You are what you think. It’s another phrase we’ve heard repeated but one we don’t take to heart or put into practice. There are tons of self-help and spiritual books on the market which convey the same message, but I think most of us just don’t take time out of our busy lives to stop, sit, and think about what we think about.
What we think about colours our perception of reality. It’s responsible for our good or bad attitudes, good or bad relationships, and for the roadblocks we meet or highways we speed down. For example, a mate of mine felt like her distant, serious father didn’t like her or want her around, yet she wanted his attention, wanted to draw him close and “rescue” him from being alone to see him happy. She internalized this thought when she was five or six years old. Because of it, she grew up thinking she wasn’t worthy or wanted and was attracted to men who were distant, serious, didn’t treat her very well and whom she wanted to “rescue” from themselves.
You know where this is going. Her marriage to just such a man failed and a couple years later when she was attracted to a co-worker, you guessed it, he treated her poorly. That’s when she had an epiphany: uh-oh, something is rotten in the state of Denmark. She had just escaped an abusive marriage and here she was going after the same type of man who didn’t show his appreciation for her. She was comfortable being ill-treated and still trying to rescue men.
That’s just one example of how wrong thinking affects reality. How about the other mate who was convinced she was overweight even though she had lost weight and was the thinnest she’d been in years. She was cold all the time because her body didn’t have enough fat to keep her warm, and yet all she could do was look at her thighs and stomach pooch and think, “Five more kilos to go,” and compare herself to her friends who were thinner.
The good news is that you can change your thoughts. They are yours, after all! No one else can do it for you. It’s up to you to choose to believe what is true and right. In the cases of my mates, the first gal purged her thoughts of the lies she’d believed since childhood. When the lies surface, she beats them back by speaking the truth out loud to herself and writing them down in a journal. “I am worthy. I am wanted. I deserve to be treated with respect. It’s not my job to rescue men. The ‘distant, serious man’ is not what I really want.” As for my other friend, she came to realize that her body was created to function optimally at a certain weight and that meant her “flabby” thighs and stomach pooch aren’t wrong or bad. When she lost all pregnancy weight both times after she gave birth, her body automatically reverted to the weight she’s been at most of her adult life and not a bit more. Her physical body knew better than her psychological being did about what the correct size she should be.
Stay tuned. I’ll be posting more on the topic of ‘You are what you think’. Meanwhile, think true thoughts!