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Our minds are the most powerful tool God provided us with no doubts. Human evolution has been a reality because the human mind is magnificent. We differ from the rest of the living beings in Earth based on our mind’s extraordinary capacity to reason. Our minds are capable of pretty much everything. We are blessed to have such a powerful tool available 24/7.
As any powerful tool, our minds can do great things, but it can also create chaos when we let it take the wrong path. The best and the worst thing about the human mind is the magnifying glass that surround it. That magnifying glass is what gives us the infinite power to do the impossible things. The magnifying glass around Albert Einstein’s mind was the key for him to be able to develop the theory of relativity. The magnifying glass around Steve Jobs was the one that made possible for me to be seating here in front of my laptop writing this post.
That magnifying glass we all have around our minds is what makes us stand up and keep evolving. We see everything bigger than what it is in reality, and that gives us the opportunity to do things that might appear impossible at first. But, as I mentioned above, the mind magnifying glass comes with that amazing capacity and at the same time it has a downside which is that the bad things are also seeing through it. Which means we will always have a tendency to overreact to situations that are no so good based on what our minds are perceiving through the magnifying glass.
What it is even more interesting about the mind magnifying glass is that we don’t have to necessarily see something to make it appear bigger. The mind magnifying glass works with everything inside the minds such as thoughts, feelings, believes, etc. A tiny thought might get huge when the mind magnifying glass perceive it. A fear we may be feeling might get out of proportion only because our mind perceived it through the magnifying glass. Everything that passes through that lens gets bigger either if we want it or not.
I have the perfect example for this. Well, I think we all have at least one daily example to explain how our mind magnifying glass makes us overreact most of the time. I was eating lunch few days ago with my family at home. For some reason that I haven’t been able to understand yet, I hit my front tooth with the fork. I didn’t have a mirror at hand, but I had my mind magnifying glass looking at the situation with detailed attention. So, the magnifying glass told my mind: Oh oh.. this is bad!! she just broke her tooth completely! And my reaction was to put my hand under my mouth to spit the tooth. I entered in panic mode and ran to the closest mirror waiting to see half (or even more) of the tooth gone. When I opened my mouth, I started laughing. I did hit my tooth and scratched the corner, but what my mind showed me through the magnifying glass was not real at all. I have added a picture here, so you can see with your own eyes what I mean when I say we overreact because of our mind magnifying glass.
That little situation made me think about all the times I have done the same, well, let me correct that: all the times my mind has made me overreact when it was not necessary. Of course, that superpower of the mind is there for a reason. In addition to all the positive things I explained at the beginning, we were designed that way simply to survive. Back in the time when we had to protect ourselves from wild animals and search for food, that mind magnifying glass was our biggest survival tool. But now that we don’t need it that way as much, our inner magnifying glass keeps working the same with little things that are not really a threat.
Now, the issue is not the magnifying glass because as we can see it serves us better than it causes us pain. What we really need to focus our attention is on learning how to know when we are overreacting because of our mind magnifying glass and bring ourselves to a more relaxed state of mind. We can simply work on creating a habit of asking ourselves: through which lens I am seeing this situation? every time we feel we are about to overreact. Of course, to be able to ask that question we need to be more mindful and aware of our thoughts and feelings. And if you have been reading this blog for a while, you know what my suggestion would be 😊. I am not going to say it but you know it starts with “medi” and it ends on “tation.”
Take some time today and check how many times you see the world through your mind magnifying glass. And if you feel adventurous enough, maybe try writing down those situations. Perhaps, you can use a journal – just saying! 😂
Our minds are definitely our most powerful tool my friends! We just need to learn how to use it so it serves us the best possible way. Let’s keep learning and making good choices because that’s exactly how God designed us to be!
Love,
Irene
