We all have conflicting thoughts. Well, I should say we all keep conflicting thoughts for the time being.

Conflicting thoughts are thoughts that are opposite in meaning, yet we believe them both.

Even defining it so plainly reveals how crazy it is to have these conflicting thoughts.

Yet every day we entertain one or more.

Some common conflicting thoughts include:

• “I don’t know why bad things happen to me” vs “I love drama”
• “The mind controls the body” vs “my body is sick”
• “People really are nice at heart” vs “people suck”

The purpose of this article is not to list out all of your conflicting thoughts, but to help you live more in harmony with yourself.

This can be accomplished by first recognizing what your conflicting thoughts are. And secondly, by choosing just one (hopefully the thought aligned with truth).

Let’s jump in!

Others will tell you

We can sometimes become so wrapped up in our own ego that we become unconscious of what we actually believe, think, and say.

Luckily, we have mirrors (those around us) to remind us.

For whatever reason, people love proving others wrong and calling out their faults, especially kids.

So you’re surrounded by amazingly eager participants willing to show you your conflicting thoughts.

When confronted openly about these conflicting thoughts, there’s a tendency to react by directing anger toward the messenger.

But when you see the reality of this situation, you can understand that the messenger just did you a HUGE favor.

They have just brought to light some conflicting thoughts that you were unaware of.

At this moment you have a choice. You can defend your beliefs as if truth itself needs someone to fight for it. Or you can take a moment to reflect and see if there is some truth to what the person is revealing to you.

It takes practice, but you’ll get it.

You find yourself feeling uneasy, angry, or sick

Despite the common belief, sickness is not normal.

Seeing the above statement now is so blatantly obvious to me, but there was a time when it wasn’t. I believed that it was natural to get sick and that there was nothing I could do about it.

I believed that something was natural that could never be natural. It’s like living death, fighting peace, or lying for the truth…obvious conflicts that we’ve merged into one.

Since as so above, so below…what you believe inside is reflected outside.

In this case, this inner mental conflict reveals itself as bodily conflict reinforcing that the mind controls the body. Yet we sometimes believe that the body has a mind of its own. And it does. It’s yours. 

This conflict also reveals itself in anger and uneasiness.

You would only be angry if someone reveals something that goes both against your belief and for your belief.

For example, let’s say someone calls you stupid.

If you’re content in your genius-ness, then you would brush off this attempt at an insult because it’s obviously absurd.

Yet if deep down you believe that you are stupid, then conflict or anger will arise. There’s conflict because you are trying to prove to others that you are smart without having truly accepted it for yourself.

It’s time to start using these perceived anger and/or sick times as triggers to practice seeing the miracle of moving toward a united mind.

Being present with what you’re teaching/saying (the advice you give others)

You are always teaching. You are always sharing. They are one and the same.

If for example, I say, “Eating chicken is bad for you.” You may be quick to teach or share why it is or isn’t.

We unconsciously do this. And by doing this unconsciously, we are setting up our own limits.

We are making the parameters for how we are to live. And if we don’t abide by these, conflict arises.

The conflict is there because you’ve set a rule yourself to live by, but you don’t live by it.

See how sneaky conflicting thoughts can be.

It’s not just there. It’s in the debates you have.

You may be so wrapped up in being right, that you don’t realize you’re righting something that you never wanted for yourself while denying what you do.

Fortunately, the fix is the same.

Be present at this moment.

Observe your thoughts as you think them.

Observe your words as you speak them.

This also takes practice. But once it’s perfected, nothing will ever bother you again.

You will be in perfect harmony within yourself always.

In conclusion

On this harmonic journey, try not to get frustrated if you don’t always succeed at overcoming the conflict.

To get frustrated would be to make further disharmony (more conflicting thoughts).

No more!

Here’s a song of mine to help.

The post How To Recognize Conflicting Thoughts appeared first on JClay.

These journal prompts will quickly get you in alignment with what you truly want, not just with what you think you want.

I first got introduced to journaling from the book The Miracle Morning by Hal Elrod. In it he spoke about doing SAVERS daily…

• S – Silence – Sitting in silence or meditating
• A – Affirmations – Saying affirmations
• V – Visualizations – Visualizing yourself receiving/achieving what you want
• E – Exercise – Exercising
• R – Reading – Reading books toward what you want to learn
• S – Scribing – Journaling

I had experience with all of the above except journaling. I knew how the others were helpful so it made it easier to trust the recommendation to add journaling to my repertoire.

