Coaching Videos & Tips - April 18 2019 No.599
NOT AGAIN? YES... AGAIN
Someone told me last week that she was fed up with me saying the same thing... that nothing had changed for her. My reply? "I'll keep saying it until you listen - then something will change!" Now, today's video is, actually not a repeat, it builds on our last video and, I think, you might get a little something out of just less than 3mins viewing!
Take a few minutes to be. Fix your gaze on something around you and just gaze. The first thing you'll notice is the automated tendency we all have to judge... we might say to ourselves "this is a waste of my time" or "this is silly". You might remark that what you're looking at is "nice" or "mundane" or "not worth looking at"... that is the mistake you would make because what is before your very eyes is real, what you think about it (and you) is not.
We're almost there...
Yes, next week will be Issue#600. How exciting!!! - something not to look forward to because... you're living in the now, aren't you! Of course, in the now, you can browse all the previous videos and tips, all 599 of them in The Archive!
I find myself talking to more and more unhappy people: people under pressure, anxious, worried, fed up, angry or just plain worn out by the fact that every day seems pretty much like every other day. Perhaps they're people who join a gym every January (you'll have to read today's Normal Crazy People story to know what I mean!!).
Nothing that is making them unhappy is real. Yes, we're under pressue - but thinking about how much pressure we're under turns that pressure into stress. Yes, we can be angry. But anger derives from thinking about something that has happened and is, therefore, in the past. Yes, there are things that we would prefer not to happen in the future - but to worry about them happening only pours our psychological energy into what we don't want to happen... that's what I mean when I put the words "normal" and "crazy" together. The point is that it's not what's going on around us that evokes these negative feelings, we do that ourselves and, all too often, we do it again and again. And, for those who are that way inclined, today is pretty much like yesterday - and tomorrow will be a repeat performance.
Thinking is at the root cause of unhappiness. Yes, bad stuff happens, but thinking about what has happened makes it happen again. And, what's worse, second time around, we do it to ourselves... by thinking about it.
A little thinking is a dangerous thing! Don't get me wrong, if you're paid to think - and lots of people are - that's what you do, it's how you employ the expertise for which you're paid. But that's not the thinking that I'm talking about. I'm talking about the rubbish of trying to undo, redo or make-over the past (some actually make it up!); the nonsense of thinking about the future that we don't want to happen and, most of all, the self-dibilitating crap we think about ourselves. All this rubbish starts and ends with thinking.
Neither you nor I can stop thinking. But we can stop letting the thoughts "entertain" us (clearly the wrong word!), we can stop empowering our thoughts to disempower us. We're called "Human Beings" - not "Human Thinkings". We need to stop thinking and start being. When you get there (and it can happen in the twinkling of an eye) everything is different - because when you perceive what is, instead of what you think is, your reality changes and that changes absolutely everything.
Now, finally, anyone for Easter Egg?!!
Anyone in the fitness business will tell you that people who join a gym in January will, on average, visit the gym twice. Not twice in January, twice ever... although I'm sure there are many who repeat the performance every year. We are talking about Normal Crazy People, aren't we!
However, Lisa tells me that the frequency with which members are visiting her gym has rocketed over the last week. Members are thronging the fitness area, notepads, clipboards and iPhones in hand, counting the number of orange tiles in the ceiling... because whoever gets the number right will enter a draw for a huge chocolate Easter Bunny! Yes, saturated fat is the prize for all those fitness freaks!
And, if you don't believe me (what can't speak can't lie!) here's a photo of the said Easter Bunny (scary-looking isn't he)... he's currently on display for all to see as they peddle and jog their way towards... Easter!
