Use the Power of Thoughts to Overcome Life’s Challenges

When I think of the power of thoughts, the words that come to mind are magnetic, limitless, magnificent, inspiring, absolute, telling, unapologetic, persevering, merciless, relentless…

Words that point to how dynamic and powerfully amazing or scary they can be. 

Like a powerful leader, thoughts can lead us in a positive direction, or they can lead to our demise. 

This may sound dramatic, but it’s true. You can use the power of thoughts to overcome life's challenges and create a life experience that you never thought possible. However, if you don’t consciously guide your thoughts, they can lead you down a path of negativity and self-doubt. 

I have seen the impact of thoughts in my own life and have used them to overcome difficult circumstances and emotions. This doesn't mean that life is always perfect or that I am always joyful, but I am always growing. Today, I am proud of the progress I have made and the life I have created by using the power of my thoughts. And you can do the same!

Why Our Thoughts Are So Powerful

Let's start by acknowledging that all the power you need to create any experience in your life lies within you. You are a powerful creator at your core. As humans, we all have thoughts, which is amazing because one of the most powerful tools that exists to get us creating and experiencing the lives we want is the power of thoughts. This is something we all have equal access to.

There is a lot of information out there that suggests the power of thoughts in creating our reality. I will touch on two of these theories that I have leaned on in my life and gotten meaningful results from.

I believe these two frameworks of how our reality is created work beautifully together. While the law of attraction is often criticized for being too simplistic, it's important to note that it's not just about thinking positively and waiting for good things to happen. Instead, it's about taking action and being aware of the power of thoughts, especially those that are outside of your conscious awareness. CBT reinforces this idea by showing how our thoughts can create actions that reinforce those thoughts. It also emphasizes the importance of identifying these thoughts and not just reacting to them automatically.

Although there are downfalls to any theory, they both emphasize the power of thoughts. This is where it all begins. And please don't take my word for it, see it for yourself!

Take a moment to reflect on the power of thoughts in your life. What have your thoughts created for you? 

By understanding the power of thoughts, you can understand your life. When faced with a challenge, this understanding grants you the awareness necessary to move in the direction of your desired life experience.

If I’m the Creator, Why Would I Choose Negative Experiences?

Life has a way of covering up our power. Even though you would not consciously choose a negative life experience for yourself, this is largely happening in our subconscious mind outside of our awareness.

The subconscious mind is what’s generally running the show. It consists of beliefs, thoughts, memories, and feelings that lie underneath our conscious awareness. It drives our actions, habits, and everyday things that we do without thinking about them, like riding a bike. Most importantly, it’s accessible if we choose to shine a light on it.

Let’s talk about the brain for a minute to bring greater understanding to some of the ways that your thoughts get into your subconscious. This will help to meet your difficult thoughts with compassion and to realize that this is what human brains do, there is nothing wrong with you. 

The Primitive Brain

The primitive brain’s primary objective is to keep you safe. I like to think of it as acting like an overprotective parent. If you ever have an uncomfortable emotion, this parent will be quick to dismiss it and do whatever they can to keep you from feeling it. 

If you have thoughts about life outside of your home or start to feel trapped or smothered, this parent would prefer this uncomfortable feeling over the unknown of what lies beyond your current world. It’s like that saying, ‘better the devil you know than the devil you don’t.’ This is because the unknown could be a threat to your survival, and your brain does not want you going there. 

Your brain doesn’t want you questioning your thoughts because you may uncover thoughts about your worthiness and lovability which can feel like one of the biggest threats of all. When you’re living for your survival, acceptance and protection from the group is a huge advantage in ensuring your safety. 

This parent is always on the lookout for anything that is wrong or could go wrong. This explains the negativity bias, where experiences that would be labeled as being more negative in nature, gain more attention and focus from our minds than neutral or positive events.

In this scenario, the sheltered child is safe, but they never get to experience the wholeness of life. They also tend towards a more fearful and less confident existence, completely unaware of their power. 

Thank goodness for the more evolved prefrontal cortex where informed decisions can be made. In keeping with the analogy, this is where you, the child, is now grown up and able to see your parent for who they truly are. You understand that they love you and were just trying to keep you safe. But you also now understand just how much they have held you back. 

