newstasis :: a blog about improving wellness

I have a fairly good memory for events and things that happened. It comes in handy for stuff, like remembering programs, exercises, bike routes, etc… I remember these things well because they happened. My body traveled the bike route, I have witnessed people squatting correctly, I thought-up and wrote down the program. At a very simple level, a measurable amount of matter moved through the world allowing for the potential for physical memories to be created. These memories are static, nothing can be done to reverse them because we cannot go back in time. Normal people will not debate them as they are fact.

But I create other memories too, ones that are sort of based on reality, but not entirely. These memories are the result of my narration of what is or what has happened. Given that the voice in my head is there most of the time, it is easy to mistake what it says as fact vs. just being a subjective account of what happened or is happening. When it’s sunny outside and you hear yourself thinking “it’s sunny out” there isn’t an issue. The sensory input matches the narration. You KNOW that it is sunny out because you can see that it is sunny. But when the narration doesn’t match sensory input, you begin to tell a story that moves or keeps you away from reality.

An example, a new couple are watching TV. A fit attractive guy comes on the screen and the female says to her new boy friend “why can’t you look like that?” and laughs. The new boy friend gets angry and calls her a selfish and leaves. The relationship ends. Seemed crazy to hear but it’s really simple. The physical memory is clear, two people watch TV, one says something, the other says something else in anger and they stop making physical memories.

The narrative memories about the event are two completely different stories. The women made a joke, she didn’t consciously intend to make the guy feel anything negative, it was just an observation, possibly. His response was unreasonable. He got angry and there is no place for that in her life so she ended it. Her narrative is understandable and when she repeats it, it can be presented in a way that makes him seem like a complete knob.

His narrative is very different. He’s enjoying the evening with his new girl friend. He’s feeling comfortable and good for the first time in too long. In her he’s found someone who likes to exercise, cooks well, which are things he needs help with because he’s gotten kinda fat since his marriage failed a few years ago. Suddenly on the screen he sees something he wants to be like because he’s feeling like he deserves it. Life is coming together, he’s feeling good, he’s got a great girl friend who believes in him. He’s feeling better than life and out of her mouth he hears her say “I wish you looked like that” followed by a mocking laughter. He got angry, he called her names. He didn’t mean to, but why would she rip him from the happiness and remind him that he’s a failure, lost marriage, lost the house, shaky handle on reality and a fat disgusting piece of garbage? He’s better off with out her, better off without anyone. This shit isn’t worth it anymore.

I get both stories. He heard confirmation of his insecurities in her words and she wasn’t aware enough of his insecurities to NOT to say what she said. Their narrative stories are completely different although their physical memory is basically the same.

Since the narrative memories are not the same for both people, both are not accurate and given that they are fairly different from the physical memories, both need to change a little bit to reconcile these differences. And both SHOULD change to eliminate the dissonance between reality and perception. Experience, knowledge, counseling, time, evolution of thought or enlightenment are the things that will change narrative memories. Anything that provides more information can be applied to narrative memories and change them.

And your narrative memories SHOULD be adjusted repeatedly over time when new information becomes available.

The reprocessing of narrative memories tends to be the result of uncovering the cause of something that did not work, and the impact can be profound, changing an enemy into a friend when you realize their motives were not sinister. In the example above, the guy may realize that his girl friend wasn’t very aware of how sensitive he was and that he needs to fix himself before he gets into another relationship; words should not cause him to respond the way he did. She may realize just WHAT he heard vs. what she said. His response wasn’t appropriate but neither was what he heard. Sensitivity and caring are important in a relationship and when starting one you should find out what things make your new partner feel like crap and avoid saying and doing them.

You cannot change the past, but you can change the story you tell yourself about it. And you should change these narrative memories when you get new information. It’s an important part of putting the past away and learning from life.

A few weeks ago I was talking with a couple of friends and the topic of making decisive decisions came up. Jeff, being one of the most decisive people I know, stirred things up.

I asked him how he deals with the voice of doubt he gets after making a decision. He looked at me like I has just spoken a different language. I looked at Sean and asked him if he knew what I was talking about, he did. Looking back at Jeff “how do you make the voices stop?” Same look. I look back at Sean, nothing unusual with him, he knows what I’m asking.

Pause.

The three of us consider, in our own heads, what is happening. Jeff doesn’t know what I’m talking about. Jeff is really pragmatic and is a very decisive thinker and doer. What if he doesn’t hear the voices? What if they aren’t even there? He can’t possibly know what I’m talking about and if the voices aren’t there, his decisions can only be decisive.

The conversation starts again.

You don’t hear voices do you?

No, you guys do?

Yeah, almost constantly and about the stupidest to most important of decisions.

