Book In Progress: Beyond Positive Thinking
A Podcast I listen to was talking about Slumps and the book Beyond Positive Thinking by Robert Anthony was brought up and recommended. So OBVS I bought it because if “slump” isn’t the right word for my life right now, I’m not sure what is. (Sorry this is so long, but it's good stuff and I was told to blog about it.)
Ummm I kinda love it so far and I’m only about 10% in. Some excerpts:
“The universe is like a river. The river keeps on flowing. It doesn’t care whether you are happy or sad, good or bad; it just keeps flowing. Some people go down to the river and they cry. Some people go down to the river and they are happy but the river doesn’t care; it just keeps flowing. We can use it and enjoy it, or we can jump in and drown. The river just keeps flowing because it is impersonal, and so it is with the universe. The universe that we live in can support us or destroy us….We can only receive what our minds are capable of accepting. We can go to the river of life with a teaspoon, and someone else may go with a cup. Someone else may go with a bucket, and yet another person may go with a barrel, but the abundance of the river is always there and waiting. Our consciousness, our ideas, our frame of reference and our belief system determine whether we got to the river of life with a teaspoon, a cup, a bucket or a barrel.”
It continues on to talk about how, if you go with a teaspoon, you may feel like you’re not getting as much as someone else. The limitation of what we take from the river (the universe) is up to us:
“The truth is we can have anything we want if we’ll give up the belief that we can’t have it. It’s as simple as that.”
“Whether your beliefs are true or totally insane, if you accept them, then that’s what your life will be about.”
“Many of the things that we believe – garnered from past experience, groups of people and individuals – are not true, but they are things that we have imagined to be true out of our need to survive….we create rules about the nature of life and how it unfolds, and those rules become beliefs.”
On the Law of Attraction and things that tend to come our way:
“The mind attracts whatever is familiar to itself. The frightened mind attracts frightening experiences. A confused mind attracts more confusion. The abundant mind attracts more abundance.”
“Your subconscious does not change the reality of the world around you. It just filters the information that you present to it in order to support your beliefs or the picture that you hold in your mind.”
The clincher for the fact this book was what I needed to read:
“Choice begins when you stop identifying with your conditioned patterns of the past. Until you reach that point, you are unconscious. This means you are compelled to think, feel and actin certain ways according to the conditioning of your mind. When we can make choices, we’re no longer the victim of our unconscious reactions.”
“There is no growth without discontent. There is no growth without discomfort.”
“Look at your own life. Try to see the secret satisfaction that you get out of not being fully in charge of your life. What kind of secret satisfaction could there possibly be in feeling victimized? How could anyone enjoy feeling weak, or poor or inadequate?”
It goes on to say that if you play the weak game, people have to love you and therefore you get attention. If you play the game of indecisiveness, you’re protected from blame should someone choose wrong. “In playing the helpless routine, you are actually controlling others.”
Some things that I’ve identified as beliefs that are limiting me:
I can’t lose weight while I travel.
Every guy is out to take advantage of me either physically, socially or monetarily.
The guys that like me are not the kind of guys I am attracted to.
I’ll never find a travel companion that will want to go the same places and do the same things as me.
Money will always be a struggle.
I will always disagree with someone I work with.
My height/weight is intimidating and I need to convince people to like me.
It's all been VERY thought-provoking and it will be interesting to see how it suggests going about making changes, etc. More to come!
