We Are The Cause. What is the Effect?

We live in a world of cause and effect.

I can imagine your response… “No kidding… tell me something I don’t already know!”

We all know about cause and effect. But looking at how most people seem to be living and responding to life, I feel it bears repeating.

(And maybe I’m the only one who could use a reminder, so thanks for indulging me.)

What shows up in our lives is the effect. We are the cause. At least for the most part. While some Law of Attraction teachers will argue this is a 100% rule, it can also be argued that some things really are beyond our control… acts of God and so forth.

But at least in general, we create our reality.

And even with the things we may not create, we are responsible for our reaction to it.

The problem is, we do so mostly unconsciously. This explains why it is so easy to complain about things that upset us because we aren’t aware of the part that we’ve played. If we are consciously aware of pulling into the fast food drive-thru lane, after vowing to eat better, we generally don’t shout, “How the heck did I get here?! Who did this to me?!”

Instead of just complaining about the effect, take a look at what the cause might be. If your toast is burnt, don’t obsess about the toast… check the settings on the toaster.

Another favorite analogy of mine is imaging looking in the mirror and complaining about how your hair looks… then trying to comb the mirror. It’ll be futile… but only 100% of the time.

If we can look at the effect and recognize ourselves as the cause, we step into our power to change things for the better. We acknowledge that to change the effect (such as our financial situation, or our physical health, etc.), we must change the cause (our behavior, our mindset, even our self-image/identity.)

That last one is important but often overlooked. We may, in our more lucid moments, acknowledge the truth of the statement that if we always do what we’ve always done, we’ll always get what we’ve always gotten. But we don’t often consider that if we always see ourselves the same way, it’s going to be awfully difficult doing things in a different way.

A baker bakes bread. Let’s say you see yourself as a baker, but decide what you really want to do is be a carpenter. If you hold onto your belief that you are a baker – if that’s how you self-identify – you are likely to find even a simple table difficult to build.

Sometimes it just feels easier to let the cause be. But if we do, we better get used to getting the same effects… and hope that those around us will continue to tolerate our griping.

Or, we can clear our resistance to change… our fear of it.

First, acknowledge that this resistance and fear is not a sign of weakness. Sometimes it feels that way, and so adopting a willingness to change feels like an admission of a defect. It isn’t. You’ve been doing the best you could up to this point, given your programming. So be compassionate with yourself.

Then you can look at what you might be afraid of. What would be the negative consequence of now seeing yourself as something other than a baker? Give yourself permission to consider this… and tapping can certainly make it feel like an easier – or at least safer – process. Without the stress that generally comes with questioning the status quo, you will find greater freedom to change. You may even find some of your old reasons for staying stuck seem quite silly. Allow yourself to be amused without being judgmental.

As you let go of your need to hang onto the old identity, you allow yourself to adopt the one you really want. You allow yourself to be a different cause… and then you can’t help but get a different effect.