by T McGiver

Created on: May 12, 2009   Last Updated: May 18, 2009

Thoughts are energy. They take the symbolic form of words or images that have shared meanings that produce reactions in others. As such they hold power, and releasing that power naturally will affect the thinker and others.

Thoughts themselves and the way we express them therefore need our attention. Often thoughts are most effective when we guard them (i.e., keep them to ourselves until the moment to reveal them has come).

Like other forms of energy, thoughts manifest in a variety of forms: robust or fragile, persistent or fleeting, deliberate or spontaneous, clear or confused, simple or complex. Some have important consequences; most seem mundane or trivial.

Whatever we do and achieve, however, began as a thought. Thoughts are the first stage in the chain of manifestation that proceeds from thought to word and then deed. When a thought has matured sufficiently, it can express itself in words or speech, and ultimately in action that leads to the results we seek - and sometimes to results we were not expecting.

Bringing thoughts to fruition as words and deeds requires listening to them and then nourishing them privately. (Similarly, we can manage negative thoughts by not giving them attention so that they dissipate and disappear.) Prematurely expressing thoughts, like building on concrete foundations that are still wet or removing lasagna from an oven before it is done, undermines their quality and comprehensibility by limiting their precision, concision, logical consistency, and cohesiveness. Expressing negative thoughts in any state endows them with a reality that we almost certainly would not want them to have.

The act of expressing thoughts as words consumes additional psychic energy. Incomplete thoughts require still more energy to express than fully formed thoughts. Clarity, structure, and form often need revision and further definition if incomplete thoughts are to hold together well enough to be understood by others.

Expressing thoughts can have two purposes. First, expression is the initial step in storing them (e.g., on paper) for later reference and refinement. Second, expression can expose thoughts to other people who may take them gratefully to heart, reject them out of hand, or generously suggest how we might improve them. If other people, learning of our thoughts, make efforts to refine them, expression can have desirable outcomes. But if thoughts meet with critical attitudes because they have been expressed in an incomplete or threatening

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