Your consciousness works through your awareness such as you’re aware of your five senses (sight, sound, touch, taste and smell) and you’re also aware of your own mind such as thinking and feeling. Through your awareness you make decisions.

Here are the steps in mental processes:

1. Your mind receives input from its senses (sight, sound, touch, taste, and smell).

2. Your mind identifies what it receives from its senses. For example, when you see this picture apple, your mind will identify what it is; give it a name; and create meaning. This picture actually has no meaning until your mind gives it a name and meaning.

3. Your mind judges or evaluates what it perceives. Is this good or bad?

4. If your mind likes what it is judging, the mind then generates a positive emotion – you feel good. If your mind doesn’t like it, it then produces a negative reaction; therefore, you feel bad.

5. Your mind decides what to do about it. You can also choose to do nothing.

6. Your mind stores the information of each event as well as the emotional response in its memory. Thus, how you react to things would determine how you feel.

Insight: Your reaction is creating how you feel. Can you recall how many times you have responded positively or negatively in life? Each time you did that, it creates an emotional pattern; therefore, your positive and negative reactions would form your personality and outlook on life. As the result, you’ve produced a certain mindset by how you respond to things. The good news is you can change how you react; release your stress; and expand your awareness. Hence, you’re no longer trapped in negative emotions, but feel tremendously free and joyful.

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