CHAPTER 1
XXX Hi, How Are You?
Such a simple question, we say it and hear it every day. It rolls off the tongue so easily, often without a thought. Often we don't even wait for or want the answer.
We are asking you because we really want to know how you are. Think about it and be honest with yourself. How are you? How do you feel? How is your life?
If your honest answer is something like "I'm full of joy, I'm truly blessed, I'm at total peace, and I'm fantastic," then we are really happy for you. You are one of those few people who has found a state of being that everyone is looking for, and we wish you well.
But if your answer to this question is not as great as you would like it to be, then let us tell you that the book you hold in your hands may be the key to unlocking the door that stands between your current state of how you feel and a better life that can be yours.
Imagine living a life that every day you felt great, every day you felt blessed, and every day you were at peace. Life would be wonderful.
What? You don't believe that this is possible? Well, let us tell you that it is. We know, because we did it. We have discovered the way to a better life and would like to share it with you.
We changed our lives!
Now we didn't change where we lived, we didn't change our jobs, we didn't change our relationship status, and we didn't change our circumstances in any way. What we did change was how we felt about all these things.
Are you going to wake up one day when the majority of your life will be behind you and wonder what it was it all for? This is not how life was supposed to be, and we all know it down to our core. That's why we keep wondering and thinking, This can't be it. We know there must be a bigger, better life out there!
Well, there is!
As much as you have made this life for yourself, you can make a new life. New habits can be formed and your life can be changed. It's never too late. Don't waste another week, day, or minute.
This book is going to show you the way; it is a guide to changing your life, and your habits. It will show you how to form new ones. It will show you that you have a choice to either keep going on the treadmill of life that you're on now or to create a better life for yourself.
So if you would like to be able to answer the question "How are you?" with a more positive response and you would like to have more joy in your life, then we invite you to listen to what we have to say and maybe you will start to feel better about yourself and your life. What do you have to lose?
Mmmm ... What to do? Crappy life or awesome life? Gee, what to do? I think I will make a change. What do I have to lose? Good decision!
Reading this book will assist you to open your mind and accept the possibility that there could be a better life for you. By picking up this book, you have already taken the first step towards your new future.
CHAPTER 2
So Here We Go ...
Do you have a constant stream of thoughts running through your head?
Do you have trouble thinking clearly?
Do you find yourself thinking about a lot of things at once?
Do you overthink things?
Do you worry about things that may or may not happen?
Are your thoughts chaotic?
Do you feel lost?
Do you feel inadequate?
Do you have trouble coping?
Do you worry about what other people think about you?
Do you feel you're not good enough?
Is life a struggle?
Do you think, What's the point?
Do you keep thinking about mistakes you have made in the past or dwelling on negative things from your childhood?
Do you feel like every day is the same: getting up, getting ready, going to work, coming home, having dinner, sitting for an hour watching some rubbish on TV, going to bed, getting up, and doing it all over again?
Maybe you're running after kids, working long hours, having sick or elderly parents to care for, or you never seem to have any time for yourself! It's just one thing after another, same thing day in day out! There is never enough time to enjoy life!
The weekend comes around and you spend it doing chores you didn't have time for during the week. At the blink of an eye, the weekend is over. Sunday night is here. You go to bed late trying to prolong the weekend. You get up tired Monday morning to do it all over again!
People give up days and weeks of their lives being consumed by other people's drama; usually it's reality TV shows or following the outcome of news events. We spend many hours on things that don't mean anything to us personally. Some people's lives revolve around Facebook, social media, and computer games.
There are so many distractions in life. People spend so much of their time trying to obtain possessions and making a living that they actually forget that anything else is possible.
Many of us spend a lot of our time thinking and focussing on the negative aspects of life. We get so caught up and lost that we forget what life is truly about.
We didn't plan our lives to be this way. These are just habits that we have unintentionally made for ourselves.
We have come to the realization that OUR THOUGHTS ARE OUR LIFE AND OUR LIFE IS OUR THOUGHTS.
Thoughts are everything. Our thoughts determine everything we do. Our thoughts determine who we are.
