Do dead people worry?

I’m not being morbid here – just trying to make a point and that is that dead people don’t worry, stress, fret, need approval or experience any other negative emotion - so let me ask you - do you spend wasted daily mental time in negative emotions or thoughts?  Come on – everyone sooner or later or always feels stressed, worried or live to please others and achieve the approval of others and why?

Research indicates that over 75% of the things people worry about never happen so why do some many people spend so much awake time worrying?

I was recently reading a book where the author used this analogy and it made me think – am I guilty - and I teach this stuff? Rather than focus on how we behave when we are dead (kidding here) I would rather discuss the rationales people use for this wasted mental time often worrying about trivial stuff.

The average person thinks over 50,000 thoughts a day (that’s over 300 per minute) and unfortunately most of these are either past or future driven and are unconscious.  Are these people trying to control the future? Change the past? Believe me - both are useless exercises and yet the majority of our thoughts day by day, hour by hour, minute by minute are in one of these two categories.

The average person has over three trillion chemical reactions in the brain every second, so how in the world can we ever hope to control our thoughts?  Well, folks it ain’t easy.

I don’t have the time, space or knowledge to completely explain this thinking process, but I have learned a great deal from reading over ten books a year on neural physiology, mental behavior and thought processes and here is the primary thing I have learned that is common to every author, scientist, medical doctor, Psychiatrist – “our thoughts determine and control our actions – decisions, beliefs, opinions, behavior, actions, fears, hopes etc.”.  To change improve or modify our behavior, we must learn to change and or control our thoughts.

After studying this process for the better part of thirty plus years and trying to implement its teachings, I must admit it has been a real challenge to change or adjust my thought processes and again – I teach this stuff.  So, if it is difficult for me imagine how the average person handles this moment by moment challenge.

What can we do to improve, change, modify, control or eliminate certain thought patterns? Therapy? Prayer? Meditation? Study? Hypnosis? Hope - etc.?  Well, yes and no to each of these as a total and complete “cure”.  I am not qualified to delve into each of these with complete accuracy but, I have learned a great deal from each approach and here are my conclusions (if you are still reading).

1)     Maintain conscious awareness of your thought patterns, routines and how they are impacting your emotions, decisions and behavior.

2)     Develop psychological anchors (I have an article on this process so if you want more let me know) to help you stay focused and in control of your thoughts.

3)     Spend time in silence each day and listen to where your thoughts take you and keep a journal of the common ones.

4)     Ask yourself why – why am I thinking these thoughts?  Is there some unfinished business, memories, previous regrets etc. that lack closure?

5)     Whenever you start to think unwelcome or negative thoughts (worries) stop what you are doing (I don’t mean pull over to the side of the road while you are driving) and try and determine the triggers for these thoughts – is it a person, a circumstance or some other reason.

Controlling your thoughts is the single biggest step you can take to achieve success, happiness, peace of mind and a joyful life.