Last month, I started a workshop that entails applying the concepts taught by Emmet Fox in his booklet, The 7-Day Mental Diet. Now a week-and-a-half into it, I’m finding it a fascinating and amazingly easy way to shut down negative thoughts. Our class is continuing for several weeks because instead of trying for a faster, more dramatic and potentially short-lived change, our teacher has elected to have our class continue for several weeks to ensure that our approach to this personal transformation endures.

During the first two weeks we simply noticed emotion-driven thoughts as they occurred, and then learned to gently let them go. We came to pay closer attention to thoughts, both negative and positive, without judging or labeling them good or bad, but just noting their presence with a bit of curiosity. The trick is not to monitor thoughts, but just “notice-when-you-notice” and mentally observe something like, “Hmmm… that was interesting.” Rather than questioning what this or that thought means, we are to stop at immediately acknowledging and letting it go.

Something started to happen early on that has me intrigued. When a negative thought or reaction came, I would chuckle or smile to myself, and it immediately dissipated any negativity. Catching a positive thought or response only intensified the joy already being experienced.

I love how simply noticing a negative emotion before it had time to take hold and expand in my thought and life made it easy to skip right past it, recognizing the fruitlessness or embracing it, so that I could move on into a quick giggle. Realizing the control we have over our thoughts and emotions feels delightfully empowering.

With practice, I hope to make this new response an automatic habit because it’s significantly easing the flow of my days. I am wishing us all a beautiful month of flow!

Peace,

Maisie Raftery