Would you believe me if I told you that the way you think you are and the way you think others think you are is something that you have made up with the thoughts you think about yourself?
That’s right. The way you see yourself is all made up by you. Because of the way you think about yourself you are either good enough or not. You are beautiful or ugly. You are intelligent or stupid. You are whatever you make yourself up to be. It is your story of you and it’s all made up in your head.
Would you believe me if I told you that what you think about the way you are might or might not be accurate?
And most certainly, what you think others think about you, if they think about you at all, is more likely to be inaccurate rather than accurate.
None of us can truly see ourselves as others see us, so we are just making up a story about the way we think others see us.
So if you don’t like who you are, you can think up a new story about who you are. That means you’ll have to shift the way you think about yourself. Instead of thinking all of those negative thoughts about what’s wrong with you, you’ll have to start thinking positive thoughts about you.
And if you do like yourself just the way you are, you can keep on making up the same kind of story about you as you continue to move forward in life. YAY for YOU!!!
It has been said that each of us have at least one good book to be written inside of us. For certain each one of us has our own life story and we are writing it moment by moment as we go through life. Each of us is the author of our own book. Our book is the story of who we are and it is made up by each one of us moment by moment with the thoughts we think.
So what kind of story are you writing? Is it a work of fiction, an invented story, an imaginary tale, a novel, or a true story? And how would you know?
No matter what has happened to you, your reality about what happened is the result of how you think about what happened.
No matter whether you look good and are liked by others, your reality about how you look and how much you are liked by others is the result of how you think about it. What you think is responsible for what is real for you. Are you beginning to see that it’s all in your head?
You are actually making up a story about yourself and your life with the thoughts you think about you and your life.
It’s really hard for some people to accept that they are making up a story that may or may not be true about who they are and the kind of things that happen to them in their lives. And of course there are others who think the whole story idea is absolutely crazy!
So let’s take a look at the idea that it’s all in your head. By that I mean that your individual and unique thoughts create your reality about everyone and everything, including yourself…whether accurate or not.
- It is your own thinking that creates your own ideas (aka your story) about what others are thinking about you.
- It is your own thinking that decides (aka your story) whether you look good or not.
- It is your own thinking that determines (aka your story) that you’ll look stupid if you make a mistake.
- It is your own thinking that concludes (aka your story) that you must always be right to get approval from others.
- It is your own thinking that creates the reasons why (aka your story) you need to be in control of the way things turn out in order to control the way others see you.
- It is your own thinking that makes up the list (aka your story) of what you have to do, have to have, or have to be in order to be liked and accepted by others.
- It is your own thinking that says (aka your story) that you can’t be happy unless you have someone or something to make you happy.
Furthermore, it is your own thinking that makes up your story about how hard it is to get through each day of life.
Much of society goes through life on fast-forward just to get it over with. These are the people who struggle minute by minute, hour by hour, and day by day because of their belief (aka their story) about
- how awful their job is
- how they never have enough money
- how nothing is any fun anymore
- how they don’t get along with others
- how no one cares about them
- how they can never get ahead
- how they always wait for the other shoe to drop when something good does happen
- etcetera, etcetera, etcetera
These people wish life away because of the story they’ve made up about how hard life is. They dread Mondays and relish Tuesdays because Tuesdays mean that Monday is over. They can’t wait until Hump-Day-Wednesday because they are half way through the week. They celebrate Thursday because it’s connected to Friday and then they “Thank God it’s Friday.” The weekend passes quickly. Some people even drink and party themselves through the weekend just to get over the past week and then before they know it, it’s back to dreading Monday all over again. Many even begin to feel depressed and/or anxious on Sunday evening in anticipation of Monday morning.
Research indicates that more people die of heart attacks between 8 a.m. and 9 a.m. on Monday mornings than any other time of the week. WOW! Can you begin to get an idea of how powerful the story you make up is for you? Are you starting to realize how much your story about you and your life actually determines your experience of both?
And to complicate matters, your life story is based upon the thoughts you have about people, things, events, and situations which are the result of your perceptions, experiences, and interpretations.