So I “borrowed” a notebook from my then job’s supply cabinet and got ready to journal.

The only problem was, I didn’t know what to write.

I probably actually wrote, “I don’t know what to write in here.” next to that day’s date.

Yet this is a new day. With more experience and knowledge around the subject, I’m here to provide you with the journal prompts that will help serve you the most.

Journal Prompts You Should Be Using

1. What can I do today (or tomorrow) that will make me super happy?
2. What do I love about my life?
3. What’s something that sucks and is there a way of looking at it where I no longer think it’s sucky?
4. If money was never an issue, how would I spend my day?
5. Make a list of people that have wronged me and explain why I’m scared to forgive them.
6. What does God want me to do that I’m avoiding?
7. It’s been said that … “How you do anything is how you do everything.” … How does that make me feel about my life?

What journal prompts do you use that are the most transformative?

The post You Are What You Journal: The Only Journal Prompts That Actually Matter appeared first on JClay.

Lie – an intentionally false statement.

No lie, you are being lied to as many as 200 times a day.^[1] You will also contribute an average of 2 lies per day to the world, assuming you are truthful about it.^[2]

Whether you tell a lie to protect another or to be more agreeable, each lie told will uniquely affect your mind. It will create conflict between the lie and the truth you hold to keep the lie in place. And since the mind controls the body, conflict within the mind will eventually manifest as conflict within the body.

Whew, this got deep really fast.

What if “the truth will set you free” is not just one of those catchy sayings to get a liar to suddenly become truthful? What if this phrase is a blueprint to healing your body?

This truth is what we will uncover in this article. By the end, you will know if you have been sabotaging yourself with lies, incorporating wishful thinking, or trapped so deep in a world where the truth and the lies are indistinguishable.

How The Brain Processes Lies

In 2016, Nature Neuroscience published a study showing that whenever people utter words of dishonesty, there is a burst of activity in their amygdala. The amygdala is responsible for producing anxiety, fear, and feelings of guilt within the body. Very interesting.

So if lies do this much damage, then why do people keep telling them?

The answer lies within the same study.

The scientists had the participants play a game where they would win money by being deceptive. What was fascinating is that in this scenario, the emotional responses in the amygdala decreased.

However, the effects remained present in the body.

So why lie?

Why People Lie

To understand if lying has any benefits, you first need to recognize why you lie at all.

All the lies ever told can be fit into four categories as outlined by this article by National Geographic.

1. Promoting Yourself (44%)
   1. For a financial benefit (16%)
   2. For a non-financial benefit (15%)
   3. Creating a better self-image (8%)
   4. Appearing humorous (5%)
2. Protecting Yourself (36%)
   1. Covering a mistake or misdeed (22%)
   2. Avoiding others (14%)
3. Impacting Others (11%)
   1. Helping others (5%)
   2. Hurting others (4%)
   3. Being polite (2%)
4. Unclear (9%)
   1. Don’t even know why you’re lying while lying (7%)
   2. Are deemed as a pathological liar (2%)

Let’s break these down.

What does this all mean?

Looking at the first two on the list, 80% of the lies you tell come from believing one of two things. Either that you are not enough as you are or what you are can be lost.

There would be no purpose in promoting yourself or protecting yourself otherwise.

As one who is promoting himself, even within this article, this is a helpful reminder.

See also The 5 Ways Your Mind Betrays You.

Telling lies for any of these reasons reinforces your belief in your inadequacy, creating the circumstances for you to continue to lie.

Each one feeds itself in a perfect loop. You feel inadequate because you lie, yet you lie because you feel inadequate.

Another 11% of lies comes from wanting to impact others.

If you can impact others, then others can impact you. So the truths or lies you tell may not be of your own doing. They may have been pressed upon you by others.

The last 9% states that the reasons are unclear.

Since repeated actions become automatic over time, perhaps these lies are told out of habit.

What exactly is the truth and what is a lie?

Here is where it gets a little complicated. Your mind does not always know the difference between the truth and a lie.

Two opposing thoughts or statements can have the same effect on you. For example, look at the following phrases:

• People are awesome.
• People suck.

