FOX and HAANEL

When I first learned of the mental diet it sounded very cool.   A good friend of mine suggested I consider it…and he was coy about it.   Hit me in my ego 🙂

“I just tried something that was really tough for me but I bet you could do it.”

Doug had taken me under his wing in this spiritual study …he knew I had not come to grips with my “competitiveness” yet.   Competitiveness is great once we learn to compete with ourselves…I wasn’t there yet, back in 1994.

“Yeah, I can do it,” I said brashly without knowing a damn thing about it.   I was reading

Haanel, on my own and when Doug mentioned Emmet Fox, my ears perked up.   Another friend of mine had passed on Fox’s “The Sermon on the Mount” and I just loved how their minds worked so differently but the message was identical.

“Fox?” I asked?

“Yeah, he’s got this booklet that explains it, what to do with your mind.”

“Where can I get it?”

I really admired Doug and wanted to been seen as a peer…he’d been in that spiritual group for over 5 years.   Again, misdirected competitiveness.

“I have a copy with me,” he smirked.

I had no idea he was inviting me to grow, no idea how negative I was, no idea how judgmental I was…..no idea what I was walking into.

IF PEOPLE WOULD JUST BEHAVE

So I read the booklet and jump right in.

Doug gave me 2 pieces of advice.

1. Be honest and restart when you’ve been negative
2. Find and nuture your sense of humor

“Whatever,” I remember thinking.  I was going to nail this thing.

Read it on a Saturday night.

Had somewhere around 17 restarts by noon on Sunday…and I was in church for 3 hours that day!   OMGoodness.

I’m driving home after church…..guy in front me has his left blinker on, turns right.

“#&&%ing Idiot!!”   Restart 18

Stop for coffee.   “How does this girl keep her job?  Could she be any slower?”  #19

I’m leaving coffee shop and someone is coming in…they refuse to yeild with my hands full of coffee and muffins for the kids.  “Didn’t your mother teach you to you gotta let them out before you go in?”  I blurt out. #20

He gives me dirty look.

I swear at him in my mind, #21.

Jump in the truck…driving on Plum Island to my home and thinking that this diet would be so easy if &%^#%@ing people would just behave!  #22

I surrender…call Doug.

“keep your sense of humor,” he laughs.

“It’s not funny man,” #23 [very angry tone]

“You gotta surrender Mark.”

“Meaning?”

“You’ve got to understand it’s you, not them and ask for help.”

“You mean from God?”

“Sure, whatever that means to you.”

The mental diet remains a pride swallowing siege for the next few days…I can’t seem to stop myself from being judgmental….brutally judgmental.

I ask for help.

BAM! I find something to help me stop negative thoughts and complete the mental diet successfully…..to a little over 3 weeks to get that 7 day run in.

My life has never been the same.

Here’s what I found to easily stop negative thought in their tracks

On the mental diet?

1. Be honest and restart when you’ve been negative
2. Find and nuture your sense of humor
3. Stop it

Keep giving to keep growing                                                                                                                                             believe

mark januszewski