Your predominant thoughts are responsible for creating your physical experience. They draw unto you your perception of your physical body, friendships, circumstances, abundance, lack, love, happiness, sorrow, health, wealth, and illness. Your predominant thoughts materialize to form your experience in physical reality. What you think about occasionally, what you think about in bursts of excited enthusiasm, or what you think about for ten minutes a day is insignificant. What matters are the thoughts you entertain habitually. These are your energizers.
Much like a radio tuned in, you are going to get what is on your programmed dial. Whatever is on your frequency, you get. If you tuned into to country music, you will get a variety of country music. If you have tuned into rock, you will get rock. If you have tuned into classical music, you will get classical music. A crossover song or two may appear, occasionally news is reported, but if you are on the country music station you will get more country music.
Understandably, it is difficult to accept responsibility for all that we perceive as bad in our life. Poor health, destitution, and tragedy are choices admittedly we would not make. However, it is the predominant frequency that we have tuned into that extracts from the infinite and presents itself in physical form.
While you may not have been thinking a specific thought, such as losing your job, getting your house foreclosed upon or contracting cancer, it is your predominant mental attitude and habitual thoughts that slip by unattended from the conscious mind to the Universal Mind that orient themselves in physical form. It is the habitual thoughts of worry saturated with doubt as to abilities, continued thoughts of lack, acquaintances, situations, medical obsessions, health preoccupations, present circumstances, financial orientation and all that presents itself is on the same frequency.
We think more often of what we do not want and worry over what may never happen that time spent in constructive thought is virtually nil. Our foundation is weak. We are repeat offenders of cyclical thoughts. It is no wonder the occasional moment of enthusiasm does little to change our experience.
We live in a world of attraction. Until your current thought pattern is broken, your current state of mind (which includes your thoughts, attitudes and beliefs) will continue funneling your current reality to you. You cannot avoid the thought energy that is currently attracted and on its way to you. Once in motion, you need a shield of opposing thoughts equally energized to thwart off the attracted energy your current thought patterns are producing. Little change is experienced in daily life because our thoughts change very little from day to day. Since our thoughts are similar, our experiences remain relatively fixed. You can change what you experience only through employment of opposing steadily consistent thoughts.
When you focus on what you do not want, you get more of it. When you are absorbed with worry, worrisome circumstances present themselves. When the stresses of financial woes overtake your thoughts, even greater financial burdens are returned. The Universal Mind does not decipher I want from I do not want. It reflects the energy of the thoughts of the conscious mind. If the conscious mind is consumed with destructive thought, corresponding energy frequencies are sent out to collect like frequencies. Energy is returned in physical form that corresponds to the original destructive thought.
Like thought energy attracts like thought energy until the pattern is broken. This clumping of thoughts is a powerful attractor of physical form. As physical form is attracted to your thoughts so are thoughts attracted to other thoughts.
You are very familiar with an attack of like thoughts. You experience this bombardment of like thought often in moments of intense emotional outpouring such as times of extreme accomplishment, moments of peppered endorsement by your peers, joyous occasions such as weddings or births that cause you to bathe in pleasantries of the experience. Likewise thoughts of anger, frustration, hurt, depression and stress return an abundance of similar thoughts of anger, frustration, hurt, depression and stress. Emotional intensities loop a plethora of like thoughts.
How many times have you had a situation that seemed of such great enormity that it overwhelmed your thinking? Maybe you had a bothersome quarrel with a good friend. At first, thoughts of the spat ricochet off the corners of your mind. You cannot stop thinking about who said what. You analyze what each of you said. You consider statements you should have ushered. You cannot stop looping the thoughts. However, you do ultimately stop the thought stream. Eventually your thoughts erode and the problem retreats. You do this often with anger. You can become so consumed with anger at someone or something that cyclical thoughts of anger bomb your mind at missile speed. One reason after another is brought to your attention why you are justified in being angry at this someone or something. The thoughts eventually subside and days or even hours later you are no longer angry. But it is the thoughts that started the anger, continued the anger, and stopped the anger. You might be inclined to blame the person or event for causing your anger, but if you trace back the process you will always find a thought as the initiator. The power to feel is always in your realm because you control what you think.
