Making a statement like that is all good and well, but how do we extricate ourselves from those thoughts?
We all get trapped in our thought patterns and thought processes. These patterns are formed while we grow up and are influenced and imprinted by school, society, primary caretakers, parents, etc. As we grow up, we may learn many ideas about what is right and what is wrong. This kind of thing becomes very evident when we begin to travel. It is only when we travel that we begin to understand that the good manners we were raised with, might be considered quite rude in other areas of the world. As we encounter this, we begin to understand that not everything that we are taught is still relevant or valuable in our lives.
Say for example our parents constantly made comments about how selfish rich people are.
These comments become imprinted in our consciousness and we project that imprinting on current situations when we are adults.
Therefore, when we meet a person who we deemed to be wealthy, we might anticipate that they are selfish even before they speak a word to us. This may cause us not to befriend them because of the preconceived notion that rich people are selfish. We seldom give ourselves time to really evaluate whether all of our ideas are in fact our own or how we project these ideas from past imprinting unto current situations.
Not only do we project these preconceived ideas unto current situations, they may even impede our own personal development because the belief we have about a thing that may or may not even be authentically our own. So, let’s take a look how this belief that wealthy people are selfish impacts our own success in life. If we truly believe that wealthy people are selfish how are we sabotaging our own business success with that belief system? We may even avoid becoming successful because our fundamental belief system says that if we do become successful and therefore wealthy, we will inevitably become selfish, which is an unacceptable state of being to us.
And so it will be with wealth, money, relationships, work, cars and everything else in our lives. It is therefore imperative that we examine our belief systems and our imprinting as soon as we possibly can when we become adults and become aware of how our thought processes influence our life. It might be a good idea to keep a log or a journal about how these things may impact what we experience to be true.
Everything we know to be true is a perception of our reality that we were imprinted with by everybody who had an influence on our lives when we were children. The cars we perceive to be better, the style of houses we seem to believe is more elegant, the clothes we believe to be significant, and other status symbols that we were introduced to us by our primary caretakers, parents and teachers will have an influence on what we believe to be true in the future.
This is, of course, how our thoughts can create obstacles in our lives that are not even necessarily a true reflection of the reality of any current situation.
Say for example our mother had a really bad marriage with our father. She may project unto us, while we are growing up, that men are intrinsically not to be trusted, aggressive, or whatever she may have experienced. We will therefore have preconceived notions and project our imprinting on to men that we meet, without even being consciously aware that we are projecting that imprinting and belief system when we meet somebody new.
It will therefore not matter whether the man we meet is actually kind gentle and generous. If our preconceived ideas are already the opposite, we will be more inclined to believe our imprinting more rather than being open to accepting the current situation as it is.
Many of us are raised with a preconceived idea that we need to feel ashamed if we have limited financial resources. Our social interaction may be curbed because we believe that unless we pay for things and spend money with our friends, our friendships may not be valued purely on the basis of our company and personality. We may feel embarrassed because we are not able to pay for fancy dinners, or wear the expensive clothes of our peers.
As a result, this may cause us to withdraw from social interactions altogether. This then becomes a vicious circle of desiring to be socially active and feeling ashamed of, or embarrassed because we can’t afford to entertain at the level that our peers might be able to.
And this is how we create the 90% of the problems in our thoughts and our minds that are not necessarily a true reflection of our reality. If we interact with a good life coach, this is the kind of work that will have huge benefits when we make future decisions. To put the connection in place about how your thoughts impact your reality and how those thoughts may influence the outcome of your current situation.
In order for us to become aware of how our thoughts and preconceived ideas influence our reality, we may have to keep track of the situations that make us feel embarrassed, sad, lonely, or irritated, annoyed and stressed. If we keep track of how we are influenced by the situations that we encounter on a daily basis, we will begin to see the patterns of how our negative, habitual, thoughts influence us on a daily basis, and this may inspire us toward taking corrective action.
It is always a valuable exercise to go into a space of self-reflection if we are aware that self-reflection is specifically useful to teach us how to stay in the positive aspect of who we truly are – our authentic selves.