We are all "lifelong learners" but we are taught early on to "figure things out."  Everyone can remember being told as a child, "Think about it.  You'll figure it out."  As we move through life, we spend more and more time going over and over life situations in our minds, trying to come up with answers, or asking other people for answers and then trying to figure out how to follow their ideas.  This takes us away from the most wonderful resource we have:  the ability to have original thought, ideas that occur to us out of the blue in a quiet state of mind.  When w ..read more

We are very dependent on our intellect (everything we already know that is stored in our brain) for a lot in life.  It allows us to remember how to run things, where we put things, what we've learned, how to find our friends' houses, how to do our jobs, phone numbers, people's names, etc.  Sometimes people hear us talking about looking to live from original thought, wisdom, and common sense rather than from memory as if we had to reinvent the wheel every day.  Or they hear "wisdom" as something really special and hard to attain.  Original thoughts are fresh ideas we get tha ..read more

We might awaken from nightmares frightened or sad, but as soon as we wake up we realize it was just a dream.  Even if we find our dreams disturbing, we know they are dreams.  Yet when we fall into low mood thinking or get stuck on troubled memories or entertain fears during the day, we don't call them "daymares."  We don't realize we can "wake up" and put those thoughts behind us.  We're always thinking.  Thoughts come to mind.  If they are distressing, they affect our feeling state and we can hop on a train of negative thinking.  But when we know we just got ..read more

Low mood thinking is always compelling because it generates strong feelings and it arises from insecurity.  So it looks like we have to do something about it.  It is habitual thinking that comes to mind from our memories with a familiar feeling, which gives it more weight.  People complain about being "plagued" or "haunted" or "frequently visited by" negative thoughts, and the need to "deal with" them.  The Principles show us that thoughts are nothing more than images brought to mind by our own power to think.  As the thinkers we are always at choice.  Turn away f ..read more

People are often confused by the power we have as thinkers to create our experience of reality.  It does NOT mean that we can stare at a new car in a showroom and manifest it in our life; it does not mean we can wish for an outcome of a situation and make it happen.  Life is happening; there is actual reality in which we live.  But what WE see of it, we see from our own thinking.  So in a low state of mind, we might look out at a rainy day and feel glum about having to go out in it.  In a different state of mind, we might just remember to take an umbrella and feel grat ..read more

When we recognize the simplicity of living in the now, following our wisdom as things come to mind, we live at peace.  We benefit from a flow of insight which allows us to see more clearly our own power to think and create our experience of reality and understand life.  We learn as we go, finding the lessons and blessings in disappointment as well as in great outcomes.  We are inspired by fresh thought, and we start to see that we can't figure things out or force a plan to work out; but we always get the thought we need when it's needed and we are guided through life.  When ..read more

The definition of changing our minds is "having a new thought."  It is natural to allow thoughts to come and go, responsive to the moment, without attachment to any thought.  If we get stuck on a thought, though, we hold onto it.  We think some things so often for so long that they seem more "real" to us.  We all have ideas we assume are true because we've always thought them.  We easily let go of passing thoughts and we change our minds all day long without even realizing it.  In the face of habitual thoughts, though, it takes an insight to change.  As we un ..read more

Each one of us is always creating our own experience of reality with our unique power to think.  So there really is no such thing as objective reality.  We all see what we see; someone looking at the same situation will see it differently.  Indeed, in a different state of mind, WE may see it entirely differently.  So our experience of life is unique to each of us, and what we see for ourselves looks compelling and true to us.  The Principles explain this.  Seeing the truth of this reveals why disagreement and conflict occur and why they are understandable and forg ..read more

A lot of people talk about "doing the Principles," or "using the Principles," or "combining the Principles with other 'approaches,'" or thinking the Principles are a "really interesting method."  That downplays the power of Principles as words that stand for and describe formless power, the essential energy, from which all creation takes form.  We use words to represent the idea of what that energy means.  But the Principles are the understanding of how life works that wisdom brings us when we look away from the form and deeper within our own soul or consciousness to gain "insig ..read more

When you hear about the Principles, you hear of "Levels of Consciousness."  What does this mean?  Our ever-changing "level" is the degree to which we have insights that lead us to realize that all thought is illusion, merely what we make up in the moment.  All of it, even though early on, much of it seemed "real."  The more we realize that the power to think is what sets us free and the content is variable and transitory, the higher our level of consciousness.  The level is our ability to live at peace, knowing that everyone's thoughts are unique.  It allows us to ..read more