We become what we react to.

The most crucial conversation we can ever have is the conversation we have with ourselves on a daily basis. This filter-free, raw, unedited edition of our inner truths impacts our life experience, life situations and all relationships more than anything. The truth of where we psychologically live is determined by our inner reactions to life.

We become what we react to.

What we react to in life is a reflection of the themes that most often show up in our inner dialogues. To grow, develop and harness the awareness of uncritically observing what we react to, is a crucial skill in creating any form of change. The level of our inner dialogue flavours not only every experience we have, it also flavours the experience others have of us.

Most inner dialogues have become so habitual that we don’t even notice them. We don’t notice the impact it’s having on our life, and we then falsely conclude that life is ‘just how it is.’

For example, if our inner dialogue goes something like ‘I am an idiot’, this thought point will affect our attitude, tone, body language, and what conversations we will or will not engage in. Hence colouring all relationship experiences. If my inner dialogue is that ‘I am an idiot’, I will tend to hide energetically, emotionally and spiritually. I will avoid any potential experiences where people will discover my inner ‘truth’. I will minimize all engagement with my eyes and attention. I will tend to disappear from people’s lives for long periods of time without explanation.

The ‘idiot’ theme if gone unchecked, unrealized, and not changed becomes projected onto others. We then have an over the top reaction to another when they do something idiotic. The over the top reactions are our projections. Projections are unfulfilled inner frustrations, which we have not dealt with hence, we will see in others.

I am the projector and you are my screen😊

For us to change anything in our lives, we first need to decide to begin changing the tone of our projections (inner dialogue). Change will never be derived from something externally to us because all perceptions of our external world are interpreted through our self-concept! When our self-concept changes, everything externally ‘changes’.

Our self-concept/identity is ruled by a whole range of convenient assumptions known as our beliefs. These assumptions are not based in fact, but merely patterns of behaviours we have learnt to engage in overtime in order to create some kind of consistency in our interpretation of what we experience. We work so hard in trying to make all our experiences fit into what we assume (ie believe) to be true.

Anything that cannot be made to fit into our assumption range is either labelled a miracle or severely judged away through a negative emotional reaction. We can get so caught up in our assumptions over time, that we find to change them very difficult.

We forget that we created these assumptions in the first place in order to belong and be loved by someone somewhere. Our perception can be that we have complicated how we can change an assumption, and sometimes we need outside help to get us unstuck.

Complexity is the enemy to all execution.

Our internal dialogue is run by the ego. The ego is fundamentally a survival mechanism. In order to survive, control of some kind needs to be wielded. The ego wields that control via a secret addiction to certainty.

Because of this secret addiction to the certainty our egos tend to have an unhealthy relationship with uncertainty. In order to avoid the unknown, the ego secretly loves complexities of all kinds because it knows that we are highly unlikely to embrace a new adventure, or new thought, or new inner dialogue, or new upgraded, updated self -concept if we make it complicated! All complex thoughts can be simplified because…

“All change is only one thought away.”

How’s that for a thought! LOL. It’s true by the way. Well only because I say so…lol!

A thought is like a radio station. It’s just a station. It’s just one station of many stations. One station is no better than any other station, just like classical music is no better than rock, they are just different. Let’s take a look at an example.

Recently, in a workshop I was delivering, a man put his hand up to share how for 7 years he had been ‘battling something massive, huge, hard, and scary’ (his language). He had wanted to change his name (identity/self-concept). He had complicated this decision over these years, using ‘what if’ thinking to hold himself back. ‘What if’ thinking is when someone tries to interpret what the future may bring if they make a certain decision. Ego ‘controlling’ the future.

Often this deepens the complications of our interpretation of reality. ‘What if’ thinking is another avenue for the ego to meet its secret certainty addiction. It knows that if we place our attention (thought/inner dialogue/self-concept/radio station) on trying to solve a problem we don’t have yet, we get to avoid the responsibility of resolving the problems we do have at this moment.

We, therefore, get to avoid making a decision of what is on our plate right now because we are tuned into ‘what if this happens FM’. We can only listen to one station at the time and that station is our reality at that moment. So we have a choice…what if FM or let’s do this FM or any other of 100’s of self-concept stations!

Back to the fellow in my training….he had been complicating this decision by being worried, scared of the impact this ‘massive, huge’ decision would make on all parts of his life. He had become a master of ‘what if’ thinking.

Sometimes in the personal coaching space, we can ask a simple, innocuous question which can completely change the direction of someone’s life. There is nothing like a well-timed well-targeted question. I then shared with him, ‘to take nothing away from the significance and clear importance of this decision for you…what if it wasn’t? (ie wasn’t such a “ massive, huge decision”).

In this one moment his heart raced, he began rubbing what seemed as sweaty palms on his legs, slowly moving back and forth with his body, as he released 7 years of tension, and stress in what it took to hold onto attempting to decide. In this one moment, it was like I had given him permission to just simply decide.

For all his right inner reasons without needing to defend or justify to anyone why he had decided. The release was palpable. The release was magical. Different thought, different station, different experience.

We become what we react to….he reacted to…what if it wasn’t? 
It was simple, elegant and beautiful. He has changed his name and he is loving the joy that his new self -concept brings.

Yes, it can be that simple…if you choose to say so.

Thank you for taking the time, love Joe.