“Our thoughts are the gold coins in the treasure chest of our inheritance.”
Imagine for a moment a “mental apartment” – the place you live with your thoughts. That mental apartment is furnished with everything you think about yourself and the world around you; it is furnished with your thoughts. Much of the mental furniture in this apartment is hand-me-down furniture. It is the old negative way of thinking which was handed down to us from our parents, our friends, our teachers, and everyone else who has been helping us program our subconscious minds: they gave us the furniture which we have kept and which we use in our mental apartment.
Imagine that most of that “furniture” (our negative thinking), because it was hand-me-down furniture, is weary with age. The old tattered sofa is sagging and worn. The chairs are broken and shaky, ready to fall apart if sat in too heavily. The dishes are chipped, kitchen table leans…In these furnishings, a strong new piece of furniture (some positive thoughts) would seem out of place, but though here and there, there might be a sturdy piece of furniture or two, they are too overrun in the clutter to be noticed at all.
Now, let’s say we clear out everything, leaving the place empty and spotless. There’s not a negative thought, sofa, picture, book or chair in sight. We take out every old negative self-belief and store it away, safely out of sight. You look aound you and think, “This is great! I’ve gotten rid of all of my old negative thinking. Now I can be a positive thinker!”
You stand around, walk through your mental apartment, and then stand around some more. A little while later, left with nothing but yourself and an empty apartment, you retrieve a rickety chair stored in the garage. Next, you haul in your old TV. Before you know it, your space is rearranged using your familiar decor! We are most comfortable with the thoughts we have lived with the most. One by one, you will begin to bring your old trusted and time-worn negative thoughts back into your mental apartment! Why? Because when you remove the old furniture, you didn’t replace it with any new furniture.
When you decide to stop thinking negatively, and do not have an immediate, new positive vocabulary to reace the old, you will always return to the comfortable, old negative self-talk of the past.
In a second scenario, imagine we entirely eliminate your old furnishings and replace them with beautiful new furniture. Don’t even give them away; get rid of them outright. After the shiny delivery truck departs, your fresh digs stand on the sturdy legs of self-assurance. What was once a place of tattered hopes and broken-down dreams is filled with the bright beginnings of an exciting new you. All those negative thoughts gone and replaced with positive thoughts.
That is how positive thinking should work. Otherwise, it remains merely wishful thinking. And without the new furniture…the old furniture will always make its way back into your apartment.
Through the simple yet revolutionary techniques of Self-Talk, we can knock down walls that have stood in your way until now. It’s honestly the difference between living with fulfillment and purpose, versus expending our years frustrated and incomplete, contained by the limitations of our own disbelief.
How hopeful it is to know we can over-ride virtually any conditioning we’ve received in any part of our life.
Self-Talk is a way to override our past negative programming by erasing or replacing it with conscious, positive new directions.
Love Vanessa ❤
being Vanessa 