Thoughts Are Powerless Without the Poison We Give Them

“Be aware that what you think, to a large extent, creates the emotions that you feel. See the link between your thinking and your emotions. Rather than being your thoughts and emotions, be the awareness behind them.”

Eckhart Tolle, A New Earth

Thoughts are powerless beyond the poison we give them. When a thought pops into our heads, it is neither positive nor negative in and of itself. Thoughts are neutral until we label them as good or bad. As soon as we label a thought, we give it tremendous power.

Imagine yourself speaking before a small group of people. You notice that the man on the far left has a gruff look on his face. A thought immediately pops into your head: “He must not agree with me.” You’ve made a judgment and fear is attempting to plant its seed. If you allow it to do so, you will tumble into negative thinking: “I guess he doesn’t like what I’m saying…. He may stand up at any moment and make a personal attack on me… I’ll be publicly humiliated…” This line of negative thinking then zaps your self-confidence, cripples your ability to maintain any positive feelings and destroys the vibrancy of your presentation. In the end you’ve simply humiliated yourself, all over one little negative thought tied to one little gruff facial expression.

We don’t have to empower our thoughts. We can be aware of them, as Eckhart Tolle says, and rise above them. Numerous times while publicly speaking, I’ve experienced Mr. or Ms. Gruff-Face. I know how easily the negative thoughts scream “trouble ahead,” and I know how to put them to rest. I know how to starve them of power; power only I can feed them. I refuse to take them seriously. I remind myself that there are two ways to seeing everything, and that I am not responsible for how any one else feels about anything. In other words, I allow Mr. or Ms. Gruff-Face to own his or her own feelings.

Instead of choosing to think their expression is a reflection on me, I choose to keep my positive power by dismissing my negative thoughts. I simply say to myself “Poor Mr. (or Ms.) Gruff-Face. They must have irritable bowel syndrome!” I then take my focus off of him or her and return to my message. The negative thoughts groan and fade away as I choose to rise above them. I keep my power, my confidence and my sense of balance-- and everyone wins. Nine times out of ten, I experience a double victory because Mr. or Ms. Gruff-Face often comes up to me afterwards and tells me how much they needed to hear exactly what I said. This verifies that I had wrongly judged them with my initial negative thoughts, and I am doubly grateful that I rose above those thoughts. This always reinforces the idea that most of our problems are in our heads; in the negative thoughts that we ascribe great power to, instead of choosing to rise above them.

No one knows where thoughts come from. They simply appear in our minds and then just as quickly disappear. In many ways our thoughts are like the ticker-tape messages we see at the bottom of the television screen when we’re watching CNN. Words magically appear from the left side of our screen, quickly scoot across it and then quickly disappear off the right side of the screen. We don’t know where the words come from or where they go. Our thoughts are much the same. They come and go quickly across our minds. We probably aren’t even aware of many of our thoughts, unless one blurts its way into our consciousness and we choose to grab-hold of it by judging it as good or bad. Once we grab hold, we have a choice: We can hold tight to the thought, giving it tremendous power, or we can let go of it. When we choose to let go, we rob the thought of any fear-invoking power it may have held.

Unfortunately, the average person chooses to keep a tight hold on the thought, especially if they have judged it as negative. In doing so they cast themselves into the shadow of the thought, giving it tremendous power. All it takes is one fearful thought to snowball into an avalanche of worry. Fear is like the flame on a match. We place it to a candle wick of worry, and it burns and burns its way through the waxy recesses of our minds—unless we choose to extinguish its flame by taking away its power.

Today is the day to take back our power from our thoughts. We can ask God to help us be aware of our thinking patterns and to rise above our thoughts. Let’s choose to drown negative thoughts in the holy water of positive thoughts. It would be even better if we could refrain from judging our thoughts at all, but that’s probably impossible for most of us. It is possible for all of us to start practicing awareness of our thoughts, however, and to realize that we ultimately do have power over them. We no longer have to allow negative thoughts to control us. We can control them. We can cut-off their oxygen and breathe easier ourselves—allowing our souls to shine through positive thinking!