How mental leadership creates your reality

What would you do if, on one of the most important days of your life, your outfit was ruined?

Anger? Tears?

Would the experience over-write all of the other moments of the day?

I was at a wedding this weekend where a full glass of red wine ended up down the front of the stunning white silk wedding dress.

Did she lose her cool……no!

Did she cry….no!

She calmly changed into something that was not remotely wedding like and carried on enjoying her magical day.

How?

We do create our own reality.  This creation is based on a culmination of all of our previous experiences, our values, our mental resources at the time – it is a complex judgement that happens in a split second to create the emotion we then experience.

There was a definite moment where the beautiful bride gasped and her eyes filled up as she looked at her ruined dress.  However, she chose not to make that the place she stayed.  She decided to be in control of her reality.

Our minds are designed to keep us safe. When those crisis points are hit, we go into the fight or flight response leading typically to either anger (the fight) or anxiety (the flight).

This is a subconscious response and if we allow our subconscious to be in charge, we will continue down one of those routes.

By taking a breath however, you can get your conscious mind back onboard.  Our conscious minds are the rational, logical, mature part of our brains.  And when we make decisions using this mental power, we tend to end up going down a very different route.

The beautiful bride did just this.  She took a breath, turned to me and said, “It is just stuff.  Help me find something else to wear.”

Our imaginations are often the main link to anxiety.  The subconscious will rampage off down the path of creating scenarios, in this case about the impact on the photos, the response of the guests….

However, our bride didn’t take that path.  She stayed on the route of reality.   Rather than imagining how the evening would pan out without her floating around in her gown, she stayed with reality.  The reality was the dress was ruined and nothing would change that.

The level of anxiety we feel is proportional to how out of control we feel.   So she focused on what she could now control.

She could control her response.  She could control how she enjoyed the rest of the evening.  She could CONTROL HER FEELINGS and create her reality.

So in a short black dress, we popped the veil back on and she headed back to the reception laughing at what a story she’d have to relate at their 25th wedding anniversary!

That bride’s decisions were exceptional, however, they are ones accessible to all of us.

We can allow the subconscious to take us down that path leading to anxiety or we can take the control back and create our reality, create our experience.

Our bride had leadership of her mind.  And when you have that leadership, the mind will readily follow.  Her leadership created a wedding day that was her reality – because she was in control of making it.  And what a wonderful place that is to be!

Do you have leadership of your mind, or does it decide what is your reality?

Does your mind lead you down a path to destination anxiety?  Or destination anger?

How would your reality change if you could have that level of leadership?

Caroline Cavanagh is an anxiety specialist  and hypnotherapist in Salisbury, Wiltshire.  She is an author and public speaker and would love to talk to you if you would like to know more about her work