“Think deliberately. Use this remarkable gift of consciousness to direct your thoughts rather than being pushed around by reality.” ― Dawson Church,

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“Think deliberately. Use this remarkable gift of consciousness to direct your thoughts rather than being pushed around by reality.”
― Dawson Church, Mind to Matter: The Astonishing Science of How Your Brain Creates Material Reality

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soul 

Many people think of soul as the element of personality that survives bodily death, but for me it refers to something much more down-to-earth. Soul is the marrow of our existence as sentient, sensitive beings. It’s soul that’s revealed in great works of art, and soul that’s lifted up in awe when we stand in silence under a night sky burning with billions of stars. When we speak of a soulful piece of music, we mean one that comes out of infinite depths of feeling. When we speak of the soul of a nation, we mean its capacity for valor and visionary change… Soul is present wherever our lives intersect the dimension of the holy: in moments of intimacy, in flights of fancy, and in rituals that hallow the evanescent events of our lives with enduring significance. Soul is what makes each of our lives a microcosm — not merely a meaningless fragment of the universe, but at some level a reflection of the whole.

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CBT

The key here is remembering you don’t need to just accept those thoughts as true. There’s an appeals court. Dispute those negative thoughts. Stress test them with logic and evidence. Are they really true? Really inevitable? Really that bad?

This is the basis of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, the gold standard for addressing mood disorders. Hundreds of studies show it works. And it’s especially wonderful because you’re not suppressing the thoughts or denying them (which rarely works for long), you’re dissolving them with the acid of truth.

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Get Off Autopilot

Researchers estimate only 5% of our behavior is truly intentional. Most of the time we put little thought into what we’re doing.

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Change the scenery to something natural and relaxed. The average American spends 93% of their time indoors. This seems like a Very Bad Idea to me. There’s a reason your soul feels like a clenched muscle. Go outdoors. It helps.

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