Most people have a dialogue that runs silently through their head all day long. Recently, I read that a very small amount of people hear nothing. That's what I thought too! How is that possible? Not quite sure how that would work because my inner dialogue is what guides me as a go about living from day to day. I used to have very black and white thoughts meaning that something would either "be" or "not be." There weren't any gray areas for me and once I decided if it was black or white there was no changing my mind. To me it seemed very clear. Sounds simple, right? Not exactly.
This made my life very difficult to live because I could not see any other possibilities. It either was or it wasn't possible.
This way of thinking did a couple of things:
1. It made it difficult to live with me or be my friend,
2. It took away my ability to see other options that were right in front of my face. Actually it was worse than going through life with blinders on. At least with blinders on you are focused in a certain direction. This offered no direction except despair and fear. Honestly, it was a very dark place to be. It was agonizing to live as such a victim. Nothing ever seemed to work for me. It was as if the world was working against me at every turn. Sure some tough things had happened to me but nothing occurred that isn't a part of living life. For whatever reason it affected me deeply. One day my best friend gave me the kick in the pants I needed when she told me that she couldn't be my friend anymore because I was so negative and depressing. That shocked me and opened my eyes. I mean how bad could I be that my best friend couldn't stand to be around me? Pretty bad. Thankfully, she also loved me and was able to point me in the right direction to get the help I needed. I learned where my beliefs came from and how many of them were limiting me and preventing me from living life to my full potential and of my design not somebody else's. I learned to process my thoughts and deal with them as they came up. It wasn't easy and took time to master. Even now though I can find myself falling back into old patterns. The difference now is how long it takes me to right my ship and prevent it from sinking.
The other day a situation happened that almost instantly made me want to cry and give up. In fact, for a brief moment I did start to cry, my eyes teared up and my body began to shake. As I was about to completely lose it and was thinking, "WHY?!" In my head I said, "Stop! What am I supposed to learn here?" Some mental banter occurred that went something like this, "I don't want to learn, I'm pissed and l give up - this is too hard." Sound familiar? Then somehow I flipped an internal switch & caught myself. I magically shifted. My whole body felt the shift.
l asked the question again. "What am l supposed to learn from this?" l closed my eyes and took a few deep breaths to calm my body down and get centered. The answer popped into my head clear as day without any judgment. I accepted it without questioning or overthinking or doubting it. I welcomed it as is, as a fact and I ran with it.
When of shared this story with a friend he told me it was a great reframe.
That is exactly what it was. I took a negative thought (Why is this happening to me?) and turned it into something positive (What am I supposed to learn through this experience? What am I missing?).
How can you do this? The first step is to stop & listen. If you don't hear anything ask again another way. If that still doesn't work get a piece of paper and write down all the negative thoughts going through your mind even if it feels silly. Reframing takes practice just like working out. Your muscles have memory. They remember repetitive actions. Your mind's muscle memory is thoughts. When it comes time to perform a move you have done hundreds or thousands of times your body just does it. You don't have to think about it. That is muscle memory.
Tony Blauer, an amazing Fear Mitigation and Practical Self Defense Coach talks about "knowing fear." Tony taught me something about self defense last week. I learned from him that the best way to learn to get out of a headlock is not by being put in a headlock and getting out of it over and over but rather by practicing how NOT to be put in a headlock in the first place! You see, our muscles have memory and if you taught them how to be in a headlock 10,000 times because you were trying to get out of one that is exactly where you would end up - in a headlock trying to escape. It's best to avoid the headlock in the first place. Don't you agree? So simple yet brilliant at the same time. You can find Tony on InstGram @Tonyblauer
For the curious among us who want to know what the Universe was trying to tell me with my epic fail that I briefly thought I couldn't get out of was that I didn't go deep enough. There was much more for me to teach and share. l calmly accepted that without argument, buckled down and started over. Trust me,for once it didn't have anything to do with not being perfect or good enough. Those are topics for another day!
I didn't give my subject the attention it deserved and was selling myself and my audience short by being too superficial and only touching the surface. Now I get to examine where else I do that in my life. The work never stops. Once you surrender to that then the real progress begins.
