To understand one thing is to understand one hundred things.
– japanese proverb
Life is action and passion, and so if you want a case full of both this may
be of some help. Your action and passion first aid kit.
The first principle to fully understand and to be absolutely certain about is that the human brain cannot tell the difference between what actually happens and what is vividly imagined. If we walk in the woods and see what we think is a dangerous wild animal, every sense and instinct in our bodies will react to that ‘fact’ until we realise that it was something very innocent; we reacted not to the reality of the situation but only to our vivid imagination. We call that huge negative reaction ‘fear’.
The second principle to fully understand and to be certain about is the nature of fear. Fear is proof that the very thing that we are afraid of is not actually happening: back in the woods when we believed we saw the wild animal, our first fear would be that the dangerous wild animal would see us, that was because it had not seen us, if the wild animal saw us our fear would be that it would run towards us, that would be because it was not running towards us, while it was running towards us we would fear it catching us…. Etc etc. the fact is that we could not have survived as a species without this principle working for us, because the fear is to allow for choices and changes in strategy.
The above two principles are always interlinked.
So, the next principle to fully understand and to be certain about is that we are not victims to what actually happens to us but ultimately we are victims to our belief or attitude to what happens to us, it is in the nature of how we frame it and how we think of it, because as we’ve just proven to ourselves we act only with imagination or belief and that belief can and will change with a change of imagination or vision. William Shakespeare could also clearly see this precise point when he said “there is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so.” (Hamlet: act 2, scene 2)
To think is to change, and to change is to practice. Like any practice it is only as good as the nature of the practice. The hollow phrase ‘practice makes perfect’ is not strictly true, because only perfect practice makes perfect. Poor practice can only produce poor results. The perfect way to practice is to hold clearly and positively in our minds only the end result of the change that we wish to take place, we must visualise and verbalise and most fully and vividly believe that particular end result in the here and now or present tense: “I am now not bullied by my past”, rather than “I don’t wish to be bullied by my past”. It is vital to understand this methodology and to only practice this way, no matter how silly it may seem. This is to faithfully replicate how the natural vivid imagination works; back in the woods if you thought to yourself “I think that is a wild animal”, you would not have that vivid and overpowering reaction that made you act with true unwavering belief. We now want to recreated that mental trick to create a new and more positive belief structure.
To help anchor this new belief structure you must now start with what you actually have in and around you, not with would you would wish. You must release yourself from grudges and petty grievances, and the only way to do that is to write a gratitude list and read it and believe it night and day. Write down everything that you feel grateful for in every aspect of your life and read the list as often as you can. In writing things down and reading them back to yourself you make a much more direct and strong connection that you would if you only thought about those things. Again, you are recreating strong positive belief structures and patterns.
Now that you have created this new you, this is how you can now create new opportunities without the old fears.
1) You will need at least twenty minutes of uninterrupted time along with lots of paper and a soft pencil or felt tip, we want to write big, fast and flowing in order to think big, fast and flowing.
Now, simply without stopping write down everything that you would want to achieve or to have in every aspect of your life, no matter how ridiculous or improbable. In fact writing stupid or silly things down can only help free up the mind for the task in hand. Keep writing for at least twenty minutes. Having done this for the first time you will have realised that it was not as easy as it sounded, but the good news is that you can repeat the process as often as you like and each time it will get easier.
Review your list and divide it between three headings of short term, medium term and long term, and within those headings you should have sufficient inspiration and direction to chart your new found direction. Again, you can repeat this entire process as often as you like.
Good luck.
Glos Vegas, my home town.
marcmoor 