“What lies behind us and what lies before us are small matters compared to what lies within us.”
R.W Emerson

Have you noticed how sometimes all is going well during your day, the lights are green, you’re energetic, light hearted, your favourite pastry is not only available but fresh from the oven at your local cafe, even people at the office smile and say good morning; but something shifts during the day and it starts to go downhill from there.  Well, that something is your thoughts.  All might be going well until you remember what someone once said that upset you, or how last month you had an argument with your brother, or even a painful day five years ago.  Such thoughts will automatically derail you from your positive day and throw you into a downward spiral of thoughts that can leave you feeling drained and bitter.  Thoughts are energy, and for something to happen in your reality (good or bad), it must first happen in your thoughts.  After all, like attracts like: Bad Thoughts & Bad Reality and vice a versa.

A few months ago, I had a very determined client who wanted to shift her life for the better.  After careful probing, she came to realise that her actuality was fantastic, she was healthy, attractive, independent and very intelligent; but her reality was full of painful past memories, a patronising critical voice inside her head (which she believed and listened to) and a very subjective and limited view of life that no doubt dampened her spirit.  As soon as we addressed this and distinguished her actuality from her reality, she suddenly smiled and became aware of how powerful her limited perception and thoughts had been breaking her days rather than making them.

By now you’re probably wondering what on earth the difference between actuality and reality is.

It’s quite simple really- actuality is a very objective perspective of your life as a whole.  It is free from opinion and is limitless in opportunities and possibilities.  A person may have gone through a bitter divorce, but that doesn’t mean that they’ll never find love again.  Likewise, an entrepreneur may become focus on the actualities that exist in order to maximise the potential of his business plan.  In other words, your actuality is an unbiased angle on your life that can always provide windows of opportunity and potentials to shift things for the better.

Reality on the other hand is a highly subjective and limited perspective on your current situation.  Your reality is a product of your past experiences (good and bad), your beliefs (limiting ones or otherwise) and your emotionally fuelled understanding of your life as a whole.  A person may have a fantastic business idea, but because of his negative and pessimistic circle of friends and family, ends up extinguishing any hope of success.  Most negative and depressed people tend to live in a limited reality that disallows their potential to flourish.  Additionally, optimistic high achievers with a positive “Can Do” attitude tend to approach life from an unbiased angle thus being more aware of the actualities that exist rather than just their own reality.

This does not in any way, shape or form mean that you should ignore your understanding of your world, after all, there are many good lessons that you’ve learned from your past experiences that have contributed to how far you’ve come.  However, if you feel that there are areas in your life that can do with some fine tuning, then by all means explore other perspectives that might be just outside your comfort zone and in the realm of actuality.

Try the following:

1) Spend five minutes a day to relax and go inside to clean your internal dialogue.  This is the voice inside your head that fuels your thoughts.  Speak kindly to yourself as though you’re encouraging a young person who’s full of potential, or even your own best friend.

2) If something doesn’t go how you had hoped, re-frame it.  In other words, change its context to see the good in it and carry on forward.

3) Live in the now.  Imagine how you’d drive if you spent 90% of your attention focusing on your rear view mirrors.  Learn from your past, thank it and the lessons it has taught you and centre yourself in the present.

4) Improve your attitude to life and what it has to offer. “There is no such thing as bad weather, only the wrong clothes” Billy Connolly

Until Next Time……Live Don’t Just Exist.

Call now for a constructive session for yourself or a loved one.

Tel:  +44 (0)207 602 5477  taymour@guiding-light.net