Boggles - Mindfulness Videos Articles and Tips

Coaching Videos & Tips - December 12 2019 No.631

THIS SHOULD NOT BE NEWS TO YOU...

The stumbling blocks that are our very own expectations have been well-researched since the 1930s and elegantly demontrated by modern neuroscience.  But, within this truth, is something of enormous significance.  If your own expectations are thwarting you... change them.

And, if you want to explore how to go beyond the ordinary expectations of a normal adult lifetime, you'll find plenty to enlighten you in The Archive!

 

Today's Quick Tip

We're not too far off the end of the year.  It's time to start reflecting and taking stock.  I've a simple question for you today.  The question might be simple, the answer may not.

What expectations would you really like to have for the coming year?

A little reflection (or a lot) may be required on this one... we'll pick up the threads of this particular conversation next week as the clock ticks down to... well, you know what - the clock is always ticking.

I spend innumerable hours talking to people who would dearly love something new to happen in their lives but stoicly expect that nothing much will change.  As we said in our video two weeks ago, they are using their past experience as a guide to the future.   This is a major error.

Our past experiences are borne out of expectations we've been harbouring since childhood.  And, with each new experience, we reconfirm the veracity of our expectations.  However, this loop on which the normally-minded individual finds themselves is directly correlated with the loop on which their own thoughts run.  In fact, thought and "fact" are not simply correlaated - the thoughts are actually causal.

We know that we cannot change our thoughts.  They are akin to unwanted squaters in our head, our own version of resident evil (perhaps a little over-the-top but you get the point).  These resident thoughts constitute our expectations formed at a fundamental subconscious level.  And they will remain our expectations until we do two things - to simple and inter-related actions.

FIrstly, we must learn to stop automatically paying attention to these looped thoughts.  You know how to do that already.  But it needs to be done every day or, at the very least, most days.

Secondly, you need to deliberately give yourself new expectations.  You know how to do this too.  These expectations must excite, they must engross, the must capture the imagination, make and leave an impression.

Over the coming weeks, I'm going to go into this in great depth - providing you with step-by-step instructions and training.  If you want to get off the loop and change your life, it's time to start thinking about what that might look like... that's what today's Quick Tip is all about.

Once upon a time it was 21st birthdays, then weddings and 40th birthday parties... now I'm getting invitations to 60th birthday parties - a sign of the times!

I recently received one from someone who I thought would know better - given the extent to which they have more important things on which to spend their limited resources... they told me that they were borrowing the full cost of a big party they were throwing for over a hundred people in a top-of-the-range hotel.  It is borrowing they can scarcely afford.

I asked what was to me the obvious question: Why?  "What would our friends think of us if we didn't put on a big show?" was the reply.

deMello referred to it as the "drug of approval" - a number of my clients would refer to the waste of energy they expended on people who turned out to be acquaintances.

Don't get me wrong, I'm no party-pooper.  It's just that the whole thing was for "show" - and at quite a price.

   

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