Change the Way You Think and You Transform Your Life

A good mental practice is just as important and I believe more critical to your overall well-being than physical exercise alone. For, you are always creating the circumstances and conditions of your life via your thoughts and beliefs. What you believe to be true will always manifest in your life as a condition or circumstance. Behind every condition and circumstance in your life is an underlying thought and belief.   For example, if you truly believe that you are weak and sickly, then you attract conditions in your life to reflect that belief. On the other hand, if you believe you are strong and healthy, you attract conditions in your life to prove likewise.

If you want to know the sum total of your thoughts and beliefs, just look at the conditions and circumstances presently in your life. This is a very sobering exercise, but you must accept it if you want to create the life that you desire.

Most people allow their mind to aimlessly wander and so they allow random thoughts to be planted in their mental garden. Some of these thoughts are constructive and they bloom into constructive conditions, while others are destructive and they blossom into undesirable conditions. Consequently, most people believe the conditions and circumstances of their lives just randomly happen. They get some things that they want and other things they don’t want.

Thoughts are things and when you give a thought your attention you give it energy by allowing it to be planted in your mind. The more attention you give the thought the more you nurture and energize it until it becomes a belief and blossoms into a condition in your life. You are always thinking, and thus, always creating something and herein lies the problems and the solutions in your life.

You have the inner power to create the life of your dreams. The key to accessing this power is mastery of your mental activity and you can only do this through a conscious effort to filter which thoughts you allow to take root in your mind. I do this by a spiritual practice of sitting in silence periodically during the day and monitoring the thoughts that come into my mind. I allow the constructive and uplifting thoughts in, and I discard the negative and destructive one. I urge you to try this mental exercise for 30 days and see how your life is transformed.

Mental Mastery Part 3, You are a Creative Being

This is a continuation of my posts on mental mastery.  I can't tell you that mastering your thoughts will be easy, but I can tell you the results are well worth the effort.


You are always creating the circumstances and conditions of your life via your thoughts and beliefs. What you believe to be true will always manifest in your life as a condition or circumstance. Behind every condition and circumstance in your life is an underlying thought and belief. If you want to know the sum total of your thoughts and beliefs, just look at the conditions and circumstances presently in your life. This is a very sobering exercise, but you must accept it if you want to create the life that you desire.

As previously mentioned, thoughts are things and when you give a thought your attention you give it energy by allowing it to be planted in your mind. The more attention you give the thought the more you nurture and energize it until it becomes a belief and blossoms into a condition in your life. You are always thinking, and thus, always creating something and herein lies the problems and the solutions in your life.

Most people allow their minds to aimlessly wander and so they allow random thoughts to be planted in their mental garden. Some of these thoughts are constructive and they bloom into constructive conditions, while others are destructive and they blossom into undesirable conditions. Consequently, most people believe the conditions and circumstances of their lives just randomly happen. They get some things that they want and other things they don’t want.

Look at it like this, you are the architect of your life and the thoughts you allow to take root in your mind are the blueprint by which your life is built. If you don’t like the house you built you can remodel it or completely tear it down and build one you like but, you can only do this by changing your thoughts.

The above is from my latest book, Balanced Life Living Life From Within.  It is available for purchase on Amazon, click this link to check it out Balanced Life

Mental Mastery Part 2, You Are the Thinker

This is the first truth you must realize in your quest to control your mind. Most people feel powerless as to the thoughts they entertain. However, you are the thinker before the thought and you have the power to scan every thought and choose whether or not you will allow it into your mind. In other words, you are the gatekeeper to you mind and thus you choose which thoughts you let in and which thoughts you keep out.

This is not an easy task, but it is necessary if you want to change your life. Not only are you the gatekeeper for the thoughts you allow in your mind, you have to examine your mind for the false ideas that have already taken root and are producing fruit in your life now. Some of these false ideas you got from your parents, grandparents, and other loved ones who taught you the things about life they learned. While well-meaning, some of the things they taught you may now be causing some of your biggest limitations in life. These ideas are hard to let go of because you have trusted and believed them to be true for so long.

If you are having any recurring problems or conditions you can’t seem to overcome it may be that you have a deep-rooted belief that you are unconsciously aware of in your mental garden. This belief was probably planted in your childhood by some well-meaning people in your life, or it could be a result of some deep hurt you have experienced. However, you must get rid of this false idea if you are to change the condition. For example, when I was a child my older brother was very outgoing and I was completely the opposite. Consequently, my brother got all the attention at my expense and I was deeply hurt. As a result, I learned to guard my heart and not to let people get very close to me. This belief carried over into my relationships as an adult and I could never let anyone get really close to me no matter how hard I tried. It wasn’t until I realized that subconsciously I was still carrying the same belief from my childhood that I could change my relationships. I had to uproot that old belief before I could let people get close to me again.

You also allow false ideas to subconsciously enter your mind through conversation with friends, things you read, and what you hear in the news. You have to be vigilant of what you consciously allow to be planted in your mental garden, for a thought will always produce fruit in the form of conditions after its kind.

The above information is from my new book called Balanced Life Living Life From Within. It's available for purchase on Amazon.  Click here to review and purchase a copy.

