Are Thoughts Things?

I’ve been thinking a lot about how thoughts are not just thoughts.

Are they things?
Are they creations?

From an Eastern spiritual perspective, every thought feels like a seed.

If I feed it, it grows.

I’ve noticed this in my own life. When I catch myself getting frustrated maybe with traffic, or when something doesn’t go the way I planned , if I let that frustration spiral, suddenly the whole day feels heavier.

It’s like that little seed of anger sprouts fast, and before I know it, I’ve watered it without even realizing.

This is not a new idea.

This idea isn’t new.
It’s been said in different ways by different teachers for a long time.

In Conversations with God, it’s clear. Thought is the first act of creation. Everything starts in the mind.
Wayne Dyer would always say, “Change your thoughts, change your life.”

Napoleon Hill called it directly in Think and Grow Rich:
“Thoughts are things.”

Florence Scovel Shinn talked about it too. How our words and thoughts aren’t just passive. They’re creative. They carry force.

And I feel the truth of all that when I notice how I respond to the world.
When I shift into love or compassion, even slightly, something changes.

Sometimes that shift is just one slow breath.
Sometimes it’s imagining someone I love and letting that feeling move through me.

It’s not always easy.
But I’ve learned that I really do have a choice in what frequency I tune into.

Eckhart Tolle has spoken about how thought forms can grow, even feed on our attention, becoming stronger the more we dwell on them.

Buddha said it over two thousand years ago:
“All that we are is the result of what we have thought.”

Yogananda described thoughts as vibrational patterns that shape our lives, almost like magnets.
And Neville Goddard saw imagination itself as the creative engine of reality.

It’s not just theory.
You can feel it when you pay attention.

What I keep realizing is that even if we let go of negative emotions, we’ve still created them.That anger or fear existed, even for a moment.

It’s like releasing something into the world that’s alive in its own way — carrying its own energy, and maybe even becoming something more than we intended.

And there’s already plenty of that negativity floating around.

So I try to be mindful not just about clearing old emotions,
but about not creating more than I need to in the first place.

Simple practices that help me:

• Pausing when I feel a strong emotion rising, and just noticing it in my body before reacting

• Asking myself if this thought belongs to me — or if I’m picking it up from someone else’s energy

• Keeping my inner space clear with small rituals, even just sitting quietly with my hand on my heart for a minute

At the end of the day,
I think it’s about planting seeds we actually want to see grow.

So something that I love something Eleanor Roosevelt once wrote:

“Watch your thoughts, for they become words.
Watch your words, for they become actions.
Watch your actions, for they become habits.
Watch your habits, for they become character.
Watch your character, for it becomes your destiny.”