Kay:

Hey there Questers! Hey, you made it!

Shi:

You did it.

Kay:

It’s the end of the week. Do you know what? Congratulations.

Shi:

Sometimes you deserve a round of applause.

Kay:

It’s Friday. You did it. Tomorrow is Saturday. It is the end of the work-week. We are so happy to have been a part of your growth journey this week. Thanks for hanging out with us. It is May 21st. This is episode 360. Let’s come full circle today with a little Buddha Friday. Buddha says, “Replace every negative thought with a positive thought.”

Shi:

It’s just so Buddha. Oh, it’s that easy?

Kay:

Just replace it.

Shi:

Just take all those negative thoughts and replace them. Oh, got it- click. If only you could click. Control negative thoughts, and then replace them with positive thoughts. The sentiment of course, behind this teaching, is about as Buddhist as it gets. This ability to direct your focus intentionally to keep it pure, to keep it simple, and to keep it positive and resourceful in a way that adds value to yourself and the world around you.

Kay:

I was once listening to, like a sermon, I guess that was, that was based off of “The Tao Te Ching” by Wayne Dyer. He was kind of giving his thoughts on “The Tao Te Ching” and one of the things that he brought forward was that negative thoughts and positive thoughts are just that. There is no such thing as a neutral thought. There are negatives and there are positives. So, your thoughts are either being destructive for your life a negative thought, or they’re being constructive for your life a positive thought, something that adds to you and adds to your world. There’s nothing neutral because your thoughts are energy which means that they create and carry their own kind of momentum in them. So, if there’s nothing but destructive and constructive, that adds an extra level of weight here to when Buddha says replace every negative thought with a positive thought. You’re literally fighting for your happiness in the midst of this because there is no neutral. So, you’re fighting from the negative to the positive.

Shi:

I like that you bring forward that there is no neutral when it comes to thoughts. Neutral as in life without thoughts, or when the thinking mind is quiet. It is that meditative state of being here now of being present and in the moment, which is something we all know is “one of the secrets to life” and yet can be so elusive for many of us. That’s because we’ve let that thinking machine in our head rule our lives and we’ve been tricked into thinking that our mind should be thinking all the time that those thoughts should just be going. So, many of us in the effort towards meditation and this inner peace and finding that deeper spiritual meaning and purpose come to these teachings realizing that there is that thinking machine. As Kay said they’re either positive or negative because thoughts are energy, but you don’t have to let that thinking just run it 24/7 and finding real beauty and peace in being able to be neutral meaning you let the mind stay idle, that thoughts aren’t firing at will, they’re firing at your will. That’s really one of those things that I know I strive to master and likely you are too if you’re listening to us right now.

Kay:

Well, what Buddha here says is an easy thing. Replace every negative thought with a positive thought. But if we’re trying to go from at will to at your will how do we actually do that? So, one of the best ways that you can do this is as you start to feel negative thoughts creep in. Yes. I said, as you start to feel because remember the trigger for a negative thought invading your mind is that anxiety feeling in your belly, that nervousness in your throat.

Shi:

Feelings.

Kay:

Right. Feelings are the reaction that your body mechanism has to the energetic thought wave coming into your mind. So, if you are feeling negative and the thoughts that you are experiencing are negative as well. So, when that feeling triggers for you, your job is to immediately change your physical body. Maybe you punch the air. Maybe you do a quick circle around your desk, change your physical body, and use that time of change to replace the negative thought with a positive thought and stop yourself in that moment of the negative thought in order to redirect it. Give yourself a physical cue on the in-between to help you in that point of transition.

Shi:

Your Buddha Friday quote for today was, “Replace every negative thought with a positive thought.”

Kay:

Alrighty, gang. That means today, you got a Buddha Friday Framing Quest. Today we want you to practice reframing your negative thoughts with positive thoughts by doing what we just talked about. Now, this is implementing a technique from our mentor and business partner, Mr. Joseph McClendon III and it is called the stop technique. So, when you feel a negative thought, creeping in, remember, feel that negative thought. You’re going to stop. You’re going to physically do something to change your state and you are going to replace that negative thought with something that’s not destructive, but constructive.

Shi:

Just like Buddha.

Kay:

Are you ready? Say it with us now.

Kay & Shi:

Let’s quest!