Beyond our wildest dreams

Did you ever imagine that it was possible to live most of your life in a good feeling? Did you think for a moment that you could let go of old insecurities and hurts? Did you really believe that you had within you a profound capacity to forgive and move forward?

Most of us do not believe we can. Most of us, I would guess, have grown up believing that it was outside circumstances and events that dictated our sense of well-being and that, other than the odd dash of “positive thinking,” we were at the mercy of our thinking. If someone criticized me and my feelings were hurt it seemed obvious to me that they’d caused my upset. It was with surprise, and some disbelief, that I first heard that I had a choice. I could choose to take my insecure thinking seriously or I could choose to see the bigger picture and take my thinking (and myself) more lightly. It was, for me, the most freeing experience of my life. I was no longer at the mercy of other people’s opinions and actions nor was I held hostage by my own insecure thoughts. I now knew, from personal experience, that I could let go of thinking that didn’t serve me and live in calm more of the time. Does that mean that I was guaranteed never to be gripped by low moods or judgment or fear? Not at all. What it does mean, however, is that once we are onto ourselves, that is, once we understand that we’re the creators of our moment-to-moment experience, we can never again be as gripped. We are able to catch ourselves sooner.

How do we do that? We do it by becoming more aware of our feelings. Every thought has a feeling attached to it. You can’t have an angry, or fearful, or joyous thought without experiencing a feeling that matches it. So, as we become more tuned into our feelings we can catch ourselves earlier in the game. We can decide not to make an epic out of a passing thought. We can decide not to go down the rabbit hole.

There are so many advantages to seeing the role of thought in the creation of our experience of reality. Not only are we free to choose, we’re also, through this understanding, able to access the deep source of well-being that lives within each of us. We can more readily move into gratitude, wisdom and forgiveness. We also can begin to see the innocence in those around us as they become gripped by their habitual thinking and insecurity. We can live in a good feeling more of the time. Road rage can become a thing of the past. Grudges can be seen as an almost comical waste of time. Life can become a journey of discovery that is truly beyond our wildest dreams.