Change of Mind

I've been thinking recently about changing my mind. Ever since I've become a hypnotherapist I've started to watch my words and my thinking. I notice my emotions more and that incessant inner chatter. I notice how I give "reality" to my thoughts. If I believe something to be the truth, then it's the truth. If I think something is going to happen then "By God, it's going to happen." Or at least that 's how it used to be. Right now, I'm starting to see a crack appearing in my thoughts. An opening and a knowing that I need to leave a lot of space for things to unfold and spirit to work. I've started to notice how most of us jump to negative conclusions. Maybe jump is too mild a word - leap is probably better. We do that when we judge others, but we especially do it when we judge ourselves.

Most of my clients are incredible people: accomplished, educated, thoughtful, spiritual... They come to hypnosis for stress relief or weight loss - the standard things. Looking at these people externally you would never image how little self esteem they have. All that mental chatter, all the negative self-talk, that inner critic that eats away at our internal image year after year. Why do we do that to ourselves? It's our thoughts that hold us prisoner, not our "reality." Hamlet was right when he said, "Why, then, 'tis none to you; for there is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so."

So such is my personal and professional struggle to try to find a chink in our mental armour and a way around the prison of our thoughts. In our society we support the embracing of negativity. It's as if we are in one big support group, whether around the water cooler or the soccer field. Who has the worst story? Who can find the most fault with themselves or others? We are comfortable in this negativity. It surrounds us like a baby blanket and we wallow in its darkness. We love our "shadow side." It never threatens others and it keeps us one with our clan. Yet I can't help thinking if this lack of self-esteem and refusal to face our "beauty," is the result of fear.

As Marianne Williamson once said, "“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness, that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, and fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small doesn't serve the world. There's nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We are born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It's not just in some of us, it's in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.”

And isn't that enough to make you want to change your mind too?