Changing my reality begins with awareness

It was 1998 and all I heard at work was yoga, yoga, yoga. I asked, “Can you please explain what yoga is and what happens in a class?”.  The answer I was getting was so unsatisfactory that I popped into one of the Town classes offered on Thursday nights. We put our bodies in different positions. It felt good and I totally enjoyed it, especially since I had always been flexible. At the end of the class she guided us to sit upright and close our eyes. We sat like that for ten minutes. Was it really ten minutes?  It was the most annoying ten minutes and it felt like an hour of my life. 

It was so loud in my head, with random thoughts running continuously without any pause. What was I supposed to be doing? We did not receive and instructions. I remember some concept of making the mind go blank. How on earth was this possible when the mind would not shut up?

This was my first experience and awareness of my continuously running thoughts. I was fascinated and occasionally on my drive home from work I would chime in to see what was playing up there in my mind. I would listen to the play-by-play of a certain event. I would listen to what I could have said differently. I would listen to my mind verbally abusing myself. WOW. This brought me to a whole new level of awareness. I became aware of the negative speaking and slowly started changing how I spoke. From responding to someone asking ‘How are you?’, I went from ‘Not bad’, to ‘I am great!’. 

Thoughts create words, words create actions and actions create reality. Becoming aware of my thoughts and starting to choose my thoughts was the beginning of change and changing my reality.   

Marise