Life got you tied up in knots, stressed out, frazzled? Future looking dim? Dreams on hold?
Hours spent in worry, frustration and upset are the modern version of the human condition.
But must it be?
How would it be to have those hours back to use creatively to solve problems for ourselves, our businesses and even the world and in the bargain to live stress-free and with ease and clarity?
If you understand how your experience is being created, those hours could be yours again.
It’s all to do with thought.
Scientists estimate that the average person has 70,000 thoughts per day. That’s a lot to choose from! If we understand that we are living our lives in a thought-created reality — a continuous stream of thoughts and attendant feelings — we can see deeper into the nature of our human experience and learn how to maximize our potential.
A thought bubbles up from mind, and consciousness brings it to life. You have a thought and it’s expressed as a feeling. How do we know?
Try this.
Think of a loved one in a tender moment. How do you feel? Now think about an unhappy experience. Now how do you feel? It is impossible to interchange those feelings without the thinking that precedes them. You are always feeling your thinking.
Would you like to feel scared? Think scary thoughts. Guaranteed to work. In effect, we are living in the feeling of our thinking.
Why does this matter? Because if our thoughts are directly creating our feelings, then our feelings are not being created by any outside force or “thing.” Our thoughts alone are responsible for them. We’re the boss!
We can use those feelings as a guide to what we’re thinking. As we see and experience the link between the two we can more easily shift to fresh thinking and better feelings. And with those 70,000 thoughts per day, often the best thing is just to let the ones we don’t like pass.
Recently, a client experienced a major insight when he realized that the feelings that he’d been experiencing and believed were coming from his boss were actually the result of his own thinking. With this insight it was possible for him to take responsibility for his thinking, change his faltering relationship with his boss and get the promotion he dreamed of.
When we realize that we’re not victims of our circumstances but rather the thinking creators of our own moment-to-moment experience of them, it opens up a lot of possibilities to create a life that will more likely fulfill our dreams. We have the power to create that future.
There is tremendous freedom in knowing that our thoughts are just thoughts. They bring us our feelings. They come and go like scudding clouds.
Pay attention to them just long enough to know they will change like New England weather. There’s no need to get stuck with the ones you don’t like. You’ll always have fresh ones and with them new creative possibilities.
It’s a magnificent design we’re part of, and you can maximize its potential with this understanding.