Ep 83 Our thoughts create our reality

This is solo episode number 83. I am Travia Steward, and I want to help you move past barriers and obstacles that are preventing you from getting what you want in life. This is Breakthrough. Most of you know I live in the Phoenix area in Arizona, and the commercials that have been drawing my attention have been some of the, the real estate, um, the housing commercials. Like there's a company called 72 Soul and there's this guy on there and, you know, like we call him Hands because he talks with his hands. Like everything he says is like his hands, his hands are dancing in front of his face. And he talks about, you can get so much money for your house. You know, if you are selling your house for $300,000, I'm going to get your house for $400,000, whatever it is. And the thing about that commercial that makes me want to listen and watch is the fact that all of the people on the commercial are like, he got us $50,000 more than we ever dreamed that we could get for this house. And it was that statement that was so interesting to me because that's how I used to think. That getting $50,000 extra was a dream, right? Something that you couldn't wrap your mind around. And so this guy, all these commercials, he's like, you know, I can get you, you know, uh, 25% more than what your house is worth. And to some people that's a dream. And so what does that have to do with today's topic? Today we're focusing on how our thoughts actually create our reality. You know, and a lot of people talk about this. You know, Pastor Joel Osteen talks about this, Dr. Joe Dispenza, Tony Robbins. Lots of people talk about this. And this is something that I wish I knew when I was younger. I wish I knew that some of the issues that I had with having confidence in myself, with, with having confidence in the money that I could earn, that if I, if I just would flip that switch, then I could change that reality so that it happened the way that I wanted it to. You know, I didn't know it was a choice. I didn't know that I could choose to think or feel differently. And some of the work that I do, I help my clients identify what their saboteurs are. And that's like your judge. Like, it's kind of like putting a label on what is that voice, you know, when you hear those negative thoughts. And, you know, there's different varying saboteurs. Like, my dominant one when I first did this several years ago was a hypervigilant. A hypervigilant was something that Like the DirecTV commercial, right? The ones that they used to have, like, oh my God, so overdramatic, you know? And I always said, oh, it's because I'm— it's my theater background, it's my, you know, I'm overdramatic because of that. Well, that falls under the category of hypervigilant. Like, I was expecting the worst in every situation. I was overdramatizing. And so the least little thing that would happen, I would go, oh my God. Like, just last night my hypervigilance showed up for about 60 seconds or so. And that's how you know how strong that thought process— and what you call the opposite is your sage. We know how strong your sage is because it takes you less time to recover. You don't stay in that saboteur, in that hypervigilant place, right? So breaking it down, this is what I mean. So last night, I had a call with one of my clients, and she is always on time on the call. And if she can't be there, she always sends me a message. And so I get on Zoom, I'm waiting for the call. It's 3 minutes, 4 minutes. I don't have a message, nothing. And so I was like, ooh, this is not like her to do that because she just, you know, the patterns that she's established, that just never happens. And so I send her a message, right? And then crickets, no answer. So immediately my hypervigilance shows up and goes, oh my God, what if her boyfriend has done something? What if she's been in an accident? What if— you know, just all these things. And I was like, hold up, crazy. Wait a minute. Wait a minute. This is asinine. None of that shit's true. Right? And so I said, okay, I see you hypervigilant. And I did work on that a few years ago because I recognized that it was my top saboteur. And when other people started sort of making fun of it, I realized that, oh, you can't be acting like, oh, like, like this is crazy talk. You need to get control of that shit and stop talking about that like that. Right. Stop being overdramatic. Right. Stop letting your hypervigilant run the show. And so I remember one time, one of my coaching friends, Marta, who has been on the podcast before, Marta is a coach who, Marta travels all the time. She's a climber and she, you know, sometimes lives out of her van. And I remember the first time she told me she lived out of her van and I said, Girl, do you have a gun? You have a gun in there, right? And she goes, oh my God, Trey, you're so dramatic. Your hypervigilance is running your life, that kind of thing. And I was like, oh, OK, maybe you're right, but you should still get a gun. Right. So, so I realized that, OK, this is something that I needed to go to work on. I didn't want to be that person who assumed the worst. Now I am. An optimistic person. I identify as optimistic, and I see the glass half full. But there are certain times when I'm like, OK, my hypervigilant is running rampant. It's a child that is running without control, without their parents being around, right? And so I went to work and said, how can I control? How can I move the hypervigilant down from being my top saboteur? Because it was hypervigilant. And then it was pleaser, and then it was hyperachiever. So I was like, I'm going to move my hyperachiever up. I'm going to move my hypervigilant way down the list, right? So that it doesn't have a place in my life, right? And so what I started doing was I noticed when the hypervigilant wanted to come out to play. So for instance, I love to travel. I love to fly. But you know what? I love to fly when the flight is smooth, when the land— when you're taking off and it's smooth and you land it smooth. And I don't really enjoy turbulence. I don't know who does, but I don't. Sometimes I would look over at Shelley and like sometimes we'd have this drop like we were at Six Flags and I'd look over at her and