Hello, I'm your host Charmaine and welcome to Beautiful JEMM's
Imagine you're all ready to go mining, you have your protective gear on and you walk into that dark cave. But wait, you can't see. You forgot to bring your lights. So you go back out to get a flashlight, and walk back in the cave. It’s a little dark, you can't see so well. So you go back out again and find some heavy duty lighting. And remember, you have a mining headlamp, you go back in again. And now you can see your way around. You're glad to because it looks like more support beams and bolts maybe needed to put up before going deeper inside. What does this protective gear of lighting represent? Thought! We aren't going mining without it. If we try, we'll be in the dark, thought like light is necessary, and the kind of light matters. When lights are dim, we can miss important details or see things in the shadows that are not there. When our lights are bright, we are focused, observant, and we can see exactly where we're going, decreasing our exposure to danger. Bright light helps you examine the environment for structural integrity, stable foundations under your feet. And it enables you to see the type of rock whether soft or hard. This lets you know what heavy machinery and tools to use. Not to mention putting your other protective gear to good use. Bright Light is essential to navigate the mind and so are your thoughts. Since dim lights having little thought or weak minds won't cut it. Let's power up and turn up the bright lights with powerful thoughts and a strong mind. There are three ways we can use thought to shine light in search of our gems. The first is allowing thoughts. Second, autonomous thinking, third, reconditioning our thoughts, what do I mean by allowing thoughts, quite literally allowing your mind to see things as they are realistically, truthfully and objectively remaining open. The truth can be scary at times. But by giving yourself the gift of honesty, you start to create a safe space where you can accept the truth. From there you can begin to heal. Think of it this way. If you go to the doctor and he missed diagnosis you and gives you medicine, you won't feel better, because he did not see what made you sick, he may have missed something or overlooked the symptom. If you go to another doctor, and she clearly identifies a sickness, well now, whatever medicine she prescribes will help you. Your thoughts are the same. Allow your mind to see the truth about you, your experiences and others to start your healing process. This also applies to allowing thoughts space for our dualities are light and dark sides. It is so easy to focus on the things that we love or like about ourselves. But what about our dark side? Some refer to this as our shadow, a term coined by Carl Jung, our shadow can represent the things we don't want to see about ourselves, our repressed nature, what our subconscious mind knows that our conscious mind is unwilling to come to terms with so we repress it, reject it, forget it. The problem is that it is a part of you. And until you acknowledge it, you deny and abandon a part of yourself, which means that you do not accept your whole self. If you do not make room to integrate your shadow with your life, you will not be able to heal properly. The same concept also applies to life. Usually nothing is all pros and cons good or bad. In nature, duality surrounded us, day and night. Sun and Moon, deserts and oceans, animals that fly and those that roam the earth. All things coexist. Yin and Yang, feminine and masculine. That is the way of the world believe that there is wisdom in the creator's design. Both the light and dark sides of ourselves are meant to grow us to teach us allow your mind to accept that this and or that are true. Practicing nonjudgement will also make our thought life easier. Remember the mindfulness technique from the mind your gems episode? Use it to stay present. Try to observe your thoughts without judgment, choose to respond instead of react to your thoughts. This will allow you to see things as they are and acknowledge the truth for what it is. Ever heard of these old sayings? can't teach an old dog new tricks. A leopard can't change his spots. Some things never change that set in stone. Do you believe these things to be true? Well, I'm not sold. In fact, change is the one thing that is constant in life. When do people fall into the trap of believing that things won't change, usually when they keep having the same experiences over and over again. Why? Because it creates a belief, and the belief is then supported as truth with every passing experience. This is classic conditioning. Have you ever heard of the flea and the jar experiment? Well, fleas can jump up to 13 inches high, some say more or less. If they are placed in a jar with a lid over a period of time, they can only jump to the height of the lid. If the lid isn't taken off. Interestingly, the fleas won't jump out of the jar. Instead, they jump to where the lid used to be. Because they've repeated this experience. So many times when the environment actually changed. They were conditioned to believe that they could only jump as high as the lid, when in reality, they were more than capable to jump out and free themselves. Many times we want to change and we are capable of that change. But life has repeatedly hit us with experiences that form false beliefs. So in order for true transformation to happen in our lives, we must allow our thoughts to embrace change. Change can and will challenge the integrity of your belief systems. When you allow yourself to shine the light of thought on your foundations when mining, it may require a breaking a removal of rocks or old beliefs that no longer serve you. Your foundations may be unstable, need to be demolished and rebuilt. Go in with this awareness that it can happen. You may be challenged and caught off guard, you may think you know the changes you need to make but stay open to what you find. While you're in the midst of change. It is easy to fight against yourself because of conditioning. Ironically, that's your self defense mechanism trying to keep you safe with resistance and fear. acknowledge and thank that part of you for keeping you safe, and then make an active decision to move forward with change. This part of the process can be difficult to handle on your own. When it is reach out to the great excavator. He will show you why those beliefs served you until now why it's time to remove them, how you can remove them and what new beliefs will take its place. To sum it up. Allowing thought is giving yourself permission to accept dualities with nonjudgement to change as you go through your transformation process. Now the second way we can powerfully use thought is through autonomous thinking. Merriam Webster defines autonomous as having the right or power of self-government undertaken or carried on without outside control, self-contained, responding, reacting or developing independently of the whole question for you. Is your mind your own? Or is it filled with thoughts and opinions of others? The nice news IG reels or tick tock Facebook feeds, advertisements, your emails, the book you read yesterday, the magazine you saw while waiting in line at the grocery store, the sermon you heard Sunday phone notifications and texts, today's top stories that class you signed up for. Yep, I could go on and on. Today, it is a feat to think for yourself. All of these outside influences can dim your light. We are constantly bombarded with information. Now information is a beautiful thing. But what happens when your mind is no longer your own? It's taken over by collective thinking or group thinking.
