When I was reading Marlena De Blasi's "The Lady In the Palazzo" I was taken by a comment made by one of the characters, Miranda, who said:
"knowing what to forget is as important as knowing what to remember"
It made me think about how much time and effort it takes us to remember the dark thoughts, the negative things, the bad things, the unhappy things that happen in life, sometimes at the expense of the more wonderful memories. Why do we drag ourselves down and keep ourselves down with our negative thoughts and emotions? Would it not be better to let them go and devote more time to the positive, happier thoughts we have? What change would happen if we did?
*image of "dark thoughts" originally uploaded to flickr by bluerose December 4, 2007
13 comments:
Hi Sherry !
Letting dark thoughts and negative feelings go and focusing on the positive seems like the best ways to improve the quality of our lives to me. Some people (and most therapists !) believe you need to focus on the negative stuff for a while, learn its roots and then let it go after you have "dealt" with it. I am getting more and more unsure about this kind of thinking. As a person who has spent way too much of my life in the dark places already, I wonder too, what it would be like to just start from where I am and learn to focus my thoughts, emotions and energy on positive things and see what happens... I do know that when I find the strength to do this even for just one moment, I feel happier and more like I am living life the way it should be...
Now I need to learn the lesson and apply it more fully...and hope to find the help I need to get there along the way...
Happy Tuesday, beautiful one !
I totally agree. That's a wonderful quote and surely something to live by. Life would be so much happier. This is why I don't watch a lot of news.
Yet again (in reference to a previous post of yours) it seems there has to be some kind a conscious effort made to block those dark, negative thoughts. They come to the fore so easily. Of course, on a “happy day” they tend to remain buried deeper – have a more difficult time intruding.
“Letting go” is an apt phrase – implies action is required on our part.
So well said:>) So important to remember.
Such a very good point and something we all need to think about for sure. It really would make a difference in our lives if we tried to be more positive. Amy
I often have wondered why we carry such energy around, like lugging an anchor everywhere we go, sometimes even clinging to it like a baby to a security blanket. We somehow let it become part of our identity to keep ourselves in check or something, who knows. Letting go TRULY letting go and not just stuffing it away is hard to do.
Sherry, as you know already I read Shakti Gawain, and this is what she had to say March 9th, just yesterday in her Daily Guide To Conscious Living, I thought you and your readers might like to read it :)
Everytime you don't allow yourself or aren't allowed to fully experience an emotion, to feel it and move through it, the energy of that emotion becomes stopped and blocked in your body.
It remains until you can go back and reexperience that emotion. Then the energetic block is released and the body is freed and cleared.
Virtually all our physical ailments come from energetic blocks in our bodies, energetic patterns that are connected to our emotional patterns.
Shakti Gawain~
She has so much more to share on negative feelings in her book, it's a great book and I like that you read a page a day. She tells us not to block our negative feelings, they are feelings and we need to learn from them as we do from our positive feelings, and not beat ourselves up more or less when we feel negative, it's a natural emotion to go through.
I love the books name, "Lady in the Palazzo", since Palazzo is my married name I could have used that as a blog name don't ya think?
I think this thought goes hand in hand with yesterday's posting on self-acceptance. So much of my dark thoughts are about things I wish I'd done differently rather than about anything that was done to me by someone else. Part of self-acceptance is acceptance of the past self, and the letting go will help with that.
I really like the comment about "letting go" implying an action on our part. Interesting.
I have to agree with what Lynn is talking about.....(Shakti Gawain)
I think a lot of dark negative feelings come from some repressed event from the past. Gotta deal with it and then let it go. But always easier said than done.
Oh my, what a subject. It seems no matter how "healthy" I get, the past still tends to hold a haunting every now and then.
I did my own little " poll " on this after reading this yesterday .
i asked some people what bad memories they had - and straight away the could recall them - all the negative things that happened - next i asked what about the good ?
And i could tell that they really had to think about it .
doesn`t it prove that bad experiences can over ride our good ones and that we seem to remember those first - when it should be all the good experiences that we should remember ?
Hi Sherry,
I was just introduced to this book a couple of days ago. It is the next book on my list to read. The thought of 37 days to live is so sobering that it brings tears to the eyes to think of all our wasted energy on "optional" priorities.
Marilyn~~~
As happens so often when I visit here, this hit me like a ton of bricks... I am so often consumed by dark thoughts. I just wish I knew how to get rid of them! A big struggle for me!
Love ya sweets!
~xx~
Kathy
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