How do I stop my negative thoughts?

"How do I stop my negative thoughts?" - is a question that I have been asked many times. If you have ever asked this question then you will feel such enormous relief in knowing the answer, because it is so simple. How do you stop negative thoughts? You plant good thoughts! When you try to stop negative thoughts, you are focusing on what you don't want - negative thoughts - and you will attract an abundance of them. They can never disappear if you are focused on them. The "stop" part is irrelevant - the negative thoughts are your focus. It doesn't matter if you are trying to stop negative thoughts or control them or push them away, the result is the same. Your focus is on negative thoughts, and by the law of attraction you are inviting more of them to you. The truth is always simple and it is always easy. To stop negative thoughts, just plant good thoughts! Deliberately plant good thoughts! You plant good thoughts by making it a daily practice to appreciate all the things in your day. Appreciate your health, your car, your home, your family, your job, your friends, your surroundings, your meals, your pets, and the magnificent beauty of the day. Compliment, praise, and give thanks to all things. Every time you say "Thank you" it is a good thought! As you plant more and more good thoughts, the negative thoughts will be wiped out. Why? Because your focus is on good thoughts, and what you focus on you attract. So don't give any attention to negative thoughts. Don't worry about them. If any come, make light of them, shrug them off, and let them be your reminder to deliberately think more good thoughts now. The more good thoughts you can plant in a day, the faster your life will be utterly transformed into all good. If you spend only one day speaking of good things and saying "Thank you" at every single opportunity, you will not believe your tomorrow. Deliberately thinking good thoughts is exactly like planting seeds. As you think good thoughts you are planting good seeds inside you, and the Universe will transform those seeds into a garden of paradise. How will the garden of paradise appear? As your life! FROM: Neelu Shiva Forwarded by: Aseem Kaistha

My Baby Girl...

MY BABY GIRL A beautiful baby girl was born to Radhika. The labour room attendants were extremely busy. Twenty one children were born in the hospital on that day. The doctors and nurses were heavily overworked. Radhika held the baby girl in her arms and caressed her soft hair. She whispered sweet nothings into her little ears. She breast fed her every two hours. The little baby would let out a little whimper and Radhika would attend to her in a jiffy. She changed her diapers and snuggled her close to herself to warm her, on this cold December night. On the third day, just before Radhika was to be discharged from hospital and sent home, she heard a commotion in the corridor of the ward. A woman was shouting, and some others were trying to quieten her. A few minutes later, a team of doctors walked into Radhika's room. They looked tense. The senior doctor said, "Radhika, we need to do a DNA test for your baby girl and you. We need to take the samples." Radhika was a little unnerved, "Why? What is it for?" "Err; it seems there has been a mix up. A lady has alleged that the baby girl that she had given birth to has been given to you and your baby has been given to her!" The words fell on her ears like a bombshell. She fainted. When she came back to consciousness, she could not speak a word. The DNA tests confirmed that the babies had indeed been exchanged. The doctor took the baby girl away and brought the other baby girl to her. Radhika held the new baby in her arms and cried endlessly. How much love she had showered upon the other child! All of a sudden she was told that the child did not belong to her! In a minute the child was whisked away from her arms. What a sea change her emotions had undergone. She did not love that child any more. Gone were the attachment and the affection. The realization took only an instant! This happening sets us thinking. We too, need to realize the truth about our worldly relationships. Our parents and our children are surely a part of our flesh and blood but we need to realize that the attachment is only up to the flesh and blood. Sooner or later children grow up and lead their lives independent of their parents. This is the way of the world. Each one of us came into this world alone and shall go alone too. Undue attachments tie us down. The sooner one realizes that we just need to do our duty and not get unduly entangled with emotions; the sooner one is able to free oneself from worldly attachments. Contributed by: Vish

