I am always fascinated by the way we use our thoughts and our language — both are extremely powerful tools, both have equally as much power to help us as to hinder us, depending on the way we use them. In the vast majority of cases, people have little idea of just how much control they actually do have over their experiences — and even less understanding about how to do something to positively influence how they’re feeling. And you know the strangest thing? Most people are so acutely aware of what they don’t want that they’ve forgotten what it is they do want — which is why so many remain stuck.
Not so long ago I was working with a lady who’d had some pretty rough experiences. She’d already told me that she felt unloved, unsupported and useless. The interesting thing about the session is what happened when I asked her to imagine her ideal life, when she could be do and have the things she said she wanted. She started off well, listing things like a loving relationship and a happy home, but in order to describe it better she explained the things she didn’t want:
“I really don’t want to stay in this job — it makes me feel as if I don’t matter” ”¦hmmm”¦ “I don’t like my house either, it’s too small, too untidy and I feel uncomfortable there” ”¦.okay”¦. “My family is certainly not the way I’d like them to be! They judge me all the time, they make me feel useless — sometimes I wonder if they even notice me at all!”
And of course she went straight back in to describing in great detail how rotten she felt and how terrible her life was — even though she’d already told me earlier about the things that were wrong! Whenever this happens my inner smile grows wider, because I know beyond question that my coaching session is going to be a success. I know that I’m going to be able to help the person I’m with, and that in turn makes me happy.
So ok, you may be thinking, what’s that all about then? And what’s my point?
Internal Google
My point is this. The human brain works somewhat like a computer search engine. It is, if you like, our internal Google, and is extremely obedient to every instruction we give it. Our brain cannot differentiate between positive or negative. Good or bad. Do or do not. It just does. It has to find a reference in order to make sense of any situation or instruction it’s given, and our thoughts become our experiences. So explaining the things we don’t want or telling someone not to do something, has exactly the opposite effect.
For example, have you ever witnessed this kind of interaction between a mother and child? The child is carefully walking across the room balancing a cup of juice. The mother, aware of the dangers, says “Don’t drop that!” The child looks up, loses concentration and”¦ drops it.
As another example, how about I give you this direct instruction: Don’t think about the tigers. Do NOT think about the tigers. OK? Absolutely under no circumstance are you to think about the tigers — particularly not the pink tigers wearing bowler hats and wellington boots!
Now — what have you got in your head? I’ll bet you’ve got tigers of some sort. Some of you may even have pictures of pink tigers in hats and boots. And yet… what was my original instruction? It was to NOT think about tigers — but you did! You thought about exactly the things I asked you not to think about – because your own internal Google had to find a reference in order to make sense of what I was saying.
It’s like the mother and child scenario — by telling the child not to drop the drink, guess what? The drink is dropped — because that’s what the child’s internal Google search engine found in response to the mother’s instructions.
You Can Choose
None of this is rocket science — some of the best things in life are usually incredibly simple. The thing is, though, I’ve discovered that very few people actually grasp the fact that although they may be striving towards something positive, because they’re so clear about what they don’t like about their life, they’re unconsciously keeping themselves stuck in the very place they say they don’t like!
When I first learned about this idea many years ago, I was surprised about how tricky it was for me to actually list the things I’d like to have in my life without slipping in to the trap of describing the things I didn’t like. This was the kind of dialogue that went on in my head:
“I’d like a home in the country, where my son is away from the London fumes because it makes him sick”
Can you see what I was doing? I was instructing my thoughts to bring up the images of my son being sick — and thereby messing with my dream to live in the countryside. Doh! So I’d change it:
“I’d like a home in the country where my son is healthy and happy” — and once I was clear on that, I’d make it even stronger by turning it into an affirmation:
“My son and I are living in a beautiful home in the country, and we are healthy and happy”
For a long time I would have internal tussles as I gradually learned to train my thoughts to concentrate on the things I chose to bring in to my life. And guess what happened? As my thoughts became clearer, and my internal Google kept searching out the good stuff — I automatically felt happier. Yes, even before I achieved the things that at that time were just a dream. And because I felt happier, I was more open to positive opportunities and more able to take action as a result. Incidentally, we moved to a beautiful home in the country less than six months after I started monitoring my thoughts.
