This is not an easy idea to make sense of because it relates to our capacity for intuition and realisations. To have such empowering thoughts we have to be aware of them and the presence of mind and body to generate them.
Practices
1. How real is your reality? Consider the following statements and give examples from your own experience in different contexts.
OBJECTIVE REALITY: What you see is what’s really happening. You are experiencing the world as it is.
SUBJECTIVE REALITY: What you see is an interpretation of reality. I’m experiencing the world through the filter of my thinking.
CONSTRUCTED REALITY: What you see is all made up. The world is what you think it is.
ILLUSORY REALITY: There is no separation between “out there” and “in here”. You are a pure expression of life energy that is generated by mind, consciousness, and thought.
2. Can you think of experiences where you are allowing external events to influence your thoughts, feelings, and choices.?
3. In what situations do you find yourself lost or stuck in your feelings, failing to imagine a new reality with new thoughts?
4. You cannot change events, but you can change how you interpret your experience of them. Think of a situation that wasn’t working for you, that you were able to see differently?
5. If you think your thoughts are real your can suffer. If you think you created them, then you have a choice to interpret your experiences from a positive mood state. What new possibilities might this open up for you when things are working out for you?
Now what?
Look in the direction of what’s true for you and why it makes sense.
Quieten your mind to allow new creative thoughts and insights to flow.
Accept a profound insight and see how the courage to be proactive could transform your life?
When we embrace uncertainty, we must forego the comfort of feeling we are in control, to wonder and discover something profound. Transformation comes from inside-out thinking, not past experience. It’s about exploring the “possibility space” where intuition and insights can be fostered and trusted.
Support Notes
You cannot generate new insights and realisations with linear thinking and understanding. You have to connect with a mind pace that searches for new possibilities in the moment, alone or in conversation with others.
You need to ask yourself “WHAT DOES MY FUTURE WANT FROM ME?”
We need to accept that mind, consciousness and thought combine to create our true nature. They are working for us, even when we are not conscious of our innate nature working for us. Hence we can fail to observe our subconscious at work and see how it makes us who we are. They are creating and interpreting our experience, moment-to-moment. Even our feelings are the result of thoughts we produce and become aware of as experiences.
What’s interesting is that the “Three Principles” as they are known, work together to give coherence to what we experience, enabling us to make sense of what we are seeing, feeling and relating to. It creates that sense of certainty that we need in situations of uncertainty, by giving us a reason for being who we know we are and what we want to do with our life.
It means having an identity that combines how we sense from inside with what we perceive going on outside us. What we believe to be reality can often be an illusion. The wisdom we have is to accept that how we see things is not always what they actually are.
For example, we may be worried that something has happened to someone we care about because they are late arriving. The worry is not being generated “out there”, but inside your own thinking. Realising this is your “innate wisdom”.
So what does this mean?
You cannot access this “innate wisdom” if your mind is generating all sorts of imaginings. For example, from what has happened in the past, what you heard about an incident in the news, the reliability of the person in question who always arrives on time or usually ‘phones, etc. Something feels incoherent as the mind fills up with possibilities and analogies before seeking the facts. Your assessment should always be grounded
When we realise that worry is mind created and we are capable of self-observation, we calm down and produce a story that is more coherent and gives us clarity. It’s an antidote to worrying feelings when we embrace uncertainty by wondering about positive outcomes. We stop wasting energy on incoherent and illogical thinking. If we allow our thoughts to be captured by “outside-in” events, ideas or situations, when we can perceive ourselves losing control and imaginingg the worst. This can become a source of shame or embarrassment.
It’s unhealthy to think about what gets in the way of achieving clarity and a coherent sense of what you believe, and then connecting it with what you do and who you think you are.
Listen to Bill Burnett as he explains how to go about accessing our innate wisdom to design a satisfying life of personal growth.
When we calm down and realise the feelings are coming from our own thinking our anxieties begin to fall away. Things have a way of working out because they cannot be anything than what they are. We need clarity to deal with what faces us when we “know”. We can only do it when we know.
This enables our “innate wisdom” to show us what to do about the late arrival when it becomes known to us. In the meantime, we can experience the calm clarity that comes from the comfort of not knowing.
Whatever we put into our thoughts we will experience. Imagining the worst outcome produces a feeling of worry. It becomes learned behaviour. A habit we are blind to and cannot change until we can observe it for ourselves. We then become aware of how “outside-in” circumstances, other people, and material things can be given the power to determine how we feel and the choices we make.
Now what?
Look in the direction of what’s true for you and why it makes sense.
Quieten your mind to allow new creative thoughts and insights to flow.
Accept a profound insight and its impact could transform your life if you have the courage to act on it.