Let’s Talk Positive Thinking

I have something I wanted to share with you guys! We have started a new thing as a family because our attitudes have been kind of rotten. We have been really good at identifying the negative things and not the good things. I've been praying and trying to come up in my mind with how can we change this in our family; what can we do to make this different? I decided we should read a book about mindset as a family. I found, The Power of Positive Thinking by Norman Vincent Peale and bought the audible version to listen to together.

Now, it wasn’t going perfectly. The book was written a long time ago, and the kids were getting frustrated because they couldn’t always understand the language. We then bought the Kindle version of it and loaded it on everybody's Amazon Kindle. I will say the language is outdated. Some of the language is a little difficult for them to understand, but not too difficult. It allowed us to have conversations about some words that we don't really use all the time. We had to look up namby pamby, and we thought that was really funny to look up all these words we didn't understand.

However, there were really good points in this book too. Peale tells a story about a man coming to talk to him after an event. The man told Peale his life was over. Peale's advice was to say this one phrase four times before you go to bed, four times when you get up and four times before you walk into a meeting. The phase was, I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me, which I love Philippians 4:13. I feel like the Lord has been telling me to meditate on scripture since my kids were two years old. Let’s hide away these scriptures in our hearts and watch how it transforms our minds.

I just thought that that was so cool of God to bring it back home again. Sophie, my daughter,  said, “Oh my gosh, we just talked about this a church!” We had another conversation about how God will bring the same verses up; the ones we need to hear, learn and take to heart over and over again.

It's messy, and it doesn't go well all the time. The second time we sat down I might've made my kids cry, but I feel like it's so important to persist. We're only still on the first chapter. If it takes us all year to read it then I'm okay with that. I have challenged the kids to highlight a couple of things per chapter that are meaningful. Then create a Google slide with just one takeaway each chapter.

You might get pushback, and there might be crying. However, I feel like it's worth it to push through and see what kind of change could happen to our attitudes and hearts, and see what the Lord wants to teach us. I can't say this is the greatest book I've ever read, because we're only one the first chapter.

Have you read this book or attempted to implement some mindset work and your families? What have you used and what's worked for you? Share with me your wisdom! I have to remember, Philippians 4:13, and we're going to hopefully make some change. I'll keep you updated on our progress, and maybe you have some ideas for how I can improve this positive mindset plan.