Now that is a good news/bad news situation, if there has ever been one.

Because you create your reality, and you create it with your words (what you focus on) you can seriously mis-create.

Let’s take weight, for example.

I used to be skinny. I mean skinny!

I ate what I ate, and had no thoughts about my weight or the lack of it.

Then I heard about healthy eating, and started to concentrate on “healthy” food. Guess what happened? I started to pack the weight on, and went from 96 lbs to 165 lbs in a few weeks, no kidding.

Even today, when I forget about my weight, or eating healthy, or what’s good for me, etc. I slim down. The moment I start to concentrate on some new health and energy diet, I pack it on. It takes only taking my attention and focus off the topic and I become normal.

It is like a fine tuned, well oiled machine. You can play with it. The Universe is exceptionally responsive. It’s easier to see on issues that are not pressing. Why?

Because all thoughts matter, not just your conscious thoughts. And you are only aware of 1%¹ of your thoughts, the others happen while you are busy with other things. Bummer, right? Serious bummer.

So when you experiment, do it with areas of not much consequence. Areas that you don’t fret about. I mostly think of people, and then they call. Or think of changing my attitude on the phone to be cheerful (I don’t unconsciusly think about that) and then the phone rings and I can practice my new cheerful attitude then and there.

The gratitude/appreciation exercise is designed to direct your focus.

If you focus on what you appreciate, you’ll get more of it.

Here’s how to take it further

create a growing list of 1000 things you’re grateful for. I have. It’s amazing how easy it becomes after a while. Once you train your focus, all it can see is things to be grateful for. Just like anything else… remember the reticular activator article a while back? Most of the things on that list: I’d completely ignored and taken them for granted before the exercise. But don’t stop… this is an exercise for life. The pull for negativity is tremendous! Don’t kid yourself.

Change Limiting Metaphors

Listen to the metaphors people use. It’s usually a window into the images in their mind. If someone says “I’m at the end of my rope,” they are creating an image in their mind and it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. Even if the image is there just for a split second, it’s there.

Avoid limiting images in your mind. Wake up and have a part of you, the witness part of you monitor everything that comes out of your mouth.

I used to have a teacher who lived that way (at least some of the time

Every time she thoughtlessly uttered something that created an image in her mind, she stopped and she canceled it. She said: “all speaking is committing” and what you do with commitments that you didn’t mean? You cancel them.

“I’m never at the end of my rope. I have a long rope. I never “burn the candle from both ends”. Instead, I “try to touch the sky’s ceiling…”. I’m not “drop dead exhausted”. I just need to “recharge my batteries”.”

Casual and thoughtless use of metaphors is dangerous to your future. Identify and catch the ones you use.  think of the state of mind and  future they bring about. If those futures and feelings aren’t useful, stop using them.

Find the Opportunity where it is least evident

There is a saying that you should do what you love to do. But that doesn’t mean that you should love what you do every moment of every day.  The truth is that some things you always hate to do, and some things you only hat to do some of the time, even if what you do (for a living, for example) is something you love.

So what should be your attitude with the stuff that you don’t like to do? Well, the exercise in finding the silver lining comes handy here: everything you do, every person you meet, ever obstacle you meet is the starting point for a new opportunity… if you are willing for them to show up like that.

Book-keeping is something a lot of people hate. But if you look at it as a way to know what’s going on with your money, you can see that it is an opportunity to greater clarity, growth, noticing your spending habits and changing them, and ultimately it can open up the opportunity to building wealth.

Lots of people hate learning new things. They think they shouldn’t have to. What they can’t see that knowing new things will be able to take them to places they would have never been able to get to with less knowledge…

Love challenges. Challenges give you the opportunity to grow, and to become more.

What is the practice I recommend? Before you start any task, even the ones that you love for their own sake, look and find (or invent) a juicy opportunity that will open up just because you are looking for it.

Create Congruency between your self image and your actions

A lot of people want to get rich. And almost that many have conflicting views about wealth. This is like driving a car with one foot on the gas and the other on the brake.

Some issues need to be settled when it comes to wealth. Will you be wealthy or will you be greedy? Will you love people and use money, or the opposite? What is the human cost you are willing to pay to become wealthy?

You will need to create a consistent world view before you can get wealthy. And make sure that you love the person with that world view, feel good about them, or you will lose it as fast as you got it…

When there is an internal conflict, you don’t feel well, so you won’t do well.

Is your mental image of yourself congruent with the actions you take?

Sit down and write down the actions that are congruent with the person you want to become, and make those actions your own.

If not, you’re going to be conflicted and you won’t do well. We wouldn’t want that now, would we?

Footnotes:

1. Muscle testing has shown that only 1% of your thoughts are conscious and the 99% is totally unconscious. That is the area of what you don’t know you don’t know. Being able to influence your unconscious thoughts is the purpose of many self-improvement programs, meditation, hypnosis, different audio programs with hidden messages

That was on the front of my T-shirt in 1991 at the Communication Commando Course… a week long Landmark Education program.

What was that about?

Here is the story.

In the course, on the 2nd day, if I remember correctly, we were talking about your “default” albeit hidden way of communicating. We formed small groups of five, and we looked at each other and made up a little statement of what we thought the person was communicating under their usual facade.

One guy in our group had the statement: “It doesn’t compute, it doesn’t compute, it doesn’t compute…”

Another’s was: “Beware, vicious dog… will bite if you are not careful”

No one could guess mine. The course leader, an older woman from Mexico, came over, took a look at me and said “Recovering victim”

As she was leaving, sensing my vibes (I guess), she turned back and added “Get the f… out of my way!”

When your statement was done, you needed to go to the back of the room, where a group of busy assistants painted the statement on a white t-shirt.

At the end of this exercise, we went, one after the other to the stage, and told the group what our statement was… while we were wearing the t-shirt.

When it was my turn, I said mine, with a huge amount of resentment, and then, as I was leaving the stage, I felt my legs move into a military march, like Hitler’s army, with the same amount of hatred and determination. It was awful. It had been hidden. From me. It had been probably there since the time I was raped at 3 and a half. It was anger, it was hatred, it was “you are all going to pay for this.”

It was horrible. I felt ashamed, disconnected, an outsider, a leper.

We went to have dinner soon after.

The dining room had big round tables for 18 each. I was there early, and filled my plate and set by an empty table.

As the room was filling (there were over 100 people in the course) people were looking for a table to sit by. Many came to the table where I was, put down their plate, ready to sit down. Then they took a look at me and my t-shirt, picked up their plate and left looking for another table.

I ate by myself that night, and then the next day, and the day after. We were wearing our t-shirt, till we transformed it.

My “transforming” statement was “Being available to play with all.”

It didn’t quite do the trick.

When the six-day long course was over, I called the airline and moved my flight to the next day. It was mid-November, it was chilly. My hotel was by the airport. I felt even more isolated and an alien than in the course. I bought some food and ate it walking on the roads…

At night I called a friend in NJ and told him that I was ready to end it all. The leper wanted to check out.

I don’t know what gave him the words, but he turned me around. He said: “It is not over yet. People need you Sophie.”

OK, I’ll hang in there then, I said and hung up.

And here I am, 17 years later, weeping at my computer. Not much has changed. Instead of being the “Nazi” 100% of the time, I am rarely it. But it did not leave. It did not transform. It is like antisemitism… deep roots. Deep roots in evil.