Dear Members!

I hope this Inspiration finds you in good health, with peace of mind and joy in your life. This weeks Inspiration shares how we literally get stuck on thoughts. Negative thoughts can consume our mental energy. It is important to both understand what is happening with our thoughts and then how we can change them. Next week we will be following up with an Inspiration entitled, "Changing The Channel" focusing on methods to clear your mind and adopt productive and peaceful thoughts.

An Important Notice: In mid August we will be closing the site to all new registration. All those who are registered will have continued access to the site and all the programs. We will be focusing on updating the site and adding additional programs. We are planning on re-launching with our new product January 2011.

If you have friends and family that you want to participate in Tools, now is the time to get them to register. We will place a waiting list registration mid-August and only registered members and those on the waiting list will be invited to participate in the relaunch.  More announcements to come in the next couple of weeks.

Keep love in your heart...

Devlyn...

Stuck On A Thought

-Devlyn Steele

It's happened to us all, we're walking down the street, or standing in line for coffee and out of our mouths without realizing it we are singing or humming some tune. We look around hoping no one has heard us and try to not be further noticed. Then we are in our car, and there is goes again, that tune coming out of what we thought was our mouth. After all if it was our mouth we should be able to control it, but it seems to be operating on it's own.

So you laugh at yourself and forget about it. That is you try and forget about it, but you can't because a few minutes later it happens again. You say to yourself, "Stop!" Then as your walking away from you car, there it is again. You say to yourself, "What is the tune?" Then you realize you heard it on TV or the Radio and you can't get it out of your head.

It could be some annoying commercial jingle, or a song you actually really like, all the same, you want it to stop. So once again, you tell yourself, 'Stop!" However, it still keeps happening. Then when your friends or family hear you, you say trying to explain why you are singing out of no where, "I can't get this song out of my head." Now silently you say to yourself, "I am not going to sing that tune anymore." Guess what, then it happens again and again, no matter how many times your say to yourself to, "Stop singing that ___ tune."

Yes, having a song stuck in your head can be annoying and frustrating, but the truth is we spend a lot of time stuck on thoughts that are far more annoying and some simply really bad for us. However, these thoughts we don't publicly protest as much, because these stuck thoughts are usually silent and private matters. Those fights we had with our lovers, friends, coworkers, bosses, the checkout clerk to a random stranger play over and over in our head. Our bills, worries, fears are on auto repeat throughout the day. Deadlines, pressures, and more just seem to not be able to get out of our head.

The more we try to not think about these thoughts, the more they seem appear in our mind. In fact, we spend a lot of time thinking about what we don't want to think about more than anything else. Unlike the annoying song which may only mildly annoye us, these negagtive thoughts really deteriorate the quality of our life. In fact they can even lead to physical illness as stress and frustration are bad for us. We take pills to lower the anxiety and sleeping pills to get us to sleep because these thoughts may keep us up endlessly.

Why can't we just stop thinking about these thoughts? Why doesn't it work to just say to yourself, "stop?" Imagine your brain as a TV that is on always. So you are watching this TV that is always on and it is playing something that you do not like, will yelling at it to stop get you the desired effect? You would look pretty silly yelling at a TV that was on, telling it to stop because you don't like what it is playing. No matter how much you yelled or protested it would simple go on playing what it was playing. The only way to not have it play what you don't like is by changing the channel.

To tell a story I have been lecturing with for so long I do not know where I first heard it. The story takes place many years ago in a land where a King once ruled. This King did not like magic and declared that all those practicing magic shall be put to death. So the King's knights gathered all the magicians and put them to death. Many years later the King's knights found an old wise magician practicing magic and brought him to the King's court.

The King upon seeing the magician said, "Behead him."

The old wise magician said to the King, "Sire, if I could show you where there is a treasure buried containing more wealth than one could imagine, would you spare my life?'

The King replied, "But of course, where is this treasure?"

The magician said, "It is buried outside the castle gates, but there are three conditions that must be met before it can be dug up."

The King said, "Let's dig up the treasure then, what are these conditions?"

The magician said, "The first condition is that the treasure can only be dug up by the King of the Provence"

The King replied excitedly, "I am the king of the province, let's dig up the treasure. What are the next two conditions?

The magician said, "The treasure can only be dug up in daylight."

The King got even more excited, "It is daylight, what is the last condition?"

The magician said, "While the King of the Provence is digging up the treasure in the daylight he cannot think of a white bear or the treasure will disappear."

It is amusing that we think we can get a thought to stop by other than changing the channel. The brain is a funny machine, because the more you protest a thought, it actually plays the channel louder and louder. That is why you twist and turn and can't sleep as you try and not to think about what you are thinking. You cannot not think about something, you have to change the channel. And no, slapping yourself in the head won't get that thought out of there either.

The treasure in our life of unimaginable value is our peace of mind. The more you try and not to think about what troubles you, your treasure, like that of the king while he tries to not think of a white bear, will disappear. We need to learn how to foucus on the positive not the negative.