The Only Way To Change Your Reality Is To Understand How You Create It

Our thoughts largely condition our state of mental health. Practicing certain habits of thought and resisting change give rise to our own reality. There is a reality outside of us, and we don’t actually interact with it. The only reality that we really live with is a simulation created by our brain through our own thoughts, which can approximate more or less the external reality.

In theory, the less influenced our thoughts are, the closer we get to accuracy. The problem appears when we were brought up with generalizations, prejudices and dichotomies that distance us from reality. Thinking is like breathing, we do this without realizing it, but we cannot believe everything we think. It is estimated that only around 20% of our thoughts actually become reality.

Human beings have thoughts that do not correspond to the reality of the moment or situation; these thoughts are called distorted or irrational thoughts. These are ideas that come to mind that prevent us from seeing the exact reality of things; they tend to lead us astray and this influences our own emotional state to a large extent directly.

The interpretations about reality are the ones that lead us to be stable or unstable people at an emotional level, more than reality itself. What we think of ourselves and our experience is what really creates the anxiety and/or depression problems so common in the first world, not the situation itself. Two people, faced with the same situation, can experience it and understand it differently, showing that reality is ultimately created by our thoughts.

If you want to change your reality, change your thoughts

Psychology bases part of its therapies on replacing irrational thoughts with ones that better fit the real facts. Learning how to transform irrational thoughts into rational thoughts is the mainstay of thinking adequate to reality. People who are able to change these thoughts can have a lot of control over their emotions and be able to make better decisions.

One of the most used techniques in clinical care to change inappropriate thoughts is debate, where the patient is taught to modify their beliefs through questions formulated by rational parameters, until this one is able to generate a much more adaptive alternative thinking. The goal is ultimately for the patient to be able to replace or trim his thoughts in an autonomous way.

Although the circumstances are complex, such as those that can happen around a layoff or a romantic relationship that comes to an end, these situations will not improve no matter how much we think about them. In many difficult situations, the margin of action is much more a matter of intervening in one’s thoughts than in reality itself.

How to think healthily and rationally?

Events do not cause the emotional and behavioral problems, but these are caused by the beliefs that reside in the interpretations of these problems. One of the basic aspects to emphasize is the difference between rational beliefs and irrational beliefs.

Thinking rationally is thinking relativizing, expressing yourself in terms of desires and tastes (I would like, would prefer, would like…). When people think in a healthy way, even when they don’t get what they want, the negative feelings that these situations provoke do not impede the achievement of new goals or purposes.

On the contrary, thinking dogmatically and absolutist leads us to express ourselves in terms of obligations, needs or requirements (I have to, I need to, I am obliged to). Failure to do so causes inappropriate negative emotions (depression, guilt, anger, anxiety, fear) that interfere with the achievement of goals and generate behavioral changes such as isolation, avoidance behavior or avoidance and abuse of toxic substances.

Without changing habits, there is no change in life.