In a previous post, I discussed the Personal Perception Lenses that we all have on- our unique way of looking at the world, determining what to focus on, and how to think about situations, events, people, and ourselves.
In this post, I want to discuss what information you are letting in or subjecting yourself to that plays a role in your life experience.
Taking it all in
Your mind and brain are constantly making sense of all the sensory inputs around you. Sound, taste, sight, touch, and smell being the five major senses for humans, you create filters and pathways for “digesting” the information and determining what to do with it.
Even though you can consciously decide how something will impact you, you can’t possibly pull out your conscious mind for all of your data inputs and make individual decisions on how to think about every little piece of information. It would not be possible. You can have 50,000 thoughts per day. It’s a good thing our unconscious mind can take care of most of it!
What are you exposing yourself to?
However, you CAN have quite a bit of control over the different experiences, types of information, and sensory inputs that you expose your mind & brain to- at least those of us who live in a free country and are not currently kept captive.
You choose where you work, where you shop, where you receive entertainment, who you hang out with, what you read, what you listen to, what you watch on TV, what you look at on your computer/phone and devices, etc.
Since your mind and brain are taking all that in, are you providing it with more experiences of your choosing?
While we will never be able to block out all things we don’t care for (and in fact that is not the goal- which I will get into further down), being aware of what we want more of and what we can create more of is super important.
Turn Off to Turn On
This brings me to a little story about myself… I used to listen to political talk radio in my car. Every chance I got, that sucker was turned on and I would listen to the ranting and raving over the opposite party and what foolishness they were up to now. I really got hooked on it! I felt like I was doing the world a favor by getting more information, but really it was driving me nuts. I was filled with thoughts that created anger, frustration, and hopelessness. I didn’t want to get involved in politics or demonstrations, and listening to it wasn’t necessarily helping me decide how to vote. So, I stopped. I wanted to listen to someone talking about healthy lifestyles, mindfulness, fitness & eating clean. You can’t freaking find that on the radio.
Then I found podcasts. ALLELUIAH! There is a podcast for everything out there, seriously. And if there is not, you can just go create one. Podcasting opened up a whole new experience for me because I wanted to be exposed to something else that I was really interested in.
Tuning into what you want in a way that opens up your life has a different energy than trying to avoid, distract, “protect yourself” from what you perceive as negative. When you truly understand that your thoughts create your feelings and that circumstances are not creating it for you, you can take this to a whole new level. Instead of trying to control everything around you, you concentrate on how you are thinking about things. There is much freedom in living this way. From that place, choosing to add in more experience to your liking feels EXPANSIVE. You don’t have to live in a tight-knit bubble.
Take a look at your own life- are there things you partake in that may not be serving you? Are there things you would rather be doing or listening to or reading or sharing?
Watch what you Watch
As you are dialing in your deliberate experiences, also realize that your brain perceives information that you see on television or movies as actual occurrences happening to you. You still create thoughts, feelings, and chemical reactions inside your brain just by witnessing because you are thinking about it. Therefore negative, violent, “news worthy” events actually do impact your brain pathways based on your thoughts about them. Constant exposure to negativity may create toxic memories in your brain from an overload of negative thoughts. Might be a good idea to be mindful of that!
Deliberate Experiences
So much of what I teach is about being DELIBERATE in your decisions. Becoming aware of what is going on currently (thoughts, feelings, behaviors), how it plays out in your life (results), and determining where you would like to make changes is the key to creating the life you want. And so I implore you to take a peek at what you regularly expose yourself to and ask yourself if you are choosing it consciously, if it impacts your life, if you like your reason, if you want to change it or create more of what you do want.
You make your life deliberate through deliberate thoughts & decisions!
If you would like to find out more about my coaching, send a quick email to liz@passionforliving.blog. I coach women who want to LEVEL UP their lives through weight loss or health journeys, creating goals, and balancing work & life.
