Smiles and controlling your thoughts and feelings.

right now i don't have decent original thoughts so i'll just keep quoting to get through Advice for a friend. Advice for myself. " You need to learn how to select your thoughts just the same way you select what clothes you're gonna wear everyday day. This is a power you can cultivate. If you want to control things in your life so bad, work on the mind. That's the only thing you should be trying to control. Drop everything else but that."

...

"On first glance , this seems nearly an impossible task. Control your thoughts? Instead of the other way around? But imagine if you could? This is not about repression or denial. Repression and denial set up elaborate games to pretend that negatve thoughts and feelings are not occuring. What Richard is talking about is instead admitting to the existance of negative thoughts, understanding where they came from and why they arrived, and then - with great forgiveness and fortitude - dismissing them.

This is a practice that fits hand- in -glove with any psychological work you do during therapy. You can use the shrinks office to understand why you have these destructive thoughts in the first place; you can use spiritual exercises to help overcome them. It's a sacrafice to let them go, of course. It's a loss of old habbits, comforting old grudges and familliar vignettes. Of course this all takes practice and effort. It's not a teaching that you can hear once and then expect to master immediately. It's constant vigilance and i want to do it. I need to do it, for my strength. Devo farmi le ossa is how they say it in Italian. "I need to make my bones"." Eat Pray Love by Elizabeth Gilbert (yes again, blurgh i know, but i'm just about half way through. enjoy whats to come")

It's suprising how much choice and power we have over our thoughts and feelings but do not excersise. force yourself to smile and you can feel the effects. not every situation is the same or will work. but try it. realise it's not so bad, realise why, and smile anyway. let yourself smile, find a siver lining even if it's nothing but having a smile on your face. Think about when you walk down the street, if you see a stranger smiling you are inclined to smile back even once they've passed you and you then feel like a grouch for not communicating a smile back. If someone else simple facial expression can affect you that much, ..... maybe you should try controling your own. and worst comes to worst atleast your smile will inspire others.