Digging a Little Deeper
The daily exercise during the second and third week is much the same as the first. However, there’s a shift in what to reflect on. You will think less of the toxic thought (weed), which you will now visualise as rapidly shrinking and drying up, while simultaneously seeing the new healthy thought growing stronger (plant or flower). This sort of visualisation is a help, but if you find visualisation difficult then say this paragraph slowly (or those of a similar nature). Put meaning into what you’re saying and feel the conviction, the truth of those words.
The Central Issue
The second week will reveal to you what central issue is behind the negative thought.{v} We don’t think in a vacuum. There’s always a reason for thinking negatively about ourselves, others or life as a whole. Likewise, if you look back on what you have written so far and the daily affirmations you have used, you will see a pattern starting to emerge, or similar ideas recurring. This can help you identify the underlying issue, and make sure to ask the angels to help you. I sometimes feel a sense of recognition or liberation when I identify the central issue.
Considering the previous example of ‘I’m no good’, the root issue could be: it’s a belief adopted from childhood, something ingrained by what a parent or teacher used to say to you as a child. The good news is, this negative thought trait and belief can be eradicated with this daily exercise, and you can adopt the healthy thinking of, ‘I am a good person’ and ‘I am talented, kind, helpful etc.’ Not only that, you will believe it in the core of your being as the angels assist and heal you. When you practice the affirmations, the new healthy thought is strengthened so it can’t be easily undone. It sinks into the subconscious mind and this way of thinking becomes automatic.
It’s important to mention that anger and resentment can come up at those who helped you believe negative and destructive things about yourself. You will find yourself in the position of having to forgive that person to move on. Don’t worry, the angels can help you with that too. Bring it to them in prayer; ask for their help. They’re only too willing to help. But remember, you are only human. You can take your time with learning to forgive. You can ask God to forgive the person while you’re still coming to terms with the need to do that yourself. Allow your emotions the time they need to catch up. When you’re ready, you’ll find you are more willing to forgive.
The point of discovering the underlying issues is to recognise what’s happening inside you at a deeper level. Being aware of these issues and knowing how they affect you helps you to be more vigilant and to recognise other negative thoughts and behaviour associated with them. So, as in the above example, you can take the appropriate action.
You may think I exaggerate, but many people are unaware when they’re thinking, speaking or behaving negatively. There’s so much of it around, a certain amount of brainwashing takes place; it’s perceived as normal. Now you’re set to be freed of negativity you can help others by spreading your positivity and cheerfulness. When they see the change in you, they will inevitably ask, ‘Why are you so cheerful?’ What a great opportunity you then have to help someone, just as you have been helped.
Week 2
Start each day of Week 2 the way you did the first week. Pray to your angels to help you focus on dissolving the negative thought you’re working on, and seeing the positive thought growing. Again, visualise something around the healthy thought growing tall and strong like a beautiful bush with red flowers or something similar. One visualisation I love is seeing the angels clapping and blowing long thin trumpets, assuring me victory is now certain. The new, healthy thought is triumphant. Whatever way you do this believe your angels are with you and helping you through this process.
Continue with the daily exercise. Think now how this healthy thought is growing and what you want that thought to be. The converse of ‘I’m no good’ could be ‘I’m a gifted and loving child of God’ or ‘I am not only good, I am kind and gifted and useful’. You get the picture, I’m sure. Use last week’s positive affirmations to help you with this. The healthy thought’s roots are now threading their way deeper into your brain. These positive proteins are as precious as gold dust. I love to picture my synapses lighting up and the electricity crackling and flashing at the use of the growing healthy thought. For me, it’s a real wow factor!
During your daily reflection, ask the angels how the new healthy thought is helping you. Here are some of the questions to be asking yourself? Remember, you can add to or expand upon them once you’re used to doing this exercise:
The healthy thoughts just like the toxic ones are like spaghetti. In other words, they’re all jumbled in together, touching and influencing each other. As the positive thoughts grow in number the existing negative thoughts are beginning to lose their influence and power over your everyday thinking and decisions. This is also furthered each day if you arrest your thinking when drifting into negative thoughts. In other words, when you become aware of an unhealthy thought coming into your mind, jettison it straight away and replace it with an affirming thought.
