‘Happy thoughts, big dreams for the new year’

A few days more and we’ll celebrate the coming of a new year. Every time a new year comes, I’m reminded of the words our mother used to tell us when we were children. “Happy thoughts, big dreams for the new year,” she would say. These words have somehow created an indelible imprint in my mind and I would frequently catch myself saying the same words many times, just mumbling them to myself, as the clock strikes 12 on New Year’s Eve.

Just as our physical health depends to a great extent on what we eat and drink, our mental and emotional health depends mainly on the thoughts we feed our minds. Science may still be inadequate to explain it in clear terms, but the connection between our thoughts and what happens in our lives is logical and rational.

If we constantly think of negative thoughts like fear, anger, resentment, revenge, despair, envy, pride, arrogance, jealousy and greed, the outcome in our lives would also be negative and could result in illness and poor health, failure and all sorts of bad luck.

‘Happy thoughts’

If we constantly feed our minds with “happy thoughts”—positive ones like love, gratitude, compassion, humility, generosity, hope and desire to know what our spiritual purpose in life is, we can reap the benefits in terms of good health, happiness, peace of mind, success in our career and personal lives, and all forms of abundance from God’s bounty.

Many of us don’t realize it but we’re frequently talking to ourselves through our thoughts, and this self-talk can either be positive or negative, healthy or unhealthy. If we’ve been giving ourselves a lot of negative self-talk over the years, it’s never too late to change it and the coming year would be an opportune time to do it. In fact, this very moment is the best time to make that resolve to reduce, if not totally eliminate, all the negative self-talk we’re doing.

Reducing negative self-talk can go a long way in reducing our stress level, more than any potent tranquilizer or sedative.

During a recent medical mission in Palo, Leyte, organized by the Manila Doctors’ Hospital and Metrobank Foundation, we met Remy and her son who survived the storm surge caused by Supertyphoon “Yolanda” by clinging to an empty plastic water container. What was amazing in Remy was her positive outlook despite everything that has happened. They lost their house and all their belongings. But she remained grateful that her immediate family survived the wrath of Yolanda, and she is filled with hope that they would be able to recover with the generous assistance of a lot of people.

Remained generous

Even in her dire situation, she has remained generous in sharing whatever relief goods they have with other family members and neighbors who have ran out of rations. Her positive thoughts of hope, gratitude, love and compassion for those in a similar situation have kept her in a healthy and positive mental state, which is a key factor for their survival and recovery. We could only wish that all Yolanda victims can have the same frame of mind.

I believe many authors who theorize that whatever circumstance in life we have right now is the result of the thoughts we’ve been nurturing in the past. So if we’re happy with our lives right now, that means we’ve been feeding ourselves with a lot of happy thoughts, and we should continue doing it. On the other hand, if we’re not happy with our present lives, and we wish we could be healthier, sleep better at night, have better relationships, and enjoy a little more abundance in life, then it can serve us well to change our thoughts.

“Happy thoughts, big dreams for the new year,” as our mother would advise us.