Do we have a self-limiting belief? Eg “I can’t because …”
Ask ourselves, what is the consequence of believing that thought? How does it make us feel? How do those feelings affect our daily lives?
Now consider how would we be if we didn’t have that thought? We are not saying that the thought is invalid, we’re merely questioning what our state of mind would be if we decided not to have the thought. No thought, no feeling, no triggered emotion. How would we be if we didn’t have those feelings that make our lives miserable (nor make us feel superior) thereby feeding our fears?
If we want to examine this idea with any of our big beliefs, we can check out Byron Katie (pictured) on Youtube, on her website thework.com or read one of her many books on the subject.
We can do some serious work on the validity of our thoughts, to at least test them properly. We may find that not many of the random thoughts that constantly invade our mind are really true at all.
Regardless of whether a thought we have witnessed is true, we still have the agency on whether to give it space in our mind or not. We can look at alternative realities to the thought, other perspectives. While our own perspective maybe valid in our eyes, at this moment in time, other perspectives may also hold water if we consider another person’s viewpoint. We can start to see that a single event may have more than one truth to it, depending on where it is seen from, and how the observer filters their observations. We may also find that our initial interpretation of the event may change with time.
Einstein’s theory of relativity was partly built on this realization: An observation of an event will alter depending on where it is observed from, on who the observer is, ie the observer influences the event.