Have you ever heard somebody say to another person “Don’t spill that coffee” and seen that exact thing happen, that you know will happen…. which is that they do spill the coffee by accident!
Right now you are laughing because it is funny. It is funny because it happens all the time. And if you are still laughing it may be because you are masterful at getting what you don’t want?
For some reason it seems the more you tell someone NOT to do something, the more likely it is that it WILL happen. Why is that? Sometimes we attribute it to simple disobedience – for example a child testing a parent, when the parent has said “don’t do that.”
However, it is more than just a simple testing of the boundaries. There is a biological, scientific reason for getting what you don’t want and it has to do with the way that our brains are wired.
So why do we always seem to do the very thing that we are told not to do?
Our Subconscious brain struggles to process negatives. In effect it hears and acts upon the command to do the very thing that we DON’T want it to do – i.e. “smoke” or “spill the coffee.”
In fact, the subconscious mind cannot think – it can only ACT or CREATE based upon what is of VALUE. That value is a product of our map of reality and every event we have experienced over a lifetime. The subconscious is actually 100x more powerful than the conscious mind and the subconscious is an AUTOMATIC mechanism. It kicks in and acts about 1/2 second before the conscious mind does – so if your embedded beliefs, attitudes, values etc. are negative, you end up always getting what you don’t want.
If you say to yourself over and over “Don’t spill the drink” or you tell a child “Don’t miss the ball”, you are focusing the attention of the subconscious mind on the opposite of what is desired. Instead of saying “carry the drink safely to the counter” or “hit the ball son”, you have commanded the automatic mechanism to do exactly what you DON’T want. The automatic mechanism of the mind is focusing on missing the ball. It’s not that the mind doesn’t hear the word “Don’t” (or cannot understand it) it’s that the ENTIRE SENTENCE is designed to create the opposite of what is wanted. You have to look at the sentence in its entirety to understand why it will not work to create the desired effect.
That is in fact why many books self help books, DVDs and audio CDs DON’T work to deter unwanted habits and behaviours. Many of the NLP and hypnosis practitioners have loaded their materials with embedded commands like “you will not have any problems sleeping”, “you will not want to have any more cigarettes” or “you will no longer have cravings for fried chicken and beer”. Unfortunately, these programs are doomed from the start. They only serve to further entrench these undesirable patterns.
If you want to change behaviour or get around a problem you must think of new ways to phrase the desired behaviour in a positive way. This requires the removal of all negatives or references to the problem in the sentence. Rather than saying “Don’t mess up the calculations” you could say “Be careful to ensure all the calculations in the spreadsheet are double checked and correct”. Instead of saying to your child “Don’t throw that toy at your sister” you should say “Put the toy down now and come to me”.
Instead of telling yourself what NOT to do, focus exclusively on what you want do to (or have happen). It can be difficult for some to unlearn old patterns and pessimistic language. However with practice and the positive reinforcement that comes from achieving the results that you desire most, you will find yourself speaking and behaving in new and empowering ways.
Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/3142214
28 Sep 2011
What If You’ve Already Got The Life You Deserve?
I have been fortunate to discover that there is a reason for all things – even those that are senseless and incomprehensible – and that we have to learn to trust that there is a bigger picture that perhaps we, as mere human beings, can never truly understand.
What if you’ve already go the life you deserve?
The most beautiful expression of this idea I’ve ever read was in a children’s book ‘Little Soul in the Sun’ by Neil Donald Walsh. In the story, Walsh talks of a Little Soul who wants to be incarnated as a human being to learn ‘forgiveness’. A Friendly Soul agrees to oblige him by incarnating as a person to do something to the Little Soul that will help him learn the lesson of forgiveness. But the Friendly Soul issues a plea of caution and says, ‘at the very moment that I strike you down, please promise me that you will remember who I really am, a Friendly and loving Soul, otherwise we will be doomed to repeat the process over and over again until we get the learnings or until another Little Soul comes down to help us find the way out.’
In other words everything that happens in our life – the good the bad and the just plain ugly is the result of an agreement that we have made at some point in our existence to experience certain things so we can become better human beings and move on to the next lesson. We are all doing the best that we can with the resources that we think we have available. Everything is a learning experience and if viewed from that context, we can become empowered to create a world around us in the likeness of our dreams and wildest imaginations.
