By Kara-Leah Grant
Let’s get one thing straight.
You do not create your own reality.
Your thoughts do not create your reality either.
All the positive thinking and manifesting and vision boarding and dreaming is not going to get you what you want.
What you do create is your experience of your reality.
Your thoughts about your reality create your experience of that reality.
This distinction is critical, and far too often it’s glossed over, ignored or pushed aside in favour of the far more attractive idea of being completely in control of our reality via our thoughts.
All you need is The Secret, and you too can think your way into a bigger bank balance, a nicer car, a bigger house and a better partner.
Utter crap.
Oh, it doesn’t work unless you get the feeling resonance behind it just right, you really need to feel what it would be like to have that bigger bank balance, drive that bigger car, living in that bigger house and have date that better partner.
You need to emotionally-charge your positive thinking, manfiesting, vision-boarding, dreaming…
Now this has a smidgen of truth in it. But it’s still a corrupted way to sell books, DVDs, online courses and workshops that hook into people’s desire to live better lives, and people’s downright greed.
It also implies that if you don’t get the money, the car, the house, the man than there’s something wrong with you.
I’d wager that many people attracted to these kinds of promises are already afraid there’s something wrong with them… Working with manifesting tips and tricks, and failing, is just going to reinforce that fear even more.
So what is the real deal?
Simply this.
Our thoughts, and our emotions, are intertwined. A thought can give rise to a feeling, and a feeling can give rise to a thought. Underlying beliefs, often unconscious, give rise to both thoughts and feelings
Beliefs, thoughts and feelings are the filter through which we experience our life.
All the circumstances, everything that happens to us, all the people we come in contact with, everything… is experienced through the filter of our beliefs, thoughts and our feelings about the circumstances, the happenings, the people, the everything.
This combination of external reality and internal reality creates your ULTIMATE REALITY.
Two things, intertwined, inseparable from each other.
What this means is that if your internal reality changes – ie. your beliefs, thoughts and feelings – then the sum of your reality will change, but not the relative external reality. Because the sum of your reality has changed, the choices you make will change, and then the external reality will also change, because you’re steering your ship in a new direction.
I like maths, love it in fact, always have. Maths makes things make sense.
Here’s my math on this.
Beliefs (b) + Thoughts (t) + feelings (f) = Internal Reality (IR)
Circumstances (c) + people (p) = External Reality (ER)
BIR + ER = Ultimate Reality (UR) or, more complex (b+t+f)+(c+p)=UR
Change any input in these equations and you’ll change the end result – you’ll change UR.
Lets put this in a real world example.
Stupid Secret Thinking, envisioning the future:
- You want more money because you want to be rich.
- You positively think about receiving large sums of cash. You use various manifesting methods. You do a vision board with money on it. You dream about being rich.
- You feel what it would be like to have a lot of money in the bank.
- You wait patiently for the money to arrive, and when it doesn’t wonder what you did wrong. You feel, in your wanting, just how damn lacking you truly are.
Smarter Thinking, working with what IS:
- You want more money because you want to be rich.
- You ask yourself why you want to be rich.
- You realise it’s because you feel like you deserve some luxuries in your life because you’ve been working so hard.
- You take a look at your life to see where you’re already experiencing luxury. You look at where you could treat yourself even more. You ask yourself what luxuries are possible right now. You search out luxuries that are possible on your budget.
- You begin to treat yourself on a regular basis to things that make you feel good – like long hot baths with bath salts, afternoon walks in the sun by the beach, and a red rose once a week.
- You notice, in astonishment, that you feel rich, because you’re meeting your need to treat yourself every now and then with a luxury.
- You’ve successfully inquired into your thoughts and feelings, using the knowledge gained to change the way you perceive your current reality, and made new choices which changed that reality and therefore changed the way you feel.
That is the big difference between creating your reality, and creating your experience of your reality.
The first is externally focused, hoping and wishing that using the right magical thoughts or feeling will make something happen ‘out there’.
The second is internally focused, making choices and actions that met the underlying needs creating the desiring wants.
The first is future-focused, hoping and wishing that something will happen in the future.
The second is now-focused, working with what is right now.
Is this even true? I have no idea. This is just one way to look at reality to make some sense out of it and therefore chose how to be. The real question is, does it work?
For me, yes it does, as you can read about it articles like this:
- How identifying with NOT being something also causes great misery
- There is nothing wrong with you. You don’t need fixing
- A tale of Mat Resistance, and practicing anyway
In all of these cases, I notice my misery, I notice the beliefs, thoughts and feelings that are giving rise to that misery, and I work directly with those beliefs, thoughts and feelings – not be attempting to change them, fix them or heal them. But simply by bringing awareness to them, and allowing that to create change, or not.
