Q: Dear Todd, I’m personally struggling with negative thoughts of myself vs reality thoughts. Meaning…my thoughts might appear negative to someone listening in but they seem to be necessary as they are making me work harder and have resulted in attainable goals I’ve set for myself to remove the thoughts altogether. Any thoughts?

TODD ANSWERS: It’s not about silencing your thoughts. It’s about using our minds effectively, efficiently, and in a way that generates positive states of emotion. It’s about observing your thoughts, understanding their nature, examining where they’re coming from, and whether they’re needed at all. So we simply observe our normal unconscious thinking, and we compare that with our conscious intentions.

If the thoughts are serving our highest good, no problem. If we can find a way to motivate ourselves with positivity and in a more effective way, we may wish to do so. It just all comes down to: are you using your mind or is it using you.