Aroha's Choice

A story about the impact of positive thoughts ✨

We can all have down days when we just aren’t happy, and it can be difficult to think of good things. These days are important because without them, we wouldn’t appreciate the good days as much. However, if we are having lots of down days and they don’t go away, or lots of days filled with negative thoughts in our head, that is when we need to get to work making new pathways that will leave us feeling better.

As Aroha says, ‘Thoughts are not facts, they are just words in my head.’

This book is all about showing how we can affect how we feel, and ultimately the life we live, by becoming aware of our thoughts and changing them if we need to. This book I wrote for my youngest son who tends to think more pessimistically, to help him understand that our thoughts are powerful and can leave us feeling great or terrible. I wanted him to understand that HE has the power to change his thoughts. This is something I wished I learned at a much younger age.

This is a powerful and complex topic that we recommend for kids aged eight years through to teens, and perfect for a lot of us adults too.

I had to build new pathways when I was a young adult. It was one of the hardest things I have ever had to do, but also one of the most important. I had used my unhelpful and harmful pathways for a long time. My days were filled with negative thoughts and there wasn’t any happiness. But a very special lady call Trish helped me change that. Slowly, bit by bit, I built new tracks that led me to the wonderful life I have now. (I am so lucky to make books to help share all the things I learned.) It changed my life from emptiness and despair to hope and contentment, from darkness to light.

Our brains are like supercomputers that help us make sense of the world we live in. They help us think, learn, and do all sorts of amazing things. In this story, Aroha learns that she can create pathways in her brain to lead her to different outcomes. It is all about what thoughts she chooses to focus on. The more we practise noticing our thoughts and ensuring we have plenty of good ones, the stronger these pathways will become. Pathways that we create using good thoughts will lead us to a happier and more content life.

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“Aroha’s Choice supports children (and adults) to understand how our neural pathways can create automatic ways of thinking and behaving. It beautifully explains that if our thinking is holding us back, we have the power and capacity to reform it in ways that uncover our strengths and develop our self-confidence. I would love a world where children recognise when their thinking needs to shift from disempowered to empowered, and they knew how to do it. This book is an inspirational start.” – Anna Mowat has a background in psychology, and as director of Real Collective, she works across many national projects that support children’s wellbeing.