The first step of consciousness or paying attention to your mind, is really important. Paying attention to what the mind is doing with what it perceives around you will give you some immediate insights into your own behavior. You'll start to become aware of the crazy thinking. It will surprise you because you'll realize that your mind is actually out of control.

It's not out of control in the lunatic, serial killer kind of a way. But it is out of control in the sense that it makes up anything it wants to at anytime. None of it has any rhyme or reason to it. Most of it is just outright lies and it doesn't serve any useful purpose. If you're like me you'll wonder how you ended up there.

Before you start thinking you need therapy, it's important to recognize where all this comes from. It's not as random as you might think. It's actually based on your own previous trauma plus the stories and experiences you've heard from other people. Your mind makes up stories based on all the information it collects from its own experiences and the experiences of others. All those experiences are what the mind uses to keep you safe.

There are many examples of this in life. Here's one that I can think of that I experienced myself. If you're a woman that's ever been pregnant, think of the number of birth horror stories you heard while you were pregnant, especially during your first pregnancy. How did those affect your birth choices? How did those affect how you felt about birth going into the experience? Did they scare you? What was your own reality? What actually happened?

Even without previous experience, your mind has made up a story of what's going to happen based on the stories of others. That affects your perspective and your perception of what's going to happen to you in the future. Being conscious of your thoughts allows you to filter that out so that you don't include that in your perception of the future. When you're not aware of it, it just happens, it scares you, and you'll actually blame it on the people that told you the horror stories. You allow yourself to consciously take on the stories of others and you never question it. Do you see the problem?

Now mix in all of your own previous traumatic experiences and you end up with a mind that's all over the place and making up wild stories that aren't based on reality at all. You don't pay enough attention to what your mind is doing and so you don't think to question the validity of what your mind is telling you. You weren't taught to notice those things so you just buy in without thinking about it. The mind's first trick to keep you safe is to psych you out. It does it consistently and you not only allow it, you're not even aware of it.