In Part 1 of this article, we talked about why your average run of the mill affirmations tend to end up in the dust bin. If you've studied the Law of Attraction or The Secret, you may have heard that what you think about is what you will bring about in your reality. So you get excited about that and then write impassioned affirmations about what you want in your life. If you are like me, you diligently start repeating these every single day. For a day or two, or even a week or two, and then your subconscious starts hitting you with what seem like very valid reasons to stop it. Stuff like "These aren't working", or "This is boring", or "This is just foolish". Eventually you just stop doing them. We saw that the reasons for this were twofold:

1. We can't get past our belief filters in our subconscious minds long enough to make the affirmations stick - this is was covered in Part 1, and

2. Stuff happens in day to day life that can cause us to start thinking in a downward tailspin, each though fueling the fire so to speak. We don't know how to put the brakes on this negative spiral in the very moment it starts, so we let it take over and stop doing our affirmations.

It's a hard thing, sometimes a really hard thing to turn around negativity in real time. I used to have a saying back before I learned better, and that was - "I've earned this depression and I'm going to wallow in it for awhile." What a ridiculously negative thing to say, but I said it a million times. But the Law of Attraction teaches us that what we think about the most is what we attract into our lives. If you are thinking negative thoughts all the time, stuff to give you more negative thoughts is sure to come your way.

But, when you look at the other side of the coin, the more you can focus on what you want to have in your life, the quicker it will come to you. If you can focus on it with emotion and feeling, well then, so much the better. So it makes sense that the more time you can spend feeling good and keeping the dark clouds at bay, then the easier it would be to bring about your desires.

So most teachers of the Law of Attraction stress that you need to control your thinking and CHANGE your negative thoughts to positive ones. Just DO IT, right? But that is not as easy as it sounds. The usual recommendations are affirmations - been there done that - some wonderful books to read or beautiful meditations (which I love to do), but it is not normally easy to drop everything and find a quiet space to meditate, or find the perfect passage in a book to help you in the moment. These are all long term strategies, but it's rare to be in the middle of a crisis situation and be able to stop RIGHT NOW and meditate until you feel better.

Wouldn't it make sense to have a tool that could help us to change our negative thoughts right here and now in the moment that we realize that we are letting the circumstances of life dictate how we feel? A tool that is right there, waiting for you to grab onto it without having to think about it. It should be just like reaching out and flipping a switch on and off. That's what is really needed.

That seems impossible to most people, because they are so used to floundering in the tailspin that the idea of changing their thoughts in an instant seems crazy. But my suggestion is that you put in some thought, today, right now about how you might handle the next crisis you come up against. Do you want to let it take you down that well worn path to the pit, or do you want to grab onto something and say "NO, NOT THIS TIME, NOT EVER AGAIN!!!" Make a plan, get something stuck in your head, plant a switch there so that the next time you recognize that - "Oh geez, here we go again" - you remember that you have a tool. You need to have something that you don't even really have to think about to use, it just goes on autopilot. Maybe a chant or a little jingle or something that your 'Belief Detective' won't recognize as an affirmation. You don't have to believe the words, it's just a little song.

So, don't wait until the next time something blindsides you to figure out your tool might be. Think about it right NOW! Be prepared. You don't really want to go to the Pity Party anymore, so be ready.