Most people have lain awake at night during some point in their lives worrying about something: a significant bill that is past due, health, a deadline missed, a problem, something important that is causing stress. What keeps us awake? The thoughts playing over and over in our mind keep us roused. We think about the missed mortgage payment letting our thoughts trail off to any negative thought concerning the missed payment or our compromised financial position that we can envision. Often we do not consider how damaging it is to deliberate on negativity. We allow the super-sized negative thoughts to continue until a pit develops in our stomach. Eventually we drift off to sleep either dozing off in the middle of a thought or forcing ourselves to redirect our thinking.
Expressions such as I’m trying to get my mind off it, I just can’t stop thinking about it, I don’t want to think about that anymore, or I need to think about something else for a while are indications of like thought attracting like thought. You are very familiar with these sorts of episodes and could probably thumb off several without a moment’s hesitation now that you are aware of their existence. You notice the ballooning of thoughts when emotional intensities are coupled with thoughts. These moments, such as dwelling on problems in bed at night or watching your daughter get married represent interruptions in the normal thought process.
You do not dwell on thoughts often. The conscious mind enjoys impulsiveness. This “noticing of thoughts” is intended to direct you inward. Inward inspection presents the opportunity to examine the thoughts producing the feeling. The feeling could be good or the feeling could be bad. The intention is to get you to take notice of the thought producing the emotion so you can continue with other similar thoughts or conversely abandon your thoughts if they are not productive. Later we will talk about the role your emotions play in these intense situations. Right now, I want you to understand that you are already familiar with your like thoughts attracting more like thoughts through these intensely emotional states.
What you do not recognize is the routine in your daily thoughts. Ninety five percent of the thoughts you think about are the same thoughts you had yesterday. You only notice the bombarding of thoughts at certain times, such as during emotional outpours already mentioned, which represent shifts in your thinking. The thoughts coupled with emotional intensities do not typically last. Eventually, your thoughts will return to what is normal neutral thinking for you because the strength of “normal neutral” is stronger than the strength of “occasional.”
Your routine daily thinking is so well traversed that thoughts pop in and out virtually unnoticed. The predictable pattern of your thoughts is like driving home from work. You do not need maps, a list of roads to turn down or instructions. You operate on auto-pilot steering the car home. Often you do not recall the drive home although you know you drove. Your thoughts function the same way. You do not often recall what you were thinking about, although you know you have thoughts. You have run those same tired thoughts so many times in your head you are unaware they are there. They are as comfortable as a well-worn shoe and as familiar as the back of your hand.
As your thoughts develop they grow and attract similar thoughts. If they are allowed to continue unchecked they will grow into beliefs. Beliefs are linked like thoughts. Beliefs provide the parameters for functioning in physical reality. For example, as you learned to drive you developed a series of thoughts on safe driving such as obeying the speed limit and looking both ways as you proceed through an intersection. You do not recognize the moments these thoughts occur as you drive, but they do. You also pay little attention to your thoughts as they guide your day. For example, when you grocery shop and a little thought sparks: put that can of beans back and grab the ones on sale, or a friend calls on the phone and you think I wish I had not answered the phone I do not have time to talk. You give as little attention to these thoughts as you do any of your thoughts throughout your day.
Even though your thoughts are free to roam, they stick to the well guided paths of your beliefs. Beliefs are matrixes of like thoughts. Remember, like attracts like until motion is set against it. Your thought patterns will remain fairly consistent until opposing thoughts act upon them. Opposing thoughts as a force by themselves have little strength against your beliefs as you will see when we discuss both the merit of your current thoughts and your belief system.
When you survey the world around you and ask yourself, what have I been thinking, it is not difficult to ascertain. Your thoughts present themselves in the physical form and experiences that you see. If your house is untidy, your thoughts have been on a disorganized house. Are you lonely? You have been thinking lonely thoughts. Are you in financial distress? When is the last time a day went by that you did not allow yourself to think about your distress? What you think about most of the time is what is presented. You cannot escape what you think about.
Differentiating between what you experience and thoughts that gave rise to your reality becomes unapparent as long as you remain disassociated with your thoughts. You provide validation of that reality by returning mirrored thoughts and so the physical form keeps repeating itself. You are a cyclone whipping the wind of perpetually predictable thought.
For example, we create financial burdens through our thoughts of lack, worry, thoughts of inadequacy, feelings of envy and such. Financial distress and all that is on the frequency of lack, worry and destruction return bounce back. We then form beliefs about the distress of our condition further summoning materialization of distresses. As we do this, we validate our perception of reality as truth. We see our distresses as proof of our condition rather than initiated by our thoughts. Mistakenly we believe that the situation is causing the thoughts. Situations do not cause thoughts. Thoughts cause situations. We have it backwards. Until we figure that out, we will repeat the experience. If we stop thinking about the situation, it would soon disappear.
