All That We Are Is The Result Of What We Have Thought

Start Taking Charge of Your Own Thoughts and Actions

It’s so easy to get caught up with the stories we tell ourselves. How often do we tell ourselves “This is difficult, I can’t do this or I’m not good enough”? If we simply start noticing as these thoughts come up and actively choose a different narrative, we will discover that there is so much power that lies within our hands.

We tend to get into our busy and monkey minds, going down paths of familiar patterns, negative thinking and being overly self-critical. But as we start to pay attention to our own thoughts and behaviour, we begin to shine a light on our unhelpful patterns and gain awareness (just like the monkey in the picture). As we do so, it’s important to stay curious and non-judgemental and simply see what’s there in our minds. (Also known as adopting a mindfulness practice)

“Until you make the unconscious conscious, it will direct your life and you will call it fate.” — Carl Jung

Have you ever noticed patterns or cycles that you go through again and again without knowing why? I definitely felt this in a few different contexts and started to question in my early 20s why I seemed to keep dating the same type of people who were not supportive of my growth. It wasn’t until I took a hard look at what’s going on with myself internally and the beliefs and thoughts I held that things started to shift for the better.

And a lot of us are unwilling to look and dig deeper within ourselves as there are perhaps painful truths that we don’t want to face. It can be daunting when you come face to face with the roots of your thinking and what’s been running in the background of your mind. But it’s so important to bring it up to the surface so you can be aware of them and start making the small steps in changing those unsupportive patterns of thoughts, and shifting your reality.

This Wheel of Belief further break downs the wise teachings from Buddha — “All that we are is the result of what we have thought.” You might have heard of the term self-fulfilling prophecy, which as seen in this wheel, it shows us that it all starts with the thoughts we have, and trigger and series of feelings, actions and behaviour that lead to the results we get — which in most cases when we are not aware, it further engrains the unhelpful beliefs and thoughts we have in the first place.

You might be asking, so how can we break this cycle? What should we do? In order to have different results, we need to start from the beginning of the cycle and get to the root of our thoughts as I mentioned in a recent post. And in my own experience, this requires a lot of effort and resistance will creep up. It’s like walking down an unfamiliar path when you’ve been used to this easy route you have been taking for many years.

It takes time to build new thoughts that become second nature. Just like anything, it takes practice and effort, and a willingness to change. But once you’ve identified what those limiting thoughts and beliefs are, you can start counteracting those “hot thoughts” with more positive and supportive ones.

For example, if your automatic thought when completing a task or creating new work is “This is not good enough, it needs to be perfect”, just notice this thought and put some distance between it and yourself, you don’t have to engage with it. And start looking for an alternative thought “I simply do my best and get my work out there and am open to feedback” or “Chasing for perfection is impossible”, these counter-thoughts will help to break the negative cycle and you’ll then be able to slowly change your behaviour, actions and hence, your results.

My own experience of therapy and learning about mindfulness has informed me that with consistent reminders, effort, awareness, and a regular mindfulness practice, your wheel of belief can become a supportive and positive cycle of positive thoughts and forward-moving actions.

Mindfulness helps to bring me back to the moment when I’m not feeling compassionate towards myself, or seeing the change I wish to see. It allows me to simply be and teaches me to observe my thoughts as they come and go. By having the self-awareness of what needs to be changed, knowing the wheel of belief, and having patience and new perspectives, you will for sure be on your way to a better path.

If you enjoyed this piece and wish to learn more about mindfulness and mindset work, you can discover my other work here: