In an effort to inform and assist the community at large, Smoke Signals publishes a monthly article addressing various mental health issues written by a member of the Behavioral Health Department at Health & Wellness. They welcome e-mails, letters and questions from people with mental health-related questions at tom.bender@grandronde.org.

By Tom Bender
Tribal Mental Health counselor

Masaru Emoto is a Japanese researcher who conducted experiments with water. He took water from the same polluted source, prayed over one of the glasses and left the other alone.
Then he placed drops of water from each glass onto a slide, froze it and took photos of the water crystals under a microscope.
The water crystals that were prayed over transformed into a beautiful, snowflake-shaped droplets. The water not prayed over looked like a distorted blotch.
He conducted numerous similar studies, experimenting with merely thinking certain thoughts over the water or taping words to the glasses themselves, words like love, hate, you make me sick, appreciation and so on.
The positive words transformed the crystals into beautiful shapes; the negative messages became diffuse, ugly puddles.
Additionally, Emoto surrounded the water with different types of music. One can guess the result: Spiritual and classical music gave the water a lovely crystalline appearance, while the more, shall we say, “aggressive” forms of music made the crystals look like industrial sludge. (His photographs can easily be found online.)
The human body is about 70 percent water. If with mere words/thoughts/music we can affect water in this way, imagine how we affect our own lives and those around us.
Try this exercise: Bring to mind a negative word (hate, loathe, destroy, etc.) and slowly repeat it to yourself. Pay attention to how you feel in your body as you say it. Now do the same thing with a positive word (love, cherish, faith, forgiveness, etc.) and repeat the exercise. What do you notice this time?
Our thoughts and words have power. We cannot surround ourselves with positive and/or negative thoughts and not be affected, even if (or especially if) the source is our own mind.
The good news is that it is easy to create positive states of mind that we can share with others. The bad news, of course, is the opposite is also true.
Let’s focus on the former. Choose a positive word and designate it as your word. Practice saying it silently and slowly, repeating it as many times as you need. You can do this anytime you feel compelled -- while walking or exercising, as you go to sleep, when feeling tense or calm.
Use the word when your negativity (what Natalie Goldberg calls “the monkey mind”) is getting the best of you. Repeat the word until you feel complete. You may feel an urge to stop or forget to say it. Keep going just a little bit longer. You’ll know when you’re done. 
You can literally stop your negative thoughts by focusing on your word. Practiced over time, the word can start to feel like an old friend, serving to remind one that yes, we can go down the road of the monkey mind if we wish, but wouldn’t it be so much more pleasant to take a quiet walk in the sun?