know that you can change the make up of your brain?

“Yeah right,” you say, “I’ve tried that before… I say affirmations…I focus on positive things…but I keep falling back into negativity.”

 I hear this all the time from clients and emails I receive in response to my blog.

Well…when we understand the process of re-programming the mind, we CAN change our habitual thinking forever! Thanks to the fantastic new science of Neuroplasticity, we now know that the brain adapts itself to situations, which means if we can focus on working certain parts of our brain and focus our thoughts on specific growth pathways we will build the neurological pathways and the circuitry in the brain to create NEW Behavior… how exciting!

So, let’s explore the ART and SCIENCE of learning to think positively.

When I look back at the person I was a decade ago, I realize that I was stuck. Stuck in thought patterns, stuck in behavior patterns and stuck in the way I was reacting to the world around me. I was stressed, rushed, living one day to the next without any awareness of who I was being or what I was wanting along the way- I had no self awareness of creating positivity in my mind, I was sleep (power)walking my way through life- STUCK!

But what I realize most importantly now, is that not only was I stuck, I was addicted.  Addicted to what, you ask? I was addicted to stress! Negativity and stress became my default mode because I had no idea how to break the patterns, I had no idea I was an addict. And when we are addicted to stress, we also become addicted to drama, chaos, negativity, conflict, negative people and most importantly…ADRENALIN. The fact is that when we become addicted to stress, the body becomes addicted to adrenalin and we get stuck!

What we have to understand here is that the body reflects the mind. Every thought we have has a reaction in the body. Every thought causes change in the body chemically and vibrationally and the body gets stuck in a rhythm of reaction.

When we have a negative thought, it creates a negative picture in the unconscious mind. Because the nervous system responds to our visualizations, a negative image then causes a chemical reaction in the body. With that negative thought, the adrenal glands are triggered and the body releases Adrenalin Cortisol to help the body respond by going into flight/fight/freeze mode. The body goes into survival to fight off a perceived threat outside of ourselves. However, every time we have that thought, the body has the same reaction. The levels of Cortisol build up and the body learns that the only way to cope with stress is to release and utilize adrenalin. In fact, over time, we cannot cope or deal with life unless we get an adrenalin hit.

This is aggravated even further with nervous system stimulants like coffee, sugar, alcohol, energy drinks, chocolate and anything else which gives us a pick me up. These stimulants have the same response in the body as the negative thought. Sugar stimulates the adrenal glands, which creates a fight or flight response and we AGAIN release adrenalin Cortisol. We can begin to see that the problem is not so much in the negative thought but in the Cortisol and the reaction that repeats itself over and over.

 So the body gets stuck in this need for adrenalin and we forget that we can respond differently. Another big problem that happens over time is that the adrenals fatigue, releasing less stress hormones, so our ability to cope with life gets less and less.  We get tired, we age, we get ill, we get depressed, we lack energy and focus because the body becomes out of balance.

Not only do we release chemicals, we also release a negative vibration of energy. As we know from the law of attraction, we get what we give, so if we are releasing negativity, that is what we attract and get back…like attracts like.

 So now we can begin to see the science of negative thinking and how we have trained our body and mind to be in a negative mode. So, it then makes sense to say that if we can program ourselves with negativity, we can now program ourselves with positivity. Positivity follows the same, yet more empowering sequence in the body.

When we have a positive thought, that positive thought creates a positive picture in the mind. The visualization of that image now releases positive chemicals and a positive reaction in the body. We release chemicals like Endorphins, the body’s natural painkillers. We release serotonin, the hormone responsible for balancing our emotions and we release Dopamine which makes us more excited and talkative. Every positive thought creates a positive response in the body. Those positive chemicals now promote more energy, more sleep, calmness, slower heart rate, clarity, focus and make us feel good! The body relaxes its muscles and organs and we breathe more effectively.  We begin to flow with life, rather than struggle. We become a lot more aware and in control and therefore life becomes less overwhelming and more manageable.

