Is What You Think About Yourself Actually Real?

“Your thoughts are like the artist’s brush. They create a personal picture of the reality you live in.” Sydney Banks

Have you ever stopped to think whether the beliefs you have about yourself are actually real? I’ve spent the last 12 months or so realising that so much of what I thought was real about me… just isn’t.

Let me use some examples to explain hopefully just enough to make you curious to consider the made up restrictions you have on yourself are just that. Made up.

The first story is a man I saw on TV who was exploring and doing an awesome television series on our beloved Greece. He was standing on top of a mountain, and was clearly visibly nervous about doing so. He then let the viewers know that he had a fear of heights, and that this was genetic because his mother and grandmother also had a fear of heights.

Hmm. I found that really interesting. He had taken a fear as truth because his mum and grandma believed the same thing.

Hold that thought, here is another example. I was recently at a conference on the gold coast, and a lady get up on stage. She started her talk by saying that she was an introvert, and that because she was an introvert, getting up and speaking on stage was very hard for her. She said someone had observed her behaviour many years ago, and told her she exhibited distinct characteristics that put her into the ‘introvert’ personality type.

Again I found that fascinating. She had taken what someone else had said to be ‘true’ about her personality as real and solid, and as such, had built her whole life (well I’m assuming a little bit here as I didn’t know her) around this being true. Because I’m an introvert this will be hard or I can’t do it, or this is not how I behave or whatever thoughts she then was led to believe where fixed and true about her.

Now to my last example, which is a very personal one about me. Then I will try to tie all this in at the end. When I was a young teenage girl, I absolutely loved animals. I loved them so much that I declared to someone very close that I wanted to be vet when I was older. This person told me that I wasn’t smart enough to be a vet. At the time I was disappointed, and I don’t really remember what I thought.

But I know, that deep down.. I took that as truth. And only very recently have I realised that I have lived my life believing that I wasn’t smart enough to be not only a vet, but many things. From this one innocent comment (which I do not blame the person for saying, because they were mostly likely trying to protect me from failure which is an innocent misunderstanding of what love is) I made many choices based on this ‘fixed’ belief that I wasn’t smart enough, and created a whole ‘thought’ storm around what I thought I was and wasn’t capable of.

In reality, I never really knew if I was or not, because I had made up my mind about my truth. Why bother trying if I knew the outcome? I was only destined for failure, so better not even to attempt it.

But here’s the thing that I’ve realised in the last little while, due to my understanding of how the mind works that’s come to me via the understanding of the 3 principles of Mind, Consciousness & Thought.

Nothing is ever fixed. We are only ever who we ‘think’ we are. And that can change anytime we want it to.

The man is only afraid of heights because he has created habitual thought patterns and beliefs in his thinking that feel real and true. It’s not genetic, it’s simply habitual thought.

The lady isn’t an introvert, she just thinks she is. Personality profiling comes from thought, and all thought is impersonal, transient and changeable. But because she took what someone said to her as truth, she created a lifetime of habitual thought patterns that determined who she thought she was. But again, thought can change in an instant when you understand that it doesn’t have to be taken seriously, and is impersonal to you.

You have thinking that you’re afraid of heights. You have thinking that you’re an introvert. I had thinking I wasn’t smart enough.

But we are not our thinking. It comes through us, but it is not us. And the more we see it like that, the more we can let go of long held beliefs around who are what we ‘think’ we are.

“Thought is not reality; yet it is through Thought that our realities are created.” Sydney Banks

And it is with understanding that I live in every day of my life now. Nothing fixed.. nothing true. Just living life in the moment, and focusing on what shows up in front of me every day. I will never know if I would have been smart enough to be a vet because I never tried.

But that my friends is the point here. Let go of limiting self beliefs about who you are, and realise your true potential. It has infinite power, and it is within us all.