Hello, and welcome to the next lecture, we are doing the lecture on overcoming blocks to gratitude, three strategies to change your personal narratives. All of us have basically a vicious cycle of some kind of negative thoughts that are in our head, I know I have some that play in my head a lot too. And it can create a cycle of negative circumstances in negative thinking in some cases, and negative thinking can increase and even produce negative circumstances. And when something negative, like disappointment happens, it's only natural to react with negative thoughts. And so what can happen over time, however, is that our personal narrative starts to become one of negativity, disappointment, failure and fear. And then we get stuck in a vicious cycle of attracting more of the same and I've struggled with that myself at points in the past.

I'm sure all of us have at different areas in our lives. Maybe you're really good at attracting money, but maybe Your relationships are rocky or maybe the other way around. Maybe you're really good with relationships, but you struggle financially. And so it can also just be our thought processes. And those two and so those personal narratives are the things that we tell ourselves about life, about different areas of our lives about other people and about ourselves and whether we want to or not, we all have a personal narrative. And so the choice we have is what kind of personal narrative Are we going to tell?

Our personal narrative is the story that we tell ourselves and others day after day, week, after week, year after year. And so things that you might tell yourself it might be I love my wife, my boss is a jerk, my life sucks, because I can't afford to go anywhere. I own a beautiful home, my kids are great. I'll never lose this weight. And so you can see how you, you tell yourself these things every day. Some of them are positive, some are negative, and most people have some of both.

If you're completely negative, that would be very rare. If you're completely positive, then that would be very rare as well. So basically those are examples of those, whether our narrative is positive or negative, we all have a narrative. And so one way to get out of this negative vicious cycle is to interrupt that narrative, and put in a new story picture a note fiction film projector with a feat of film that you play throughout the day. Now you have to change the reel, or you could cut the reel and splice in a new film to replace the old one, because things in our mind do tend to play over and over. That's the nature of the game.

And so it may take some time to get through the older ones, and that's natural, and that's okay. And so when an old film plays, just acknowledge it and then move on. And so as we replace the negative feeds with positive ones, we begin to see gradual changes in our lives. For example, we feel better and in time we see things work out better, actively changing our personal narratives will help us disrupt the negative feeds and replay repetitively positive Once in our mind, and so here are three strategies to interrupt and change our negative feed or narrative. And then you can also use the regular practices of gratitude in the next section to do that, as well. affirmations is one way.

And affirmations increase the chances of changing our narratives, because it plays a repetitive thought in our mind, and it doesn't just do it in terms of mechanical thought it, you have to put emotion in belief into it. And that's a conscious choice in the moment when you do that. And that strategy involves words, the words we speak over our lives, and we replace negative thoughts with specific and targeted positive ones. And there are many wonderful books, websites and courses that can show you how to use affirmations in a way to interrupt those negative narratives that you might experience. And so, for instance, you may have a beautiful car and say this old car sucks. I wish we could afford a new one, instead of say something like this.

I'm grateful our car gets us from A to B, and a wonderful new car is coming to me right now and I'm able to pay for it easily. You say that so much that you start to believe it. And then conditions start to line up so that he can actualize that experience. creative visualization is the second strategy for interrupting your negative narrative. One way to do that is I recommend Shakti goings book, and guided mp3 or CD, creative visualization, creative visualization, and it's a guided meditation. And you can do it on your own as well.

But you might have even done it but it's basically picturing imagining, feeling and visualizing your desires, you do need to remain open and flexible. Because sometimes if you shake an apple tree, you might get oranges, as I read in a book yesterday, and if you get oranges, maybe you were meant to have oranges and maybe those are sweeter than the apples. But you do want to picture what you hope for and create in your life in a sense That's a form of gratitude for something that you have yet to create and receive, but you're affirming that you have it now, as if it's already here. And so it comes to you, because you're already believing that it's here. The more you see, feel and believe this in to be present, the more likely something is to show up. And so if you can visualize it very vividly with sensory details, and specific thought processes and how you would feel and you put yourself in that actual picture, like picture yourself driving the car down the road, or something like that, that makes it more real.

So please keep in mind that it doesn't guarantee that you will get exactly what you want. But it's good to surrender the circumstances and allow your highest good to manifest in that situation. But if you picture a beautiful blonde, for example, becoming your soulmate, but she happens to be a brunette and a wonderful person, then you don't want to limit what can be so wonderful in your life. So remaining open is essential to the third strategy for interrupting You're negative tapes and narrative is that you want to surrender. And that was kind of disgusting, creative visualization, this one might be a little more challenging. This one has been very challenging for me.

But I keep coming back to it coming back to it coming back to it coming back to it. And I get a little bit better each time that I do. And so this is where having a higher belief system can be helpful, but it isn't a requirement. If you have a religious or a thought system that you follow or practice that can be very helpful. Surrender simply means being open to what is best in your life, believing it will occur and allowing it to come to you when negative events occur looking for the lesson in those situations, not like you know, slapped on the hand kind of lessons, but just what can you do to be a better person to handle the situation better to contribute in some way to allow that negative experience to become something positive. And so when negative events occur, looking for that lesson, as well surrendering the need to control the situation which might be the hardest of all, when those are all the things that we do in it prevents negative feedback loops from forming in our minds if we can prevent them to begin with all the bitter.

Again, there are many great books on surrender. And so I encourage you to look up some of those books. Often incorporating surrender and your affirmations and visualizations can help you to be more open in other areas of your life as well because it'll disrupt the negative stories that play in our minds from our mouth. And lastly, when the temptation to speak out negative narratives comes up, stop, resist it, and the temptation will go away eventually, replace your old thought with a new one, like one of your affirmations. And it may seem mechanical at first or even fake, but in time, it will feel real because you keep doing it, you put emotion behind it, it starts to become real. You've changed your beliefs in other ways.

And so you can change your beliefs in these ways as well. Fake it too. You make it is a good practice here. It may seem phony, but a real intention is never phony. And I give you personal permission to do so because it's with the rewards worth the rewards at the end. And so in the next few lectures, we'll look at more hidden and lesser known benefits of gratitude and how those benefits bring about positive changes in your life.

So I'll see you in the next lecture.