You know that most of their worries were not real threats to your survival. What you really needed, and need now, is to step into the unknown where you get to grow as a person and truly live. 

Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs

As a lifelong student of psychology, I’ve always been really interested in applying different theories and teachings into my own life. Maslow’s hierarchy of needs is no exception to this. 

I am sensitive to this model because I have seen its effects in my own life and want to prevent these effects from happening in my children’s lives. By understanding and addressing our unmet needs, we can take control of our lives and move towards self-actualization, where we can reach our full potential and live a fulfilling life.

Maslow proposed that there are 5 categories of needs which motivate human behavior. We start at the bottom with our most basic physiological needs and work our way up as each need is met. Wherever we’re at in this hierarchy, is where our focus is. 

Let’s look at childhood through the lens of this model. If a child does not consistently have one of these needs met or if a need is neglected, he or she will struggle to reach the above needs. For example, a child may grow up in an environment where he or she is not consistently physically or emotionally cared for in a stable environment. This disrupts his/her safety needs from being met and affects all above needs as well.

The child’s main focus may remain on meeting these safety needs even into their adulthood. This could present in many different ways. One possible presentation may be difficulty building trust and connection with others. Until this person addresses the unmet need, it will continue to affect his/her life.  

Rewiring the Brain

The best part is that it's entirely possible to rewire our brains and create new neural pathways. When you bring awareness and meet yourself with compassion and understanding, you are on the path to positive change. However, if you choose not to become conscious, negative thought patterns and limiting beliefs will continue to play in the background, creating negative life experiences for you. It's important to recognize and challenge these patterns in order to expand your comfort zone and reach your full potential.

Putting the Power of Thoughts to Use

With all of this being said, let’s get into what led you to click and read this post. Here you will learn how you can use the power of thoughts for any challenge you are currently facing in your life.

What’s the Challenge that Brought You Here?

Let’s face it, life is full of challenges. This is another thing we all have in common as humans on the planet. 

So what challenge are you hoping to overcome with the power of thoughts? I’m guessing you already have something in mind, but if not, let me get you thinking of some areas that may need a little love in your life.

Life’s challenges can take on many different forms.

Sometimes, it’s doing something you don’t want to do, like family responsibilities, yelling at your kids, overeating, drinking, or not getting enough sleep.

Other times, it’s not doing something you want to do, like losing weight, starting a business, making more money, or having more fun.

You may be unhappy with a certain circumstance in your life, such as your job, health, finances, or a relationship. You may think you have no time or are unhappy with how you’re spending your time. This could also be on a global scale, like thinking you live in a cold and uncaring world and focusing on all the divisiveness and inequality around you. 

Or you could be experiencing a painful or uncomfortable emotion like anxiety, stress, frustration, or worry. 

And sometimes, it’s an overall undesirable result in your life. Have you ever had questions like, “What am I doing with my life?”, “How did I get here?”, or “Is there more to life?”

The thing to notice here is that seldom do we attribute life’s challenges to being our thoughts. When you are able to turn this around and see your thought as the problem or challenge, you have all the power. It sounds so simple, but all you have to do is access and change your thoughts, and you have everything you need to overcome this challenge. You have turned on the “power of thoughts” switch and have gained access to the most powerful tool you have to overcome a challenge and create a better life. 

The Power of Thoughts

You can start by making a simple shift in wording. Instead of seeing life as being full of challenges, how about looking at it as being full of opportunities? Take the same situation you identified, but instead of looking at it in a negative light, see it as an opportunity to change it, learn, and grow as a person in the process. Just by doing this, you can already start to see the power of thoughts and what they are capable of. 

“When you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change.” -Wayne Dyer

So let me reiterate, life is full of opportunities. It will always be this way because we are human. We will take on one opportunity, and there will be another one waiting. How exciting! I don't want to make light of whatever you're facing, but seriously, the greater the challenge, the stronger the person who takes it on will be on the other side.

There are so many stories out there of rags-to-riches or people who have been through unimaginable atrocities but have come out the other end with incredible grace and bravery. If it were true that a situation could destroy a person, these amazing stories would not exist. And we are all capable of being this person if we go to the right place to overcome our challenges, which is inside and into our thoughts.

