Thanksgiving Day Miracle

Growing up, I had always heard about the fabled, “Thanksgiving Day Miracle.”  For me it was like Santa Claus or the Easter Bunny.  While I could hear or see evidence of its existence, I never got to witness it directly. 

What was wrong with me?  Why had I been cheated out of the “Thanksgiving Day Miracle?”  Wasn’t I good enough?  I had gotten decent grades in school.  I had listened to my parents – as good as any child could be expected to.  I had kept my room clean – well perhaps I could have done a better job on that one.  I had spent the past year standing up to bullies in my attempt to somehow assuage the afflictions of the weak and powerless.  Santa and the Easter Bunny thought I had done a sufficient job to warrant their holiday gifts.  Heck, even the Tooth Fairy seemed to appreciate the way I was popping teeth out of my skull.  But still, I never got to witness the glory of the “Thanksgiving Day Miracle.” 

In hindsight, it’s not so difficult to see the follies of my youth.  How often do we attach ourselves to some unrealistic expectation of what “ought-to-be?”  With my newfound maturity (ok, maturity may be a bit of a stretch), I can clearly see that I was living the “Thanksgiving Day Miracle.”  For me, the “Thanksgiving Day Miracle” was that I did not need one.  After all, even though my family bounced around the poverty level, we still had a home.  I had a room that was my responsibility to keep clean.  I had two loving parents.  And I had been blessed with the ability to stand up for those who were unable to do so themselves.  My “Thanksgiving Day Miracle” came to me every day of the year.  I am grateful to have been blessed with an “Every Day Miracle.”

How are we each blessed?  There are so many things in our lives that are worthy of our gratitude, that they often go unnoticed.  For many of us, our “Thanksgiving Day Miracle” is that we take time to acknowledge some small fraction of them.  Gratitude is perhaps the most critical ingredient for happiness.  Let us – at least for this one day – take time to share with ourselves, and those we love, what we are thankful for.  

Quit thinking of elephants

Have you ever been told, "Don't think of an elephant?" What happens...well we fixate our thoughts on elephants. Of course we have all struggled with this child's game. My introduction to it was quite infuriating actually. I remember that my friend was trying to convince me that he could control my mind. With a few simple words, he crushed my world. He challenged me to avoid doing what he told me to do, and then he gave me the command....

"Think of an elephant."

Immediately a picture of a large elephant, the kind we would see in the circus, popped into my head. I remember my Self-Talk countering with, "No, don't think of an elephant." But no matter how many times I told myself, and no matter how much conviction I put behind my Self-Talk, whenever I thought the words, "Don't think of an elephant," that circus star always filled my mind.

I was furious at my weakness. How could I let someone else (another child nonetheless) control my mind so easily. So I went home, and like most children, I sought the aid of my father. After telling him about the disempowering events of the day, he gave me a warm, compassionate smile and told me:

"Think of a mouse instead."

Flash! Bang! Pop! All of a sudden the image of an elephant had been chased away by this tiny little field mouse. And from that moment on, the boy from down the street would have no control over my mind (at least not so directly).

How often do we fixate on the things we are trying to avoid? As I work with clients on achievement, it never ceases to amaze me how prevalent this is.

• I want to quit smoking.
• I don't want to eat sugary foods.
• I want to avoid drinking alcohol.

Unfortunately, when we trying to think of the things we are trying to avoid, our mind has to first think of engaging in the item. Neurological studies have shown that the brain has to activate the behavior in order to try to negate it. Unfortunately, each activation is reinforcing the negative behavior! Instead we should try to find constructive, healthy alternatives to the behavior that we are trying to avoid, and focus on that as a means of achieving the emotional fulfillment that the negative behavior was trying to satiate. Using the previous statements as examples, they could be reworded as these goals:

• I breathe only clean air deeply and calmingly into my lungs.
• I eat only healthy foods which nourish my body.
• I drink warm cups of tea in order to relax at the end of the day.

Of course if the emotional reasons for using the destructive substances was different, we could also write the affirmations differently to address those core needs. The point is we need to give our mind and activity it can engage in.

