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Pair #96 Life, but not as we know it
Recently, I had a glimpse of the profound 'kindness' of our human life-support system.

You know how on a music player you have the LOOP button?  After the song finishes it loops back to the beginning?  And in the scientific field, you have "closed systems". We also talk about "feedback loops".

Well I spent a day with George Pransky and one of the things he talked about was how thought and feelings truly are a looped. We have only to look to our feelings to know exactly the quality of our thinking at any given moment, and we have only to have a thought in order to have the feeling that goes along with it.

So... if it's true that thought-feeling is a completely closed loop, then it can never be true that things create feelings in us but rather that it is always our own thoughts.  Our thoughts are solely responsible.

That means we are living out only our thinking. We are literally, thinking our way through life. And...

that would mean that we have been beautifully constructed.

It struck as me how incredibly smart it is that we each came equipped with an amazing GPS system that would always help us if we ever get lost and forget that.

If we are always feeling the world through our considerations about it (thoughts) and that it is not because the world bumps into us that we feel bad or scared or afraid,  then the world around us may have no inherent meaning at all. Period. It would be just a simple blank canvas.

Which opens up the possibility that the world is not just neutral but a terribly kind place to live, and that, while we are here,  we've been given a built-in navigational device, a treasured gift to help us find our way.

I used to believe that how I felt was telling me that a bad thing was happening to me, but now I understand that all a bad feeling is telling me is whether the quality of my thinking is dropping or rising.

Which ultimately means that Shakespeare was right "nothing is good or bad, but thinking makes it so."

© 2011 Elese Coit
If you wish to reprint, feel free, please link back here and if it's of use, include:
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Pair #50 Multiple Personality Success Disorder
I spoke with Eldon Taylor today.  It’s such a privilege to be with him (you can listen to the show here).  There were so many things I loved about this show, that it is really hard to pick one.  But here goes... it's  Eldon's four keys to becoming self-actualized.

Before I give you those, if the word ‘self-actualization’ rings odd for you, here's the idea: the entire point of exploring the inner self and how we work mentally is so that we can express who we are, rather than rehearse who we think we need to be.

When we don't understand how our own cogs turn, we are little more than organ grinder monkeys (who get lots of bananas).

This must be a bit of a theme in what I do, because this week is not the first time one of my clients came to the realization that very little mattered in life if they couldn't be themselves while living it.  He called it, "Standing for Who I Am."

The realization that I didn’t want to spend the bulk of my life managing my personalities and masks (work, home, mom, athlete...) was a complete turning point in my life too.

While it’s possible to have success and never reconcile the different parts, for me it looked like ‘empty success’.  In other words, you get there, but then you don’t recognize the person who is looking back at you in the mirror.  Not all that satisfying.  Not very meaningful.

So, if you like the idea of feeling satisfied and having meaning, here’s the four-point plan from Eldon

  1. Guard against what goes in
  2. Get inside yourself
  3. Change the context
  4. Remember you are a miracle
What do you think?  Please feel free to leave a comment or drop me a note at info@elesecoit.com
© 2010 Elese Coit
If you wish to reprint, feel free, please link back here and if it's of use, include:
"Elese Coit is a leader in transformative personal change and Hosts the Radio Show A New Way To Handle Absolutely Everything. To see the world differently, reach for one of her '101 New Pairs of Glasses' each day on http://elesecoit.com"

Thank you.
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Pair #42 I just can't help thinking...
One of the things I’ve learned to do in the last few years (with some practice) is to identify some of my ‘stinking thinking’.  I’ve learned to be discern better when I am hitting myself with my own stick ... so let’s say I feel a bit tired, it's nice to tell the difference between real physical exhaustion and the kind of tiredness that comes from whatever I am thinking.  Or repeatedly thinking.  Let me explain.

When we are telling ourselves things like “oh, no, not another day with more to do that I’ll ever get done!” it’s not all that surprising that our physical bodies feel sluggish or that we have an overwhelming need to go back to bed - or just not get up today.

I’ve often encouraged my clients and students to do exercises that help them to distinguish thoughts that precede feelings as a way of experiencing first-hand how their own feelings and thoughts are linked.  And how they experience that link.
If you are doing any thought monitoring, you will notice that can be very useful. 

However, we thinkers like to think and can start over-thinking our thinking. 

For example, a true fear response or gut reaction may not need processing. Nobody needs to analyze their thoughts about a house fire... "Hm, I wonder if I should leave now?" They need to be able to rely on a flight-or-flight response to get the heck out of the burning building now.  If someone is drowning, overthinking why we are concerned for their safety would just be silly.  Equally, with peaceful thoughts. How much thinking about that do we need? They feel good.  That’s good enough for me.

Checking in with thoughts can be as quick as 'is this really true?' or it can take some examination ‘Now, what was the thought that was just before this feeling of....X'

The usefulness of such a practice is not to make us think about everything we do and be in analysis all the time, but rather to get more adept at seeing how feelings arise from thoughts rather than things.

For me what this creates greater awareness.  Awareness means more choice. And more choice means more freedom.

And I like that a lot.
© 2010 Elese Coit
If you wish to reprint, feel free, please link back here and if it's of use, include:
"Elese Coit is a leader in transformative personal change and Hosts the Radio Show A New Way To Handle Absolutely Everything. To see the world differently, reach for one of her '101 New Pairs of Glasses' each day on http://elesecoit.com"

Thank you.
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