our own thinking—not on purpose, but that’s the result.
Our thinking is everything. Life would be nothing for us if it weren’t for our thinking. Without our thinking any experience that happens to us would be neutral. Thought provides the content, whether it is good or bad to us, happy or sad or mad to us. With this incredible power of Thought we get to create anything. We get to create the life we experience.
Whether we know it or not we are creating our lives constantly, continually. Whatever we happen to see of life changes with our next thought. Some thoughts seem to be more entrenched than others, but even these can change because they are only thought.
Suppose we realize that any experience we’re having can and will change with new thought. Wouldn’t that mean we don’t have to take whatever experience we are having now so seriously? After all, whatever we’re experiencing will eventually change. Sometimes her fear of the mountain looked real to Lisa; sometimes it didn’t. We may be angry at the driver who cut us off now, but a month from now we probably won’t be still carrying that around. So why take it so seriously now? We may be stressed because of too much to do at work, but sometimes we’re not stressed with the same amount of work. Sometimes Johnny bothers us less than at other times. What is going on? The only difference is our thinking has changed. We don’t need to take our momentary, passing feelings so seriously. Our feelings are fluid as our thinking; they are the river flowing by. Why get caught in it?* In other words, our relationship with our thinking can change—whether we take it seriously or not, whether or not we believe in it and trust it and follow it.
Thought continually flows within us. God knows where some of the thoughts come from that pop into our heads. We have no control over most of the thoughts that pop in. We can’t always decide what we think—that’s not our point of choice. Sometimes completely bizarre thoughts come up. If we get a thought of a pink elephant standing on the telephone wires, we may get a picture of it but we won’t take it seriously (unless perhaps we’re drunk); we will naturally dismiss it. But if we get a thought, “that person doesn’t like me” or “that person is ignoring me,” those kinds of thoughts we tend to take seriously, even when we have no idea what that person is really thinking.
Who decides what we take seriously?
Tammy feared needles. Because a medical condition required her to get shots from a doctor, this was not good. She avoided her shots because of her fear of needles; therefore, her health worsened. As we were talking by telephone about her fear I said something like, “It may hurt a little when you’re stuck by a needle, as it would if you were walking down a hallway and brushed against a pin sticking out of a couch, but whether someone sees it with fear or not, they decide.”
I don’t know what made this pop into my head at that moment, but I flashed upon a time back in 1965 when I took my then-future, nowex-wife, Judy, to her first visit to New York City. As we stood in her first subway station and the train screeched in Judy stiffened like a board. She clamped her hands over her ears, clenched her jaw, closed her eyes and stood cringing and rigid, while everyone else in the station went about their business as if nothing unusual happened. I asked her what the matter was and she said, “It’s too loud for my ears. I have very sensitive ears. I can’t stand it!” Every time a new train pulled in she did the same thing. Yet I remembered, over time, as we kept visiting the city she didn’t do that anymore. I told Tammy to hang on the phone a moment—she was thinking, “What in the world is he talking about?”—and I ran down the hallway to Judy’s office and poked my head in the door.
“Remember when you used to have this horrible reaction to the noise of subway trains coming into the station and now you don’t?” I asked. “What changed?”
Judy reflected a moment and said, “I decided not to think about it anymore.”
“Ha!” I ran back to the telephone and told Tammy.
“That is very cool!” said Tammy.
We ended the conversation shortly thereafter.
When I spoke with Tammy again a month later I learned she had completely overcome her fear of needles. She got her shots and reported it was no big deal.
What happened?
For whatever reason Tammy realized her fear of needles was just a thought that looked “real” in the moment but actually was just something she made up in her head. Tammy’s thinking about needles changed, just as Judy’s thinking about subway noise had changed. As a result their experience of these events changed.
Our thinking is our experience of life. Our thinking is our life.
Now standing on the top of the mountain very proud of herself Lisa could not believe what she had accomplished. She couldn’t imagine why she had ever thought it impossible, why she had denied herself this experience all those years. Lisa realized the only thing keeping her from climbing mountains was her own thinking. Now she had different thinking; now she had a different life experience.
Could it be that simple?
Yes!
That’s the amazing thing about it. It’s so simple we haven’t been able to see it because it’s too close to us.
Earlier I said Lisa is off all depression medication and her “seasonal affective disorder,” which used to debilitate her, now affects her very little. How is this possible? None of the many psychiatrists she’d seen over the years could help her get off medication. But when Lisa’s thinking changed—when she truly saw the creation of her own experience through her very own power of Thought—when she truly saw her experience of life coming from within her own self, she changed, and her body chemistry changed with it.
I’m not saying this always happens. I’m not saying people can think their way to a changed body chemistry. I am saying when people have an insight of enough magnitude about the true source of their experience, miracles can happen. If I hadn’t seen it with my own eyes again and again I might not even believe it—alcoholics and drug addicts who stop using alcohol and drugs and see themselves as “recovered” as opposed to “recovering”; people with a lifestyle of criminal behavior who stop committing crimes; people so stressed out and driving themselves crazy who now live with peace of mind; relationships that were falling apart where now the couple is happier than ever. If I hadn’t seen these with my own eyes…
One way to understand Thought is through dandelions. I realized this while mowing my dandelion-riddled lawn. The thought crossed my mind how curious it is that dandelions are seen so differently by different people. In Vermont dandelions are so plentiful they’ll take over a field so the entire field turns bright yellow-gold. Contrasted against the emerald green it is quite beautiful—at least I think so. I love the way dandelions look, except when I try to mow my lawn and the blade isn’t sharp enough and leaves dandelion parts behind.
To someone who cares about a manicured lawn the dandelion is a nightmare. To a dandelion winemaker the dandelion is a resource. To the herbologist the dandelion is a blessing. To some it is a flower; to others a weed. Other people don’t care about dandelions one way or the other. What makes the difference in people’s experience of dandelions? Thought and thought alone.
I’m not saying dandelions don’t exist unless we think about them. Of course they exist! Of course they are real. I am saying that dandelions do not exist for us in a particular moment unless we think about them. I am saying that how we think about dandelions determines our experience of them. Then we get to live with whatever we experience.
If we see the beauty of this flower covering a field
