We may not even realise it but we all carry around with us deep-rooted fears from previous experiences that prevents us from moving forward in many areas of our lives.

These fears result in thinking thoughts that may not always be true. The thoughts have arose from a place of fear and they will be clouded with fragments of past experiences rather than based on what is happening in the present moment. 

One particular area that can cause us tremendous problems is our love life. We often repeat the same patterns and remain stuck in past or current dynamics purely because something somewhere is causing us to feel fearful. This fear prevents our minds from opening up and accepting other people unconditionally and also prevents us from being able to see things from their perspective. 

Trying to unearth the root cause can seem like a daunting task as we first must be prepared for what may be lurking beneath the undergrowth. We mask, block or try to exterminate all kinds of messy experiences pretending that they’ve never happened so we can continue happily along our way.

However, it’s not quite so simple. When we suppress our past we are pushing it deep down into our unconscious mind where it will fester, feel moody and look for the first opportunity to expose itself and remind us that we haven’t yet dealt with it.

Our emotions don’t like to be ignored. They are valid and arose for a reason. Even if the reason wasn’t a valid one and was just due to poor thought processing and over-dramatizing a situation.

Until we look at the reason for the existence of our fearful emotions, they will continue to pester us to make us aware of certain behaviour we exhibit or have exhibited in the past. This is our unconscious mind’s way of making sure we don’t keep pressing repeat on our emotions or the thoughts we had that provoked them. We must remember though, that unless we are prepared to acknowledge these emotions they will manifest themselves in feelings that cause us concern. These feelings can then become confusing and cause us to think about our current situation differently than how it actually is.  

Before we can locate the emotions that are lying dormant, we first must need to ask our ego to step out of the way and then we must break through all the illusions that will appear on every corner.

When we are still and calm the mind, we can focus more on our inner knowing, which is our intuition, and it has a better perception of the overall truth than our conscious mind does. We also have to remember that our conscious thinking has added to our inner knowledge, so whatever is within us, still may not be the full version of the truth as it has been influenced by our thoughts, emotions and feelings.

We have to remember, our thoughts, emotions and feelings aren’t always a true reflection of what has taken, or is taking, place. Our memories aren’t always the truth. Our perception of something is often entirely wrong and therefore, isn’t always the truth either.

We are looking at things through a narrow focused lens instead of looking at things through a kaleidoscope. We only see the angles that we allow ourselves to see, rather than looking from every direction. Realistically, we can never look at things from every single angle as we can only see from our own perspective and however hard we try it is impossible to see things exactly as another mind would. Therefore, in relationships or any dynamic, within most situations there is always going to be some level of misunderstanding or confusion.

No two people think alike, so we cannot trust that our own mind is the absolute version of the truth. There are endless ways to observe and assess the same thing.

We all add our own experience, knowledge and beliefs to everything we encounter. And our experience, knowledge and beliefs are not always to be trusted.

Our conscious mind tells all kinds of stories and the thoughts we think are perfectly logical and rational are often illogical and extremely irrational.

We have been conditioned to believe so much nonsense that has no connection whatsoever to reality. We tell ourselves fairy tales and happy-ever-afters, and then we confuse ourselves by adding thrillers or horror stories. Our imagination plays tricks on us and our memories don’t always serve us well. It is no wonder we cannot always trust our thoughts and that our mind is often in bewilderment.

We are like alchemists mixing together various components and trying to figure a way to blend ingredients to produce the truth. No two mixtures will be exactly the same even if exactly the same ingredients have been added. We all have our own way of stirring the pot and depending on the conditions of the experiment the results will always turn out differently. The heat of the flames that warm the pot will always be at different temperatures and the alchemist will always stir the pot differently. 

Two people in a relationship are similar to the two alchemists. They will never ever produce exactly the same results in their minds, regardless of how similar the information has been that entered them.

It’s very common to think that whatever takes place in our conscious mind is the truth, however, realistically it often couldn’t be farther from it. We often say statements like, “It is my truth,” however, that isn’t even really true.

Before coming to conclusions we don’t analyze, consider or question all the information we have access to. Our minds are busy and they flip from one thought to the next without pondering it and working out its origin. We don’t converse with our subconscious and unconscious minds to pull out all the information that is held there, and even if we do, we don’t really know for sure how authentic or trustworthy that information is.

How many times have we thought about something, then thought about it again and again and again before we realize we haven’t got a clue about what to think about it anymore, what action to take or whether we are heading in the right direction or not? We cloud our own minds due to thoughts that infiltrate it and grow irrational and then take over.

Our conscious mind relays pieces of information that have left their impression on us in our unconscious mind. When we try to gain access to those impressions our egos take over and tell us a very different story to what actually happened.

We try to convince ourselves that something is the truth, however, quite often it is just the aftermath of a succession of thoughts and false beliefs.

The most important thing we need to remember is that we cannot always trust our thoughts, we cannot always trust our beliefs and we cannot always trust our memories.  

We absolutely have to keep our minds open and willing to consider all avenues, all versions and all possibilities. We have to realize that we are not always right. And neither is anyone else. We don’t have to have all the answers, we don’t have to know it all and we don’t need to be able to always trust in our own minds.

We can make mistakes, pick ourselves back up, dust ourselves off and start again. We shouldn’t beat ourselves up just because our minds only gave us access to a particular way of thinking or a limited version of the truth.

Every moment something changes that could change what we consider might be the truth. Life is constantly moving and the truth in everything alters with motion. Therefore, we have to constantly let go of our attachment to the absolute truth and accept that the truth changes constantly, not just for us, but for all of those around us too. Then we can let go of the fear and accept each moment and each experience as it presents itself to us.

We are human, we are learning constantly and we can only change our lives when we change our minds. And to change our minds all we need to do is realize that we really don’t know very much, in the scheme of things, at all.

More importantly, we shouldn’t always place faith in our minds.

Our conscious minds are limited. The truth is limitless. 

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Relephant Favorite:

The Ancient Enneagram Personality Test with Detailed Profiles: Finding Out Who We Really Are.

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Author: Alex Myles

Editor: Travis May

Photo: Flickr/Laura Shelton