Every now and then, I too get side-tracked. I notice misery and begin to focus on changing my external reality as a way of shifting my ultimate reality. It’s subtle, but you can see this at work in this article:
Usually, I catch myself within a few weeks, and turn towards the true source of my misery – that which lies inside me.
It’s easy to see how this process can be subverted – how easy it can be to think that our beliefs, thoughts and feelings create our reality, so therefore if we’re not rich, or successful, or thin or something, there’s something wrong with us. We begin to think that if we just had the right manifesting technique or tool, or thought the right things, we could fix ourselves and our life.
It’s a folly.
Our external reality, in this moment, is fixed.
Our response to that external reality is fluid.
Accept the fixed.
Work with the fluid.
See what arises in that space.
I dare you.
Felipe Adan Lerma says
just scanning this says i need to really read this; gonna send it to kindle, read it later, let it percolate, and see what happens 😉
just the idea of confronting the idea that we create our external reality is interesting –
“creating your experience of your reality….” –
that’s even more interesting
thanks kara-leah
best wishes 😉
David Mariluch says
I just had to respond to your close minded thinking Ms. Kara-Leah. Your actually very practical and I can appreciate that. But your opinion is not fact. And your opinion is very ill informed. Start with the measurement problem. Quantum mechanics is actually validating that reality is created by our perception. Matter is 99% empty space. It’s solid because of the belief systems we have. Being practical that system is now science and religion seems to be conforming. Just because our thoughts create reality doesn’t mean you can be a hippy and go will anything into existence. Remember you are a 1 in 7 billion influence on thought and reality. The system we have created and most unanimously accept is science, it appeals to our reason and our doubt. But if I argue with you on a philosophical level. You honestly don’t know jack yourself. Almost everything you “think” you know to be fact outside your own experience tends to come from where? Others experiences, and who affects this the most? The ones we deem credible that appeal to the way our reason works. Mainly scientists, experts, physicists, etc. However these same experts are the ones promoting these ideas. The measurement problem comes from quantum physics and they have already shown empirically that one thing can exist at two places at once, it’s only in one place because we observe and believe it to be. Being practical in my opinion what we’ve collectively made over the millennia is absolutely amazing and beautiful. We could not individually have come even close. But remember dear your opinion and motivating others to action is skepticism without counter arguments and reason. You are not appealing to others with facts and evidence. Skepticism without reason and counter arguments is ignorance. And preaching from ignorance is closed minded. Those type of people have never changed the world.
Kara-Leah Grant says
Hey David,
Yes, you’re right. I don’t know anything. And any thoughts or ideas or beliefs I have are not true – they are merely concepts.
And I like to play with concepts, exploring them, and see what they reveal in me, what they reveal in others, and what kind of discussion eventuates.
I have no desire to change the world. It is as it is. I’m more curious about my internal experience – consciousness and all that arises from that. I’m interest in how my thoughts and beliefs shapes my reality. And how when I change my thoughts, my reality changes.
Doh – did I just say that? Hmmm… do our thoughts create our reality? I wonder…
Thanks for your comment David – it was confronting to read – I felt like I was being attacked. Sat with that for awhile. Who is being attacked? What is there to be attacked? What are these ideas of attacking. Noted the sensations in my belly. Wondering what beliefs and ideas were giving rise to those sensations.
Fascinating. So fascinating.
Taylor says
I think you’re lying to yourself if you say you have no desire to change the world. That’s fear based thinking or insecurity rather, that you could never change the world. It’s been done before..by people that have the same blood, skin, bones as you. You can change your world with thoughts & action. Fight that underlying feeling of fear & see where life takes you.
M.V.Ghiorghi says
Oh please, Taylor, she directly talks about changing your inner reality- and how that would ‘correct’ your actions. Yes, your actions may (or may not) change the world, but not your ‘positive visualization’ of itself. It’s all strive and struggle, baby. And when the striving and struggling people bring the change about, those who wasted all that time talking and ‘visualizing’ crawl out of the woodwork and proclaim their ‘positive thinking’ victorious.
vito lomonaco says
There is little question that thoughts lead to emotional responses which ultimately lead to objective reality. I’ve experienced it time and time again. Thoughts are always germane to our realities. Shortly after thinking about my dad I experience the emotion of sadness about his death. Even in young children the thought that some perceived outcome (thought) seems impossible causes an emotional response. The reason some are not successful in manifesting realities from thought is due to their lack of belief in such a thought. The brain is the body’s CPU. Thoughts are the programs which instruct the CPU on what functions to preform. The only difference is that the human brain possesses the ability to be objective and therefore must have some level of confidence the the programs or thoughts fed into it can and will objectify reality…
Deanna says
“Your thoughts do not create your reality. stupid”….WOW that is motivational.
Please meditate more because for some reason your whole concept seems like you really are not helping the greater good. I am not trying to be mean but really think about this whole website you created is it really something that this world needs from you? is this your concept you truly want to share with all of us? what is your true intention to make this a public thing?
