Time for a little magic today at Live On Purpose TV as I share with you how to
control your thoughts. Honestly, I don't know if you can control your thoughts.
Let's do a little test. Let's just try this out. Play along with me. Think about
bananas. How you doing? You got it? Can you think of bananas' color, texture,
taste. What they look like, what they feel like. You got it? You go on bananas
here? Not too hard. Awesome. Okay, step 2. Do not
think about grapefruit. Don't... Don't think about grapefruit.
You know the round ones that are sour and they kind of squirt you in the eye
when you stick a spoon in them? Do not think about grapefruit. How are you doing?
Oh! You're thinking about grapefruit, aren't you? I told you not to. What's
wrong? Well, can you control your thoughts?
Notice it's not too hard to intentionally think about something on
purpose. It's really hard to intentionally not think about something
on purpose. And there are so many triggers in our environment. I can be
driving down the freeway in my car and suddenly I'm thinking about home
mortgage rates. Why? Because I saw the billboard. I wasn't thinking about home
mortgages. It's at the time but then I see the available ordinate triggers the thought
for me. Have you noticed that this a lot. Things will trigger your
thoughts. And you don't always get to control those thoughts. But there's some
hope. I learned something as I was reading a
book by Eckhart Tolle. It's called the Power Of Now. Highly recommend it by the
way. Put it on your eating list. In this book, Eckhart Tolle shares an experience
that he had. I believe it was in his 20s when he went
through a period of suicidal depression. And during this time, he had a thought.
And the thought was, "I hate myself. I hate myself." Okay. Not an uncommon thought for
people who are experiencing suicidal depression. But then he had a second
thought that saved his life. And the second thought was, "Wait a minute. Who is
this I that hates me so much? And who is this me that I hate?" Totally
blew his mind. And saved his life. Because he realized something. All those
thoughts that are going on in your mind are not necessarily you. They might
simply be your brain generating possible scenarios. Your brain has the capability
of doing this. Think of it kind of like actors on a stage. In this example, you
get to be the person who is auditioning the thoughts that are dancing out onto
the stage of your mind. So, you get your clipboard ready because
you're ready to do this audition. And you call for the first thought. Come on out.
Let's see what you have. That thought dances out onto the stage of your mind.
Now, you're taking notes. You're going to do some scoring maybe in some determining
of which thoughts get to make the cut and be cast into whatever play is going
on in your mind. So, the first thought dance is out there and says something
like this: "I hate myself." Huh, hmm. No, sorry. Not what we're looking for. You're
dismissed. Can you do
that? What if you could? Just consider it for a minute. The next thought dances out
onto the stage. Um, actually I'm a pretty good person. You make your notes. You do
your little evaluation. You know what? Yeah, yeah. Would you... You get a callback,
okay? You get to come back because that's exactly what we're looking for.
Just wait off to the side here from it. Here's the thing. When you're auditioning
these thoughts, you're the casting director, okay? You get to decide which
thoughts make the cut and which ones don't. If you're not the source of all of
these thoughts, you're the one who gets to discern and choose and select and
observe these thoughts. That changes things. We're not trying to control who
shows up on our stage. We're simply deciding which ones we're going to give
some space, some room, some of our precious life energy. Because you know
what? If you cast that guy, if you cast that thought that's saying, "I hate myself",
guess what? He's going to call all of his buddies offstage and he's gonna say, "Hey!
She's casting us here. Come on out." And the next one dances out and says, "Yeah,
and not only that you're fat and ugly. And not only that your mama dresses you
funny. And nobody likes you." And it just cascades from there." You've had the
experience. So, I think what I'm suggesting with the clipboard. You get to
be the casting director. audition these thoughts very carefully. And I've got a
few screening questions that I want to share with you because I think this
might help. As the casting director, here's your first screening question for
any thought that dances out onto the stage of your mind. Is this true? Is this
true? Okay? What about that thought that says, "I hate myself?" Pause, wait a minute.
Got a screen now. Is this true? You know what? Saved a car tolas life is
the realization that it can't be true. It's not even metaphysically possible to
hate yourself. You'd have to be 2 people to do that. That's what blew his
mind and saved his life. Is it true that I hate myself? No. It would be the
equivalent of lifting yourself up by the bootstraps. Reach down, grab hold of your
boots and lift up high enough that you can raise yourself off of the ground. You
cannot do it. It's not even possible. I'm going to let you just gel on that for a
little bit because that's a philosophical issue that I think
deserves some attention. Is this true? That's the question you're going to ask.
"Everybody hates me", okay? That's another thought that dances out onto the stage
of your mind. Is that true? No. Most people don't even
know you. How could they hate you? They don't. "Well, the people who know me, hate
me." Is that true? No! That you think that they do but
that doesn't make that true. See, we're going to ask that as the first screening
question. Here's another powerful question. What
thought would serve me better? What thought would serve me better? Here's an
example. You know, how sometimes you get to feeling like you're constantly behind
like you're never where you should be or doing what needs to happen. You're
kind of always behind the game. Alright, well how does that feel? Let's ask that
question. What thought would serve me better? How about this one? "I'm right on
schedule." In fact, would you just say that? Just take a moment and say it. Little
lilt to your voice. Raise your eyebrows just a touch. It'll help. I promise. I'm
right on schedule. Now, how does that feel? How would it feel if you believed it?
Would that thought serve you better? I'm guessing it probably would. And honestly
do you know? Do you know if you're behind or on schedule? No! You don't know. But
notice that you're taking a position about that.
That's what I want you to notice. What thought would serve me better? Powerful
question. Before we wrap up today, I have to acknowledge this because I get it all
the time from people that I'm coaching and my clients who say, "Well Dr. Paul, am
I just lying to myself?" You know, when we suggest the new thought that might serve
them better, use the example that we just talked about. "I'm right on schedule."
Oh, Dr. Paul, I feel like I'm lying to myself. Because I'm really not on
schedule. You don't know. I mean in the grand scheme of things, you don't know if
you're on schedule or not. You've got your little schedule you've set for
yourself and you might be behind on that one. Well, notice that because we might be
able to use that to upgrade your life. But in terms of the grand scheme of all
things, you don't know if you're on schedule or not. So, you're probably
already lying to yourself. Knock it off. Tell yourself the truth or at least
choose a thought that serves you better. When you're telling yourself you're
behind, you're lying to yourself. You don't know that. Do you see how we
sometimes get to lying to ourselves and we don't even think that we are? And then
when we choose a thought that serves us better we think we're lying to ourselves
because we're not used to the thought yet. Give yourself some time to get used
to it. Practice it. It's going to change how you feel. I did another video recently
about what negative thinking does to your brain. Cue that up to watch it next
because it will follow right along with what we've talked about here.
There's coaching, there's resources. There's more videos available. You are
not alone. You've got a lot of help and a lot of resources. Connect to us. Down
below in the description, you'll see several ways to do that. Can't wait to
see you on the inside.