During my meditation this morning, I tapped into an energy which was really empowering and blissful.
I was sitting there, watching my mind, just being aware of my thoughts, waiting for them to settle down, when I caught myself thinking negatively. And I was suddenly struck, not for the first time, by how deeply negative my “tapes” are sometimes (all the time? Not sure…). The truth is, even though I am a relatively positive-minded guy, certainly inherently optimistic, I still regularly think things and then just quickly negate them. I usually do this without being conscious that I am doing it.
Over the last couple of years, due to my work with Tarot and my meditation and personal development work, I have become aware of this and have made some inroads into catching myself playing these negative tapes in my mind and, when I do notice I’m doing it, transmuting the thought into its positive opposite. I think it has had a remarkable affect in my wellbeing.
But I have not yet completely quashed the bad habit, and today, as I was settling into a meditation, I suddenly caught myself thinking: “Oh no, I couldn’t do that, that’s not me. No, that’s not possible” in response to some creative thought that had popped into my mind just prior.
So to counter-act this I just started meditating in the energy of “Yes” and it was awesome.
How To Do The Yes Meditation
It’s laughably simple but it worked so well for me. All I did was start repeating: “Yes, I am…” and then filling in the blanks with whatever came to mind. I kind of imagined I was in a meditation class – a really weird meditation class – where everyone in the circle was me! And our teacher had asked us to go around the circle repeating and finishing off the statement with whatever came up.
“Yes, I am … awesome”
“Yes, I am … capable.”
“Yes, I am … loveable.”
“Yes, I am … wonderfully successful.”
“Yes, I am … going to have a great day.”
Just whatever positive stuff came up. (Writing now, I wonder what would have happened in that imaginary class if I’d come up with something bummed out like “Yes, I am a total loser” but that didn’t happen.)
It was fantastically empowering. And I am going to do it regularly because I think we all owe it to ourselves to reprogram our negative sub-conscious programming. It’s not just self-help hocus-pocus, it’s a very real influence on our conscious state of mind and day-to-day experiences of wellbeing. It takes self-discipline and work to fix our minds, but we can do it.
The Yes Toilet Practice
So here’s the practice in two steps:
1 – Do the Yes Meditation regularly. But probably not on the toilet, refer to next step for explanation of the above toilet reference.
2 – Try and catch yourself repeating those subterranean negative programs, that limiting self-talk, and deliberately affirm the positive opposite.
A good time is when you are on the toilet.
I know that sounds weird but often it’s one of the few times we get any peace, and so when I enter the little room, I like to take a deep breathe and, you know, release, and sort of hear my own thinking. Often, I will then realise that I have been neurotically repeating negative bullshit thoughts to myself. When I this happens, I clock what it is I was saying, what negative thought I was affirming and I overwrite it by simply repeating the positive opposite a few times while I finish my business.
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