So what exactly is the "opportunity" you're looking to take on? If you've thought about a few, write them down and be specific. Now choose one. Work on just one at a time and give it your focus. You can come back to others later.

Identify the Thought

To be really clear, I'm going to say this again: the problem is not your actions, current situation, or undesirable result in your life. It's your thoughts. Your power and freedom lie within you and your thoughts.

Your Mind as a Garden

I’m going to guide you through an exercise to help you see how your thoughts have played a role in creating your current challenge or experience you’re having. This is going to be different for everyone as challenges can be all across the board. It’s not a one-size-fits-all situation but we will do our best at getting to the “seed” of your challenge. 

I say seed because I want you to imagine your mind as a garden. I’m not a gardener so this may not be a perfect analogy but I find it helpful to visualize in this way. You can have any kind of garden you want. I like to imagine mine as a beautiful flower garden. 

The plants, flowers, and weeds in this garden represent the reality of your life. Each of these plants started with a seed, which represents your thoughts. The seed is like the subconscious mind, buried under the ground and out of sight. Like a seed is nourished by water, your thoughts are nourished by your belief in them. 

The more you think this thought, the bigger and stronger the plant grows. As it grows, it comes into your consciousness and it becomes what you see in your life. Your feelings start to sprout and your actions continue to drive its growth until you have the full-grown plant that is ultimately the result or experience you’re seeing in your life.

Keep this in mind as you do this work. The goal right now is to gain awareness into your subconscious mind and get it working for you. 

We're going to get pretty deep here, and you may have some painful thoughts coming to the surface. Here are a few tips to support you as you go:

• Don't be afraid of your negative thoughts. They only have power if you believe or resist them.
• Remember that there is a reason for your thoughts and beliefs. Your brain is always trying to protect you, so look at it from this perspective.
• Bring compassion, not judgment, to this process. Acceptance will allow you to choose a different path, judgment will keep you stuck.

Surface Thought

Okay, let’s get to it!

Going back to your mind garden, find that plant that you don’t quite like. Your goal is to identify the weed so you have the knowledge on how to manage it properly. Start by examining it. What are the leaves like? Are there flowers? What does it smell and feel like? Is it jagged or soft? Is it milky? In looking at your specific challenge, this would translate as examining your feelings, thoughts, actions, and results around the situation. 

Whatever the situation, I want you to put yourself into the experience of it. Bring the challenge to mind and identify the feeling that comes up. 

If the challenge is already a feeling you want to overcome, that’s great. Just be in that feeling.

If not, following the CBT model in reverse will get you to the feeling. If it’s an undesirable result, first look at what actions created this, then identify what feeling drove these actions. You may come up with multiple feelings, but just choose one for this purpose. We want to get crystal clear on one thought at a time, focusing on too many things at once will not be helpful. 

Now, get your observations on paper. This is where you’re going to do a brain dump. The idea is to get your thoughts out of your head and onto paper so you can look at them more easily. Remember, you are not your thoughts, and doing this helps create that separation. 

Take out the paper where you wrote your challenge on. Write down every thought that comes to mind that may be causing you to have this feeling. What are the thoughts that preceded this feeling, these actions, or ultimately this undesirable result or experience in your life? 

There are no hard-set rules with this, but there are some guidelines to follow to get the most informative descriptions:

• If this is new for you, you may feel blank and think "I don't know the thoughts." You need to open to the idea that you do know, you just need to dig deeper to find it. Grab a magnifying glass and take a closer look at the plant!
• If your thought is a question, reframe it into a statement. For example, if you have a thought, "How did I get here?" This could be reframed into, "I'm not where I thought I would be at this point in my life."
• Make sure you're focusing on the cause of the feeling. If you're feeling overwhelmed, for example, and you have a thought like "I'm never going to figure this out," here, you may be describing a thought about the feeling but not a thought that created the feeling.

Here are a couple examples to get you thinking:

I have listed the challenge (C) first, followed by a possible thought (T) for each situation:

For the sake of space in this post, I am only listing one or two thoughts for each challenge, but you should have many more on your list.

Here’s one final example. This movie line came to me out of nowhere while I was writing this. When things like that happen, I trust that it’s for a reason.

