Daily Inspiration 1-20-14

"Our emotions

don't tell us what to think. 

Our emotions

 tell us what we are thinking." 

 -- Albert K Strong 

I was getting my hair cut on Saturday, and the young receptionist was having a hard time. She was heartbroken because she and her boyfriend broke up. She's 18. She was crying in the other room and someone else was trying to console her. Of course, they all knew that she would get over it relatively soon because they've been there and experienced this and so know that another boyfriend will come along even better suited to her. Her life isn't really over, it is just beginning. I've been there many times myself even into adulthood.

There are many places in our lives where our emotions seem to take control of our thinking. I can make a long list of times in my life whether it was dealing with idiot bosses, evil associates, the sight of my paycheck, losing something deemed important, circumstances beyond my control, and more, where I experienced emotions running me ragged, sapping my energy, consuming my thoughts.

After studying with Tony Robbins for a time, I considered all this emotion and I felt like a ball in a pinball machine bouncing off bumper after bumper being controlled by outside influences and helpless to change them, which added to the negative emotions. I was angry. I was hurt. I was sad. I was tired.

I appreciated what Tony taught me and then found one of my all-time-favorite books, Love Is Letting Go Of Fear by Gerald G Jampolsky. He likened what was happening to me as being a robot and other people and circumstances pushing my buttons causing me to feel a certain way.

All of these helped me begin the process of change. Eventually through James Allen, and a long list of others, I began to see that emotions don't cause our thinking, but it is the other way around--our thinking causes our emotions. As enlightening as that was, it wasn't until the book, The Secret by Rhonda Byrne and reading all the authors she brought together, and particularly Esther and Jerry Hicks and the teachings of Abraham, and Echart Tolle, that it all came together for me. What came together is simply that my emotions are a perfect indicator of my thoughts, and rather than my emotions causing me to think certain things, I have total control always about what I choose to think and thereby change my emotions which indicate the change has been made.

In any and all circumstances, we have control over at least one thing. That is what we choose to think. If you're feeling bad, uptight, sad, and don't really want to feel that way, all that you need to do is the same for me: to choose a better feeling thought, then another and another until step by step we feel good again. It's not working through the problem, it is knowing that we alone ultimately have the solution.


"A Person Is Limited Only By The Thoughts That He Chooses." -- James Allen 

Spread Some Joy Today--for yourself. You absolutely have the power to do so. Choose thoughts that feel good and produce the emotion of joy.