Your life begins in your mind

We have all had those days where nothing seems to go right. Things can get so bad that even the Murphy's law looks like a joke in comparison and not only the buttered toast lands on the buttered side but it also lands on your favorite shirt just before going for a job interview. It can be frustrating and it's difficult not to get upset at times. However, in most cases we solve nothing by getting upset and to add fuel to the fire, it may even be your fault if the world's worst misfortunes are unleashed just against you. 

Image Source: https://www.goalcast.com

To explain this, I will use the story of the 2 dogs:

A woman is watching 2 different dogs entering in the same room at different times and she was startled by the different reaction the dogs had in the room.  One dog comes out happy and wagging his tail while the other comes out upset and growling. How could the same room make a dog so happy and the other so mad? Pushed by her curiosity the woman walked in the room and to her surprise she finds the room filled with mirrors.  The happy dog found a thousand happy dogs looking back at him while the angry dog found a thousand dogs growling back at him. What you see in the world around you is a reflection of who you are. 

This is how I imagine the mad dog - Image Source: http://www.jokedujour.com

I think this story depicts the concept really well but let's also look at things from an analytical point of view to give you a less philosophical explanation. 

The mirror effect: humans are social animals, our brains are wired to interact with other members of our community.  We are mirroring someone when subconsciously we are replicating all his nonverbal signals.  This starts fairly early in our lives, as early as infancy. Babies, for example, mimic the adults around them and establish connections with particular body movements.  Mirroring can establish a connection with the person who is being mirrored, as the similarities in nonverbal gestures allow the individual to feel more connected with the person exhibiting the mirrored behavior. So what happens when you had a bad day and you frown at everyone around you? They will frown back, giving us the impression that nobody likes us. Low self-esteem can also exacerbate this feeling as we have the tendency to project our fears in front of us. Obviously smiling at people will give you the opposite effect. 

Image source: https://www.thoughtco.com

Brain filters: in my previous posts I mentioned another concept which is that our brain works at different levels. Our conscious mind is just the surface and there is much more going on beneath it. One of the most important ability we have is that of forgetting things. I am not joking. Can you imagine how your life would be like if you were to remember every single small thing?Every single detail, for example if you were to walk in a room full of people you would remember who these people were, what they were wearing, what they were saying etc..do you think that would be cool? I don't think so, because your brain would be overwhelmed with thoughts and memories and accessing the right memory at the right time would become extremely difficult. Just look at the desktop of your computer: how difficult is it to find something when you have dumped/accumulated hundreds of icons?

For this reason our brains developed also another useful ability, ignoring things. In comparison to other animals our senses are not very sharp at all, that's because we dedicate more brain power to think and create thoughts. Our brains have their own ways to organize and store memories and that plays an important role when it comes to attention. To avoid collecting too much data from our environments, our brain tends to divide all the input it receives in categories. We perceive much more than we realize, but to avoid gathering an overwhelming amount of information (that would impair our ability to think) our subconscious mind act as a filter, thus letting through only the most relevant information regarding our thoughts. For example if you were to watch a football game and you attempted to count all the blue jerseys our brain will start filtering out all the players wearing a white jersey, if in that instant a white chicken was to cross the football pitch I bet you would not be able to see it.  Don't take my word for it, they did a similar experiment, if you are curious check it out: http://www.theinvisiblegorilla.com/gorilla_experiment.html

Anyway, my point is: if your mind is filled with negative thoughts, your brain will automatically filter out all the positives while maximizing the attention on catching all that is negative around you. 

Too often we have a feeling of resignation when things don't go our way, we feel powerless because we focus on the circumstances and on things that are out of our control. Remember that  we are not trapped by our circumstances but we are freed by our choices. You can't control what happens to you but you can decide how you react to things. Thus you can find happiness regardless of what happens to you.  But with this I don't mean that we should lie to ourselves or turning a blind eye to the negatives but we should adjust our attention so we can see the ways to rise above our circumstances. 

 Your mind is where your life starts, to change your life you must change your mind  first.