Each year during the Passover holiday Jews tell the story of how the Pharaoh in Egypt enslaved the Israelites. Sometimes we talk about what modern day pharaohs exist in the world. I, however, think most of us live with personal pharaohs every day–those in our minds.
I know I struggle with the chains put on me by the pharaoh who rules my thoughts. Well, he does not rule all my thoughts, but he does rule my negative thoughts, the ones that hold me back and don’t allow me to achieve my goals or create the things I desire. In this way he keeps me shackled, stuck in one spot.
I was listening to Wayne Dyer the other day and he spoke about how we often have the desire–the thought–that we want to be rich but the opposing thought that we will always be poor (or don’t have the ability to become rich). He said this state of mind equates to insanity. I say it equates to slavery. The part that wants to become rich is shackled by the part that believes it can’t achieve this goal.
Each negative thought that exists in opposition to your positive thought serves as just one more chain that keeps you enslaved to those negative belief patterns. And so you stay stuck right where you are or have been–achieving the same results as before.
How do you free yourself from this bondage? How do you achieve liberation from the pharaoh in your mind?
You become conscious of your unconscious negative thoughts.
Here are a few things to try (and believe me I’m trying them, too) to help you become conscious of your unconscious thoughts:
- Catch yourself thinking and saying things that negate what you truly desire.
- Write down your positive thought in one column of a piece of paper and then write down the first negative thought that comes up in your mind in a second column. Do this until you run out of negative thoughts in your “response” column.
- Ask a friend or loved one to tell you when they hear you saying something that negates your desires.
- Spend time journaling about why you think you don’t achieve your desires.
- Explore any issues of deservability or self-worth with a counselor or coach.
- Make affirmations of action; rather than saying or writing positive things, actually do things that convince your mind that you are what you say you are.
- When you say something that negates your positive thought qualify it with the words “until recently” or something like this that nullifies the negativity of the statement.
- Try talking to your subconscious mind as if is not “sub”-conscious; treat it as if you want it to “come out of the closet” and be known. Talk to it and ask it to talk back to you. Allow those thoughts to come up in meditation or in your journal.
- In a journal, ask the part of you that feels negative (about becoming wealthy, getting a new job or finding a perfect mate–or whatever) to tell you why it feels that way. Then try to stay aware of this part of yourself when it’s “energy” arises and turns negative at any given point during the day. In Voice dialogue, a therapeutic process developed by Hal Stone and Sidra Winkleman, this is called developing an “aware ego.” The part of you that functions as”you” most of the time becomes aware of the other parts of you that impact how you behave or react–or think. We all have many parts of our “selves”–an Inner Child, an Inner Parent, an Inner Critic, etc.–and they can become our pharoahs controlling how we behave. Becoming aware of them allows us to free ourselves of their influence over our thoughts (and our behavior).
I suggest you try freeing yourself from the tyranny of your negative thoughts. It doesn’t have to be Passover for you to do this–and you definitely don’t have to be Jewish. We all become enslaved by our negative thoughts to some degree. I hope some of these tips help you find freedom in some way.
