Feb 1 , 2019
By Tsion Fisseha ( Tsion Fisseha is a writer and head of foreign languages in the news department at a local TV station. She has been a part of a pan African poetry slam competition representing Ethiopia and is a member of a rock band entitled the Green Manalishi. She can be reached at tsion.f.terefe@gmail.com. )
On a recent lazy Sunday afternoon, I came across a TV show where a speaker who seemed to be in his late 30s was discussing the power of positive thinking and how they have made us the people we are now.
He talked about how he met his current wife. He had originally been infatuated with finding a girlfriend that did not want to leave Ethiopia.
“And that is what I said over and over again. I said, ‘I don’t want the woman whom I’m going to marry to leave’,” he said, only to have two women leave him for lives overseas. “That is when it clicked. I realised that my mind is a powerful magnet, so instead of saying what I did not want, I had to repeat what I wanted.”
He listed 16 things that he wanted his partners to have. And there she was, in the flesh, according to him.
Being a pessimist or borderline realist myself, I focused on every explanation he gave to support his premise in the hope of being persuaded.
Having read The Power of Thought, The Secret and books on the law of attraction, this is not the first time I came across this particular ideology or way of life.
Negativity, for most, is more or less second nature. It is true that it is much easier not to expect anything from our external environment than to believe and fail. Everything that we are, we have created though. Every time we think, we can affect ourselves and those around us.
Our brain is a powerful organ, and we still do not know half of what it is capable of. Research has shown that imagining an action and doing it require the same amount of motor and sensory programmes in the brain. Although some might profoundly disagree, imagination plays a significant role in the actions that we carry out.
This is not spiritual or even mystical but logical. If we think about instances like how bad our boss is or how uncomfortable our work environment is, we spend too much time and effort on that thought that it cannot help but manifest itself throughout our career.
The more focused we are on the negative aspects, we would not know it if positivity hit us right between our eyes.
“We live in a world of thought, but we think we live in a world of external experience,” as Michael Neil said beautifully.
Even though the power of thought or law of attraction is given a lot of attention nowadays, it dates back over two millennia when Greek philosophers were well aware that likes tend toward likes.
It is believed that an average person has between 60,000 to 80,000 thoughts a day. These thoughts fall more or less into four categories. They are either about the routine tasks that we do when we are at work, with friends and or home. Otherwise we waste thoughts on past events.
They can also be negative thoughts, which carry the feeling that nothing is ever going to be alright, and positive thoughts that bring a smile to our faces and the outside world. For the latter, it entails radiating positivity, a response mirrored in the brain of the observer. It is the reason we smile every time we see someone else smile.
This may be overwhelming to some or perhaps an overly optimistic assumption for someone describing herself as pessimistic. It does not hurt to try it though. The worst that can happen is remaining in an unaltered state of mind.
PUBLISHED ON
Feb 01,2019 [ VOL
19 , NO
979]
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