Such as are your habitual thoughts, such also will be the character of your mind; for the soul is dyed by the thoughts.
- Marcus Aurelius -

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There was a time in my life when my thoughts were really dark, I can not say that now everything is nice in here, to dominate the thoughts is quite complicated and the mind often seems to have a life of its own and wants to do what it pleases, that is an opportune moment to show who has the real power, the will.

In human beings there is light and darkness, there is no doubt about that. In some, the nuance seems to be focused on one area more than the other. There are people who are truly evil, such as murderers, pedophiles, human traffickers.... Fortunately, when I say that I have had very dark thoughts it has not been with the thought of doing that kind of thing.

Once I got sick, I went through many things, one of them was undiagnosed brain inflammation, but I know I had that. Imagine, having the organ with which we think get sick is not easy. Dark thoughts were common, I imagined myself squeezing my neck until I stopped breathing. Sometimes I would turn on the TV to distract myself by watching a movie and everything scared me, even cartoons, and I saw people as hypocrites, no matter how sweet they seemed, hiding dark thoughts, wanting to do harm.

They were difficult days in which I had to fight a lot with bad thoughts. In some moments I was calmed by soft music, I even listened to some that promise to make us release endorphins. I had moments in which I felt better and I took the opportunity to recite a phrase I wrote for myself:

"I am very well, I feel good, my body, my soul and my spirit are very well, thank God, I am very well".

I even put a melody to this phrase and sang it to myself.

As the days went by I felt better but I had relapses, especially when I went for a walk because as a consequence my cervical spine was also inflamed. Imagine, I felt direct punctures to my brain, which directly affected my thoughts, if for example I was on the subway and there was a spoiled child I imagined his mother scolding him cruelly. Sometimes for no reason, I just felt hatred towards people, but it was only for moments, fortunately.

I told myself I couldn't go on with those bad thoughts, so when they came I tried to replace them with other images, like for example, the spoiled boy giving flowers to his mother. I imagined myself giving flowers to people and them smiling at me.

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I really don't know what would have become of me if I had let myself be carried away by those bad thoughts, perhaps my soul would have darkened, it would no longer have light or color, I think it has something of that. It will not be the purest soul, nor does it want to be, but it does not want to contribute to the evil that exists in the world.

That has been my experience with habitual bad thoughts and how I managed to free myself from them in difficult moments.

Now, good thoughts do bring great results, it happened to me that at one time in my life I would go jogging every morning and while doing so I would repeat in my mind a phrase that I learned in the book "The Instant Millionaire" by Marc Fisher. The phrase is as follows:

"Every day, in every way, I get better and better".

Although, I later learned, the credit for this phrase goes to Emile Coué, a French psychologist and pharmacist.

This phrase echoed in my mind, in every step, every morning while jogging, between 20 to 30 minutes. No wonder that was my best semester in college, I passed all my subjects with good grades, I also made friends, something that costs me a world, and my mood most of the time was in high vibration.

I know this was the result of exercising my body with good exercise and also exercising my mind with good thoughts, we are complex beings, although leading our lives in a satisfactory way seems to be, in most cases, easier than it seems, will positive thinking be enough? I think it's worth a try, but it takes discipline, like when I did it on a daily basis a while ago. I already got excited and am going to do it again, let's see how I do this time.

Bad thoughts will always come, in us dwells the light and darkness, I believe that we should not fight against them, we should not give them strength, sometimes it is good just to contemplate them and let them flow so that they fly away far away. When they are very recurrent and are going to take dominion over us it is good to seek professional help or replace them with other images, other phrases.

Feed the positive thoughts, those that give light and color to our life, those that make us feel good and in harmony with others, I do not say it is easy, but it is possible, we have control.

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See you next time 😉

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_{This paper is inspired by the opening sentence of Marcus Aurelius, which is included in the proposal of @galenkp of this weekend.}

_{Own photos, edited in Canva}