How often do we hear about “coming attractions” when we go to our local theater? There are always movies that are advertised to be shown in the future. They usually depict short clips from some of the movies that will be coming soon.
Now, today, as we go about our day, our mind reviews some of the coming attractions that we will bump into this day. Have you ever noticed that the human mind, with its fears and apprehensions, usually attracts all those things that we fear might actually happen to us. Let me give an example of how “coming attractions” works in the brain. It’s very much like Murphy’s law which tells us that if you think something bad is going to happen–it usually does. It is a strange phenomenon but it actually works out that what we fear many times actually occurs. It’s almost like the negative fear attracts the very thing that we fear. Let’s say we are thinking about a person who is a big pain and suddenly there they are -right in front of us. How does this happen? Is there some mysterious magnetic force in the universe that makes this fear become a reality? Or another example: I go to a room filled with strangers and I think, “nobody will want to talk with me.” And almost magically we find ourselves standing in a corner watching everyone else interacting with others. We just knew that this would happen. This is one of those “coming attractions” to which our mind alerted us. And then again, how about this situation. You are at the grocery or market and you see someone you’d just as well not want to see . So you go down another aisle in the store and head for the check out lane. Lo and behold, guess who pulls up their cart right behind you. Yep, you guessed it. It’s one of those “coming attractions” that our mind makes happen. Negativity attracts negative events. Negativity thoughts attracts more negative thinking.
Can there be a reverse side of this “coming attractions” business of the mind? I believe so. It is just as true that our mind attracts whatever we put into it. If we fear this or that, make a mountain out of a molehill, but then reflect and see it for what it is, and reduce it to its appropriate size, we will not get stuck in the cycling negative thinking of how bad it is or might appear to us at the time.
In Step Three of Depressed Anonymous we read that “we came to believe that a power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.” This is one of my favorite “coming attractions” that has proved time and time again to be so true. Over time and with practice, I no longer waste my time thinking about what is going to happen to me in the future with its promised catastrophic end. So now my positive thinking abounds in a positive outlook for my life. I just know that whatever comes to me today I can handle. I just know that the Promises of Depressed Anonymous are as true today as when they wewre first written back in 1935. I also believe that all I have is today–just this 24 hour period. That is all God gives me. One day at a time. And whatever the “coming attractions” are for me today–God and myself can handle them. I am going to have a great day today! How about your day?
For more about the “coming attractions ” for your life, read what will happen for those of us who choose the way that leads out of depression. In the program of recovery we call them the “PROMISES.”
“If we are painstaking about this phase of our development , we will be amazed before we are halfway through. We are going to know a new happiness. We will not regret the past nor wish to shut the door on it. We will comprehend the word “serenity” and we will know peace. No matter how far down the scale we have gone, we will see how our experience can help others. That feeling of uselessness and self pity will disappear. We will lose interest in selfish things and gain interest in our fellows. Self seeking will slip away. Our whole attitude and outlook upon life will change. The fear of people and economic insecurity will leave us. We will intuitively know how to handle situations that used to baffle us. We will suddenly realize that God is doing for us what we could not do for ourselves. Are these extravagant promises? We think not. They are being fulfilled among us – sometimes quickly, sometimes slowly. They will always materialize if we work for them. ”
SOURCE: Depressed Anonymous, 3rd edition(2011) Depressed Anonymous Publications. Louisville. Page 109.
The Promises (2002) Depressed Anonymous Publications .Louisville.
Believing is seeing: 15 ways to leave the prison of depression. (2014) Depressed Anonymous Publications. Louisville.
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