If this is the first blog you’ve seen in this series, you might want to read the previous Blogs here first which include an over view of WHY! I think positive thinking alone is SHIT, S standing for Sense (of Security) and H for Hiding.
If however, you are time poor don’t worry as this one will make sense as a stand alone blog also.
Have you noticed how ‘positive thinking’ seems to work for some people and not others? Perhaps you have tried to be ‘positive’ in the past but it hasn’t worked?
Today I want to look at the I in S.H.I.T. When you are aware of this element you will be able to spot what could be getting in the way of your success and change it, and if you ignore it well, what can I say …you might not even know that there is anything holding you back.
So what am I talking about? I’m talking about what INTERFERES with your positive thinking.
Maybe the below example resonates with you:
You decide your New Years’ Resolution is to lose weight. This time you are going to do it. You are very positive about it. And you start off really well. You prepare for it. You plan your food, and your increased activity, and day one goes well, week one goes well. You lose some weight. You feel proud of yourself, but not too smug because you know that week one weight loss is mostly water right? So, you go at it in week 2 and that works. Instead of the 5 lbs of water you lost in week 1 you lose 2 lbs of real fat and you tell everyone you are really happy. Secretly, there is a little voice that’s a bit disappointed you only lost 2 lbs but you tell yourself to keep going.
Then something happens in week 3. It’s your best friends birthday party. You go and intend to only have a couple of nibbles and one glass of white wine. But then you get there and the canapes are sooo tempting and the champagne is flowing and….. The next morning you get on the scales and you have lost another 2 lbs. Well, there you are you think – it’s no problem and your self talk begins “I have this losing weight thing cracked” – perfect right? Well lets see..
The following week and a few cheats later, you‘ve put on a pound. The next week you stay the same. Well that’s because its that “time of the month” or maybe the “heavier clothes your wearing” The week after you’re the same weight again. That’s when your inner voice start “This is getting boring”. And then that’s right ….you give up. “I can never lose weight” you tell yourself. And you know what – you are probably right.
You see all the positive thinking in the world will break down at some point if you don’t deal with the things that are IN THE WAY. The things that INTERFERE with your best laid plans. The things that can’t be ‘unthunked’ (as we say in Yorkshire) by positive thinking.
Your mind is full of conditioning and programming and much of it is buried so deeply in your unconscious and subconscious that you are not aware of it, these patterns of thought and behaviour may be inhibiting you, blocking your success. You could call this the fish in water effect… you can’t ‘see’ the patterns objectively as you are totally immersed in them and unconscious of them. But you are still being affected and potentially inhibited or held back. And no amount of positive thinking will get rid of the conditioning and programming that’s interfering with you manifesting the positive outcome you want. This interference must be understood, challenged and dealt with BEFORE positive thinking can truly work for you.
In the case of losing weight above – while writing this I was thinking of a friend who has always struggled with her weight. Most of the time her weight wasn’t actually an issue – except in her own head. But eventually her “Gypsy Rose Lee Fortune Telling” came true and she became a walking talking self-fulfilling prophecy and now she is medically overweight. When she was a child she thought she was fat, so she dieted and gained weight, dieted and gained weight all through her teens and 20’s. When she was ‘slim’ she felt great about herself, and when she was ‘fat’ she didn’t.
Other people would tell her she wasn’t fat. And perhaps on some level of logic she knew that to be true, however, on an emotional level she was fat, and fat was BAD. She used to think that the problems she had with food were due to the family being quite poor when she was a small child and there never being enough to eat and she was always told to eat everything on her plate “people are starving In Africa” I bet like me you heard that too right? (I always did wonder what would have happened if I’d put my leftovers in an envelope and sent them to someone in need)
Anyway back to my friend: Maybe that was part of it, but actually it wasn’t the main part. That was the reason she bought too much food, that was the reason she sabotaged her diet, but it wasn’t the reason she had poor body image issues.
It wasn’t until she was talking to her coach one day that she realised where the ‘fat = bad person”, “fat = stupid, mean, weak person” internal messages (conditioning and programming) were coming from.
Through her childhood her mother had been very ill each time she was pregnant. Each time she was pregnant (& of course to a young child she just looked fat) she was hospitalised, or as the child got told “mummy has had to go away” and each time her Father was stressed and angry. Once when her Mother was “fat” the Father hit the child, which left her shocked and confused.
So clearly being ‘fat’ was not a good thing. The association she had formed as a child was bad things happened when you were fat and so as an adult she became obsessed with not getting fat. And if you know anything about the human mind you will know that it does not recognise the word NOT.
This reminds me as a child walking on a wall “Don’t fall off Cheryl” – yep you guessed it ooopps! Off the wall I come like Humpty Dumpty.
Some people have blocks not just around weight but around money, some around relationships, lack of confidence, maybe for you it’s in the form of addiction smoking, drinking or even sex.
They are many areas in life affected by deep seated, deep rooted beliefs caused – often in childhood, sometimes by trauma, sometimes by things that appear much smaller, insignificant even, until you understand the programming they have caused.
Suffice it so say, there are blocks, things that get In The Way, that INTERFERE with the best laid plans, that “Positive Thinking” alone cannot solve.
Unless you understand what those things are, or that they even exist. Until you can uncover and unravel them (for which you may need some help), and until you can accept them, and accept yourself, then I say to you – Positive thinking alone is less than useless, it is S.H.I.T.
That’s not the end of it though. You are not doomed to failure because of the blocks causing the interference. There are ways you can overcome them, and people who can help. It might be us! If you want to know more about how to create real positive change in your life visit our FB page #FindYourWhy and learn more about how you can Live, Love and Laugh more everyday!