“Whether you think you can or whether you think you can’t, you’re right!” –Henry Ford

As a newly pregnant woman, I’m having a hard time regulating my body temperature. I get hot and sweaty, I peel off layers of clothes, and then moments later I get the chills and I pile them back on. This happens 25 times a day.

I’m tired, as in T-I-R-E-D, and I’m napping almost daily. I feel like I’m in a fog and I can’t think clearly. I’m forgetful. I feel nauseous a lot of the time. My body is definitely calling the shots and I feel like I’m just along for the ride.

I am missing deadlines, having to cancel appointments and I’m not meeting the expectations I normally hold for myself. To be honest, I feel like I’m failing a lot of the time right now. It’s been challenging for me to keep a positive mindset, and even more of a task to be happy that I’m expecting.

This is not what I thought I’d feel like when I got pregnant.

After spending last weekend (as in almost the entire weekend) in bed, I had to have a little heart to heart conversation with myself. I was feeling pretty blue. I was tired of lying around. I was bored and my body was starting to resent being in a horizontal position all of the time. My entire outlook on my life started to take a mini nosedive.

I was grumpy. I wasn’t smiling – grimacing, actually – and I could feel that my mind was beginning to tug me downward. So I had to intervene and take a stand for the mindset I knew could really serve me best.

This is a choice. It’s not a clear blinking-neon-sign kind of choice, but it is something that is within your power to shift and change. When you feel yourself beginning to “go down”, as in your attitude and your emotional state take a turn for the negative, you have a choice.

I realized that the more I focused on what was happening, on what I didn’t want to be feeling, on the ick, yuck and discomfort of it all, the worse things got. I caught myself thinking that this was all there was – feeling awful was my new “normal” and everyday reality. It’s easy to slip into this kind of thinking, especially when there is no proof in sight that something different will come your way.

But I knew that a different reality, a different way of feeling, was possible. Just a few short weeks ago I was hiking along the shoreline of a gorgeous Hawaiian island, soaking in some much needed sun and sipping tropical juices from a beautifully garnished glass. The past few weeks have looked and felt different… very different.

I recognized in that moment that it was all temporary – the good, the bad and the ick of it. It was all fleeting and not permanent at all. My mind needed to be reminded that it was temporary. So when I offered this truth to my downturned mindset, it nodded politely and took notice.

The mind is a very powerful thing – so powerful that it creates stories and realities and belief systems that create (and destroy) entire worlds and universes all of the time. We are all creating our own world every single day, and the number one determining factor of the kind of world we create is the story that is in our minds, What our minds believe is truth, rules.

It’s easy to believe you will always be in pain if chronic pain is your current reality. It’s also easy to believe you’ll always be poor if that is what you look at every day. I could choose to believe someone hates me if they don’t call me back, or if they cancelled a date with me… but really I have no idea why they haven’t called me back, or why they cancelled.

The story in your mind will try to fill in the blank spaces of missing information in your life. And if you’re not careful, it will erroneously fill in those spaces and you’ll completely misinterpret the truth of what is really going on around and within you. I might believe you hate me because you didn’t call or because you canceled, but your cat could have died, or maybe you lost your phone. The true reasons for not calling or showing up could be very different from the fictional and completely manufactured story I have in my head.

When I caught my mind trying to create a much bigger story and reality out of a few weeks of morning sickness, I knew it was time to intervene. It was time for me to sit with myself, give myself a pep talk (and a little kick in the booty) and put that overly dramatic negative story in check. This is temporary. I’m not always going to feel this way. I’m just take care of myself during this period of time. This too, shall pass.

A very powerful thing to do is to watch and bear witness to the storyline that is going on inside of your mind every day. Is your inner story oriented in such a way that you feel powerful, beautiful and positive about your life? Does it assure you that you can live the life you desire, and that your dreams are within reach? Or does it have you feeling like things always happen to you, that nothing ever turns out the way you want it to, and that you can’t have what you really want?

What is your mind telling you? Does it feel good? Or does it drag you down?

Years ago one of my spiritual mentors said, “Don’t believe everything you think.” I love this, and I’ve also found that taking this to heart has led to the discovery of a lot of truth in my life. Just because I think it is, doesn’t mean it really is. It’s a little mind bending, and that’s the entire point.

You have a lot more control over the reality you create than you may have ever thought. Consider this: if the mind can take you in a downward direction with a single thought, belief or notion, it has the power to take you in an equally powerful upward direction just as quickly. This is where the power of visualization, meditation, affirmations and positive thinking come to play.

You can actually create the story that you want to believe in your own mind, and you can choose to only believe that story. No, you’re not living in a fairy tale or avoiding “reality” if you choose to do this. You’re actually choosing the reality you want to experience. And that, my dear, is some potent stuff!

I could choose to believe that my entire pregnancy is going to be a giant vomit fest, that my delivery will be long and awful, and that motherhood is going to be a dreadful and thankless experience all around. Just imagine the reality I’d be creating if I chose to wholeheartedly and unwittingly embrace that as the inevitable!!

Or, I could choose a million other realities for myself. I could reinforce my reality of choice daily with the thoughts I chose, with the “proof” I decided to believe in, and with the reality I decided to construct for myself around all of that thought and proof. The point is, you get to choose the reality you live in, and your mindset has everything to do with it.

Will you choose to be someone that life is happening to? Or will you choose to be someone who actively co-creates your life by choosing the reality you live in? You can choose to live life like a cork drifting in the ocean, being tossed this way and that by the tides, the wind and the waves. Or, you can put up a sail, attach a rudder to the back, and chart your own course.

You do truly decide. So what will it be?