Magic Monday: Part 3 of 3 – One Thought Experiment: Shifting Your Conditioning
Words of Manic Monday by The Bangles and modified by Susan Shaner. Musician: Dan Brodax.
Where can you find the magic at work today?
During the last three weeks, we focused on noticing and managing a dominant thought pattern. This week’s focus is on how to shift a pattern that is not working for you. To recap, here are the steps:
Notice your thoughts.
Understand where your thoughts come from: how these patterns define your belief system and have roots in your subconscious mind, typically conditioning from someone or somewhere else.
Shift a thought pattern that is not serving you in the best way.
Sometimes you can shift a pattern just by noticing it; sometimes with insight into the source of the unconscious messaging and the underlying beliefs; and sometimes you need to do some more heavy lifting over time.
To shift it over time, you need to work it in three domains: mental, emotional and physical. When you do this, you are effecting your entire energy field, which effects your vitality of spirit. So there is a fourth domain: a spiritual one. It is how you find meaning, energy and a deep engagement with life. The ways we manage our mind is foundational to vitality, which is why mindfulness practices are so popular today. True mindfulness is about noticing what is being expressed in all these domains, not just the mental one.
Today, I will focus on the mental domain. Tuesday - the emotional; Wednesday - the physical, and Thursday - the spiritual. Friday we will do our follow-up check-in. Mental – Replace your undesired thought pattern with a different thought that will direct your subconscious mind in the direction you want to shift it.
Let’s take my example of “the enoughs” – not having enough, being enough, doing enough.Last week I got clear on where this message came from and now I am clear on how it has served me. It drives me to want to do more, have more and be more. This thought sets the context for how I respond or react to people or events. The positive is, I’m always striving to grow and better myself. The downside is, it can foster exhaustion and a chronic discontentment - to never be happy with who I am or where I am at, what I am doing or what I have.
The key of your next messaging is to get clear on the shift you want to create and craft a new mantra to say to yourself when the old message surfaces. The word mantra refers to where you project (focus) your mind. In crafting your message, ask yourself, how can I retain the benefits of my message (in my case: be better, do/have what I need to), without the downside (exhaustion and discontent)? Here are two possible directions to change my thoughts:1. To accept who I am, what I do and what I have as is: ENOUGHThoughts can change to:I am enough.I have enough.I do enough.The focus here is on appreciating what is, not changing anything externally. Yet it results in external changes such as making decisions that come from an orientation of being satisfied versus dissatisfied.
Or even more powerful shifts would be to replace the word enough with mantras like:I love and accept myself exactly as I am.
I have abundance.I serve in full ways.
To recognize that who I am, what I do or what I have is MORE THAN ENOUGH:I am more than enough – I can ratchet myself back.
I do more than enough – I can take things off my plate.
I have more than enough – I purge and declutter at home (stuff) or at work (projects, emails).
The intent here is to have the thoughts change behavior.Write down your mantra. Place it in a prominent place – on your phone, on your desk, in your car, on your bathroom mirror. Say it out loud and silently to yourself. Repetition is key. You are rewiring your brain. Your invitation this week, is to play with new messaging for yourself, working it in all domains: mental, emotional, physical and spiritual. What needs to shift in your life at work or at home? It starts with you.