You’ve heard the phrase “be careful what you wish for””¦? Well, so far as I’m concerned, every thought we have, every word we utter, is a wish — and a confirmation that this is indeed the wish we have chosen. So that’s why I so consciously do my best to choose exactly what I say and what I think.
Because I am certain that our thoughts really do influence our reality — and no matter what has happened, or who is trying to control us, nothing and nobody can ever control our thoughts. For me, it was the conscious freedom of my thoughts that helped me to heal my pain, and it’s that same conscious thinking that now continue to help me create the life of my dreams.
Hey, I don’t get it right all the time — far from it. And I also have my gloomy times as you already know. The thing is, though, by remembering about the tigers, I can pull myself back on track and get my thoughts and feelings back in gear. And you know what? It works.
As for that lady I talked about at the beginning of this article? Well, once I’d explained about the tigers and we’d done a couple of exercises together, she was totally able to imagine the life of her dreams in absolute detail. As she described it to me, her face lit up and her entire body lifted. She left the session looking younger and taller – and since then she’s reported back about some amazingly positive shifts she’s already experienced.
So my Lovefraud friends, until next week, just remember”¦ don’t think about the good stuff”¦ do NOT think about the good stuff! Certainly don’t even consider all the wonderful things that are coming to you right now”¦
You see? It does work doesn’t it?
😉
Well, Star I’m glad you got your condo sold with that decor, sometimes things like that do work out….but I think I’ll pass on walking through walls or being a ballerina and will stay on what I think is a less delusional course. Moving to CR if that is what you want is not an unreasonable or an impossible goal, and if that is what you want, go for it….it is YOUR life. YOU get to make the choices and the consequences of those choices are also yours. We all have that same right and privilege to make our own decisions and some of them will come out okay and some will probably stink! LOL 🙂
Oxy,
did you ever see the video of the girl with no arms or legs?
She’s a dancer.
Not kidding. She loves music and movement so much that she dances with what she has and does it exceptionally well.
I’ll see if I can find the video.
Oxy, I just hope in your practical thinking, you don’t limit yourself in what is possible for your life. By calling things that seem impossible “delusional”, you limit your thinking. Everyone does this.
Sky I saw the man who had no legs and no arms and he was a motivational speaker. He was quite adept at taking care of himself. I worked for several years with people with head and spinal cord injuries and amputations and so have known some amazing people who have over come some terrible situations.
The thing is though, that no matter how much someone “believes” in something, there is no way to raise the dead or grow a new arm, you have to do with what you have that is within the science of reason and physics. If someone wants to believe that they have flown to the moon, or that aliens came down and abducted them, that’s okay with me, but I’m gonna stick with more reasonable and verifiable goals.
I agree that most of the progress in this world was made by people who were dissatisfied with the status quo. I’m reading a book now on”the discoverers” by Daniel J.Boorstin and the first chapters are on the “invention” of TIME and clocks, and how that impacted on sea travel and navigation in different cultures. Interesting stuff.
I think the imaginations that are pushing the research into the human minds is wonderful, and I hope that at some point there can be some agreement on what psychopathy is and a treatment for it, just as there are now treatments for depression, bi-polar, and other mental illnesses and abnormalities. Someone has to imagine that there can be a treatment and then work on finding that treatment, but JUST WISHING IT WAS SO isn’t gonna make it magically appear.
No matter how much I WISH or visualize my son Patrick growing a conscience it AIN’T GONNA HAPPEN….not at this stage in his life. Dr. Leedom trying to teach her young son empathy and compassion in spite of the fact that he has a psychopathic father’s DNA in his genes MAY VERY WELL MAKE A DIFFERENCE, but she started when the child was an infant…..and she isn’t just wishing it, but working very hard to model that behavior.
So I try to keep a positive attitude but I try not to be delusional either. 🙂
Star,
(head shaking here) No, I don’t think I am limiting myself in my practicality….not at all. In fact, I think I keep myself from wasting my time on things that are not going to happen.