Archangel Gabriel helps us to communicate clearly, especially when it involves speaking the truth and with integrity. Ask him to clearly communicate the changes that needs to occur in Week 2. See him with you helping you explore the true issues of why you are thinking this negative thought, and how you now wish to embed the healthy thought deeper in your mind. Ask him how you can use the new healthy thought to communicate and relate to others better. The more you do this the easier it will become to do this exercise. Another thing you’ll notice soon after starting this daily exercise is you no longer want to be around negative people and naysayers.
Unfortunately, I had to cut a few people out of my life and limit the time I spend with others. I may still love and care for them but I have to take care of myself first. How can I truly be happy and truly help others if I’m drained and weighed down by negativity? My thinking has become so healthy and positive I find being around negative and critical people exhausting and upsetting. No doubt my highly sensitive nature plays a part in this – but there you have it. This also led me to limit my time watching T.V. I no longer watch the news or read newspapers. They just depress and cause me anxiety.
Now write down what you were reflecting on. Ask the angels to help you put the thoughts you were having into words. Look back over each day of Week 1 and consider how you’re unearthing the negative thought and allowing space for the positive thought to grow. Realise how positivity’s spilling over into your daily life and relationships. Now, ask the angels if there’s anything you need to add or reconsider. The angels will help you: just listen. A mental nudge, an idea, something you remember someone said, a feeling. The angels communicate in all sorts of ways.
My angel Samuel, a warrior angel under Archangel Michael, gives me owls as signs when I need to be reassured of God’s love, or reminded I’m loved and cared for. It might even be to tell me everything’s okay, so stop worrying, or everything’s happening the way it’s supposed to. Sometimes I see the owl imprinted on someone’s t-shirt, in a cartoon, a toy I see a child playing with. It doesn’t matter in what way it’s given, the important thing is I’m aware of why it’s being given and what it means.
Once I saw a beautiful owl land on the branch of an oak tree. It was in the middle of tilled field in Cambridgeshire, England. It was twilight, and we both stood and looked at each other for what seemed an age before it flew off again. What a graced moment. I still smile whenever I remember that experience, and, I can assure you, I needed to be reminded at the time that everything was okay and I would be alright. Anyway, you get the picture – and I’m sure similar things have happened to you. I’m aware of them now because I’m more tuned in: I listen and am aware.
Now ask your angels to help you choose an affirmation. Ensure these affirmations are ones which will really encourage and motivate you. The nigglies will try and tell you the mental cleanse isn’t working, that it’s all a waste of time. But don’t listen. That’s your ego giving you a mental arm twist. Your whole attitude this week should be one of joyful hope. If you don’t feel it, then: fake it till you make it!
Did you know we can think our thoughts into being, into reality? In other words, we can bring them to life, give them shape and form to either help or hinder us in life. If negative thoughts can do that so can positive ones, and all the more, since these work with the grace of God. So concentrate on the positive and see the toxic shrink, the darkness recede into the shadows, giving way before the light of the truth about yourself.
Let us create an avalanche of healthy thinking as a witness to the negativity and cynicism of our modern age. If enough of us do this the tide will be turned. Positivity, healing and love will be the order of the day. The angels can help make this happen if we invite them in. Oh, and how they dance at the thought of this!
Week 3
This week you are nearing your goal; being free of this toxic thought. Given that this thought is now weaker, like a limp weed surrendering to a strong weedkiller, it’s only time that’s needed for it to be completely eradicated – namely, the third week.
Keep that in mind as you ask the angels to inspire and help you stay positive. Use visualisation techniques during your reflection; see yourself free of the negative thought. Here’s one visualisation I use in the third week:
I see the remainder of the toxic thought as a castle with strong walls. This is the thought putting up a last ditch battle. I then see angels accompany me. We walk around the castle walls and the angels blow on these long trumpets. The walls are unable to resist and immediately come crumbling down. A strong wind blows the rubble away. Victory is realised.
Now reflect on the negative thought as continuing to wither at an incredible rate. Victory is just around the corner. Stay the course. Don’t be like the one who left the room five minutes before the miracle happened. Here are some of the questions you can be asking yourself during your reflection:
On day 20, and as part of your reflection, glance over what you wrote on the first week. Remember how you felt at the time and compare it with what you wrote this week and how you feel now. On the last day consider how you will use your new way of thinking and think of examples, situations where you could put this into practice.