Sara says
Now KL, I am not going to even try to understand the maths – but I totally get what you are talking about. I have always felt uncomfortable about manifesting, consciously creating etc – so easy to fall into ego-driven willfulness, and how do you tell the difference anyway? Really accepting and appreciating the present is something that has worked for me, as well as changing how I feel about it. Sometimes the smallest change in my environment can create a big attitude change. I do think, that if you feel affluent, generous, relaxed and lucky, you will attract that, and if you feel angry, afraid, resentful or suspicious you will attract that too. But this idea of manifesting riches in the future by cutting out pictures, gluing them on a piece of cardboard and sitting there wishing all of these imaginary things will make your life better…well pooh pooh to that! I have been reading Outrageous Openness by Tosha Silver (as well as following her on fb) and that’s the way I like to do things xxx
Kara-Leah Grant says
Hey Sara,
That’s it exactly – what are these desires & wants anyway? Where do they spring from? And the central idea – that we only have to get our thoughts in order and our external reality lines up…
Sash says
Well as least you have someone who understands where you are coming from:) truth is love there is too many a conceptual thought that this could possibly …possibly be all… and if it was or is…..that in itself bends reality… no?
George says
I do believe that forming a strong visualization and having strong faith in it will some how effect the outcome of your reality. I don’t know how strong your aura is but I personally experienced changes after drawing out images and fulling believing in it’s outcome. As a matter affect it’s been happening since I was a child. Things led to different scenarios in my life and all of a sudden I would receive that in which I drew. All I did was feel as though I already possessed that specific thing I focused on. It even worked to get women and whatever item. It’s a powerful ability and it should be used wisely. People just don’t understand the inner abilities of the mind and without knowing whats truth or false people get confused and dont know what to believe in but the secret power stems from belief itself.
Jo says
Thanks KL. The last paragraph really resonated. Let’s catch up for coffee soon!
Kara-Leah Grant says
Jo,
Would love to! Been too long for sure. Monday’s are my town day – next week?
Jenifer says
I agree. And, I go one step further. The only way to make a vision reality is to consistently work toward the vision.
Most people stop at creating the vision board and wishing away. This is a very childish, magical thinking.
Some people get to step two — which you describe here: so well.
And then,, there is a third step — the step of consistent action toward the vision.
This is where people get a bit frustrated and confused: I don’t know how. And the books/etc are right — you actually don’t have to know how. You just need to take the step that you can take now, which moves you forward toward that vision.
Healium didn’t just happen. It started with a vision. I was 19. I had no clue how to make it a reality. And, I had no way of even knowing it would end up where it is or how I would get there!
At 19, I could only take the first step: become a yoga teacher. Then, teach as much as you can to refine your skill. Along the way, I observed how yoga businesses worked — what I thought was good and what I thought was terrible. I open a studio and failed — and out of that I learned what I needed to really run a business. And finally — at age 34, I bought a business in Wellington, NZ — which is a mirror of my vision at 19.
But you see, that was only the beginning. I’m 3 years in, and there’s still a long way to go for the vision to come to fruition. And as such, every day I do something to make that vision come true. Every. Single. Day.
I am content beyond belief — I do not have the envisioned $$$$ in my account (yet); I do not have the number of students whom I want to know by name attending classes or appointments with other practitioners (yet); and there are a lot of elements of the business that I want to grow and develop that were part of the original vision, but they just aren’t there (yet).
But they will be there because today, I did something that supports what we have now while also creating the opportunity for that vision to come to fruition. And I’ll do it again tomorrow, and the day after that, and the day after that.
It’s a process. It’s a process of defining what you want, cultivating understanding of where you are now (and contentment around that) and doing what you can do now that takes you forward toward the vision.
Neil says
Good article although for me Jenifer summed it all up when she said “the step of consistent action toward the vision”.
Thoughts and actions do.
Simple, yet not so stupid.
Brook McCarthy (@YogaReach) says
Hallelujah! Clear thinking and reasonable. What a relief amid all this hazy, vision-board mumbo-jumbo.
Jessica Powers says
Thank you. I think The Secret is a steaming pile….a friend got me to watch a portion and I just kept asking what made what they wanted so valuable – it was like alternative spirituality visioning turned into a slave to McMansions and multi-car garages. Brainless.
“A goal without a plan is just a wish.”
― Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
I used to get shit from some of the yoga people I knew because I was such a planner, but my dearest friends always said that what they loved was that I could drop a plan in a second when needed and make a new one to go with the new circumstances. But I did my prep work and that allowed the big dreams I had to become actual reality.
Jenifer says
So true! I love the quote. I would say that because planning is rather second nature, my problem was more with acting on those plans — or follow through/consistency.
