How Your State Of Mind Impacts Your Life (Objective reality vs. Subjective interpretation)

What I want to start talking about is how your state of mind , your emotional well being , whether you feel prosperous , generous or that things can happen for you .

Not to you , how it impacts how you observe and see the world will then inform the kind of decisions that you make .

Let me start by saying this in that I believe this , that there's a very narrow sliver of what we would identify as objective truth .

It's tiny where it could be verified by a lot of different people and say , you know , according to science or measurements , the data , this is the objective truth , an objective thing happens and we interpret through our very subjective lens and we tell ourselves a story about what's going on .

That lens is largely influenced by our emotional state , how we feel inside .

I'll give you an example if you are parking somewhere , when your meter runs out and the meter maid comes up to you and starts writing you a ticket .

You might feel like yo man , I just need to some , some slack here , brother .

Uh Why are you such a bad person ?

Like your , your job is to like ruin people's lives in their day .

This is kind of unjust unfair and that's how you might record it in your brain .

When we know objectively the meter doesn't lie .

You're at fault here because you didn't put enough in the meter and you overstayed such that your time had expired .

Objectively speaking , this person's job is to make money for the city so that they can have the funding to do what they need to do .

This is how one way that the cities make money .

So their job is to write a ticket for anyone who violates the rules .

Objectively speaking , if you were the person waiting for this parking spot and this person's time is expired and they've not paid for it .

You would feel like they're breaking the rules , the rules are there so that there's order versus chaos , there's harmony in the world .

Those are the objective things .

But subjectively , you've now painted the meter maid as a bad person as a bad man or woman or whatever .

And you're like , you know what , you're just an evil person and the city is just robbing us .

So you create this kind of narrative in your mind .

Now , this is a pretty clear example .

So we can all say yes , we see what's going on .

So if you want to move towards a higher self , to be in greater harmony , frequency and to look at the world more objectively so that you're not skewing the information you might say , ok , here's the thing I messed up .

It's a lesson for me to learn .

This person is just doing their job .

I would like to appeal to their sense of forgiveness and their generosity and lean on that and hopefully they'll just let me off the hook knowing very well that I'm in the wrong .

So rather than chase him and say , hey , why are you such a horrible human being ?

We could say I messed up .

I lost track of time .

I knew I had minutes left and I obviously have underestimated .

I know you're just doing your job and I appreciate what you do .

And I know this is a necessary thing .

Could you find it in your heart to just let me go off with the warning and I respect that you , you , you , this is your job and you have every right to say no and see what happens .

Then now if we were to bet and say what is more likely to for you not to get the ticket chasing after a person with your hands waved in the air full of emotion and rage and victimization or one to say , I realize what you're doing .

I fed up .

I'm hoping that you can just let me off here .

But I understand if you don't want to , which one is more likely going to get you a better outcome when we start to align ourselves towards the outcome that we want .

We get away from the subjective storytelling , the distorted lens in which we look at the world .

And most often , what we do is we mistake that subjective lens as the absolute objective truth .

Krishna Murti wrote this to observe without judgment is the highest form of intelligence .

And that was an example of that .

So to observe without judgment is the highest form of intelligence .

I have another example to share with you , I was having a conversation with a friend and this friend has big aspirations in life goal to achieve and the friend will know who I'm talking about .

So I hope my friend is going to be ok with me .

Sharing this story .

My friend wants to be a public speaker .

My friend is looking for opportunities to make an impact on the world and to be a role model to many other people , this makes sense .

These are all the right reasons why you want to be a public speaker .

And I said a comment to this friend that they took offense to .

But I didn't realize until much later months after having this initial conversation , this person has buried these negative feelings and this person has body dysmorphia , they are concerned about how they look in their appearance .

And so when I said , would you like some accountability in this so that can keep you on track as a friend ?

You want this from me ?

Now , I've learned in my life that if you give people unsolicited advice .

If you offer to help them , when they haven't asked for it , it actually can get the opposite effect which is will strain their relationship , they'll walk away feeling disabled .

Like are you saying , I don't know how to do this , I didn't ask help .

Is this a real problem ?

So all kinds of negative stories start happening in the brain .

So generally speaking , don't give advice or offer help to people without first checking in with them and getting permission from them that this is indeed what they want .

So my friend says yes .

So I say to them , you're working towards eating better and exercising so that you feel better and you have more energy , but also you will command more presence on stage and they're cool , feel free to check in with me , but don't judge me , which is something that I was like I , I'm judging you how help me understand this .

And I was looking at it from a place of curiosity like I , I'm sorry , I didn't know I was judging you .

