The Back Story

GIVING YOU THE KNOWLEDGE TO MAKE THE CHANGES YOU WANT FOR YOUR LIFE

‘Thinking The Right Thoughts’ is everything, because in every moment, your next thought will determine how you feel AND what you cause to happen next… - Con Castell -

Contents

Positive Mental Health

How You Became You

Trial and Error Learning

Personal Responsibility

CBT (Cognitive Behavioural Therapy)

Thought For The Today

‘Never confuse your nature with what you have been nurtured to become’

- David Green -

Our back story is a perfect example of how a simple, yet insightful truth, passed on to a young man fifty years ago, can have a powerful and resounding impact upon both his life, and the cause of Mental Health today. This true story also shows how the good intentions of one man can live on beyond his passing, immortalising his name and his words of wisdom for generations to come; all thanks to a technology that in his day would have been science fiction.

This website is fondly dedicated to my dear friend and kindred spirit, Constantine Castell, and to his own family, for whom his magical five words were second nature.

Many years ago now, when I was in my mid-teens, I met a man called Constantine Castell. I knew him simply as Con, and he was the father of my girlfriend. Con was a regular guy, but one with an exceptional ability to get to the heart of any matter and uncover the simple truths that lie behind the stuff of life and the changes, challenges and adversities that blight the lives and minds of so many people today.

Over the years that followed I became very fond of Con, whom I considered to be not just a great friend and rare insightful role model, but an almost surrogate father figure; following the death of my own father in my late teens. As for me, an often confused and very idealistic young man in those days, I suspect Con too felt some warmth and kind regard towards me. I hope he did, for he was always there for me with a willing smile and a warm welcome on the many occasions that I turned up unexpectedly for a dose of his good sense, worldly advice and his voice of reason.

In those days I was somewhat impetuous, adventurous and, being a typical Aries, fearless and enthusiastic about all that the world had to offer. Needless to say, those ‘child of the universe’ traits, not infrequently led to some moments of change – challenge - and the occasional scrape with adversity.

Whenever I felt lost, alone and lacking in directions, or I just in needed the calm voice of reason and validation, I would seek out my friend Con.

In reality, there was never a lot of seeking out to be done, for Con regularly spent his Saturday mornings tinkering around in his garage, endlessly procrastinating about one day finishing the old racing car that he had up on blocks, stored for better days when he had more time to focus his attention upon it.

It was on one such day, the first of many, that I first heard those five insightful and potentially life altering words.

I had dropped in to see Con and found him standing at the end of his drive, boiler suited and booted, an oily rag in one hand and a spanner in the other; grease marked cheeks and a welcoming smile. With that always disarming smile, he chuckled and said, ‘how are you Davie boy?’ Then gestured for me to join him in the kitchen.

We talked for a few minutes as I organised my thoughts and the problem that I was about to unleash upon his wise and resourceful mind. As Con switched on the kettle for my customary cup of tea, grabbing the opportunity in a break in the conversation, I explained my problem and my despair at not being able to find my own solution. As he finished making my tea, Con looked at me across the kitchen. Remaining silent he turning to a cabinet on the wall and removing a bottle of whisky, which he uncorked; pouring a not too shabby measure into a crystal glass on the table for himself. Leaning rakishly against the kitchen work top and smiling wryly across the room to me; he reminded me of some buccaneer hero in a Robert Louis Stevenson novel, he laughed a gentle but almost disappointing laugh and looked straight into my soul with his knowing green eyes, and calmly said, ‘Davie my boy, you’re thinking the wrong thoughts. To get what you want and to live the life you want to live, ‘try thinking the right thoughts.’

Needless to say, between the ages of fifteen and twenty one, my focus lay more upon my feelings and my emotional needs than in fully understanding the almost mystical power of the mind. It was in fact nearly twenty years later when I fully appreciated the impact of Con’s words and implemented them into my own mindset. Those five words have impacted my own life in ways that you find hard to believe. Indeed, I too find my journey and the amazing life that I have been so fortunate to have lived unbelievable!

Those five words ‘try thinking the right thoughts’ have taken me down a rabbit hole that you would have to experience to fully understand and believe, and that is specifically why I and my colleagues have developed and will continue to improve this website for YOU - to provide everything that we know and have learned for like minded individuals who have the desire to experience Positive Mental Health and achieve whatever it is that they wish for their own lives.

Any thanks and gratitude for what you learn herein must inevitably, unreservedly and entirely go to my dear friend Con Castell, without whose wise words, spoken to me almost a lifetime ago, this website would absolutely not exist.

Thank you Con!

The Founder of Thinking The Right Thoughts

Never underestimate these words!