In This Article, You’ll Learn
Why “critical thinking” doesn’t mean negativity — and how criticizing your thoughts actually sharpens them
Why you don’t need to kill your ego, but work with it as your operating system for navigating the world
How The Kybalion’s hermetic principles explain why positivity and higher vibration actually produce better outcomes
Why life was never meant to be a “grand, beautiful journey” in the way you’ve been sold — and why that reframe is liberating, not defeating
How the Druid world still operates beneath modern society, and what that means for how you move through it
A note before we begin: Unorthodox Perspectives are my impromptu podcasts and recordings. What you’re about to read is a polished, structured version of that recording.
If you want the complete experience become a paid subscriber to access the full audio.
Introduction
Greetings, and welcome to another episode of Unorthodox Perspectives. In this piece, I want to talk about some recent life learnings and tie them into some of the esoteric work as well.
I know people really enjoy a lot of the insights and the intellectual pieces, and that’s a plus. But not everyone understands the esoteric piece, so this is a bit of a two-part exploration. The first part is the intellectual piece; the second is esoteric, for those who care.
Criticize Your Thoughts
The first piece I wanted to touch on is the idea of a critical thinker — of criticizing your thoughts. I’ve written about this a few times, back when I was reading the book A Thinker’s Way and thinking through how you actually think better.
The concept behind the critical thinker is that the word critical itself means to criticize — and that is primarily not a negative thing. To criticize is to sharpen. Iron sharpens iron. It’s to refine, to critique. You’re trying to get to the best version.
In modern times, we see that as negative. But going back to criticizing our thoughts: we need to do this, because when we criticize a thought, we can get a sharper thought.
This ties into the idea of that first thought — that flash thought. And it ties into a note Dom 369 posted, which said you don’t necessarily want to get rid of your ego. You want to work with your ego. This is something I’ve discussed so many times.
We need to understand this ego, because the ego is how we view the world — based on our experiences, based on what life has given us, based on what we know about the world and how we internalize that information. That is how our ego is formed. Your ego is not something you get rid of. Your ego is how you navigate this world.
Your ego is how you navigate this world
Unfortunately, though, our ego — our mental operating sphere — has been tarnished by so much negativity, by incorrect experiences and stimulation. So when life happens to us and we have these thoughts about it, we need to take a step back, pause, and criticize those thoughts. Because this ego has been trained, for most of us, to always look at the worst-case scenario. Negativity. Fear. Anxiety. A lot of these mental health struggles that are now just considered normal, just what we experience in life.
But by stopping to criticize that thought, you can sharpen it. You can refine it.
The Power of Positivity
This ties into that other piece I did — the power of positivity. When you have the power of positivity, you can look at everything objectively. But you also have this growth mindset: life has given me lemons, how do I make lemonade? When you have this optimistic perspective, that’s how you choose to change your thoughts.
Now that you’ve first criticized your thoughts, you’re changing them toward what here can be positive. That is a very important skill set — always looking for the positive things.
These two things are something I’ll admit I don’t do enough. But on an individual level, most of us should take the time to, number one, criticize our thoughts, and number two, direct those thoughts toward something positive.
One of the tricks I’ve learned recently: whenever it’s a bad day or a bad situation, take a step back and ask, “Okay, well, what is going good? Let me name ten good things I have.”
So look at the positive. When we look at the positives in our lives, we’re able to redirect our thoughts. And that’s very important, because mental health is a massive industry now, and it’s considered normal — like everyone’s just supposed to have mental health struggles. But by starting with examining and criticizing our thoughts, and directing them toward positivity, there’s a lot that can be accomplished — from a mental state, a clarity state, and a production state as well.
Life becomes better. You’re more in tune with directional outcomes, probabilities, and so on. That’s the value and the power of thinking critically and being positive. It leads to better outcomes.
Why Does It Work? Enter The Kybalion
Now, we could stop there. But going back to the original concept: this is the Druid world, and society has just been superimposed upon it. So why does criticizing your thoughts work? Why does being positive have an effect?
One of the best places to really understand this is The Kybalion. To understand why and how these things work esoterically, you have to understand the hermetic forces — the states of the metaphysical realm. It starts with all is mind, then goes into as above, so below, then vibration and polarity — seven principles in total.
