Practical Spirituality: Forty Days to Getting Rid of Negative Thoughts

I was cruising through YouTube last night when I cam upon a song by Chic called Good Times. During the Disco Era when I used to dance to that song under flashing , surrounded by hundreds of people like a great tribe I heard the words but never really paid attention. As I listened to the song last night I remembered how it felt to be moving with so many people lost to the rhythm of the dance. During those times I was one with the universe. I was one with the people around me and my dance partner; I was one with the music and the flashing lights; I was definitely connected with everything. That is probably why I loved to dance so much. And what were the words to this song? One line—“We are the good times, leave your cares be hind; these are the good times.” As I look back on those times I realize that the words were true and are true.

You may be searching for something in your life now that can bring you peace. You may have forgotten the good times that you shared with friends and relatives throughout the years. Sometimes all of the negative things that persist overtime can make us forget the good times. The good times are now. They are the things that happen all of the time in the shadow of all of the voices and the publicity that is constantly trying to pull us out of ourselves and make us look for joy in only extraordinary circumstances. Sometimes, however, the extraordinary circumstances are right in front of us and we don't even notice. The music during my years of disco dancing weren't the good times, nor were the dances, nor the lights, or the people, the good times were that people being of one mind had decided to create that special place out there on the dance floor where one was free to move to the rhythm of the beat in whatever way one would like. It was the decision to be in a community where it was all right to be free.

We are the good times. When we create places and opportunities where we are allowed to express ourselves and where we will be accepted, and where we can participate in the sustenance of such places, we create the good times. We have the power to do that with others and in our personal lives. Just experiment with this sometimes. Close your eyes and sit quietly. Imagine a time when you heard some great music or experienced joy in your life. Hold onto the thought. Stay in that place until you find the joy again and you feel the exact same feeling. Remember that feeling. Really remember it in your bones. You will find that you can draw on that feeling whenever you want. You can remember that feeling when you feel sad, when you feel lonely, when you feel angry. And that feeling—an overwhelming feeling of joy, will diminish the sadness and the loneliness, and change your perspective.

If you sit in a quiet place when you feel a negative emotion and then draw on this positive emotion and experience them together over a period of time, the joy will eventually overwhelm the negativity and take the place of the negative emotion. When this occurs you will be a master of the self. You will be the one who creates your own life and manages your own thoughts. You will be able to overcome all obstacles as you live in a world of bliss and joy. This takes time for some people and not much time for others. If you persistently, however, pair a negative emotion up with a positive one and hold them both in their place, and you desire the positive, the negative will soon be abated and you will be free of old thoughts and fantasies planted in your mind from the past that cause you to suffer now. It just takes time and patience. Try it focusing on one negative emotion every 40 days. You will like it. It all sounds so simple. It is simple to understand the only difficulty comes in being willing to do it.