You don’t have to allow your thoughts to consume you, beloveds. You don’t have to let your thoughts dance around you, and make you “It”, put you on the witness stand, interrogate you, put you on the spot, jostle you, and keep you tied to them.

Beloveds, do not take your thoughts so seriously.

When an untoward thought comes, when a thought arrives that belittles you or someone else, when a thought is not in your best interest or anyone else’s, this is a signal to turn your attention to a higher thought. You don’t need to put up with those measly ones. You do have some say in your thoughts. You do not have to be at their mercy. You may not be able to whip them into shape, but you can go with the ones you favor.

Beloveds, who has say over your thoughts if not you? Do not say that you have no influence with your thoughts. Whose thoughts are they? Thoughts may come unbidden, but then you can bid them goodbye.

If you feel down or depressed, do not underline feeling depressed with your thoughts. Get on with life anyway. Put the thoughts about being depressed away. You don’t pretend you are elated. You are just acknowledging that you don’t have to compound your sense of depression. You do not need to hold the thought of depression close to you.

There is more than one angle to approach life from. If life is the hem of a skirt, you can look at the underside and note all the stitches and hanging threads, or you can look at the skirt itself and how it flares. You can look at merit just as well as you can demerit. To some extent, you choose your suffering. You may not choose all the incidents, but the next choice is up to you. Did you think it was up to someone else?

Rather than saying you choose unhappiness, let us say that you may have neglected to choose happiness. You have denied yourself it. You are the one who denies yourself happiness. You may say you face reality when, in reality, you are denying yourself. It is you who tells yourself that you can’t have happiness right now, and you list your reasons. You decide you must continue unhappiness and dissatisfaction. Yet it is you who continues along the same line, or it is you who gets off. The choice is yours. Perhaps you have already punished yourself enough.

You have many reasons for denying yourself. You say it’s because of money, or your wife, or some set of circumstances not to your liking. You have become your own strict parent who denies yourself. “No,” you say to yourself, “you can’t have that. You can’t go there. You can’t do this.” You have a long list of no’s, and you may go to the end of the line before you allow yourself to have what you have denied yourself for so long.

You may have been a miser with your life, like a banker who says, “No, you can’t have this loan.” And then, after years of struggle, the banker in you who is accustomed to saying no right off the bat, after enough struggle and denial, finally stops and admits that now you can have what he previously denied. You could have had it all along, but finally, the banker in you, says, “Okay, now.” He could have agreed last year. A decision was delayed.

You can upgrade now.

You do not prove your character by limiting yourself. Denying yourself is limiting yourself.

Saying Yes to yourself doesn’t mean indulging yourself. It is simply accepting that you are entitled to a slice of the pie, and enjoying it.