Forums IMPORTANT: PLEASE READ Beyond Human Do our thoughts really create our reality or our circumstances? Do all of you agree?

You post a very interesting question - one that I've been trying to wrap my head around for a while now, and I think I'm getting a handle on it. I'll give you a distillation of a couple of years' thinking on the subject.

NLP tells us that we don't interact with reality - we interact with our map of reality. In other words, we react to and act upon the information we've recieved and processed through our senses.

Here's an example: How does the sole of your left foot feel right now? Now, think back to before I asked that question...were you aware of your left foot? Probably not. Was it still there? Probably, however, your mind had processed that information and stuck it in the "below conscious awareness" bin of your mind...in other words, before I asked that question your foot existed outside your conscious awareness. Your reality simply did not include those sensations.

OK, let's try another one. Picture this, a 15 year old boy is laying on the couch watching TV on a sunny Saturday afternoon. His dad comes in and sees him there. His dad's reality could be, "Lazy kid...its a beautiful day - he should be outside mowing the lawn...". His mom sees him there. Her reality might be, "Poor boy...he must be coming down with a cold...". His reality might be, "I shouldn't have stayed out so late last night - I'm beat." Three different people, three different maps of reality. Learning how to read other people's maps and interact with them is one of the most important things we leran in NLP.

You ask about physical conditions...colds, cancer, etc. I think the mind has a huge amount of influence on our health. Personally, I suffer from muscle spasms in my back when I get stressed out. Somethimes they get so bad I can't draw a deep breath. Using NLP techniques I've been able to "negotiate" with my unconscious mind to stop giving me the spasms in return for taking time off from work when the task at hand is over. I've read about people who were able to change their beliefs about cancer and had it go into remission.

As Kaiden pointed out, there is a larger reality and sometimes there is nothing we can do about it except control our own actions/reactions to what is going on. You may get laid off from work, and your actions may or may not have been influential in that decision but taking for granted that it has already happened, you can choose how you want to deal with the event. Will it be an excuse for you to lay around in a drunken stupor for a month? Will it be a chance for you to go back to school and get more training for a better job? Will it be a chance for you to write that book you've always wanted to write? Your choice, and they way you react to the event will create your future circumstances.