THE POWER OF PRAYER

A poorly dressed lady with a look of defeat on her face, walked into a grocery store. She approached the owner of the store in a most humble manner and asked if he would let her charge a few groceries. She softly explained that her husband was very ill and unable to work, they had seven children and they needed food. John Longhouse, the grocer, scoffed at her and requested that she leave his store at once. Visualizing the family needs, she said: 'Please, sir! I will bring you the money just as soon as I can.' John told her he could not give her credit, since she did not have a charge account at his store. Standing beside the counter was a customer! who overheard the conversation between the two. The customer walked forward and told the grocer that he would stand good for whatever she needed for her family. The grocer said in a very reluctant voice, 'Do you have a grocery list?' Louise replied, 'Yes sir.' 'O. K.' he said, 'put your grocery list on the scales and whatever your grocery list weighs, I will give you that amount in groceries.' Louise, hesitated a moment with a bowed head, then she reached into her purse and took out a piece of paper and scribbled something on it. She then laid the piece of paper on the scale carefully with her head still bowed. The eyes of the grocer and the customer showed amazement when the scales went down and stayed down. The grocer, staring at the scales, turned slowly to the customer and said begrudgingly, 'I can't believe it.' The customer smiled and the grocer started putting the groceries on the other side of the scales. The scale did not balance so he continued to put more and more groceries on them until the scales would hold no more. The grocer stood there in utter disgust. Finally, he grabbed the piece of paper from the scales and looked at it with greater amazement. It was not a grocery list, it was a prayer, which said: 'Dear Lord, you know my needs and I am leaving this in your hands.' The grocer gave her the groceries that he had gathered and stood in stunned silence. Louise thanked him and left the store. The other customer handed a fifty-dollar bill to the grocer and  said; 'It was worth every penny of it. Only God Knows how much a prayer weighs.' FROM: Shoba .M.K

Do you bathe when you bathe?

EVERYDAY, early in the morning, a Zen Master asked his disciples: How many of you have bathed this morning? Almost all the disciples raise their hands dutifully. Next question: How many of you are aware you bathed when you did? Not a single hand was raised. Bathing is an act. Bathing with complete awareness that you are bathing is different. Today surely all of you must have bathed and all of you must have brushed your teeth. How many of you were aware of what you were doing when you did that? When you brushed your teeth how many of you were aware that you were brushing your teeth? When you bathed how many of you were aware of the hot water on your body? Were you aware that your body was just getting ready after the bath, and your life was getting rejuvenated after the bath? How many of you were aware of all these things when they happened? A small Zen story: A king went to a Master, and asked: ‘Master how can I become enlightened? Tell me about all the practices you do. What did you do to become enlightened? Please teach me’. The Master says: ‘Oh! I eat when I eat; I sleep when I sleep. That is all I do’. The king could not understand. The Master explained: ‘When I eat I only eat, I do not do anything else when I sleep I only sleep I do not do anything else’. But what do we do? Recall how you eat. You will remember that you were watching TV or reading a magazine when you were eating. Or it could be that you were talking to someone or continuously thinking of something. If you were calm, sitting quietly and eating your wife would have been there to report some problems in the house. So in one way or another, when you eat, your mind does everything else but focus on the food and eating. You do everything except eat. You treat food with such scant respect. It is just a form of garbage that is stuffed through your mouth. That is why the food treats you like a garbage bag. It withholds its energy unless you become aware of what you eat. If you treat your food with respect and are aware of what you eat when you eat, wellness results. This is true even when you sleep! When you sleep you do everything else except sleeping. Because, only when you sleep you dream, you have your nightmare and fear strokes. You then have disturbed sleep. Catch yourself in the act. Become aware. That will set your inner transformation in motion. FROM: Sudha Menon

F A M I L Y

I ran into a stranger as he passed by, 'Oh excuse me please' was my reply. He said, 'Please excuse me too; I wasn't watching for you.' We were very polite, this stranger and I. We went on our way and we said goodbye. But at home a different story is told, How we treat our loved ones, young and old. Later that day, cooking the evening meal, My son stood beside me very still. When I turned, I nearly knocked him down. 'Move out of the way,' I said with a frown. He walked away, his little heart broken. I didn't realize how harshly I'd spoken. While I lay awake in bed, God's still small voice came to me and said, While dealing with a stranger, common courtesy you use, but the family you love, you seem to abuse. Go and look on the kitchen floor, you’ll find some flowers there by the door. Those are the flowers he brought for you. He picked them himself: pink, yellow and blue. He stood very quietly not to spoil the surprise; you never saw the tears that filled his little eyes. By this time, I felt very small, And now my tears began to fall. I quietly went and knelt by his bed; 'Wake up, little one, wake up,' I said. Are these the flowers you picked for me? He smiled, 'I found them, out by the tree. I picked them because they're pretty like you. I knew you'd like them, especially the blue.' I said, 'Son, I'm very sorry for the way I acted today; I shouldn't have yelled at you that way. He said, 'Oh, Mom, that's okay. I love you anyway.' I said, Son, I love you too, and I do like the flowers, especially the blue. FAMILY Are you aware that if we died tomorrow, the company that we are working for could easily replace us in a matter of days. But the family we left behind will feel the loss for the rest of their lives. And come to think of it, we pour ourselves more into work than into our own family, an unwise investment indeed, don't you think? So what is behind the story? Do you know what the word FAMILY means? FAMILY = (F)ATHER (A)ND (M)OTHER (I) (L)OVE (Y)OU FROM: Neelu Shiva