You have probably said both of these at one point. And both times, you meant it.

Yet neither declaration can be classified as the truth or a lie.

One causes you to be comfortable around people, and the other leads to you keeping your distance.

You were affected by both as if both were true.

No longer does validity matter. What matters is if the statement aligns with what you are and who you want to be.

By knowingly telling a lie, you are inviting conflict into your body.

Will unknowingly telling a lie do the same?

Healing the body with words

For hundreds of years, maybe more, patients have healed as a result of the placebo effect. The placebo effect is when a fake treatment is given to a patient, and this treatment leads to the patient’s healing.

One could argue that lies heal patients.

French psychologist Émile Coué introduced popular psychotherapy now called autosuggestion.

Autosuggestion is a self-induced suggestion (affirmation) in which you guide your own thoughts, feelings, or behavior. Instead of being affected by the words of others, you consciously pre-determine what to think.

For example, Émile Coué had his patients repeat many times a day, “Every day in every way I am getting better and better.”

Notice the careful wording of the above phrase. It prompts your mind to search for and find ways that you are getting better and better.

Naturally, the body follows what the mind tells it.

Since this is not a lie, there is no conflict. Or so it would seem.

If your previous thoughts were aligned with getting worse and worse each day, this new belief would oppose it.

There would be conflict, but only for a short time until your thoughts are singular in purpose.

Once the idea of health is fully accepted for yourself, you will be healthy.

So now truthfulness becomes an entirely different thing. No longer does it look upon a statement’s validity, truthfulness becomes how true you are to what you want in life.

Some examples would be:

• If you want health, but you are worried about and focused on ill-health, germs, diseases, etc.
• If you want to be pain-free, yet you disagree openly with others and verbally attack those with opposing views.

Any opposing thought will attempt to undo what the same mind created.

How To Accept Truthfulness For Yourself

I will point out 3 ways to go about this.

The first and easiest is using autosuggestion.

Set up your environment so that:

1. Nothing reflects the life you don’t want
2. Everything reflects the life you do want

This includes the websites you visit and the music you listen to.

Don’t worry about removing people from your life right now. That would just create more conflict.

Another way is to quiet your thoughts so that you don’t think them as much.

This is contrary to popular belief. Many believe that thinking is both healthy and needed.

It is not. When your thoughts aren’t present to distort reality, you will see things as they truly are, instead of how you’ve imagined them.

What is special about my album IAMNOBODY, IAMSOMEONE is that it does both for you.

It helps you to undo the illusionary thoughts that are present in your mind and it fills your mind with true, conflict-free ones. You could go from depressed to overjoyed in a matter of minutes with little effort on your part.

Order IAMNOBODY, IAMSOMEONE now!

The third way to accept truthfulness for yourself is to share the thoughts you want with everyone you come in contact with. The more people that share your thoughts with, the more these thoughts will be reflected everywhere you look.

When your thoughts and vision are not in competition with one another, you will know a peace so deep that it could heal the world.

The post How Telling the Truth Will Heal Your Body appeared first on JClay.

Your mind controls what your body sees, hears, and experiences. It can lead you to a world of abundance or one of scarcity.

A tool cannot exceed the wisdom of its wielder. In other words, learn to use your tool properly so you can wield a world worth living.

Your mind is here to help you.

1. Focus Only/Fully On The Task At Hand

A split focus is similar to one person’s eyes going in two different directions. Yes, it happens, but you can’t really see as clearly as when both eyes are focused on the same thing.

Each time you attempt to juggle two tasks at once, you lose more focus than just half of each.

Let’s say that 100% represents your total focus at any given moment. When you split this focus among two things, each thing does not get an equal 50% of your focus. There is another percentage placed on juggling the two.

It would look more like:

• 45% on Task 1
• 45% on Task 2
• 10% on juggling the two tasks

You may be thinking that 10% isn’t a big deal. Well, what about when you’re juggling four things, or even more?

• 10% on Remembering to Send Important Email Later
• 30% on Talking on the Phone
• 15% on Cooking Dinner
• 10% on Watching Kids
• 35% on Juggling Tasks

To really understand this, let’s put it in terms of money.

Let’s say a person only paid you 30% of the money they owed you. Would you like it? No. You want all your money.

