http://www.care2.com/greenliving/help-for-making-new-habits.html
Help for Making New Habits
Adapted from Creating Health, by Deepak Chopra (Houghton Miffin Company, 1987).
Every habit is a cooperative venture between body and mind. Generally speaking, the mind leads the venture and body follows as a silent partner. It is attention, or awareness, that touches the sleeping powers of the mind and makes them vital again. The smallest shift of attention can change the world you perceive and the body you live with.
Guidelines for new habits:
1. The habit should be acquired effortlessly over a period of time.
2. It should be guided by positive thoughts.
3. It should be consciously repeated, but always in a good frame of mind, never forced in as the enemy of a bad habit.
Cultivated in this way, new habits condition the whole mind-body system to create health and happiness automatically.
I am again reminded of those two sentences from Abraham Maslow about very healthy, creative people: “What such a person wants and enjoys is apt to be just what is good for him. His spontaneous reactions are as capable, efficient and right as if they had been thought out in advance.” It sounds too good to be true, but is just habit at work.
All that is needed is the awareness that the unconscious mind can be changed in its routine, and then one simply changes it. People who have been unhappy all their lives can become happy simply by realizing that the source of change is inside themselves.
The unconscious can be refined and rechanneled through suggestions, repetition, and above all, attention. Do not fret too much over “how it all happens”—that is just an old mindset saying, “It won’t happen, it can’t.”
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5 comments
add your comment »Michael, I am assuming that you understand the premise that "your beliefs create your reality". Really pay attention to what your say (write). Your wrote " I always start the day out good, yet something seems to throw me off". Try putting the phrase "I believe" in front of statements such as that. Do you see how your reality is seen through the filter of that belief? Beliefs are like putting on a pair of sunglasses and that is how you see the world. Put on a pair of yellow glasses and you see the sky as slightly green, take them off and it is blue. Beliefs can be changed easily once you realize that it's merely a belief you've taken on! Just like Deepak says above - "The unconscious can be refined and rechanneled through suggestions, repetition, and above all, attention. Do not fret too much over "how it all happens". Create a belief using present-tense terminology and watch for evidence that it is true for you! Go to http://www.avatarepc.com/ for some wonderful, non-confrontational, graceful classes if you want to further your exploration of this concept.
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How can you maintain a positive image while dealing with daily garbage? I always start the day out good, yet something seems to throw me off...I am getting better, but can't seem to hold the edge???
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A good habit is something that is natural and does not affect others.A bad one though is acquired and nurutured to overtake the conscious mind and undermine the unconscious.Habits that would direct you towards the positive,constructive,cooperative,contributive and conducive is not either easy or difficult but rests with ability to direct energies in the right direction.
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I agree with Marilyn. Positive affirmation have been in my life for some time and my favorite is "I have enough time, energy, wisdom, and money to accomplish all of me desires." That one affirmation alone keeps me on an even keel and I do have enough. Teh universe is generous and kind. All we need do is ask.
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Speaking positive affirmations to yourself as you look in a mirror, and writing them several times a day is how I teach affirmations. You also have to increase your awareness of negative thoughts, and replace them with your affirmation. If you persist, it will take about 21 days to affect your thinking patterns.
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