Since we don’t all think the same way, it then follows that each of us could have a different story about the way things are. It means that others could be making up a different story about you that is different from the one you are making up and that if you can make up your own story about what others think of you, everyone else is doing the same thing. They are making up a story about what they think you are thinking about them.
Here’s how that works. If you think others think you are great, this becomes your story about yourself and you could actually believe you are great. And if you think others think you aren’t great, then this becomes your story about yourself and you could truly believe you aren’t great. So imagine your surprise if you think your boss loves you because she thinks you are such a wonderful employee, when she fires you one day because of poor work performance. You are shocked because you had made up a different story about how she saw your work performance. You had been thinking that she thought you were doing a great job.
Since we all have our own unique way of thinking it makes sense that each of us could have a different story about the same thing. If we all thought alike everyone on the planet would be thinking the same way about everything. There would be no differences of opinion about anyone or anything. There would be no disagreements or arguments. There would be no need for mediators. There would be no religious or cultural differences. There would be no political differences. We would all be in agreement because we would all be thinking the same way and experiencing the same reality of life.
So allow me to give you an example of how each of us makes up our own story about the way things are. An excellent example is the proverbial automobile accident where several people have a different story about how the accident occurred and who was to blame. Each witness’s story about how the accident occurred and who was at fault is dependent upon what they saw and how they interpreted what they saw…how they think about it. There can be several versions of how it happened and who is at fault due to several different perceptions and interpretations. Each one thinks their version is accurate. So who is right and who is wrong? Whose thinking is creating a story that is entirely accurate and whose isn’t?
Since your thoughts about what you see and hear make your experience of the world different from someone else’s, then it must follow that it is your own thoughts that create a unique story of the world for you. Your thoughts about what you see and hear make your experience of the world different from ‘theirs’. There is no way of knowing if ‘your’ perception and interpretation is accurate or not. It is just your experience because of the way you think about it.
Even when you think your interpretation is the absolute truth—it may not be. That is what makes this concept so intriguing. Thus, the story of you may or may not be accurate.
Assuming that it’s all in your head, you are authoring a story about you and your life that you have made up with your thinking. Do you like the story you have made up about yourself? If not, you can make up a new story about who you are. Do you wish you were a better version of you? If so, you can make up a better story about you.
The fact is, you’ve been making up some kind of story about you and your life without your knowledge anyway. You probably didn’t even know that you were making up a story about what you don’t like about you up until now. So with this new information, why not use it to make up a great story about you that you do like? Your new story about you can be anything you want it to be. You can think you are exciting and fun instead of miserable and boring. You can think you are smart instead of stupid. You can think you are worthy instead of worthless. It’s your story!
Don’t be one of those people who continually thinks, “There’s something wrong with me and bad things always happen to me.” Don’t be one of those people who says, “That’s my story and I’m sticking to it.” Don’t victimize yourself with your own thinking.
Mark Twain, the great story writer once said, “I’ve been through a lot of terrible things in my life and some of them actually happened.”
It doesn’t matter if something terrible happened or not. If you think it did, then you experience it as though it actually did happen.
And, what if something terrible really did happen? You give meaning to what happened by the way you think about it. Not to negate that people do terrible things to others, but to open your eyes to the idea that you have a choice about what you do with that. You can victimize yourself over and over forever and ever by continuing to think how horrible it was. Or you can shift the way you think about it, even find something good that came out of it, and move forward in life feeling good about you and your experience.
The way life is for each of us is the direct result of our own thinking. What is the difference between the person who lives in extreme poverty and is happy and the person who lives in extreme poverty and hates every minute of it? What is the difference between the person who is wealthy and happy and the person who is wealthy and miserable? What is the difference between the individual who has little to no fear about living in a war-torn region of the world and the person who is scared to death by the idea of living there? What is the difference between someone who is disabled and refuses to let that stop them and the person who is disabled and gives up? THOUGHT! Everyone creates their own life story with thought.
Who would you be if you changed your thinking to change your story? How would you see yourself if your thoughts about you changed?
It’s time to make up a new story one thought at a time. You can do it if you make a choice to do it because it’s all in your head!