Guest Author - Andrea Gardiner, Ph.D.

There are many that say you must change your thoughts in order to change your experience. The premise is that experience follows thought and that this is the order of things. I myself can be quoted as having said the same thing based on this understanding of how energy flows. I do fear however that in mines and others attempt to guide others on how to purposely affect their reality we may have oversimplified the issue. Oddly enough this oversimplification can make things rather difficult for the individual that attempts to apply a desirable change to their reality. Maybe if we took a semi-in depth look at the nature of change we might be able to bring about some ease to the afore mentioned difficult situation.

The ever wise Greek philosopher Heraclitus is noted for saying that you can never step into the same river twice. When Heraclitus made this statement he meant to exemplify the natural order of change. His reasoning was that if a man steps into a river once and goes back on another occasion to step into what he believes is the same river, then he is mistaken in his reasoning since the river waters have changed. The river waters the man stepped into the first time around have already flowed on and new waters have come. The river has changed and so has the man, even if he is not aware of this.

Now in the example of the river that Heraclitus gives he does not say that the river tried to change or that it made any attempt at anything other than being itself. The river waters simply flowed. This action of change was so effortless that the man who stepped into the river did not even consider them, much as he does not consider the flow that is occurring within him. All of this simply just is. In fact, it would take much effort and outside influence in order to resist such change.

This is really much the same as with the conversation about changing your thoughts to affect your reality. When people such as myself and others say to you that you should “change your thoughts” we are indeed establishing and element of resistance to the very change we speak of. Change is inevitable and flows without effort; so rather than trying to change your thoughts it may be easier to simply allow the flow of the newer, more desirable thought into your mind and thus into reality.