Throughout our lives, we’ve all experienced different groups of people telling us what is right and wrong. From our parents through to teachers, university lecturers, employers and even our own partners – everyone has an input into how they think you should or should not feel or think, what you should or should not say, what you should or should not believe, and even how you should act. When this happens, we can find ourselves lost in a void of confusion of actually who we are, what our life means to us, and how we should feel, think and act.
This uncertainty leads people, including you and me, to go in search of what we perceive as missing from our lives, because we feel unhappy and unfulfilled. This feeling creates a mass of negative self-talk, feelings, thoughts and behaviours that are driven by through a filter of lack, which also distracts us from what already brings us joy and happiness.
This causes us to focus on what we don’t have because of the ‘be-lie-f’ that when we have it, it will bring the happiness we seek. Ignorance and avoidance of your negativity breeds more negativity, and you become accustomed to reacting to any situation with a negative outlook. This intensifies and heightens your feelings, and you soon enter a vicious circle of self-sabotage…until you pause and pay attention to what is going on.
So often, people say to me that because they have been a certain way for all of their life, they have to stay that way, but this is completely inaccurate. Biologically, a dominant thought will stimulate synaptic connections in your brain and once these connections are made, repetition of the same thought (negative) will stimulate more corresponding connections, giving the impression of a never-ending cycle. This means we can change this and do something about the negativity! Neuroscience and neuroplasticity has proven that you can change these synaptic connections by raising your awareness to your negativity and by changing your thoughts. As you change, your life changes with you.
I have been told many times, that it is about willpower when it comes to setting yourself a goal and achieving it. Although willpower certainly helps, it isn’t enough by itself. You can see this through simple examples like weight loss or smoking – how many times have you seen someone lose weight or get through a few weeks without a cigarette, only to put it straight back on again, or catch them lighting up in the street? As much as we might want to achieve something, and know it will be an improvement to our lives, willpower alone won’t cut it.
Many people believe that positive thinking can be the key factor that transforms their lives, but again, how many times have you thought positively about finding the right man or woman only to find yourself still alone, bouncing from relationship to relationship? This is because there is a mismatch between the positive thought – “I want my soul mate” – and the feelings that go with it – “But I don’t deserve it.” No matter how much we wish it, want it or otherwise try to attract these desirables into our lives, it is not enough. Your thoughts and feelings must match!
Through changing the way you think, you can quite literally unwire and rewire your brain, changing your brain permanently. By creating a new consistent thought pattern, you create new aligned feelings and emotions, which create a new personality, which, then, creates new behaviours, which create new outcomes and, ultimately, a new life.
To change your thoughts, repetition is key. Meditation is a great tool for helping release resistance and repeated meditation can be used effectively to create new neural networks in your brain which, in turn, cause unwanted networks to atrophy and dissolve. It is repetition that allows us to turn good activities into good habits, and habits into routines, and routines into lifestyles that soon feel an inherent part of us.
Whether good or bad, your patterns and themes are woven throughout your life in how you feel, think, interact and make decisions. In essence, they have all helped determine your character, personality and the reality in which you currently call your life.
My invitation is, give yourself the gift of you. Live consciously, love and embrace all of you. The second you ignore you is when the problems start which can and often do escalate out of control.
Comments are closed.