How did I judge you ?

And this is what I said , when you lose weight , you'll be able to wear different kinds of clothes .

You have more options and it'll radiate to people that you're a person of great self control , you're really self determining , you have a strong will and that you'll be more confident .

This person says this to me .

I'm like , so where's the judging part of this and their reaction to me surprised me a little bit , which was , I feel like I already know these things .

And for you to say it makes me feel like I'm stupid or something like that , that I'm not capable of realizing the obvious .

I said , OK , I recognize that this is sending negative emotions towards you .

I will no longer say anything like this .

That's what your preference is , right ?

So this also gets into another side topic here , if you'll indulge me , which is this oftentimes we think the golden rule is the best way to treat people .

And the golden rule is this treat people how you want to be treated .

But in fact , that turns out to be not very good at all .

So what I always want to do is apply the platinum rule , treat people how they want to be treated .

Hence , I ask people questions about what they prefer , what they don't prefer .

Do they find this be helpful ?

Do they want help ?

Do they want support ?

Do they want accountability in any of this ?

So I've learned in this moment in time with my friend especially hold me accountable , ask me how I'm doing but don't tell me these things that I already know because that is judging to this person , I suspected this observation was not true , but coming from a an emotional state that wasn't positive .

So what happened was and it was just very organic how our conversation went and it goes something like this .

After this person was able to talk about something much more positive .

Their state completely changed .

They were very excited about public speaking .

They're excited about what they can do .

They're excited about losing weight and looking and feeling their best , not for other people but for themselves .

And I said almost verbatim , the exact same thing to this person that is said before , that was considered a judging language .

I said , when you lose weight , you could have more energy , you're gonna be more dynamic , you're gonna have more options to wear different kinds of clothes .

And I just can't imagine who fun , iconic things you're gonna do with how you show up in the world .

And they're like , that's right .

It's awesome , isn't it ?

And I said , do you realize something that he said almost literally the same thing that he said months ago that you repeated to me minutes ago that you thought was judging and this was a big revelation to this person .

They're like , oh my God , you are so right .

When I'm in a positive self state of self love , I have esteem , I have confidence and I can see a desired future state that I want .

Nothing that you say is then interpreted as negative or judging .

It's actually really empowering .

Whereas when I was in a different mental state , what you said objectively , the same thing had a completely different effect .

So I said , to this person .

I have good news and I have even better news for you .

You are in control of your emotional state .

Here's the objective truth .

And when we choose , and this is a choice here to look at the world from a negative state .

A place of scarcity of a place of fear of jealousy , a place of being self critical , almost no input that can enter us will feel good , positive or helpful .

Whereas when we're in a positive state and we make that choice as well , then no amount of negative input can impact us negatively .

This is what Marshall Rosenberg talks about in this non violent communication .

When you learn to listen differently and reinterpret the negative stimuli in your world as non violent language , everything changes .

Here's the bad news though , there's some bad news in this .

Why do we choose ?

And it's a choice to look at the world through the negative lens versus the positive lens .

And if you believe me in my hypothesis , my observations , my philosophy thus far .

And if you agree that there's this narrow sliver of objective truth , almost everything that we do see skews us towards one thing or the other .

So what we have to do is have the mental fortitude and to set the intention that every single day we look at the world from a place of abundance and a place of gratitude and everything can happen for us .

They don't happen to us they happen for us .

So in my mind , I live in a place of extreme gratitude and I wake up each and every single morning , grateful just to be alive , to be able bodied , to still have my mind with me .

Because at some point that will go away to be grateful for life , that's just the core to be in a house that's warm , to have food in the fridge and to have friends that care about me and the friends I can care about .

And so no matter what amount of negative criticism comes my way and there's going to be a lot of it , I'm going to be able to reinterpret as something that builds me up .

So if someone said to me some critical things , my interpretation of it instead of being a judging and disempowering , disabling to me , my interpretation would be like you really do care about me .

You care enough to speak truth to me , to take time to think about what I am doing .

And you , you have a perspective on that .

I realized you could think about lots of people .

But the fact that you've dedicated some part of your brain to think about me .

And you have the courage to tell me , says to me , you're a true friend because it's easy to deliver empty platitudes , words of encouragement .

It's much harder to speak truth to someone when you know it'll hurt .

But your intentionality to help that person grow and that's a key difference if you can master the skill and come to the realization that you are actively or even sometimes I'm sorry to say , subconsciously choosing to interpret the world through a very negative lens through an emotional state that doesn't support you or support your personal growth .

That's the choice that you're making .

So I'm going to encourage you to make a different choice .