Mental training in the martial arts is often overlooked, with many practitioners spending very little time on this important aspect of training.
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According to oriental culture, what affects your mind affects you body, and this can be seen and experienced in everyday life.
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Negative thinking rewires your brain and makes you miserable, makes you feel down and lowers your bodies energy levels.
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We can always choose to perceive things differently. You can focus on what’s WRONG in your life, or you can focus on what’s RIGHT. You have a choice!
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“Choose the positive. You have choice, you are master of your attitude, choose the positive, the constructive. Optimism is a faith that leads to success.” – Bruce Lee
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A positive mindset comes from making a conscious and continuous decision to choose positivity. We either make ourselves miserable or we make ourselves happy. The amount of work is the same. Everything in your life is a reflection of a choice YOU have made.
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“Whatever a monk keeps pursuing with his thinking and pondering, that becomes the inclination of his awareness.” – unknown
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Be a reflection of what you’d like to see in others! If you want love, give love; if you want honesty, give honesty; if you want respect, give respect. You get in return what you give!
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Dr. Wayne Dyer writes, “.. perhaps the most important things that we can learn and master in our lives.” His seven words are: “AS YOU THINK, SO SHALL YOU BE.” Our thoughts define who we are, shape the life we live and inspire the dreams we dream and create the realities we accomplish. Our thoughts are choices… in our hands to make.
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When you think negative or critical thoughts, your body is more likely to become stressed. And when you become stressed, your body responds by producing a chemical called cortisol, which not only makes you feel bad, but can exacerbate the symptoms of mental illnesses like depression and anxiety.
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You can actively train your brain to think differently, like other training, it takes commitment to think positive thoughts instead of negative ones, but you can effectively rewire your thinking which will reduce the levels of cortisol and stress in your body.
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When you feel a negative thought creeping in, immediately think of something positive. However, you have to be vigilant and do this every single time. If you’re successful at this, you will find that over time you will experience less stress and anxiety.
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Remind yourself daily: “I AM WHAT I THINK”: You become what you think about all day long….. and those days eventually become your lifetime.
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Your mind is your instrument, learn to be its master and not its slave.
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 Photo Credit: Image by Freepik.