Give the objects of your tasks the same respect. This leads to you actually completing tasks well and in less time resulting in more free time.

A completely focused mind has the power to manifest something out of nothing instantly. An unfocused mind can also manifest, it just may take years.

Stay focused.

2. Stop Contradicting Yourself

Contradiction is closely related to focus. It’s two equal focuses in opposing direction.

It would be equivalent to focusing 50% on what you want and another 50% on what you don’t want.

Those two focuses would cancel each other out and you wouldn’t have seemed to accomplish what you set.

Some common contradictions may include:

• Believing in God and His abundant blessings, but being scared of dying, being broke, and loneliness
• Wanting your friends to stop being selfish and focus on what you want instead
• Calling a person stupid, but continuously engaging with that person
• Wanting love, but hating people

Remove the contradictions. Have a singular focus regarding all things.

When you contradict yourself, you undo everything you just created with the power of your focus. To say it another way, you create the opposite of what you’ve just created.

Let go of the law of opposites/duality. Embrace the truth. Truth has no opposite. Some may say a lie is the truth’s opposite, but a lie can never undo the truth.

This leads us to the next way to have your mind serve you.

3. Know.

Yes.

As the saying goes, knowledge is power.

However, many really don’t understand this saying at all. Many people believe that it means you must accumulate knowledge in order to be powerful.

No.

To think that you must accumulate knowledge creates the separation between you and knowledge. It becomes something you must take and try to keep, which is explained in more detail in Major Life Lessons #2.

From the non-contradictory singular focus aspect, if you take something, it can be taken from you.

This is why you always have that which you share with others. What you share with others is shared with you.

Among these endless exchanges, you in fact keep (not try to keep) what you share, because it’s given back to you more abundantly.

In order to share knowledge, you must have knowledge. To have knowledge, you must be knowledgeable.

You have the answers to all of your real questions.

Know.

Don’t create the thought that you don’t.

Know.

Don’t split your focus between taking knowledge and having knowledge taken. Be knowledge.

Know.

4. Practice with your thoughts, words, and actions.

Here’s my favorite saying again.

Of the above, your thoughts, words, and actions are in your control. Your habits, character, and destiny are just the effects of that control.

In the same way that a single focus allows you to manifest and create quickly, a single focus shared amongst two or more people multiplies this effect.

Since you possess this power of focus and manifestation, so does your fellow man.

When you create against another what he is creating for himself, neither of you truly create anything.

However, when you create in accord with what another is creating for him or herself, then not only is that creation created awesomely, you both get to benefit from it.

Practice this with your thoughts, words, and actions.

Think positive thoughts, say loving words, and show kind actions toward every person you come in contact with even if they aren’t doing the same.

But wouldn’t that person’s actions then contradict what you’re doing?

Ah, you’re paying attention.

This does not contradict because it’s from the perspective of your mind.

If your single purpose is love, for instance, that would be all you see, hear, and experience. This is because you are not letting anything get in the way of that. You are 100% focused on it.

The other person will see and feel this. His mind will quickly shift and meet you in this space of love.

Your 100% focus on love is greater than his 50% focus on love. His is only 50% because although he was loving himself in that moment (which could be debated), he wasn’t loving you at that moment (which could also be debated ). So he wasn’t fully focused on love.

The dominance of your love will out-love any hate the way that light outshines darkness.

5. Stop Thinking

What?!?!

I know.

This entire article had to do with your thoughts, but now I’m telling you to stop thinking.

Why?

Let’s look at what happens when you stop thinking. You’re clear, you feel free, you have fun, you enjoy yourself, and many more wonderful things.

This is why vacations are so amazing. You leave most of your thoughts and worries behind.

This is similar to being “in the zone” with whatever action you’re doing. It’s like you produce without thought and time ceases to exist.

Again, your mind is responsible for what you see. When you stop thinking, what is real is seen clearly. If you had been thinking about something that wasn’t real, then it would quickly fade from your vision.

Well, what’s real?

As you know, I say things like pain is an illusion and that there are no such things as enemies.

The reason goes back to this.

When conflict is shared, it’s destined to come to an end because nobody constantly wants conflict. It’s not enjoyable.

It will be let go because it’s not valuable.

What happens when something is let go of? It’s never heard of from again. It dies in a sense.

When you embody conflict, you are aligning your identity with something that will die.

