Your thoughts alone have the ability to keep you stuck in survival or move you into heaven on earth – aka creation.

Have you ever noticed what happens to your body when you become lost in thought? Not just any thought, but the repetitive stories that keep circling in your mind. The conversations you replay. The things you wish you had done differently. The fear of what might happen next. The voice telling you that you are not enough, you should have known better, you are behind, you made the wrong choice, or somehow you need to fix everything.

Your body listens and responds.

Suddenly you feel heavy. Your shoulders tighten. Your energy drops. You may even begin feeling aches and pains that seemingly came out of nowhere. The mind gets stuck on a story, and the body follows it into survival. Stay there long enough and you begin to experience what we often call being “stuck.” You want to move forward, create, connect, love, make decisions, experience life – yet something inside you feels debilitated, exhausted and unable to move.

Now think about the opposite experience.

Remember a period in your life when you felt genuinely happy. Maybe you were in love, traveling, laughing with someone you adore, sitting in nature, creating something meaningful or simply feeling deeply grateful for your life. Your body felt different, didn’t it? You felt lighter. More energized. More open. More alive. In those moments you were fully present.

You weren’t mentally living five years ago or rehearsing a catastrophe that may never happen five years from now. Your mind was experiencing what was actually happening in front of you. Gratitude, love and joy brought you into the present moment, and your body responded accordingly. There was more vitality, more openness, more life force available to you.

Your life and vitality are deeply connected to the thoughts you repeatedly entertain.

We walk through life believing we control everything. We strive to get it right every time. We try not to make mistakes. We want to be liked, accepted and understood. Then, when life doesn’t unfold according to the plan we created in our minds, we punish ourselves with regret, remorse and self-judgment.

We forget that life is happening for us – for our growth, our evolution and our becoming.

There is actually very little outside of ourselves that we can control. What we do have influence over is where we place our attention, the thoughts we continue feeding and how we respond to what life places in front of us. In the best-case scenario, we become the observer. We stay mindful enough to witness what is happening without immediately becoming consumed by it. From that place, we develop discernment – knowing when to act, when to respond and when to simply allow life to unfold.

This is where creation begins.

Think about the cost of a single negative thought, especially a judgmental one directed toward yourself. For those few moments, that thought steals you away from the only place where your life is actually happening – the present moment.

Now do your own math.

How many hours of your life have been spent replaying the past? How much life force has gone into worrying about a future that hasn’t happened? How much energy has been given to imaginary conversations, old mistakes, resentment, self-judgment, fear and trying to control things that were never yours to control?

Imagine channeling all of that life force into creating your present reality instead. Waking up and asking, “What can I create today?” Imagine catching the thought that says you are not enough and choosing not to feed it. Imagine realizing that peace isn’t waiting somewhere in your future once everything finally goes right. Heaven on earth is available in the moment you stop abandoning the present for the stories inside your mind.

So guard the door to your mind like your life depends on it – because in so many ways, it does.

Yours in living mindfully,

Ava