When we first developed our wish practices, we got hung up on the part about tuning our “vibration” - the way we feel - to the highest positive level to attract the abundance we want in our lives. We were convinced by the popular notion that feelings came first, followed by thoughts.
We were hijacked by this idea - by the modern tyranny - of “They are my feelings and I have a right to them, and I can do whatever I want with them!” If this is true, we are in deep trouble! Feelings are produced by chemicals - hormones - released in our bodies in a process that is devilishly difficult to interrupt, much less redirect. But this didn’t match our wish experience!
We no longer believe it is true that feelings come first. As the philosopher, René Descartes, said, “Cogito, ergo sum!” Translation: "I think, therefore I am." There is a substantial body of research that confirms the proposition that we think first, feel second, and the rest flows from there. Given that, we believe we can catch a thought and change it. We are not prisoners of our feelings.
That being said, you may have noticed that thoughts can go by in the blink of an eye; actually, faster even than that. So how the heck do we catch them, let alone change them?
This is where our mindfulness practices come center stage. It is less important WHAT you do than THAT YOU DO IT. We have two practices we like to follow called Focusing and Centering Prayer. Some other well-known practices include yoga, meditation, Tai Chi, and Chi Gong. One other one that we discovered while doing some research for this post is called “Dragon Breathing!” And there are so many others out there.
The point is to learn to catch your thoughts as they form, “hold them in your hand,” examine them, decide if they are aiming for your higher good or not, and then move them either into “the archive” or into your active thinking space.
When you become adept at this, you may find (as we do) that you’ll be able to interrupt a lot of unproductive thinking and the negative emotions that accompany that thinking. There is no end to the benefits of this part of our wish practice. There is substantial research to support the notion that we can even improve our health by our mindfulness practices.
We hope that in this post we have amply demonstrated that a wish practice incorporates a very healthy mindfulness practice.
Next week, our post will be a question that we’re frequently asked: how do I start a wish practice? Stay tuned!
Until then,
Peace and All Good
Margie and Barbara
The Wish Mavens
Photo Credit
The photo featured in this post was taken by (and is copyrighted by) Barbara J. Dickinson.