William Michael Forbes
The mind has no choice but to go wherever I see. wmf
A Well known fact: Your thoughts and emotions are not who you are...they are what you have to create your experiences.
He stood in front of me and said;
“For sixteen years I’ve been trying to get people to listen to me when I tell them something and they just keep doing the same things again and again and it takes too much time!”
I was too surprised by the remark from a man that I highly respected, to react other than to say...
”I can’t participate in that idea.”
I had heard him complain periodically about people not doing things the way he said they should and historically chose to ignore the emotional content that was always attached to those comments. This time however, the comment was directed towards me and I felt the full force of the emotion attached to it trigger my fears of not being good enough. I watched as my fear arose within my mind and the past voices of friends, teachers, parents and myself attached to that fear formed in my conscious awareness. I knew they were just thoughts and ideas from my past and his...as the work was getting done in a third less the time than normal, I knew his comments were based in his need to be in control and had nothing to do with the time the job was taking. His comments were triggered by his perception that something wasn’t right and his emotions, words and behaviour were automatically following a common problem with many people today. I told him I was leaving for the day and that I wouldn’t participate in that treatment of people anymore. As I left the shop I now had an opportunity to deal with some of the hidden fears had around not being good enough that were triggered by his outburst. As the work was progressing faster than it had before, I knew his idea about it taking too much time was based in a perception that blocked him from seeing what was actually occurring...even though physical evidence indicated otherwise.
For me this was an opportunity to transform some of the negative thoughts and emotional resources that were triggered in my subconscious mind by his outburst, thoughts like,
“I’m a failure; I’m going to get punished for doing what I thought was right (I’m Guilty), I cant do anything right (you’re no good), nobody loves me and the corresponding emotions to those thoughts were, Fear, Guilt, shame and anger. In the privacy of my car I sat and began to carefully observe the thoughts and the emotions connected to them, Knowing that emotion is just energy in motion, I began to let the fear, guilt, shame and anger know that I loved and appreciated it and observed as those feelings began to soften and transform into calm peaceful feeling, correspondingly, the thoughts in my mind began to shift towards ideas like, I’m loving and lovable, I care about people, life is good. It was a short and easy transformation of emotional energy from one state into another, which brings us to today’s lesson on How to be happy in fifteen minutes or less.
This lesson will require that you look for opportunities where people say and do things that upset you and spend up to three minutes working with the emotions and thoughts that are stimulated by the environmental situation. First recognize the emotions that are brought to your awareness by the event and label it i.e. Fear, Guilt, Shame, Anger, Sadness, then notice the thoughts in your mind at that time that correspond to those emotions....allow yourself to feel the emotions as they are...this gets you in direct touch with your energy and then, while you are in touch with those feeling talk to those feelings as if you were telling a frightened child how to feel safe and comfortable...you might say...you’re perfectly safe at all times...I love you or you could say, No matter what I’ve thought, felt or believed about you, I love you and you may even make up your own constructive thoughts to communicate to your emotional energies...and remember to notice what shifts or changes for you as you do the exercise and...
Have a great day!
William Michael Forbes
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