I would also add to the conversation about the power of failure. Failing is probably one of the greatest tools that I have. I love succeeding, but it’s the failures that lead to that success.
In my business currently, I would say that there have been 3 big failures (and lots of little ones). Each one of them helped me refine my process — created a better understanding of the circumstances and allowed me to move forward with more clarity. And that clarity created both better planning and better outcomes.
It’s a very powerful, contemplative process all of this. Fascinating stuff!
Tania says
Great to read such honesty, clarity and common sense. To achieve your dreams you have to plan and work at that plan, as well as keep flexible for all life’s curve balls. Sometimes as life throws challenges at you, you realise that what you thought was your dream is only a small part of the “bigger picture” and your ideas manifest and grow as you do as a human being. It’ s all good fun and part of living life to the full.
Kara-Leah Grant says
Hey Tania,
Loved your comment!
KL
Hadaryah says
This really resonated for me and I could swear that you were channeling the sutras when you wrote this. Radical acceptance and seeing the world as it is what this yoga journey is about. When we’re still enough to just see our external reality and bring a mindfulness to what we believe and are creating, then we have room to make choices and take action, which can change our ultimate reality. It takes a stillness and openness that is hard to achieve but it worth pursuing. One of the most important results of my sadhna has been the ability to really use what I have already been given and start from there. I really appreciate the fact that you brought this distinction to light because it is being ignored by people who want to sell us a magic bullet. Thank you.
Kara-Leah Grant says
Hey Hadaryah,
Now channeling the sutras – that would be a great party trick!
You’ve managed to sum up in just one paragraph what it took me an entire article to elucidate. Brilliant!
Zeke says
Excellent perspective. May want to check out Serge King and Huna, this perspective is right in line with the Huna principles.
Indigo says
If you have two groups of people, place them in two different locations with two different sets of beliefs will they live in different realities?
As you read this are my thoughts effecting your reality? Or did your thoughts effect mine?
Thoughts effect reality and reality effects thoughts. It’s a paradox.
But of the two in my opinion i’m going to say thoughts have the strongest influence.
Why did you focus on having more money? Was this your thought? Or was it sold to you through movies, magazine’s, reality t.v?
Whoever controls the media controls the mind – Jim Morrison
M.V.Ghiorghi says
Amen, amen, amen. I always thought (and exoerienced) the same. Thank you, Kara-Leah.
sato says
This article is written by a woman and frankly women have no idea of being successful.
Their job is to pleas their men and make babies.
Kara-Leah Grant says
Hey Sato,
Many thanks for sharing your perspective.
justin edwards says
words + words = thoughts
thoughts + words = feelings
feelings + thoughts = actions
actions + thoughts = beliefs
the way you have simplified things can be comforting (to someone you are trying to sell something to),
but by no means offers me any deeper understanding
(other than perhaps the law of attraction is non sense),
what kind of retreats do you offer? self help? meditation?
Kara-Leah Grant says
Hey Justin,
I do facilitate retreats, which use a variety of tools to help people wake up including yoga and meditation. The focus is always on identifying whatever is stopping us from experiencing reality directly, as it is. You can find out more here.
ann says
Thank you for this. It is very simple and to the point and I like your methods of understanding for the second example of wanting more money. I am now using that ‘outline’ to understand my own desire. My main thing is wanting to be more confident. I used your example and asked myself why I want this. I realized it is because I want to experience more things and be more apart of the world and my shyness holds me back. But, I also realized that I have been doing a lot lately. I graduated college not that long ago and moved to another state and got my first apartment. These are huge things for someone like me. Now I want to focus more on what I can do right now, small things, to make me feel better. Thank you!
Kara-Leah Grant says
Hey Ann,
Great to hear how this article was of value to you. It sounds like you’re doing great – love the idea of doing small things, right now. That’s a powerful way to approach life. Small things add up to big things!
andrew says
perfectly explained, kara!
Freda says
What this means is that if your internal reality changes – ie. your beliefs, thoughts and feelings – then the sum of your reality will change, but not the relative external reality. Because the sum of your reality has changed, the choices you make will change, and then the external reality will also change, because you’re steering your ship in a new direction.””
– I really thought this article was gonna be a rude Nd stupid one but towards the end of it, I get your point.
Bill says
If you want to do something you have never done before…….
You have to do something you have never done before.
(The words “be” or “experience” can also be substituted for the word “do” above.)
Angela fry says
So if I visulize my son without aspergers because I want it so bad it will happen ! Absolute rubbish luck,circumstance play a part,I suffer anxiety but at least I know its not a choice,yes you can see thoughts as just thoughts but doesnt stop the awful feelings those thoughts create,oh sorry I forgot I need to just visulize and read the Secret to stop 50yrs of anxiety and become calm ….david im with you ,at leadt your grounded!