Reality

It’s almost impossible to go online without seeing someone talking about manifesting, and with good reason. Believe it or not, you really do create your reality, or at least the part of it that you’re in control of. While we can’t always influence or predict events like car accidents, layoffs, global events, what we can do is create our own reality around them. 

For example, you’ve likely heard the phrase “glass half empty or half full.” An individual’s response to that is them creating their reality. If the glass is half full, that means there’s such an abundance of water that even though the person drank some, there’s still half of it left for them later. However, if the glass is half empty, there’s now a scarcity of water and it must be preserved. 

Our reality is the same way. Jennice Vilhauer Ph.D. offers the idea of going to a party where 10 people complimented your outfit but one other said it was “interesting.” If you already have a poor self image, you’re likely to fixate on the person who said it was “interesting” because that validates and reinforces your current self image. However, if you have a good self image, you may forget or not even care about the semi-negative comments, or even the positive ones, because you know you felt confident about yourself and your outfit. 

The placebo effect is another example of us creating our own reality. When testing new drugs, there will sometimes be one group who receives a placebo pill, or a pill that does nothing. But the patients won’t know which they’re receiving. In many cases, even those who took the drugless placebo pills still experience some kind of measured improvement in their illness. When we are told something and believe it, our brain helps us validate that reality. If we think we are getting better and healing, then it will work with you to help you recover. 

This isn’t to say that you should push down and ignore negative emotions or feel responsible when bad things happen to you. Sometimes, that’s just life. But you are able to control how you respond to life. Feel your emotions, and then find a way to move forward using the outlook you want to reflect in your reality. If you are struggling in a class or to learn a concept, instead of beating yourself up about it, start telling yourself you’re great at it. 

One of my mentors once told me that she’s not sure if she’s good at math or not, but she grew up with her parents telling her that she was, so she believed it. I, a person who was told by my teachers that I wasn’t good at math, have spent my whole life believing that I’ll “never learn.” So, when I had to pass math-based classes in my MBA program, I’d reflexively have anxiety. But over time, I’d approach each test with the attitude that I was good at math and this was going to be a cinch. Logically, my past record with math didn’t reflect this reality, but I didn’t care. I was tired of being “bad at math” and believing the reinforcement of those weaknesses. So, I just made myself believe I was good at math. Shockingly but maybe not all that surprising considering I was hyping myself up, I got an A+ in my statistics class and Bs in the others. 

So, the way that we participate in creating our reality is (1) acknowledging that we can only control ourselves and our reactions to people and events. We have to release wanting to control other aspects; and (2) empowering ourselves to be who we want to be and how we want our lives to feel. 

I’m currently working on the latter. I was raised to believe that if I wasn’t always busy doing something — learning, cleaning, working on a project, etc. — I was being lazy. So I am trying to normalize the concepts of ease and rest without guilt into my life. When I’m relaxing and reading a book for fun or streaming a show, I have to actively affirm myself that I am a person who enjoys a life of ease and that I’ve released my former trait of busyness. Now, in doing that, I admit that I’m much less productive and things aren’t always completed on schedule (which is almost always a self-imposed timeline by me). BUT I’m also learning something I didn’t expect: I’m learning to be kinder to myself. Which in turn has made it easier to find things I like about myself and spread that good energy to those I meet (vs. being a tightly wound stress ball all of the time).

This week, how can you influence your reality 1% more? Can you tell yourself you’re good at something even if you maybe don’t believe it yet? Can you affirm your choices in a way that makes you immune to the comments of others? Can you shift your outlook on a situation so that it can bring you joy or at the very least not bring you pain? Take the time to be aware of your thoughts when you have them and identify patterns that you can tweak to start influencing your reality in a positive way.

With gratitude, 

Natalie

Resources

“Do We Create Our Own Reality?” Psychology Today, Sussex Publishers, www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/intimacy-path-toward-spirituality/201412/do-we-create-our-own-reality. Accessed 26 May 2024.

“How the Human Mind Shapes Reality.” Stanford Report, 11 July 2018, news.stanford.edu/stories/2018/06/four-ways-human-mind-shapes-reality.

Jennice Vilhauer. “How Your Thinking Creates Your Reality.” Psychology Today, Sussex Publishers, 27 Sept. 2020, www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/living-forward/202009/how-your-thinking-creates-your-reality.