I remember when I was first pregnant and all of a sudden I saw pregnant women everywhere. I remember remarking on this as if there had been a sudden increase in birth rate. What actually happened was that I was now more aware of pregnancy and just hadn’t noticed before.
It is interesting to think that although we inhabit our environment with millions of people, we perceive that same environment in millions of different ways. A simple example of this is that at the scene of an incident, a number of eye witnesses will give different accounts of exactly the same thing.
It is not just what we see, it is how we see it. Throughout our lives we build up a belief system, this is inherited from our families and influenced by everything we experience. From birth to the age of around seven, we do not have the power to discriminate, what we are told and what we witness are taken as the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. Later we learn to question and develop our own reasoning. The early years of our lives then can quite literally determine who we are.
I love browsing through pinterest for craft and home ideas and it occurred to me that this was another great example of how our reality is determined. I noticed that the things I pinned were the things that I saw more of. After pinning a few images of living rooms with blue walls and painted pumpkins, every image contained these, I was not seeing any living rooms with orange walls for example and I am sure in autumn my home will have at least one painted pumpkin!. My point is we attract what we choose to see and this is a very important thing to consider when we are trying to change our mindset.
Once you start noticing your thoughts and asking why, you can begin to unravel some of these belief patterns that might be holding you back. Often we hear these as the voice of our parents coming out of our own mouths and wonder when we turned into them. Take a while to ponder such things and ask yourself does this belief serve my higher good?, and if the answer is no, let it go.
If you find yourself trapped in a world of blue living rooms and painted pumpkins, try searching for something else. The world is full of new and interesting things, hope and love. Let those be the things you notice and soon, those will be the things you see more of.
To quote a line from Desiderata, which I grew up reading on my on my childhood home bathroom wall and which I now have in my own downstairs toilet!!
“With all its sham, drudgery and broken dreams, it is still a beautiful world. Be cheerful, strive to be happy”
