Photographer: br3akthru
Richard Carlson, Ph.D. debates the power of positive thinking in his book, You Can Be Happy No Matter What. A common theme among positive thinkers involves replacing negative thoughts with positive ones. This takes significant effort and often is overcome by conditional thinking or individual thought systems. Thought systems consist of past information that has been gained over a person’s lifetime. By nature, they are self-validating and do not like being interfered with. Thought is not reality and need not be taken so seriously. According to Dr. Carlson, “the way we think about something, and most importantly, the way we relate to our thinking, will determine its effect on us.” Indeed, there is a fundamental flaw in positive thinking that places too much focus on changing negative thoughts. In turn, negative thoughts inevitably end up being emphasized.
Recognize thinking for what it is, a voluntary function that forms our experience of life. Thought is not inherently bad, unless it is permitted to be so. Focus shifted away from thoughts not worthy of attention allows more positive thoughts to arise naturally. When thoughts are not qualified as negative or positive, they are defined according to their true meaning – simply thoughts. This leads to a transformed perspective without the extraordinary effort it takes to fight the conditioned mind deeply embedded within individual thought systems.
