Our thoughts create our reality in many ways.
The fact is that none of us is experiencing life – and the world around us – as it it. We all experience it the way we think it is.
Think about it. For example, in a stadium full of people watching a game or a concert, each and every one of them experiences the event in their own unique way. They all compare whatever their sensory faculties receive to their own unique ”map of the world” and interpret everything accordingly. Incuded in that process, they all create their own emotional states and feelings that they experience.
Our Thoughts Create Our Feelings
Our feelings are created by our thoughts, which really are our perceptions and interpretations of what’s going on.
Our thoughts also have a significant power over our lives in many different ways.
So, our feelings are responses to what and how we think. Although there is a feedback loop to how our brain interprets our physiology, like our body posture, our feelings are created by our thoughts.
Explained in a simplified way: When we have negative thoughts, we experience negative feelings. When we have positive thoughts, we experience positive feelings.
Our Feelings Affect Our Health
Negative feelings produce chemicals in our body that, especially in a long run, affect our body negatively. Everyone should know by now that long term stress is the number one cause for many illnesses.
As the cell biologist Dr. Bruce Lipton has pointed out, when we experience negative emotional states the cells in our body live in an environment that is harmful for them. Also the opposite is true: When we experience positive emotional states the cells in our body live in an environment that is beneficial for their wellbeing.
Our Feelings Affect Our Behavior
It is quite obvious that when we are in a negative state of mind, like angry or frightened, we act and behave accordingly.
Similarly, when we are in a good mood, say happy or excited, we act and behave in a totally different way.
So, the way we feel largely determines how we act and behave. And since our thoughts affect our emotional states, the way to change the way we act and behave is to change the way we think.
Our Behavior Affects Our Results
The results we achieve in life are caused by our actions and behaviors.
As an example, let’s say you want to win a 100 meters race.
First of all, you need to run the race. You won’t win it unless you participate in the race and run it.
Also, depending on the level of the race and the other runners, you probably need to train for the race to run faster than the others to win it.
All those things are actions that you need to take to achieve the result you want. In order for you to take those actions, you first need to think of those actions – and most probably also in a way that motivates you to take the required actions.
Again, it all starts with a thought.
Our Thoughts Affect How Our Environment Treats Us
Putting all the above together, as the way we think affects how we feel and behave, the way we think affects how our environment responds to us and how it treats us. If we change the way we act and behave, people around us will perceive us differently and, therefore, change the way they behave towards us.
That means that saying that factors outside ourselves would control our faith and life cannot be true. We have the ability to think and, most importantly, we have the ability to choose our thoughts.
Why Can Changing Our Thoughts Feel Difficult?
Our thoughts are largely based on our belief systems and our beliefs have mainly been formed in our childhood from the influence of the people around us. That is why many of our beliefs are unconscious and deep-rooted.
Becoming aware of your thoughts and beliefs, however, enables you to take control of those beliefs and, if you want, change them.
It is worth remembering that when you change your thoughts, you change how you experience your life and that your thoughts are your thoughts: You – and only you – have the power to change them.
How to Change Your Thoughts?
As I already hinted above, our thinking takes place at many levels: In our conscious mind, in our unconscious mind and in our higher mind. Because of that, there really is no single technique or method that works for all toughts.
However, once you get the hang of it, getting a control of your thinking is not that difficult. It will probably even become easy for you.
The key to becoming aware of your thoughts is your emotional states and feelings. Whenever you are in a negative emotional state or feeling somehow bad, stop and ask yourself, ”What am I thinking about at this moment?” You will notice that you are thinking about something that you don’t want in your life, something that you want to move away from.
The next step is to ask, ”If this is not what I want, what do I want instead?” When you direct your thoughts toward something, instead of away from something, you will notice your emotional state changing as a result of the change of your thoughts.
Change Your Beliefs, Change Your Thoughts
As I already suggested above, a lot of our thoughts and perceptions are based on our beliefs. Therefore, one of the most effective ways to change the way we think, pretty much in all levels, is to change our beliefs.
Especially, letting go of those beliefs that limit us and that don’t serve our growth, and replacing them with more supportive ones is perhaps the most effective way to make changes to the way we think.
Tools, Methods and Techniques
Here are some of the most effective ways and methods I have found to change beliefs and thoughts:
- NLP, neuro-linguistic programming, is one of the most efficient technologies to help change our beliefs, both at the unconscious and conscious levels.
- Hypnosis is a wonderful method of relaxation and making changes in the unconscious mind.
- Coaching: There are numerous styles and schools of coaching. Most of them work at both conscious and unconscious level. You may need to try several coaches before you find one that best suits your needs.
- Therapy: Like with coaching, there are so many schools of therapies that it may take a while to find one that works for you. Most of the therapies seem to work at the conscious level, although many work also at the unconscious level.
- Meditation: Again, there are so many types of meditations that finding one that you like might take some time. Also, you may find that it is good to change the type of meditation every once in a while as you progress with your personal growth. My experience is that meditations work best on unconscious and higher minds.
- Reiki is a technique that promotes relaxation and aids healing by balancing the body’s “life force energy”. It also connects us, especially the reiki practitioner, with our higher mind.
Different methods usually affect different levels and in different ways. My suggestion is to get started with one method and then add other methods as you move along on you path.
