The Liar in Your Head
(Originally Published June 20, 2019 on LinkedIn. HypnotIQ, as mentioned in the article, is a process that we use in MindBody Ops.)
One of the most difficult things to explain to people is that they can’t trust their thoughts. We live in a society that idolizes intellectualism and thinking, and yet very few people understand how thoughts arise in their minds, or where they come from.
I am not talking about consciously willed thoughts, like when you are thinking about a problem; those thoughts have directive and function. I am talking about the thoughts that ramble through our mind all day long; many of which we are aware of, but most of which we are not.
If you have a meditation practice you have experienced these thoughts firsthand. You have witnessed the crazy drama that unfolds moment to moment in your mind. The more you see how it all happens during your practice, the better you get at witnessing it as you go about your day, making you less reactive and giving you more control over your life. (If your meditation practice is more like a guided visualization, that might help you relax in the moment, but it likely isn’t providing you many tools with which to make real change and growth.)
As a therapist, there are numerous techniques that can be used to help people address their issues, but developing this awareness of one’s inner “thought world” might be one of the most important tools in the toolbox.
And yet, a very close second in terms tool importance, is the ability to not associate with or attach to the thoughts that your awareness brings to light. This isn’t just some philosophical Buddhist non-attachment concept; this is based on the fact that most of these thoughts are just the ramblings of programs that other people installed in us (or that we, in a reduced state of consciousness, installed in ourselves). And many times these stories, or programs, are rooted in very little reality.
If you aren’t conscious of these thoughts, or if you are aware of them but can’t help but become entranced in the narrative, they will determine 90 percent of how you are feeling during the day. Thus, you are not really in charge of your life, they are.
I always chuckle to myself when people say that they don’t believe in hypnotism, or that they can’t be hypnotized. We LIVE in a hypnotic state, and are always open to suggestion. It is how our minds work. If you listen closely, you will hear when people fall in to a narrative. It’s like they go on autopilot when they are talking; as if they have told the story a thousand times before (it likely that they have, by the way, even if many of those times it was only in their own minds).
To be fair, the narrative in and of itself might not be the issue. It could be that they are just good at telling the details of the story. The problem lies in the entrancement. They become fully consumed by their own story. They have a visceral experience of it as if it is reality, when in many cases it is based on projection and fantasy.
If you have never considered this, you won’t agree with what I am saying. I understand. Trust me. I know how easy it is to be duped by our own cleverness and intellect. It is true, though. And you can discover it yourself if you take the steps that are required to see behind the veil.
It is time that we all learn the mechanism of thought; to see it for what it is. And then, once we have gained an inner awareness and the ability to not associate with those thoughts, if we want to investigate the content of the thoughts, we can do so in a reasonable way.
But if we just get caught up in the content, without ever examining the actual origin of the thought, we are already caught in the sticky web of make-believe, and it is extremely difficult to find perspective and truth and power from that place.
The fact is, regardless of our life circumstances, a great deal of our suffering and unhappiness is self-inflicted via our lack of understanding of this inner world.
It is time to break out of this prison. You are holding the key to the cell, you just might not know it yet. HypnotIQ is here to help lead you to your own path to freedom.