When it comes to the world of manifestation, mental science, or universal law, one of the first lessons seems to be: to understand that everything that happens in our life comes from us, rather than happens to us.
Essentially, anything in our lives, good or bad, has happened because of us. Because of our self-concept, imagination, thought patterns, words, actions, and behaviour. For many of us, this can be a really hard truth, and such a huge block that can lead to a lot of self-blame and feelings of guilt. This is especially true for those who have had some really painful and harsh experiences. And it begs the question, can we really be accountable for absolutely everything in our lives, even when we were children?
No, of course not.
So, in what way are we supposed to process and understand the notion that everything comes from us?
If you are familiar with the teachings of mental science and universal law, you will likely have come across the word paradigm. A paradigm is essentially the way our mind has been programmed that causes us to talk, think, imagine, act, and behave the way that we do. It is developed throughout childhood and is constructed from what we were taught, who we were around, what we were exposed to, and how we were treated.
When we were children, we hadn’t yet developed much of an ability to think for ourselves, and so our subconscious mind was wide open (simply to allow us to absorb information quickly), and everything we were surrounded by, was, in many ways, imprinted onto our subconscious mind.
It was during this time that we develop a sense of our self-worth, right and wrong, what we are good at, and what we are bad at. Perhaps we pick up on different fears and anxieties, inherited from our parents, leading to limiting beliefs or difficulties leaving our comfort zone later on in life. We may find that there are different areas of our life that we lack self-belief or self-confidence in, holding us back.
All of this is due to how we were programmed as children. And often, how we are programmed is the reason why we might choose the wrong partner for a relationship, not feel deserving enough to earn a higher wage, have a problem with procrastination, or find ourselves in unpleasant situations without understanding why…
Everything comes from us, or in other words, it comes from our paradigm.
Now you know this, it can be tempting to want to shift the feelings of blame towards the adults who raised us, be it parents, guardians, or even teachers. How could they have made such a mess of programming our minds? But, we have to remember that much of these core teachings of mental science are really not very mainstream, and certainly haven’t been for a very long time. So, we can rightfully assume that most (if not all) of the adults in our lives are trapped within their own paradigm too. Without this information (and some belief in it), they couldn’t have helped themselves, let alone us, therefore, there is no-one to blame.
Ultimately, as much as many of us wished we could have learnt this information when we were at school, we cannot control if or when we will discover it. All we can do is put it to good use when we do come across it, and use it to help us work to transform our lives. We have to banish any feelings of resistance, resentment, and regret, and instead of dwelling on the past, or worrying about the future, we must put in the work to change our paradigm.
You see, it is through learning lessons like ‘everything comes from us’ that can help us re-programme our own minds. Once we know that we are the centre of our own experience, that we can control how we think, talk, and act, and that we can imprint new and more positive beliefs into our own subconscious mind, we can change the trajectory of our own lives. We can become the person that we have always wanted to be. We can align with our desires and make them a reality.
It is a different kind of enlightenment. These lessons are not here to teach us to beat ourselves up for our mistakes, they are here to show us a better path forward. It is through our understanding of this information that we become more and more accountable for the events in our lives, simply because we have the knowledge and power to make better decisions. But, we cannot be accountable for a paradigm we didn’t know we had, nor information we had never come across, before this point.
And so, I hope this helps you realise that the ultimate goal of sharing these teachings, is to empower you to rebuild your life in the way you see fit, and show you that because it all starts with you, everything can change for the good.
“And your good can happen overnight.”
- Florence Scovel Shinn