Battling Negative Thinking by Watering the Rose

When you realize that your thoughts create your life, at first you may feel liberated and think, “That’s easy, I’ll just change my thoughts.” However, when you attempt to shift the mind from its old patterns, a great resistance presents itself within you and you begin an internal battle. Your pattern of thinking has been consistent for decades and you cannot just flip a switch and become super-positive and attract a car, a lover, a house or a job overnight. The process of transforming your habits of thinking takes some time and effort but the rewards are amazing.

Of course, the fastest and most effective way to shift your thinking is using self-hypnosis because it works with the subconscious mind (the roots of your thinking). When your mind is in a relaxed state of trance, it is open to new ideas and allows the deep mind to absorb positive messages. It takes 1,000 affirmations to match the power of one affirmation in a hypnotic state. Depending on the person, it could take 30-90 days of regular daily practice to make a permanent shift in the subconscious about a certain core belief. During that time, the battle on the conscious level begins and many misinterpret this as the hypnosis isn’t working. The reality is that the closer you are to change, the louder the opposing force of thought becomes. It is actually working exactly as it should and there are ways to help it along by being present with your thinking throughout the day.

I recently came up with a great metaphor that may help you as you shift your thinking. Imagine that you have two potted plants in front of you. One pot contains a large, overgrown weed that contains all of the thoughts, ideas, beliefs that are not supporting what you want. The weed represents thoughts that are disempowering, negative and hurtful. Then, in the other pot imagine a beautiful rose. That rose represents the part of you that loves you, believes in you and attracts wonderful people, success and creativity into your life. Your focus directs which pot you water. So if you focus on the negative thoughts, you are watering the weed and it will grow larger and become more powerful. If you stop yourself and focus on the good in you and life, you are watering the rose.

You water the rose each time you listen to a self-hypnosis program, every time you do something nice for yourself or others, every time you think of someone you love or loves you, and every time you say “no” and keep your boundaries. You may not notice a big change overnight, but eventually that rose will grow into a large beautiful rose bush with lots of buds and a wonderful fragrance. The weed , without attention, will wither away and become weak. The negative thinking will slow down to a quiet whisper. There is a tipping point when you automatically water the rose without having to train yourself and you will naturally feel more confident, loving and positive about your life.

When you feel good naturally, you will be in the flow. You seem to be the lucky one, attracting opportunities, loving people, money, success and all those bonuses that you want in life. Regardless of what shows up, you just feel better. Remember, you get what you focus on so keep watering the rose and you’ll start to sing, “everything’s coming up roses!” in your life.