I recently joined a big crowd of our friends who were having lunch, and it struck me how much our thinking can influence our experience of any situation, moment to moment.

At times I was enjoying full conversations with friends, at times I felt overwhelmed by the number of people there and felt I couldn’t really properly talk to anyone. At other times I felt distracted by thinking of feeling self-conscious about things I had said or not said. At times I felt very connected with people at others I felt distant and not connected.

I wandered if everyone was having a similar experience but not realising it or acknowledging it?

This was all in the space of less than two hours and only highlights some of the emotions and thoughts that ran through my head. To me it summed up how many of us experience our lives but aren’t aware or don’t realise the effect our thinking has on our feelings on a moment to moment basis colouring every part of our day and our existence.

Learning about the 3 principles allows us to see life as a moment to moment experience, and thought as transitory rather than real. I believe from my own experience that this allows us to gain perspective on our experience of life and not take it as seriously. – well not all the time anyway. – After all we are only human and when we have clarity we have it, and when we don’t, we don’t, but we have faith it will return.