I’ve been involved in metaphysics for 20+ years. And one of the annoying things about metaphysics, or New Age thinking, is something I call New Age Guilt.
How many times have you been told, “you create your own reality”? Or, when something didn’t work out well, it seems there’s always someone to tell you that you had choices.
Well yes, we do have choices. But there’s a difference here between choice, and informed choice. When we don’t have enough information to make an informed choice, which is almost always, then our “choices” are really just gambles.
As for creating our reality, it’s not really conscious creation. At best, it is co-creation. And, for most of us, reality is just something that’s happening all around us.
Where I see this all-or-none thinking around “choices” and “you have created your own reality” theories causing the most problems, is in situations where people are dealing with health challenges.
The idea of being able to take part in creating our own reality is meant to give us encouragement. But many times, it is used to blame people for the situations they are dealing with.
Oftentimes people will ask “what did I do to deserve this?”. The New Age theories of “karma”, “you create your reality”, and “we all have choices”, don’t provide the comfort they could, if they were being used in respectful ways.
When we are learning a new skill set, we start with the basics. We create a foundation that we can build upon. This same principle applies to the idea that we have choices, and that we can create our reality.
The quotation below is one of the solid steps we can take to build a new foundation.
“Forces beyond your control can take away everything you possess except one thing; your freedom to choose how you will respond to the situation. You cannot control what happens to you in life, but you can always control how you feel about what happens to you.”
The above sentences are taken from Harold Kushner’s foreword to the book “Man’s Search for Meaning” by author Victor Frankl. These simple sentences are extremely powerful, because they are pointing us in a new direction, and to a new way of thinking.
We have complete control and truly do have choices about the meanings that we place on events in our lives. And when we understand this fact, and start to incorporate it into our everyday thinking, we are at the threshold of beginning to create our own reality!
