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 in gold we feel like sighing. If we see the utility of this plentiful flower we appreciate what it can do for us. If we see it as a weed getting in our way, we curse it. The same dandelion can be a beautiful or a miserable experience. All because of the way we think. The same dandelion!
What determines how we think about it? Why do some people end up in one place about dandelions and others in a completely different place?
Because we have deeper, hidden thoughts or beliefs that determine our thinking (and therefore our experience) of dandelions. People with manicured lawns may have something in the back of their heads saying a manicured lawn is of utmost importance. Whatever the reason, that person may not even realize or notice he is carrying around that belief. But when he sees a dandelion he is looking through those beliefs—through that lens—at the dandelion, and that is what determines his experience of the dandelion. The lawn guy will think the dandelion is in his way because it interferes with the manicured lens he is looking through. But the lens he is looking through, too, is self-created. He made it up! He doesn’t realize he is getting a bad experience only because of what he himself has made up.
This is what we do with our kids. This is what we do with our neighbors. This is what we do with our partners. This is what we do with our business associates. We have a set of thoughts about what’s important about life—from wherever we picked it up—then we look out at the world through that lens and see a distorted vision of the dandelion, person or situation. The lens, however, is not reality; it’s only an illusion we have inadvertently created, again with the power of Thought.
Very often we allow someone to drive us crazy because inadvertently we have created the illusion of what people should be like for us. In other words, we are creating our own misery by what we have made up—only we don’t realize it.
To realize this, to realize what we do to ourselves can be quite humbling. To realize this usually makes us want to take our thinking a little less seriously.
At least it does for me.
We’re sitting in a car stopped in traffic next to a large truck. All we can see out our window is a wall of truck. Suddenly we’re rolling backwards! We freak out and go for the brake. Only we’re not rolling backwards; we’re stopped. The truck is really moving forward, but we have the illusion we’re moving. That’s the thought. We freak and go for the brake because Consciousness gives us a real, sensory experience of our thoughts. We would swear we’re moving, until we find out we’re not. It’s our own thinking creating “our reality.”
I walked out of my motel room near Detroit, suitcase in one hand, banjo in the other, and my car was not in the parking lot. “What the...?” Maybe it wasn’t where I thought I parked it. I walked around the lot. It wasn’t there. Close to where I parked I saw a car a little bluer than mine and a little longer than mine, but it wasn’t mine. So I walked around the parking lot again. I still couldn’t find it. I walked around a third time and still didn’t see it. I couldn’t believe it. For some reason I didn’t panic. I thought it was interesting. Since I was on a book tour and had to get to a book signing a little later in the day I wondered what I would do. Because I hadn’t officially checked out yet I dropped my luggage at the front desk and decided to go back to my room and gather myself. As I walked up the stairs to the second floor I put my hand in my pocket for my car keys. They weren’t there!
“Oh my God,” I gasped, “I wonder if I left them in my car last night, and somebody stole my car!”
Instantly I remembered some very loud people in the room next to me late last night as I tried to sleep, and they had left early in the morning, saying, “Hurry up! Shhh! Quick!!”
“Oh no!” I thought, “Maybe they stole my car!”
I walked into the room and immediately noticed my car keys laying on the bed. So much for that theory! Puzzled, I looked out the window overlooking the parking lot and saw a car with a sticker on the back window just like the one my daughter had stuck on mine. “Whoa, that’s interesting,” I thought. Even more interesting, the car also had a green license plate and, what a coincidence, it was a Vermont license plate and, oh my God, it had the same number as mine, and oh gee, it’s my car! I ran downstairs and, sure enough, my car was right where I had left it. It must have been the car that had looked a little bluer and longer than mine.
There are a few possible explanations: 1) I may have been in a time warp, as on Star Trek. 2) Someone could have picked my pocket, took my keys, run to my car, drove to the store and zipped back so quickly he slipped the keys on my bed without my noticing. 3) I could be at the first stage of Alzheimer’s. More logically, for some reason my car was not in my consciousness, and as a result it did not exist for me at that moment. My car (the fact that it was there) was