Even the really hard stuff happens for a reason. There is no failure, only results.
It isn’t about assigning blame or beating yourself up – it’s about being responsible for your response and deciding how best to move forward and attract the results that you want.
Blaming others – even if it’s legitimate – robs you of your power. It doesn’t help you move on – it’s a complete waste of your time and emotion. Put it in the past and find a way to ensure you never repeat it.
Things don’t change – WE change.
The only way to be the change that you want to see in the world is to take responsibility for the life that you say you want to be living. Regardless of the events and circumstances that have occurred, no answers may be found revelling in excuses.
You are already living the life you deserve and imagine in your mind every day. If you are not happy and you want more, you need to step up and BE more. Otherwise, you are destined to repeat the same experiences over and over until you learn the lesson. Even though it may be a hard pill to swallow, on some level you agreed to experience everything that has happened to you – you did this with the understanding that it would help you to grow and to evolve as a human being.
In fact, you already have the life you deserve (and wanted). It begs the question though – “when are you going to forgive yourself (and others), get the “learnings” and move on to the next important lesson that you have chosen for your evolution?”
11 Sep 2011
Is Anger a Symptom of Depression?
Many people believe that depression can result from anger turned inwards. Anger and depression are simply states of mind just like sadness, frustration, confusion etc. Yet many people mistakenly ask the question “is anger a symptom of depression”?
Anger does not cause (nor is it a symptom of depression). In my clinical experience, persistent anger does often co-exist with MANY other negative emotions – frustration, despair etc. However, in assisting clients to release these deeply ingrained patterns of negative emotions, it is often necessary to work with and release anger first as it is a strong, dominant, primary emotion. Often, unless anger is released first, it is impossible to face or address the underlying issue(s).
However, I do not believe anger causes or is a symptom of depression per se.
Depression often presents when a person is constantly worried about problems they perceive they have no control over. It results from a tendency to focus exclusively on the negative – thought, spoken word, physiology etc. Like anger, depression is not something that happens to us – it can be created and exacerbated by our thoughts, words and physiology over time. Over long periods of time, it is possible to develop a habit of being angry all the time and/or a habit of being depressed.
Statistics prove that the majority of us focus more of our attention on what we don’t want (or are afraid of) and we tend to do it with passion! Science has already proven that anything we do with strong emotion and passion creates a deeper engram (impression) on our minds.
Changing deeply ingrained habits or repetitive states of mind (whether they be positive or negative) requires repetitive autosuggestion over a period of at least 21 days. This fact was discovered in the 60’s by a plastic surgeon named Maxwell Maltz.
What this means is that we are always in control of our experience of the world – our emotions, our meanings and the habits we develop over time. No one causes us to feel angry or depressed. It is something that we choose to do ourselves, in response to our life experiences. The good news is that we can take responsibility and “unchoose” the unproductive states of mind or habits….thereby changing forever our results and our destiny.
11 Nov 2010
How to Avoid Self-Sabotage in Your Workplace
It has been over 50,000 since human beings lived in caves. All those years ago, life was pretty much about survival – each morning our ancestors would emerge from their caves and scan the horizon for imminent danger. Although things have changed a lot in our external environment in the last few thousand years, in many ways, the wiring in our brains has not. In fact, 90% of what you and I do on a day to day basis is still based on that ancient wiring and survival mentality and it is precisely this legacy that needs to be re-directed to prevent self sabotage from holding you back, personally and professionally.
You see our brains are wired to spot and avoid danger.
Even though the danger may not be “life or death”, we see this dynamic play out in our work environments almost every day. For every daring and outlandish new idea that is proposed by one hopeful soul, there will be a long list of sceptical colleagues who are willing to offer 20 reasons why the idea might fail or cause harm.
So, how does this play out exactly?
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Science has already proven that the brain does not know the difference between what is vividly imagined and reality. If we experience only a fraction of what is possible in terms of the stimuli that we notice or pay attention to, and our experiences are directly influenced by what we value, believe and expect, then it follows that by changing what is happening in our mind we can actually change our entire reality.
If you act as though you are courageous, then you will be courageous. If you act as though you are confident and take on the persona of someone who is confident, then you become confident immediately. Because our mind has such a profound influence on our external experience, adopting and making beneficial emotional states a regular habit is the first step to truly mastering your life.