“Men will continue to have impure and poisoned blood so long as they propagate unclean thoughts. Out of a clean heart comes a clean life and a clean body. Out of a defiled mind proceeds a defiled life and corrupt body. Thought is the fountain of action, life and manifestation; make the fountain pure, and all will be pure.
“Change of diet will not help a man who will not change his thoughts. When a man makes his thoughts pure, he no longer desires impure food.
“If you would perfect your body, guard your mind. If you would renew your body, beautify your mind. Thoughts of malice, envy, disappointment, despondency, rob the body of its health and grace. A sour face does not come by chance; it is made by sour thoughts. Wrinkles that mar are drawn by folly, passion, pride.” ~James Allen, As A Man Thinketh.
“Things are not brought into being by thinking about their opposites. Health is never to be attained by studying disease and thinking about disease; righteousness is not to be promoted by studying sin and thinking about sin; and no one ever got rich by studying poverty and thinking about poverty.” ~Wallace D. Wattles, The Science of Getting Rich.
“The Young and the Thoughtless!” …The Reality of Polarity
If you missed the first three “segments” of this series, start here.
From our last segment you read:
“…Once I decided that I was at the bottom with discouragement, and that I had nowhere else to go but up, things began to change that would lead us towards eventual relief. Changes were incremental, and the blessings were disguised. Things actually seemed to get worse. But in reality, it was all a great part of our progression towards deliverance.
Stay “tuned” for our next segment of “The Young and The Thoughtless” to find out how something far seemingly worse could actually be the best thing that could have happened to us!”
Late into the next winter there was a storm…
But let’s hold on for just a second! — since I am planning to present some ideas on the law of polarity, I want you to notice the ideas that are negative and then the corresponding positive opportunities that sprung from them. The Law of Polarity states that within every “bad” situation is an equal and opposite “good”. As we search for the good in everything, our thoughts will literally shape the outcome, and our circumstances will always benefit us. If we only look at the bad, then more of what we consider “bad” will be drawn to us, by law.
So then, back to the storm.
Bad/negative: This was a storm unlike any I had ever seen. It wasn’t so severe, but even in its mildness it created such an enormous mess. Huge winds picked up salt from the salt flats around the Great Salt Lake. Storm clouds became very heavy as the moisture in them blended with the salt whipped up from the Great Salt Lake… and inevitably, that heavy salt water was dumped all over our community– 45 miles south. When the rain stopped and everything had dried, all was coated in a dry white blanket of salty sediment—obvious, especially, on windows.
With my 2 children in daycare, I worked part time as a teacher and my husband continued work at the gun safe plant. As part of the aftermath of my second child’s difficult beginnings, I also traveled twice a week to Salt Lake City.
Good/positive: In the salty mess, my husband quickly saw opportunity, and proceeded to invest in a few new tools for the job (several hundred dollars’ worth of investment, actually, that included the purchase of a fancy, high-tech, all-in-one ladder system). With this new equipment, my husband went door to door and offered to wash windows in our neighborhood. In only one weekend, he recovered the amount of his investment. Amazed at the profitability of his efforts and stunned by his ability to make more money in one hour than he was used to making in four, we began to dream again.
Naturally, Trevan began to open his mind to new possibilities, and realized he wasn’t as dependent on his regular job as he had thought.
Bad/negative: However, his regular employer was providing our insurance and a steady income, albeit meager… and the insurance aspect was no small matter. A little baby wrestling with so many medical challenges meant that we could not afford, especially at this time, to lose our insurance.
Not two weeks later, my husband walked across the street to visit a neighbor and slipped on black ice. Putting his hand down to catch his fall, his arm was jammed backwards. The force snapped his shoulder blade, breaking the bone. Unable to do his job, his employer gave him 3 months unpaid medical leave and said, “Come back after that time and we’ll try to find you a position.” In other words: “We’ll be replacing you and cannot promise a job will be waiting for you when you come back.”
Good/positive: But not to worry, right? He had discovered another way to make money on his own. Given a little time to recover, he went right to work drumming up window cleaning business and keeping us afloat. Even after the salt was mostly gone, he found the business to provide a decent income. Trevan started acquiring bigger and bigger accounts. He was proud to be able to provide his services to the owners of very large and expensive homes, including one whose property was featured in a local “Parade of Homes” event.
Bad/negative: Before long, we realized that though through the summer, business was good, unfortunately for us, Trevan’s work would come to a halt once winter rolled back around.
Good/positive: It only made sense then and was quickly decided that we would finally return to Arizona where we could be close to old friends and family, AND be able to work the business year-round. It was so exciting to start a new chapter in our life and, it felt like a total no-brainer!