Again, write your thoughts in your diary and mull over what you’ve written. Ask the angels to help you come up with a helpful affirmation for the day. Remember to use this affirmation as often as you can during the day, especially if the toxic thought tries to reassert itself. Just remember it’s the last ditch battle. Even when you’ve finished the exercise for that particular destructive thought, if it comes to mind, don’t worry. It’s just the memory of the thought you used to have. Just trust in God and his angels and stay with the healthy thinking.
Sometimes people get confused with what the new healthy thought is. They tend to experience it as ‘a lack of’, as though waiting for something to happen. This, too, is nothing to worry about. It’s because your mind has been freed and you’re looking for a substitute thought. The substitute thought resides in your attitude.
Realise it’s not just an absence of the negative thought. You have reprogrammed part of your brain. You’ll know it has worked when you face any future temptations, or come across it from others. You’ll be able to smile to yourself and think in the positive, happy you no longer need to think that toxic thought.
In the meantime, though, think of some affirmation to use, or talk to yourself saying, “Isn’t marvellous I no longer have to think negatively. I choose to think ….,” and add in the positive thought and healthy attitude instead. Do this often as it comes to mind during the day for another six weeks. It can take that long for the healthy thought to become rooted in the subconscious. It will help secure your attitude around it, too.
Once it’s there, you can be sure you’ll automatically use the healthy thought. If any temptation comes to think in the negative way you used to, remember, that’s all it is – a temptation, probably brought on by the likes of tiredness or emotional upset. And pay heed: if you ignore these suggestions, don’t encourage the healthy thought to sink into the subconscious, you leave it vulnerable to being supplanted again by what’s toxic.
If any resistance remains around the negative thought, perhaps you need to do an extra week or repeat the whole process. This can be the case with particularly stubborn thought patterns to be got rid of. There’s no rush, so don’t feel you’ve failed or let yourself down. I’ve had to do this myself. Just take it in your stride and be aware that the angels are helping you go at your own pace.
Do you remember the earlier comparison I used? You know, the one about our thoughts all clustered like spaghetti. It’s marvellous to say, but each time you do this three week cycle, the spaghetti becomes less of a clump; it loosens and is easier to dish out. Tasty!
But I digress. The point I’m trying to make is your head becomes clearer, slows down and you will be able to concentrate with less effort. Don’t be surprised if your memory and concentration improve, your head feels less full and you can think more clearly on a daily basis. That’s the power of The Mental Cleansing and Refurbishment Exercise. That’s the power of angelic assistance.
Additionally, you’ll begin to notice you don’t want to think negatively and start to avoid people, places and situations which are unhealthy for you. As I said earlier, I now watch T.V. sparingly because there’s so much negativity on many programmes. I no longer want the toxic garbage to clutter up my mind. Tests have also recognised a link with watching too much rubbish on T.V., especially late at night, and mental health issues. If what we put into our bodies affects our physical, mental and emotional well-being, it’s hardly surprising what we put into our mind will have similar effects.
Do you remember this from earlier: when thoughts enter the conscious mind, they are malleable, able to be changed? The introduction of the healthy thought through the daily affirmations has been helping to do just that. And after the third week, you still actively and deliberately use the healthy, new way of thinking. You can call it to mind with the use of an affirmation or positive thought, one that’s the opposite of what was negative. In any event, you’ll find it natural to think positively and healthily around what you couldn’t before.
Do this as often as it comes to mind during the day for another six weeks. It can take that long for the healthy thought to become rooted in the subconscious. Once it’s there, you can be sure you’ll automatically use the healthy thought. If you ignore this suggestion, you leave the new healthy thought vulnerable to being supplanted by what’s toxic again.
If any resistance remains around the negative thought, perhaps you need to do an extra week or repeat the whole process. This can be the case with particularly stubborn thought patterns to be got rid of. There’s no rush, so don’t feel you’ve failed or let yourself down. I’ve had to do this myself. Just take it in your stride and be aware that the angels are helping you go at your own pace.
Angelic Tidbits
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