I Kind of Create My Own Reality

Not for a minute do I believe that I create my own reality, and not for a minute do I believe that I don’t. I’m caught somewhere in the middle. I’m at the “I kind of create my own reality” stage.

The idea that I create my own reality is both concept and fact. On the one hand, I know it’s true, and on the other hand, I don’t totally believe it. I’ve experienced knowing that I create all of my reality when I had the “out”-of body. And yet, I haven’t been able to bring that level of knowing to my daily, waking life. I try, but it’s tough. The reason that it’s tough is that I, like so many people, have strong associations with being a small body in a great, big world. Furthermore, there are some problems with the phrase “You create your own reality” in general.

Take the word “create” for instance. Most people automatically associate that term with their hands, their thoughts, and their speech. I’ll say, for example, that, “I created room in my closet by getting rid of a bunch of old junk that I had in there.” The association I make is that I used my hands to pick up objects and move them to a new location. I use the word “created” to mean, “I physically picked up those things in the closet and moved them.”

Or I’ll say that, “I created a new song today.” The association is that I had an idea and then used my hands to type out the lyrics onto the computer.

If you create a product, you get an idea and then you might give instructions to other people who then do things with their hands and to bring together that product. Over and over again, the word “create” is associated with a thought, spoken words, and the movement of your body and most often, but not always, your hands.

Then you get these channeled authors who come along and say that you create your own reality, and we’re all a little stumped. Because part of it rings true. The idea dredges up some kind of long lost memory of something you can’t quite put your mind around. At the same time, how can that possibly be accurate that I create my own reality? Because the automatic association is that you have to do something with your thoughts, words, or hands, and we all know that we’re not out there yelling at the trees to come into being, or thinking them into our backyards. I don’t make a mountain with my hands. And no matter how hard I concentrate, I haven’t the foggiest idea how to create air.

As I sit in my living room, my hands, my thoughts, and my spoken words are not creating the rug or the ottoman or the light fixture because I can sit here and do nothing, think nothing, and say nothing, and the environment and those objects will continue to exist around me. In fact, I’m tempted to say that I don’t create any of it. I didn’t create the air, I didn’t create the apartment, and I didn’t create the rug or the ottoman or the light fixture. Literally, I did not use my hands to build any of these things. I did not instruct any other person to do so either.

“Create” is a rascal of a word.

“You create your own reality” only makes sense if you redefine the words “you” and “create.” If you define “you” as your body then the phrase makes no sense whatsoever because you don’t create your reality by using your body to construct it. Furthermore, if you limit the word “create” to only that narrow definition of coming up with ideas, speaking, and constructing things through the use of your body, then the phrase also makes no sense because you do not create planets and solar systems that way, and those things are certainly part of your reality.

“You” and “create” have to have expanded definitions for the phrase to make any sense at all. Assuming the phrase is true, and I’m making that assumption, then you as an identity must be in continuity with everything you see around you. In other words, though you experience a kind of separation, you aren’t really separate from anything. This has to be a fundamental identification otherwise there’s no way you can have any effect on the reality you experience much less create it. In order to be the causal force for your reality, you have to be connected to it completely. If you don’t understand this then you’re just uttering a phrase that hasn’t any real meaning.

And yet, this is a jump for most of us because we like to think of ourselves as the body and the experiences of the body. You say, “I’m Jane Smith. I grew up in Atlanta. I sell clothes for a living. I like to play tennis in my spare time.” These are all stories about the experiences you have through the body that you think make up your identity. You don’t think that you are Atlanta and the clothes you sell and the store you sell them in. You don’t think that you are the people who buy the clothes or the money you ring up at the cash register. You don’t think that you are the tennis court and the racket and the sunny day. To most people, their identity ends at their skin.

We construct our ideas about ourselves in a manner that follows:

Body = Me.

Thoughts, ideas, desires, goals = Me.

Clothes = Mine, but not me.

Air = Not mine. Not me.

Relatives = Mine, but not me.

Job = Mine, but not me.

Car = Mine, but not me.

Government = Mine, but don’t want it to be mine. Not me.

Tree down the street = Not mine. Not me.