It’s so easy to believe that external things hold the power in life. We think money, or lack of it, determines our abundance; we think other people’s behavior determines our happiness; we think success or failure, as the world defines it, determines our self-worth. It is ultimately our thinking, more than our outer circumstances, that determines whether we live lives of harmony and peace or of pain and despair.

In the realm of thought, there are two main categories: thoughts of love and thoughts of fear. Every single moment, we choose between the two. If I think with love, then I am more likely to behave lovingly and to attract love from others. If my heart is closed, I am more likely to act out of fear. Fear-based behavior tends not to look like fear but like anger or jealousy; it elicits reactions from others that reflect my fear and not my love.

As sages have proclaimed throughout the centuries, the world is but a reflection of what we think. As we change our thoughts, we can change our world. In any moment, we can change our minds. We are created to co-create a world of harmony and peace and joy, which the love in our hearts gives us power to do. With every thought, we choose heaven on earth or hell on earth, for ourselves and for all the world. We have the power to bless or blame, to forgive or judge. With our thoughts we have the power to honor or mock, to believe in miracles or deny the possibility that they ever happen. When our minds move in harmony with love—through forgiveness or prayer or the simplest tender thought—then mountains move and the universe shifts.

Love these words by Marianne Williamson!