Mental Mastery, Part 1

After twenty years of working one-on-one with people trying to help them improve their health and fitness level, I have realized that no one ever rises above what they think they can accomplish.  Thus, one of the first things necessary to help people transform is developing a healthy mental outlook.  In the next series of post I will touch on the subject of improving one's mental attitude, not only about health and fitness but also about life.

Out of your mental world of thought is born the conditions and circumstances that populate your life. Entry to the spiritual realm of harmonious living can only be attained through conscious control of your thoughts. Until you realize that thoughts are what you give life to, you will live under the false idea that you are a victim of circumstance with very little control over what happens in your life.

To master your mental plane of existence is to gain control over the circumstances and conditions of your life. In order to master your mind you have to realize three very important things. First, you are the thinker before the thought, and thus, you are the gatekeeper to the thoughts you allow to enter and dwell in your mind. Second, you are a creative being and you are always creating something via the thoughts you allow to take root in your mind. Third, you are never and have never been a victim of any circumstance or condition in your life.

The above information is from my new book called Balanced Life Living Life From Within. It's available for purchase at: Lulu Press, Inc.

Mental and Physical Exercise, The Fountain of Youth

Ponce De Leon searched the new world seeking the Fountain of Youth. I bet it never crossed his mind that what he was searching for, he was searching with. The Fountain of Youth was contained in his mind and body. Just like Ponce De Leon, today we are still searching for that magic pill, or formula that will keep us youthful, when we have access to what we are looking for right in our hands. It’s called mental and physical exercise.

A report by the Washington Post titled Short Mental Workouts May Slow Decline of Aging Minds, showed that mental exercise is just as important to keeping your mind sound as physical exercise is to keeping your body fit. The report concluded that ten sessions of exercises to boost reasoning skills, memory and mental processing speed staved off mental decline in middle-aged and elderly people in the first definitive study to show that honing intellectual skills can bolster the mind in the same way that physical exercise protects and strengthens the body.

The benefits of physical exercise on your body are numerous. A report by ScienceDaily (Jan. 30, 2010), stated — Physical activity appears to be associated with a reduced risk or slower progression of several age-related conditions as well as improvements in overall health in older age, according to a commentary and four articles published in the January 25 issue of Archives of Internal Medicine, one of the JAMA/Archives journals.

What other evidence do you need in order to know that you can keep yourself youthful and healthy by doing regular mental and physical exercise? The elusive Fountain of Youth can be found in simply doing a daily crossword puzzle and taking a 30 minute walk.

The Mental And Physical Requirements Of Staying Fit and Firm With Age

Last Wednesday I spoke to a group of people at an Active Adult Community about the mental and physical requirements of staying healthy, fit, and firm over the age of 50.  I explained that they had to incorporate the following three things into their lives to do so: a positive mental attitude, a fitness program built on strength training, and a healthy diet designed around balance and moderation.

I feel as though I’m qualified to speak on the subject because I’m an ACE certified personal trainer with over 17 years of experience in the health and fitness industry.  Most importantly, I’m 52 years old and healthier and fitter than I have ever been in my life.  So, I can speak on this subject not only from scientific facts, but also from my experience (proof in the pudding).

A Positive Mental Attitude

I think a positive mental attitude about aging is the first and most important step to staying healthy, fit and firm as you age.  I believe the mental vision you have of aging is what you become.  Your body renews itself every 11 months, and that means every cell in your body is replaced.  I think that if you visualize yourself as becoming weak and frail as you age, your body conforms to this image over time.  Contrarily, if you imagine yourself as healthy and strong as you age, your body continues to renew itself according to this vision.   I always visualize myself as healthy and strong.

A Fitness Program Built On Strength Training

I believe strength training is the most important form of exercise you can do to stay healthy, fit and firm if you are over the age of 50.  Beginning in your 40s you naturally start to lose muscle mass, and if you don’t do anything to combat this process you can lose as much as a pound of muscle each year.  This is not good because muscle is that active component of your body that burns most of the calories you consume.  Also, muscle is what gives your body that fit and firm look.

Strength training has been proven to minimize and in some cases to reverse muscle loss due to aging.  Therefore, I recommend that you build your fitness program on strength training.  A good strength training program should consist of exercises that target all the major muscle groups and should be performed 2 to 3 times each week.  I’ve been weight lifting all of my adult life and I’m as strong and muscular as I’ve ever been.

A Healthy Diet Built Around Balance and Moderation

I was asked by one of the attendees if they could eat fried chicken?  I responded by saying that you can eat anything you desire if you do it in balance and moderation with everything you eat. 

 

I believe balance and moderation in your diet is the best solution to long-term weight management.  If you balance the amount of protein, carbohydrates and fat in your diet and practice portion control you can eat what you want.  Fad diets don’t work in the long-term because they are too restrictive as to what you can and cannot eat.

To practice balance and moderation in your diet you have to know the following two things.  First, how to classify foods into their basic sources of protein, carbohydrates, and fat.  Secondly, how to calculate your serving size.  If you master these two things then you can eat healthy anywhere.  I’ll explain how to do this in my next post, and also how I practice balance and moderation in my diet.