Our brain is as unique to each of us as a fingerprint and our perception of the world is just as unique. We build our idea of the world thought by thought in the privacy of our mind.

From the time we take our first breath through every moment of our lives, our minds are generating thoughts. Our minds become a tool when we focus on being in balance, on our environment, or working on a specific task.

Balance is achieved when we are aware of ourselves as a single being, not separate physical, spiritual, emotional and rational parts and when we are focused in the moment.

When we are not focusing our attention on something specific, our minds continue to generate random thoughts based on our interpretation of previous experiences, emotions and fears.

Thoughts connect us to our world. You connect to the world with your eyes and ears to gather information, but it is your thoughts that help you understand and make meaning. Thoughts are not a perfect tool. We colour the new information with our interpretation of the past.

Whenever something is happening before your eyes, you try to understand it with your thoughts. You focus your attention and your thoughts on what is happening and as result you respond with emotions, then take the necessary action.

Feelings, or emotions, are a response to your thoughts. Without thought, your life would have no meaning and no feelings. So how you think makes a difference to how you feel.

Thoughts are Our Experience

Thoughts are your interpretation of your experiences. Thoughts include both words and images.

Memories are thoughts of past events.

Imagination is the use of thought to create unreal experiences, like daydreams and what if scenarios, within your mind.

While you sleep your mind is unfocused. This allows random thoughts to flow into your mind. The dreams and  night mares are the result of random thoughts in a sleeping, unfocused mind.

Beliefs are thoughts you accept as true without proof. Beliefs are thoughts to which you are attached. All your thoughts are measured against your beliefs.

While experiencing the world, we form rules in our minds about how we want to interpret the information we are getting. These become our beliefs and expectations about how the world should behave when we are present. Beliefs are what we expect of the world. We may believe those rules are logical and right, even though others may have different rules that they believe are logical and right.

These rules are how we explain the behaviour of the world to ourselves and how we explain our behaviour to the world. When we encounter something new we search our minds for a similar event and evaluate it according to our existing rules. Often we may overlook differences and miss an opportunity to learn something new.

While we are children, our parents and adult guardians greatly influence the rules that we make to interpret the world. But, once we are old enough, we begin to rebel against those influences and start to make our own rules, sometimes keeping the rules our parents offered and sometimes totally rejecting them.

We can focus our minds anywhere within our mind, body or environment. If we focus on our feelings of fear, our minds can generate thoughts to explain and confirm those fears.

Our minds are never idle. If your mind is not focused on a task, random thoughts tend to flow in to keep the mind busy.

As we sit idle during the day, daydreams occur. Our mind continues to work by sending us random thoughts from weird associations of words and images. If we focus on them, they seem to become real. If we believe them, if we believe that they are offering true meaning then the fears and emotions we feel, can become our focus.

On the other hand if we allow random thoughts to enter our minds and we believe we need to try to follow each and every changing thought, to act on every thought, we can become totally unfocused and not know where to turn our minds.

Our thoughts of the world around us can lead to frustration, anxiety and stress, as we imagine the world is not living up to our expectations. Left too long stress and anxiety can lead to depression and a sense of not being able to cope with what is happening in life.

If we believe that we are our thoughts and not separate conscious beings, we become protective of our thoughts, beliefs, and rules as though they were real.

During the night as we sleep our minds continue to work. Random thoughts generate dreams. Our minds continue to try to make sense of these thoughts by making a story of them. Some dreams are pleasant, others, nightmares.

To find peace and calm within ourselves we need to focus on a balance within ourselves and to focus on our surroundings.

If we focus on what our minds are producing randomly or on resulting feelings, then we become disconnected from our relationships, our surroundings and ourselves.

Sydney Banks Three Principles Psychology

Sydney Banks wrote one of the most all-encompassing models of psychology.

I recently read his Three Principles Psychology.

Banks three principles are Mind, Consciousness and Thought.

Mind is the Life energy that enables our existence, our Consciousness.

Consciousness is being Aware of our life form, our existence, our ability to think and our ability to feel.

Thought is the mind activity that permits us to interpret our world, our reality. We create our reality of the world with our thoughts. Our Thoughts create whatever we imagine; what if scenarios, fear, anxiety, stress and we believe it is real.

All thoughts, and all human activities, result in feelings. Thoughts are a reaction to our environment, our experiences and our memories. A thought isn't real; it's just in your mind, yet it allows us to create our own reality.

Through Understanding these Three Principles, how they determine our lives, we become peaceful and calm.

Only with personal insight do we gain Understanding. Our thoughts create our meaning of world. We, each of us, create our own personal world.

While you can guide a person along the path to understanding, only they can come to an insight in the private place that is their mind.

Your mind is a tool.