I can wish I was 7 ft tall and dream about being 7 ft tall, and focus all my energy, my power and my thinking on this dream, and if it doesn’t come true, then I will be so disappointed that nothing in life will have meaning because I want so badly to be 7 ft. tall and be an NBA star and I just KNOW that if I put more energy into believing I am 7 ft tall it will come true.
Nah, I don’t think I am limiting myself at all. Just focusing on the things I CAN accomplish and not wasting time on the others.
Well, maybe we (at least I) have bastardized the message of this article, which is NOT to say that you always get what you wish for. I think it is saying that what you focus your energy and thoughts on you will get more of. For instance, if you are constantly worrying about your health, this will set a series of events in motion that will probably affect your health. Stress and worry alone can affect health. If you constantly focus on poverty, you are more likely to be too tight with your money and withhold things from yourself that would enhance your life, make you happier, and possibly bring more money into your life.
People who spend a lot of time thinking about things that make them unhappy, will continue to magnetize more unhappiness and vice versa. I think it’s not just the thoughts that have power, but the feeling that goes with the thoughts. This is really different from a non-disordered person wishing they were 7-feet tall. I don’t know any mentally healthy people who do that.
But take as an example two types of people who want to lose weight. Person A focuses on how fat they are and how miserable they are being fat, how difficult it will be to diet and exercise, and how impossible it is. Person B visualizes being thin, gets a really positive feeling of all the confidence they will have, how much more active they will be and how all they have to do is remember this when they have food cravings. Which one is more likely to become thin? I think that’s all the article is saying.
However, there are people who are visionaries and who dream the impossible. Without those people, as Sky said, our civilization as we know it would not exist.
.
Constantine, I told you a long time ago that our tastes in books and philosophy run in the same rut! LOL I’ve also read a great deal of Jung and I can’t make a great deal of sense out of it….in fact, I have a very elderly friend who was actually a close friend of his and know several people who are very much “into” Jung, even one guy who is a Jungian therapist, but there’s a lot of “hocus pocus” about the philosophy that I just can’t buy with the left side of my brain! LOL
Synchronicity happens though, kind of like “sheet happens” but that doesn’t prove causation.
I thought I would take a bit of a break in reading about psychopaths and I thought the Boorstin book was a good one for some light reading….I am also reading “Ahab’s Wife” which so far is a pretty good book, but the style of the writing (much like Moby Dick) is tiresome after a while and though the story is good, I have to rest from the style a while—thus the Boorstin book. I haven’t read ALL his books but several and I have never failed to enjoy them.
Star I DO AGREE with your above post! We do need the visionaries, the people who think outside the “box” and who are dissatisfied with the status quo,, those are the ones who make changes, but they don’t do it with imagining magic, only with hard work as well as vision. Sometimes, like Columbus they don’t quite hit the mark, but the trying, at least, helps those who come after them.
Oxy, visionaries rarely do the hard work themselves because this is not what they are cut out for. There are other people who are more suited to carry out the details of the plan. And visionaries are not necessarily good people (look at Hitler).
I told my co-worker today about a line of shoes I designed in a dream one night. She thought it was a cool idea and encouraged me to go to the local design school to see if someone could make the prototype of it. Of course if I were ever lucky enough to sell my idea, I wouldn’t be the one making the shoes. It would just be my idea. 🙂 The hard work for a visionary is getting other people to buy their idea.
Oh, and you have a point Star. But I think Oxy does as well. For that matter, I know someone who takes the “positive thinking” stuff a bit far – so that every time I get the sniffles, it’s because something was wrong with my thinking process! Maybe they’re right, but I find it mildly annoying to always have things reduced to a mystical formula that conveniently makes every misfortune MY fault! Even if it’s true on one level, I also think that sometimes people just get the sniffles.
More seriously, one has to watch falling into the “blame the victim” mentality, where every poor, sick or underprivileged person is the way they are simply because they MADE themselves that way (i.e., their negative thoughts brought the negative realities, etc. And a lot of TV “self-help types” seem to imply this.). Again, this might be true to a certain extent, and in certain cases; but in others, I think there are a host of other facters that come into play.