People often manufacture their own unhappiness by the negative way they think about things. Have you seen it? Have you suffered from it? We can work with our minds to re-slant our thoughts for happier living. I love when neuroscience proves what scripture told us two millennia ago. Paul explains that in Romans 12:2, “Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind.”
Try this exercise to renew your thinking: Drain your brain (I know. You feel like you’re on brain-drain most of the time. So does everyone else. This time it’s intentional.) Drain your brain by consciously seeing yourself as dropping out every destructive thought, every fear, every inferior feeling. See your mind as completely empty. Then start filling it with thoughts of God, and Christ, and every good and pleasant thing. Practice this twice a day, morning and evening, to counteract the older negative habit of allowing your stinkin’ thinkin’ to occupy your mind. Soon those unhappy thoughts won’t feel at home any more in your mind, and those happy thoughts will transform you.
I keep my Blessed List in the back of my journal. I read it twice a day, and add to it often to pack my brain with the positive. What’s on your Blessed List to renew your mind?