Suppose your spouse has been working late and comes home for dinner much later than expected without phoning. How do you respond? With anger? With understanding? With annoyance? With compassion? Immediately, several people will send up flags of anger, frustration, and annoyance. A few will respond with understanding and compassion while still others will be neutral. Some people might not care if their spouse is late for dinner. The situation “being late for dinner without a phone call” is powerless over you since you control your thoughts! Situations cannot control your thoughts, period! Saying they do is admitting you have no control over what you think. Quite obviously you can control, direct, and initiate your thoughts since you do it all the time.
Stop for a moment and think about the last movie you saw. If you have not been to the movies in some time think of a book you have recently read or a television show you recently watched. Did you come up with a movie, book or television show? Good. What was the name of the movie, book or television show? Say it out loud. Give yourself a pat on the back. You just discovered you are able to direct your thoughts.
You might be inclined to say, “Well, I would not have the angry thoughts if he or she had phoned.” But you are certainly in charge and aware of your angry thoughts. After all you know you are thinking angry thoughts don’t you? The option is always up to you to think any thoughts. You can continue lapping up the angry thoughts or you can elbow them out of the way in favor of a more pleasant experience. Changing your thoughts causes the situation to change from confrontational to say compassion and understanding. Instead of fighting with your spouse an intimate evening of understanding follows. Your experience has been directed by your thoughts. You have power over situations. They do not have power over you. You can allow, yes allow, your thoughts of anger or you can direct yourself to think thoughts of forgiveness. Since you can do either, you control what follows, always!
The initial anger or frustration you feel is created by your beliefs, not the situation. Your thoughts and beliefs are only perceptions you hold about reality and are in no way absolute truth. Revisiting the scenario of the tardy spouse, the realm of possible realities to experience is preceded by your thoughts. What are permissible reasons for tardiness without a call? What do you believe is true in regards to the tardiness? Is your spouse thoughtless or overworked? Your thoughts will cycle in accordance with your beliefs and the reality that follows will be a direct result of your thoughts funneled through your beliefs. So as you say, “my spouse caused me to have thoughts of anger,”…understand it is not the situation or the spouse causing thoughts. Your reaction (thoughts) operates within the parameters of what you believe to be true or false about the situation. You will be angry with your spouse if you think he or she is irresponsible. You will act forgivingly if you believe your spouse is overtaxed at work. What you believe matters.
Again, you can return to the example and point out that thoughts are a reaction to the situation. But consider the evening that follows the return home of the spouse. Whether the evening that follows is hostile or understanding is produced by your thoughts prior to the evening unfolding. You think the thought and an experience follows (pleasant thoughts equal pleasant evening). The response to the tardiness is a result of all prior beliefs and thoughts about your spouse up to that point. What you are reacting to then are those already developed beliefs and thoughts, not the act of being tardy. Rewind; beliefs and thoughts form. Fast forward; experience produced.
This very simple example illustrates how thoughts produce experiences. A pleasant evening is produced by pleasant thoughts and a night of fighting will certainly follow hostile thoughts. Agreeably it is easy to see the experience (how the night unfolds) following the thought from the point in time when the tardy spouse returns home. What you are not aware of are the thoughts prior to the event that played a role in experiencing a tardy spouse. Previous thoughts and beliefs were lent forming the current mood or climate between you and your spouse. If we could remember all of our thoughts we could trace them back to the originator of our beliefs. It is only an obliviousness of these already forgotten thoughts that cause you to interpret the tardy spouse as the event that triggers a reaction. Thought always come first. When we look at a specific coordinate point in time all of the thoughts, events and beliefs that fire the current thoughts were already formed making it even harder to dissect the reality that continues to be produced by thoughts. Brief inspection points make it is very difficult to see the road you have been traveling. You actually believe you are responding to the moment, but you are responding to the momentum you have built up. There is a difference. Your current thoughts represent the moment, your acquired beliefs are the momentum.
