How can I change my life?
Posted on July 16, 2007
Filed Under Journal, Spirituality, Consciousness |
So you want know how you can change your life, find some optimism and a nice quiet mind? It is true that change is often a matter of intention, but that needn’t be the major struggle you might think. There are techniques and methods that can help bring a bit of power and focus into the process. Change starts with state of mind, but don’t worry that has little to do with the “condition” of your mind. State of mind is the principle of not fighting your thoughts. Most methods of self change try and get you to attempt the impossible; alter the fundamentals of who you are. That is very difficult to do, but there are a number of easier life changing and self development methods. There’s no bible of change or set scripture that will work for everyone - so instead we can find unique ways of working with ourself on a personal level. And that is much more empowering.
The single most important and vital thing you need to understand about trying to change your life and yourself is this: Change is an internal process. What do I mean by that? It’s like this; I once thought that life was what happened around me; that my sense of self was measured by my personal situation. It was as though I carried my life in my pocket, I saw it as something physical that I could handle. I believed I could measure my life by the people around me, my circumstances, my possessions, finances, and career. And indeed in many cases it was the lack or poor condition of all those things that I used to ascertain the state of my life and myself.
Now, you probably think I am going to say that life is a matter of perspective, and that it is what is inside that counts. Or that you need to have a positive attitude and be full of optimism. Well guess what, I am not going to suggest those things! For most people I don’t believe those ideas and methods are of much use. Want to know why?
It’s very simply because telling someone to have a positive attitude is like telling them to change the color of their eyes. And that telling someone to change their perspective doesn’t actually change what they are looking at - just how they are looking at it. So I fully believe we need to work at a more fundamental level.
True change starts in our mind, or more precisely with our thought. Wait, no, I am not going to tell you to change your thoughts, or your thinking! What I am going to suggest is that you start watching your thoughts. Not like a crazy scientist with a microscope, not even like an analytical Freudian psychiatrist. My suggestion is that you step back and watch your thoughts like you would a TV.
You see, we identify very closely with our thoughts, in fact we identify so closely with them that we actually believe we are our thoughts. That might sound strange, but our mind, like every other process in our body works largely of its own accord. We don’t willfully tell our stomach to digest, or our heart to beat. We don’t directly tell our blood to flow around our body, or our hair to grow. Likewise we don’t consciously tell our mind what thoughts to have. Many of our thoughts arrive from a sub-conscious process, whilst another large part of them are influenced by the signals we receive from our environment.
The sub-conscious mind is constantly processing thoughts that we can’t even hear, it’s very quiet down there. These thoughts can be related to all sorts of things, such as issues and events from childhood, what went on at work today, the weather, what you could have to eat later on, worries about finances…and so on.
To the sub-conscious mind doesn’t really understand time, it will just as readily consider events from 20 years ago, as clearly as it will consider events from 20 minutes or even 20 seconds ago. In addition the thoughts won’t really have any particular order to them - the sub-conscious mind will jump back and forward, up and down and all over the place – like a toddler on too much sugar. This is a very important thing to understand, and it is one of the main reasons we get seemingly random thoughts pop into our mind.
Every so often the sub-conscious mind generates a thought with enough energy that the thoughts gets propelled into your conscious mind for consideration. But that doesn’t necessarily mean you need to give it immediate consideration - the sub-conscious plays funny games. It is very easy to get caught up in these games and start chasing down these random thoughts and emotions. We end up a bit like a dog chasing its tail, which is something many people find very funny and quite daft, yet we do it in our minds on a daily basis.
Another side of our thoughts, are the ones we receive from our environment. This can happen in a number of ways - firstly our sub-conscious mind picks up on a lot of stuff that we don’t consciously see or hear. This is processed in a rather random manner, and then pushed - sometimes quite suddenly - into the conscious mind. Ever find yourself suddenly getting annoyed about a conversation from the other day?
We also pick up thoughts from other people. Yes I know, this one sounds quite strange, but it is very true! People carry their emotions and thoughts with them in a very physical manner - you can actually see their thoughts when you know what you are looking for.
Sometimes when a person is angry, moody or upset - it rubs off onto another person. In a similar way, when people carry thoughts that they put a lot of negative or positive energy into. Those thoughts sort of get propelled outwards, and they end up stuck in another persons mind. It’s like an over enthused blind mad man playing darts, you don’t really know where they are going to hit. Now it’s not the specific thoughts themselves that get thrown of course - but rather the energy behind them. How many times have you come away from visiting friends, family or meetings at work - feeling totally crappy and not understanding why?
The process of change begins when you can start to see these thoughts, and distinguish between which type is which. Every different type of thought intermingles in your mind - and ultimately they have an impact upon your life. They control who and what you are. But, you don’t need to get stuck with them or keep chasing them, heck a lot of them aren’t even your own. So why should they have any hold over you? Watching your thoughts begins a process whereby those thoughts lose their hold over you and your life, and you can replace them with the change that you desire.
In the next part of this series - we take a closer look at how to identify these various thought forms. And take apart the popular mis-conception of “Positive Thinking”. See you soon.
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Thoughtisms
"Recently I got into a conversation on the subject of CCTV with a girl in her early twenties. She was actually very enthusiastic about an idea she had - placing cameras in her workplace offices…so that the “good parts” could be edited into a show like Big Brother. Social engineering is a wonderfully clever thing, give people ideas and let them think they are their own." -
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[…] the wrong impression on how to handle our thoughts. This is the second part of the series begun in “How can I change my Life?” and as promised, focuses on identifying our thought processes, and the problems of so called, […]
[ Quote ][…] Part One - How can I change my life? Part Two - Positive Thinking and Conscious Thinking Part Three - Thought Symbolism […]
[ Quote ]“Every different type of thought intermingles in your mind - and ultimately they have an impact upon your life. They control who and what you are. But, you don’t need to get stuck with them or keep chasing them, heck a lot of them aren’t even your own. So why should they have any hold over you?”
A very, very well made point. We are not our thoughts and we should not be at their mercy like a sailing ship in a storm. I love your use of imagery in this article, it’s a very refreshing change from blogging plain text!
Rich.
[ Quote ]Thanks for the comment.
Generally I try and choose imagery that emphasizes the main points of the subject. Most of the time it seems to work ok - although occasionally I end up finding something really strange.
[ Quote ][…] Part One - How can I change my life? Part Two - Positive Thinking and Conscious Thinking Part Three - Thought Symbolism […]
[ Quote ]