You can direct it and focus it on solving your problems, on what you are doing and thinking in the moment.

You can never be not thinking. Left unfocused your mind fills with random thoughts. Thoughts create feelings. Disastrous thoughts create disastrous feelings.

We all get random thoughts. A thought is just a thought. You do not need to do anything about a thought. You do not need to take it seriously or do anything about it. You just focus on what you are doing.

If you start to believe that those random thoughts are real, instead of just memories of past experiences or imagined what ifs, you can start to feel anxiety, depression, sadness and soon your thinking is out of control.

You can control your thoughts by directing your mind to take a different perspective on your experiences and beliefs. You can control your thoughts by focusing on what you are doing in the moment.

Sometimes, just realizing that you have a choice as to how you can react to a situation will change your whole outlook. Sometimes, just changing your point of view, trying to see it through someone else’s  eyes, will produce enough change to bring you that insight.

Life is a journey best lived in the moment. The past is what we remember of our experiences. It is no longer real. The future is what we imagine will happen. It is not yet real. The only time we have in real time is now, this moment.

Meditation is Easy

Meditation is just quiet time and relaxation practice.

Here is a simple method:
Sit in a quiet comfortable place.
Breathe slowly in and slowly out.
Focus on the sound or feel of your breath.
If your mind wanders, just bring it back to the sound or feel of your breath.

You can do this anywhere. Do it for three breaths or one thousand.

This exercise worked frequently will help you to practice focusing moment to moment while giving you a time to keep your mind busy on something else.  Joy and confidence come from feeling peaceful and calm in our selves.

Whose Memories Are Right?

Every child in a family remembers things differently. Every human being has a different perspective.

Simply because you are in the middle of things as they happen does not mean that everyone will tell the same story as you tell yourself. Each person will have their own unique perception of what happened, how things unfolded, how things affected them, how they tell the story to themselves, how they explain to others.

Everyone’s perception of events is right from their perspective, because that is what they have experienced through their thoughts and feelings.

You can tell others the story from your perspective, but you will never change their perception of reality.

"Accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference."

Breathe in deeply of life. Be grateful that that you were allowed to experience life.

Change Your Thoughts.

Change begins at the individual level. It can only be personal. A person will not change unless they choose to change. You cannot change another human being until they are prepared to change. Each of us has the power to shape our own world, the world we think in.

Being philosophical about life means that you reflect on the meaning you give experiences. You accept that life just is what it is. You realize that how you think about something creates the feelings you have. The same experience can result in different feelings, both positive and negative, but also in simple neutral acceptance.

Life is not out to get you. Life is just the flow of experiences that happen to you, both good and bad. How you think about those experiences and what's important to you in those experiences and where you direct your thoughts in remembering those experiences can change how you feel about life right in this moment.

For example, if you were involved in a serious car accident that left you with scars and damaged your legs so that you always limped, your outlook on life could be either negative or positive. You could feel sorry for yourself to the point of not wanting to do anything or you could pick yourself up and expect everything to go on or be better than before. You could go out and counsel others on the dangers of poor driving; you could help those who have suffered more than you.

There are as many attitudes to life experiences as there are people. Your brain is as totally unique to you as is your outlook on life. Your mind is your private world. Your thoughts are your connection to life. No thoughts, no meaningful life.

This stresses how important thinking about how you think is to leading a peaceful and joyful life. You cannot bring feelings into your life without thinking. You respond to everything that happens to you with thoughts. How you respond in your thoughts to what life throws at you determines how well you feel.

How you respond in your thoughts to what life throws at you determines how well you feel. The question is what do you believe should happen and is that a valid expectation or just a make believe rule? And, if it is just a belief you have, then why are you letting it make you feel bad?

Take complete responsibility for all your thoughts and  actions. You have free will. Others are not annoying unless you let them annoy. It is just how you choose to think about them and their actions.

It’s not the experiences you went through that determine how you feel. It is how you think about them.

You can choose to spend all your life thinking about the experiences you had, being bitter and regretting your past. Or you can focus your thoughts on what you are doing moment to moment, right now, to make a better life for yourself.

Only your thinking can bring joy into your life. So focus on what you are doing now and enjoy the moment. And, soon enough you will have a whole series of joyful moments to look back on!

If you believe that you can get over your painful experiences, then you will.

What is it you believe should happen? Is there a different approach to how you see your thoughts that will make you feel better?

Beliefs aren’t bad in themselves. They help you to make decisions about and to understand of life from your perspective.

A belief is not useful if it condemns you to reliving painful memories or feeling bad about yourself. A belief is just a thought. It isn’t real or cast in stone. You can change your mind.

Then take the steps toward your life goals, moment-by-moment, day-by-day. That is all we can expect of ourselves.