Posts Tagged ‘you’

GrayBall, The Brain – a/k/a “The World’s Worst Terrorist”

Wednesday, November 28th, 2012

I’m convinced – at least on some days – that without a whole cadre of anti-terrorism tactics in place, GrayBall would be burning and pillaging it’s way across the entire  landscape of my future life right now.  After all, it was an experience  all too familiar from my younger years.

And I know that I’m not the only one. Admit it.  You know who you are.

Do you have a potential or a possibility for the future, but . . .

Are you anxiously asking yourself “what if questions” about your future hopes and dreams?

If so, you’re being terrorized by the ‘world’s worst terrorist.”

What is it with GrayBall anyway?

Why is it – just when we should be feeling excited and passionate about all the possibilities in front of us – does it begin to terrorize us with thoughts of failures past, broken dreams and disappointments?

Well, chalk it up to GrayBall’s wonderful self-preservationist attitudes.  It often thinks it’s under attack, and feels the need to defend itself against future failure.

GrayBall loves to lob bombs from the past and create all manner of chaos and mayhem into our soon-to-be future.

Have an upcoming presentation?  You’ll suddenly remember the time in the 3rd grade when, in a panic, you forgot the only two lines you were required to remember for the school play.

Have a prospective first date?  You’ll start to reflect on how badly your last relationship turned out.

Trying to land that new job?  Rejections, rejections, rejections are all you can think about.

It’s hard to believe the future will turn out anything but badly.

How could it? As you’re inching ever closer to the inevitable doom of stepping on that landmine out in the future that GrayBall has so loving placed there.

Yep, I said lovingly.

Because Gray Ball really means well.  That’s why it’s a bad terrorist.  In fact, it’s the world’s worst.  Because it’s trying to help us … not harm us.

It’s trying to protect us by helping us to pay attention to what might happen that we don’t want to have happen.  But this is like trying to help you navigate a mine field by laying down more mines so you’ll remember they’re there.  Kinda crazy, huh?

Here’s another reason GrayBall is the world’s worst terrorist: all the bombs are really duds.  They don’t really exist.  They’re memories from the past…. things we’ve already endured and lived through.

That alone should convince us that our ‘not yet successes’ in the future will turn out okay in the end … because they always do.  We can learn, grow and evolve.  You aren’t the 3rd grader who didn’t remember your lines, you’re an adult fully capable of stringing two sentences together, your past relationship taught you to stop trying to change people and look for someone who already possesses the qualities you’re looking for, and you’ve endured enough rejection to realize you’ll live to fight another day.

So while GrayBall is rooting around in the past for those duds to toss out into your future ask yourself, “What have I learned that will help me achieve my not-yet future success?”

And more importantly, GrayBall is simply a misguided friend.  Not a foe.  But, more on that later.

 

A New Year’s ReVolution

Saturday, December 31st, 2011

I’ve never been too keen on the idea of making a New Year’s Resolution.  More than likely because I always equated the word resolution with that dreaded word “discipline.”

And when it comes to discipline?

Well, let’s just say, the day they were handing it out, I happened to be at the back of a very long line and didn’t have enough discipline to wait for it.

So discipline and I have never been friends. A fact all too often brought to my attention by one or another of the well-intentioned, ruler wielding, knuckling slapping nuns who terrorized my young life in order to knock it into me.

Actually, the sum total of all that knuckle slapping did amount to something: my earlier belief that if only I were more disciplined my life would not only be easier but a whole lot less painful too. After all, you need discipline to get things done, right?

Wrong.

Here’s the reason why. Discipline isn’t the Holy Grail that leads to the Kingdom of All Promises Made and Kept that you’ve been led to believe. There’s an equally potent – far easier – way to keeping the promises you’ve made to yourself to change aspects of your life.

It’s really quite simple.

Use your passion, enthusiasm and desire more effectively.  Here’s how.

Do you have a promise you’d like to keep this year?

Imagine having already kept it.  Picture it in vivid detail by asking yourself a few questions:

“How has this changed my life and/or the lives of those around me?”
“What would I have missed out on if I hadn’t made this change? “
“What is now possible that only once seemed impossible?”
“What’s now present that was missing before I made this change?”

Now, notice the feeling of success and accomplishment. Ask yourself:

“How do I feel about myself now that I’ve accomplished this?”

Finally ask yourself:

“Do I want to feel this way?”
“Do I want this?”

I’m guessing the answer is ‘yes.’

