There's a question I ask every client at the start of our work. Not about childhood, not about symptoms, not about goals. Just one question: where is your attention right now — inward or outward?
The answer tells me more than an hour of conversation would. Because the direction of your attention isn't just a habit. It's a type of thinking that shapes everything: how you make decisions, how you build relationships, why you stay stuck or move forward.
Two Types of Thinking. Where Are You?
There are two fundamentally different types of thinking: reactive and creative.
They have nothing to do with intelligence or education. They're about where you place the source of your life — inside yourself, or outside.
Before you keep reading, grab a piece of paper and a pen. Not your phone. Paper.
And honestly answer one question:
Who is responsible for what's happening in my life right now?
Write down the first answer that comes. No filtering.
Reactive Thinking: A Life Spent Waiting
Reactive thinking isn't about naivety or superstition. It's about a deep, often unconscious belief that the source of your life lives somewhere outside of you.
Outside means: in other people, in circumstances, in signs, in authority figures, in coincidence.
Psychology calls this an external locus of control. In 1954, psychologist Julian Rotter introduced the concept: the word locus, from Latin, means "place" — it's about where you place control over your own life.
In simple terms: I'm not running my own life — someone or something else is.
A person with reactive thinking waits. Explains. Searches. Gets tired.
As long as the power sits outside, life passes in waiting.
They look for someone to blame — in the past, in their parents, in a partner, in circumstances. They look for a rescuer — someone who will show up and finally explain, fix, point the way out.
This isn't stupidity, and it isn't weakness. It's a protective stance the psyche once needed. When a child couldn't influence what was happening around them, they learned to look for help outside themselves. That was the only option available.
But in adult life, that strategy stops working. It leads to a dead end — because no one can live your life for you.
Locus of Control: Where You Place the Source of Your Life
External locus: I wait, I blame, I rely on other people and on circumstances. They're the source.
Internal locus: I make decisions, I act, I create my own life. I'm the source.
This doesn't mean you control everything around you. It's about which position you act from — the position of waiting, or the position of the author.
Creative Thinking: When Authorship Comes Back to You
Creative thinking isn't optimism, and it isn't a positive attitude. It's a fundamentally different position: I am the author of my own life.
Not a victim of circumstance. Not a product of someone else's decisions. An author.
When attention turns inward, a person starts asking different questions.
Not: "Why is this happening to me?" But: "What does this tell me about myself?"
Not: "Whose fault is this?" But: "What can I do?"
Not: "Where can I find strength?" But: "How do I return to the strength that's already inside me?"
Creative thinking doesn't deny reality. It doesn't claim everything is fine and pain doesn't exist. It says something else: whatever is happening outside, I have an inner point of stability.
You were born to create your own life, not to wait for someone else to do it for you. This isn't a life sentence. It's a stance. And a stance can change.
How to Move From Reactive to Creative Thinking
The shift doesn't happen through a single act of willpower. It happens through practice — concrete, embodied, repeated.
- Notice the direction of your attention. Right now — are you looking for something outside, or are you willing to look inward? Just notice. Without judgment. That's already the first step.
- Come back into the body. Not into thoughts about the body. Into the body itself. Into sensation, into breath, into contact with the ground beneath your feet. This is the point of entry. Everything else starts here.
- Ask yourself an honest question. Who am I when no one else is around? Not a role. Not a function. Not what's expected of me. Who are you — in the silence, alone with yourself?
The answer to that question is where creative thinking begins. Where authorship begins.
You Were Whole From the Start
Someone who thinks superficially will always point you toward enemies and offer you rescuers. Someone who genuinely wants to help you will call you deeper into yourself. Because that's the only place the source ever was.
In my own practice, I see the same thing again and again: a person who arrives feeling "broken" has usually just gotten out of the habit of listening to themselves. Not damaged — forgetful. Not broken — out of practice.
Returning to creative thinking isn't about becoming someone new. It's about remembering who you always were.
The work with reactive thinking, in my practice, doesn't start with persuasion or motivation. It starts with the same thing — bringing attention back inward, to the place where the memory of your own wholeness still lives, despite years of the habit of looking for answers outside. That's exactly where the real work happens, in resonance with that inner space: not a fight against "wrong" thinking, but a gradual return of authorship to yourself.
If you recognized yourself in this — in the habit of waiting, explaining, looking for a rescuer — that's already the first step. You noticed. And what can be noticed can be changed.
Alfa Vita Contacts:
Website: https://alfavita.space
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Email: victoria@alfavita.space