Excerpts from "New Book"
First Change Your Mind
If you are not happy with your life I can guarantee that somewhere along the way you have both said and thought the wrong things concerning yourself. Stay with me a little while and I will show you where I am coming from. People often wonder why their lives are not meeting up to their expectations. Instead of looking in, they look outside themselves for the culprit.
I heard a person say that you have to go within or do without. At first I didn’t agree with this statement because there are extenuating circumstance and outside influences that happen in people’s lives everyday. These circumstances can shape a person’s environment, perception, and ability to achieve that place called THERE.
But the more I pondered this saying I began to understand the validity of it. We have the power to shape our world. We are the stewards of our lives and what we do with it is all on us. We have been granted a great gift called LIFE and we have been commissioned to make it fruitful and to multiply.
Our responsibility to make our lives count for something is mind blowing. We can’t look to others to fulfill our role. We have to step up to the plate and take ownership in creating an environment that is conducive to growth and change. This is the only life we have and what we do with it determines the quality of life we live.
With that being said, your mind plays a fundamental role in how YOU “Frame Your World”, you are the only one that can build it, because you know what you want and where you want to go and this is the point, your mind is your guide, it controls the whole process and it's stronger than any other tool you can have.
All of our feelings, beliefs and knowledge are based on our internal thoughts, both conscious and subconscious. We are in control, whether we know it or not. We can be positive or negative, victorious or defeated, over comers or victims, achievers or losers, filled with faith or fearful.
The first step in changing our attitudes is to change our inner conversations. Once we do that we can change our minds. If you are using your mind in the right way you'll get good results and you'll have a high percent to be successful in life.
When you radically alter your thoughts, you will be astonished at the rapid transformation it will affect in the material and spiritual conditions of your life. We imagine that thoughts can be kept secret, but it cannot. It rapidly crystallizes into habit, and then habit solidifies into circumstances.
The title of the book is YOU Frame Your World By The Words YOU say, Change Your Words, Change Your Life. Well you can’t change your words until you change your thoughts. You speak what you think. It is as simple as that.
You cannot directly choose your circumstances, those things are outside of you. However you can choose your thoughts, and so indirectly, yet surely, shape your circumstances. What ever train of thought you persist in, be it good or bad, cannot fail to produce its results on the character and circumstances.
James Alston in his book As a Man Thinketh had this to say concerning thoughts.
“A man's mind may be likened to a garden, which may be intelligently cultivated or allowed to run wild; but whether cultivated or neglected, it must, and will bring forth. If no useful seeds are put into it, then an abundance of useless weed-seeds will fall therein, and will continue to produce their kind.
Just as a gardener cultivates his plot, keeping it free from weeds, and growing the flowers and fruits which he requires so may a man tend the garden of his mind, weeding out all the wrong, useless and impure thoughts, and cultivating toward perfection the flowers and fruits of right, useful and pure thoughts. By pursuing this process, a man sooner or later discovers that he is the master-gardener of his soul, the director of his life. He also reveals, within himself, the flaws of thought, and understands, with ever-increasing accuracy, how the thought-forces and mind elements operate in the shaping of character, circumstances, and destiny.
Thought and character are one, and as character can only manifest and discover itself through environment and circumstance, the outer conditions of a person's life will always be found to be harmoniously related to his inner state. This does not mean that a man's circumstances at any given time are an indication of his entire character, but that those circumstances are so intimately connected with some vital thought-element within himself that, for the time being, they are indispensable to his development.
Every man is where he is by the law of his being; the thoughts which he has built into his character have brought him there, and in the arrangement of his life there is no element of chance, but all is the result of a law which cannot err. This is just as true of those who feel "out of harmony" with their surroundings as of those who are contented with them.
Wow Mr. Alston is essentially saying in a nut shell that you, therefore, as the master of thought, is the maker of yourself, the shaper and author of your environment. You create the environment you are surrounded by, with your thoughts. Paul said in the book he wrote to the Romans in the 12th chapter that they were not to be conformed to the world but needed to be transformed by the renewing of their minds. That they may prove what was the good and acceptable will of God for their lives.
You may ask what do we need to be renewed from? The thought patterns of the world that Paul is describing are the beliefs and interpretations that have been accumulated from our life. Influences of others in our lives have left irreversible impressions on us and shaped the way we think. The science of cognitive psychology has proven through years of research on hundreds of thousands of people, adults and children, is that we are not aware of most of what we are thinking.
