A Course in Miracles talks a great deal about thought and mind training. Modern brain science tells us that new neural pathways are built by a mind shift that gets repeated over time. When we look at all permutations of thought we can boil it all down to two tracks. One towards love and one towards fear. Contentment, peace, joy or anger, frustration, stress can fall under one or the other.
I find this simplifies things for me and helps me stop analyzing my thoughts and trying to accurately categorize them as opposed to the simple question – do I feel love or do I feel fear?
I don’t have to work really hard at this – the answer comes quickly and almost in that moment things begin to shift. This shift isn’t just because I prefer love – but rather because my natural true self is made of innate health – aka my friends – of love. Recently a couple of books have come out with the scientific validation of the nature of human beings prior to behavior or “thought”. This is something we can all rest in – when we let go of our pervasive tendency towards the dark side – we notice that what is there is the “force” (ok I am a Star Wars fan…cue the music).
I know I will always come back to love and that speeds up the process of being one thought away from my own deep happiness and one thought away from loving my neighbor.