Don’t Believe Everything You Think

Anna Harding

“Don’t believe everything you think”

This bumper sticker caught my attention the other day while I was waiting, yet again, for a light to turn green.  It reminded me of something a favorite author of mine, Anne Lamotte, once wrote.  She equated her mind to a dangerous neighborhood after dark.  A place she did NOT want to visit alone!

We’ve all heard the expression, “You are what you eat.”  What I’ve learned about others and myself is that we are also very much what we think.

Like clouds in the sky, thoughts will always pass through our minds.  Many people who have “tried to meditate” have reported that they just couldn’t get all the thoughts out of their heads, and therefore just couldn’t meditate.  Unless you are a very advanced meditator, the likelihood of being completely thought-free is highly slim.

The process of meditating is actually about noticing your thoughts, and then letting them float away, like clouds in the sky.  Where we seem to get hung up in meditation and in life, is in identifying with our thoughts, making them all REAL, justifying them, and often, whether they’re true or not, believing them.

A function of the brain is to receive information and store it.  When we decide what we believe, it files that and we have created an information bank.  All kinds of ideas and opinions about ourselves, life and other people can become ‘truth’ that, before too long, we don’t question.

Judgments, assumptions, beliefs, are given a solidity that creates our reality.  We become bound by these thoughts and they can unconsciously shape our lives.  These tapes we replay in our head are not necessarily “real thinking” as David Allen wrote in his book, Productivity Principles.  In fact, they can be counterproductive to what we say we would like to achieve or create.

Henry Ford said, “If you think you can or if you think you can’t, you are right.”

If we think we are intelligent and successful and happy, we are right.  If we think we’re never going to amount to much, find a decent job or life partner, we are right again.  We can choose the attitude and approach we use in life, whether we come from a place of fear, scarcity and self-deprecation or a place of gratitude, possibility and abundance.

In other words, you are what you think, so choose your thoughts wisely.

It’s easy to think that if we could just handle external factors better we would have the perfect life.  How many times have you thought that when you just get the better job, the raise, the perfect partner, more time in each day, that your life would be happier and less stressful?  The truth is this: our stress level is not affected by external circumstances but by what we THINK about external circumstances.  It’s not the busy schedule that’s the root of your overwhelm.  It’s the thoughts about your schedule that generate stress, and then escalate to even more unproductive thinking.  Soon your mood is affected and you feel irritable, impatient and resentful.

Your thoughts are connected to your feelings.  If you think irritable thoughts, you will feel irritable.  If you ruminate about past failures in relationships, or your professional life, you will feel depressed.

William James said, “The greatest weapon against stress is our ability to choose one thought over another.”

Begin to notice your thoughts when you realize you are engaged in a feeling that is uncomfortable.  What are you telling yourself about this situation?  Is it really true?  Or is it an old story, an assumption, a comfortable place of judgment of self or other?

Try experimenting with a more positive thought or message to yourself, silently shifting away from unproductive or negative thoughts, allowing yourself back into the present moment.  Learning to eliminate stress by managing and choosing your thoughts takes practice and time.  And it CAN be done.

Begin with just one thought at a time and ask yourself:  Who am I with this thought? What other ways could I interpret this situation and how does it feel to do that?  Am I ready, willing and able to think about this differently?

Emmet Fox, in his book, Make Your Life Worthwhile, said, “Your experience at any moment is the outpicturing of your mind.  What you believe and understand in the inner is what you experience in the outer.  Each day is a new life.  Each moment is really a new life.  What we call memories are really present thoughts.  What we call anticipations are really present thoughts.  No one has ever lived in any moment except the present.  To know this is the door to freedom.”

Anna Harding is a life coach who guides women in midlife into more satisfying relationships, careers and health. She is co-author of Petite Retreats: Renewing Body, Mind, and Spirit Without Leaving Home and can  be reached at anna@gracecoach.com or (410) 822-6452.