What does it mean that our thoughts create reality?

I noticed upon waking this morning that I almost immediately began worrying, and I was able to bring myself back into the present of the body, which was a relief. It’s frustrating that my habitual tendency is to worry, because I know it just causes suffering, but I feel like it was a small win today to recognise that and make an effort to respond skilfully using some of the practices I have been taught.

Afterward I reflected on how the mind really does create (our interpretation of) reality and if we can become more aware of our habitual thought patterns and do the work of editing them, we can change (the way we perceive) reality, and by changing that perception we may as well have changed reality because the state of our perceptions determines our happiness and wellbeing more than the state of reality actually does.

This is my current understanding of what people mean when they say our thoughts create (our) reality: our perceptions are more real than reality itself. I understand this is something taught in Buddhism … “mind is the forerunner of all states” and “perceive all dharmas as dreams” … but I’m curious to know what the modern psychology and neuroscience says about this.

It could be the difference between happiness and suffering, because whether we are happy or suffering depends on our relationship with / interpretation of events, does it not?

So my affirmation today: remain mindful as much as possible, and know that awareness of thought patterns empowers me to choose how I feel; negative thought patterns do not have to be allowed their habitual free reign.

psychological first-aid

I have added a video to the Resources page on Kokoro 心 Heart, about psychological first-aid.

The practice of psychological first-aid falls somewhere between acute and long-term self-care. It baffles me that I was nearly 40 before I had it pointed out to me that we need to treat psychological wounds as they happen, the same as we treat physical wounds.

Here is the video by Guy Winch, which was my introduction to this practice.

the motes fleet again

I wrote recently about a problem we’re having with a housemate, and it’s become clear now that we are living with an abuser. It sounds drastic when I put it on paper like that, but it’s true. We have been repeatedly abused by a person who is deeply unwell. I’m writing here to get my head around it, and to see what insight I can glean for Kokoro about psychospiritual wellbeing. I wrote in the other post about how situations like these are symptoms of culture that is psychospiritually unwell, and in this post I’d like to reflect on what I’ve learned about the dubious role of justice and control.

I may never understand This Person’s behaviour. This case is like a photographic negative, starting with someone who is profoundly unwell to see what we can learn about wellness. I’ve done lots of journalling and talking around this, and I’m still confused, so my apologies if the following is not always coherent.

We were going to have our first full day at home since the Incident, but we chose that day to ask if she had found a new place, whereupon she finally admitted that she had decided to not move out. We had been waiting patiently, not wanting to poke the hornet nest, but the idea of her staying three months until the end of the lease was not acceptable. I asserted a boundary: we cannot continue to live with her unless she apologises and starts being accountable for the way she treated us.

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choosing my nitch: psychospiritual wellbeing

Whenever I hear an American say “niche”, I think,
NICHES GET STITCHES, BIATCH!

my kinda niche!
Photo by Sinan on Pexels.com

I’ve been thinking about my niche here at Kokoro 心 Heart, because I hear affiliate marketing requires targeting a specific audience.

I feel kind of off about marketing and sales, but that may just be the starving-artist Aussie-battler austerity mindset in me. The ideas here are intended to benefit readers, and the products I recommend here have yet more of those ideas. I’m no Tyler Durden but I’m suspicious about promoting or encouraging wanton consumerism. If anyone feels they bought something through here because I tricked them into believing their desire was a (false) need, I can at least tell myself I was transparent.

And anyway, feeling compelled to focus on writing within a certain consistent frame is going to help me … well, focus. It will create pressure to stay on point like the essay question of a uni assignment.

By focusing on the theme of psychospiritual wellbeing I will be forced to refine my thinking about this subject, and parse more of my experience through the lens of holistic transpersonal wellness.

So I’m excited about that, because when I think about the priorities informing my purpose here on Earth, the one thing that consistently comes to mind is wholeness, psychospiritual wellbeing, transpersonal awareness, the realisation of our transcendental and interconnected nature — all words for the same pursuit. I’m reluctant to use the word “enlightenment” because it’s loaded with too much connotational baggage, but understanding the true nature of reality is something I aspire to and I believe this perceptual clarity is a prerequisite for the main goal here on Earth, psychospiritual wholeness.

And I believe the psychospiritual wholeness of each individual is a prerequisite for a sustainable and harmonious future on this planet. It’s root causes of suffering I’m talking about here: we cannot be truly well (as individuals or as a global community) while our minds are mired in ignorance. That’s a Buddhist perspective I suppose, but I’m curious to know how other spiritual traditions approach the same idea.

Let me know in the comments if that’s your thing. I understand the Gnostic Christians have a thing or two to say about this.

Meanwhile yeah, my niche.

I added a static home page to describe this yesterday, and managed to wrangle the backend of WordPress to run the blog posts through a menu in the header. That was immensely satisfying, figuring out a technical aspect of publishing here. The landing page has what I would call a blurb:

At Kokoro 心 Heart I am contributing to the vision that every individual have access to the resources, knowledge, means and support to nurture their psychospiritual wellbeing and treat the root causes of suffering.
I am doing this by publishing posts about books, music, life and culture through a lens that investigates what we can learn from these about our transpersonal nature and our complex psychology.
As I do my own inner work through meditation and other spiritual modalities, I hope to develop resources and training down the track. And I’m exploring the prospects of establishing a social enterprise called Causal Connections, facilitating access to holistic psychotherapies for low-income earners.
I believe the path to a sustainable and harmonious future on this planet is paved by creating a culture of individuals who are internally sustainable and harmonious. Because individuals create culture as much, if not more, than they are influenced by culture.
We are culture, and the future is determined by the state of our present.

For now I’ll be writing about books, music, life and culture to see what I can illuminate in these about psychospiritual wellbeing. At least the first two of these will lend themselves to products I can recommend.

I panicked a bit when I remembered the importance of having a niche, because psychospiritual wellbeing is a pretty broad subject and it’s hard to think of products that sell wellness. Products that aren’t dodgy, anyway — there’s a plethora of snake-oil sales people out there trying to exploit our vulnerability to sell us answers they don’t have.

Truth is, these answers can’t be sold — anything I’ll be recommending here is just a snippet of the multi-faceted path to answers. It’s you who’ll be doing the answering — anything here is just part of the spiritual-adventure travel-guide brochure you won’t find at Lonely Planet.

Every successful AF (affiliate marketing!) blog relies on products to recommend, but Kokoro 心 Heart is not just an AF blog — it’s a work of passion, and a place for me to publish ideas about questions I’m thinking about all the time anyway.

So welcome! I hope you enjoy what I’m doing here.

Leave some comments below if you’re also thinking about these ideas. I love comments, dialogue, conversation. I’m here to build community as well, because despite my frequent overwhelming desire for escape to a cave in the Himalayas, we cannot hope to realise the true nature of our being in isolation! Be the sangha you want to see in the world!