In this space of positivity we then release a positive vibration, a higher frequency which is why we feel lighter, brighter and more in alignment with our true self. And this is where the magic happens, because when we are in this highest vibration we attract what is ours on a higher level. We attract better people into our lives, better situations and we attract calm instead of chaos. We begin to experience bliss and over time the body then gets addicted to those “good feeling” chemicals and WANTS MORE! So over time we  create new habits of behaviors that are now positive and yield us a greater result on every level of our lives.

So it’s really just about re-patterning and gaining a new perspective and training the mind to see the positive instead of focusing on the negative. In order to truly re-pattern us we now need to activate every sense positively. It’s not just enough to say positive affirmations; we need to experience them on every level of processing. This is why I became so passionate about teaching meditation. 

Meditation allows us to follow the laws of Neuroplasticity, and create an environment of focus for the brain to adapt itself and change. Creating a space of even 10 minutes a day of still, focused positive thoughts will slowly but permanently change the “wiring” of your brain. Within 3 to 6 months you will begin to notice significant changes in your adaptability and emotions. Remember the brain learns through repetition to slowly create the pathways of new behavior so consistency is key! During your meditation time you want to ensure you are activating every sense to ensure the entire body is processing this new experience

Here are the key steps to active meditation practice which ensures the activation of information processing…

CREATE VISUAL IMAGRY

Visualization is the main key to programming the mind and nervous system. Surround yourself with positive images. This means creating a vision board or having visual symbols around yourself. First decide what the emotion is which you want to feel and then find relevant imagery. So for example if I wanted to create the emotion of calmness within, I may see that in my mind as a beautiful soft image of flowing water. I would then have that image next to my bed, on the bathroom window, in my car, on my desk at work or on my phone or computer as a screen saver (for example). This ensures that the image is forever triggering my brain and reminding the mind of calmness.

In addition to having that image externally, it is also important to engage in creative visualizations. This means that you close your eyes and picture the symbols in your mind’s eye. The unconscious mind thinks in pictures and does not know the difference between what is reality and what is not reality so if you are visualizing calmness or a place which makes you feel calm, that emotion will be created in the body.

CREATE AUDITORY TONES

The next most powerful sense is our auditory sense. This is what we hear around us. When we engage in active, Mindful, listening we begin to observe the voice in our head, the inner dialogue and the noise around us. All that “turbulence" and noise within contributes greatly to the stress levels we experience.

In mindful listening we allow ourselves to take control of what we are hearing around us and consciously create the sounds we chose to hear. We filter out what we don’t want and what creates stress and we filter in what creates calmness. This can include music, the tonality of your inner language, listening to people around you, listening to sounds of nature etc.

CREATE A KINESTHETIC (FEELING) EXPERIENCE

The key to getting out of our thoughts is to move beyond the mind and come into the body. We do this by triggering the feeling responses in the body. Feeling our breath, doing a body scan to relax the body, and turning negative anxiety into positive emotions are examples of the feeling experience .

Most importantly here is that we feel positivity in the body, we feel the meditation, we feel our intuition and we feel the senses in our body. As Ian Gawler says, “feeling is healing.”

CREATE AN OLFACTORY EXPERIENCE

The sense of smell is a very powerful emotional trigger as it is linked to our memory centre. Surrounding yourself with positive smells like essential oils, candles, incense, flowers and being in nature trigger a feeling of calmness and positivity within us.

CREATE A GUSTATORY EXPERIECNE

Imagining the tastes of what makes you feel good also triggers this sense. This also includes eating well and allow positive tastes into the body.

CREATE THE AUDITORY DIGITAL LANGUAGE

This is a sixth sense in the body which is not often mentioned. This refers to our self processing and making sense of the world. This includes positive affirmations and the language we use internally. It also refers to the ability to reframe (change the meaning of) a negative experience and turning it into a positive.  The meaning we attach to something determines our reality.

So these 6 senses help you create the biochemistry of positivity and help you re-program your body to create positive experiences of joy rather then stress.

Dr. Wayne Dyer puts it best when he says…

YOU ARE ONLY ONE THOUGHT AWAY FROM CHANGING YOUR LIFE!

 Enjoy!

To your truth and freedom with lots of love,

Cheryne Blom

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