Unwanted Thoughts
There are thousands of self-help books on the market that support the power of positive thinking. A major problem is that they don’t present a way of getting you out of negative thinking. They only offer band-aids for gaping wounds. They tend to be cosmetic and superficial. As long as you are not in a negative emotional state they may be helpful. However, when you are in a negative emotional state you often can’t see the forest for the trees and you have no path to get out of it.

The solution has to come from within you. It must come from the physical you because it isn’t what you are thinking, but what is causing you to think it. It’s not outside of you, it’s inside of you. There have been situations in your life when you were thinking positive thoughts and suddenly you took a negative mental direction. Your shift in mood seemed to happen without your control. Your mood shift is being manipulated by your creature with its own agenda. It is the ability to return to the positive thought rather than stay in the negative thought that is your quest. Now, the question is how to do it.

This ability, like anything else, must be made through the process of Talent by the recognition and control of fear. No one will ever have the power to avoid unexpected negative thoughts and feelings but if you recognize them for the fear they are, you can disempower them. You should know that the physical you has the agenda to survive. You should know the intellectual (spiritual) part of you has the agenda to be part of “All That Is”, part of the universe. The earthly part of you is not supported by logic or understanding. Like any animal, the earthly part of you deals with its immediate needs and its quest to be free from danger. It will go to any extreme to guarantee that. The physical or earthly part of you does not understand the consequences of energy displacement. It does not understand the devastating and destructive power of stress and anxiety.

The earthly part of you (creature) is responsive to external feelings (electrical impulses)emmited by other life forms. The earthly part of you works to keep your life energy in your muscle tissue in order to fight or run as needed for survival. Its response to hostile or none defined external energies is to activate its survival mechanisms. Those mechanisms are based on the intensity of the feeling. Those feelings will be translated to thoughts that are situated in the part of your brain that controls your survival instincts. They will be inturperted to you by your internal dialogue.

The creature (animal) in you will first activate your five senses to make sure that the feeling of danger is not immediate. If that does not satify the ability to calm the physical defense response, it will search out most recent memories that are stored in the brain based on the same level of feeling in question. The creature has the instinctive power to override your logical thinking process. It has the power to stop your intellectual (logical)actions and it also has the power to activate negative beliefs and fears to support its desire to stay in control of your life energy for its suppossed survival needs.

Negative beliefs result in disempowering thoughts. Once activated the resulting internal dialogue often becomes impossible to change. Your resulting internal dialogue appears to justify and rationalize that which is neither just nor rational.

Your quest is to reach some kind of harmony, agreement or understanding between you and the creature in you. The basic of the earth part that you carry inside must learn to trust your ability to override its instinctive reactions. The creature is like a frightened child. It must learn to trust. But first you must learn how the mindless creature manipulates your thoughts. It does this by making you believe that the feelings you are having are caused by the thoughts (internal dialogue) you are hearing.

You must accept the power of the creature's instincts to place your body in a defense position. However, you must not allow that power to go beyond the senses and active memories of past fears.

You must recognize your physicalfeelings are causing your thoughts of dispair or unhappiness and not your thoughts of dispair or unhappiness that are causing your feelings.

If your thoughts appear to cause you to be unable to perform the actions needed to move your quest toward happiness and growth then you must first learn to change the physical feeling (controlled by your creature) as many times as necessary until you have control of your internal dialogue by intellectual control. If the actions toward your goals are stopped by your thoughts of dispair recognize the true source of those thoughts. Your creature may have, by habit, been able to manipulate your thoughts in order to fullfill its need to protect the physical body.

It is important for you to search the other areas of your life that are in conflict with your goals. Ask yourself, “Why would a person who believes these things pursue an acting career?” And then ask yourself, “What kind of person pursues an acting career and yet refuses to take the actions that will make it happen?” What does this say about you? No matter the content of the negative thoughts, they all boil down to the same result: they are negative thoughts that are being used to keep you from action. When you change the negative physical feelings that demand the negative thoughts, you can move on with your efforts. This is a process and must be repeated until you are satisfied with the thoughts (internal dialogue)you are having.

Those who are successful will not have fewer negative thoughts but they will have a shorter reaction time to those thoughts. You can be one of these people.

You should know that many of your non supportive beliefs acivated by the physical you come from the beliefs of family and friends while growing up. They most likely are not even beliefs that you hold as your desired rules of living. Yet, they are still used by your creature to activate non supportive thoughts.

Acknowledge thoughts that you are having and remember where these negative beliefs originated. Realizing that rejected beliefs, still being used for your internal dialogue, are clues to you as to which part of you is really runing your emotional life. Once you evaluate the source of the negative thoughts that you are having to justify your efeelings you may realize that you have actually been, on some level, enjoying your misery. Why? Because these negative thoughts may be protecting you from your fear of entering or returning to the perceived rejection game. Once you begin evaluating your negative thoughts you will realize that you would never drag up all the unpleasant and hurtful events of the past. That would not be logical and it would make no sense. We want to learn how to make yourself aware of the negative thoughts intent. And, who is controlling it.

