Who are You Really Talking to All Day Long and Why? The Art of Mindfulness, Part III
This is Part III of a four Part blog. See my blog post of 04/30/07 for Part I.
So, it is rather amazing to realize how much of what we think about in the present is just a rehash of what we have been thinking about in the past. And it usually is at best boring, if not down-right negative. It’s no wonder that nothing ever changes in our lives! It’s no wonder that life is rather mundane and tedious!
An interesting fact about all this is that modern science has come to understand that every thought we have is also connected to an emotion. And these thoughts/emotions that we are having trigger “pictures in our minds.” And these “pictures in our minds” are experienced by us as very “real” both psychologically and physiologically.
Whatever we are thinking about creates these “pictures in our minds.” Whether what we are thinking about is actually something that we are physically experiencing in the moment or whether it is a fanciful projection into the future or the rehashing of the past--all of this is experienced by us as “real.”
Our subconscious does not distinguish between what is actually happening to us and what we are imagining is happening to us.
So, our reality is purely, totally shaped by what we choose to focus our minds/emotions on—period!
That’s why it is so important to pay close attention to your thoughts because once launched, they gather momentum and shape the experiences you are having.
So, minimizing most of the internal dialogue, especially the negative stuff, releases you from the clutches of a downward spiral of thinking. If you allow yourself to get into these downward spirals, you create both a negative emotional experience and a negative physical experience for yourself.
Science has discovered that we release the same hormones and have the same muscular contractions in our body when we are actually experiencing an event and also when we are “just” imagining it!
So, why not focus on all the good around us so that that we can then experience that same good within us?
This is Part III of a four part blog. Part IV will be posted on 05/09/07.