The line comes from the character Fat Bastard in Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me. He confesses, "I can't stop eating. I eat because I'm unhappy, and I'm unhappy because I eat. It's a vicious cycle." So many times we feel like we're stuck in some situation when it's really just a distortion in our thinking. Maybe you could relate to this quote, if not with food, maybe something else.

Based on what he's saying, and looking at what we know about how the power of thoughts create our reality, it's true that the feeling of unhappiness is driving his action to eat. However, he's not unhappy because he eats. There's a thought that happens between the food he's eating and the feeling of unhappy, and that’s what’s causing him to eat. 

Always remember that the challenge lies in the thought. For instance, in the case of Fat Bastard, his challenge is his belief that he can't stop eating. This thought makes him feel unhappy, which drives his behavior of eating, and then reinforces the thought. This creates a vicious cycle for him. To break free from this cycle, he needs to dig deeper into that thought and decide whether or not to keep believing it.

Now it’s your turn to dig deeper. 

Question the Thought

Back in our mind garden, this is where we do the weeding. Now that you’ve determined your plant is a weed and you don’t want it in your garden, it may be tempting to just pull it out. But these surface observations are not usually the root cause of the problem. This is the difference between knowing what type of weed it is, and knowing what to do about it. You still have a little bit of work to do. If you pull out the weed by the leaves and you don’t remove the root, it will likely just grow back. 

The power of thoughts lies in understanding where they come from. We often mistake our thoughts for facts and never stop to question them. We don't see how they can trigger a threat response from our brain, which in turn affects our emotions and actions. To change this pattern, we need to question our thoughts and find out their origin.

Let’s start with one thought that feels most relevant to your situation. Pick one from your list that you want to go deeper on. Don’t worry if there are more than one that feel equally important; you can keep them as your master list of tools to overcome this challenge and repeat this process later. 

Now, ask yourself why you have this thought. What is the underlying belief or assumption behind it? Keep asking yourself questions like “Why?”, “Then what?”, or “So what?” until you reach the core of your thought.

Don’t settle for vague or superficial answers. Like in the initial brain dump, don’t say “I don’t know” or “because”. Be honest and specific. If you answer with another question, either answer it or turn it into a statement. Keep going until you reach the core belief or assumption that is driving your thought.

This might take some practice and patience. You might encounter some challenges along the way. Here are some tips to help you overcome them:

• If you get stuck in a loop of repeating the same answers, try asking a different question. Change the perspective or angle of your inquiry.
• If the feeling of worry has anything to do with the challenge you’re facing, don’t avoid it. Face it head on and imagine the worst case scenario. Then ask yourself: How likely is this to happen? How would I cope if it did? What can I do to prevent it?
• There is no right or wrong question or answer here. The point is to explore your thought from different angles and gain more insight into it. The goal is to gain understanding as to why you’re having these thoughts.
• If you can’t trace back your thought to its origin, don’t worry. Just acknowledge that this is how your brain has learned to react in certain situations. You can still change this pattern with awareness and practice.

An example from my own life

Let me share an example from my own life to illustrate how this process works. 

I was feeling stuck and lost in life and wanted to overcome this. This feeling would just play in the background of my normal everyday life. I would get restless and uncomfortable any time I had a moment of free time and would have to quickly distract myself to lessen the feeling.

The initial thought I found that was causing me to feel restless was simply “something is missing.” 

I went deeper by questioning the thought.

Why is something missing? Because I’m not happy. I don’t feel I have meaning in my life. I’m not living my purpose. 

Then I would choose one of those to go deeper. 

I’m not happy. Why? (don’t get yourself stuck in a loop; answering “because something is missing” would not be helpful here.) I’m not happy because I’m not living my purpose.

Why? (or you could try so what?) If I was living my purpose my life would feel meaningful.

What would make my life meaningful? Having the perfect job and perfect life. (this felt ridiculous when I said it, but it was true)

And what would a perfect job and perfect life look like? I honestly didn’t know how to answer this. I would have a job I find meaningful, not sure what exactly, something where I felt like I was making a difference. If I could find that, then my perfect life would be possible. One where I would finally be happy. I would have a loving household, me and my partner would never fight, my kids always loved me and we always spent quality time together and had fun.

Interesting…all of this would be possible if I just found a meaningful job? Now that I see it in words, obviously none of this is realistic. 

