You wake up before dawn, your mind already murmuring the same old refrain before you even sit up in bed. I don’t like my life. I wish I weren’t here. Nothing ever changes. I’m always alone. The words rise like vapor, slipping under the door of your consciousness, curling into the corners of your day before it’s even begun.
You don’t remember exactly when you started believing these things about yourself. Maybe it was something you heard in childhood—a passing remark from a parent too tired to filter their words, a dismissal from a teacher, a shove from a friend who decided you weren’t worth keeping. Or maybe it was something quieter, something you absorbed from the way people looked past you, from the way love seemed to belong to other people but never to you.
These thoughts have settled into you like old furniture in a room you never bother to rearrange. You don’t question them, because they’ve been there so long they feel like home. But they aren’t. They’re stories.
Samskaras: The Grooves of the Mind
In Sanskrit, there is a word for these deep impressions, these patterns of thought that shape our lives—samskaras. Imagine them as grooves in a dirt road, carved over years of repetition. Every time you think, I’m not enough, I’m unlovable, nothing will ever change, the wheels of your mind fall into that same old rut. You may not even realize you’re doing it, but that doesn’t matter—the mind follows the path it knows. And before you know it, the day ahead unfolds just as it always has.
These samskaras don’t just dictate your thoughts; they dictate your reality. Like deep riverbeds guiding the flow of water, they shape your life, your relationships, your health. The body listens to the stories you tell yourself, absorbing them as truth. A lifetime of believing you are unloved might manifest as a tightness in the chest, a slow and steady ache in the bones, an immune system that no longer fights for you because, deep down, you believe you aren’t worth fighting for.
This isn’t some abstract philosophy—it’s biology, it’s physics, it’s the law of attraction.
The law of attraction isn’t some wish-upon-a-star fairy tale; it’s a force as real as gravity. What you think, you become. The universe is not listening to what you want—it is responding to what you are. If your inner voice is always whispering, I am alone, I am unlucky, I hate my life, then the universe, like a faithful servant, will make sure you are right.
Not because it is cruel, but because it does not argue.
It doesn’t say, "Oh no, she doesn’t mean that, let’s give her something better." It simply amplifies what you give it. Like a mirror, it reflects back the energy you put out. And so, if you want to change your life, you must start by changing the story you tell yourself every morning before your feet even touch the ground.
This isn’t easy. Changing your samskaras is like turning a ship that has been sailing in one direction for decades. You will feel resistance. Your mind will fight to keep the old patterns because they are familiar, and the mind clings to the familiar, even when it hurts.
Instead of waking up and letting the first thought be "I hate my life", try—even if it feels like a lie—"I am open to joy today". Instead of "I am always alone", try "I am learning to love my own company". The words might taste foreign at first, like speaking a language you barely know. But if you repeat them enough, the grooves in your mind will begin to shift.
You are not just thinking new thoughts; you are creating a new reality.
The life you live now is the result of every thought you’ve ever had. And if that thought pattern does not change, your next life—whether you believe in reincarnation or simply in the future you are building—will be shaped by the same worn-out narrative.
But there is another path.
It begins in the quiet moments, in the refusal to believe the old lies, in the decision to speak to yourself as you would a dear friend. It begins the moment you realize that your thoughts are not you—they are stories, and you have the power to write a different one.
So, tomorrow morning, when you wake up, listen for that first thought. If it is old and cruel, do not let it take root. Choose another one. And another. And another. Until the day comes when you open your eyes, and the first thing you hear is a voice that says, I am worthy of love. I am open to happiness. I am alive, and I am meant to be here.
And for the first time in a long time, you will believe it.
Hari Om Tat Sat
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