I matter

I have just started to research meditation.I have been fighting negative thoughts for a long time.hey seem to take over at times.I have been reading alot about mindfulnesss and compassion.I find this helps combat the negativity along with using positive affirmations daily.I repeat mantras like i do matter and I even write some affirmations and put them on my mirror.I wonder why it takes practice to have positive self affirmations and negatives come so easy?

I agree, and perhaps because we are wired to respond in a survival mode (everything being directly related to choice of life or death). The option that we have is countermand these thoughts with affirmation. Overtime, it comes naturally.

Conditioning I think and maybe a little of society looking down on people who are too happy or have too much self belief! Good luck with the affirmations, I am trying to recite them to myself on a daily basis too. I bought a notebook and I am filling it with positive affirmations and thoughts, nice to carry around with me.

[Xan]

lotusflower: I wonder why it takes practice to have positive self affirmations and negatives come so easy?

We've been learning the negative side for along time, from family and society and from frustrating and painful experiences of the past. So it takes some work to learn a new way of thinking, feeling and believing.

I've found we need to do more than just affirming the positive. We need to recognize the negative feeling and memory patterns and release them. Then we are more free to go ahead as we choose.

A good way to do this is with EFT - Emotional Freedom Techniques. There's an introductory article about it at: - http://www.spiritualforums.com/vb/showthread.php?t=4478


Xan

I think the negatives come more easily (for most ) because of the feed back society gives us. People like to knocks others down and if you compliment yourself they in turn respond negatively because they make you feel like you just said you were a god/goddess with a bloated ego. I think we don't want to crash down since that's what people love to do because they can't love themself. Also I think all that negatively spreads and and multiples likes wildfire. Negative attracts and manifests more negatives. Its just an icky cycles of negative. People in this very selfish world make you feel that way when you are treated like you don't matter, we see things like war and genocide. Its understandable why so many feel this way. But I think that 90 percent of it comes from the world around us.

I agree with all of you.I have been trying to be mindful of things in my day to day life.It helps me realize I dont have it so bad.Its true the world around us is so negative also.wheres the love ?

[Xan]

lotusflower... The love is within you... in your own inner heart.

Here's are some ways to find it: Heart Meditations - http://www.spiritualforums.com/vb/showthread.php?t=4106


Xan

somewhere, I saw or read a study, that showed people remember negative situations better, because of the release of certain chemicals in the brain, released during stress, that imprints and binds these thoughts into the brain and the pathways.

whereas, pleasant or good memories are not imprinted on the brain the same way. Takes work sometimes, to stay in peace and joy, but with love..........

imo, it's best to practive pure love, as to shape and form your brain, with the proper pathways for proper thinking.

[Xan]

On the other hand, I've noticed that when negative memories and patterns are released and healed our memories of the good times increase because they now have room to come to the surface.


Xan

[Jeff4freedom]

What makes it even more difficult is that the "negative" ones have roots that go deep....
Some for many many lifetimes..
We don't carry the happy la la stuff around,
but guilt, and shame and basically everything we Judge on the "negative" side of the polarity....
We stuff it,
we don't want to see it,
or deal with it
or admit it.
And remember...
.it all exists within us
because we ARE ALL ONE THING...
So we stuff it and go lookin for a happy feeling.
Problem is what we stuff takes a lot of energy to stay stuffed.....
and all that energy by the Law of Manifestation.....
ends up creating something a whole lot bigger than the original thing we stuffed....
And since it's stuffed, and since the original thing can be lifetimes away......
it kind of becomes one of our self created demons....
manipulating us from the dark corner where we had stuffed it.
Putting any future decision related to it into the polarity of the original judgment about it....
One of the best practices is to begin suspending judgment upon things.
Realize that What is.....Is.....
Without placing a label of Positive or negative upon it...
That's what creates all our problems in the first place....
Let things be what they are without your judgment attached...
It's a habit to practice....
And those things you have already judged.......
those "Negative" things..
attempt to look at them through your heart...
not the judgment that lives in your head and emotions.
Basically Love what you have judged.