By Brahma Kumari Shivani
Our physical bodies are made up of what we feed them – food, water, the air we breathe. Likewise, our minds are made from everything we read, converse about, listen to, and watch.
Today, in the name of knowledge and entertainment we are absorbing negative information through social and print media, cinema and television. This becomes part of our minds, making it difficult to create right thoughts and responses to difficult situations.
Suppose a family member has not returned home from the office until very late at night. Thoughts of an accident or other unpleasant scenes come naturally as we wait. It feels difficult to assume everything is fine. When we fill our minds with news and visuals of violence, accidents, crime and calamities, wrong thoughts are readily created.
We can emotionally detox the mind and empower it through simple everyday practices:
- The first few thoughts upon waking are of gratitude. Connect to God and give gratitude in your own way. Thank your mind and body for sustaining you. Then give gratitude to everyone and for everything around you.
- Spend three minutes creating affirmations for your tasks, health, relationships, habits or projects. Visualize vividly on the screen of your mind that everything is being executed to perfection. The combined power of affirmation and visualization make it easier to manifest.
- Freshen up and meditate for 20 minutes, each morning. Connect to God, take His love and healing energy, and visualize that energy radiating to your mind and body. In this state you will be able to emerge your innate, original qualities of happiness, love and compassion.
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Study spiritual knowledge or self-improvement messages for 20 minutes to fill yourself with purity and positivity. Spiritual knowledge enables your mind to create pure thoughts and make the right decision to create elevated sanskars (habits).
- Exercise for 40 minutes. Be mindful; pay attention to your breath. Inhale acceptance, exhale expectations. Inhale love, exhale anger. Right energy radiating to your body creates good health.
- Pause for a minute every hour to check your thoughts. If there is any wrong thought, replace it immediately. You can also revise your morning affirmations along with visualising them.
- Take care that every thought, word, and behavior throughout the day is right. Since thoughts are the foundation of our words and actions, it is really our thoughts that create our destiny. Each thought is a karma.
- Shift from anger to compassion; resentment to forgiveness; doubt to trust; competition to co-operation; criticism to appreciation; expectations to acceptance.
- Set clear work-home boundaries. At the end of workday, switch off your mind completely from work. Do not carry thoughts from the day’s events or pressures. Spend quality time with family.
- Always carry an emotional first-aid kit. Uplifting messages on your phone or a good book will stop the flow of negative thoughts.
- Delete negative and wasteful messages on social media apps without reading them. Sense the quality and do not consume biased opinions, satire, judgments, slander or gossip. Otherwise, negativity starts coloring your thoughts and feelings.
- Food and water have vibrations and deeply influence our minds. Eat Sattvic (pure, life-giving) food prepared and consumed in a pure state of mind. Eat mindfully, creating pure and positive thoughts of gratitude. Avoid gadgets, distractions and negative conversations at mealtime.
- Money carries an energy of the way you work – how honest, ethical, caring and compassionate you are. It needs to come with the blessings of your employer, co-workers or client, since it is used to buy food and comforts for your family.
- Just before bedtime, spend 15 minutes reading positive or spiritual messages. The positive energy calms your mind, ensuring your last thoughts for the day are not scattered around negativity. Avoid news, newspapers, TV shows or gadgets, an hour before you sleep.
About the Author
BK Sister Shivani has been a practitioner and a teacher of Rajyoga Meditation that is at the heart of the teachings of Brahma Kumaris World Spiritual Organization, since 1996.
First telecast in 2007, her widely popular television show aimed at self-transformation, Awakening With Brahma Kumaris. For over a decade, the show has empowered individuals from all walks of life. Viewers have overcome mental stress, depression, addictions, low self-esteem and unhappy relationships, by taking personal responsibility for their emotions.
Since 2017 she has been appointed as a Goodwill Ambassador by the World Psychiatric Association. In March 2019, BK Shivani was awarded the prestigious Nari Shakti Puraskar, the highest civilian honor for women in India, for her role in transforming human behaviors.
