I’ve used the Empty Vessel Process with many of my clients and have generally received good results with it. Like any experience of insight, the maximum benefit comes when it is applied properly in your life. What you get from the process is that you see the world with fresh eyes and can actively create your approach to it. You are the ultimate authority and should decide what ways of operating will make your life work best. This amounts to starting from scratch, if necessary, and formulating an entire belief system.
To base one’s life on positive thinking is a partial answer. Going from negative thinking to positive thinking is a big distance for most people. What the Empty Vessel Process does is bring you back to zero by shattering your beliefs about the world. It then allows you to go from “zero” thinking to positive thinking and rebuild your world with only what works. It breaks down the process of transformation into two palatable steps instead of into one giant step.
To think that being negative is bad can equally be challenged with the idea that being positive is good. Sometimes being negative is a good idea. “Negative” thinking helps to exercise some caution when you might otherwise assume the best will happen. It helps one buy insurance when you might tend to be liberal in your prospects for the future. Being more realistic lowers risk-taking when the risks might be too high.
My recommendation for creating beliefs is to not go overboard with being positive or negative. Being exactly balanced with the positive and the negative is not necessarily the point either. Instead be a little bit more positive to push yourself beyond your usual limits. Stop when you feel you are biting off more than you can chew. Be comfortable in expanding the possibilities for yourself. This will definitely challenge you and avoid burnout.
Positive thinking by itself does not always answer every concern. I’ve had experience with grandiose clients who need to be less positive. If someone thinks they are Napoleon, their self-esteem is definitely not lacking. However, the end result of their “positive” thinking is that they may end up in the psychiatric ward.
The bottom line with your beliefs, especially if you can’t figure what constitutes being positive or what’s negative, is to use ideas that work. How do you tell if your idea works? That too can be hard at times. Start actively thinking a certain way and periodically question yourself as to whether you are consistently thinking that way. For example, if you are trying to build your self-esteem, you might ask yourself repeatedly throughout the day, “Am I just as good as anyone else?” Choose an answer that has a high probability of success. Then if it does not seem to be working yet, have some faith that eventually it will. Again its temporary failure keeps giving feedback about how it might be modified to insure its success. After exhausting your powers of logic on your belief, intuition can also help to streamline your belief to just the right specifications.
You are truly what you think. Temper your thoughts to get the best result in your life.