The Negativity Diet

One of the benefits of living alone and journaling every day is that the ideas that pop into my head often get recorded - if they seem to be useful.  I love the practice of having whole days devoted to a particular spiritual practice because the main obstacle to my spiritual growth is my bad memory.  I forget that my purpose in this part of my life is to try to enlarge my spiritual condition.  So, yesterday I had what I thought was a bright idea and since it stayed with me until this morning, I decided to record it and try it. 

Central to my spiritual practice is to pay attention to my thoughts since unbeknownst to me, my crazy thinking often dictates my behavior.  What a disaster that can be!  The idea I recorded this morning was to have a whole day devoted to eliminating negativity from my thinking - specifically: 

• no criticism or judgment of other people.
• not talking about anybody not in the room (unless it's not gossip).
• not trying to get my way about anything. 

Cool, I thought.  A really good practice.  Then I remembered that the idea really came from a little 12th Step pamphlet called, "Just for Today."  Well, okay.  Not an original idea.  But still a great one!!!

The fourth thing that came to mind is how much more I need to practice taking responsibility for having a wonderful time every day.  I spent way too many years being a leaf in the wind; letting whatever happened each day and whether I liked it or not, determine whether I had a good or a bad day.  Every morning when I wake up I have forgotten completely who is responsible for having a wonderful day.  Maybe I could tatoo this on the palm of my hand.