Mechanism
There are a number of factors that can be said to affect mindset. It is
sort of a chicken and the egg scenario. Does our mindset affect our life or
does our life affect our mindset? To be clear both are true. Our mindset does
affect our life and so is our mindset affected by the life we experience.
Many will simply try to take this as an opportunity to express their
belief one way or another. Perhaps the mindset we choose to have will steer us
in the direction we are traveling, but then our mindset is altered by the
direction we end up traveling. Anyone who suggests that you are not affected
by the things that happen in your life is not being honest about their own
experience. It is another thing entirely to become infected by those things.
To be effected is to acknowledge the experience and determine how it will
ultimately affect the outcome of your life. To be infected is to let the
situation or situations fester into something that merely needs to be removed.
In the psychologists chair you will often find this person trying to make heads
or tails of their life, trying to get back to normal. It is really difficult to
convince this person that changing their mindset will in fact change or alter
the course of their life; in the same way… they are paying big bucks for that
very thing. It is the mindset that the psychologist is tampering with or better
said, allowing the patient to tamper with and alter.
The psychologist (if they are any good) will merely listen to the
patient, guiding them through thoughts and memories in hopes that they will
begin to work out of their life; whatever they have worked in. When I was a
child, perhaps 3 years old, I had a chair that was my favorite. It was a little
school chair, just my size and it fit me well. My older sister loved to play
school with me because she could sit at the head of the class and teach me all
the lessons she had been given in her classes. It was not particularly fun for
me but she was my older sister and there was some obligation put upon me to
participate in her games.
On one particular day of this form of make believe I was not paying very
close attention to her, I was fiddling in my seat and mucking around the way
toddlers do when they get bored. At some point in the passing events I found my
head stuck in that little hole between the seat and the chair’s back. I had no
idea how I had gotten into this mess, I simply knew that my head could not be
removed. This elicited a touch of panic in me that would definitely make the
situation worse.
My mindset was so thoroughly controlled by the situation that I found
myself in, that I could not even consider an actual solution to the problem. I
totally bought into the fear that I felt, that I would never get out of this
situation, that I would be injured and in pain. None of this was rational; it
was the panic of a foolish child.
So much of our mindsets are the result of panic moments, the programming
of a life that does not give us the results we hoped for or desired. If you
swerve out of the way of a kitten and total your car by hitting a tree, you are
set to program your mind in another way… the kitten may be safe but what about
your car? To some this is a fair trade, and they will do the same again without
thought, they will not adjust the program. To others, it is not worth the
damage. Let me up the ante a bit; let’s imagine that when you swerve to avoid
the kitten you do not see the child playing next to the tree.
I do not need to be graphic here; your mind probably defaulted on the
worst possible scenario. Few would let that sort of program remain; they will
add an adjustment to the value of the kitten’s life. If I swerve to save one
life and take another then my program needs to include this new information, my
actions need to reflect the new thought pattern.
Back in my childhood room my sister tries to calm me down. She talks to
me comfortingly, but I suspect that she does not want mom and dad involved. I,
on the other hand, find that mom and dad are just who I need. While I scream in
fear she tries to tug on my body and pull me free before they come. This does
not work… it only creates more fear and panic in me and the situation is more
critical than I thought… I am really stuck.
No comments:
Post a Comment