The Artist and the canvas

No one experiences life directly.We all experience life through our individual interpretations. Two people can be viewing the exact same sunset but might be thinking difference things, some good thoughts and perhaps some bad thoughts depending on what sunsets mean for each individual.

The way we look at the world is shaped by our past experiences and our attitudes and values towards life. Think of reality as the canvas and you as the artist. You are free to choose the colours that you want to paint on the canvas. You can paint bright happy colours or dark miserable colours – or vice versa. What I am saying is that we choose our attitude (the colour of the paint) to life and the attitudes and beliefs we hold will determine the quality of our lives.

If we focus on all that is wrong in our life and overthink this, we will undoubtedly be angry, upset and miserable most of the time. How is that helpful? It isn’t, yet we all seem to do it far too often. We fill our heads with all the negative stuff and “what if” thinking.

We can choose to focus on more positive things or at least challenge our negative thinking and try to replace it with more neutral rational thinking. Beliefs are powerful and can end up becoming reality due to our tendency to look for examples to confirm our thinking (this is known as “confirmation bias”) and this can end up leading to a self fulfilling prophecy.

Choose thoughts and beliefs wisely as they ‘colour your canvas of life’.

Mandy X

Author: Mandy Kloppers

Mandy is a qualified therapist who treats depression, anxiety, OCD, PTSD, trauma, and many other types of mental health issues. She provides online therapy around the world for those needing support and also provides relationship counselling.