Throw out anything that generates self distain or dislike. Anything that promotes fear or hate. (Which feed on each other.) Get rid of jealousy.
According to an 18th century scientist and theologian, Emanuel Swedenborg, we create our own problems because we do not choose our thoughts. Mainly, he says, those negative thoughts about yourself are seeds of unhappiness. And who's to say what's perfect?
We are all very different people, but we all play the same game. We go through the day with our list of things to do and then we decide something like "that guy gets more attention than I do." Here I am working away in my neighborhood doing good things, but that guy gets in with the powerful people and makes the rest of us look like we don't exist."
So we convince ourselves that we need to up our game. We try to arrange our lives so that unhappy thought will go away. But the THOUGHT keeps coming through about how we are not doing something right, or we don't look right, or we don't have what is right. Our decision becomes: FIX IT. So we go nuts. We change the way we look, we buy what we don't need, we twist ourselves into a pretzel to get in with the people we think we should impress and basically do whatever we need to do to deal with the THOUGHT. Maybe we tell somebody off. Ya. That'll fix it. You'll know you're getting taken in by the THOUGHT because it is negative.
These things never start out with an idea like "Wow! I am so good at what I do!" No. The first part of the thought is almost always self rejection of some kind. That's the easiest way into our psyches. From that point we go through all of the above. Meanwhile the Word tells us to love God and our neighbors as ourselves. The world suffers from chronic anxiety because we don't love ourselves enough to filter our thoughts. Here's the deal: We are not in competition. We are unique and beautiful and talented, each in our own ways. Our minds are tremendously powerful (Prov. 23:7) "As ye think, so shall ye be."
Filtering our thoughts allows us to promote good by thinking good things. First about ourselves. Then about others. As one Swedenborg follower put it: The "Federal Bureau of Getting You To Take Things Wrong", and the department. of "Internal Argumentation for False Reasons" and The "Relationship Destruction Association" all know each other. They golf together. Your mind puts you in these little pens of whatever bothers you..self esteem issues, boredom, jealousy, fear, and I'm not good enough—for the same reason a farmer puts a cow in a pen—to make it easy to get milk. But the devil doesn't drink milk, he drinks you having negative thoughts that breed fear and distrust that make you anxious and miserable."
You're in charge. Change the station. Throw down negative thoughts. Give others the benefit of the doubt and toss unnecessary fears out the window. If we are to have "joy that overflows" this is a powerful way to get it.
Thinking lovely thoughts,
Nancy
