Religious or Spiritual?

"There is a difference between wishing for a thing and being ready to receive it.  No one is ready for a thing until he believes he can acquire it.  The state of mind must be BELIEF, not mere hope or wish."

-- Napoleon Hill

Are you having difficulty wrapping your head around how to actually implement the concepts of positive thinking in your daily life?  Let's review the previous topics we have discussed so far about how to approach positive thinking.

1. We know that it begins with a positive attitude; one that says, "Can do."
2. We know that "putting our mind to it" requires confidence or faith that you "can do".
3. We know that it takes a certain determination, a "burning desire" to achieve what you want.
4. We know that posture not only affects our attitude, but indirectly our own confidence level.
5. We also know that the way we speak and think about things has a direct impact on our relationships, our health and many other things.  The way we speak reflects our attitude and hence our ability to think with a positive frame of mind.
6. We have mentioned the mind's connection to the subconscious and in turn the mysterious connection of the subconscious mind to a higher power.

In theory, thinking positively is easy.  In practice, obtaining the desired result seems difficult.  So what's the trouble?  Why doesn't it seem to work?   

Here is what usually happens.  A person will say, "Yeah, those are clever quotes and poems and stuff, but it takes too much effort."  Here are obvious reasons for failure: "It's too much like praying, and I am not really very religious." Or, "I just haven't got the time for all that". 

More often a person will have a favorable reaction to the concepts of positive thinking and have the greatest intentions.  They may actually give it a try but get a little lost in their thoughts or begin thinking about something else.  Some actually start, but in the back of their mind is that lingering doubt or the lack of confidence needed to kick start that old subconscious. 

As to being hard, believe me when I tell you that once you have experienced your first success at obtaining a result you wished for or the solution to a problem you were struggling with just came to you out of nowhere, you will grin and think, "That was easy."  Any effort you expend at all has the potential for producing great results.

The quotes and poems come from years, even centuries, of people from all different backgrounds who have had such success attracting good things into their lives that they take the time to write about it in a way that we will remember.  We all can use reminders of peoples' positive beliefs and successes at a time when we are having trouble focusing our own thoughts or even struggling with our own beliefs.

Time is often an issue, but it's also true that when something is important to us we can usually find the time if the motivation is strong enough.  It's not impossible to be alone with your thoughts as you are winding down for the night, but there is a tendency to fall asleep.  You could bypass one of those TV shows or stop working long enough to devote 15 minutes to help yourself.  

Number 6 ranks high in the list of things holding people back from applying positive thinking to fulfilling a need.  There is a very fine line between positive thinking, meditation, and prayer.  I have read several books on the subject of self-help and have noticed that the older ones tend to be centered around God, faith and prayer where more modern ones seem to make reference to a "higher power" and avoid mentioning "God".  This may be because younger writers fear they will lose their readership if they mention God specifically.  And the mention of God ignores a huge population of people who are not believers in God but who are non-the-less very spiritual and/or believe in or worship another deity. 

Here is what thesaurus.com has as synonyms for God.

• Part of Speech: noun
• Definition: Supernatural being worshipped by people
• Synonyms: Absolute Being, All Knowing, All Powerful, Allah, Almighty, Creator, Divine Being, Father, God , Holy Spirit, Infinite Spirit, Jah, Jehovah, King of Kings, Lord, Maker, Yahweh, daemon, deity, demigod, demon, divinity, holiness, idol, master, numen, omnipotent, power, prime mover, providence, soul, spirit, totem, tutelary, universal life force, world spirit

I hope you find an inoffensive reference in the list. Just know that by referring to a higher power I am talking about an always-present and limitless power outside ourselves that is a complete mystery to most of us.  Since it is not actually your mind that moves the mountain, there certainly is an external power that is responsible.  It turns out that understanding the nature of that power is not important to obtaining results. What IS essential is having the belief that you can.