Good morning friends! It’s a beautiful rainy day here in Oregon, but it’s bright and shiny within the interpretation created by my mind because I focus on the beauty of the contrast crated by the clouds, the beauty of the clouds themselves, the depth of color, the clean scent created by the rain, the cool breeze which tickles my senses. What we choose to focus upon defines the nature of our experience, which in turn either reinforces an old belief structure or serves to plant the seed from which a new belief structure might grow.

By the way, this lovely illustration is off of my Instagram account which is registered under BoldSuccess (the same as my Twitter account) I borrowed it from 114monique, follow us if you’re a fan of our creativity.

Perception Creates our Reality:

Now did you notice that I referred to “my work” as my “creativity” in that last sentence? That is another example of how our belief structure frames our perception of reality, I’m excited to hop out of bed in the morning (even on the weekends) because I can’t wait to see what creative ideas are going to pop out of my head.  My friends describe me as a creative windstorm because I’m always scribbling thoughts and ideas out on to a pad of paper, trying to capture the brilliant ramblings of my mind so that I can look back on them later.  Most of the personal development coaching projects which I am working on now drifted to me out of the universal ether shortly after I decided to change my focus from positive thinking to thinking positive.

“Thinking Positive” vs. “Positive Thinking”

I don’t know what you’re thinking, because contrary to popular opinion, I’m actually not a mind reader… but if I were, I’d actually be more of a Mentalist which would be a fun addition to the training which I received from Tony Robbins in Strategic Intervention Coaching! But you might be thinking something like “I’ve tried that positive thinking crap before and it doesn’t work!”

And I would wholeheartedly agree…The fact of the matter is that I can dance around in the rain and repeat “there is no rain, there is no rain, there is no rain” and it’s still going to be raining. So obviously I’m not suggesting that you can change the weather by the power of positive thinking within the scope of the common understanding of the concept.  However you can alter your perception of what the rain means to you by choosing to think about the rain from a positive perspective.

The Power of Positive Thinking and Thinking Positive:

The concept of Thinking Positive is my modern day spin based upon The Power of Positive Thinking* which was written by Norman Vincent Peale back in 1952. If you have not read the book, I highly recommend it and if you haven’t read it in awhile, you might consider picking it back up.

Regardless of how you frame the concept of Thinking Positive, putting the practice into play in your life is as simple as learning to catch yourself when you experience a negative thought or emotion and flipping it around into something positive.  In Psychology and Neuro Linguistic Programming (NLP) the practice of turning a negative into a positive is known as a “reframe” and this is in essence what I am suggesting you do.

This can be a challenge in the beginning for some people, so I like to turn it into a game. Would you like to play? All you have to do is catch yourself having a negative thought and look for a creative way to flip it around into something positive. This is what I did with the rainy weather this morning, it is just as easy to view things from a positive perspective as to paint them in a negative light. It is simply a matter of practice and developing the skill of thinking positive. Go ahead and try it for awhile today, let me know your experience.  Now I know you’re wondering…

How can I be Certain that the Weather Monkeys will Listen?

Because I ate a couple of bananas for breakfast while I wrote this blog post this morning, to ensure that I would become more in-tune with the spirit of the Weather Monkeys. Everybody knows that Weather Monkeys eat bananas… So in an effort to become one with the weather monkeys, I eat bananas… it’s also part of my effort to eat more raw foods in accordance with the 80 / 10 / 10 Diet Plan* that I’ve been integrating into my life! If you’d care to join in on the fun, sign up for my newsletter, it’s a Barrel of Laughs and is full of helpful ways to improve your experience of life!

Sending you Love and Light… We are one!

— Todd

* Indicates that this link is an Affiliate Link attached to an Affiliate Account with Amazon.com if you decide to purchase the book the commission earned will help to support this web site and buy bananas for the staff.