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ZERO
TOLERANCE TO NEGATIVE THINKING |
MIRROR EIGHT: SHOULD STATEMENTS
Inside the mind of every depressed person is a Should Factory
that manufactures shoulds, oughts, and musts twenty-four hours a
day.
The problem is you don't need all those
imperatives and obligations; they don't serve a useful purpose.
They put sand in your supercharger and snuff out your
afterburner. The Shackles of Should stop you in your
tracks, take you prisoner, and put your life on hold.
Furthermore, it's impossible to live up to all those shoulds.
No matter how hard you try, you are bound to fail.
That isn't to say we don't all have
obligations we need to honor. The important thing is that
we have balance, and the shoulds aren't in control. People
standing in front of this mirror have a litany of shoulds
reflected back at them, and they aren't optional. They are
imperatives that rule their life, and if they don't live up to
them, the specter of guilt rises up to haunt them.
Should statements never cut slack to
anyone, including yourself. No matter how many shoulds you
perform, it's never good enough. Just when you think you
have your shoulds under control, they suddenly multiply.
Each should is a masochistic club that you use to beat yourself
up. You punish yourself for all of the things you could
have done and should have done in the past, present, and future.
The inevitable result is guilt and low self-esteem.
If you have a never-ending litany of
shoulds, oughts, and musts running through your mind, you can be
sure that a negative operating system controls the way you
think. You can do two things to get rid of should
statements. First, you can install a positive operating
system, and second, you can open your heart and mind to the
power of God's love.
A positive operating system functions just
fine without any shoulds, oughts, or musts. You don't need
shoulds when the focus of your life is love. The power of
love knocks the wind out of your should sails. The
Shackles of Should and the Manacles of Must fall off when your
heart is full of love for yourself and other people.
Not all shoulds are bad. There is
one Prime Should that actually makes your life better.
What is this should? You should open your heart and mind
to the power of God's love and allow it to flow through you to
other people. God's love will then wash the shoulds,
oughts, and musts out of your life, and you will be free.
Go ahead. Use your weapons of mirror
destruction and obliterate this mirror. Forget your
shoulds, and focus on God's love. Install a positive
operating system in your mind, and your life will immediately
start to improve.
MIRROR NINE: LABELING AND
MISLABELING
People with a negative operating system are inclined to look
on the dark side, and they frequently label themselves and
others with destructive, demeaning labels.
Labels work well on cans of food and bottles
of wine, but they don't function nearly so well when you apply
them to yourself and to other people. Labels are full of
half-truth, hype, and overgeneralization. They are usually
packed full of emotion that reflects the attitudes of the person
who constructed the label, rather than revealing the character
of the person being labeled.
Labels are weapons of character
destruction. It doesn't matter whether you apply a label
to yourself or to others, the label will be wrong and will leave
a trail of destruction in its wake. It's impossible to
create a label that adequately describes your own character or
that of others. Labels lie; they aren't the truth, the
whole truth, and nothing but the truth. That's the real
problem with labels - they are designed to destroy rather than
build up. They obscure rather than shed light. They
dismiss people with a single word that slips effortlessly off
the tongue.
Depressed people are experts at creating
destructive labels that echo endlessly in the chambers of their
mind. Their dark imagination fills their mind with
negative images, and their negative internal critic disparages
the motives and accomplishments of themselves and others.
The negative focus found at the center of
a negative operating system looks for the bad in everyone.
The negative operating system then applies labels consistent
with their dark imaginations. Most of the time their
demeaning labels are wrong - in fact, they are mislabels.
When you stand in front of this mirror,
and it starts applying labels to yourself and to others, you
know that those labels are a distortion of reality. There
is no single label you can apply to any individual that
accurately describes who that person is. Everyone is
bigger than any label.
If you insist on looking into this mirror,
and labels keep popping into your mind, then you must make a
pact with yourself. For every negative label that you
affix to yourself or anyone else, you must also apply at least
two positive labels as well. That will accomplish two
positive things. It will be fair to the other person and
to yourself, because there is no single label that truly
describes anyone. It will also force you to look for the
good in everyone you meet, including yourself.
When the mirror of labeling and
mislabeling starts talking, it's time to stop listening and walk
away. And if the Negative Label Factory refuses to cease
production, then start up your own Positive Label Factory and
inundate yourself and everyone else with positive labels.
This is your chance to make the world a better place with a
plethora of positive labels. There is no limit to how good
your life can become when you create positive labels and apply
them to everyone in your world.
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TooManyDrummers.com
GodLovesU.com
Maxingout.com
RED SEA CHRONICLES DVD
When Dr. Dave isn't working as a flying doctor for the Indian Health
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