107 Positive Motivational Messages

If you've ever spent a day perusing Facebook's News Feed or googled "Positive images" and been redirected to Pinterest, then you've no doubt come across a number of these visually presented positive quotes. 

In our brains, we know that the whole point of these posts is to share positive messages; we know in advance that these messages are aimed at "making us feel better about ourselves"... but when we read them, interestingly enough - we actually do feel better about ourselves. Why? 

Energie is contagious and hangs out in cliques. 

Positive energie at one table. 

Negative energie at another. 

Over time, we physically rewire our brains to match the frequencies to which we expose them. Expose your brain to negativity, and you'll naturally produce a brain that processes information negatively. 

The more often a neuron fires in a certain way - making associations and connections with other neurons - the pathway, like a pathway through the forest, becomes worn in. When neurological pathways are forged, they become quicker on a basic, biological level at letting information flow through. Over time, this pathway becomes the pathway of choice for the brain, which is essentially lazy, refusing to forge new pathways unless prompted to do so. Over and over again, the brain will choose a specific, familiar pathway rather than create a new one. 

Knowing this about our brains tells us that if we are experiencing the world from a negative space, we've probably just been infected by negativity.  That negativity could have been learned from our parents during childhood, our friends on the playground, or our life mates and choices that left us feeling less than satisfied or happy. Essentially, we feel let down and the brain strengthens that feeling not because we were disappointed (though we could have been) but because that's the message that has been reinforced. 

Whatever you want in your life, you have to reinforce it with images, words, thoughts, and actions. 

Life can be random, so in this blog, I apply positivity and/or fresh, new thinking to a lot of random thoughts (I obviously love doing this)... what my posts have in common (besides a general lightheartedness, sincerity, or silly thought) is my refusal to utilize certain negative or blasphemous vocabulary (or images) - I don't want to taint my brain. 

It's not easy at times protecting ourselves from negativity. Over the years, I've had a number of friends who delighted in pointing out all the "wrongs" in the world (their mistakes, others' mistakes, the government's mistakes, etc.), and wanting to show my support for "friendship" or loyalty for "family," I mistakingly showed my support and loyalty to their negativity. That just strengthened negativity for them (we find what we see or believe to be true) and "opened my eyes" to it.

Negativity isn't truth. It's an illusion. Negativity isn't real (if we don't want it to be). Negativity disappears in the presence of acceptance. If we accept whatever happens and continually forge positive reactions, we will find the good in most every situation. Even if that good is a simple sentence: "Thank goodness that's over." 

This doesn't mean that learning the truth about something can't result in our having sad or negative feelings, because it most certainly can. Hearing that you or someone you love has a terminal illness doesn't make us feel happy inside, on the contrary, all our negativity (fear, sorrow, anger, frustration) comes out to meet the new energie. It's like, "Hello bad news, I have some bad news representatives in my brain just waiting to meet you." 

Even in hearing bad news such as the type above, we can choose to respond with positivity (if we've trained our brain to choose positivity) and focus on the amount of time we have left to celebrate and enjoy being alive and having the good fortune to love someone and be loved in return. 

Focus on what lies on the horizon. When we don't pass the stage of "needing to be right" in life, we don't arrive to the stage of wondering "What If..." or "What Would Happen If I Did This Instead" [fill in the blank with positive reaction to something you might ordinarily respond negatively towards]. 

Just that little shift in thinking experienced once, twice, three times... will lead your brain toward choosing it again the 4th time and so forth until it becomes your natural reaction. 

The amount of time for rewiring our brain seems to be shorter than the amount of time it took to wire it negatively in the first place and that's because much of our negative wiring exists due to mirror neurons - we mirror others' behavior. So, if we spent years "mirroring negativity" it was probably not a conscious action. Whereas making a commitment to adjust our thinking one thought at a time does involve a conscious action.

Consciously choosing positivity has to be reinforced in every aspect of our lives (hence the randomness represented in this blog). Wherever we look, whatever thought we think, we have to make room for positive messages because they're the ones that motivate us toward positive action. And unless you enjoy being unhappy - most people don't enjoy being unhappy - then happiness is directly proportional to positive action. 

In honor of all the world's "What If's" and "What Would Happen If I Did This Instead's" I present 107 positive motivational messages for neurological rewiring... retrain your brain and change your life.