Be careful of what you feed your mind

"As you sow, so shall you reap". 
My younger daughter was reading this idiom in her 3rd standard English workbook and i was trying to explain its meaning trying to cite various examples.

Some of the examples that i gave her were like:

- If you eat too much of ice creams, you are likely to end up with a sore throat.

- If you eat chocolates and do not take care to keep your teeth clean, you might end up with decayed teeth.

- If you study hard, you are likely to get good marks..... and so on.

There is a common element in all the above examples, and most of us are blinded from that common element. The common element is that all the above examples that i gave are "physical" or externally visible in nature. I did not drill down to the meta physical level, which is the key to our success.

The same applies to each one of us when we have to deal with various situations in life. Most of us do take good care of all physical elements of life like : the best exercise, gymnasium, overall physical health, the best comfortable car, the best schools for our kids, the best quality food, the best clothing, the best possible mobile etc. While all these are definitely important for the comfort and well being of our physical body, we usually miss out on the metaphysical aspect, which is, taking care of our mind and our thoughts. Ultimately, it is our thoughts, and not the physical body, that defines our destiny.

Let us take an example. If we have to maintain a good physical body, how would we take care of what we feed our body on a day to day basis? We would ensure good health with - the food that we eat, the nutrients that we consume, a balanced nutrient diet, clean water, exercising routine, walk or jogging, etc....

Now, i am going to ask you a question which is likely to make you uncomfortable. What do you do on a daily basis to make sure that your mind and your thoughts stay healthy? Any thoughts ? :)

Seems tough to answer this question right away, isn't it? But it is important. For, it is your thoughts, and not your body, that will decide your destiny. It is your thoughts that will give you a vision of the life, it is your thoughts that will conceptualize the dreams for you and also help you strategise the execution of those dreams. It is your thoughts that decide how you react to a specific situation or come out of a hopeless scenario. It is your thoughts that ultimately lead you to act in a specific manner. It is these actions that ultimately decide your day, week and month, and ultimately your destiny.

Imagine a team of 10 workers in an office environment along with their supervisor in a closed room meeting. The supervisor is angry over some issue and is really firing the team for not performing adequately. The meeting goes on for 30 minutes and everyone is blamed for giving a below average performance. When the meeting gets over, all 10 workers have a different way to react on the boss's behavior. Some blame the supervisor himself for not giving instructions properly, some blame the organization, some get into a shell and get stressed out about the entire incident, and some look at the incidence logically and try and learn from what went wrong and give an improved performance the next time. What makes all these 10 people think differently? It is not their physical health but their thoughts. What happens the next time..these 10 workers behave differently at work, perform at different levels and ultimately create different destinies for themselves.

We often overlook this thought process and assume that we have no control over it.

Just like you take extra care of your physical health by making sure you feed your body with the right food and exercise, you ought to take care of your thoughts by taking care of what you are feeding to your mind.Your mind can be fed from your sense organs ie what you hear, what you see and what you think. Make sure you make deliberate conscious efforts to feed the right positive stuff to your mind because it is your destiny which is at stake.

What you hear

Stay in the right company. Try and stay away from "well meaning friends" who usually talk negative about the company they work in, the bosses they work for, the country they live in and the overall the environment around them. Get yourself addicted to hearing positive talks from great stories around the world by subscribing to positive MP3 talks and utilize your time effectively.

What you see

The beloved television and the inseparable newspaper are junk food to your thoughts, unless you train your mind what to read in the newspaper and what to see in the television. I personally, prefer to read the newspaper's sports section, and a bit of business section. Sports section gives me success stories from all around the world. Business section keeps me abreast with the latest in the market which is important for my investments to thrive. As far as Television is concerned, i "suggest" my kids to stay restricted to knowledgeable channels like Animal Planet and some good decent message oriented movies. Is it difficult to restrict yourself like this? Yes, it is difficult in the beginning. But, if you truly understand that your destiny depends on it, it does not remain difficult at all.

What you think

This is a tricky one. What i am saying is that your next thought depends on your current thought. This is a loop. Positive thoughts attract more positive thoughts, and so does negative thoughts. This essentially means that by intermittently taking a conscious break in your thoughts and focusing on what you are thinking at the moment, you can try to control them if the train of thoughts are going in a negative direction. Under normal circumstances, we are continuously thinking something and the entire thought process generation seems an involuntary action. The fact is that it is not so. You can halt your thoughts, and control what you want to think. Developing this habit may take some time, but can be done and has been done by many. "Meditation" can help you get started on this journey.

Once you control what you feed to your mind, you will automatically see the difference, and you will that difference faster than what you would have imagined. You will start having the right thoughts that lead to creation of a great destiny. Right thoughts will visualize dreams, plan strategies and go on and implement them in the best possible way. 

You need to take control and be mindful of what you are feeding to your mind.

It is possible, and it helps.

As James Allen once said:

"You are today where your thoughts have brought you; you will be tomorrow where your thoughts take you." 

Cheers

Manoj Arora