While behavior in the world may be valuable, I find that thoughts and the monitoring of thoughts are fundamentally important to our walk in the world.
I once heard a fellow mother say to her child, “It isn’t enough not to be mean to others, you must be nice.” As a believer that thoughts are actually things, I would add that it is also imperative to think nice.
Some people might wonder why they are still manifesting difficulties in their lives when their behavior in the world is giving and loving. Some thought monitoring may provide information as to why difficult challenges are still occurring. This process is best enacted as a gentle one, not a journey begun to lay blame, but to identify tendencies towards judgment, rigidity, or prejudice. We may also begin to pray for the healing of our thought forms.
When I was pregnant with my second child, I decided to buy a baby doll for my first son to “practice on.” I remember that it was after Christmas, so the selection of the dolls at the store I went to was picked over. My only real criteria were that the doll needed to look and feel like a real baby, and that it also have a bottle and a diaper. As a turned out, there were no dark-haired dolls. The baby doll I chose had blonde hair and blue eyes. (My older son and I have dark hair and eyes.) When my baby was born, I was shocked to find that he looked just like the doll I bought—blonde hair and blue eyes to boot! We had so much attention on the practice doll that it was as if we had thought the doll into being!
Practitioners of the energetic arts, which I have had some training in myself, know the power of energy and its vibration. Even those who are unfamiliar with these concepts may relate to walking into a home and feeling negative or positive energy or knowing that someone doesn’t like us even if they are pretending to. In this way, we may be able to comprehend that thoughts release energy. Most metaphysicians also believe thoughts have powerful creational energy in the forms of our world. A common demonstration of a belief in this idea is prayer.
It may be important to note that when people say, or in this case write, that “thoughts are things,” this isn’t meant as a metaphor. Metaphysicians mean literally that thoughts are things. Even if we can only believe this idea in part, we may still desire to be careful to manifest thoughts which will support the loving and joyful world we want to live in.
Buddhists often speak of “monkey mind.” Many of us suffer from this condition. Monkey mind means simply that thoughts run amuck in our undisciplined minds. Unfortunately, many of these thoughts tend to be fear-based. When we begin with a fear-based thought, like a magnet, another vibrationally-similar thought joins it. Before we know it, we are upset, fearful, and unhappy. We may not even be aware that we are thinking these thoughts. We may only notice that we are feeling poorly in the wake of these now forgotten thoughts. Lucky for us, because we are on a deliberate path of awakening, we can use this moment of renewal, which is characterized by A Course in Miracles as “The Holy Instant” to begin again.
Please recognize it is never too late to cultivate healing, loving, and joyful thoughts. We can all challenge ourselves to some “thought interuptus” and choose in these moments to replace a negative thought with a love-based thought instead. Examining your thoughts may be the key to the joy-filled life of your dreams.