Our Thoughts Create Our Reality – Part 2
Continuing with our title theme – our thoughts create our reality – it follows that we accept the idea that our thoughts are the catalyst in this equation. As suggested previously, the key is to align our thoughts with our beliefs, for our beliefs are the instructions for the subconscious mind. This part of our mind, the subconscious, is far more powerful than our conscious mind, which underscores the necessity for alignment of thought and belief.
The conscious mind is the part of the mind which analyses, applies logic, reasons and initiates actions of intent. The subconscious mind is where all our experiences, emotions, feelings, memories, and inherent and learned motor skills are stored, and is referred to as our automatic pilot. Consider the time when you first took a few steps as a child. Your conscious mind was intently focussed and muscle movement was tentative and spastic as you stumbled in those early attempts.
Gradually, as walking became habitual and natural, the tasks of balance, muscle contraction and limb movement moved from your conscious mind to your subconscious mind. When your conscious mind decides to walk, it gives ‘the order’ to the subconscious mind, and it responds. That learned process is like a belief within your subconscious mind.
The reason it’s considered more powerful than the conscious mind is because of its incredible capacity for multi-tasking, including body processes outside our normal conscious intention – like breathing, walking, digesting and heart-beating. The conscious mind, contrary to popular belief, cannot multi-task. Try reading a book and listening to music at the same time. Your conscious mind shifts from one to the other but cannot do both equally at the same time.
Our subconscious mind is also operating 24/7 while our conscious mind is limited to waking awareness. While we sleep the body is still functioning and sensory inputs such as sound and touch and hearing are still being registered in the subconscious mind. It is the part of the mind that is always awake and functioning.
The ‘code’ for body functions came with the body and our life experiences contribute the learned behaviour and beliefs, and together, they are the commands residing in and directing the actions of, the subconscious mind.
The alignment of thought (conscious mind) and belief (subconscious mind) is necessary for creating our experiences (reality) and the impact when opposed can be illustrated with an example.
Let’s say that you would like more money in your life and you think that thought with the intention of creating it. However, suppose subconsciously you believe that rich people are mean or that money is the root of all evil. As the subconscious mind is more powerful than the conscious mind, the belief will always win over the thought – and you will not have more money. Your subconscious mind serves to meet your beliefs and its power will prevail.
The beliefs in our subconscious mind – in particular those beliefs related to self-image and worldview, are mostly unknown to our conscious mind. They are largely planted during our early development, from birth to 7 years of age. We come in to life with a clean slate subconscious mind and during these early years it acts as a sponge absorbing messages without any conscious discernment.
Our subconscious mind was quickly writing its code. How our parents thought – we thought, what our parents believed – we believed. Other authority figures as well – teachers, clergy, etc. would have powerful impact on the code of beliefs written in our subconscious mind.
One estimate I read stated that we hear the word ‘No’ anywhere from 50,000 to 150,000 times in those first years. How often would we have heard “You can’t do…” “You’ll never achieve…” ”You aren`t smart enough to…. ” ”You can`t have…” ”We don`t have the money to…”
Reflect on how these statements could shape our beliefs and the resulting limitations on what we could achieve. These beliefs can be called self-sabotaging or self-doubting and are the true determinants of the boundaries of your experience.
Consider what Richard Branson said about his early childhood experience and how it impacted him.
“My mother was determined to make us independent. When I was four, she stopped the car a few miles from our house and made me find my own way home across the fields.”
“She was teaching me a larger lesson about overcoming my disabling shyness and learning to ask others for directions.” He later commented that he never feared taking on challenges after this experience. These early beliefs served him well in achieving the success’s and reality he sought.
Perhaps the equation should be altered. Instead of ‘our thoughts create our reality’, we can say ‘our thoughts intend our reality and our beliefs create it’.
In my next post, I will review the tools to align our thoughts and beliefs, and I leave you until then with a few quotes:
Believe that life is worth living and your belief will help create the fact.
~ William James
Man is what he believes.
~ Anton Chekhov
