Butterflies are beautiful, unique, and display an incredible process of transformation. What was a fat, leaf-chomping, tree crawler is now one of the most beautiful creatures in flight. In the same way, humans can transform from tree crawlers being driven by the lower nature to that of a free creatures, flying the skies, enjoying all the blessings of life.

Steps to Change Compulsive Thoughts

1. When you are ready to eat, take a moment to thank God for all He has given.
2. Chew the food well, slowly tasting and enjoying each bite.
3. Enjoy the food and relish each bite. Eat slowly, chewing, tasting and enjoying till the food becomes liquid.
4. Feel content when your stomach tells you have eaten enough.
5. Do not let your mind wander, stay focused on the act of eating.
6. When you finish eating, congratulate yourself for doing well. You have eaten in a disciplined manner. Feel good that you are giving your body good nutrition.

Before you eat, consider your goals for the day. See yourself accomplishing them easily and feeling good about it. Visualize yourself enjoying the day. Decide to be loose and be child-like. Get determined to have some fun, relishing each second, as though they are the last moment on earth.

If you are feeling lonely, question the thought. If you feel worthless, challenge it. You are a kind, loving, patient person who works hard at whatever you do. You are not worthless; you are a good person, rare and unique. Be at peace with yourself. Forgive your mistakes most especially yourself. You don’t have to be perfect. Let go of those uncomfortable feelings and trust in God. Give Him your doubts and suffering. You do not need food for comfort. Food cannot give you what you want. Straighten up your shoulders, loosen up, let go, and be at peace. There is nothing to worry about. It will all work out.

The cares and pressures of the day will steal your enjoyment if you let it. Stay focused on the food. Make the decision and be firm to leave any problem in God’s hands. If you are tense, take a few deep breaths, inhale and slowly exhale to the word “peace”. Do not let your thinking get negative. Declare to your soul: “This is going to be a good day!”

You are eating healthy and disciplining yourself and you should feel good about that. At the end of the meal, feel the guilt-free contentment of what you have eaten. There will be times you may still feel a little hungry, ignore the feeling of hunger and move to your next activity. If after all these positive thoughts, you find yourself still wrestling with the desire to eat more, create a feeling of revulsion then get moving.

Spirituality and Compulsive Behavior

The mind is a battlefield. It is a place of dread where a solitary soldier must cross a minefield of worry. But you are not alone. God is with you. Armed with a vacuum cleaner in one hand and Godly thoughts in the other, you take on Goliath with weapons of patience, faith and hope. You can be improving your thoughts on life while vacuuming, picking veggies in a grocery store or weeding the garden. You can do it while standing or sitting. Every time you change from a negative thought to a positive one, you have gained a victory.It is not easy. Self-defeating thoughts have become routed in your thinking. It takes a lot of work. There will be times when you want to give up, but never must you quit. When you win, the payoff is gigantic. Peace, hope and feeling loved all come through winning battles over negative thoughts.

Challenge your negative thinking. Refuse to give in to nagging, complaining emotions. The next time that doubt shows its ugly insecure face, say “No! I am forgiven and that is that.” Feel good about it. Thank God for being forgiven. When you are down and the world seems bleak and full of problems, think good, encouraging thoughts and you will have peace. The mind easily goes into the worry mode, mulling over all the gloomiest details.

When faced with a problem, get the facts down on paper, and then make a decision about what you are going to do about that problem. When you are tempted to worry, you can say to yourself, “No, I have made a decision. This is in God’s hands. Worrying will not help.” If you want to do something positive, pray about the situation, but pray believing that God is working it out. Visualize a good outcome to the problem and see yourself thanking God for answering your prayers. You are His child. He loves you. He has prepared a place for you. You are forgiven of your sins. He will protect you. He has promised to bless you. Get emotional, rouse up some passion, and get angry at negative thoughts. Don’t just go along for a ride. You are in charge. You have control over your thoughts and your actions.

Twenty years of propaganda has an impact. We come to believe that cravings are good for us, a part of normal life. No point fighting them. It’s time to strip away the mask and see the raw ugliness hidden below. Cravings are powerful forces leading us to death and destruction.

To overcome cravings, you need to run an anti-brainwashing program to clean out the junk from childhood. Not only was your mind filled with reading, writing and arithmetic, but mind-washing thoughts as well, skillfully placed by the mentors of negativity. Like a computer virus, they infect your life by infecting your thinking.

With cult-like force, they infiltrated the education system. Your teacher, your guidance counselor, or your school janitor may have been one of them. Even your parents may have fallen under the spell.

The only way to detect this hideous fraternity is by their common language. If you say, “it’s a beautiful day,” they respond with, “what’s good about it?” You mention singing birds. They complain about bird poop. You mention sunshine; they grimly suggest skin cancer. Every word carries the dark force of criticism, fear and complaint. Nothing is sacred. Nothing is cherished. Nothing has value.

They have stubbornly made a decision to think the worst. You can’t change that, but you can defend yourself against the onslaught of these malignant thoughts.
It is time to put the brakes on defeatist thinking and alter your mental dialogue.

Evaluate what you are thinking. Are your thoughts inspiring, uplifting and encouraging or a stewing cauldron of worry, fear and doubt? Watch your thoughts. (No converter required.) Is your brain signal positive or negative? You will quickly realize how the negative thoughts have a far greater impact than the positive thoughts. If the thoughts you are thinking are negative, it’s time to replace them with positive, uplifting, warm, fuzzy, nice thoughts.

It’s not easy. You can start out encouraging yourself and end up thinking weird and depressing thoughts. You may think a positive thought like “It’s all going to work out.” And there is this depressing response saying, “no it’s not, my life is falling apart.” It is here that the battle is fought. Stop fighting and negativity wins because you have decided to believe it. You have to fight with truth, repeating the uplifting thought until you believe.

The desire for comfort carries us on the path of least resistance. It is the easy way out. Who wants to swim upstream, when we can go with the flow? But the flow is going downhill to end in a stagnant cesspool of fear, worry and obsession. Going with the flow has a pay-off; we are doing something that is easy. And if we don’t, we have to face our fear. It is easier to be consumed with worry than to do something constructive. You need to strive against the current of negative thinking, facing its power. It may feel like a raging current but the strength will come. Success is upstream, a place of freedom, joy and hope. It is the place we want to be.

Negative thoughts are hard to fight. They are like that floating pink elephant. The more we try not to think of them, the more they barge into our thinking. The solution is to deflect obsession to become encouraging thoughts. We have to re-channel the energy of obsessive, fear-ridden thoughts toward confidence-building thoughts.