The Reality You Choose Becomes Your Life

Most people spend their lives trapped by realities they never consciously chose.

Not because those realities are true.

But because they endorsed them.

In this episode, I explore one of the most liberating distinctions I've ever encountered: the difference between reality and truth. Most of us hear statements as if they are either true or false. We immediately start debating, defending, agreeing, or disagreeing.

But what if that's the wrong question?

WHAT YOU’LL LEARN:

🪷 Why reality and truth are not the same thing

🪷 How every sentence creates a suggested reality

🪷 What it means to endorse or reject a reality

🪷 Why treating beliefs as truth leaves you trapped by them

🪷 How unconscious realities shape your life and decisions

🪷 A practical way to reclaim your freedom and personal power

You don't have to win the debate about what's true.

You only need to become conscious of the realities you're choosing to live inside of.

That's where freedom begins.

👉 Join the Awakening Weekends:
https://theawakeningweekend.com

If you’re ready to move beyond understanding this intellectually and actually live it, the Awakening Weekends are where that happens. It’s a space to experience what it means to show up differently and leave a completely different impact on the people around you.

👉 Watch David’s free video on ending self-criticism:
https://endingselfcriticism.com

If this message resonates, this is the best place to go deeper. It will shift how you relate to yourself and everything else builds from there.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

It's really important for us as human beings, both for our joy and for our effectiveness, to be able to distinguish between reality and truth. Most people collapse reality. They think it's exactly the same thing as truth. But let's get that sorted out for a minute, can we? So, reality. The thing about reality is to learn is that it's totally created by people speaking. In fact, every single time a person says a single sentence, they suggest a reality. So right now I happen to be in Austin, Texas, and I could say, Austin is a great place to live. A simple sentence, isn't it? But notice it suggests a reality. Now, most people don't hear it, though, as a suggested reality. Most people hear that as a statement of truth. Austin is a great place to live. And then they debate: is that true or is that false? You see, I could equally say Austin is a terrible place to live. So when people speak every single time they say a sentence, they suggest a reality. Usually we listen for, is that true or is that false? I'm inviting us to listen in a new way. Rather than listen for is any statement true or false, listen for what is the reality that that creates for me to live inside of. And then you have a choice. This is where you find your choice. You get to claim your power as a human being. You have a choice to either endorse that reality or not endorse that reality. Endorsing a reality says, I am going to live my life. I accept living my life inside the world that just got created by that statement. So, in other words, if somebody says Austin is a great place to live and you endorse that reality, then you are saying, okay, I'll live my life as if Austin is a great place to live. So when you endorse a reality, you're just saying, I'm going to live my life as if what you said is the case. You're not saying it's true. It's your choice to relate to it that way. That's what's so important about this. And if you say, no, I'm not going to endorse that reality, you're simply saying, I'm not going to live my life as if that's the case. So every time a human being says a single sentence, they're suggesting a reality, including when you speak to yourself every sentence. So I'm inviting us, I'm inviting you to start training your ear to hear the sentences people speak and hear them as realities being suggested versus a statement that is either true or false. Now, when you actually begin to examine this, you can look back and go, what are the realities I'm living in that I unwittingly endorsed throughout my life? And there's some fundamental realities we live in as a society. One reality we live in is that I'm not you, that we're separate. Now notice we can debate is that true or false? Are we separate or are we one? We can debate if that's true or false for centuries, which it has been being debated. But rather than debate is that statement true or false, we're one or we're separate. Choose a reality to live inside of. That shapes my actions, it shapes my emotions, it shapes how I see things, it shapes literally what I think of doing. So every time we choose a reality, it gives us our life. It shapes what we do, what we don't do, what we even think of doing, and don't think of doing. So it really is worthwhile to examine realities that you live in that you've endorsed unwittingly throughout the course of your life. Some of them are very personal. You might live in a reality that you're not successful enough. You might live in a reality that you're not beautiful, you might live in a reality that you're not getting enough done during the day. And, however, you're not relating to those as created realities, you're relating to those as statements of truth. And therefore, you get trapped by them. Being able to relate to something as a suggested reality and therefore having your choice about whether you endorse it or not sets you free. Relating to something as if it's the truth, I didn't get enough done today, leaves you imprisoned by it. So the whole intention of this is to set you free. Truth, I invite you to take yourself out of the business of determining what's true. Take yourself out of the business. Hand in your letter of resignation. I'm no longer in that business. And put yourself in the business of listening keenly for what are the realities being suggested to me in other people's speaking, in my own speaking, and then exercise your choice as a human being, do you endorse them or not? This way you can keep yourself living in an empowering context at all times in your life. And it's your choice to get the power of your choice, the your power to choose what realities I'm gonna live in. Don't worry about what's true. We don't know what's true. It might be fascinating inquiry to wonder about what's true or false, but likely you'll never resolve because nobody really has in the history of humankind to really be able to say what's true or false. But for sure we live in realities that have been created in other speaking and in our own speaking, and to be able to hear those for what they are, created suggested realities, and then exercise our choice about whether we endorse them or not. That leaves us with the power to choose the context in which we live our own life. And the context in which we live our life gives us everything our experience of life and shapes our thinking, our planning, and our actions. That's why this conversation is so important for our freedom and for our power. Thanks, everybody.