Your life is a mirror image of your thoughts. Changing your thoughts, methodically eliminating your critical thinking, and switching any negative thoughts to a positive power mindset, ultimately changes your life and creates the new reality you focus on.

If you believe in the power of positive thinking, chances are good you already experience joy, happiness and success in your life.

On the other hand, if you do not understand the pitfalls of allowing critical thinking to dominate your consciousness, chances are also good you experience negative emotions such as anger, fear, worry, anxiety or depression.

Here is how Webster’s Dictionary defines “critical”:

cri-ti-cal (krit-ih-k’l)adj.1. Relating to criticism. 2. Faultfinding; carping; fastidious. 3. Crucial; decisive. 4. Dangerous; hazardous.

Have you ever considered critical thinking to be hazardous or dangerous? It is!

Whether you are critical of others, or even worse critical of yourself, it is a dangerous habit of which most of us have been guilty.

One of the keys to success is realizing you are not your thoughts.

You have the ability to focus on any thoughts that come to your conscious awareness.

You alone control what enters your head as a thought. If you don’t control your thoughts, who will?

Through awareness, you will discover more than 80% of your thoughts are automatic. They are the same fear and worry thoughts (negatives) repeated endlessly throughout your day.

Effectively, you are re-creating the past over and over in your mind every day, focusing on what you don’t want in life. This is all happening on auto pilot!

The more your critical thinking is focused on the past, the more you attract the same past into your current reality. This is why many of us experience recurring problems with things like relationships, employment or money.

On the Home Page, I placed the quote from Einstein “It is a sign of insanity when we repeat the same things over and over and expect different results.” Yet, we have all been repeating the same thoughts from the past, while simultaneously expecting our lives to improve and change.

It won’t happen unless we change the quality of our thoughts!

We have been led to believe we cannot control our subconscious and that whatever happens we are not responsible. It is easy to believe that any negativity is beyond your control.

In a sense it is true we cannot directly control our subconscious. However, the good news is your non-conscious thoughts “fire” neurode patterns based on your conscious thoughts.

(This was explained in Step One)
Thoughts are energy!

http://www.best-self-help-sites.com/...-thinking.html

An excellent article and very relevant.
Cheers, Lee

While I don't always remember to follow this advice I believe in it 100%. Youmight like to read a great "self-help" book by Wayne Dyer (famous for "Your Erroneous Zones" and "Pulling Your Own Strings") called "You'll See It When You Believe It."

Thanks for the reminder of how important it is to keep thinking positive thoughts.
Keith

Thanks, Tena...a few years ago my Dad gave me a book by Wayne Dyer and at the time I wanted to throw it against the wall. Since that time I did a turnaround in my thinking and now I can't believe how much happier and more positive I am. I have never been like this in my life, and it's allowed me to put many of my life-long emotional burdens aside forever. I feel glad to greet each day, and have concrete emotional tools to deal with that crushing anxiety and depression I used to have. I'm convinced it's played a large part in being able to deal so much better with PD. Some of my friends are still snarling things like "People who say Be Here Now just don't have a life..." But being able to change my thinking to a more positive frame of mind has led me to feel that I can change almost anything if I really need and want to. Which is not the same as not recognizing tragedy and the true difficulty of things. I am more committed to trying to address those than ever. It's just that now I have a different approach...

Thanks for this Tena. I agree that keeping a positive attitude and thinking positive are a tremendous help toward achieving happiness and success in our lives. I believe that we have the power to heal ourselves if we can learn how to do it. That being said, we must accept the fact that when one has a chronic illness, such as PD, things in our brains don’t always function properly. This can be due to medication suppressing important chemical functions or certain brain functions no longer working properly. It is imperative that one seeks professional help if self help methods do not produce the desired results.

GregD

it's hard being a newbie, and your posts inpire a certain "awe"... I feel a little awkward.

Anyway,
This concept really resonates. My critical nature has almost cost me my most valuable friendship after 2+ decades. It is possible that I was shaken awake just in time save it. With the changes in my life has come the realization that energy IS wasted when it is negative (and unfortunately it is never destroyed, it only takes other forms...). I'm still working on it day to day, 'cause it is a deep rut, and encouragement from these types of posts helps to keep me on my new path.

Thank you,
Grant

Hello Dear Grant!
yes - you may call me Tena!
that is just fine with me,

I believe this hits home with alot of us "Parkies"
including - me...
if we can change our negativities perhaps that in itself will stimulate healing,
Hope in our very complex, brain/ body/ soul connections!
like the runners high - endorphins I believe can be very helpful to PD patients,
I walk we I can - I will run when I can - and I will continue to have laughter
in my life -

every minute we spend thinking of the cruelties of our past we are not living - we are ruining our present / & we can not change the past
and so our mind becomes stagnant - we need to move on from past issues -
live in this day only - and have Hope for tomorrow...

I am very glad you found our neurotalk community~!
there are so many smart / funny peope here, it is a great touch base
for information -

I do believe in positive thoughts, but I think we all come down harder on ourselves than we do on others. I find that is quite difficult not to be critical of myself. I think it's because we think of what we used to be able to do, and we can't do things the same way, or at the same speed that we used to. This makes the frustration levels higher, and the fuse quite a bit shorter.

John

It's true that I have slowed, but I take it as an intellectual challenge, that is, how can I be more efficient, or work in a new way in order to complete things in a shorter amount of (or the same amount as I used to ) time. I refuse to be critical of myself because of my "obstacle". Frustrated, sometimes... but critical, not ever. I have also found that slower is often better for some things... Of course, I know that I am still at the beginning of this, so I am sorry if I'm coming off as arrogant. I know it will get harder. I have just become determined since my diagnosis to be positive and try to stay positive.

I call it compensating for the inability to perform a task like I used to. This happens with age anyway PD or not. Unfortunately, we face this challenge sooner than the rest of the population.

I'm critical of myself because I see the failure greatest in my piano technique especially. This has suffered tremendously with the changes in my abilties like the way rain errodes a statue or mountain. I'm not even close to where I was a year ago, and I thought that was bad then. Oh give me what I had in 200, and I'd be even more pleased, but alas, this isn't the case. The daily mundane tasks like getting washed and dressed don't bother me so much unless I'm in a rush, but then I should've known better and allowed myself more time. I'm learning the hard way on this one!

We continuously compensate, learn new ways of doing old things, and eventually we run out of ways of doing the old things. That's when the frustration sets in since I am somewhat of a perfectionist when it comes to the music because I'm compensating for poor technique, and this can cause further problems down the road with fingering and other musical issues. It's not that I go into fits when there's a mistake here and there, it's when there is a mistake in every measure, that I get frustrated. When my fingers can't repeat notes rapidly so I lose time, which is the most critical component of music outside of the sound of the instrument, that I get myself in a snit. There are other things that happen as well, but I won't go into details here.

You don't come across as arrogant or naive. You are just taking this better than I as I'm also at the beginning stage as well.

John