Let's back up here. We all know these things. But do you have an awareness of your own thoughts? Can you separate them out from all of the information you take in daily? One way to know is how much time do you spend alone in thought? No people, no electronic devices, not even a book. You alone by yourself thinking independently of any outside influences or autonomously? If your answer is no time, then I can pretty much promise you, the mind you think is your own is not. Today, people are paid to not just give you information, but to influence you, between marketers, behavioral scientists, computer scientists and software engineers alone. Your mind does not stand a chance. You must purposefully reboot and regroup. garbage in garbage out. Take back your mind, take back your control. A great way to do this is through meditation, stillness or quiet. Meditation will clear out unwanted thoughts for better clarity of mind. So you can actually hear yourself think now that we have singled out your thoughts. Let's trade in that dim flashlight for the heavy-duty lights. This can be done through discernment and questioning. Discernment actually requires you to take in information outside of yourself. However, for it to work well, you must know your mind first, using your thoughts to critically think about all information you receive. Discernment is the ability to perceive or judge something correctly. It entails looking beyond the obvious to see with depth. It is particularly powerful when thought is combined with intuition and emotion. For some tips with intuition, listen to the episode tune into your intuition and for emotion. Listen to the episode Let the Canary Sing. Discernment can aid you in determining what information to let in and what information to leave on the table. When the information comes in the form of media, we tend to shrug it off. I'll give you an example. I was watching a show a few years ago, that was a bit more graphic than I anticipated. I ignored it and continued to watch it. It was a series. Every time I watched an episode, my mind would race and my anxiety was high. One day, my Fitbit decided to congratulate me on exercising. I was like wait a minute what my heart rate had been high and fast during an episode. And my Fitbit actually thought that I was exercising. In that moment. I said enough, and I turned off the TV. I actually stopped watching any kind of TV for about two months, then I limited what I watched. For about two years or so. I felt so much better. In this case my anxious thoughts, feelings and physical body provided me with the information I needed along with my Fitbit to discern that this form of media was not good for me. I use this example because discernment requires you to be present, and evaluate both external and internal information. In this case, I was receiving signs that what I saw and heard was making me anxious, emotionally, physically and mentally. My Fitbit was just the icing on the cake. Like if you didn't get the message, here you go. Media and music are potent influencers of the mind, heart and spirit. We won't get into that today. But for now, use discernment and be thoughtful about what you choose to take in and let go to keep your light shining bright. So how can you make sure your light stays bright? You can do that through questioning and staying curious about your internal world. It will keep your lights on and charged. Never take anything for granted about yourself. Be open to learn something new. Asking yourself simple and open-ended questions can lead to great self-discoveries. You will find gems in the most unlikely of places. Here are some examples of self-examining questions. What do I think about? Name it? Why do I feel named the emotion? What is my intention? What do I need? Why am I resistant to name it? Why do I behave or react this way? How can I look at this differently? What role that I play and need to take responsibility for what can I do differently this time? Let your mind freely answer these questions and observe your answers without judgment. Use your hard hat of self-compassion. With the headlight of thought to shine light on your inner environment protecting your mind. self-examination through questioning sheds light on your belief system where your foundation lies. It shows you what rock needs to be chipped away at delicately, and what maybe needs to be completely removed with a little dynamite. How do you do this? Through reconditioning your mind? Here are a few ways to retrain your brain. read or listen to books on the mind like battlefield of the mind by Joyce Meyer. The power of positive thinking, by Norman Vincent Peale. Thinking for change by John Maxwell. read or listen to spiritual texts that uplift your mindset like the Bible, Koran, the Dow or Buddha scripture. Whatever your belief, read daily devotionals like acts of faith, and until today by Yama, Van Zandt. If you're more of a YouTuber, try motivational speakers like et les brown or Tony Robbins, look up compilations of various motivational speakers addressing the specific mindset that you want to tackle. If you're more into the scientific part. Try Joe Dispenza. He's a scientific thought leader on the subconscious and conscious mind, epigenetics, neural science to unlearn and relearn how to create new neural pathways. Affirmations are also a great way to recondition your thoughts. You can write out your own list of affirmations by starting each sentence with I am. These are great when you discover an area with gems. Use affirmations a little every day or immerse yourself in them to chip away or blast your old beliefs. If you want to immerse yourself. You can also find affirmation videos on YouTube by subject. Listen to them in the background or while you sleep. Your subconscious mind here's everything. If you aren't uncomfortable with that, create your own. tape yourself and listen to it. Lastly, practice gratitude. There are great studies out there concerning the benefits of gratitude on the mind. Practice by writing three things you are grateful for every day for 30 days. Start your prayers with gratitude and thanks before asking, or just pray prayers of gratitude and thanks. Do your best to make an active effort to keep your lights bright, so that when you look close enough, you can see the gems among the rocks. Thank you so much for spending time with me today. I pray that you build your relationship with God. Love yourself unconditionally and put in the work to mind refine and shine those JEMMS!