Creating joy is an easy task.  Why aren’t we brimming over with giddiness?  We need a guide to show us the path to instill a sense of peace, calm and joy. 

How can we develop joy when we have so many problems ahead of us?  It’s not that we forget our problems, but we can bring curiosity in our day. 

How can we stay open and curious?

A greater sense of curiosity begins with honest appraisal and absence of judgement.  When we can become openly aware of our thoughts, we no longer feel the need to judge ourselves harshly.  We are our worst critic.  No one else has judged us as critically as we do ourselves.  And why is that?

In our minds, we have created people in our lives who tell us how wrong we are, and how we have not accomplished what we need to do.  Our mothers and fathers live there, maybe even people we don’t know, are in our heads, telling us how to act and what we have done wrong.  Even when our parents are long gone, we continue to allow them to rule over us in our minds.

Awareness to Thoughts

Awareness is the first step toward releasing the patterns of thought that we have created.  In childhood, we begin to create these thought patterns.  Long after we no longer need them to keep us safe, we hold onto them, often without realizing that we have patterns of thought that have been instilled within us.  Often since childhood, these thoughts were created to offer security.  When we created the thoughts, they were useful: “don’t talk to those you don’t know.” 

Not talking to others keeps us safe, separate from others.  But now, this separateness keeps us apart. 

Combine the don’t talk to strangers with, “I can’t talk to them, they won’t like me.”  How often is it that we don’t talk to others because we don’t know them.  We may see them everyday, but do nothing more than wave. 

In our minds, we’ve created isolation, which few are allowed in.  We’ve created avenues of distrust in which admittance is allowed for only those who we think will not hurt us. 

How often do we act out of fear?  Fearing hurt and abandonment has allowed us to judge others without offering the opportunity to enter our lives with joy.  When we have greater connection with others, sharing of ourselves includes risks but also immense capacity for love and understanding. 

Take time to note those thoughts in your head.  They are vital to understanding yourself.  When can we be free and clear of thoughts that exist from other people?  When we listen to what our thoughts are saying, we come to realize how we have allowed these thoughts to rule over ourselves.  When we have greater awareness, we come to realize the vast majority of these messages serve no purpose.  The thoughts are either repetitious or just plain inaccurate. 

When I was encountering a time when I needed to speak in front of many people, I found that I was saying to myself, ”they won’t like me.”  These are people that I’ve never met!  I was telling myself this because I was afraid of speaking in front of people.  I was able to stop myself because I became aware of my thoughts. 

How often do we continue with these negative, repetitive thought patterns without realizing what we are thinking?  The power of awareness is strong.  When we can become aware of our negative thought patterns, then we can revise them. 

“You Can’t Do That”

“Why bother, it’s been done before.”  How often do we hold ourselves back from accomplishing what we’ve set out to do?  Why do we allow ourselves to limit our actions? 

When we trust ourselves; when we can believe that we can, we can have overcome our negative thoughts.  One way that I’ve found to change my thought patterns is through the use of mantras. 

Mantras

A mantra is a repetitive saying; a phrase that is repeated to help eliminate negative thought patterns.  “I am powerful.  I am strong,” are examples.  When I’ve used these phrases as part of a morning meditation, I began to drive a little more aggressively than I had previously, so I stopped using those phrases!

Another example was regarding an upcoming talk that I was asked to provide.  I don’t normally speak in front of groups in my day to day work, so I was nervous about it.  When I realized that I when I thought about my upcoming talk, my mind said, they won’t like me, ”I replaced it with “I can do anything I set my mind to do,” and “the talk will go well.”  Whenever I thought of the talk, I said to myself, and at times to those around me, I repeated, “the talk will go well.  There’s nothing to worry about.”

Surprisingly, or perhaps not so surprising, the talk did go well, and I was asked to talk to other groups of people.  I believe that our negative thoughts have a great influence over our lives and our decisions.  But this doesn’t need to be. 

When we believe that we can, we can.

Our thoughts influence our daily existence.  Revising these negative thought patterns toward positive ones creates a framework for which joy can begin to take hold.  Noticing our thoughts; having awareness to what we are thinking allows for greater opportunity to cast our existence in a different light.  When we shine the light of awareness to what we are thinking, we can shed the thought patterns that no longer work for us, bringing with it a renewed sense of accomplishment when we revise that pattern.  Joy is around the corner, awaiting for our awareness.