When you believe in something, you believe it into existence. It becomes your reality. Such is the power of belief.
To make this idea more clear, I always find it useful to begin with some negative examples, as for whatever reason they seem to be what people relate to the most.
Perhaps the most obvious example dates back to your childhood. It is probably what your parents told you off for saying. “I can’t do this” or “I can’t do that”. Interestingly, these tendencies begin in childhood but continue and even expand for many people as they get into adulthood. “Oh no, I can’t learn that it’s too complicated”. “I can’t forgive him. I just can’t”.
As is the case with all adopted ideas, there is a two-step process. The first part is involuntary. The second part is voluntary. The first part involves the arrival of a thought into our consciousness. 95% of thoughts that arise are involuntary – they are completely automatic. These thoughts can be about the present, the future, the past, or simply delayed commentary about other things that are happening such as events and emotions.
On their own, thoughts are completely harmless. They don’t do anything and they aren’t really made of anything. Naturally, they’re just there, then they’re gone. Either to be replaced by a new thought or for a period of silence to emerge.
The second part of this process is voluntary, and it is where belief starts to come into play. The process is as follows and the crucial second step has two options to choose from, whether you consciously make that decision or not.
Step 1: A thought arrives in your consciousness: “I can’t learn how to do this.”
Step 2: The thought is either:
1) Seen and let go of. A thought is a thought and by its nature, it is transient and leaves.
2) Given your sense of belief. A passing thought has been given your belief and as a result, has been given a ‘life’ of sorts. You have imbued it with your energy. Unsurprisingly, once a thought like this is believed and held on to, it continues to grow and forms your reality.
This process is exactly what lies behind everybody’s reality. It is self-evident in the world and is taught to us at a young age (albeit forgotten most of the time). If you believe you can’t, you can’t. If you believe you can, you can. You probably know someone who believes themselves to be a victim, and so they become a victim. You might know someone who believes that life is a power game and so they spend their life seeing power games and playing power games. Someone else might believe that love is all there is and miraculously, all there is is love.
All there is to this process is a transient thought combining with the power of your belief. A belief that you are totally and completely in charge of distributing. Belief always shapes reality.
“You are not enough.” “You are the king of the world.” “You don’t deserve him.” “He doesn’t deserve you.” “It’s a glorious day!” “It’s a horrible day” “I am lost” “I am found” “I don’t believe in anything” “I believe in everything” “I will never find peace.” “I am already at peace.”…
All of these are just thoughts. Fleeting sensations. Nothing more. Positive thoughts tend to arise out of positive emotions. Negative thoughts tend to arise out of negative emotions. Thoughts are always changing. Emotions are always changing. You can choose to attach your belief to any one of these thoughts or none of these thoughts, the choice is entirely yours.
There is only one Earth, one reality, yet there are around 7 billion different worlds. A good option is to start believing into existence a better world for yourself through your thoughts.
A better option might be to drop belief in thoughts altogether and to form your beliefs from direct experience. Direct experience is the reality that exists when you drop all thoughts, cultural beliefs, conditioning, likes and dislikes and you just experience.
Thoughts and emotions are always changing and are very unstable. It makes sense to put something as precious as your belief into something like reality – which is eternal and always is at it is.