The Reality Creation Loop
A practical three-step mental practice for creating a new reality: Notice where your attention is, Become Willing to do something about it, and Place your Attention on What You Want — being it right now. It is a loop, to practice over and over all day long.
This chapter is about how to put all of this into practice, to actually accomplish what it is that you want. Which, as we know from the last chapter is a way of Being.
Three Steps to Creating a New Reality
There is a very practical 3 step process that will accomplish this. But, when I describe it you might think it’s very vague. It’s not intended to be. I mean it as a very direct, practical thing that you can actually do, many times in a day. It’s just that it is all in your mind. We are used to doing things out there, with our hands, in the “real world”. But this is a thing you do within your mind. But it is no less practical than what you do out there. It’s just not as familiar to us because we’re generally not taught how to do things with our mind in school and so we haven’t generally learned to view this type of practice as an actual thing to do. But it really is!
So, the three step process is this:
1. Notice
2. Become Willing
3. Place your Attention on What You Want
Each of these steps is an actual practical skill, just like mowing the lawn is something you can practice and get better at, so are each of these steps. By practicing them we can get better at them, and by practicing the 3 step sequence we will become better and Being what we want. So please understand this is a very literal practical sequence of steps to do, in your mind.
I call it the Reality Creation Loop, because a) it is how you will create a new reality for yourself, one in which the thing you want is everywhere around you, and 2) it’s a loop, you need to practice it over and over and over. The more you do it the faster your new reality will come into existence.
1. Notice
At any given moment your current way of being is dominant. Your mind and body are perfect reflections of what you have been practicing. Generally this will be unconscious creation. You’re involved in unconsciously creating aspects of your life that you now don’t want, you want something else instead. In order to transform this, we must first notice where our attention is. It is a very necessary and very important step, nothing can happen until we notice that our attention is on what we don’t want. This in fact is the moment of becoming conscious.
It’s like when you’ve been scrolling through social media, and then suddenly you wake up and realize what you’ve been doing. Well we’re constantly doing this all day long, in and out of consciousness. That’s noticing, when we notice where our attention is.
Getting more specific, the noticing here I’m saying we must practice is when we are being something else other than what we want to be. Let’s say what we want is to be more connected. So, when we are in the middle of judging someone as not being smart enough to talk to, or we are judging ourselves as being not being good looking enough to talk to someone, or any of the many ways in which we practice keeping ourselves isolated, the practice is to notice this! Suddenly realize oh, I have just been thinking about how bad I look, how fat I am, or my hair is out of place, or whatever it might be. Notice notice notice where your thoughts are.
2. Become Willing
Now that we have noticed, the next step is to actually be willing to do something about it. Our usual strategy when we notice is to just go right back to it. Oh, it won’t work, it doesn’t matter, I’ll do it next time, it’s too hard right now, what if they see me and think I’m weird or any other ways of not being willing. So, to do this step we have to decide to do it anyway, despite all the infinite reasons we could come up with on the spot to not do it.
3. Place your attention on what you want.
So now we’re at least a little bit willing to do something else instead, what do we do? We put our attention on what you want. Whatever you have in your shortlist of the things that are most important to you to transform. So if that is to be connected, then put your attention on being connected. Right now, not later. We talked about Be -> Do -> Have in the last chapter, this is where you practice Being. And then if you want, let an action flow from there. Maybe if it’s to be connected, instead of being in your own head, you Be Connected, and start really listening to what the other person is saying to you. Or instead of ruminating on your reasons why you are isolated, you Be Connected, and reach out to talk to a friend and tell them exactly what’s really going on.
This is the fundamental practice. There’s a lot more to explore of course with each of these steps, but that’s the practice that will totally change your experience of life if you can practice and develop and master it. You can use it to transform any aspect of your life experience.
EXERCISE
Step 1: Do the reality creation loop practice!
This whole chapter is describing the practice. So, go about your day and whenever you remember try and notice what your attention is on. Then, be willing to change that. Remember, what are the 1 or 2 or 3 things that I want? Oh yes, Be Happy, or Be Connected, or Be Intimate, or Be Loving, or Be Athlete, or Be Outdoors Guy, or whatever it might be. Then, BE that!
What’s Next
This completes this sequence of teachings that take us from Discovering what we want with Clarity, to Choosing into some of them, developing a commitment to yourself about them, and then practicing bringing them into reality in your life. This sequence underpins sustainable transformation in any area of life. I’ve used it myself countless times and with my clients with great success.
You can check out many more teachings in this area on my website and podcast. And if you need help, reach out to me.
The next chapter is going to cover in brief how I’ve used these exercises and teachings to transform many areas of my life.
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