By Barrie St John
In our lives, every day, we have experiences, things that happen to us. We generally have a perception of those things, which we call reality. We see things from our perspective and to us that is the reality of the situation. What we often forget is that we in fact have the choice as to how we perceive the events in our life. Simply put, there are many ways we can look at things, and make it our reality. In the end it's our choice. This is called attitude, and it is very powerful.
Let's suppose you came to see me, in my capacity as a therapist, because you were looking to quit smoking. If after a few sessions you find you are down to one or two cigarettes each day, technically, you haven't achieved what you set out to do, quit smoking. Would you see this as a failure? Would you conclude that the therapy isn't working? Would you choose to perceive it positively? Would you conclude that the therapy is working very well and only requires a little bit of tweaking. We quite literally forget sometimes that reality is simply what we make it, and that we can dictate reality for ourselves, by how we choose to see things. It's how you perceive something that makes it reality.
Many of us don't even realize that we have the choice. We simply accept our perception as reality.
Negative perception is not done consciously, and we all do it to varying degrees. No one can possibly see the positive in everything all the time. But as soon as you recognize that you have the choice, you will be well on your way to consciously practicing positive perception. From that moment on, you will essentially be welcoming a more positive reality. Once you make this realization, you will start to catch yourself when you perceive things negatively. You will start to consciously question how you perceive everything. You will find yourself resisting the negative perceptions more and more, and choosing to look at things from a positive perception, thereby making it a reality. It won't happen overnight, but the mere acceptance of the fact that you have the choice is already a significant beginning.
Your inner vocabulary will change and take on a positive tone, so it stands to reason that your outer vocabulary will do the same. How you verbally present your viewpoint has an impact on the people around you. For instance, a nurse was once prepping my young daughter to get a needle, and she firmly stated to her that it would hurt. She wanted to prepare her for the fact that it was going to be painful. The result of this was that my daughter became anxious and fearful of the pain to come. Had the nurse simply suggested that there would only be a slight discomfort, this would have changed the whole experience for the child, in a positive way.
In as much as we choose our self-talk, we have the choice also about what we say on the outside. The difference, for example, might be in choosing not to state adamantly how much you hate football, but to focus on the fact that you prefer basketball.
Attitude as it relates to success works in the very same way. Self-talk dictates how you see things. If you choose to tell yourself that you have too much work to do and you'll never get it done, that is your reality. On the other hand, if you choose to tell yourself that you have a full day of work and a plan for getting it done, and you are looking forward to a well deserved evening with friends, then that will be your reality. Success, in fact, is a positive mental attitude. It means thinking of success and not focusing on all the things that could or might happen on the way to success. It means we have to keep reminding ourselves of that positive outcome, and making a habit of practicing positive perception will achieve that positive outcome. In NLP (Neuro-Linguistic Programming), they will tell you that there is no such thing as failure, only feedback, meaning you have something to gain from every experience.
Training yourself to think positively or to see the positive in things as much as possible is like programming your mind. You create a picture in your mind of what your reality is, and you are a product of that reality. With the help of hypnosis, of course, you can program your mind at the subconscious level to behave more positively, thereby eliminating the need to constantly check yourself consciously, and to remind yourself consciously. Hypnosis will simply get you into that positive mentality much more rapidly and effectively, and with far less conscious effort on your part.
Barrie St John is a leading figure in the field of self hypnosis. He is the author behind the best selling self hypnosis CDs and downloads at www.HypnoShop.com
Source:www.isnare.com |
