Thinking Becomes Experience

The Full text as prepared for April 28, 2013

           How do you feel today?

Why do you feel that way?

Many people approach their lives as though the events of the day are going to dictate whether or not they’re going to feel good or bad about the day at any given moment.

There is a principle in Unity that gets a lot of “airtime.” It’s the third of the five principles that Unity holds as “basic”; our way of thinking creates the experience of our life. Whether we feel good or bad about the day – or anything foe that matter – is determined by our own personal state of mind.

Have you ever experimented with changing your thinking and observing how your experience changes?

Do you believe in the possibility that it may be true?

This idea that our way of thinking creates the experience of our life is something we deeply believe… as long as things are going well.

We may even speak these words when things aren’t going comfortably, but the real question is, “Do we believe it to be true… in all circumstances… and under all conditions? When we find ourselves in distress, are we willing to practice it?”

All too frequently when conditions don’t seem to be falling into place – according to our expectations – we suddenly drop our whole spiritual outlook, cycle back into negative emotions and then carry those negative emotions forward into a negative experience. I know, because I’ve done. I get into one of those, “You know what?? I’m upset and I don’t care!” kind of moods. That approach keeps us locked into discomfort. “I’m happy feeling crappy.” Happy? Really?

It’s been many years since we had lunch with our friends, Jim and Connie. Jim ordered Chicken salad and Jane ordered egg salad. When the waitress left our table, I think it was Jim that said, “Now we’re going to get an answer to that age old question… “Which comes first, the chicken or the egg!”

Despite the bad joke, I do have a “chicken or egg” kind of question, “Which comes first, our thoughts or our feelings?

Let me ask that a different way, “Do our thoughts tell us how to feel or do our feelings tell us what to think?”

Our way of thinking creates the experience of our life.

Winston Churchill said, “Attitude is a little thing that makes a BIG difference.”

“Attitude is a little thing that makes a BIG difference.” Winston Churchill.

It’s very important for us to realize that it’s up to us to initiate ourselves into a mindset that brings happiness, peace, joy, serenity, and feeling good.

Let me tell you how I used my own thinking to crate a new experience of my life. Once I had become aware there was a difference between my Reality and my personality, I made a conscious effort to think differently when I felt the sting of what I thought was criticism. I began to think differently when I’d catch myself counseling myself that I was a failure, or stupid, or unworthy, etc. I began to say to myself, about the destructive self-talk, “That’s not about me, that’s about my personality and I am not my personality.”

That’s not about the truth of me… my divinity… but about the limited way I express myself in the world… which can change. I began to transition my identity from being about my personality to the concept, and then the awareness, of my identity being something holy… divine… and then my self-talk and my personality improved simultaneously.

Less and less mental and emotional self-abuse, led to a healing of my thinking about myself.

There once was a man who grew an amazing amount of food in a 5’ x 5’ garden. He had virtually no weeds. He said for years he had lots of weeds and spent lots of time weeding. Then he decided to plant twice as many vegetables in the same amount of space. Pretty soon the root system took over and there was no room for weeds.

This formula works not only in horticulture but is also effective in keeping negative thinking weeded out of our minds. I invite you to keep the fertile garden of your mind planted with life-affirming thoughts; whole, holy healing thoughts until they take root and the weeds of negativity cannot grow.

Myrtle Fillmore, co-founder of Unity healed herself from an illness and her lifelong belief that she would always have that illness.

Do you know that there is biology to belief? Dr. Bruce Lipton demonstrates this in his book “The Biology of Belief.” In it he presents scientific evidence of the biological mechanics of our thinking.

Our way of thinking creates the physical, as well as the mental and emotional experience of our life. Mrs. Fillmore had the awareness and the experience, and Dr. Lipton showed the science behind it one hundred years later.

We live from the inside out; our thoughts manifest the experience in our life.

Understanding, really understanding, that our way of thinking creates the experience of our life is a light that will illumine and enliven our spiritual practice.

By the way, do you want to know what your spiritual practice is? It’s your daily life!

Knowing that our way of thinking creates the experience of our life will bring clarity to affirmative prayer; it will bring clarity to forgiveness; it will bring clarity to self-awareness; it will bring clarity to relationships with one another, it will bring clarity to our relationship with the world, it will bring clarity to our relationship with our health… and it will bring clarity to our awareness of the Presence of God.

This week, if you’re willing, trying up-leveling your thinking when you find yourself in negativity and see how your experience changes.