Change Your Thoughts, Change Your Life

If I had to sum up all that I've learned through the various meditation practices that I have used over the years it would be the above, oft-quoted (sampled?) saying: change your thoughts, change your life. I don't know who first said it. Was it one of the ancient sources (the Vedas, the Upanishads, the Dead Sea Scrolls)? Did it come from one of the New Thought movement authors back in the late 19th/early 20th century (Atkinson, Towne)? Or did it come from much later than that? I'm simply not sure. But the idea - however it was worded - has been around for a long time.

There are at least two interpretations of this saying. The first and simplest interpretation is : you can change your thoughts and thus how you respond emotionally to any given situation and thus change your life.  Fairly straightforward. Nothing mumbo-jumbo or woowoo about it. The second interpretation follows more along the line of the much discussed "law of attraction." You change your thoughts (which create your reality) and you change the external circumstances of your life.

Modern science has provided us with a possible third alternative in terms of understanding the maxim. Epigenetics (the study of what genes are "expressed" and how that process occurs) states very clearly that one's long-term emotional state or outlook on life directly affects which genes in your body are active. It is a broad subject with a great amount of detail and its findings in the past couple of decades run counter to what most of us were taught in school about genetics (i.e. dominant and recessive and Mendel and white cows and brown cows and roan cows).  Dr. Bruce Lipton's book "The Biology of Belief" is a good place to start if your interested in learning more about the subject.

Essentially, epigenetics says if you have a positive outlook on life that you will activate certain genes in your body while a person who has a negative outlook on life will activate other genes in his/her body. So mind affects body which can/does affect how one acts in the world and, thus, how people respond to you.

However you personally understand or "take" the idea of change your thoughts, change your life is, of course, up to you. I know from the experiences that my wife and I have had over the years that the more positive I am the better my life flows. Flows is the best word I have come up with to describe the light-hearted state that regular meditation puts me in. A state of flow in which all the details of life just seem to mesh perfectly with one another. When - for whatever reason - I am not meditating regularly I find I have a grace period of a few days, a few days of meditation momentum but after that wears off I start to slip back down into the struggle again. Struggle as the opposite of flow. The state in which even the simplest of tasks is encumbered with unexpected delays and frustrations.

Presently, my wife and I are all about being in flow. We've left our old jobs, moved to a different part of the country and are tremendously excited about all the new adventures that lie before us. Our regular meditation practice is the foundation of the state and our excitement. Without it we would not have as much success as we already have had and are expecting in the near future. So, change your thoughts, change your life!

Next time I'll talk about some specific techniques you can use when changing your thoughts is a hard thing to do.