A paradigm of reality is our concept of what is real and how reality works. It is much more effective and changeable than most of us think. It is affected on many different levels of our experience.
On an individual level, your experience of reality can change radically from one day to the next or even from one moment to the next, depending on the particular experiences you are having and the state of mind you are in. For example, if you just got fired from your job and your boyfriend dumped you, you may feel like life is against you. And then, maybe several weeks later, you get a great job offer, and someone you have a crush on calls you and asks you out. Then you might feel that life is really for you after all.
And then there are differences between the general paradigm of reality that one person has and another. For example, a person who generally has a negative attitude towards life and fails at everything they try has a very different paradigm of reality than someone who generally sees the positive in life and succeeds at everything they do.
There are also very strong cultural definitions of what is real and how life works, which have been passed down from generation to generation. And there is usually a lot of pressure from the older generations on the younger generations to conform to them.
And then there are the paradigms of reality held by humanity in general. For example, most of humanity holds the belief that we are at the mercy of people and circumstances outside of ourselves, and that physical power is stronger than any other type of power.
Each of us holds in place a particular paradigm of reality. Every time we speak or act, or simply act, we express and uphold the way we define reality, and we model that paradigm of reality for those around us and influence our environment accordingly. Our paradigm is formed according to the experiences we have had; how healthy or unhealthy we are physically, emotionally, and spiritually; and the evolutionary stage in which we find ourselves. The question is: How close is your paradigm to the reality of the undistorted truth, and how much is it distorted by the limiting decisions* you have made, or limited by the level of evolution you have reached?
People are generally very interested in maintaining their particular paradigm of reality, even when it is highly distorted and dysfunctional. It is where we really live, and it is our source of stability. It’s the ground we’re standing on. It is how we define what is true. The objective is to move towards an increasingly positive and undistorted paradigm of reality.
*limiting decisions: An NLP term used in NLP TimeLine counseling sessions to refer to unconscious decisions, made in early childhood, which are a way of life not working out and usually that there is something intrinsically wrong with you , like “I have no power.” , “bad”, “unfriendly”; “People can’t be trusted,” and so on. Limiting decisions are never certain.
