It’s All In Your Mind

How many times has someone tried to put you off by saying “It’s all in your mind.”  All they are saying there is no scientific support for your expressed beliefs. However, the scientific world is often frail or corrupted whereas the things that occur having no apparent hardcore reasoning offer beauty to life. These occurrences are generally called miracles. A few examples are healing, prayer, manifesting and those times coincidences bring a sense of awe. Even though the title phrase is most often used to degrade, it is actually correct. All reality is created in the mind.

 Eyes only pick up light and image; they make no assessment, only gather data. Your ears, nose taste and other senses also contribute data to the brain. The mind then takes the input collected from the senses and begins to apply information and emotion. These evaluations or perceptions can be in the form of negative judgments, positive reinforcements, or hidden from recall altogether. 

This is why a police officer asks for 3-5 witnesses at a traffic accident.  The eyes of each witness see the same event but their owners individual perceptions are formed from the applied information from their unique experiences. One may swear they saw a beer can fall from the car, because their aunt died in an accident involving a drunk driver. Another witness may not have noticed the driver’s car over the white pedestrian walk line since it is one of his own habits. The mind might choose denial over the pain of realization. Understanding how powerful the mind is in creating our realities offers a tool that can be used to our benefit.             

One day while peeling vegetables the paring knife I was using slipped and the blade cut my finger. It wasn’t a deep cut but it was bleeding a lot. I covered the cut with the first kitchen towel I could reach.  With the bleeding out of site, the more attention I gave the event the more painful was the throbbing. In the past, this is where the self-berating would begin, but I remembered a technique learned and practiced while exploring a lava tube cave in Hawaii. I had been crawling along a ledge in the dark, then stood up in a low ceiling area. The impact actually made me see stars.

My kupuna (teacher) was with me. She shared a mind technique used by ancient Hawaiians to reverse an unpleasant event. It is to repeat the incident physically or by memory 3-5 times, but always ending the mental image of a positive outcome. I applied this teaching to the kitchen accident. First, I quieted my mind. Then I began a mental review of peeling the vegetables. As I reached the point of the accident, I took control of the image and saw it ending with the knife finishing its cut on the carrot instead of my finger.  The pain and bleeding were gone by the end of five repetitions. Severe physical injuries may need the attention of a medical professional, but for this small cut the technique worked wonders. I covered the cut with piece of onionskin and within a day, it was healed.  

 

Physical wounds are not our only unpleasant experiences. The most important part is to change  what your mind sees from negative to positive. Many wise people use the saying  “All change   begins from within.” I am saying the mind is the fertile soil to plant those seeds of change.