she'd still be working on a computer or something and she'd still be reading. And I was like, girl, you didn't feel that? And she'd be like, feel what? And I'm like, happy damn, I know you felt that. She's like, it's fine, it's fine. And so I would be just over there about I'm about to wet my pants, and she's over there still typing on a grant or something, right? So when I went to work to move those dramatic thoughts, the hypervigilant down, I said, OK, I'm going to flip that switch. And what I will do is, what if I could experience it from a whole new level? What if when turbulence came, it was the most exciting thing ever, like I was at Six Flags? And so in my mind— And the very next time I was on a plane, there was some, you know, some turbulence. Like, we were actually— I remember we were flying into Seattle, and when you fly into Seattle, it gets a little, gets a little rough. And I was like, baby, yeah, this is so good! This is like Six Flags! And, and I love the feeling in my stomach and how it makes it drop. Yes, this is so much fun! And, you know, I surprised myself because It worked. It actually worked. And I convinced my brain that I was enjoying this. This was happening for me just as I wanted it to. And so how can we all get control over those, those thoughts that is helping to create realities that we don't want, right? Those thoughts that keep us stuck in the past when the past no longer exists, because the past only exists in our mind. And then what happens is we think a certain way about those things that have happened in the past, and then we make a judgment on it, and then we can't go back and feel it. But we remember how it made us feel. And so it's like we force and we choose ourselves to relive those thoughts over and over again and feel a similar feeling, right? And so what I want to talk to you about today is identifying and dismantling and releasing those thoughts that prevent us from being the person that we want to be, that prevent us from taking the action that we want to take. Right. And so how does this happen? We all have patterns that we kind of fall into that is actually like a default. And so what happens is earlier, probably in life, when a lot of these patterns are formed, you have a situation that occurs. Once that situation occurs, then we formulate a thought about it. That could be based on something our parents said. That could be based on something we heard a friend say. But we formulate a thought about it. And then that thought is attached to an emotion, right? We create an emotion based on that thought. So if you're— when you're a kid, if your mom came in and made a funny face and made you laugh, you know, and then the thought you would have Oh, oh, Mom looks funny. That's a funny thing, right? And so the emotion would be joy, happiness, that kind of thing, right? And so then we begin to automate those actions, right? We repeat it. Once we repeat those things, it becomes a belief. When Mom walks in the room and smiles at us and makes funny face, we laugh. That's a belief that this is always a good thing for us, right? And then we make a decision. We make a decision based on that automation, and we want to always do that same action based on the belief that was formed. And based on that belief and the thought and the emotions that we're feeling in that moment, we take the action or don't take the action based on how we're feeling, which gives you the results that you have. Presently in your life. Now, I know that was a lot. That was a lot, right? And so what happens is, if I'm going to break that down, we have these things that happen in life. We have situations. We have a thought about the situation either way, because people perceive things much differently. The same exact factual event could be happening, and one person on side A can perceive it as negative, and another person on side B can perceive it as positive. Positive, right? Same exact factual circumstances. So we have that situation, we formulate a thought about it based on our environment, our upbringing, how we were raised, all those things. And then we connect it to an emotion. Sometimes those emotions are stored in our body. Then we formulate a belief about it. That belief, that thought is what governs how you take the action. Because we make decisions based on that thought, if it's happening for us or if it's happening against us, right? And it's not getting us what we want. Right. And so what's happening is we make that decision. We take the action based on the emotion that we feel based on that belief, that thought that we're having, which gives us the results. And then some people are like, I don't know, I worked my ass off and I just still can't make no money. And then what happens is, you know, I go to work all the time and I'm still living paycheck to paycheck. Just like the people on the commercial. I've been guilty of that. I've been guilty of that same thinking, not even knowing what I was capable of and not even knowing that it was my thoughts that were creating the results that I have in my life. And guys, the, the evidence, the evidence is all around you. If you look around at your life, you can immediately contribute the thoughts that you think because our thoughts create our reality. Just to go a little further on this topic, how does this happen? Right? So what happens is our brain makes predictions. It gathers data and makes predictions of what it thinks will happen and how it can respond to that thing happening in the future. And once you keep having that situation, having that thought, taking that same action, your brain goes, oh, we've been here before. Every time she sees a red shirt, she gets pissed off. Okay, we're not gonna waste our time trying to figure out what she's gonna do. We're just gonna make sure she gets pissed off because that's her default patterning every time she sees a red shirt. Of course, that's a hypothetical story because our mind's job, our number one— its number one job is to listen to what we tell it in our thoughts and then act on it, right? We tell our brain what to do all day long. Like, I remember when my mom was still alive and, you know, and she would say things like, you know, she's a diabetic and she would say, you