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The Secret (The Law of Attraction), Positive Thinking / Re: Positive Thinking, The Law of Attraction, and Faith
« on: September 06, 2017, 12:46:59 AM »
Here are some excerpts from chapter 1 of The Power of Positive Thinking by Norman Vincent Peale:
It seems pretty evident from reading the Power of Positive Thinking that much of what follows it in the realm of self-help and motivation can be traced to Norman Vincent Peale's book.
Quote
In a sense there may be such a thing as “the breaks” in this life, but there is also a spirit and method by which we can control and even determine those breaks.
It is no speculative series of extravagant assertions that I make, for these principles have worked so efficiently over so long a period of time that they are now firmly established as documented and demonstrable truth.
I need not point out that the powerful principles contained herein are not my invention but are given to us by the greatest Teacher who ever lived and who still lives. This book teaches applied Christianity; a simple yet scientific system of practical techniques of successful living that works.
There are various causes of inferiority feelings, and not a few stem from childhood… It is some emotional violence done to us in childhood, or the consequences of certain circumstances, or something we did to ourselves. This malady arises out of the misty past in the dim recesses of our personalities.
The greatest secret for eliminating the inferiority complex, which is another term for deep and profound self-doubt, is to fill your mind to overflowing with faith. Develop a tremendous faith in God and that will give you a humble yet soundly realistic faith in yourself.
The acquiring of dynamic faith is accomplished by prayer, lots of prayer, by reading and mentally absorbing the Bible and by practicing its faith techniques…
According to your faith be it unto you – Matthew 9:29. So the bigger your problem, the bigger your prayer should be.
If your mind is obsessed by thoughts of insecurity and inadequacy, it is, of course, due to the fact that such ideas have dominated your thinking over a long period of time. Another and more positive pattern of ideas must be given the mind, and that is accomplished by repetitive suggestion or confidence ideas. In the busy activities of daily existence thought disciplining is required if you are to re-educate the mind and make of it a power-producing plant.
If in our thoughts we constantly fix attention upon sinister expectations of dire events that might happen, the result will be constantly to feel insecure. And what is even more serious is the tendency to create, by the power of thought, the very condition we fear.
…Everywhere you encounter people who are inwardly afraid, who shrink from life, who suffer from a deep sense of inadequacy and insecurity, who doubt their own powers. Deep within themselves they mistrust their ability to meet responsibilities or to grasp opportunities. Always they are beset by the vague and sinister fear that something is not going to be quite right. They do not believe that they have it in them to be what they want to be, and so they try to make themselves content with something less than that of which they are capable. Thousands up thousands go crawling through life on their hands and knees, defeated and afraid. And in most cases such frustration of power is unnecessary.
The blows of life, the accumulation of difficulties, the multiplication of problems tend to sap energy and leave you spent and discouraged. In such a condition the true status of your power is often obscured, and a person yields to a discouragement that is not justified by the facts.
…Any fact facing us, however difficult, even seemingly hopeless, is not so important as our attitude toward that fact… You may permit a fact to overwhelm you mentally before you start to deal with it actually.
It seems pretty evident from reading the Power of Positive Thinking that much of what follows it in the realm of self-help and motivation can be traced to Norman Vincent Peale's book.