So conflict and even death aren’t natural. They won’t remain eternally.

On the other hand, something like love is shared by all. Everyone loves to love because love is love. It’s the one thing that people will never let go of.

Even when they try to let go of it, it’s really just a cry for love so its presence still remains.

When you embody love, you align yourself with that which will always remain.

Love is not a thought. It’s not really even a feeling. It’s what remains when you let go of everything.

So don’t think. It gets in the way of your loving.

For a reverse look, be sure to check out The 5 Ways Your Mind Betrays You.

The post 5 Ways to Make Your Mind Serve You appeared first on JClay.

Let there be light. Have more powerful words ever been spoken?

Words are a form of communication that acts as a link between the non-physical and the physical world. Words are preceded only by their thoughts.

Many religious texts state that the world was created when God said, “Let there be light.”

In many ways, our focus is the light we shine upon all things. And our words are a way to communicate and reaffirm our focus to others. Since what we focus on expands, we give voice to new worlds every day.

Your words are more powerful than you realize.

This is why it is so important to control your words. Else, you may find yourself in a world that you dislike, which was created in your image.

Words Are Meaningless without You

To understand the role that words play in manifesting your reality, take a look at this quote that I love…

Words act as the link between your thoughts and the world. What’s interesting is that neither your thoughts nor your words have to be true for them to be effective in your life.

It’s the repetition that gives them meaning because, to say or even think a group of words, you must first repeatedly give them the focus/attention/light to be worth saying.

Words are meaningless, but what makes the words/phrases important are the meanings that you give them.

Think Before You Speak

It is quite simple to use this to your advantage.

Speak ONLY the words that you would like manifested within your life and it will be.

Similarly, don’t speak words against yourself, others, or anything you don’t want in your reality. Doing so will actually bring these things deeper into your awareness, and ultimately, your reality.

For instance if you want peace, stop using these attack words.

Take this phrase for example, “Don’t eat that or you will get sick.”

By telling another this, you have weakened yourself. Although not in reality, just in your reality.

You have given voice/life/power to sickness itself. You have given it dominion over both you and others by implying that it is something that must be avoided.

Not only that, you’ve introduced to all a world where food also has power over you. You’ve created a separation of foods you should eat and those you should not.

The reason this truly does not weaken you is that you can redirect your life at any time by directly speaking for what you want to experience.

This still may take some “time”, but only because your habits and beliefs have told you that it does.

But remember, your beliefs are just based on these powerful words you’ve said, heard, or read repeatedly. So they can be changed with more words.

Maximize Your Peace by Limiting Your Words

Until you get in the habit of changing your habits at will, changing habits can come with a transitional period. This period can range from a few hours to many years depending on how focused you are on changing the habit.

During this transitional period, there will be many opportunities for you to voice your old beliefs in favor of your desired beliefs. Recognize this for what it is, but don’t give voice to it.

Hold your tongue as they say, if necessary. Since you aren’t sharing these old beliefs with others, they are not being strengthened in yourself.

You would be creating the habit of speaking what you want and not speaking what you don’t want.

By not speaking mindlessly, it makes your words more powerful because whenever you speak, it will be with conviction. Nothing but powerful words will flow out of your mouth. Others will take notice because they know that you have something important to say, else you wouldn’t say anything at all.

Even if what you now said is not yet true, many would regard it as truth. They would hold you firmly to it as well as associate you with what you are speaking. Thus they would join you in the manifestation of your spoken powerful words.

Deceiving Others Deceives Both Yourself & Others

As I mentioned earlier and as you can better understand, words don’t have to be true for them to be effective in your life.

As you’ve grown, you may have even let go of many “truths” because these “truths” no longer served you.

But what is truth and how can you know if something is true?

Truth is something that never changes and is true for all always. A simple truth is that “you are.”

The statement “you are” leaves room for all possibilities.

As soon as I attempt to define you by saying you are this or you are that, I limit what I believe you are capable of. And so I limit what I believe I’m capable of because we are made of the same simple truth.

By speaking what we do not believe to be true and passing it off as truth, we are telling our world and those in it, “Don’t believe the words that are coming out of my mouth.”

This is not necessarily bad. However, if you want to be able to say something and know without a doubt that it will come to fruition, practice speaking only what is and what will be.