In the end, I basically discovered that I had a belief that there existed this one answer, one purpose, one missing piece to my life. And further, that it existed outside of myself, first in the form of a job and then as an expectation that life is always supposed to be happy. 

Wow! No wonder I was feeling stuck. Even if I did end up finding this meaningful job, I would keep feeling lost at every step on this path if I kept this thought. It’s not realistic to be happy all of the time. 

Once you’ve examined your thought even closer, let’s get crystal clear on what keeping this thought is creating in your life. 

Recognize its Power

When you take responsibility for your thoughts and see how they have created your reality, you can feel truly empowered. Before understanding this, looking at your mind garden can leave you feeling overwhelmed and powerless. It may be hard to know where to start because of all the weeds and underwhelming flowers. It feels much easier to turn your head or walk away from it.

But now, armed with all the tools and knowledge to be an expert gardener, you can meet your mind garden with compassion and appreciate it exactly as it is in every moment. You can look out at your garden with excitement about what you're capable of creating there. The possibilities for your life are truly endless.

So many of us focus on the outside circumstance, and although this may be what triggers the thought, you don’t have control over what happens outside of you. When you do this, you become a victim of your circumstances and you give away your ability to change the situation. Your power lies in your thought and what you choose to do with it. 

Take a look at your actions and ask yourself:

Who am I being when I’m believing this thought? 

Are you irritable and not present with the people around you? 

Do you spin in your thoughts and judge yourself over your actions?

Do you engage in some form of distraction such as having a drink, overeating, watching tv, etc?

The truth is, you’re never really stuck. There is a way out. You can take on the opportunity to grow and learn from this, then let it go forever and truly move on from it. 

It’s normal to judge yourself as you go through this process, but don’t do that. It’s important to have compassion as you look at how this experience was created. Of course you would take these actions if you believed a thought like this. 

I firmly believe that people are always doing the best they can with the information they have. When you know better, you do better. Recognizing this in yourself is an incredible gift because it also allows you to have compassion for others who may doing something undesirable or treating you unkindly. Their actions are a result of their misguided thinking or painful thoughts, and have everything to do them and nothing to do with you. 

This always gets me fired up and makes me wonder what life would look like if we were all taught how to examine our thoughts in school. Imagine the impact it would have on our lives and the world around us.

Decide Where to Go Next

As I said before, just as seeds grow into plants by being watered and nourished, our thoughts become our reality by our belief in them. And because focusing on and resisting a thought will only make it stronger, the better way to handle these weeds is to consciously quit watering them. This may not be possible in a real garden where everything gets watered in the same soil. Here, in our mind garden, we have the power to choose which seeds to water.

Instead of frantically trying to remove the weed and having everything just grow back, we identify the plant and its seed so we can stop watering it. When we come across it in the garden, we acknowledge its presence, but then we choose to focus on watering or planting new flowers instead. One day, we notice the weed is no longer there, it eventually just fades away.

Now that you know the thought creating this challenge, it’s in your power to change the thought. Where you may have felt stuck before, now you have somewhere to go. Although you may not be able to control your thoughts, you can control the ones you choose to believe and focus on. You are not your thoughts, don’t make them a part of you. 

To go back to the Fat Bastard example, his plant called "vicious cycle of eating" can now slowly fade away as he focuses on planting something more beautiful. Perhaps instead of thinking "I can't stop eating," he can start to believe "it's possible that I can stop eating," and eventually, "I am in control of when and what I eat."

For me, I decided that I did not believe the thought that there was one thing missing in my life that existed outside of me. This stopped my external actions of constantly needing more knowledge, information, and different circumstances, and caused me to go inward.

The thought that something was missing didn't go away. But when it comes up now, I quit watering the weed that kept me forever searching outside myself for an answer that wasn't there. I brought myself to a whole new part of the garden. Here, I get curious where I once got restless. I redirect my mind to look inward.

This is a continual practice where I go deeper into my subconscious and choose the plants I want to create and nourish, and the ones I want to let go of. The plant ”lost and never finding the missing piece” has now faded from my garden. As I continue to weed and nourish it, my mind garden, and my life, is becoming more beautiful than I ever could have imagined. 

