Do Thoughts Create Things?, Part 1: Yes, Unless You’re A Robot
It will probably be obvious, to anyone who follows debates about personal development, that a central question in these debates is whether our inner experience can affect reality. In other words, can changes in our thoughts and feelings cause changes in the world around us?
It's tempting to respond the way some critics do, and treat the answer as plain -- and, perhaps, the question itself as dumb. Clearly, the answer is no -- thinking about a BMW won't cause one to appear in my driveway, my bad moods don't cause inclement weather, and so on. Only a fluff-headed, New-Agey navel-gazer could think otherwise.
But that response, as we'll see, caricatures and oversimplifies the question. In fact, this question raises profound, and hotly debated, philosophical and scientific issues. To illustrate, let's look at a few (and by no means all) of the ways we might answer this question.
Reductive Materialism
From one perspective, it's impossible for our thoughts and feelings to affect reality. What we perceive as "thoughts" and "feelings" are merely our subjective experiences, or "epiphenomena," of biochemical processes in our brains. Our experience of those processes plainly cannot cause or influence those processes.
Here's a crude analogy -- the chemical reactions in my brain are like a movie, and "I" am like a person watching that movie. Clearly, my experience of the film can't alter the film itself. The fact that I like some character in the film, for instance, won't cause the movie's plot to change so that the character lives rather than dying.
One result of this view is that human beings don't have free will. This is because the very concept of "I" -- an individual who chooses, wants, makes plans, and so on -- is itself just a subjective experience of chemical reactions in the brain. "I," being merely an illusion created by neurological activity, can't influence anything that happens in the physical world.
If you buy this view, you're free to claim that our thoughts and feelings don't affect reality at all. But if you don't accept it, I think, you have to believe -- on some level -- that they do.
Emotions As Reasons
You may recall that, in an earlier post, I observed that we do most, or all, of the things we do in life because we want to experience certain feelings. For example, as I pointed out, most people don't make money just to own little colored pieces of paper -- they do it to create feelings of security, power, joy, or something else.
If this is so, there is clearly a sense in which our inner experience -- our thoughts, feelings and sensations -- affects our reality.
Take the example of making money. The feelings we desire (security, power, etc.) influence the actions we take in the world (starting a business, getting a job, and so on) -- and when we act, of course, we alter the physical world in some way. This is just another way to put the point that we make money because we want those feelings.
Thus, on some level, I think most people would agree that our inner experience does affect reality. The real question is the way in which, and perhaps the extent to which, it does so. We'll get into that question more deeply in the next post.
Is Self-Help Selfish?
Critics often put down personal growth practices on the ground that they're selfish, or at least self-absorbed. The time people spend meditating, saying affirmations, taking workshops, and so on, according to the critics, could be better spent helping others.
"The question is why one should be so inwardly preoccupied at all," writes Barbara Ehrenreich in Bright-Sided. "Why spend so much time working on one’s self when there’s so much real work to be done?" Similarly, in The Last Self-Help Book You'll Ever Need, Paul Pearsall writes, in questioning the value of much self-help literature, that "most of the problems we think we have stem from too much self-focus rather than too little." The phrase "selfish help" has also become popular on blogs that are critical of personal development.
This criticism may have some appeal on the surface. After all, when I meditate, I'm the only one who gains calm and clarity. My meditation practice doesn't cause food to appear on the tables of impoverished people. Similarly, if I see a therapist, that can only help resolve my mental health concerns -- it does nothing for catatonic people in psychiatric hospitals.
But if we look a little deeper, I think it becomes clear that this critique has some flaws, and I'm going to discuss them in this post.
Does Self-Help Mean No "Other-Help"?
I think the most obvious problem with this argument is that it assumes that a person can't do both personal growth work and charitable work, or at least that people involved in personal development are less interested in helping others.
Clearly, the first of these is not true. It's surely possible for me to lead a life that includes both, say, meditation and volunteering at a homeless shelter.
I suppose one could argue that the time I spend doing personal growth activities detracts from the time I could spend being generous to others. But if we take that argument seriously, most of what we do in life -- apart from, I guess, eating and sleeping -- becomes "selfish" and unacceptable.
After all, every minute we spend hanging out with friends, watching a movie, hiking, and so on is one less minute we could spend serving others' needs (whatever that may mean to you). This argument holds people to an impossible moral standard that I doubt even the most generous critic of personal development could meet.
Nor have I seen any evidence that people who do self-development work are less inclined to help others. I've yet to see a study suggesting that, say, people who have read The Secret are less likely to give to charity.
Emotions Influence Actions
More importantly, I think the claim that "self-help is selfish" misses the deeper point that our emotional state affects how we act. If my personal growth practices put me in a happier or more peaceful state, that's likely to change -- for the better -- the way I relate to others.
It may be that, while I'm in the process of meditating, I'm the only one gaining peace and clarity. But when I'm done meditating, I take that peace and clarity out into the world. Doesn't it stand to reason that, if I'm feeling more peaceful, I'll behave more peacefully toward other people?
This idea is more than just common sense -- there's substantial research supporting it. You may remember that, in an earlier post, I pointed to several psychological studies suggesting that happiness actually causes people to be more giving toward others. I've also discussed the evidence showing that people who believe they're responsible for their life circumstances -- a belief often promoted in personal development -- behave more generously.
However, there is also research bearing more directly on the relationship between self-development practices and qualities like kindness and compassion. One study, "Mindfulness-Based Relationship Enhancement," found that couples who meditated reported more satisfaction with their relationships. Another found that Buddhist metta meditation "increased feelings of social connection and positivity toward novel individuals" in study participants.
On a subtler level, the way we feel affects those around us, even when we aren't doing or saying anything. Daniel Goleman's Social Intelligence, for instance, describes how our bodies instinctively detect and mimic the emotions of people we're with. Goleman, for example, points to studies of couples showing that one partner's anger or sadness induced the same emotions in the other person.
In other words, because humans are empathic creatures, it makes sense that the emotional benefits we get from personal growth would "rub off" on others. This is why, I think, one of my mentors says that "the greatest gift you can give to others is to work on yourself."
So, I think it's important to look not only at how a personal growth practice benefits its immediate "user," but also how it affects their actions toward others and the way they show up in the world.
The Promise of "Stealth Transformation"
I can imagine a critic of personal growth responding that I'm painting an unrealistic picture of self-help methods and the reasons people use them. People don't get involved in personal growth to cultivate compassion for others, they might say. They do it because they want more money, better relationships, improved health, and so on.
I think this actually points to one of the great social benefits of personal development -- what's sometimes called "stealth transformation." Yes, some people may meditate because they want to be calmer in business meetings; some may do yoga because they want a more attractive body; and so forth. However, no matter what their intentions are, the peace and happiness they gain from their practices can positively affect their behavior toward others.
In other words, even if people go into self-development practices for purely "self-interested" reasons, they may find their relationship with the world changing in ways they didn't expect or intend. I know this happened in my own meditation and yoga practices. I didn't begin them with serving others in mind, but the composure I got from those practices has helped people feel more relaxed and open around me.
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