by Paula Maher

Created on: December 03, 2008

Choice - Your Ultimate Freedom

"Wrong thoughts are inside us just because we identify ourselves with these thoughts. If we identify with something else, immediately they have to leave us."
Sri Chinmoy Indian philosopher and teacher.

One of my favourite authors of self development books is Dr. Wayne Dyer. He has a common thread throughout his books: You can choose how you feel. It sounds like a great concept. If we were all able to do this surely most of us would choose to feel happy.

I believe going with the flow of life is certainly a lot easier than fighting everything that happens to you. I have practiced this and indeed it does work, life is easier when I let go of results. There are still a lot of instances when I think God doesn't know what he's doing and I better take over and that is usually when things really fall apart. If I could just remember that at the time! My emotions take over and I become so anxious that I feel I absolutely must take control of the situation, but how much power do we really have over outcomes?

Marianne Williamson talks about this in her book "A Return To Love", another favourite of mine. "Events are always in flux," she says, "One day they love you; the next day you're their target. One day a situation is running smoothly; the next day chaos reigns. One day you feel like an okay person: the next day you feel like you're an utter failure. These changes in life are always going to happen; they're part of the human experience. What can change however is how we perceive those experiences."

How we experience our world is about what is coming through our own filter of perception. Dr Dyer says, "The essence of greatness is the ability to choose personal fulfillment in circumstances where others choose madness."

I read somewhere that The New York Times reported that because humans have 2-3000 thoughts per day, an athlete can improve his performance by reducing the number of thoughts running through his head by eliminating negative useless ones thus reducing the number to around 1200 or so. I don't know if those figures are correct, some believe that our thoughts range from 12,000 to 60,000 daily. Regardless of statistics, there are a lot of different things we ponder on every day. We are continuously thinking. Most of the time subconsciously.

So how do we control these thoughts that will inevitably create our feelings? It is not an easy task. I find that I automatically react to certain situations with the same thought pattern and I have

• 1
• 2
• Next Page >>