The connection is so frequently missed between thoughts and experiences for many reasons. First, there is a lag between what you think and the physical manifestation. To be creative as is your heritage, the conscious mind must be able to think freely. If thoughts popped readily into reality the moment they entered your mind, all sorts of mayhem would ensue. Think of the times you have ridden a roller coaster and thought with emotional intensity for the duration of the ride…this cart better not fly off the track or I am so mad at my husband (or wife) I never want to see him (her) again. Everybody has thoughts that are carefree, reckless, inappropriate, suggestive, inconsiderate, and secretive. We would learn to guard our thoughts very, very carefully casting out our creative nature if thoughts materialized immediately, thus, the lag. Our thoughts are brewed not instant.
The second reason we do not readily link our thoughts to reality is because our thoughts are unorganized, spontaneous, and inconsistent. In an instant we move from balancing the checkbook in our head to rehearsing a conversation we intend to have at an upcoming appointment. Moments later, we concentrate on the cause of the washing machine’s squeak moving right along to the pain in our lower back. In between, we allow interruptions and distractions to run amok: phone calls, TV advertisements, and our crying baby.
We waste much thought trying to decide what to do…which movie should I see, what should I make for dinner, what is on television tonight, should I buy the red skirt or the blue blouse, I’m not sure if I like the watch I just bought . These sorts of thoughts have very little bearing on our experiences yet plague our mind. These are the free thoughts that flow unrestricted through the conscious mind. Since no real beliefs are tied to them, the reality you experience for the most part is unaltered. These infantile thoughts do not have real drawing power because of the lack of energy. You want the ability to have free thought. Yet when your conscious mind is allowed free roam without time spent in constructive thought, nothing really changes in your day to day life.
Part of the whimsical thought process involves second-guessing ourselves and overanalyzing situations. This wastes our time by forcing us to relive the same event over but more importantly it stalemates our thoughts. The reality produced from ebb and flow thoughts feels just as directionally torn as the thoughts that gave birth to it. Since our thought process is erratic, we do not notice what is produced. Too much information has passed through our mind for us to be able to connect the dots.
Third, but certainly not least of all, we become so absorbed in reality that our thoughts are truly unapparent. We tuck them in the back corners of our mind under the heading “routine thoughts” allowing them to churn out our reality unchecked. We can make generalizations about our thoughts such as I thought about work today, or I thought about how I was going to get through my illness, or I thought about the argument with my friend. However beyond that, recall of our thoughts is sketchy. It is like having a teacher call upon you when you have not been paying attention in class. You struggle for recollection. Can you come up with the hours’ worth of thoughts you had getting ready for work this morning? What about the pop-up thoughts occurring during your thirty-minute drive to work? Can you accurately recite each of those thoughts? What about the forty-five minutes spent in the dentist chair…can you list each thought? Most people can name several thoughts, but certainly nowhere close to all.
Does it surprise you to learn the average person has 60,000 thoughts per day and potentially more considering we are in constant thought whether we are tuned in or not? Research shows that 95% of our thoughts are exactly the same as the thoughts that passed through our minds yesterday. Yet most of us cannot even list 1% of those repeated thoughts; 600 thoughts. Could you recite right now 600 of your thoughts occurring since you woke up this morning? Give it a try. See if you can get past even fifty.
Your thoughts produce your reality; all of it. Reality does not produce thoughts. If you can produce thoughts, block thoughts, change thoughts, and reroute thoughts; you control your thoughts. Since your experience follows the path of your thoughts and your experiences can also be changed, produced and redirected merely from your thoughts then your reality is formed by your thoughts. Thoughts always come first.
Circumstances are not thrust upon us. We are not victims of bad luck, poor economies or faltering bodies. It is only our faulty perceptions that convince us as to the truth of our experiences. You would see the results of your thoughts more clearly if you knew what your past thoughts have been. But since you pay no attention to your thoughts (cause), the experiences (effect) seem to appear out of nowhere. You respond to the experience with more thoughts which churn out more effects. You continue along this path unaware that you are creating it as you go. Your future unfolds to your thoughts which are always at your control.
The consistency that you see and validate is a product of consistent thoughts; those redundant 60,000 thoughts per day. Everything in your physical environment now is the summation of preceding thoughts. Would you like to know where you are heading? An examination of your current thoughts reveals where you are heading. Your thoughts will be thrown down like stepping stones paving your way.
The power contained within your thoughts should not be taken lightly. The power is undeniably awesome; more awesome than you can likely imagine at the moment. It is there waiting to be sourced, employed and put to productive use. It is waiting for you!
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