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The Power of Thoughts Explained

Often when we try to tell our children or teens that their thoughts have a lot of power, they look at us confused or tell us that we’re not making sense.  However, it’s very important that they truly understand the power of their thoughts, because our thoughts actually do create our reality. 

Our brain has an area called the RAS – Recticular Activating System. 

Its job is to sort through all of the information constantly coming at us, filter out extraneous information and help us focus on experiences in our environment which match our focus. 

For those of you who have been pregnant…. Do you remember when you first got pregnant, and suddenly noticed pregnant women everywhere?! 

I also remember when I injured my ankle and was on crutches.  Suddenly, I noticed more people than I’d ever noticed before who were also on crutches! 

Have you ever had an experience like this?

There’s an expression which says “What we focus on grows” and the RAS actually gives us a scientific explanation for this concept. I wrote more about the RAS in my goal setting blog here.

The power of our thoughts also connects to our self-talk. 

If we have anxiety and we tell ourselves that we can’t do something and we’ll never be able to do it, then our RAS looks for information to validate these beliefs.  It filters the world to match whatever is your focus. 

Of course, this can work really well when we have positive beliefs and set goals but it can negatively impact us when our thoughts are focussed on fear or in the case of anxiety, a perceived threat. 

How Can We Set the RAS to Help Us?

A lot of our core beliefs are held in our subconscious which makes it difficult for us to even know our own operating system.  However by becoming aware of our own triggers and connecting these triggers to our subconscious beliefs we can become more aware.  (See my previous article on understanding why our kids trigger us so much– click here.). Also, counselling can help to create new awareness and provide insight about our subconscious programs. 

Conduct your own experiment and try this with your child:

Write out ten or more positive self-affirmations and say them out loud every morning, just as you’re waking up and you’re still in a groggy stage and every night just as you’re about to fall asleep, for thirty days. 

You could also create a recording of these affirmations and play them just as you’re falling asleep and just as you’re waking up. 

At the end of the thirty days see if you notice a difference. 

Dr. Bruce Lipton, is an American developmental biologist best known for promoting the idea that gene expression can be influenced (via epigenetics) by environmental factors.  He explains that when we’re just waking up and when we’re almost asleep, we’re in Theta which means that our subconscious mind can receive new messages.  Hearing self-affirmations when we’re in a Theta state, is one of his suggestions for reprogramming our subconscious mind. 

Examples of self-affirmations:  

• I am capable  
• I am wise 
• I am calm 
• I am courageous
• I am loved
• I am kind
• I am motivated to try new things
• I am a problem-solver
• I am creative
• I am confident

In Dr. Bruce Lipton’s book, The Biology of Belief, he explains the field of Epigenetics. 

He defines Epigenetics as the study of the external and environmental factors, that turn our genes on and off, and in turn, define how our cells actually read those genes. 

He conducted research where he placed one stem cell into a culture dish and it divided every ten hours.  After two weeks, he had thousands of cells in one dish that were all genetically identical. He then divided these identical cells into three individual culture dishes.  Next, he manipulated the environment of each dish and the cells from each dish had different outcomes.  He concluded that the environment determined the fate of the cells, not the the genetic pattern. 

This is very complex but imagine how this connects to the power of our thoughts. 

 

When children or teens get worried or anxious, I encourage them to say that they “get worried” or “get anxious” versus “have anxiety”.

When we say we get worried or anxious, it sounds more temporary versus this is a state that we live with all the time.

It’s important that we be aware and conscious of the language that we are using with our kids and they are using with themselves.  Our goal is to plant seeds of capability versus criticism.

“Criticism makes us small, Encouragement makes us big” ~ Jim Skinner (To read my blog on this topic, click here).

Words have more meaning than we may realize.  Let’s focus this week on using the language of encouragement.

Warmly,

PS.  There is a more in-depth article and free workbook on the Subconscious Mind available HERE.