How Your THOUGHTS Create Your REALITY

Melanie Mishler: 00:01

Welcome to the Magnetic Creator podcast. I'm your host, Melanie Mishler, and each week we have intimate conversations about the things that matter most in life. My superpower is helping you remember who you truly are. A powerful, magical creator. I give you proven tools to help you get unstuck and manifest a life that sets your heart on fucking fire. Are you ready? Let's go. Hello, friend.

Today I had an episode planned, but I decided I'm gonna totally pivot because over the weekend, something interesting happened in one of our businesses. And I've been processing it with my husband and some peers, and I realized that it's such a great lesson on manifestation and how we create our own reality and how we create our own memories. So I thought I would share it with you guys today. And...

I've known this for many years. I've known that we create our own reality. But here's a truth that I really came to understand and embody on a much deeper level this weekend. You and I can be standing in the same exact place, at the same exact moment in time, looking and experiencing the literally the same thing. And yet we can both be having vastly different experiences. I can be having the best day ever and I can be happy and celebrating.

while you can be having the absolute worst day ever, and you could be miserable and unhappy, or vice versa, it can go either way. And this is really exciting because what it means is that we are in charge of how we experience the world. We get to choose how we experience the world. It's not the actual circumstances of what's happening around us which are creating our reality, it's our perception of them. It's our beliefs, our thoughts, and our expectations.

And this is great news because it means not only are we literally in control of our life, but we also have the power to change those thoughts and beliefs. And this might sound a little woo woo, but stick with me because remember, I'm equal parts woo woo neuroscience and strategy. So I'm never going to get all esoteric on you without bringing it full circle. I promise. Okay. So let me tell you what happened this weekend. For those of you who don't know, my husband and I have been wedding photographers for over 20 years.

Melanie Mishler: 02:19

And we also run a really beautiful wedding venue. And I'm going to say one of the best parts of our job is that we have amazing clients. In fact, most of our closest friends today, they started off as clients. Then over the years, they morphed into not only our friends, but people that we actually consider family. And so every weekend we get to celebrate with people during the happiest time of their life when they're surrounded by their family and friends.

And not only that, but we also get to capture these moments on film. And let me tell you, Andy and I got married five years ago, and since then, my dad has passed away. And trust me, I could give a shit less about the detailed photos of my dress and my shoes. But what I really value is every single photo and every memory of my dad and I during those happy times. Because of anyone at my wedding, my dad was so happy I was marrying Andy. He loved my husband so much.

more than anyone in my family. Okay, anyway, I'm sorry, I totally digress. Let me get back to what happened this weekend. Okay, it's the beginning of May, and we have had gorgeous weather in California for the last month. And then all of a sudden, we have this crazy, and I mean, crazy fucking storm on Saturday, which of course was wedding day. It was so bad, it was hailing and downpouring and raining sideways. It was wild. So.

The wedding planner and our staff, everyone worked really, really hard to pivot and make sure our couple had this gorgeous day. The bride and groom decided to go with their wedding planner's rain plan and have the ceremony inside the beautiful barn. And luckily, the venue we manage has these massive, massive doors on either end. So you can open up those doors and you can really kind of have a seamless indoor outdoor experience. Anyway, everyone moves forward with a plan, but the groom's mother was furious.

Like from the moment she arrived, there was nothing anyone could do to appease her. She was mad that the ceremony was set up in the dry barn and not in the rain. She was mad that the rehearsal started three minutes late. She was angry about where to park. She was angry about everything. To top it off, the storm was so bad that lightning knocked out power to the whole area for a while. And...

Melanie Mishler: 04:37

Our staff got the generator going, so everything still ran on time and the party continued and it was actually a really beautiful day. But this mom spent the whole day miserable. And not only was she angry, she also went around yelling at our staff and hurling, like hurling hate speech. She called me a fat bitch and a brown bitch, probably 30 plus times to guest and staff. And she was saying things like,

Can you believe that brown bitch wouldn't let us set up chairs outside? God. And friends, let me tell you, I'm turning 50 soon and I have never ever in my entire life experienced something like this, ever. It was really shocking to hear. And even though I will tell you I'm a very proud second generation Mexican American, I'm even working on getting my dual citizenship with Mexico. I love, love, love my brown skin and my Mexican heritage.

