Welcome to the Grow Inward Podcast, I am your host Adrian Petrillo.
Welcome to this weeks show and thank you for joining me for another episode of the Grow Inward Podcast. I have to apologize for backtracking on what I said last week. I had intended to make last weeks episode the last in a short series of conversations on connection, but I quickly realized that there is much more to explore and so I decided to continue because I believe there is often a great deal of value found in even the smallest shifts in your perspective. Sometimes a tiny shift is all you need to make some really big breakthroughs. With that in mind, I thought that having these conversations may provide you with an opportunity to do just that. So letβs continue exploring different areas of connection and some of the ways that you might consider looking at different subjects through this lens, and diving below your surface level thoughts or impressions to question if what you are experiencing in your life is subjective or objective reality?
The more time you take to think about the idea of your connections specifically, regardless of the context or subject, it becomes readily apparent just how powerful of a sway that your assigned thoughts and perceptions have. When I say that connection is everything I really do mean it, because the way in which you filter your experiences through this particular lens has everything to do with your entire life experience, and so today I want to talk about your connection to your thoughts specifically, in an effort to stir up some personal consideration around how you are currently allowing this dynamic to play out in your own life.
By taking a closer look at your own thoughts, the connections you create around those, and the experiences you are having in your life, reflection becomes an invaluable tool for uncovering the very mechanism's that ultimately shape these experiences. This concept is incredibly powerful for this reason, if you can clearly see and appreciate the connection between how your thoughts and your experiences intimately influence each other on a grand and profound scale, you have just uncovered possibly the most significant key to creating solutions to many problems you face in life. A statement which you may have heard many times over comes to mind here, change your thoughts and you will change your life.
I completely understand that this statement often sounds much easier said than done, but let's explore these connections a little more today and see if we can soften things up a bit and perhaps create a new connection to how you view this process. This conversation around thoughts is very much a part of mindset and the way in which you choose to use your own mind in a way that plays to your strengths and works to your advantage. There is no denying how powerful your minds is, but I also fully appreciate how difficult your connection to your own perceptions can also be, and it would not be accurate to say that mindset alone is the only solution.
Psychology will also come into play for most of us, at least to some degree, and you must be able to recognize and appreciate when this particular aspect of your makeup is presenting you with a barrier which you must overcome so that you can reframe the emotional, situational, or rationalized thoughts and meanings that you have created powerful connections to. These are often connections going way back into our early years when we were just learning to make meaning of the world around us. Often we need to clear this path first so that we can effectively adopt a new growth mindset in our life going forward, one that is not only empowering but also much more effective to maintain!
Your thoughts and your experiences are deeply intertwined at a very fundamental level. In fact, I have come to see that the more clarity you can bring to the thoughts you are having about nearly any given experience, past or present, the easier it is to see the very foundations upon which you are trying to build upon. For instance, if you think that you are not good enough to have the things that you want out of life, whether that be relationships, jobs, money, opportunities, skills, whatever, take a moment to consider the foundation that these kinds of thoughts will tend to have as you attempt to pursue your own personal goals and experiences in life?
The moment you entertain these kinds of thoughts your mind begins looking for evidence of what you are expecting to find, and your mind is incredibly proficient at finding exactly what it is looking for. Not only that, but as you begin to discover more and more evidence that supports your thoughts, you can easily justify and create a lasting connection between these thoughts and your actual experiences. From there it isn't hard to make a leap to believing this is the objective truth about any particular experience, but is it really? When you find yourself making a statement or entertaining a thought in any situation such as this, you should take a breath, pause, and reflect on this truth to ask, is this the only truth?
It could be helpful to imagine someone else looking at it from the outside and considering if they would see exactly what you are seeing, and asking if it is possible that they might see something completely different? If there is even a possibility that someone else might see this situation differently, wouldn't that make your interpretation and connection to it more subjective than objective? If you are able to poke some holes in the truth and connections you have assigned to these thoughts, then maybe they aren't really actually true? This is a powerful realization that can help you to immediately change the way you connect with different thoughts.
In this way, you can remove a great deal of the sting of your own limiting thoughts and make some much needed room for the many other possibilities which also exist, despite the assignments you have already made and applied some arbitrary and subjective meaning to. If you find that there are deeper issues or emotional aspects that are keeping you from effectively doing this, you may need some help removing these barriers first so that you can then step into a much more empowering mindset.
It can be challenging to look back at some of the persistent blocks that you have created in your life, many of which can go far back into your childhood at that time when you were trying to make sense of the world. I know that in my life I have noticed this to be very much the case, and it took some courage to go back and have a closer look at the meanings that I assigned to many of the events I experienced in my young life and how I created my own connections and thoughts around those events. I think it is helpful to remember to be kind to yourself when looking at these kinds of things, it isn't easy to accept that you may have carried many limiting thoughts for your entire life all because you didn't have the right tools or support to overcome them until later in life. It also requires a willingness to face some emotionally triggering reflections at times, but my question to you would be how long are you willing to carry these kinds of burdens before you are willing to work through them so you can feel more whole, more confident, or more clear in pursuit of your goals?
You know, these kinds of discussions are so appropriate and necessary for those of us on a path to inner growth and awareness. Grow Inward once again captures the heart of what we are talking about when it comes to subjects such as this. I think that the thoughts we create and the connections we are consciously creating around them are very important to consider and reflect on. They seem like simple and obvious considerations, but how often do you really stop and reflect seriously on things like this? I think it is so easy in such a fast paced and impatient world to tell yourself that you are aware of this, but I would be more inclined to believe that while you may be aware of these kinds of things, it is a rare occurrence to put some serious thought and work into undoing many of the connections you have created that do nothing more than hold you back? I am no exception, in fact, the reason I chose to speak about this very subject was because I am in the middle of doing this myself and I am seeing just how valuable this work is. I want nothing more than to share these kinds of insights which I find particularly valuable, because I see just how much potential they have in changing lives.
The fact that we are all different is a great reason to explore many different subjects, angles, and perspectives, on any path to inner growth. The keys that unlock some of your most meaningful progress in life are often hidden from you, and it can take a great deal of experimentation and persistence before you find those things that work best for you. I think that making curiosity a fixture in your spiritual life is an incredibly valuable tool in finding those keys that are waiting for you to discover and unlock something within yourself, and I think there are many keys to be found as well. I encourage you to never limit yourself by thinking that once you have answered one question that this is enough, let curiosity keep you searching for more. There are endless additional keys for you to find, and I hope I inspire you just enough to keep looking, even if you feel like you are flying blind for so much of it. Have faith that your willingness to explore itself is always leading you right where you need to be, try imprinting a connection to that thought in yourself and let it guide you where it will. After all, inner growth is the ultimate exploration and it is a unique journey for every single one of us!
Until next time, never underestimate the power you have within you and keep growing inward.
