“Just like painters, we can shape our thoughts into images. The beauty of this is that if you don’t like what you painted, or it didn’t turn out the way you hoped it would, you have an inner ability to repaint your painting with fresh eyes. That is creating your own reality.”
For most people, the way it works is that their thoughts determine how they feel and the way they shape their world. Thoughts and feelings are often seen as the same thing but they are not. Thoughts are, so to speak, mirrors that show us what is going on in our heads. That then is our reality. Feeling is fed by our thoughts. First the thoughts and then the feeling.
Research shows that you and I have about 60,000 automatic thoughts every day, and usually they are not the most positive ones. These thoughts come from experiences you go through or have gone through in your life. They largely determine how you react to situations by default. The quality of your thoughts is of immense importance. Simply telling yourself that you are happy, and doing so often enough, should make you experience your life as happy. That is easy to say, and in theory it is true, but in practice it is more difficult.
Of course, you can navigate that by constantly being aware of your negative thoughts or the same story spinning in your head. But that’s a lot of work! I know from my own experience that putting it away or replacing negative thoughts doesn’t work. It’s the same as sweeping things under the rug: eventually it will show up again and usually more violently than before. That makes you walk around with a sense of dissatisfaction or not getting ahead in life, which in turn creates more negative thoughts. Spinning around in circles and the downward spiral has begun.
The good news is that this circle can be broken. Traumas, unpleasant experiences and beliefs from the past can be given a new place in your life, so that they are no longer at the forefront and define your life. This creates enormous space for the fun things. With easy exercises, anyone can learn how to create a new reality. Literally like painters do: if you don’t like something, just create something new. And you can redo this endlessly until you like it.
Or as Vincent van Gogh said
“Color in a painting is like enthusiasm in life”
To which I couldn’t agree more, because nothing is just black and white.