Doing What It Takes To Win
September 17, 2011
Don’t we want our favorite team, for example, to do what it takes to win? Of course we do. We love that feeling that comes along when our team beats the odds. But can this, beat the odds philosophy, be applied to the mental challenges that we all face every day? Of course it can. Moving past the negative chatter in our head, is a good example of “doing what it takes” to “beat the odds” in order to move forward. But we can’t move forward as long as we stay connected to the negative chatter in our head. We have to let go.
The following excerpt is from my eBook, “How You Can Be an Effective Thought Leader.” There are two characters John and Noah and they are discussing the finer points of “letting go.”
“Hmmm, freeing the brain,” John slowly repeated. “This might be a stretch, Noah, but is there any relationship between freeing the brain and the ego, and the notion of being saved?”
“When we let go of our chatter, we save ourselves.”
“But what makes letting go so difficult?”
Noah grinned.
“Why are you smiling?”
“It’s not you, John. When you asked, ‘What makes letting go so difficult?’ it reminded me of a technique used to catch wild monkeys.”
“What does catching wild monkeys have to do with letting go of our ego?” John asked, wondering where Noah was taking him.
“Frank Buck was a product of the 1920s. He went to various countries and made movies documenting how he caught wild animals for the zoos of the world. His motto was ‘Bring ’em Back Alive.’ One episode displayed his technique of capturing wild monkeys.
“He’d drill a hole into a coconut just big enough for the monkey to slide its open hand through. The coconut was filled with an irresistible rice mixture. One end of a rope was tied to the coconut while the other was anchored to a stake. Monkeys, who are naturally curious, would descend from the trees, inspect the inside of the coconut, and slide their hands through the hole, grabbing a handful of rice. But now, the monkey finds that his clenched fist will not back out of the hole.”
“So how did he catch the monkeys once they let go of the rice?”
“That’s the point, John. They don’t let go. You haven’t seen anything so crazy as a bunch of screaming monkeys running around with a coconut at the end of their arm trying to escape. Their fate was sealed when a net was thrown over them.”
“Wait a minute. Are you saying that none of the monkeys would let go of the rice?”
“Not even one.”
“Monkeys are pretty smart. It’s hard to believe they’d sacrifice their freedom for a handful of rice.”
“Are we any different?”
“I would like to think that I’m not that stupid.”
“Stupidity has nothing to do with it. We’re the most intelligent animal on the planet, and yet we sacrifice our spiritual and psychological freedom by refusing to let go of our ego.”
“I see your point. It appears we haven’t made much progress, have we?”
“We haven’t learned how to bring ourselves back alive because we keep building our psychological houses in the wrong place,” Noah said, turning to his text.
Doing what it takes to win can be as simple as “letting go.”
The Pain of Patterns
September 15, 2011
Why is change so hard? We try to lose weight, balance our budget and get organized and in the beginning it appears to work. However, over time, we usually find ourselves doing what we have always done and then wondering; why we didn’t change?
Change is a challenge because we don’t realize that the “chatter” in our head is keeping us where we are.
The following is an excerpt from my eBook, “How You Can Be an Effective Thought Leader.” There are two characters John and Noah and they are discussing, “ What pulls us back to the way we were.”
”So the present moment holds peace in place,” said John?
“Just like an orthodontic retainer,” Noah said with a smile.
“That’s an interesting combination― orthodontics and inner peace,” John replied.
Noah tapped on his front teeth. “As a young adult, I wore braces. Upon their removal, my doctor explained that wearing a retainer was necessary to maintain the position of my teeth.”
“What would happen if you didn’t wear the retainer?” John inquired, remembering friends in school who had to wear those pesky things.
“I presented my doctor with the same question. ‘Each tooth,’ he said, ‘is in a socket of bone suspended by tiny ligaments. When a tooth is straightened, these ligaments become stretched. Over time, they will detach and reattach in a perpendicular fashion. However, if the tooth is not retained in its new position, there are enough stretched ligaments in place that will pull the tooth back to the way it was.’ ”
“So when I allow my attention to leave the present moment, my chatter will pull me back to the way I was?”
“Precisely…because our egos do not want us to change.”
Is it Really Mental Illness or is Our Brain Doing What It’s Supposed to Do?
September 6, 2011
When the organs in our bodies are not operating properly, we can usually diagnosis, with certainty, what’s wrong. The brain, however, is another matter. For example, a brain scan may not reveal anything substantive, and yet, the person may be classified as “ill;” because their thoughts prevent them from moving forward with their life, which raise a question. Could it be that negative thinking is a natural part of our humanity that we have yet to put into perspective?
Could it be that we’re not as ill as we think we are? At one time, we believed the world was flat. And today we believe that our psyche is one dimensional, which is not true, if it were, we would not experience states of mind that are up and then down, happy and then sad, secure and insecure.
To learn more about what our brain is up to; check-out this short video by clicking here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=29SSuVwc78M.”
