Plutarch (46-120 A.D.) wrote, “Perseverance is more prevailing than violence; and many things which cannot be overcome when they are together yield themselves up when taken little by little.“
So how are you faring with the challenge of shifting your mental conversation to a brighter, more positive one than it has been in the past?
Are you catching negativity before you sense it in your mood or your words or even in your body?
If you are, good for you! That is progress!
I read an idea recently about choosing one area of your life that you usually think negatively about, and starting with a short amount of time, create a “negative-free zone” around that one topic. So you might decide that for two minutes every hour or every morning and night or every day, you are going to consciously choose to think positively about that topic for two minutes. If this amount of time seems too difficult, pray for strength and ability! We have to start somewhere. And surely, if there is any battle that God would want to help us win, it is this one. If you have the faith, call on angels to assist you! Those may be the ones you live beside in your family or those unseen.
When you have crossed that hurdle of two minutes of peace, you can make the time a bit longer or more frequent. As the days go by, you can eventually create a boundary that you will no longer think negatively about that subject at all.
Feel good? What a relief that will be right?
After that success, you can branch out into other topics that have been plaguing your mind with down and depressing thoughts, and cut them out little by little until your positive mindset is flowing out to every topic of conversation you are having with yourself! Wow!
What happens is nothing short of miraculous.
It’s as if a dam inside gradually let’s go, little by little and then breaks. The places of stuck, sticky, dark and demeaning energy find their way out. They loosen and let go and you are no longer under their influence. You have chosen, step by step, thought by thought, to banish them from you. Truly, they were never worthy of you at all!
This process opens up new space! Space that is free and clear and just the right fertile soil for the light and airy, sweet and satisfying thoughts and their attendant emotions and feelings to come flowing into their place with their healing and sanctifying power.
Chains fall off. Insecurity slips away. Confidence and humility begin to reign. {Yes, they are really companions!}
All this comes into being by making just one, small and simple, yet intentional change. Laying down one small boundary, “I will not allow myself to think negatively for two minutes about ___________.”
The truth is, all real growth happens in minute and subtle ways, and every big change is just choosing small bits of light over darkness for a period of time. And with God’s help, sometimes that time-frame is far less than we think it will be!
I offer you my love and my heartfelt appreciation for all of the good you desire and all of the miracles you are putting into motion every single day. You care and you love and you build and you bless and you serve and you sacrifice; and that makes all the difference.
Sincerely,
Jacque