one of the columnists in the op-ed section of today’s paper wrote about some woman in australian who has a best-selling self-help book called the secret. it sounds like it’s all about the power of positive thinking – oprah said that “we create our own circumstances by the choices we make, and the choices we make are fueled by our thoughts.”
so therefore, we have to Love Ourselves and Think Positive Thoughts. The columnist went on to talk about how she needs to stop the negative thinking about pres. bush, and bush needs to stop the negative thinking…
so hers was a political view, but i think the Power of Positive Thinking makes perfect sense. i was just explaining it to somebody the other day, as a matter of fact, about Professor Harold Hill. You know, from “The Music Man.” the guy i was talking to had never SEEN the Music Man, which surprised me because i assumed everybody has seen it. well, in the story, the music man himself, harold hill, who is really just a petty swindler, gets all the parents in the town where he stops (RIVER CITY IOWA, duh…”there’s nothing halfway about the Iowa way to treat you if we treat you which we may not do at all…” a snippet of one of the many many memorable songs from the play/movie) to buy band instruments for their kids. and then he has the kids use THE THINK SYSTEM to learn how to play. the instruments haven’t arrived because of course he was just pretending to order them, but he has the kids THINK about practicing, and in the end they do manage to play a shaky version of the Minuet in G.
The think system. the whole thing about how your thoughts are the key to just about EVERYTHING is something i think about quite a bit. of course, i’m not going around thinking about the war so much because those thoughts always end in the same place, the downward spiral of despair. so instead i think about more immediate concerns, like weight loss.
and so here’s one thing to think about re: losing weight and all of that. don’t blame your thighs.
don’t blame your thighs. or your bulging gut or your flabby arms or you big butt or your pudgy legs or whatever part of your body that you really can’t stand and wish wouldn’t look like that.
it’s not your body’s fault. it’s your MIND you should be concerned about. sometimes i try to blame my mouth, for stuffing in too many cookies, but the mouth is just a servant to my mind.
your MIND. the wacky lady from australia is right, you can look at things in a whole new way. for example, instead of all the negative thinking about your poor body parts which are the result of too many twinkies, you should think good things about your body. you should be happy that you HAVE thighs, that you weren’t born without them. it would be hard to support your legs with no thighs.
and then you could think that since you like your two thighs so much, that you want them to look their best…which means that your MIND has to say no thank you to the six thousand french fries. and the chocolate shake.
it’s your MIND that convinces you that you don’t feel like exercising – your legs would be happy to participate, they’re not doing anything else anyway.
so don’t hate your body. don’t HATE your mind, but try to use it to positively change yourself. “I don’t hate my body; on the contrary, i’m glad to have a body, and i want it to be in good shape so it will continue to support my head which contains my MIND.”
gee, maybe i should go into the self-help business.
i have to go start in on that right now.
ok then,
motivated (morning) tuesday grace.