The Science Of Feeling Good: A Ritual For Success (Part Two)
Posted on | April 22, 2009 | No Comments
In Part One, we took a look at the concept of ritualistic behavior and how it can positively or negatively impact your life. We also, looked at the importance of carrying yourself, physically, in a manner that contributes to positive feelings of self esteem. Today, we will look inward to some of the self defeating thoughts, practices and affirmations that generate and maintain feelings of low self worth and self esteem.
How Do You Carry Your Body?
Let’s pretend we are in community theatre for a moment. If I, the director, asked you to play the role of a depressed victim, how would you play it? I would take a slumped over posture, cast my eyes downward and speak in a soft, slow voice. How about you?
What if I asked you to play a happy, confident hero. I would expect you to stand up straight, speak loudly with confidence and smile most of the time. Wouldn’t you agree.
Tony Robbins says that “…emotion is created by your motion.” The manner in which you carry yourself will generate the emotions associated with it.
But, I don’t feel like doing that.
Quit making excuses for yourself and…..For God’s Sake, JUST DO IT.
Eventually, you will feel like doing that. It all has to do with muscle memory.
Just as a martial artist repeats side kicks, over and over, you train yourself to stand, speak and smile in a certain way by training the facial, back and chest muscles necessary to stand, smile and project a happy confident demeanor.
What Do You Focus Upon?
As a man thinketh, so is he. – James Allen
Let’s play pretend. I want you to, just for a moment, to pretend that a close friend, elative or child has died and you are staring at them in the casket. If someone you love HAS recently died, my condolences. Think back to when you stared down at him in his casket.
Dwell on it.
Visualize every detail.
A little longer.
Now…..
How do you feel? (Not how DID you feel. How DO you feel right now?)
I’ll bet you are sad and depressed.
This is because whatever you focus on, real or imagined, generates the associated feelings. If you hold onto those feelings long enough, your body and mind respond, at a subconscious level, to make those feelings a reality.
Focus = Feelings = Create reality
This is why people can make themselves sick (and well). This is why when you are feeling bad, you tend to spiral downward, out of control. This is why anti-depressants work (or don’t work). A psychiatrist friend of mine described it like this:
Antidepressants don’t make you happy. They either give you the ability to change your feelings so that you spiral in the right direction, or they don’t work because your beliefs and feelings are too deeply seated.
Most people focus on their problems such as:
Why am I such a fat ass?
When they should be focusing on the solution to the problem:
What can I do to lose weight?
The problem is that when you constantly repeat the wrong questions to yourself over a long period of time, you develop a habit to think in terms of your problems which are self defeating, instead of the solutions, which are empowering.
Another empowering technique is to focus on what you love instead of what you hate. This is commonly referred to as:
What are you excited about? Who do you love? Visualize that which makes you happy. It may be hard, but recite aloud the things for which you are grateful even if there aren’t very many(yet).
When you are talking to yourself, what kind of words do you use? Depending on the word, you can create positive or negative feelings. For instance if I were to say to you:
You seem like a real asshole. You made a stupid mistake. Dumb ass!!
How does that make you feel? Perhaps you are angry, upset, sad, embarrassed. What is, instead, I said:
You seem like you are having a bad day. Maybe you made an error in judgment?
I doubt you will respond with the feelings of anger you expressed in response to the first statement.
Whether these statements come from a third person or you say them to yourself, the feeling that you elicit are, nevertheless, the same. Remember,
Whatever you focus on, real or imagined, generates the associated feelings
As a result, to begin to change the way you feel about your circumstances, you use positive words and ask solution based questions.
In addition to the questions you ask of yourself and the words you use in doing so, you need to examine what kind of affirmations that you use on a daily basis. Now you are probably saying:
I don’t use affirmations
Yes you do.
You just don’t realize it.
Take a look at these and see if any of them sound familiar:
- Dammit. Everything I touch goes wrong!!!
- No matter how hard I try, I always lose.
- I’m too stupid to ever have a job like that.
- I’m way too ugly to ever go out with a hot babe like her
- I can’t seem to stop eating
- I can’t stop surfing porn
- I think my wife is falling out of love with me.
Yes? They all sound familiar in one way or another, don’t they?
You see, everyone has affirmations and they repeat them to themselves day after day. These affirmations can either victimize or empower you.
Where your affirmations victimize you, take charge of them in the following manner:
Stop yourself whenever you catch yourself repeating a negative affirmation;
- Turn it into a positive, solution based affirmation; and,
- Supplement it with intentional positive affirmations that you choose based upon the things that make you happy.
For example:
- Dammit!!! Everything I touch goes wrong. STOP.
- I have had some bad luck in the past, but this time I will read the instructions and get help so that my project turns out as planned.
- I have plenty of friends to help me and I am thankful for them.
By reframing negative affirmations into positive ones, you generate a feeling of hope and empowerment instead of helplessness. As with any exercise, at first it will seem difficult to do.
But try this: Find a picture of yourself as a small child. The next time you say something mean and nasty to yourself, say it again to that little child. I’ll bet it seems pretty mean to say that sort of thing to a small child. Well, that small child is you…..and he/she doesn’t deserve that type of verbal abuse, right?
Start with your feelings. If you are feeling bad, ask yourself what you are thinking about right now.
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Are thinking of a problem or a solution?
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Are you using positive or negative words to describe yourself?
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Are you ritualistically using negative affirmations to reinforce the negative feelings?
In Part Three, we will examine the need to set aside some time each day for you to work on yourself. Before reading Part Three, I would ask that you take some time to determine where you are spending your time now. How much time do you set aside for yourself each day? How are you using that time, if at all?
Back to The Science Of Feeling Good: A Ritual For Success (Part One)
Related posts:
- The Science Of Feeling Good: A Ritual For Success (Part Three)
- The Science Of Feeling Good: A Ritual For Success (Part One)
- Controlling Thoughts With Expectation
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