And if this is the case, how much discipline does it take for you to do something you really, really want to do? That’s right. None – all you need to have is passion, enthusiasm and desire.

So when it comes to something that we really want, what looks like discipline from the outside becomes effortless efforting on the inside.   And if ever you feel yourself drifting away from your promise(s), simply reconnect to your passion, enthusiasm and desire.

So if you’re worried that you won’t have enough discipline to achieve your New Years Resolution, why not join me in making a New Year’s ReVolution instead?   So what’s yours going to be?

 

You and Your World~Metaphorically Speaking, Part II

Monday, December 12th, 2011

“If you really want to know what’s going on in your unconscious mind, look closely at your life–because it’s telling you the truth.” (jc)

In Part One of this series, I posed a question about possible strategies for dealing with a brain at war with itself.

Well, there’s lots of tactical manuevers people use in this kind of war hoping to emerge victorious.

One popular approach is to get the conflict diagnosed as a mental illness. Then you get to exact vengeance upon your brain with prescription chemical warfare until it burns out and surrenders.

Or, you could enter into desperate negotiations with your brain, hoping to garner a truce. But do any of these really present a useful solution?

I think you know the answer.

But there’s another more solution-oriented approach to finding peace by resolving the conflict. One that most people aren’t aware of.

You remember that beliefs generate our thoughts, feelings and behaviors, right?

Well, lurking beneath statements like I’m at war with myself, or I’m stuck in a rut, or I just can’t handle all this *stuff* hanging over my head, is the structure of the beliefs that are creating the difficulty.

These, and other similar statements are among the countless metaphors people use to describe their life situation.

Your metaphors reveal the landscape of your internal reality.

The experience you’re having right now is the effect of living your life within the metaphoric landscape of what you believe to be true. See?

And while you may be profoundly aware of the effects of the belief, the structure of the problem created by the belief is usually outside of your conscious awareness. Because a person can be aware of how they feel and what they do without actually knowing the cause.

Have you ever noticed a peculiar behavior or puzzling limitation of your own and wondered, “What the heck is that all about?”

Here’s a Mind-Warp for you.

If you were caught in a trap that you could see and feel–like a cage or a pit–you could study the characteristics of the trap and have a good chance of finding a way out, couldn’t you? You might even discover that you had a number of choices for implementing a solution.

But what if you were caught in a trap–and didn’t even know it? What chance for escape would you have then?

Well, practically speaking–none. Your choices are limited to the information you have. How’s that for freedom of choice?

Most people don’t realize they’re living, or are trapped, within a metaphoric world. And because they don’t realize it, they’re unable to find their way out.

Problematic states like chronic depression and anxiety are common examples of this situation. People living within these problems are often caught in a closed recursive neurological loop–a trap consisting of limiting beliefs. And they don’t know that. So the problem persists.

But there are solutions; even for some of the most difficult of these problems. And sometimes they’re so simple, it boggles the mind.

Uncovering the structure of the metaphor within which the problem exists is like bringing the ‘invisible trap’ into view. Then, the specific characteristics of the trap can be observed, and more often than not, a solution created.

Your inner world is made up of beliefs.

And the structure of that world is evident in your behaviors and language patterns–in the form of metaphors. These metaphors have distinct qualities and characteristics including boundaries, textures, various climates and multiple dimensions–just as you would expect of any material landscape–but with some startling exceptions.

The metaphoric world exists within the universe of imagination–of mind. (Anyone thinking about that Twilight Zone music right now, raise your hand.) And, unlike the denser 3-D world of stuff, where pesky things like gravity and aerodynamics rule, in the universe of imagination such rules don’t exist.

Hence, anything is possible there.

The trick is to use your imagination to create a more useful metaphor wherein lies a solution that can be applied in the 3-dimensional world.

In other words, your imagination may be filled with magic carpets and flying automobiles, but unless it was built and tested for flight in this world–don’t go driving your car off a cliff. (*wink*)

Until next time, here’s a simple challenge: what would you say is the only thing powerful enough to change a belief? If you get this, you know more about the rules for change than most.

Want a hint? Recall what beliefs are made of…

(More mind de-boggling coming soon. Stay tuned.)

Hi. Welcome to my Universe.
If you enjoyed this, please Like, Share, Tweet, Comment, or everything to the left of this dot.

And thanks for being you. You’re the only you there will ever be. That makes you awesome.

Meanwhile, you can click here to discover more about the world of metaphor from Andrew T. Austin – an emerging Master of Metaphor.