Our thoughts determine every decision and every choice we make.
Every single person, every single day, deals with their thoughts. Some are just better at it than others. For some it comes naturally, others need to work at it, and others have just given up.
For most of us, it's a constant battle trying to deal with our thoughts. We are so lost in our daily struggle of life that we don't even realise that we are no longer in control. Our negative thoughts have taken over. We are just passengers in our life being driven in directions that we don't even want to go, holding on and dealing with each day.
The thoughts in your head can be very cunning and manipulative. They draw great satisfaction in telling us that we're not smart enough, not pretty enough, and not good enough. Our thoughts criticise, debate, accuse, object, attack, and find fault.
Often our thoughts don't have anything to do with our current situation; our thoughts often make judgements based on past events or create scenarios of anything and everything that could possibly go wrong in the future. This causes us to worry.
Our thoughts can turn our power against ourselves. They take on a life of their own and like all forms of life fight to dominate and survive.
To take control of your life means to take control of your thoughts. To be able to do that, you need to understand the following: even though your thoughts may appear to be randomly entering your head, the cold hard truth is that it's actually YOU choosing your thoughts.
All the thoughts running through your mind are there because you chose them; there's not someone else up there telling you what to think. YOU put them there, and YOU are choosing to think them.
This realisation is the key to everything.
YOUR THOUGHTS. YOUR CHOICE.
Every single thought you have is your choice!
Yes, your choice!
Let me say that again.
Every single thought you have is your choice!
You have chosen every single thought in your head.
The good and the bad, every single one.
Our minds are not preprogramed.
Our minds do not come already filled with every thought that we will ever think over the course of our lives.
Every single day, we subconsciously make a decision to think every thought that we have.
We put the thoughts in our heads.
There is not a computer up there programming our thoughts.
It's you.
You are deciding what to think right now ... and now ... and now!
Your mind. Your thoughts!
Your thoughts can be influenced by many things: TV, radio, advertising, magazines, billboards, books, other people, the past, the future, memories, habits, our environment, and how we were raised.
All these things can influence your thoughts.
Influence what you think.
Influence how you think.
But it is still you creating and deciding your thoughts.
Only you!
YOU CHOOSE YOUR THOUGHTS!
Do you feel that we are really trying to get this point across?
We know we keep saying the same thing over and over again, and we will keep saying it until you get it.
YOU CHOOSE YOUR THOUGHTS.
Therefore you need to take ownership of your thoughts. You need to take responsibility for your thoughts because they are yours.
Your life is not happening to you. Your life is responding to your thoughts!
The thoughts you think, the words you speak, and the beliefs you hold within are what create your life.
YOU are the creator of these things.
YOU create your thoughts.
YOU create your words.
YOU are creating your life.
Taking ownership and accepting that you are in charge of your thoughts gives you the power to change them.
If we are capable of subconsciously making decisions to think every thought we have, we are very capable of making conscious decisions to think the thoughts we would like to have.
If you don't like the thoughts you are having or the way your life is going, you can change it. You can change your thoughts.
Changing your thoughts will change your life. It will change you!
You are the only person who can change you!
CHAPTER 3
How Do You Feel?
Here is another life-changing thing to think about: Our thoughts determine how we feel! How we feel is caused by what we are thinking!
Thoughts come first, then our feelings! These two things are connected!
Really think about this. Let it sink in.
Our thoughts determine how we feel!
When you understand this, you can see how it is possible to change your life.
It's very simple. If you think positive, happy thoughts, you will feel good!
If you think negative thoughts, you will feel bad! This is a fact, but it's something we just don't realise or think about.
If we change how we think, we can change how we feel!
What an amazing thing!
We can make a choice to change our thoughts and in turn change how we feel.
When you accept that you don't feel happy because of the thoughts you are thinking, it is easier to grasp the fact that we have the power to change it.
Change your thoughts. Change how you feel.
Think about how you are feeling right know. Do you feel good?
What are you thinking about?
Do you feel sad, depressed, or frustrated right now?
If so, what are you thinking about?
