A Belief

For as long as I can remember, I have been fascinated by human behaviour. I can happily observe the way people interact with one another and the world around them. I can be very intrigued by the manner in which people react differently to certain situations or environments. I can sit watching people and wonder what they are thinking and what their story is. What has happened to them over their lifetime that has put them on one path or another?

Recently I read that we think around sixty thousand thoughts each day. To me that is a phenomenal number yet when I consider how my brain never seems to be quiet, I can believe it. I can’t imagine what anyone would think if I shared some of the peculiar thoughts that traverse my grey matter.

It strikes me as interesting how two people can be in the same situation yet see the circumstances so differently. The exact same thing or event happened to them both, yet their view of what occurred is not the same. Herein is the space where a thought becomes a belief. Each person can see or hear the exact same thing yet what they thought they heard or saw varies with others. What they perceive to have happened becomes what they believe happened; it becomes a part of the story that they will tell.

I know that some folks seem to have certain thoughts on loop like they are playing their favourite song list over and over and the more these thoughts become familiar, the more they are considered the truth. This though, is merely just their truth. This may not in fact be the actual truth. Another person in the same relationship or in the situation this story develops from has a dissimilar account which they believe to be the truth.

The greatest story teller we have is our own minds. They are not the purest of recording devices. In fact, our minds can fail miserably at accurately recording anything we see or hear. They often captures perceptions and snippets of reality that get woven into the fabric of thoughts and these thoughts we believe in; why would our minds lie to us?

Yet lie they do. How many times have you caught yourself inadvertently calling yourself names when you forgot something or muddled something up? How many times have your caught yourself self-criticising and do you really truly believe within all your being that these are accurate thoughts? Our thoughts are not always truth, believed or actual. We are not silly or stupid or an idiot as we may call ourselves nor are we ugly, unworthy or unlovable.

This is where we have to be mindful and careful of what thoughts we chose to believe, both within our own minds and the ones conveyed to us when in conversation or engaged in relationships with other people. We need to remember that their view is merely their perceptions and not necessarily the truth. It may serve us better to keep a very open mind that in fact someone else’s view may present a closer picture of what is actually the truth. Be attentive to what you know to be true for certain and what you are taking in as someone else’s belief.

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