Are We in Charge of our Experience?

Want to know how easy it can really be to gain some control over your life?

I’m talking about some dead simple choices we can make that enable us to access parts of our mind we wouldn’t normally have access to. Parts of our mind that control the entirety of what’s going on for us. I’m talking about ‘reality hacking’ choices that may not have occurred to you, because the mind is not designed to grant us unlimited access to those parts that repeat our experience on autopilot. What the mind is designed to do is hide this fact from us. Disguise the notion that it is actually parts of our own mind that are regulating our experience like clockwork.

You see, some parts of our mind aren’t accessible by choice – they operate more like a machine or robot. Like some emotionally detached, non-thinking droid it just ‘rinse and repeats’ the same experience we had yesterday. Joseph Murphy in ‘The Power of the Subconscious Mind’, compares this part of our minds to the workers that are driving the engine of our great ship. In the conscious mind, we are the captain who is steering and making decisions about where we want to go. But the subconscious, or what I think is best described as the autonomous mind, is down below the decks shoveling coal into our engines. It doesn’t know where we are going, it is just powering the ship. But if we aren’t sending the right kind of instructions as to how we would like our experience to be different from the one we’ve been having, then it just repeats the one we had yesterday. Most of all human experience happens on autopilot. Happens as a result of conditioning. Which is usually far from what we want and our best interests.

It is estimated that 97% of the thoughts we have are subconscious. That is saying that 97% of our thinking isn’t a choice for us but repeated out of habit. Nearly all of our thinking, we do without even thinking about it. We aren’t the ones doing the thinking – the robot mind is. So, in effect 97% of what we think, how we feel and what is going on for us as a consequence of that automated feeling response. It is not a choice we are making. We think we’re in charge and doing all of the driving – choosing where our attention goes and having all of the reactions, but the reality of it is far removed from what we think it is. What's happening for us and the reality we experience is a consequence of the autonomous aspect of our minds. The aspect of our mind that is responsible for maintaining our state of mind, and the ‘mood’ that typifies our character. All of this is going on automatically behind the scenes – but we are convinced in the conscious mind that we are the one that is doing all of this by our thinking and decisions. State of mind is not a choice we make – it is automated.

Ask yourself the question – does your state of mind have an effect on how the world seems?

And if we are to look at this from a scientific perspective – state of mind is said to be responsible for so much more than we might have imagined. State of mind governs…

- The platform from which we think, or the type of thoughts and memories we have access to.

- Determines the size of the memory ‘bank’ we have access to. (We can’t remember very well when we are stressed.)

- What we think is ‘going on’ or our perception of a situation. (We often jump to the wrong conclusions when we are stressed or upset.)

- The type of things we notice in our environment – the type of evidence we look for and see.

- Where our attention gets directed and remains. (All designed to keep the feeling inside of us alive and going.)

- What we think we can do, and so will take on.

- How kind we are likely to be to ourselves – the type of behaviours we might indulge in.

So much more than we may have imagined depends on the state of mind that we occupy, but it is far less of a choice we are making than we imagine. State of mind is the domain of the autonomous mind, and it is why no matter how hard we push and try sometimes, it doesn’t feel like anything has changed. We work our butts off, but never really feel like anything has changed. We don’t feel any different anyway. We don’t feel like we should when we’ve managed to improve our apparent circumstances, because the feeling part is still going on at a higher aspect of our minds. But can we access this higher aspect by way of the conscious choices we make? And the good news is, yes we can. By being clear on the type of experience we want to have – how it might be different to the one we’ve been having. And look for the evidence that this is coming true. By mindfulness of the present moment we tap into that reality creating aspect of our minds. We get into the picture of how mind made our situations really are. And by making every choice we can to ‘feel’ the way we want to.

To be less reactive – or rather, be more conscious of our reactions and why we are really having them. Is the situation worth the bother it is causing us. Are they the type of reaction we want to keep having? Would we want these reactions to become a permanent part of our experience? The truth is every choice we make to elevate our emotional state has a defined effect on the reality we experience. So with our fond memories or visualisations of the type of things we’d like to come true, we are taking the power of reality itself back into our own hands. It might not feel like it at the time, because the things the higher mind can do for us was always supposed to remain a secret to the conscious mind. It is why we must imagine our desired life in good faith. When we know in our hearts that it is going to come true, we will start to see the evidence reveal itself in our reality.

“Is this more of that ‘Law of Attraction’ garbage because that stuff doesn’t work?” But the very sad truth is, attraction is a law just as reliable as gravity itself. But maybe we’d have a better understanding of it if we knew it as ‘The Law of Projected Energy’. Every time we change our state or energy, we change what appears to be happening – what appears in the evidence that surrounds us. We see more angry people when we are angry, and we’ll catch every single red light when we are in a hurry. We are all surrounded by an infinite number of moving particles – what comes forth from this ‘forest’ of possibility depends on what we align with. Depends on how we feel, and our unconscious expectation.

So, the truth is we have far more control over, and choice in the state of mind we have. In effect, we have far more say in the outcomes and circumstances we experience that happens as a consequence of how we feel. The world is a consequence of our subconscious expectations – of our dominate feeling state. We have far more power to live the life we’d dream of, by the choices we can make to feel expectant of the best. We just didn’t realise how much those little non-choices we make effect the world we see. And the truth is most of it will happen automatically - it isn’t a choice for us. Most of our experience is automated.

But there is nothing more certain that just how automated our lives are is up to us. Do we want to sit in the passenger seat and let that maniac robot drive? Or do we want to make all of the small choices we can to improve the trajectory of our experience. Anything that elevates our mood improves the circumstances of our life – and in all actuality, also affects the physical world around us. Just like plants respond to our kind words and thoughts, the world is always responding to how we are. Is state of mind a choice for us? No - It is the domain of the automated mind. But every choice we make to feel better affects it and empowers us as people. How I like to put it is “State of mind is the choice that changes everything.” It certainly changes far more than we may have been aware.

Do we want to be held to ransom by our own minds – leaving all of our life’s circumstances and choices to this robot? Do we want to be a slave to the great divide that has occurred between the conscious and subconscious minds, because we didn’t understand the different roles and functions that they serve?

At present, humanity is being held captive because we don’t even think there is anything there. We don’t think with reference to something listening in to our thoughts and creating our experience as we do. We think that we are in charge and doing all of the thinking, feeling, and making all of the decisions – and nothing could be further from the truth. We make every decision we do from the emotional platform provided by the automated mind. We make choices on the basis of how we feel. To believe that we are in control and have choice over what we experience is the greatest lie we have ever fallen for. 97% of all life on earth and the experience we are having as humans is completely out of our hands. And if we don’t have an awareness of the differing functions of these two aspects of our minds we will suffer in direct relation to our ignorance. Yet still we wonder why our species is mentally unwell.

We have evolved, but that has only served to insulate us - from nature, from each other, and from the part of our minds that is driving the entire human experience. Even though this would seem like an easy fix.