Does what we think influence what happens to us?
The other day I said to my sister “What would happen if I parked in a Handicap parking spot and then got a ticket?” She said “Oh that would never happen…forget it about it” and I went on about my business. Literally the next day I pulled into Best Buy and for some completely moronic reason that escapes me now, I parked in a handicapped spot (I had just dropped my sister off a physical therapy….as she had just had knee surgery…so I had her handicapped placard hanging in the car….but regardless of that it was admittedly, a totally moronic thing to do). When I exited the store, sure enough, there was a cop standing there. A really pissed off cop…by the way. I cannot tell you how stupid I acted or the totally banal things I said to this guy….its any wonder that the guy didn’t arrest me on the spot. I just got flustered I guess and got myself deeper and deeper with each word. After the whole ordeal was over…..I felt worse than I had the only time I was ever fired from a job. So I sat in the car for a while and wondered “is it possible that I just made that happen by thinking about it? Or was this was just a coincidence? I wonder what a statistician would say the likelihood of THAT event occurring by chance? I had JUST said that the day before….had my thoughts or words about this very thing made it happen? Despite feeling pretty blue on the outside, I was actually secretly happy to see that I had influenced SOMETHING…..no matter what it was. At least I had seen the cause and effect of my thoughts. And now, I thought to myself, I just have to figure out exactly what I did and do the opposite of that. Instead of making something bad happen could I figure out how to make good things happen? Is that even possible?
This is a point worth discussing……and quite frankly I’d love to discuss it with YOU. I’ve been reading a bunch of books lately about this subject starting with the worst one “The Secret”. It’s not that I didn’t LIKE that book. I DID. But I went through the same process as everyone else feeling like a total idiot when a new Mercedes Benz didn’t show up in my driveway after I time contemplating it. But it kind of left me wondering “so what the heck do I do next?”. First of all, if I’m going to read a book like that, I’d appreciate it the author would tell me HOW they made their million dollars and HOW they got their new car, or the Man (or Woman) of their dreams, etc. Quite frankly if I had to guess I’d say that we’ve all been pretty discouraged by the results (or lack there of) of practicing the tenants of “The Secret”.
But rather than just forget the whole idea because of one mediocre book, I decided that it seems like there’s something to this. AND by the way, it appears that other people are talking about this very thing now (have you ever noticed how that happens? You discover something new and think it’s totally novel, only to discover that half the planet is already buzzing about it! But I digress!). Perhaps it’s time for our species to take a step up to the next level of our development and look beyond the Newtonian Physics that we’ve all been taught as young adults….and at least think about the possibility that there may be some way to manipulate or direct our lives to our benefit. All I can say is that even if there’s one chance in hell that this can be done I think it’s worth trying to figure it out. (and by the way I am a Christian and I do not think this conflicts with the tenants of Christianity…..Jesus often taught that the words we speak have the power to influence our lives).
OK so to conclude for today, I’ll leave you with a little excerpt from a book I’ve been reading by “The best known life coach in America” (as per USA Today)….Martha Beck (of Oprah fame). She opens the book (Steering by Starlight: The science and magic of finding your destiny) with this:
“The first guy to go in always carries a shotgun” says Kirk Fowler. He’s not a big man, for a law enforcer; in fact he’s not much taller than I am. This is a quality I appreciate in a martial arts instructor. Kirk is my sensei, and in the middle of a lesson, he’s telling me how he used to serve warrants on suspected drug runners and coyotes con-artists who take would-be immigrants’ money, then load them into trucks and abandon them in the desert to die. “These are really violet people,” Kirk says, “and they have an intense fight-or-flight reaction at the first sight of the officers. They’re usually doing drugs as well as selling them, and that makes them about as violet and unpredictable as humans get. You’re never in more danger than when you’re walking into a room to serve a warrant. It’s scary as hell.”
