Self-Reflection: We are the Creators of our Own Experiences

At some level we are always in control of doing exactly what we want. 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 experience and learn from it 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 that restructures it through our paradigm that determines how we perceive it, and 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 behavior reveals to us hidden aspects of our 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 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 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 behind the surface appearance of things.

 
The stories we tell about us, about others and the way things are, are always a direct analogy of each other. The same idea as a theme applied at different levels and within various contexts. The same idea is used to create a sense of ourselves (through the stories we tell which are a reflection of how we create our experiences), of others in relationship with us, and the world in general as a large play out of the same basic idea as an analogous theme applied at a greater level, all connected because they play apart in telling the same type of story. The paradigm of our mind’s structure and programming (vibratory frequency) as our model of the world is our perceptual lens that interprets outer events that are ultimately neutral in nature and being shared by everybody, into personalized version of reality where only the key components necessary to tell our story are recognized, abstracted, and organized to tell our story as a generalized theme, that turns them into an experience as one possibility or potential out of an infinite number of possibilities. Our experience is always our own creation as a natural product of our own mind in how it reshapes reality through an overall storyline that gives everything the meaning that it holds for us in a congruent manner.

Daily Practice for Self-Realization:
As you go through your day become aware of your internal dialogue, 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, realize, that this is the basis for how you experience things as a result.

 
As 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 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, allow yourself to realize, that only you have the key to changing your own reality by changing your mental representations and the voice in your head that’s always talking to you, telling you stories about things, describing and explaining things that make them mean something (about you and others) as a result. Fully realize . . . you are the creator of your own experiences. Nobody else is doing to you.

 
With this realization, realize that you can begin consciously directing your own thoughts and forming internal representations of a different 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 an experience of it as a result. With this, you can then 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 the new 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 somehow, who do you become in relation to 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 own mind to think in new ways, experimenting until you find one you like. Once you find the story you like and the identity it builds by living 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 to 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 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
Trainer and Coach for Personal Transformation and Self-Mastery