Bad/negative: But the market was somehow different where we were… marketing strategies that worked like magic in Utah were futile in Arizona. Trevan hired on with a window cleaning service and ended up making less than he had been making at the gun safe factory–with no benefits.
We lived in a tiny apartment and drove a twenty-year old car, and against our grain, we had to seek government assistance for our baby’s medical care. I went into a depression, tired of trying.
Some of you have heard this part of the story before… but for those of you who haven’t, it was during this time of our lives that I called the cops on a teenager in our apartment complex… for breaking my broom. I couldn’t afford another one, and that broom breaking was the straw that caused my last nerve to snap.
Naturally, at this point, our marriage was under a great deal of pressure too.
Good/positive: Ultimately, our commitment to God and the promises we’d made to each other at marriage kept us together.
Trevan picked up a second job working for Sears in their credit department, and eventually was invited by a friend to come on as a temp at a cement company working on their computers. Suddenly, I was grateful for, instead of irritated by, the memories of my husband’s extensive tinkering with our old computer. Here he was now, putting some of that knowledge from his experimentation to use, adding to it as his friend worked to train him.
Would all of this struggle pay off? Would we ever be able to really prosper? Education was important to us, but my husband hadn’t completed his degree. Without that education, how “stuck” were we? Plenty of people quit trying to improve their life situations, believing that efforts to drastically change current circumstances would be wasted. Contrary to them, we chose to continually refuse those kinds of thoughts. We also refused to believe that God would want us or ever mean for us to live out our lives just “scraping by.” As I later read,
“A person’s right to life means his right to have the free and unrestricted use of all the things which may be necessary to his fullest mental, spiritual, and physical unfoldment.” ~Wallace D. Wattles, The Science of Getting Rich.
We believed that saying to be a true principle and didn’t realize that God was actually leading us along to some great blessings. It all makes sense in hindsight, but in the middle of the struggle it all felt very haphazard and made very little sense.
Maybe take a minute to reflect on a struggle, or THE struggle, that you’re wrestling with. Did you ever consider that it has purpose? meaning? That contained in this same struggle are great opportunities for you? What odds are seemingly stacked against you?
By the Law of Polarity, you can TRUST that if great odds are stacked against you, then you are being primed for greater blessings than you can imagine. But these blessings are dependent on your belief, and you must steer your thoughts towards belief in order for the greatest good to actually manifest itself.
Bad/negative: At one of my lowest points, I decided that the only way to feel happy would be to lock myself in my room and just fantasize about the life I really wanted. I was down on myself for resorting to such an escapist mentality. I wanted to escape reality and live in a dream world. What would it be like to own a home? To have a yard for my kids? To have enough for the groceries? I tried to feel the happiness that I thought I’d feel if it were my true reality.
Good/positive: If I hadn’t fallen so low, I never would have resorted to that kind of an escape. I have a feeling that God knew that if He would let me struggle long enough, I’d eventually resort to fantasizing… and because He cannot bless us with circumstances that are out of harmony with our own thoughts, all He had to do was lovingly wait long enough for me to start emotionally thinking about what I wanted, as though it were already mine. I was led to want very badly to really feel the happiness and joy that would come with the life I dreamed about. That’s the secret, I had no idea it could be so simple! The minute I began to apply the laws of thought, unknowingly, was the same minute that things began to move, and circumstances began to gather to see my dreams turn into reality.
Tune in next time to find out what happens when the “Young and the Thought-less” begin to get “Older and more Thought-full! in other words–when we finally started to live in harmony with the Laws of Thought! You’ll see that once we understood the Laws, we were finally able to change directions in our roller-coaster life. Life is full of ups and downs no matter what… but what a difference it made when we purposely applied our new understanding of the laws. It is my hope that you’ll do the same, and see dramatic changes in your life as well.
Your job, and mine, is to think right. It is not to manage the creative process: WE DO NOT HAVE TO KNOW HOW THINGS WILL COME TOGETHER. That’s God’s job. For us, it is simply our job to think right, and trust God.
I should also add that part of thinking right is being determined to act on the inspiration that God gives us. We must have faith, and we must trust Him.
If you recognize that through right thinking your circumstances can be changed, but realize your thoughts need more discipline, read this.
For the next episode of “The Young and the Thoughtless”, use the navigation links below.
- Rare Faith Waiting for the other shoe to drop - April 15, 2024
- Waiting for the other shoe to drop - April 12, 2024
- Join me for the Thrive Summit: Unlocking 5 Key Relationships - April 2, 2024
