Change your world

It is easy to say that others are to blame, but this type of thinking puts us further into bondage because we set limits on our freedom. Once again, straightening up our thinking involves separat­ing what we have and what we do from who we are inside – separat­ing the “doer” from the “deed”. The secret is to live in this world but not let the world live in us. We want our boat in the water, but we do not want the water in our boat. When the water is in our boat, we start to sink. The problem is we often find ourselves drowning in the water of physical effects that we have created in our lives. Once we are drowning we do not know any other way to deal with it except to fight it and try to change our circumstances.

Dr Robert Anthony asks a phil­osophical question: “Why do you want to change your world?” He believes that every time we attempt to change whatever is going on around us, whether it be our busi­ness, our career, the government, members of our family, our mate or whatever, we’re operating under of the illusion that these people and events are doing something TO us. “Actually, what we need to do is to change our experience in relation to them.”

People and events never do anything to us. They merely trigger feelings that are already within us. If we go back to the basic principle of life, we understand that nothing happens in the world that we do not permit deep within our con­sciousness. It has been said many ways that it is done unto you as you believe, and sometimes those beliefs are very deep. Whatever is going on within our heart is in fundamental alignment with our outside experiences, even though we may not be consciously aware of it. Dr. Anthony acquiesces that this principle is difficult to accept because there are undoubt­edly things in your life that you consciously do not want. However, the truth of the matter is, there is some deep inner need that you are satisfying.

If you will be totally honest with yourself and take a good look at what is going on in your life, you will discover what is actually happening. Therefore, it stands to reason that if we attempt and are successful in changing the outer effect but do not change the inner causation, we will only create the same experience again.

If you no longer know what to do, this process of self-evaluation is a very good path to finding your­self. It will help you to understand that the mechanical thinking pro­cess cannot rise above its own lim­ited level. If you are not sure what to do or if you have any anxiety, do not try to seek release from the anxiety. Just stay where you are and let it tell you something extraordi­nary, and it will.

So the truth about you is that you are not what you have and you are not what you do. You are spiri­tually whole, complete and perfect, and your success and happiness in life will be in direct proportion to your ability to accept this truth about yourself.

WHAT ARE YOU TELL­ING YOURSELF?

It is a demonstrated fact of life that we do not behave in accor­dance with the reality of what we can do but in accordance with the reality of what we believe we can do. It stands to reason if we change the way we believe we can change the way we act.

One thought alone does not form our self-image. It takes an accumulation of experiences or thoughts to build our self-image. The key to freedom is to control what we think about and our perception of reality as we see it. Other people can hand us opinions about ourselves. They can tell us how great we are, or they can put us down. That information is not recorded and does not become part of our belief system until we accept it with our own thoughts. If we see ourselves or believe our­selves to be a certain way, we will act in accordance with that belief, whether it is true or not.

Whenever we get a strong belief, whenever we think that what we know is the truth, we then lock onto that belief as a defense against conflicting beliefs. We can­not hold conflicting beliefs in our mind without anxiety or distress. So what we do is gather supportive data and information to prove we are right and not crazy for believ­ing what we believe. This can work against us in seeking out the truth because we operate in accord with the truth as we see it and not as it is.

Sometimes we hold on to opinions, attitudes and beliefs that no longer serve us. This is why we must examine our beliefs on a regular basis to see where we might be lying to ourselves or blocking out information that may be more relevant. Why do not we do this? We lock out the truth because we do not want to be wrong, make a mistake, or feel bad.

SELF-TALK

Self-talk is the constant conver­sation we carry on with ourselves, as we perceive what we think, see and hear. It is the three-dimension­al form of thought, made up of words, pictures and emotion. We build and modify our self-image with our self-talk, using words that trigger pictures that evoke a feeling or an emotion.

Our self-image is an accumu­lation of all thoughts, attitudes and opinions we have perceived and stored about ourselves since childhood. It is the subconscious picture that we have been record­ing for many years. This picture controls how we think and how we perform.

Once we vividly imagine an experience, it is recorded in our subconscious and we are stuck with it until we make a conscious choice to displace it. If you choose to make changes in your self-im­age, you can use self-talk and visualisation to create a new picture that will enact the changes you desire. “All meaningful and lasting change starts first in our mind or our imagination and then works its way outward into reality.”

Every statement you make has an effect on your subconscious, so it is important to be very careful about what you say about yourself. Remember that other people can hand you their opinions about you, but what you think about you is what determines your self-image.

Your Subconscious

The impact of building a positive or negative self-image is powerful because our self-image is stored in the subconscious as real­ity. Our subconscious believes the information it stores is true wheth­er it is true or not. If someone calls you stupid, it makes an original recording on your subconscious. Every time you replay the experi­ence of being called stupid, as far as your subconscious is concerned, it is happening all over again because the subconscious does not recognise the difference between a real or imagined experience.

Each time we replay the same thought, it gets recorded as reality all over again and reinforces the dominant belief – in this case, “I am stupid.” As these thoughts accumulate, they bring about pat­terns of belief. As we allow these thoughts to build up in our minds, we then act out those beliefs; thus we live a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Sure-Enough Principle

Our level of expectation, whether it is of ourselves, another person, a day, a task or a situation, determines the outcome. Once we lock onto a preconceived notion of how we think things are going to work out, we then go out and cre­ate the situation or gather informa­tion to make it a reality – and sure enough, we get what we expect. This is called the Sure-Enough Principle. You can see that your self-talk either reinforces an already existing self-image or belief, or it can be used to modify for better or worse, opinions and attitudes that you have about yourself.

The writer

“

Dr Robert Anthony asks a philosophical ques­tion: ‘Why do you want to change your world?’

“

BY CAPT. SAM ADDAIH (RTD)