know, I ain't gonna live another 85 years, I'm gonna do what I want, you know, I ain't gonna change now, I'm too old to change. And you're never too old to change, you know, just like they say, oh, you can't teach an old dog new tricks. No, you can. You can. It is totally possible. Just like, you know, my dog Cayenne, I taught her how to ring the bell on the door. Now we don't even have a bell hanging on the door, but she taps the door where that bell used to hang to ask us, you know, that was like, I need to go out and potty because we don't have a doggy door. And so you can teach a dog, an old dog, new tricks. And we can break those habits. We can identify and release and dismantle those habits that are not creating the reality that we want for ourselves. Right? We can make those thoughts that are familiar, that are common, we can make them unfamiliar because they're not serving our purpose anymore. And so in order to break those default patterns, you first have to become aware of it. You have to become aware of the thought. You have to become aware of what triggers that thought. And then what happens in your body? What happens? How do you react when that thought shows up? Right. So once you do those things, then we're like, okay, I recognize that. For example, like I said, for the 72 Soul Commercials, I used to be someone who didn't see the possibility of earning millions and millions of dollars. Well, I recognized that that was my thought creating the reality so that I was a person looking at, oh, I have this limited thinking. I can never earn a huge amount of money, which has making a liar out of those thoughts, right? And so how do we begin to peel that back? We can start again. You become aware of it. You then become aware of that thought and what is triggering that thought. And then what happens in our bodies when that thought happens. And so you want to take a pause the second you recognize that, oh, my chest gets tight. Oh, my breathing speeds up. Take a pause and go, What is a thought— if I could think on purpose, if I can think with intention— what is a thought that I'd rather have than this bullshit I'm thinking right now, right? What is a thought that I could have that will motivate me, that will help me take the action, that will help me produce the actual result that I want in my life? And then we can begin to train our brain in a new way. And so If you think to yourself, what is something that you want to change about yourself? What is something that you want to believe maybe about your future that you don't readily believe right now? Take some time and think through that, and then write that down. Write down all the reasons why it would be so great to have this thing in your life. Write down all of the evidence in the ways that you already have this thing, or you have it in small bits, but we overlook those things, right? And then ask yourself, when you say the thing that you want, how does it feel? Like, for instance, I've been doing a lot of work on my money story, my thinking, my financial thoughts, right? And so if I sit here and go— remember when I had Donya, Donya Monroe, on the podcast, and she was doing an example, and she was like, How much money you want to make a month? And I was like, $10,000. And she's like, I really wanted to say $20,000, right? But why in the hell didn't I say $100,000, $1 million? Because I listened to and I work with all these other coaches who are like, I want to make $1 million, $100 million just this year. And then I recognize in myself that I go, holy shit, I just, I'd be good with, you know, a couple of six figures, you know, that, that kind of thing. That would be so fantastic. But even that's limited thinking, right? And so being aware of it, and then I catch myself and go, no, no. What is it that I really want to believe is possible for me? Not impossible, but possible and then probable. And so then I see how it feels in my body to believe that. And if it's something that I can't wrap my mind around, then I'm probably going too far. Like, again, I can't wrap my mind around right now making $100 million a year. I don't know what that looks like. I don't know anybody personally who makes that kind of money, so I can't believe that. But what I can believe is half a million dollars. I can believe that, right? And so I visualize it. You want to visualize the thing that you want, the thing that you put down on that sentence. You want to write it down. You want to record yourself saying it. You want to listen to it. You want to revisit that thing several times a day, 3 times, 10 times, whatever it is. And with consistency, you will start to see a change in your dominant thought about that thing. You will start acting on purpose and creating the thoughts that create the reality that you actually want to happen and unfold in your life. And hence, you will have created the life that you really want to live on purpose. So as I wrap up right now, what are the thoughts that you want to now begin to think that's going to help you create the reality that you really want to be your life? Peel back the layers and figure out what those thoughts are right now that's preventing you, the barriers that's stopping you from believing it right now. Replace it, dismantle that, get rid of it, bury it, then replace it with something else. Believe on purpose. Create intentional thoughts that get you closer to the life that you want. This is the work that I do with my clients because I believe that if everyone realize the power that our thoughts have over us, that we could really do and be and have anything we wanted. So that's what I have for you today. I hope you're finding value in these podcasts. And if you are, I would love it if you would leave a 5-star review. And if somehow this message resonates with you, I would love to gift you a free call, a free call to where we can dive in, a bird's eye view of your life on what's working well and what's not. And what are those thoughts? What are those barriers and obstacles that's preventing you from living and having what you really want right now? So you can go to traviasteward.com, T-R-A-V-I-A S-T-E-W-A-R-D dot com. And my contact information is there. Have a beautiful day. Be exceptional. Take care.