We even own five acres in Belize where we live part -time. So what's not to love about that? But no one has ever referred to me as a brown bitch. And let's see, I'm also a plus size woman, but I've never been called a fat bitch. Like does she not know that I know that I'm fat? Seriously, I've struggled with my weight every day for the last four years. Come on, you just, you don't say stuff like that. Seriously, in over 20 years of celebrating with families and friends,

We've never experienced someone like this ever. Like I said, we normally have the most amazing couples and families. And I have to say, it's funny because my daughter talks about stuff like this all the time. She's in her early twenties and I'm not sure what generation that is, but she knows all the lingo of what's quote politically correct and not politically correct and what's offensive to people. And I always tell her, I'm like, girl, I'm a Gen X woman. Nothing offends Gen Xers. We have thick...

skin. Or so I thought, because let me tell you friend, being called a fat brown bitch is pretty fucking offensive. And it's so hurtful. I think especially in the workplace when you're working really, really hard to make sure this person's family has a really great experience to have that hate speech sloughed at you. It's just, it's horrible. So I started off Sunday being kind of worked up with my husband and our staff who they were all offended for me. And then I realized,

Melanie Mishler: 07:01

As the day went on and I reflected more, the only thing I could keep thinking was, I am so happy that I'm not living inside that person's body. I'm so happy that I don't have the experience of approaching the world with this negative, racist, body shaming, defensive, cruel energy. This woman, she spent the entire day of her son's wedding being upset.

and being mean to people around her instead of celebrating with her family and friends. Her son got married. It was such a beautiful day and the people around her were having tons of fun. And yet all she could do was walk around complaining and miserable. Even though she was standing in the same spot at the same exact time and moment with a hundred other people who were celebrating. Looking back, I think it's actually really sad.

I want to grab her and say, like, let's celebrate. Your son just got married. This is a best day ever. But she couldn't because she wasn't in a space to be able to do that. And so you might wonder, how can this happen? How does this happen? How can so many people be standing in the same exact place at the same exact time, yet be having such vastly different experiences? And here's how that happens. It's because our beliefs and expectations of the world,

literally shape our experiences. And our beliefs are just thoughts that we keep having over and over again, until these strong neural pathways form in our brain. They're kind of like hiking trails in a forest. The more people hike on a trail, the clearer it becomes and the easier that path becomes to navigate. And this is exactly what happens in our brains. You have to remember that our brains are receiving billions of pieces of information every day.

And obviously, processing all that information would just shut down our system. So our brain uses our beliefs and our expectations almost like a filter or like a colander. And if you imagine a colander, it's going to let everything that's unimportant pass through. And then it just holds on to what it deems important. But here's the thing. Our brain doesn't judge whether our beliefs and our expectations are positive or negative. If we expect the worst in someone,

Melanie Mishler: 09:20

That's literally all we can see because our brain sets up this filter and it automatically dismisses any information that doesn't match that filter. And so we'll get more into the brain science of manifestation in another episode, but this weekend, this is literally what happened. This mom had a belief and an expectation that our staff was out to ruin her son's wedding. Her brain literally and physically could not see or...

experience any of the joy or happiness. And she couldn't see how hard her staff was working. She couldn't experience any of that because of how her filter was set. Now, obviously, friend, this does not excuse her horrible behavior or her hate speech. But now, looking back, it was such a great gift for me to be able to recognize and really embody on this deeper level that I get to choose how I see the world. I get to decide this is

So powerful. Okay, so I want you to think about a time in your past when there were people all around you, yet everyone was having different experiences. If you've ever been to Thailand, you know the saying, same, same, but different. That's exactly what happened this weekend. And that's what's happening every day of our lives. We're all experiencing things differently. Our brain uses the filter of our traumas, our expectations, our past hurts.

And more importantly, our story, that story we tell ourself in our head, and it physically shapes our experiences, which is how you and I can be standing on the same street corner, but we're not having the same experience, and we're not gonna take the same memory from that day. All right, friends, so the big question is, who the fuck do you want to be? What kind of experiences do you want to have?

Do you want to be the person who's showing up at the party and having a great time and spreading joy? Or do you want to be the person who's toxic and criticizing and cruel? You get to choose. And not only that, this is a choice that we get to make over and over again, every minute of our life. It's totally okay if you've shown up as a critical person in the past, you get to pivot and you get to choose and change that, I believe.

Melanie Mishler: 11:42

I admit I've been a toxic criticizing person in the past and friend I can tell you it just doesn't feel good. It never feels good to criticize others or to expect the worst in a situation. This is why now after processing all this I can really sit with compassion for a woman who hurls racial and body shaming slurs at me. I know for a fact it's impossible to be in your true power while being hurtful to another.

It just can't happen. Okay, so before I sign off, I just want to share a quote from A Course in Miracles. This is one of my favorite teachings, and I've been studying A Course in Miracles for about 30 years now. And here's the quote. It says this, the strong do not attack because they see no need to do so. Before the idea of attack can enter your mind, you must have perceived yourself as weak. And friend, this is one of my

favorite passages. It is so true. Okay, that's all I have for you today. I hope you took something of value of it. And friend, be kind to each other. Be kind to yourself. Choose how you want to show up and have a beautiful, beautiful week.