It’s hard to imagine Kirk terrified. He’s a master of aikido, a martial art that focuses more on inner peace than on physical power. I’m learning aikido because it works like magic. Literally. An aikido master gently touches your head and suddenly you’re on the floor. You try to slug him and you can barely lift your arm. These effects feel almost supernatural, but given a few minutes anyone can use them well enough to see that they’re real. So it isn’t surprising that Kirk’s aikido training was very helpful when he worked for the border patrol. What is surprising is the way it helped.
“One day when I was serving a warrant,m I decided to try going in with my energy totally calm and relaxed, instead of high adrenaline. The suspects were in a motel room, wired, scared and well armed. To reach a place where my energy was calm, I had to imagine that all of them were already dead. So I went into that room feeling really quiet and respectful, the way you’d feel going to a funeral. And when i opened the door, no one did anything. The suspects just looked at me as though they’d invited me to a summer picnic. they cooperated with the officers through the whole arrest. Even to me that was weird. From then on I kept my energy tuned that way whenever we served a warrant. I still had the shotgun. But I never needed it. Over and over, people who should have fought or run simply started cooperating.”
OK just FYI as I discover more about this I will share more with you….if you’re interested. PLEASE if you see my blog, say hello.
The beauty in life far outweighs the pain…..
I could talk all day on the subject of pain and fear – because unfortunately I’ve become intimately aware of the former and often found myself fighting against the latter. Fear and Hate and Anger and the resulting pain is very pervasive in the world we live in. If you turn on the TV, you are inundated by negative stories that could put even Gandhi in a bad mood. Despite all that negativity, I DO see beauty wherever I look. Even when a terrible thing happens, I still see love in it’s wake. I thank GOD for that perspective. After the Boston Marathon Bomb – passers by were the first to help & comfort the hurt and dying. EMT’s rushed in to stabilize victims and hospital personnel practically killed themselves working non-stop shifts just to save people’s lives. Often when something bad happens, people come together to help one another displaying incredible selflessness. And even in humanity’s darkest moments….there is still GOOD in the world.
Fear & negativity don’t get you anywhere, by the way. I admit that there are many negative things in life that can induce fear – the ideas of death, destitution, hunger,anger, rejection, unrequited love, failure, loss, separation, pain and illness are enough to turn anyone into a Scrooge. Yes life can deliver some awful things – and most of those things are scary as hell. For that reason I want to focus on the things that heal and mend and lift us up a little bit each day.
A few years ago I was working on the “V-Chip”project and was contacted by the office of the Vice President (which at the time was Al Gore). They wanted me and my father (an incredible entrepreneur & inventor named Andrew Andros) to demonstrate a product we had been working on that would give parents the ability to control the amount of violent and perverse TV shows that their children had access to (something we take for granted now, but there actually was a time when this wasn’t an option). My father later testified about Violence in the Media before the Senate Commerce Committee. At that time people were starting to wonder if children were being influenced by violent images in the media. To bring our product to market (the “TV Guardian”) I did a great deal of research on the subject and found that the images we see DO influence our bodies in very much the same way as the food we ingest. Think of it this way….if you wake in the morning and eat a bag of salty corn chips….and did the same for lunch and then for dinner…..How do you think you’d feel? How healthy would you be? The things we eat influence how healthy we are. BUT do the things we SEE influence how we feel and think? Unless you’re a sociopath I’m sure the last scary movie you saw scared the hell out of you. When the body senses fear a whole series of chemicals are released in the body to prepare us for fight or flight. OF COURSE if you consistently ingest negative images (scenes of hurt and anger and fear and greed)you are going to influence your own body chemistry in the same way. There’s a great deal of research out there that talks about how stress affects the human body. There are also studies that support the idea that what we THINK influences what we are and how we feel. If you don’t believe me, read my blog posting called “Messages from water & beyond“. With that in mind try to take some extra time each day to look for the beauty and joy in life…..heal your heart by stopping to smell a flower or snuggling with and loving your children or pets. Think about the people out there that volunteer to help the homeless or people who sacrifice their lives caring for the sick and helpless. Love and hope and joy ARE out there. Surround yourself with beautiful art, music, laughter, joyous people and all the things in life that heal us.
