Elese Coit

Pair #68 A dollop of helplessness to go with that...?

One of the weirdest things to comprehend as I've become a student of the mind and how it works - is how we create our world through our thinking.

But what is it to 'create'?

The popcorn version of this idea says that you "get what you think about" - which interpreted literally means: parking spaces, Porsches and bicycles appear just because we think about them enough.  Now if you can do that, great.  That makes me very happy.  Really.  I mean, life is all about what is true for you and what you know from your experience.

But if you've tried to think and make it so and that did not work - here's a clue.  Change the words 'get what you think about' to 'experience what you think about'

We experience everything in the world through our thinking about it. I don't experience you, I hear, see and experience my thoughts about you.

And if you think about that, it makes sense. In fact, it's incredibly simple and boils down to:

It's hard to have a good moment if you are having shitty thoughts.

The implications are just a simple, and just as far reaching. If you are in the middle of something and you want to experience something different, you will have to change your thinking about it.  

Of course, you can also walk away, you say.

Well, quite right.  And you can walk away and continue right on thinking about it too.  For as long as you like. Even for a lifetime, if you so chose.

The simple maxim 'you get what you think about' = you are experiencing life through your thoughts about life.  If you are aware of that, then you have choice.

The definition of powerless is not realizing or exercising that choice.

I realize that our internal voice is not always very nice to us, but I think the internal voice is usually trying to keep us safe. 

That doesn't mean we need to believe everything it says.

I've learned a lot recently about the brain and how it works many of my different radio show guests, but two in particular who came to talk to me were Rick Hanson, and also Don Goewey.  Both have done separate research (and their books are well worth reading) showing essentially that the reptilian brain, which is part of our now bigger and more complex brain, is still on the lookout for physical dangers like saber-tooth tigers and such.   One of the most fascinating by products of this is that we have brains that tend to collect evidence of danger and ignore what is non-threatening. 

I think this connects to our negative internal dialogue and becomes an integral part of the narration that goes on as we attempt to avoid danger and stay safe.   This part of us will tend to bank negative experiences and simply neglect to register positive ones.  This brain which used to be all we had to keep us safe from all kinds of physical dangers, continues to look out for us today in our every day surroundings using its primitive impulses.   

One of the ways we are often told to deal with our internal voices are to shut them up. In fact one common tool used is to turn down the volume in your mind.   Now, you wouldn't want to turn down your danger voice so much that you walked right into the worst of situations.  However, you really also don't need the alarm bells ringing 24/7 either.  So volume control is an important skill when your internal dialogue is filled with negative chatter and danger warnings that lead to feelings of chronic stress.

What I've found is for me it also works to say "Look, there are no lions here, so just calm down."