I'm Positive

“It takes but one positive thought when given a chance to survive and thrive to overpower an entire army of negative thoughts.” - Robert H. Schuller

I'm a little like Tom Cruise's character in Cocktail (much as it pains me to say that I am like Tom Cruise in any way): I always have some sort of non-fiction self-help type book on the nightstand. Mostly they're about health and nutrition, but not always. Currently on my nightstand? "How and When to Tell Your Kids About Sex" and "The Courage To Be Rich" by Suze Orman.

I'm not talking about the sex one. You're not my kids and you probably already know the basics. BUT, I had a bit of an epiphany while reading my nightly chapter in Suze's book. She (like most of the known world) talks about the power of positive thinking. I sat there and read and thought, blah, blah, blah, nothing new here.

Then she wrote: Do you want that to be true?

It was as if someone whacked me over my head. It's not just the power of positive thinking, but also the power of negative. Sure we can take moments through the day and think positively (you know, things like "I will win the Powerball tonight"), but we can also influence our life by the other times when we throw negative things out there.

Her point was to follow up any and all thoughts about yourself (she was speaking about your finances, but I took the idea and ran with it) with the thought, "Do you want that to be true?"

"I just can't write today." Do you want that to be true?

"I feel blah." Do you want that to be true?

"We're broke and I can't afford to enter that contest." Do you want that to be true?

"This is a stupid story." Do you want that to be true?

"I'm too tired to exercise." Do you want that to be true?

"I don't have the time to write." Do you want that to be true?

Well, you get the point. So, today I'm going to do that and see how often I'm negative about all different aspects of my life. I'm not typically and happy, positive person, so this will be a challenge. Because after I ask Do you want that to be true?, I need to change it so that it becomes something I DO want to be true.

Last night, I dreamed about the new Battlestar Galactica -- this is an odd thing because I don't even watch it. But I dreamed that something had happened to Adama and he'd come back in the form of a woman (but still had his own voice) and that the same thing had happened to Starbuck (edited to explain: I meant that the sex reversal thing happened and the female Starbuck became a man). This was probably my own wishful thinking: that whole "buck" thing that means MALE being applied to a woman... anyway, I'd read something at Tori's blog about 'the five cylons' and I'm sorry to say that the cat woke me up just as I was finding out who they were.

Weird.

Do you remember your dreams?