Now You Decide

Now that you have the knowledge, you choose where to go from here.

Are you happy with what your thought has created in your life?

Regardless of whether or not you believe the thought, is it serving you?

Do you want to keep it and continue to create what you have been creating? Or do you want to create something new?

Since this may be a thought you’ve been thinking for a long time, it will likely continue to arise. This is the brain’s habitual response and may take time to fade away.

When you’re trying to make a change, it may feel like your brain is working against you. It will come up with all kinds of reasons for you to stay where you’re at. Your brain wants you to stay the same because whatever you are doing now has kept you alive. Change is scary for the brain, anything unknown is a threat to your survival.

To combat this, come up with a plan for when this happens. 

If you’ve found that you don’t actually believe the thought, you may be ready to just let it go and move on. When it comes to the surface, you can meet your brain with understanding and say to it, “Thanks for trying to protect me, but I don’t believe that anymore.”

If part of you still does believe the thought, you will need to redirect your brain to a different thought that will lead you in the direction you want to go, just like I did with my own thought. 

A Couple Final Things to Consider

1. You are perfect as you are

One of our greatest fears as a human is the fear of not being enough. Underneath that is the ultimate fear of being unlovable. Our brain sees this as a great threat to our survival, and this belief alone may be a deeply rooted seed creating all kinds of weeds in your garden.  Seeing and deciding to stop watering this seed will improve many areas of your life at the same time. 

Just like a garden has layers beneath the soil, our beliefs about ourselves have layers beneath the surface. My brain was protecting me from seeing these deeper fears by creating a story that there was something missing outside of me. It kept me from going inward and distracted me for much longer than I care to admit.

I know I’ve said this before, but it’s worth saying again. We are no longer living in primitive times. The only love you really need, you already have. When you love yourself, love and connection with others flows naturally. You don’t feel as though you need this love and approval from others. 

I invite you to consider a new belief. What you do or what you have done is not who you are. These are just actions you have taken because of thoughts you have chosen to believe. Who you are is a worthy, lovable, whole human being. There is nothing you can do to change this. 

I spent many years of my life thinking that I needed to be fixed. I needed to do better in order to be a good and worthy human. What a waste of time this all was.

When the changes you are wanting to make in your life come from a place of doing so in order to be worthy, you will only continue to feel unworthy as you are continuing to water this seed. 

Decide to make changes because you want a better life experience for yourself and the world around you. Never because there is something wrong with you or you need to be fixed. Remember that you are perfect as you are, and any changes you make are simply to enhance your already amazing self.

2. Life will always be negative some of the time. 

Life is a journey, not a destination. Just like maintaining a garden is a continuous job, so is your mind garden. There will never be a point where you’ve done all the weeding and planting and your garden is done. 

It may be tempting to think about using this work to remove all of your so-called negative experiences and/or emotions. I don’t believe this is possible or necessary in order to live your best life. There may be times when you do want to keep your negative emotions. An obvious example of this is when you lose someone you love. Even here, there is power in choosing sadness vs feeling powerless about being able to overcome it. In this way, there can still be an underlying peace behind the pain. 

Your job is not to eradicate all negative experiences. Look at your weeds as teachers. If you had a garden with no weeds, you wouldn’t be much of an expert. You would never truly know the ins and outs of gardening or ever get really good at it. The more challenges you are faced with, the more you learn from them, and the wiser and more seasoned you become. Look forward to the weeds because they allow you to truly live!

Experiencing the spectrum of emotions and experiences that life has to offer allows you to experience the wholeness of your human existence. It also brings greater compassion and understanding for others. If you want to feel happy all of the time, you are denying yourself half of the life experience. And if you really were happy all the time, you wouldn’t even know it because there would be nothing to compare it to. You can’t know happiness without also knowing sadness. This goes for every opposite emotion or experience on the spectrum. 

In conclusion, remember that you always have access to the power of thoughts. If the challenge you are facing seems impossible to overcome, I PROMISE you it's not! Take responsibility, own your power, and use the tools and strategies you've learned in this post to help you. Remember that every challenge is an opportunity for you to become even stronger and grow into a better version of yourself. So, keep tending to your mind garden, embrace the ups and downs of life, and trust in your ability to overcome any obstacle.