We
don’t need to accept toxic thoughts
 |
| Toxic thoughts create Toxic Forests in the mind |
Dr. Carolyn Leaf, a cognitive neuroscientist, has been researching the brain since 1981. She explains that toxic memories take up space and affect the way you think as well as the way the brain functions. If you accept toxic thoughts,
“you push it into a ‘memory tree’ of toxic chemicals.” She shows a picture of the brain that has accepted a toxic thought. It looks like a tree, having many branches and looks dark and troubled. She says it contains toxic emotions and toxic chemicals that can be a precursor to disease.
“you push it into a ‘memory tree’ of toxic chemicals.” She shows a picture of the brain that has accepted a toxic thought. It looks like a tree, having many branches and looks dark and troubled. She says it contains toxic emotions and toxic chemicals that can be a precursor to disease.
Dr. Leaf says an unforgiving attitude can cause such things as high blood pressure, angina, strokes and aneurysms. Saying or thinking things like “I can’t do it”, “I always mess up”, “things will never change”, and “that’s not fair” overtime can make you sick. [1]
As we journey through life, we must actively make choices about what thoughts we accept. How do you accept a thought or belief? You’ve accepted one when “you choose to ask, answer, discuss, and analyze to give meaning to”. Toxic thoughts create a forest of tangled trees that take up space in your brain, preventing the easy flow and development of creative thoughts.
Our life actions are based upon our internal thought life and the forest of trees. We react to life circumstances because our thought life is based on being a victim to our environment and ruminating on problems. A fully realized person does not react. They act. Freed from self-destructive behavior patterns, beliefs and judgments, one acts, creating effortlessly from the direct perception of the need of the moment. This is freedom.
Making “good” choices is more than just positive thinking. We can look for the “good things of life”, but miss the Source of Life. We miss Life itself. If we think that peace and joy is the goal of life, we miss the point. If we are devoted to material gains or material possessions, the focus is on the temporary. All attention goes to the changing and not to that which never changes.
The Source of Life is Omnipresent, it is universal. It never changes. It exists inside every human heart, inside every human mind. It fills all of space and all of time with its wonderful radiance; there is no place it cannot be seen and fully known. Our role as self-conscious beings is to choose to look first for the Source of Life.
What control we have over our world may be limited. But we do have complete control over how we use our own minds. We may have completely forgotten this fact; we may feel we are victims of forces, external and internal, that are quite beyond our control. But it is not so.
A regular practice of Art of Ascension not only roots out these troubled trees, but takes the mind to the Source. Using the eyes-open practice gives a simple way to retrain the mind to look toward the Source of all Life. As a result, the
old trees of duality and toxicity atrophy and wither away.
old trees of duality and toxicity atrophy and wither away.
[1] Leaf, C. P. (2008). Who Switched Off My Brain? Controlling Toxic
Thoughts and Emotions.
Thoughts and Emotions.