Inquiry · “You Are Not Your Thoughts”
Changing the Mental Attitude
Locate and drop the worried, fearful, self-deprecating thoughts feeding a condition, and deliberately turn the mind toward bright, constructive, harmonious thought as the inner cause of health.
Thought pictures itself in the body. Catch yourself “meditating on your own imperfections” and stop feeding that picture. Turn instead to “the bright and beautiful things that come into the life” — Patterson’s actual prescription for strength. Begin with the inner life and work “from cause to effect,” and hold it as a steady attitude, not a one-off. Adjunct only — keep your medical care.
What it is
Patterson’s foundational health practice is to change the mental attitude — to stop feeding a condition with fearful, fretful, self-diminishing thought and deliberately turn the mind to constructive, harmonious thought.
For Patterson the inner life is causal: “Every thought we think has a definite effect on the body — it pictures itself there.” The remedy follows directly: “Dwelling mentally on the bright and beautiful things that come into the life strengthens the body.” He is blunt about the self-undermining habit most people fall into: “we will never get health or strength while meditating on our own imperfections.” The work is therefore an inquiry into what you are habitually thinking, then a turning of that thought.
The Method
Faithful to Patterson (The Will to Be Well, esp. “Mental Influences,” “Demand and Supply”):
- See that thought is cause, body is effect. Begin from Patterson’s premise — “Every thought we think has a definite effect on the body — it pictures itself there.” You are looking behind the symptom at the mental attitude picturing itself there.
- Notice what you habitually dwell on. Catch the fretting, the rehearsed fear, and especially the habit of “meditating on our own imperfections,” which Patterson says blocks health and strength.
- Withdraw attention from the imperfect picture. Stop feeding and re-rehearsing the worried, self-critical, dread-laden thought. You are not arguing with it; you are declining to dwell on it.
- Turn deliberately to the bright and constructive. Replace it by “dwelling mentally on the bright and beautiful things that come into the life” — Patterson’s literal prescription for strengthening the body.
- Work from the inside out. “We must begin with the inner life, making the outer life secondary. working from cause to effect.” Treat the attitude first; let conditions follow.
- Hold it as a continuing attitude. This is not a one-off correction but a re-education of habitual thought, carried through the day and returned to whenever the old fretting reasserts itself. (Sourcing note: quoted phrases are Patterson’s own words; the numbered sequence is an attributed reconstruction of his teaching.)
Source & Lineage
Charles Brodie Patterson (1854-1917), a leading early New Thought author and editor of Mind and Arena, stands squarely in the Quimby mental-healing lineage that runs Quimby → Evans → Hopkins → the New Thought writers. Contrast (don’t duplicate):
- Quimby’s correcting-false-belief is total — disease is the error, “the explanation is the cure.” Patterson is gentler and more about a standing attitude than a one-shot correction.
- Dresser’s tracing the wrong belief is a diagnostic trace of a specific catastrophic picture. Patterson’s move is broader: a habitual turn from dwelling on imperfection toward the bright and constructive.
- Hamblin’s thought governance systematizes policing thought; Patterson frames it as a warmer reorientation of what one dwells upon.
Common refinements
Treating it as a cure / delaying care. The single most dangerous error. Keep your treatment.
- Forcing positivity / suppressing. “Bright thinking” by white-knuckle suppression backfires; the move is to withdraw attention from the imperfect picture and genuinely dwell elsewhere, not to wage war on a thought.
- Self-blame for being ill. “Thought is cause” easily curdles into “I caused my illness by wrong thinking.” Reject that; use the practice for attitude and stress, not guilt.
- Refinement: pair with affirmation of wholeness and the silence so the turned attitude has something positive to rest in.