Shift into "What if?"
Step out of "What Is" and into conscious, creative and the intentional
Take a moment and ask yourself, “where is my focus right now?”
If you are like most of us, you spend the majority of your waking hours focused on the “What Is” of your life. Meaning the people you know, the people you don’t know, what they think of you, the places you have to go, the things you have to do, how much time you have or don’t have, the balance in your bank account, your body and how it looks and what it needs.
Or you are focused on past regrets. How you could have done better or how you wish things had been different. Or perhaps your focus is on the fear of the future and what you hope doesn’t happen. Or maybe it’s a constant see-saw back and forth of the two?
Rarely do we choose to shift our focus away from our current situation towards Possibility. We stay stuck in the “What Is” of it all.
We seldom choose to focus on the “What If” of what could be:
What if this could be better?
What if I could get it all done?
What if I didn’t have to?
What if it could be easy?
What if I could do what I love?
What if I could find my perfect partner?
What you focus on matters.
Your thoughts create your emotions and your emotions create your actions and your actions become the reality of your life. And this reality becomes our focus.
So in order to change our lives we have to begin to break out of this thinking-feeling loop.
We have to Shift our focus from the “What Is” of our current reality to “What If?” of what could be.
We can learn that we can actually choose our thoughts- we don’t have to just accept them as true.
However, this shift isn’t easy. In fact it goes against our biology.
When we shift into “What If”, when we dwell in possibility of what could be, we are doing battle with our big beautiful brains that wants to keep us “safe” by focusing on the reality of the here and now.
In his inspiring book A New Earth, Eckhart Tolle writes that our thoughts are “Automatic, Repetitive and Involuntary”.
So learning to choose our thoughts, to think consciously, creatively and intentionally about about how our lives could be, is Big Work- work that takes daily practice.
So be kind and gentle with yourself as you learn to shift your focus. Just try to spend a bit more time in “What If” land each day.
What if life could be better? Happier? More peaceful?
What if it all works out?
What if this is nothing to worry about?
What if the past doesn’t predict the future?
What if it gets to be this good?
What if I can learn to Shift into “What If”?