When people are in low moods -- such as anxiety, hopelessness, grief, anger, discouragement -- the immediate response is to figure out what or who is bothering us so we can deal with the perpetrator or circumstance that we think is bringing us down.  That is the trick of our mind explained by the Principles.  We are the source of our thoughts -- but as we experience thoughts coming to life, it looks like things are happening TO us.  As we understand that we are the thinkers creating our experience, we find our natural power to navigate ups and downs and realize our power to change.

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Optimism is looking for the best in people and looking for the beauty in life, and trusting we'll see solutions when faced with challenge.  Hopelessness is insecurity about whether people will accept or like us, seeing risk or danger in life, and focusing on analyzing what is wrong when faced with challenge.  Those opposite states are not the result of life; they are the result of how we are using our thinking to describe life.  Hopelessness and Optimism are both habits of thought that we adopt without intent.  Understanding how we think and generate our own unique experience gives us the opportunity to accept that ups and down are part of life, and the assurance that we can always change.

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Over time, we take on ideas about who we are and how we are.  We start to see them as our personality, our character.  Maybe someone we respect has frequently referred to us as a hard worker.  Maybe a friend has commented favorably on our looks.  Maybe a sibling has called us stupid.  Maybe a counselor has diagnosed us as anxious or depressed.  Whatever "labels" have affected us become the story we believe about ourselves.  Without understanding the way Thought works, we can hold ourselves back -- or exceed beyond our dreams -- depending on how seriously we take our labels and whether we recognize that we can decide what thoughts to take to heart, and we can change our minds.

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We don't always realize that the only source of our feelings and experience about life is our power to think and our thoughts coming to life as our personal reality.  So we often "blame" our experience on what other people say or think, or believe that we need others to say or do things to make us happy.  The Principles explain that our experience is generated from within ourselves.  When we see that we can change our minds and change our experience, we know we do not live at the mercy of life circumstances, but we live from the thinking we do about them.  That is the freedom to make the most of life.

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It's natural for people, groups, nations to have differing ideas, and for them to believe in them.  This only creates conflict, hostility, or anxiety when the people involved become attached to their ideas and take them personally.  That can lead to polarization and hostility, rather than interaction from the understanding that every person's thinking looks real to them.  If one party thinks "A" is the answer and another party thinks "Z" is the answer, the solution arises from understanding the power of thought and respectful exploration of each others' ideas, with an eye to possibly finding common ground or even discovering new ideas. 

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When events leave people feeling hopeless or afraid, the inclination we have is to share our fear, or to follow people who feel the same.  Yet we know deep down that hopelessness and fear do not solve problems or inspire solutions.  Events have no power to make feel bad or good -- how and what we THINK about events creates our feelings.  As the thinkers, we always have the power to clear our heads and find fresh thoughts.  When things are difficult or confusing, we still have wisdom within us.  If we look towards our innate wisdom, we see what we can do to be helpful, not hopeless.

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"Panic" crops up a lot in conversation. "I realized I forgot to finish that report and I panicked."  "Tests always induce panic in me."  "She panicked when her brother uncovered her secret."  The actual experience of panic -- racing heart, shaking,  sweaty palms -- is unpleasant.  We tend to think events and things induce that feeling in us.  But panic is just the feelings arising from the build-up of distressing thinking.  It's an alarm waking us up to a flood of non-constructive thoughts.  As soon as we're onto ourselves and quiet our minds, the feeling of panic dissolves.

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Most people are taught that productivity makes us feel good about ourselves, proud of our efforts.  It gets linked to well-being.  In truth, when we're not at peace with ourselves, we can't force productivity and if we do a lot of work, it usually leaves us tired and depleted.  When we are at peace in our own minds, feeling at ease and connected to the moment, we are naturally productive because we are focused on what we’re doing, not on ourselves and trying to feel better.

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Because thinking is how we make our way through life, we don't realize that we are always making a choice which thinking to follow and which thinking to turn away from.  When we get caught up in negative thinking, and keep focused on it to try to get out of it, we are innocently holding it in place.  That leads to defining ourselves as negative.  We come to expect it.  With understanding of how thought works, we can decide to quiet down and turn away from those thoughts.  As soon as we look in a new direction, new thoughts occur to us.  It's natural to change.

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Why does it matter that we know we are always creating our own experience of life and that only our thinking generates our reality.  No two people create the identical experience.  Realizing this provides us valuable information about how to sidestep disagreements, how to understand other people better, and how to "read" our own and others' moods and reactions.  When we know that thinking is a creative power, we recognize it is a spiritual gift that allows us to change, and find fascination with, rather than reaction to, others' realities.

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