Saturday, March 1, 2008

Surrounded by Your Thoughts

In the last few months, I have developed an addiction to learning everything I can about thoughts and how they create our reality, specifically in the areas of health and happiness. I am a pushover for any book sold by Amazon that has key words or phrases like: change your brain, change your life, happiness or quantum physics. Yes, quantum physics! Now I know how a simple but powerfully held thought really can move mountains as quoted in Matthew 17:20.

Armed with this new awareness of empowerment through thoughts, I now proudly wear my thoughts. Here are two of my jewelry favorites: "Hope" on a necklace and on a bracelet "Expect Miracles." On my T-Shirts: I Love My Life; Linger in the Light and Brave Heart (for cancer survivors). All of these words not only lift my spirit, but I believe the energy of those words is received by those who read me. Cool, huh? So now, I want to surround not only me, but my family with inspiring thoughts. The walls in my home are just waiting to be conquered!

However, I am finding this mission to be a bit complicated. Where I can easily throw on a necklace or T-shirt to expose my thought for the day, our house reflects the personalities of my husband and three teenagers. Which means if I let them choose, I could get quotes from South Park: "There are no stupid answers, just stupid people," or Micheal from The Office: "I’m not superstitious. I’m a littlestitious" or Michelle Wie on The Golf Channel: "I don't really feel like I have to apologize for anything.”

With those possibilities lurking about, I quickly abandoned the team effort approach and have decided to do mission impossible as a solo feat. I took the first step by perusing the pages of Uppercase Living, a catalogue with hundreds of phrases. I knew the ultimate phrase for our family room was to be found within those pages. However, what started out as an exciting task quickly turned to fear and paralysis as I read and reread the hundreds of phrases looking for the one thought that could alter someone's brain and then their entire life!

All these possibilities got me really daydreaming about the changes I might see from my family and myself if I put words all over the house:

Squeaky clean teens as a result of "Wash, Brush, Floss & Flush"
Delightful morning conversations with my teens just by posting "Good morning Sunshine"
"Obstacles are opportunities in disguise" would totally reduce my stress and increase my happiness when my son tells me he just flunked another math quiz
"A family that plays together, stays together" has me looking forward to playing Boggle on Friday nights with my 16 year old son and 17 year old daughter
But the best result comes from "Grow old with me, the best is yet to be" which turns my wrinkles and saggy parts into a bonus rather than a liability for my husband.

I have to admit that I am now rethinking my original thought to thoughtfully select empowering thoughts that could alter someone's thinking. Whew! But then I think of how inspired I would be each day by this powerful thought "When Your Dreams Turn To Dust, Vacuum."

Some thoughts are just better left un-thought and unprinted.