Thought > Belief > Feeling > Form
by Michael Braunstein
This is as simple as it gets. There is nothing in the world of form that is not preceded by thought. Nothing. A pencil, a car, a house, a pill, a tree or, yes, even a planet. All were preceded by a thought.
Few among us would argue the fact that the mind is the most powerful tool we have to create, to change and to affect our life. And further, our mind is the only thing in our vast experience that we can control. Our mind is the mechanism with which we choose thoughts.
Oh, it seems sometimes that we do not have control over our thoughts. That they come into the mind willy nilly, unbidden. And to a point, that is true. But we have the power to discern and decide. We can choose whether to accept any thought or dismiss it. After all, there’s nobody else in there but you. If a thought does not serve to advance your wellbeing or the overall good, why entertain it? If a thought does not serve your peace of mind, why should it carry sway? Thoughts come in two flavors: positive or negative; sometimes described as love or fear.
Certainly an untrained, undisciplined mind may claim issue with the ability to choose thoughts. (Here comes the “chemical imbalance” excuse.) But the problem is lack of training. It may seem that thoughts race through the mind like a herd of wild horses, trampling our peace of mind and ability to choose. Training the mind need not be looked upon like some kind of Draconian boot camp. Discipline is easy. The first thing needed is to slow down that herd of horses so we can choose which one we want to ride. That’s why it’s essential to learn a legitimate form of meditation that will quiet that herd of thoughts, turn down the static, return to baseline. That’s never a bad idea. And after that, it is good to understand how to cultivate thought because, as noted above, the world of form around us will reflect that thought that initiated it. And here’s how it works.
Thought creates. When we entertain a thought, that thought has the power to create a belief in our mind. There are many methods that thought can do that: repetition, emphatic impact like a trauma, reinforcement by a belief in an authority, imagery and other ways. That thought leads to belief.
Belief. Belief is nothing more than a thought that we have truly bought into. A belief spans the realms of both our conscious and subconscious minds. That’s why we can consciously deny we believe something while at the same time the subconscious believes it fully. Therein is the secret. We must change any negative belief or reinforce any positive belief in the most powerful part of the mind, the subconscious. And here’s why. Unless the subconscious embraces that belief, we are unable to affect how we feel and feeling is the true interface with the world of form.
Feeling. Feeling is the evidence of any belief. What we believe has a connection in feeling and what we feel has the power to make something real when we engage the subconscious. To make a change in the world of form we have to pay attention to the feeling we have embraced. Why? Because the feeling is the real you. Think of it like this: You’ve got a sales pitch to deliver at a meeting. You consciously know your idea is a good one and you have your presentation all planned. But you have a nagging doubt about a couple steps or maybe your ability to even get your idea across. You may not even be fully aware of that doubt. If you feel like it might not go over, if you feel doubt, do you think the others won’t pick that up? Come on. Of course they will and you know that.
It’s like the difference between the golfer who steps up to a putt thinking he’s going to sink it and the golfer who walks up and clears his mind and lets his feeling go to work. I guarantee you that if the golfer feels doubt, he’ll get the yips.
Your feelings will always come out no matter how much you try to hide them and that’s why you have to pay attention to feelings. And get back to the cause of those feelings. (Review: Thought causes Belief causes Feelings. Change the thought.)
Form. Form is the world our bodies appear to occupy. We do have the propensity as humans to obsess with the world of form because it’s what we see with our eyes. But as poet William Blake wrote, “We are led to believe a lie, when we see with, and not through the eye…”
It’s our world of perception. The point being that if we do not like what we perceive, our task is to change what we believe. Think about it.
Be well.
Heartland Healing is a metaphysically based polemic describing alternatives to conventional methods of healing the body, mind and planet. It is provided as information and entertainment, certainly not medical advice. Important to remember and pass on to others: for a weekly dose of Heartland Healing, visit HeartlandHealing.com.
2020.03.10