The world is not as we know it but how we see it. The pandemic has made us rely on technology for daily human interaction and information. So much of our life is now through a screen, it’s safe to say our concept of reality is warped. The harsh realities of the “real world” have started to spill over to social media, and now the natural world has become an escape from the internet. When we discuss how borders shape the human experience, we leave out an important part—the mind.
Talking about the mind making our reality is not as intense as in The Matrix. It’s not exactly far off. The concept of choosing a different reality has become popularized under the idea of manifestation and the Law of Attraction. The core idea is that your mind makes your reality, and taking control of it allows you to create the life you want. This idea is metaphysically based. Scientifically, there are not many studies done to confirm the validity of the concept. There happen to be some veterans in the medical field who believe in both. Dr. Mitchell Mays, a licensed chiropractor and best-selling author of Mindgate, is one of them. Mays reports neuroscientists now believe that our Conscious mind makes up about “five percent of our total mind.” The ninety-five percent of our mind is left to be used by the subconscious part of our brain. Mays believes that the conscious mind is responsible for “....analysis, logic, decision, and willpower.” Which is arguably the most important factor for changing your mindset.
To understand the difference between the conscious and subconscious mind, we have to think in simpler terms. The subconscious mind operates on autopilot, and the conscious mind writes the code. The conscious mind chooses the code and will think about the whys and hows.
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The subconscious mind doesn’t respond to thinking because it works out of habit. This example explains the relationship dynamic the conscious and subconscious minds have. Together they form the way we see life and ourselves.
In a society where “bigger is better” only applied to luxury, I struggled to come into my own. Fat was “out.” Thin was “in.” The television made that clear. Television was my escape from a confusing childhood, even if I didn’t see anyone who looked like me. Somehow, my shows solidified my loneliness. It made me feel like being different was wrong. What was so bad about being brown or curvier? My self-image began to lower as I got older. The media I watched in my teenage years had nothing but cheap shots about “fat thighs” and “fat arms”; From women who weren’t even a size 6. According to the media, clothing outside of a size six was “plus-sized.” With that nail in the coffin, I began telling myself a story about who I was and what I deserved.
It wasn’t like someone had explicitly told me,” Tachiya, you are not worthy because you are not skinny. You are not entitled to nice things because you are not thin” I had no other exposure to real-life situations, the only understanding I had was through the media. I began to build a box around myself to be safe from criticism. I took all the things I had seen and all the projections placed on me and set my limits. I began to withdraw and abandon my hobbies. I told myself fat people didn’t belong in the entertainment spaces. They didn’t have jobs in fashion. They didn’t speak their mind. I taught myself to be agreeable and mild-mannered so that being around me was digestible. In my mind, I felt like because I didn’t meet a beauty standard, there was not much I could expect from the world. Crumbs; That is what I was entitled to receive. I was not allowed to venture outside of that narrative, and if I did, I was to get back in line
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immediately. The worst part about this old narrative was that it wasn’t true. No one had fed into that narrative more than I did. 9 times out of 10, the fear of what someone might think about me kept me inside my box.
To solve the problem, you must acknowledge that there is one. That means taking your reality off auto-pilot. I am going to use myself as an example. I had to decide what I wanted for my future and if I was showing up as the person who could receive it. I had to acknowledge how I saw myself and do the inner work to change my beliefs. Believing in yourself is a critical piece of advice we hear often. It seems too easy to be true. Considering that our mind is the most powerful tool to change our reality, it is mandatory to know how to operate it. We need to ask ourselves why we think the way we do. Is this way it should be, or just what we created out of habit? Stepping outside of the limitations we have created for ourselves is the key. When we begin to release the limits, our world begins to expand even beyond physical borders.
We focus heavily on the physical borders that have manifested in the world but forget about the ones we have placed in our minds. We have picked up our beliefs from tv, religion, family, and friends. We don’t question how much of that we have consciously decided was true. We took those limits and used them to build our cage. No matter how roomy a cell is, it's still a cage. We don’t have to live in that prison. The world begins to open up when we stop living smaller. So I leave you with a question–How big is your world?
Works Cited
Abrahamian, A., 2019. Opinion | The Real Wall Isn’t at the Border (Published 2019). [online] Nytimes.com. Available at: <https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/26/opinion/sunday/border-wall-immigration-trump.html> [Accessed 10 September 2022].
Mays, D., 2014. How The Mind Creates our Reality | Dr. Mitchell Mays. [online] Dr. Mitchell Mays. Available at: <https://www.drmitchellmays.com/how-the-mind-creates-our-reality/> [Accessed 3 September 2022].
Mays, M., 2022. Official Bio | Dr. Mitchell Mays. [online] Dr. Mitchell Mays. Available at: <https://drmitchellmays.com/official-bio/> [Accessed 3 September 2022].
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