The Great Unlearning: A New Teaching on Right and Wrong Thinking

Self-Help

I grew up in a Christian household, and our sense of right and wrong came from the Ten Commandments, Sunday sermons, and the moral codes taught in Scripture. But somewhere along the path, I began to notice that some people moved through life differently. They didn’t panic in chaos. They weren’t defeated by misfortune. They had a quiet certainty that no matter what happened, it was working for them. I began to wonder: what were they thinking that I wasn’t?

It was only later, through immersion in New Thought teachings, that I began to grasp the answer. But even then, something was missing. The term “right thinking” was tossed around often, sometimes vaguely, sometimes dogmatically. There was an air of moralism to it in some circles, as if thinking positively meant you were good and thinking negatively meant you had failed. I couldn’t accept that. I believed there had to be more.

What emerged was not so much a rejection of the classic teaching, but a reframing, a fresh understanding I’ve come to call “The Great Unlearning.” It is the process of remembering our true mind by letting go of the wrong one. What follows is a new way to teach the difference between right and wrong thinking, not from shame or perfectionism, but from spiritual truth.

The Mind Behind the Mind

New Thought asserts that thought is creative. We don’t merely react to life, we generate it. Not always instantly or literally, but in resonance, like tuning forks. The inner state, when sustained, reshapes the outer experience. But here’s the paradox: if our thinking shapes reality, then why do so many of us think in ways that harm us?

The answer is simple: we were taught to.

Wrong thinking, I realized, is not about being pessimistic or ungrateful. It is any thinking that affirms separation, from God, from others, from our own divine essence. Most of us, by age seven, were already fluent in wrong thinking. We were trained to believe that worth must be earned, that safety comes from control, that love is conditional, and that death has the final word.

To think rightly, we must first unlearn what was never true.

Wrong Thinking is the Old Programming

Let’s name it plainly. Wrong thinking includes:

• Fear-based thinking: “I’m not enough.” “There won’t be enough.” “Something bad will happen.”

• Victim thinking: “They did this to me.” “I’ll never be free until they change.”

• Lack consciousness: “I can’t afford it.” “This is just how it is.” “People like me don’t get ahead.”

• Shame cycles: “It’s my fault.” “I should have known better.” “I messed everything up.”

Wrong thinking is seductive. It mimics responsibility, but it's actually self-punishment. It looks like realism, but it’s just trauma dressed up in logic. It seems protective, but it shuts down the very power that could lift us.

Here’s the turning point in the new teaching: wrong thinking is not a sin. It is a symptom. A symptom of forgetting who we are. It doesn’t need punishment. It needs correction, not in anger, but in love.

Right Thinking is Remembrance

Right thinking is not toxic positivity. It isn’t ignoring grief, denying pain, or pretending everything is okay when it’s not. Right thinking says: Even this has meaning. Even now, I am loved. Even here, God is present.

It is thinking that rests in unity.

• Unity with God: “I am an expression of divine intelligence.”

• Unity with others: “No one can take from me what is mine by right of consciousness.”

• Unity with good: “Abundance is not outside of me, it flows through me.”

• Unity with purpose: “There is no wasted season in Spirit.” (Everything serves a purpose)

Right thinking doesn’t suppress wrong thinking, it notices it and replaces it. Just as light displaces shadow without struggle, right thinking reclaims the space where illusions once lived.

The Five Pillars of Right Thinking

This reframing rests on five principles I now teach as the foundation for what I call The New Right Thinking within New Thought.

1. God Is Always Present

If God is omnipresent, then God is in this moment. Not just the beautiful ones, but the broken ones. Right thinking acknowledges divine presence without needing to understand the full picture. It trusts that Spirit is active even when the ego is confused.

2. I Am Not My Thoughts

The mind is a tool. Thoughts come and go. But there is something within us that chooses which thoughts to entertain. Right thinking stems from that choosing Self, the soul, which knows the difference between a fear-based projection and spiritual reality.

3. No Thought Is Neutral

Every thought either expands or contracts consciousness. Right thinking asks: Is this thought leading me toward life, love, and peace, or away from it? Is it making me feel more connected to truth, or less?

4. I Am the Gatekeeper

No one else is in charge of my inner world. That’s both liberating and sobering. I get to decide which thoughts I dwell on. I can reject lies, plant truth, and nourish it with attention.

5. Repetition is Redemption

Right thinking is not a one-time declaration. It is a practice. A spiritual reconditioning. Every time we think a thought aligned with love, it strengthens a neural and spiritual pathway. Over time, the old roads collapse, and new ones flourish.

A Personal Practice: The Morning Return

I begin each morning with a quiet ritual I call The Morning Return. It takes just five minutes, but it centers me for the entire day. It is not a magic spell, and it does not require perfection. It is simply a conscious choice to remember the truth of who I am.

I speak these words aloud or silently, letting them settle into my awareness:

“Today, I remember who I am.
I am not my bank account.
I am not my health diagnosis.
I am not my family story or yesterday’s failure.
I am Spirit in expression.
I am love embodied.
Every thought I choose will either reflect this truth or reject it.
Today, I choose remembrance.”

In that stillness, something shifts. I return not to the version of me shaped by fear or approval, but to the deeper self, the one God recognized before the world began to shape my mind. This is the self that remembers. And from that place, I begin again.

Why This Teaching Matters Now

In a world full of noise, distraction, and fear, right thinking is not a luxury, it is survival. But not just survival in the worldly sense. It is the survival of the soul’s awareness. The soul does not die, but it can fall asleep. Wrong thinking sedates it with despair. Right thinking wakes it back up.

We are in a time of global forgetting. People have mistaken opinion for truth, performance for purpose, and despair for realism. This new teaching on right and wrong thinking is not about self-help, it is about spiritual sovereignty. It is a call to reclaim the creative mind and stop outsourcing our reality to culture, systems, or wounds.

A Final Thought: Nothing Is Wasted

If you’ve spent a lifetime in wrong thinking, welcome to the club. So did I. So do most people. This teaching isn’t here to shame you for forgetting. It’s here to remind you how to remember.

Every thought you thought in fear can be recycled into wisdom. Every moment you lived in shame can become fertile ground for grace. Nothing is wasted. Right thinking does not ask for perfection; it only asks for presence. And from presence, everything changes.

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Let this be the new message from New Thought to a tired world:

You are not lost. You have simply been thinking with a borrowed mind.
Now, it’s time to return home, to the truth. To the light.
To right thinking.

And that changes everything.

Further Reading

For readers ready to go deeper into the metaphysics of mind and the spiritual mechanics of thought, I recommend:

The Dynamic Laws of Prosperity by Catherine Ponder
A powerful breakdown of how thought patterns shape our reality, with a focus on abundance and spiritual alignment.

A New Earth by Eckhart Tolle
A deep exploration of the ego, presence, and the transformation of consciousness that aligns well with New Thought perspectives on right and wrong thinking.