Decoded: How the Mind Shapes What We Call Reality

By Lori Marie

This human life experience we’re having is completely dependent on the meaning we assign to literally everything. If we don’t observe it or think about it—it isn’t happening, at least not in our personal field of awareness.

Once we do recognize something, our brain processes it and immediately draws on our conditioned life experience to decide how we’re going to perceive it. This is actually an extremely powerful tool. Once we wake up to the fact that we are in complete control of our reality, based on what we believe, think, and feel, we can start choosing, in every moment, how we want to perceive.

For example, I’m walking down a busy street and I see a lot of traffic. That observation triggers a stream of thoughts: Oh, it’s morning traffic—everyone’s heading to work, or Ugh, this is so congested, I hope people are driving safely, or Wow, that car looks like the one I had in high school—what a memory! Each thought comes from a lens I’m choosing to look through in that moment. And whichever lens I choose, that becomes the filter for my reality.

I might even see a bird swoop gracefully from a tree, fly over the traffic, and land in another tree across the street—or scoop up a crumb from the sidewalk. My mind could create a whole story about how nature has adapted to human busyness over time. And just like that, my entire experience of the moment shifts. Simply because I chose to observe something different.

The point is: by becoming aware of the here and now, we gain the power to shape everything through conscious awareness.

Let’s take it a step deeper.

Imagine you’re at work or home, and someone says something that triggers a thought or emotion in you—sadness, anger, frustration. This moment is no different than the traffic moment on the street. You’ve been triggered, yes—but what happens next is your choice.

You can either move into autopilot—reacting the same way you always have—or you can pause, breathe, and choose how you want to respond. That triggered moment is actually a chance to come back into your body, into the present, and rewrite the pattern.

The trigger didn’t cause the emotion—the past did. The trigger only resurfaced something stored within you. It brought the past into the present, but the interpretation of the moment, and what you do with it now, is completely up to you.

You always have a choice.

So what if, instead of judging the trigger or spiraling in the story, we honored it? What if we said: “Ah, there you are—something old, something wounded. Let me meet you differently this time.”

This is where healing begins. In the tiny moments—the glance at traffic, the offhand comment, the way your chest tightens or softens in response to the world.

Every moment is a doorway.

Every reaction is an invitation .

Every thought is a vote for the reality you want to live in.

You’re not stuck. You’re not broken. You’re just waking up.

And with that awareness, you can gently, powerfully, start choosing a life that reflects who you really are, not just who you were programmed to be.