Held Captive by Your Own Mind

I think a lot about helping people Be the Change. I think the biggest surprise to many of them is the invisible workings of their own minds which might be just the one factor they haven’t consciously looked at.

When I was first drawn to this coaching work, I noticed that the way I thought was more uplifting and positive than some others, and that I appeared to be more successful than they were. I began to make the connection that it was thinking that was causing both my success and other’s lack of it. I decided to gain the necessary skills to teach this to people, because I love success and I want everyone to enjoy it.

Be the Change really means to change your mind. Once you accomplish that, everything else seems to fall in place. So how does one change his mind? I think that first it’s wise to observe yourself thinking and make an effort to classify how you think into two categories: positive, providing positive results or negative, providing negative results.

As you evolved through the stages in your one, sweet life, your thinking was also evolving. Initially, you were like a little sponge, absorbing all that came across the unmapped territories of your life. You were not very self-sufficient and had to be cared for. Later, you were read books and saw programs on television, and your fertile mind simply absorbed all ideas that it was presented. You accepted all these ideas as The Truth.

Some of the ideas you viewed as The Truth were not true. They were the opinions of others and while you might not have said something to your presenter, inside of your own mind, you began to think things like this:

When I grow up, I certainly won’t do it that way.
When I have kids of my own, I won’t make them go to bed this early.
I don’t like having to eat all these vegetables. I won’t make my kids do this.

Your mind was doing its early work to become more self-sufficient – to build a broad foundation that you could create and grow your life experience on.

In those early days, you simply processed your experiences mentally without being consciously conscious that you were doing it. It was your nature to process things mentally because fundamentally, you are a mental being. You have a mind because that is the core of your mental beingness.

As you lived and moved and experienced many of the things that your life had to offer, your mind began to create databases and to classify things in order, because your mind loves order. There were databases like these:

• Foods I like to eat
• Foods I don’t enjoy
• People who like me
• People whom I don’t like
• Everyday experiences that were fun
• Everyday experiences to avoid
• Favorite Clothing
• Sibling behaviors that make me angry
• Things that made me feel great about myself
• Things to avoid that made me feel bad about myself

You have a lot of database categories inside your mind today. The items in your databases are called ideas. Some ideas you classify as good; some as bad. You are continuously adding to your databases as you live your life. The more years you have of life experiences, the more clearly you can see the classifications inside your own mind. This is why I encourage you to classify how you think into two categories: positive, providing positive results or negative, providing negative results. It’s a healthy beginning.

The work of self-improvement is one of refinement. I like to think of that word as re-fine-ment. To make fine again that which was fine in the beginning. To remove the fog, the heavy covers, and the deep burying so that the light can shine on those ideas and you can Be the Change as you work on your own self-improvement.