I want to remind your heart….your inner child…about something. I think we all had a sort of wisdom about truth when we were younger and as life goes on that truth gets fainter and fainter each day. We forget where we came from and as the world loads us up with all the reasons to be afraid, we have to make a point to reach up….to look up and seek the hand of God and rediscover that we’re not alone. We have to remember that the glue that holds the whole big universe together is love; and nothing is more important than love.
I 
don’t understand any more than anyone why bad things happen to good people, but I do believe with all my heart that there IS a creative designer and that He sent us here to live these human lives to learn something – to seek and rediscover love in all its different forms. God does exist and there’s more to life than the years between our physical birth and death. Jesus promised us this and science is discovering proof of this more and more each day. Knowing that death is not the end helps us to trudge through the muck. Knowing that we will some day be reunited with those we’ve loved and lost and knowing that we’ll reunite with the one central love of GOD, puts all the pain in perspective. Think about it – if you KNEW for sure that there was life after death and that “death” wasn’t really the end…..but rather some incredible, beautiful, enlightened and brilliant new beginning…a gateway into the divine…..then that would help us to put death into a different light. It doesn’t do a whole lot for the suffering part, but the death part really becomes way more tolerable. That’s why I thank God for the perspective He gave me…..it’s a great gift just to be able to see the beauty (but that doesn’t mean you can’t develop that skill, either). I realize this is a stretch but it does remind me of all the highly over publicized court cases that are beaten to a pulp in the media. People are frequently bitching because “so and so wasn’t convicted of that crime.” And then the media finally releases one last little tid bit of information that makes sense out of everything…..and we all collectively say “OH well why didn’t they just tell us that?”
For some reason GOD has veiled our minds and hearts from the truth about death. Yes, He’s thrown us a bone here and there, but He’s essentially mandated that we live our lives in a sort of amnesia. He’s set things up so that we live our lives blinded from the truth for the most part, in a sort of “life long test” to see if “unaided” we can find love & truth. I still believe (with all my heart) that someday the veil will be lifted and we’ll all collectively say “OH, well why didn’t You just tell us that?” (but by then we’ll be so thrilled that we’re enveloped in the love of God that we’ll most likely be speechless and in awe of God and completely unable and unwilling to bitch about anything at all).
Meanwhile…..we live and laugh and cry….and we seek and love and listen and we do what we can to uncover the truth from the heap of “life” that truth is hidden under. I hope that just thinking about….and knowing that the good is out there helps you to find it in your own life. I may not know you but I know you’re out there…..and I’m sending love your way.
If you find anything of interest here, won’t you please feel free to talk to me about it? I can’t think of anything I’d rather do than talk to YOU about what you think.
How the people that bug us the most, can help us.
There is something to this saying from Jung that “Everything that irritates us about others can lead us to an understanding of ourselves.”
My sister and I had an argument once….and in the middle of this knock down drag out screaming fest I realized that all the things I was saying about her, were the exact same things she was saying about me. 20 years later I haven’t stopped thinking about that moment in time – what it meant and what it said about who and what I am.
As difficult as it is – if this same thing ever happens to you – stop and ask yourself if the things this other person is saying about you are true. Ask yourself who this other person is and if they have any reason to lie to you or to hurt you.
I’m not saying that it’s 100% for sure that the things they’re saying will be true, but I am saying that they COULD be true and no one is going to help you to come to this revelation besides yourself.
Do yourself a favor and start by being honest with yourself. It’s funny but that’s one of the hardest things in the world to do – to see yourself as you really are. Have you ever noticed how the heavier person doesn’t see themselves as quite that fat or the person with heavy-duty wrinkles thinks they look great for their age? Have you ever noticed how different you look when you look in the mirror vs. how you look in a snap shot? It is hard to be realistic about ourselves and of course it’s always easier to criticize someone else OTHER than ourselves.
