The Power Behind Positive Thinking is a great book. It is authored by Eric Fellman. I appreciated Eric’s attitude throughout the book which was humble and self-disclosing. I thought it made the book more approachable and more interesting to read. Eric used a lot of encouraging examples of positive thinkers throughout and his way of storytelling was intriguing.
Christian Underpinnings
This book was written to augment Norman Peale’s work on Positive Thinking. It is not about mysticism or new age theology. It is really about the simple notion of thinking positively to affect one’s circumstances, emotions, and fellow man. Eric is a Christian and he uses scripture to compliment and bolster his theories. He develops a model or framework that he uses to explain what positive thinking can do for people. Some components of his model are faith, hope and God — all positive aspects of a person’s spiritual self.
My Experience
This topic has fascinated me for a long time because I used to suffer from something like OCD (obsessive-compulsive) thinking. I would focus on a worry or a troubling phrase for a long time to the point of torment. I believe that it was a tool used by the devil to steal my joy. When I focused on negative thoughts my mood became depressed and I lost the will to be active in creating a positive atmosphere. After much study on the subject, including study with many of Joyce Meyer’s works (Battlefield of the Mind and Straight Talk), I found it easier to look on the positive side of things. I guess that whatever you fill your head with is what is going to start coming out of it at some point. Jesus says, "out of the overflow of the heart, the mouth speaks," (Matthew 12:34 NIV).
I wrote in an earlier posting about the book Papal Sin and it being a turnoff for my brain because of the negative nature of the subject matter. Reading stories such as those from the Chicken Soup for the Soul series, watching Christian programming, listening to Christian music and going to church are all ways that I refill my positivity tank. The bible talks frequently about meditation on God’s Word in the Psalms. The Apostle Paul tells his readers to sing hymns to one another to encourage and foster each other’s faith (Ephesians 5:19). Being a Christian, it is very important to keep your faith strong. Sometimes we regularly need to ask God to give us more faith, hope and love in order to keep ourselves from falling into the negativity thinking trap.
To Sum It Up:
Getting back to the book review, I would encourage anyone to read this book. It’s not hard to read. It’s a pretty thin book and although it was written in the early to mid nineties, it is as relevant today as it was then. I picked it up at the local library. I’ve written several postings on positive thinking that are brief and fact-filled. You can find them in the "thoughts" link at the top of the page.