It is just like having a young child who wants to play with a forbidden object. When we take the object away from the child and tell him that he cannot play with it. What is the first thing that he does? He tries to get it and play with it again. No matter how many times we tell the child, "Do not play with that!" we are indeed commanding his mind to play with it. If we however give the child another object which he can play with, and give him permission to "Play with this." then his mind will switch over to the new object, and the struggle is over.

So, the next time you find yourself fixating on an unwanted behavior, just remember the solution is to:

Think of a mouse!

Affirmations for change

My first exposure to Affirmations was during a Saturday Night Live skit. I will never forget how silly Al Franken's character, Stuart Smalley, made them seem. The overly sensitive character would simply look at himself in the mirror and recite his mantra - "I'm good enough, I'm smart enough, and doggone it, people like me." Somehow, in making affirmations funny, Al Franken was making it easy for me and many others to build resistance to the power of repeating daily affirmations.

It wasn't until five years later, when I was starting my career in real estate that I learned how beneficial it can be to use affirmations regularly. One of the most personally rewarding aspects of a career in real estate is the glaring realities of one's strengths and weaknesses. In a very short period of time, I was able to ascertain what traits I needed to work on. Fortunately, a dear mentor of mine loaned me a personal development program which espoused the benefits of reciting affirmations daily. Of course I immediately thought of those Saturday Night Live skits from all those years ago. Fortunately I realized that one of the affirmations I would need to use would have to address the resistance I adopted towards using them. The end result was that the affirmations not only overcame my resistance to using affirmations, but they also helped me become more confident, outgoing, charismatic, attentive, and most importantly more successful.

Here's the deal - we all have Self-Talk. If your Self-Talk is in need of improvement, then daily affirmations will help change your inner voice. When written properly, and engineered the way we have at Mindful Measures, affirmations will be the most efficient means to change your thoughts for good. I have seen great success with the affirmation techniques used in Mindful Measures. So have many of my clients. I encourage you to try Mindful Measures today!

Self-Talk

So, what is “Self-Talk?”

Every one of us has an internal dialogue that encourages or discourages us from doing something. It tells us to eat the chocolate cake because cake tastes good. Then, minutes later, it will tell us we are too fat to fit into that nice outfit that we just bought. For many of us, our Self-Talk has an opinion about everything. Sometimes those opinions make us feel good and sometimes they result in our feeling bad. While Self-Talk starts off as our minds way of vocalizing our emotional experience, it often because an amplifier to whatever emotion we are experiencing. See if this picture looks familiar…

Just the other day, I was feeling a bit lethargic. The weather was raining and I was trapped in the house. Now I am one of those people who suffer from Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD), which essentially means bad weather can result in my feeling depressed. While mulling around the house, I started to think about how nothing seemed to be going my way. The weather wasn’t cooperating. The bills were piling up. The economy was in the tank. My brain was pulling out all sorts of statements to support the mood I was feeling. My Self-Talk was running around like a new puppy, and it was crapping all over my perspective. Fortunately, I recognized what was going on and threw on the Mindful Measures program “Live in Joy.” In just a few minutes, I was able to adopt a positive mood. I was soon thinking thoughts like, “I take stock of my blessings every day.”

Here’s the rub:

You can control your thoughts by taking very specific steps. And in so doing adopt a positive perspective at will. It all starts with that pesky Self-Talk. Like a new puppy, all your Self-Talk needs is a bit of training. It’s really not hard to swap your old patterns with new ones that work for you. It’s just that our old patterns have developed over a very long time, and with multiple repetitions. So we need to be very efficient and effective about how we go about changing our Self-Talk patterns.

The reality is, we all have Self-Talk. The question is, does yours work for you?

Intro

This blog will be where I talk about the tools  and science behind the Mindful Measures program.  I will be speaking from time to time on NLP, Superlearning, Affirmations, Mental Constructs, the influence of World-Views, and how to pro-actively manage it all.  I will of course encourage you all to go to the website www.mindful-measures.com to sample and purchase CD's which pertain to the area of your belief system that you would like to improve.  I hope you find this blog helpful.