Ideas, emotions and how they have come together to create experiences and interactions are either part of the past or potential options for the future. When you are completely still or present in the moment, you will become aware of these ideas and emotions and have the choice to change them.
Take the example of a table that has been in your family for decades. Maybe there’s a ding from a Thanksgiving platter where the dog ran into grandma and she dropped a heavy dish. Maybe there’s a streak of blue paint from a craft project when the kids were little but all of the paint didn’t come off after cleaning up. Maybe there’s a scratch on the top from moving the table halfway across the country to the farm you always wanted to live on. These scratches and marks are things that you consider tangible because you can see them, touch them and have a memory associated with them. You expect those “physical” reminders to be there every time you look at the table.
Once upon a time that table was new. It had no marks, scratches or visible reminders of the memories you now have associated with it. What if you could choose the version of the table you wanted to see now? You would likely think back to how the table looked when it was new and think about refinishing the table to take out the evidence of those past memories. What if there was another option? An option that bordered on magic but depended on you.
One day a friend stops by and tells you about a book he’s been reading. It’s a book about quantum physics, mindset and the fluid nature of reality for dummies. Your friend tells you that according to science, our world is made up of a bunch of stories. Each one of these stories is made up of an idea and feelings about the idea. The combination of the idea and feelings make a memory. These memories are what we consider the stories or experiences that make up our lives. Your friend tells you that in order to make your table look new again, you need to change your memory of it. He goes to your cabinet and gets out a bottle of wood oil and a rag. He tells you to oil the table twice a week. Every time you oil the table you are supposed to think about how rich, perfect and flawless the wood looks. Well, you look at him like he’s half crazy, but figure you’ll give it a shot because you’re going to oil the table anyway. Time passes and you keep doing the exercise. You begin to notice the scratch becoming less visible, the blue paint getting lighter and you're having a harder time finding the dent. You think, “ Is this the world’s greatest wood oil or is that mindset stuff really working?”
What happened in this story? The focus changed. As you kept doing the things you normally did, you changed your focus from the past to what you were seeing now. The less you focused on the past and more you focused on now, the way the table looked began to change. That’s the nature of quantum physics, mindset and changing your reality. Change your focus, change your life.