SHIFT YOUR THOUGHTS TO CHANGE YOUR MIND
LIONS AND TIGERS AND BEARS. OH MY!
The characters in the Wizard of Oz provide an allegory for how faulty thinking creates a faulty personal projection.
Dorothy represents the naiveté of a wholesome All – American girl- much loved and protected by the family who surrounds her.
And yet- she longs for a more idyllic place “over the rainbow”.
The Lion laments his lack of nerve and verve, his absence of courage. While the Scarecrow longs for a heart, the Tin Man projects he would be truly fulfilled if “he only had a brain.”
And the Wizard maintains a fearful projection of power, control, and wisdom. Even so, he sends Dorothy to quell the Wicked Witch- lacking the power to do so himself.
The commonality is that each character, through faulty thinking, limits his/her own life. The science of neuroplasticity allows us to reach beyond the limits of our practiced thoughts and create more healthy ones.
Dr. Joe Dispenza’s research encourages us to “lose our minds to create a new one.” Literally, our thoughts create our life. Dr. Dispenza suggests that the human mind has between 60 and 70 thousand thoughts each day.
Of these thousands of thoughts, 90% of them are the same thoughts we had yesterday, and the day before that and the day before that…. This 90 percent “rule” promotes repetition, and the repetition cues the brain to fire the same nerve cells over and over.
And as the brain nerve cells fire together, they eventually wire together.
There is little surprise to find that by age 35, 95% of who we are is merely a set of memorized thoughts and behaviors- ones we have continually repeated. The thoughts and behaviors merge into what we project as “just how we are.”.
BUT….what IF, we want or need to selectively change? Change a long held thought that has led to a practice of belief that we know no longer serves us?
To train the brain to work differently, we must use new thoughts to replace the old ones. To ferret out the thoughts that harm us, we use our feelings to identify the culprits. When a thought or action doesn’t feel right the attached thought or behavior is negative/no good/ costing us.
AND, even if this feeling may have hitchhiked with us for years, it is one that can be successfully pruned from our future. Does this selected feeling/ thought/emotion involve complaining and blaming? Yes?
Then that feeling has pointed the way to our stress response. And stress, avoidable or not, begins with an emotion we enlarge or even fabricate. Left “on” the stress response points us towards unhappiness or disease.
So… the Wicked Witch, the stinking thinking, must be observed, patrolled and interrupted. Interrupted by a new thought that surrounds the old one with a new intention.
For example, you may have harbored negative feelings and thoughts about your sister in law for years- beginning with the time she embarrassed you at a family reunion a decade ago.
Since we are genetically wired to the historical fight or flight response, you may have substituted your flight with avoidance. And you have practiced your avoidance, based on the practiced thought of your dislike- for ten years.
And yet, you still have to endure her! What knowledge do you have that you could apply to this unhealthy thinking? What resonates as a stronger and healthier thought?
Perhaps compassion for the sister in law? If that rings true, you must wrap the new thought of compassion around every old and familiar sister in law thought every time it reoccurs.
This requires practice and repetition!! While you are practicing your new sister in law thoughts, the Flying Monkeys will swoop in to convince you to stick to your old thoughts!
And these “mind monkeys” can only be dispersed through diligent practice and repetition of the new thoughts. Practice and repetition WILL prevail! The new thoughts become the loudest in our mind drowning out the wails of the mind monkeys.
With the new thoughts come new neural brainwaves that create new patterns that create new behaviors, new emotions and a new (healthier) relationship to your sister in law.
Each of the characters in the Wizard of Oz affected change through re-wired thinking. Dorothy learned that her heart’s desire truly existed in her own back yard.
The Wizard found that he did not need to manipulate others to own his personal power. The Tin Man, the Lion, and the Scarecrow already possessed the brain, the courage and the heart to be who they desired.
YOU have the wisdom, the courage and the heart to CHOOSE who you want to be. AND … you already OWN the backyard of your own brain!
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- 9 Years as Facilitator for local retiement adjustment group
- Bachelor of Science in Education (B.S.)
- Three Master's Degrees (M. Eds) in Learning Remediation, Vocational Education and Administration.
- Certified Family Transitions Coach (Certified Through Coach Training Alliance)
- Active member of International Coach Federation.
- Lifelong learner and practitioner of gracefully applying grit to life's challenging transitions.
Email: Julie@JulieGreen.org
Phone: 208-755-2824