The constant connection

We all have had certain people in our lives that when they say they are going to do a thing, they always do it. What’s funny about it is that even if those people didn’t truly believe the words they said, we believed the words enough for them so that they could still make it a reality.

When you are certain with your words and definite in your purpose, others will do the same for you.

We are more connected than we care to realize. What happens within, happens without. When you help others, you are helping yourself because you are creating a world of help. And thus, others will always help you.

When you deceive others, you are deceiving yourself because you are creating a world where deceit is possible. And thus, others will deceive you.

Show Compassion for Others and Their Words

Now that we agree that words are meaningless, don’t take them so personally when they are directed at you. If a phrase irritates or annoys you, it’s only because you’ve given it that meaning to you.

Everyone has not been taught how to use their words properly. Better yet, many have not been taught the effects of recklessly using their words.

You can be that teacher, not by demanding that others change, but by being an example of how to use your words to manifest suitably.

Every effect has its cause. So cause and effect are one.

When someone speaks words to you that you don’t agree with, you can do one of the following two things:

1. Use this as an opportunity to politely share what you believe (or would like to believe).
2. Remain silent and don’t react to what you’ve perceived.

When you react to words whether negatively or positively, you allow words to be your cause. But words are just an effect. They are the effect of thought.

Thought is just an effect of you choosing to think. Therefore you are always the cause. Don’t give away that ability, especially by speaking words that show you are not.

The 5 Ways Your Mind Betrays You & How To Control It.

Remember, You Are

This article can be summarized in one sentence. Speak only what you want.

This can also imply that when you have everything, there is no need to speak.

You get to create a massive world that others share in and are inspired by. Create that world. Use your words wisely.

What do you say to that? Let me know in the comments and share this with someone that will find this just as helpful.

The post Words Are Meaningless But This Makes Them Powerful appeared first on JClay.

Words can seem powerful. The words you choose reflect your financial status, your level of education, the culture you identify with, and even your well-being.

Every word you utter creates a ripple in time where the echo is felt by all.

Words alone aren’t as powerful as the energy you put behind them, but as creation goes …

And since you think in words, you can see how words shape your destiny.

The Effects of Speaking

The words you share with others are the beliefs that you would have strengthened within yourself.

So to share words of kindness with another is to receive it back and strengthen your belief in kindness.

This is easy to accept when it comes to kindness and what is considered good. However, when it concerns things you no longer want, you think the opposite is true.

You believe that by sharing guilt you can rid yourself of it. Yet the more guilt you try to give, the more you seem to have.

Remember that giving and receiving are one and the same. Both the giver and receiver experience the same emotions whether it’s a gift or a harsh criticism.

So instead of using words to attack or curse, use words that bless and heal.

Besides, our culture already uses many phrases in this way. “Good morning!” “Happy birthday!” “Peace!” Etc.

Attack words / phrases to start avoiding immediately

I created a list of common phrases we say to one another that reinforces a belief in attack, pain, and even death.

Read through the list below. Take note of what you commonly say so that you can rephrase it in a way that benefits you.

Killing two birds with one stone.
We’ve slashed the prices in half.
I’m hammered or wasted.
Whip you into shape boy.
I killed this performance.
I smashed on this food.
Start it off with a bang.
I murdered this beat.
Shoot me a message.
Dude, you’re ripped.
Talking your ear off.
I wrecked this song.
Knock it off my list.
Work is killing me.
Stumble upon it.
Let’s bang it out.
I crushed it bro.
Fighting a cold.
Breaking news.
Tackle it now.
Beat cancer.
Take a shot.
Nailed it.
Hit me up.
Tag me.

Give Your Words More Power

I know little phrases like the above seem irrelevant, but it all adds up.

Every phrase you speak affects you whether you believe it true or not. If you knowingly speak words that are untrue (lies), you are lessening the power of your word in your mind.

But the more you follow through with what you speak and speak only that which you want to represent you, the stronger your word becomes.

It can become so powerful, that you can manifest an entire universe by a simple phrase.

So let there be light within your words.

You share what we want to keep alive. If you don’t like pain or having enemies, don’t speak in terms of attack.

Change your word, change your world.

What are some attack words or phrases that you catch yourself saying?

The post Stop Using These Attack Words If You Want Peace appeared first on JClay.