Make a decision that from now on, your thoughts do not run you, you run your thoughts. From now on, your mind is not the captain of your ship, you are the captain of the ship, and your mind works for you. -T. Harv Eker
As we talked about in The Holy Grail of Our Dreams, thoughts and beliefs have power. Whatever resides in our heart comes out of our mouth. And every word that comes out of our mouth creates our reality, to greater or lesser extent.
Dr. Masaru Emoto’s experiments beautifully illustrate the effects that negative and positive thinking or speaking has on us and the world around us. The whole premise of his study was that humans have a direct effect on the molecular structure of water through their thought, word, and intent. One aspect of his extensive research included taping words to bottles of water and later photographing the water droplets under a microscope. The water crystals rearranged themselves depending on the word. Here are a few examples of what he found:
Love and Gratitude
Mozart Symphony
You Make Me Sick
Heavy Metal Music
But how do water crystals have anything to do with me?
The author of positivethinkingprinciples.com articulates it perfectly.
The fact that the human body is up to 60% water compounds the importance of Dr. Masaru Emoto’s findings about the power of negative thinking and the energy of thoughts.
What do we do to our own bodies every time we entertain negative thoughts? And on the flip side, just how powerful is positive thinking and optimism? No one knows the precise answer to these questions, but the findings of Dr. Emoto are certainly compelling evidence that the quality of our thinking can greatly impact our health and wellbeing.
Emoto’s study reminds me of the experiment that many of us did in grade school with house plants. The one where plants subjected to heavy-metal music died, and the plants exposed to soothing music thrived. Hmm. I’m beginning to see a pattern here.
In the future we might think twice before wearing a shirt like this:
Complaining is the absolute worst possible thing you could do for your health or your wealth. The worst! … For the next seven days, I challenge you not to complain at all. -T. Harv Eker
I encourage everyone to try what Eker suggests. I tried this for the first time while living in New York and found that for the first several hours, I truly had nothing to think or talk about. But through that “empty space”, I found incredible peace because I was no longer allowing my mind to beat me up. It was such a refreshing exercise. Up until that point, I had no idea how much negativity pervaded my mind.
So how are your thoughts and words holding you back or propelling you forward? Do you find you make fun of yourself before anyone else has a chance to? How did Emoto’s images influence your opinion of the creative power of thought?
Photos courtesy of whatthebleep.com, loopsandpluto.com, & o5.com
Ingrid Schaffenburg's Blog 
I just came out of a week in a funk of epic proportions. Whined to too many people. Need to go the week just to make it up to those who listened đ
Great post!
haha! Awesome. Been there đ
I love Emoto’s work- thank you for reminding me of it. My mind can easily become a very toxic place It takes a lot of work to stay focused on the positive and not complain. I’m going to see if I can keep myself from complaining for seven days!
Awesome! After the first 24 hours it’s takes on a snowball effect and becomes a lot easier đ Let me know how it goes!
Thank you Ingrid. I have found since starting my “365 days of happiness” photo project, my days seem to be less angry/sad/whatever. It simply takes an adjustment of perspective from negative to positive, everyday.
Absolutely! Once we become “adults”, we really do need the daily reminders. There’s too much stress on us these days to not. Love your series, btw.
Wonderful post.
I think it is a hard adjustment to make, especially for those who have been in that dark-funk for some time, but once that shift in thinking has been made, they will do whatever necessary to never go back.
Yep! That’s been my finding. It just takes conscious effort is all đ
You know, I’d heard that about the crystals before, but it sounded shady to me when someone mentioned it. Do you have the reference for that book?
Sure. His books include “Messages from Water”, “The Hidden Messages in Water”, and “The True Power of Water.” He was also featured in the documentaries “Water” and “What the Bleep?!” His work has garnered skepticism, but that’s to be expected in the scientific community. Either way, it’s a beautiful and tangible way to illustrate the effects that negative thinking has.
Not to sound like a zealot, but a soul-deep joy in the Lord transcends circumstances. Happiness is a fleeting emotion reacting to external stimuli. Joy is a permanent state of being. Because of that joy, it’s hard to find me unhappy more than just momentarily.
Yes, but you also know as a Christian how powerful praise and worship is. The Word was meant to be spoken aloud. Why is that? Perhaps our Creator understands how negative words, thought and feelings would affect our spirit, mind and body.
The power of life and death is in the tongue. Choose life ;).
That’s beautiful David!
I find myself in situations where others point fingers at me. Usually it happens in friends gathering where I’m the attraction of humor and make them laugh. I see that’s important in life. However, being not too complaining has been in me for quite some time now. Complaining really make you feel like a B** because one runs around here and there begging someone to listen to his/her plea and what happens we ourselves end up being the bad one and also lose that reputation in the eyes of many. Whilst staying quiet does help a lot and teach many new elements of life.
Yep. By not giving it the energy to expand we create more room for positive thinking which sooner or later crowds out all those negative thoughts. Being negative just never feels good which is why I find it so interesting that his water crystals turned so ugly with negative words. It makes sense.
Ingrid, I was going to ask if you had seen What the Bleep do we know, but judging from where you go the photo it seems that you probably have. I’ve been living my life by some (not all) of the ideas put forward in the movie and have never regretted it.
Positivity has had a huge impact in my own life. When I lived negatively nothing changed. I was trapped in this depressing stasis. Then I started just…thinking positively. As a great Scroobius Pip line says “How hard is it to be in a good mood and then…just be…in a…good mood.”
I did have one thing to say though. I do not believe that metal music or any type of music for that matter is bad. I think that some of it certainly is, but speaking as someone who can find utter peace crushed against the front of a stage enveloped by those grinding tones, I think even here it is all mindset. After all, one thing to keep in mind is that there is even Christian heavy metal, so one thing I would be curious about is what type of metal music was being played?
I agree. And am curious to know which metal music it was but I’m guessing it had a lot of negative words đ I saw What the Bleep a long time ago but it was really the documentary Water that blew my mind. If you get a chance you should check it out. Thanks for the wonderful comment!