James, I use this mental technique to great affect, every so often…
Close your eyes and imagine all your pains, obstacles, and anything that’s bothering you, making you feel bad or holding you back. Imagine them strewn along a path in front of you. You can picture them as glowing boxes, balls, batteries – whatever resonates with you.
The point is that anything with enough power to block you IS a source of power.
So then imagine yourself walking up to each, one at a time, and picking it up. Then imagine yourself ABSORBING all the power from the things. You can squeeze it, breathe it in – anything that allows you to imagine transferring all that power into your body, mind, and spirit.
Then imagine the glow is gone and all that’s left is a bunch of ash. Those ashes were the “negative” part of the power – the stuff that was blocking you.
So, you’ve just absorbed all the power and left behind the stuff that wasn’t supporting you.
Then thank the thing for giving you strength and knowledge and resolve.
Repeat that until they’re all gone. Then look back at all the piles of ashes and watch a gust of wind blow it all way.
They’ll come back at some point. Or will be replaced by different ones. That’s okay. Do it again.
The point is to PRETEND every “negative” thing you just absorbed had something massively positive within it as well and you took all the positive and left all the negative. Let yourself get totally immersed in the pretending. FEEL it as if it were real. If that’s hard, just ask yourself, “If this were real, what would it feel like? What would it look like? What would it smell like? What would it sound like?” And then pretend you actually, feel, see, smell, and hear it.
And if THAT’s hard, just pretend you already felt, saw, smelled, and heard it, and move on.