Once you figure out what thoughts are making you feel this way, you can either eliminate these thoughts or, if you are feeling good, you can focus more on what's making you feel good.
Fact: You cannot feel good while thinking negative thoughts. You cannot feel bad while thinking positive thoughts. It's impossible!
We are always in charge of how we feel. We just don't realise this or we forget that it's our choice.
No matter what situation you are in, you always have the power to control what you are thinking. No one can ever take that away from you. Even if you are being controlled in some way, your thoughts and feelings are exactly that: YOURS. They are YOURS.
Our thoughts determine our feelings.
You are choosing to feel stressed.
You are choosing to feel sad.
You are choosing to feel grumpy.
You are choosing to feel angry, scared, unhappy, miserable, nervous, or unworthy.
Or you are choosing to feel happy.
You are choosing to feel joy.
You are choosing to feel love.
You are choosing to feel excitement.
You are choosing to feel peace.
Your choice. Choose how you want to feel.
Because we choose our thoughts, we can choose better ones.
We can choose not to think negative thoughts.
We can choose to think positive, happy thoughts.
Good thoughts means good feelings; therefore, we can choose to feel good.
Choose thoughts that make you feel good.
Take control of your thoughts, and this will change how you feel every day of your life.
Decision: Do you want to feel good or bad?
Of course you are going to choose to feel good! That's what we all want.
Once you comprehend the fact that your thoughts are your choice, you can then see that you are capable of changing them. As scary as it sounds, it's actually an awesome thing. When you grasp it, understand it, and accept it, then you know that you have the power to change your thoughts and your feelings. You become the one in control and you can use your thoughts to work with you, not against you. You can truly change your life.
CHAPTER 4
The Common Room
OK. Now that you understand that you are choosing your thoughts, we can move onto the process of how to change them.
We have discovered that there are four key areas of our thinking that we need to work on.
1. Having too many thoughts in our heads at once.
2. Living in the moment, rather than living in the past or worrying about the future.
3. Replacing negative thoughts and words with positive thoughts and words.
4. Gratitude: being grateful for what we already have in life.
Let's begin by working on how to stop having too many thoughts at once.
We have discovered a really effective way to visualise the problem of having too many thoughts at the same time. Being able to visualise the problem makes it easier to understand, which in turn makes it easier to fix.
Try to imagine the inside of your mind as a boarding house with a central common room with many doors. The common room in the boarding house is the general area where everyone hangs out. Picture this room in your head. Picture your thoughts as being different people in the room. Imagine them all talking at the same time, all asking questions and making noise. This is what the inside of your mind is like when you are thinking about too many things at once and not focusing on one thing at a time. You could probably imagine yourself on the floor in the midst of all this chaos, rocking backwards and forwards finding it difficult to cope.
Having too many thoughts at once is like living in a boarding house full of crazy people who are all in the common room at the same time.
Here is an example of that common room: The lady from room nine is always running in and talking to you about the show she watched on television last night. The circus performers who all share room seven are running around the room doing acrobatics, juggling, and riding unicycles.
The old man from room four just keeps going over and over the same story from his childhood, which clearly, after seventy-five years, he is still unable to let go of.
The young couple from room fourteen has a weird love/hate relationship. They are either holding hands and kissing each other or continually arguing, yelling words of abuse, slamming doors, and throwing insults.
Then there is the fiftysomething year old woman from room three that insistently keeps asking you if she is good enough and if you think that the outfit she was wearing was appropriate for the occasion. She also wants you to decide if she should take the job she was offered because she is worried that it is beyond her. Oh, and whilst you are deciding that, could you advise her if she should have another date with the dark-haired man who works at the fruit and veggie shop around the corner? He has been asking her out for the last six months and she still can't decide.
The nutty bloke from room fifteen is always singing, playing music, and doing this funny little dance around the room. He was having a lovely time but could never leave the building for fear that the people might look at him and his weird dance moves and think he's crazy. And anyway, was it appropriate to dance whilst you're in line at the supermarket?
Someone lives in room two but is so shy that she never comes to the common room. This can be worrying because if she did come out, what would you say to her anyway?