Take this opportunity to try to see yourself through your loved ones eyes….make sure that person really does love you and isn’t suffering from their own delusions of perception, but if you know them and trust them, you should consider if their criticisms of you are true.
Don’t beat yourself up over it…..just try to see yourself for who you really are. Then if you don’t like what and who you see, CHANGE. Don’t listen to that BS that people say “you can’t teach and old dog new tricks.” That is pure doggie doo doo. You can do and be whoever and whatever you want to be.
Start by being honest with yourself. Don’t get depressed by what and who you see….just take strength and joy from knowing that you can do and be whoever you want to be.
Feel like you’re banging your head against the wall?
Have you ever woken up after a long period of time only to realize that you’ve been in a rut? You’re in a hideous feedback loop of doing the same thing over and over and over again? If you haven’t….you might want to reexamine your self and your life, because this is something that most of us do. As most of my intellectual readers know…..Einstein said that “Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results”. If you say to yourself, “every time I ask the kids to do the chores they don’t do them” or “Every time I say something my wife (or husband) she/he gets mad at me” or “Every time I order at a restaurant they get the order wrong.” For now I am not going to talk about the REASONS these things keep happening in your life as much as I am going to talk about the fact that they do happen.
My current favorite author (Martha Beck) says that sometimes in order to change we have to go through “The ring of fire”. The ring of fire is any trial or tribulation that we’d rather live without…..but sometimes (or most of the time) when we experience something dramatic we come out on the other side of the trauma (or the other side of the “new experience”) with a new perspective or a new plan for our life. If you find yourself stuck in a feedback loop in life, try doing something totally different…something you’ve never done before or haven’t done for a very long time. If you are a mild-mannered house wife, take a trip by yourself to Paris. If you’re a scientist or doctor….learn to paint. If you’re a “dare-devil”, learn to meditate. If you’re a graphic designer, read a book about quantum physics (I’d highly recommend “The Dancing Wu Li Masters” by Gary Zukav).
It doesn’t matter WHAT you do, but just DO SOMETHING that’s the opposite of what you normally do….something that’s not necessarily comfortable for you to do. Do something to break yourself out of your shell of security and procrastination. By the way….I’m not saying I’ve got it all figured out, I’m just telling you about things that I’ve discovered along the way that I think have value to us as human beings. You CAN change your life. You CAN fulfill your dreams; and by the way, to do that you have to HAVE some dreams to begin with….if you’ve tossed your long forgotten dreams off to the side of an old dirt road, pull the car over and make up some new ones. Start by thinking back on the things that fascinated you most when you were little. Did you spend long hours outside staring at leaves & trees? Did you get excited just thinking about your next tennis lesson? Did you suck at all your classes EXCEPT creative writing? Each of us has something (at least one thing but maybe more) that we’re good at…and those things are your first clue to the question “what SHOULD I be doing?” If you’re stuck in a rut the likeliness is it’s not a rut where you’re doing the thing you love most in the world….rather it’s a rut made up of life’s responsibilities and other pressures that you have had to do at the expense of the things you were BORN to do. To get out of the rut….dream up some new dreams, make sure they’re in line with what you love most (aka your “Gifts” or your “Destiny) and then start doing that thing….even if you can only do that thing one time a month. Break out of the life you’re currently stuck in by taking just one little step in the direction of your destiny (aka God’s plan for you) and don’t get overwhelmed by the fact that 99.9% of the people, that you know and love think you’re crazy for even THINKING of doing those things. That doesn’t matter (as long as you’re not hurting other people by seeking your destiny). Just do SOMETHING….anything that helps you to break out of the rut you’re in and changes abruptly (and sometimes painfully) the direction you’re going. You’ll come out of that depression you’re in or shake off that gloomy feeling you’ve been living with too long and at the same time all those chronic diseases that you’ve got that your doctors can’t even properly diagnose will start to disappear one by one. Living your life free of the shackles of being in a rut and moving in the direction that jives with your destiny is the best way to start on the path to happiness.
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