Realizing How You Create Your Own Experiences

In the most basic sense, we are always in control of doing exactly what we want and producing our own experiences as a consequence, yet a large part of this process is performed by our subconscious mind, which means we lack a direct awareness of it. Much of our true motivations and the beliefs that drive our behavior are unconscious, meaning, we are not directly aware of them, but experience them as feelings, emotions, impulses, notions, urges, etc. Mastery begins when we realize all experience is chosen and ultimately has a positive purpose. With this in mind we can begin exploring our own experiences in order to see and use the opportunities the experience brings. Personal Power exists to the exact degree we are able to take responsibility for all our experiences and learn from them as a result. This doesn’t mean that we have direct control over external events and other people’s behavior; it means that we participate at some level in co-creating how we experience events that directly affect us as a result. All experience is self-produced through how we form an internal representation of an external event which restructures it through our mental paradigm, determining how we perceive it, and how we behave and interact with it as a result.

The outcome is the true intention of all behavior.
Our outcomes are behavioral maps of our beliefs.
The lesson always teaches the belief that motivates it.

All experience, which is produced by some form of mental activity and correlating behavior reveals to us hidden aspects of our own psyche that operate in our life without our direct awareness. By looking at how we act to create outcomes, we can gain insight into unconscious motives that are always directing our behavior through unconscious intentions that often contradict our conscious intentions, and act to sabotage them as a result. By observing our own behavior, we can gain insight into unconscious aspects that operate fluently in our lives without our consent or conscious awareness. By simply listening to ourselves as we talk (from a dissociated perspective) we can gain insight into our own paradigm (a large part of which is unconscious) by looking at the nature of our own stories and what they mean about us in terms of what they express and reveal. If we learn to view our own mind objectively, releasing all tendencies to explain or justify why we do what we do, then we can begin seeing the unconscious aspects of ourselves that are always operating just below the surface appearance of things.

The stories we tell about ourselves, others and the way things are, are always a direct analogy of each other. They’re formed out of the same idea as a theme applied at different levels and within various contexts. We use the same idea to tell ourselves a story about others, the way the world is in general, and about who we are in relation with it all, that are all analogies of each other played out equally on different levels and scales. Each level plays a harmonious part in telling the same type of story. Our mind is shaped as a paradigm (model) that’s acts as a form of mental program (vibratory frequency) that shapes the perceptual lens we look through to interpret outer events which are ultimately neutral in nature and shared by everybody, into personalized versions. We reshape everything around to be of the same nature as we are (our mind) through our very perception of it. We only perceive in the world around us what correlates with our beliefs, values, preferences, and memories. Our experiences are always our own creation, formed as a natural product of our mind, which reshapes (reorders) reality into a generalized story-line that gives everything the meaning it has. Once we realize this, we can begin working to create our experiences in a much more productive and beneficial manner.

Daily Practice for Self-Realization:

As you go through your day become aware of your internal dialogue (self-talk), what type of thoughts run randomly through your mind, and what you are telling yourself about things. Don’t try to stop or correct them, simply observe them to see what they are. Then, allow yourself to realize that this forms the basis for how you experience things.

When you talk to others in a personal context, afterwards, take a moment to reflect on what you said, how you said it, what story you told that made it mean something (about you), and what this shows you about your own mental and emotional model that you use to process information to produce consistent experiences through the meaning you give them.

Then . . . simply realize, that all of this is being done by you. It’s all your creation. Nobody else is thinking for you or directing your thoughts, feeling your emotions, or reacting to someone else’s behavior . . . you are always the one doing it to yourself.

Then . . . after contemplating this for awhile, allow yourself to realize that only you have the key to changing your own reality by changing your mental representations and your own thoughts about things formed out of fitting everything into a greater, ongoing story shaped out of the meaning you give things. Allow yourself to fully realize that you, and only you, are the creator of all your own experiences. Nobody else is doing this to you, you do it within yourself through your own thoughts about things.

With this realization, also realize that you can begin consciously directing your own thoughts and forming internal representations of a different and more empowering nature. You can intentionally create a desired state-of-mind by what you intentionally focus on, think about, tell yourself, give meaning to, and create as an internal experience. All internal experiences, shaped by you in your imagination, form a preview as a prototype for producing a corresponding outer experience of the same nature. With this awareness, you can begin asking yourself a different kind of question . . . what kind of experiences would I rather create? What kind of story would I need to begin telling in order to do that, and who would I become as a result of telling that story?

The possibilities are endless. You can begin experimenting in a conscious way by noticing how you feel in relation to your own stories. When you tell a story about something that defines it through a form of judgment or opinion, who do you become in relation with it? What does that same story say or reveal about you? How do you feel as a result of your own story? When you identify with your own experiences, who and how do you become by way of them? Learn how to tell a different story by setting an intention to do it, pick a new meaning as the basis for the story you tell yourself about things, then actively discipline your yourself to think in new ways, experimenting until you find the feeling and story you like. Once you find the story you like and the feeling you get from telling it, begin developing it by practicing applying it to various areas of your life and reinterpreting them to mean something different. Then notice how that changes your experience of yourself in relation with it. When you find the one you like best, hold it steadfast in your mind and develop it into a detailed structure by reinterpreting your past memories by way of telling a new story about them that make them mean something different . . . and notice what begins happening inside you when you do!

Dr. Linda Gadbois

Transpersonal Psychologist, Personal Transformation Coach, and Spiritual Teacher