If you are new to our community, you may have asked yourself: What exactly does The Cypress Initiative do? Or you may have read that our mission is to cultivate human potential, but wondered why we say we do it one thought at a time.

When uncovering human potential, one of the first things we teach people is that our thoughts make up our reality, and that there is always a new, fresh, thought waiting to give us a whole new experience of life, or an entirely new realization of our potential.

Here’s an example of how I describe this to our student’s in our S.P.A.R.K. Mentoring Program:

Imagine your head is like a highway. You’re just chugging right along, when you come up to an exit sign. Now picture that exit sign as a thought in your head. We all have different types of thoughts, constantly, all day long. Just like we can’t control which exit signs are on the highway, we can’t control which thoughts pop up in our head.

Different thoughts pop up all day long, and like navigating a highway, we can choose what exit we want to take, or we can choose to stay on the road, allowing the exits to pass by.

Say I come up to the “I feel fat” exit, and begin to think about the number on the scale or the way my jeans fit this morning. When I begin thinking about the “I feel fat” exit, I know I’m headed right off the highway toward a journey to insecurity. That’s because right off that exit there are a variety of “roads” that I can go down; Upset Lane, Mad Drive, Self-conscious Avenue, etc. Sound like a fun trip to go on? Not so much! Yet, I’ve innocently found myself on this path more than once.

However, say I come up to the “I feel fat” exit and instead of getting off just because it was there, I let it pass by. Letting the exit pass by provides me the opportunity to wait for an exit I want to take, like “my kids are the best”. Getting off at “my kids are the best” allows me to travel down roads that are fun and exciting. So my reality becomes just that, fun and exciting, giving me an entirely new experience.

Most of us have gotten off on a wrong exit when traveling. Maybe some people more than others, (ummmm me!). But what eventually happens? Like a clever GPS, we are designed to re-route and get back on the highway. So yes, you may start out your morning getting off on the wrong exit, but isn’t it refreshing to know that you can always reroute, get back on the highway and go to another exit? The beauty of the highway is there are always new exits popping up to discover.

When you come to truly understand you can’t control the exits (only have positive thoughts) but you don’t have to get off at each one, it tends to makes life more enjoyable!

Comment and let me know about your own experience on the highway of thought. I’d love to know!

Ashley Hunt