Oh. Hmmm. {I’m paraphrasing} I guess I don’t hear the voices because before I make a decision I review all the information I can and do a benefit cost analysis. Any costs I engage logically and if eliminating them will make the decision the right one, I factor that action into the decision making process. Once I’ve addressed all of the issues I’ll move forward and make the decision KNOWING that I don’t need to think about it again.

Kind of like a to-do list of things to address before you make a decision, if they can’t be cleared, you don’t action?

Yeah, that’s a fair way to look at it.

Jeff performs due diligence with his decision making so he only needs to review his choices when there is a compelling reason to – new information, change in environment – which rarely happens when you make decisive decisions because you don’t create experiences that requires you review your choices; you look towards the future vs. stirring on the past.

It was a great practical lesson for structuring decision making to allow you to make better decisions that you won’t review in the future with a doubting consciousness.

Thanks Jeff!

My good friend Kate gave me a copy of Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill {open .pdf file in new window} in the middle of July. She raved about the book, relating some of the stories and generally talking about it with a greater sense of excitement and optimism than normal. When Kate is this enthusiastic about something you just listen to what she says and do what she’s suggesting you do. I brought the book up with me to the cottage at the end of the month so I would the time to focus on it. Honestly, I wanted some of what Kate was having and taking it at the cottage seemed like the best way to gain that insight.

First off, read the book. Start doing the exercises immediately – when he says “now take some time to complete the following” do it. Fight the urge to believe you know what is the best way for you to learn. If you are reading it because you have a poverty or scarcity of money consciousness, you do NOT know the best way to learn and apply the information needed to gain a money consciousness. This is fact. Maybe 2 percent of the population have or will in their life time engender the consciousness needed to move away from scarcity forever. These are the people who naturally apply these lessons, were taught how to apply them or accepted that they don’t know or can’t apply them and made the decision to learn how. Simply put, if you start doing the exercises immediately your life will begin to improve immediately.

What have I been doing wrong? Well, strangely, not much. I’ve been taking the right actions, just directing their influence onto something else. I’m like most people in this regard, intuitively doing the right things with the wrong thing.

This book quickly filled in a lot of the gaps that my time at and since university didn’t fill in. It was a theory gap and not an experience gap which meant I was ready to move quickly once I knew what it was I needed to do. Basically, I have a voice in my head that says things, some call it thinking – most of the time it chatters away, some of the time I actively control or influence what it says, the rest of the time I am unaware of it (sleeping, exercising intensely). For a lot of my life it has been a monkey on my back slagging me about stuff, reminding me to be anxious or to think about things that I don’t need to think about which creates emotional reactions to things that aren’t happening. To silence it, I would exercise or do things that were distracting. Mediation was an effective way to gain some control over it. With effort, I’ve been able to decrease the negative impact of the voice and I’ve had some success at shaping it or silencing it. Which is where I have been going wrong.

For me anyway, that voice is a powerful influence, so powerful that I’ve dumped a lot of energy to get away from it. So powerful that everything it has said has come to reality. Amazingly (but not really when it actually starts to work) the human brain has the ability to make transmutate thoughts into reality through action. Don’t believe me, look at your life and one of the goals you have achieved. That is an example, you already have the ability to do this. Look at any of the goals that you tried to achieve but gave-up on. Your decision to quit started as a thought and your brain made it a reality. This is another example of this transmutation of thought into reality.

Since everything that voice says seems to come true my mistake has been not using it to help me get what I want. Regardless of where my goals come from – me consciously creating and directing energy towards achieving them or them being unconsciously created and thrust into my awareness by the voice – I achieve them consistently through immersion and hard work. Good or bad, positive or negative, this is what I do, and this is very likely what you do as well.

We tap into the power of that voice through auto-suggestion, which is basically a way of priming you unconscious brain with the things we want to think about or achieve. What is critical for this to be effective is to pair what you are suggesting with an emotional release. This is important because emotions seem to impact how these thoughts are stored and retrieved since they are processed differently in the brain. We need to consciously shift what goes into the brain under emotional situations from away things we don’t want onto things we do want. This is very simple to do, the book outlines it. You just need to do exactly what the book says.

Some have dismissed this book outright when I talk about it, unknowingly proving the books accuracy. “It’s new agey” or “that’s that Secret thing”. Yeah, it is exactly those things if you tell yourself it’s those things. But if you tell yourself it’s an instruction book on how to move your underlying conscious narrative onto the things you like and will eventually become, it’s that. Not wanting to believe that you have the power to make your life whatever it physically can become does not change the fact that you have been using this power for most of your life to make your life exactly how you narrate it to be.

Now if you know you have the power and can see that you have been wielding it, pick up the book, read it and follow the instructions like your life depends on it. Come back to this post a year and let me know how your life has improved.