Most of our thoughts are repeated thoughts. Our mind is luckily structured in a way so that we do not have to consciously think through every decision we make in a day. Mental structures called schemas are created to automize a lot of our daily habits, actions, and decisions. These schemas set up mental representations of people, objects, events, and situations based on former experiences. Any new information coming in is then processed into organized beliefs and knowledge based on these representations. We also have something called self-schema, which defines how we see ourselves and what we value.
The schemas are great support for us to live and work efficiently in today’s world. It keeps us out of danger, gets us to make decisions fast, and supports our ability to understand and grasp the world and all its information coming our way.
Though these repeated patterns can also turn into our own enemy. Around 70% of the thoughts we have are negative thoughts. Again, they keep us alive and protect us. But in today’s world, we do not need the same protection that our mind is set up to provide. Still, the mind keeps looking out for us by turning negative and trying to find threats around us with thoughts like “I will never find a partner”, “I will get sick”, "I feel stuck”, “I am not smart enough”, and so on.
These thoughts impact how you see the world, interact with the world, and show up in the world. Your beliefs (schemas) create your thoughts, and your thoughts create your actions. A great example to illustrate the power of our thoughts is the case study from 1979 where Harvard psychologist Ellen Langer put two groups of elderly men from a nursing home in Boston into a monastery. For one week she asked one group to live as if the clock had turned back 20 years. While she asked the other group to stay in the present time period but reminisce on the past. The monastery was set up to bring the participants back to that time in their lives, with pictures, entertainment, and furniture from that era 20 years ago. The results from this study are astounding! Both groups showed positive improvements physically, cognitively, and emotionally.
All participants were more flexible and looked younger by at least two years. Even though the first group showed more improvements in senses and physical appearance, both groups showed a huge improvement in physical and mental development. Just by changing the way they thought of themselves. The opposite is also true, just like you can think yourself younger, you can also think yourself sick. This is also called "the nocebo effect" — and refers to when a patient has negative expectations regarding a treatment causing the treatment to have a more negative effect. For example, feeling the side effects of medicine even if you were given a sugar pill. Both these examples confirm that your thoughts can, and most likely will, determine your future!
Catching these thoughts can take some time, as they come so naturally and might even be fully unconscious to us. But they are important to work on identifying and addressing to make sure you are fully driving the car towards your future. Makeing sure you are not taking a back seat on the slow evolution of the mind that trying to keep us safe but is actually holding us back from realizing our full potential!
Are you in the driver's seat of your thoughts?
Suggested reading and a lot of inspiration from LePera, N., 2021. How to do the Work, Recognise Your Patterns, Heals from Your Past, and Create Your Self. Harper Wave.