Once you understand this you can make it change. You must use practice of physical control once you acknowledge the limiting thoughts and beliefs. Once you accept that you have allowed your thoughts to be used to stop your quest to find the knowledge and repetitions needed to overcome thing you fear, you can activate the process of chanage. You can learn to disempower these negative and limiting thoughts at the source, physical feelings, and by doing so, eliminate your creature's ability to use them.

By doing this you may also become aware of some negative associations you have made to various aspects of the acting profession. These beliefs and associations may be holding you back and stopping you from enjoying your life journey. Every action you don’t take has just as many results as actions you do take. The age-old expression, “Every action has an equal reaction” could also be, “Every in-action has an equal in-action”. Everything you don’t do (such as mailing out that head shot, showing up for an audition, trying to get into a showcase, learning the names of all the players in the games you wish to play…) is and of itself an action. You are setting a course.

You may be allowing your creature to navagate your destiny to nowhere. Not doing the things that you should be doing must become conscious. If you can take control of your thoughts and your feelings you can move to the winners circle. It would be a mistake to assume that others know what direction to take or that the process of success is understood beyond theory. You can separate from the oppressive 98% failure group and move into the much less crowded 2% success group. This leap from the masses to the special few is part of your life journey as a successful professional actor. Your successful future will be supported by your ability to recognize and change your fear-based behavior and patterns. You can become aware of who and what is controlling your thoughts and feeling and why.

Setting a Cause to Motion
Now you can recognize the fear or habits used in your daily life that keep you from taking the path that will lead to greater satisfaction and success. Everything you think or do is going to cause a result. It’s up to you to make sure the results are what you want. A cause is set in motion to create an effect. Each effect piles on the other to create a direction. Every direction brings you to your destiny. You are destined to end up a success or failure in your own heart based on the actions or non-actions you take. The choices you make create a pattern of life. If left unchallenged this life result may not be what you had in mind. Know what meaning you want your life to have. Once you have become a successful professional actor and have achieved wealth and fame, know what do you want your life to be about?

You already know that no amount of money will bring you peace and happiness. The knowledge that you have accomplished something worthwhile by controlling your thoughts and feelings is what can do that. The things in life that can be classified as worthwhile are those things that have a direct effect on other human beings and on their efforts to find health, happiness and security.

What you expect to accomplish over the next 5, 10 or 25 years has to be set in motion now. There are many circumstances already in your life that can help you design the life that you want to lead. However, there are other circumstances, beliefs: thoughts that support the negative side… the fearful side… the low self esteem side… the unloved side... that can be used by your creature to misdirect and confuse you through feelings (not thoughts) if uncontrolled.

What are your “fear based” negative associations? “I’ll never make it; I’m not attractive enough to be a successful actor; I’m not smart enough; I’m not desirable enough; I’m not good enough; I’m afraid to have my feelings hurt?” None of these things apply to the truth of your beliefs. These are all illogical thoughts and could only be used by a mindless creature. You must use your intellect and self-awareness to move forward in your life by controlling your beliefs and your inner dialogue. Outdated beliefs that can be actualized can chip away at your confidence. They can undermine your efforts toward growth and development.

These fear-based beliefs can only work against you if they are not being monitored. Know when they are being used. Analyze beliefs that you have long since negated yet somehow appear to be in your thoughts. Look back at your youth. Think about your life as a child. Think about the French scenes of your life and how those events used energy to defend at the cost of negative beliefs. Were you overweight, too thin, awkward, afraid that people would find out you were gay? How were you teased? Acknowledge that you know these negative attacks have no power over you today. Acknowledge that you have refused to give them power. Know the negative thoughts that you have are thougths you know are pointless for your growth. Also know that they are key to your creatures non-thinking desire to control your energy. Then, and only then, will you be the captain of your own ship.

Translated emotional scars are like magnets to your creature. The resulting internal dialogue is often not recognized by you as manipulation for the control of your life energy. Recognize the manipulation happening within your being. Accept the duality of who you are. You are physical, of the earth, and you are intellectual, of the spirit. Your uniqueness is based on which part of you is in control of your life. The physical controls survival at all cost. The intellectual controls your desire to be better than the animals you have been seperated from. Take away the power of your creature by accepting the negative thoughts you may be having are of no value to you. Negative thoughts are just guides to who is in control of your being.

Don't forget, wisdom is the lifetime quest for every human being who is searching for control over his/her emotions: searching for peace, harmony and understanding of this miracle called living.

Have a wonderful week and I wish you well.
Russ