Most of the time we can not even recall the thought or belief that have had a profound effect on the way we feel and behave. We know that how you think determines how you feel. If you have no idea of what you think then there is a lot of your experience that you are powerless over. Negative and overwhelming feelings just seem to happen to you.
Hal Lindsey points out that "to renew" means to exchange one thing for another. In other words, when we put off and put on, we're exchanging our thinking for God's. If we're not willing to yield, set aside and relinquish our own thoughts, however, then our thinking process will never be renewed and our lives will never be transformed.
There are many reasons why mind renewal is critical. God wants us to have His thoughts, His viewpoint in every situation. He wants us to have the supernatural ability to discern everything that happens to us from His vantage point and His perspective, and not get weighed down by our own negative thoughts and feelings or by what we can see going on. If we can see from His perspective, then we'll be able to soar above our circumstances, our problems, and our trials and not get buried under them.
What are His thoughts and views? In the Book it says “that I wish above All things that you prosper and be in good health even as your soul prospers.” Also I know the thoughts that I think towards you. Thoughts of peace and not of evil, to give you a future and a hope. Jer 29:11.
The road to mind renewal consist of monitoring what you put into your mind. What kind of music do you listen to? Are the TV shows you are watching healthy for you? What do you read? Are the internet sites you frequent consistent with your desire to have spiritually healthy thoughts? Are you dwelling on past hurts and negative words? When we fill our minds with messages that are ‘unhealthy,’ by what we read and listen to, it influences what we will think about. According to Warren Wiersbe, knowing God and His truths better is the first key in living an abundant, and healthy life.
So what did you learn in this chapter? Man is literally what he thinks about. If your life isn't going in the direction you'd like, you have no further to look for causes than in your own mind. While this may be hard to accept at first, the realization of it gives you tremendous power for life change.
The thoughts that we accept with our conscious mind are passed along to the subconscious mind and are then expressed through the body. It is through this that we see everything and attract that which we experience.
We have the ability to choose our thoughts. We have the ability to shape our world. Like I said earlier in this chapter, the phrase to “go within or do without” was difficult for me to accept at first. After studying the Bible and many books on this subject , I could clearly see it was true. There are things that happened in my life that was not outside of me. I had control. It’s how I used that control that determined my outcome.
As I began to learn how to change my thoughts I understood that I needed to view things differently. And so it is with us all. Our life is the sum total of our thoughts. Nothing more or nothing less.
Life isn't supposed to be a struggle. Life is supposed to be abundant in all ways. Nature doesn’t toil. It just is, and produces after its own kind. Everything is in its proper place. Nature and life are ostentatiously abundant, largely abundant in all ways. Then why are we all not all living abundantly? Why do we struggle? What is holding us back?
The good news is that we can all change right now. Begin to follow your passion and move toward any good that you desire. NOW! You don't have to wait. Begin today to visualize and imagine what you want your life to be then move in that direction. Tell yourself that you can both have all and do all that is on your heart to do. Every time negative thoughts crop up that are not conducive to growth and change in your life pull them down. Replace these thoughts with things that are good, lovely and of a good report.
Think positive and expect only favorable results and situations, even if your current circumstances are not as you wish them to be. In time, your mental attitude will affect your life and circumstances and change them accordingly.
Before starting with any plan or action, visualize clearly in your mind its successful outcome. If you visualize with concentration and faith, you will be amazed at the results.
In order to make right thinking yield results, you need to develop a positive attitude toward life, expect a successful outcome of whatever you do, but also take any necessary actions to ensure your success.
Effective and successful thinking that brings about a change is much more than just repeating a few positive words, or telling yourself that everything is going to be all right.
This has to be your predominant mental attitude. It is not enough to think positively for a few moments or a few days. When life situations hit you in the stomach you can’t go back and let fears and lack of belief enter your mind. This negates what you have achieved this far.
You have to ask your self these questions and based upon your answer you will achieve the results you want.
Are you willing to make a real inner change?
Are you willing to change the way you think?
Are you willing to develop a mental power that can positively affect you, your environment and the people around you?
Henry Ford said "Whether you think you can or you think you can't, either way, you're right."
