There's a phenomenon I have become increasingly aware of, and which today I put a name to. If like me you are into self development, or rather you find that self development is an inevitable consequence of finding new levels of fun and general awesomeness in ones life, I'm sure this might be familiar to you.
When you become a hypnotist one thing that starts to become eminently clear is that everybody's reality is a subjective one, and is based upon their set of beliefs. This is why, on any controversial matter of opinion, you'll find that everybody is absolutely factually correct. If you don't believe me on this, just ask them.
Where this gets interesting is that people of similar opinions and outlooks will tend to seek each other out, cluster together and, not only that, through their interactions strengthen their own world views. "Everybody I've spoken to thinks the death penalty is common sense", "I haven't met anybody who thinks that a 20mph speed limit is reasonable", "Getting an Apple computer is a huge rip off, everybody I speak to on my PC support web forum agrees on that". We like to be right, and it feels comforting to be around people who we think are just like us and confirm what we already know.
We absorb our reality from the people we spend time with; we soak it up like a sponge just through our daily interactions. We can refer to the people you are regularly around in this way as one's "reference group" and they are incredibly important when it comes to your personal development.
What if up until now in your life you'd always had the same sort of friends, been around the same sort of people in school, maybe university, and in work. What will that do to shape your reality? Granted you won't be exactly like all of these people, but in many respects you are living on the same social island, the same island of reality as them. You will share their limiting beliefs too.
But now we come to you, dear reader, because I hope that you, like me, understand that you are responsible for generating your own model of reality. If you don't understand this simple truism you will find that your model of reality is at the mercy of your circumstances and often dictated by other people, and this really isn't a good thing.
So all of a sudden you realise that this isn't how it has to be, and that if you tailor your model of reality to what you want to do, what you want to be, you can push the boundaries and take your life wherever you want it to go. Furthermore, why not seek out other reference groups to spend time with, people from whom you can absorb beliefs and behaviours you'd really like to have.
This is when life starts to get exciting, but it's not without its challenges. One of the biggest of these challenges is facing what happens when you leave the island to go on this adventure, because when you return things will be different.
Let me give you an example. I recently went to a wedding; the couple were some friends of mine from a long time ago, and of course most of the guests I knew there were friends from that era. I've been at parties with these predominantly quiet and shy individuals before, and I've always been quite comfortably one of the crowd.
This time, however, I didn't want to sit quietly and talk to friends all evening, then maybe get up and dance with the group later. Oh no. After the bride and groom had started the first dance and the dance floor started to fill up with couples I spotted a pretty young woman who was obviously there on her own, walked over and asked her to dance.
I ask lots of women to dance every week. Quite deliberately I've chosen to live in a world where approaching women and asking them to dance in full confidence they'll say yes is the done thing; it's normal. So I was quite able to invite this woman into my reality.
The looks I was getting from my old friends were startling. Nobody knew quite what to make of it, because to them it just isn't what happens.
How the hell did he do that? Can he really just do that?
I could sense discomfort and in some respects I felt as though I'd brought an elephant into the room which everybody was far too polite to talk about.
I was recently listening to a recording of a talk given by a hypnotist by the name of Mark Cunningham and he used a phrase "disturbing the consensual reality" which sums the situation I have described above here perfectly I think. Sometimes it will just shock people, but in some cases it can even cause resentment.
People live their lives inside cages of their own devising. Learning to spot your cages and escape them, I believe, is the best and only way to a truly fulfilling life. At the same time be prepared for the natives to get restless.
Tuesday, 20 September 2011
Monday, 15 August 2011
"I'm no good at that"
Following on from my last post about magic I feel I should talk a little bit about incompetence.
I am reminded of a comment I once heard one of my favourite songwriters come out with many years ago now. Sharon Corr, who is a solo artist these days but was best known as the violinist from The Corrs, was talking about the business of writing music for the band to play. Whilst I forget the exact wording the pearl of wisdom she conveyed was that the thing about song writing is that when you start writing the songs you write aren't very good, but if you keep writing they do get better over time.
It may sound like the most obvious statement in the world, and yet I think that there is a truism about the human experience here that so many people completely miss throughout their entire lives.
I'm thinking, as an example now, of what most people say when I suggest they try dancing.
"Oh no," the usual response goes, "I'm no good at dancing, I have two left feet."
Well really? You've not danced much or at all before and you are stating the fact that you don't think you're any good at it as a reason not to have a go.
How, if I may ask, would you be any good at dancing if you've never done it?! Really?
As with most things, the people who are good at dancing are the people who have danced, and have danced a lot. At some point in the past they were not very good at dancing, just like you. What makes them different? Well, they stuck with it long enough to become good.
Here's the lesson:
If you want to be good at something be prepared to be very bad at it.
I think it's important to get away from this attitude toward "talent" that seems to be all pervasive in our society. This notion that exceptional ability is a gift that's given indiscriminately to a lucky few, as opposed to a competence that is earned through persistence.
The bad news is that being exceptional doesn't drop out of the sky and into your lap. The good news is that being exceptional doesn't drop out of the sky and into anybody else's lap either. Yes some people may start slightly ahead and have an easier ride due to circumstances and more resources at their disposal, but long term the one thing that will make all the difference is your attitude. With the right attitude you will always have the advantage.
Afraid you won't be a good hypnotist when you try with your first subject? Guess what, you won't be! Keep at it though and soon enough you will.
I am at present enjoying developing my fledgling skills as a magician. I am not a brilliant magician. I have come to accept that every so often my "is this your card?" will be met with a blank look and a shaking of the head. Heck, I had a day a couple of weeks ago where I did four tricks in a row and none of them worked! The one thing I can tell you for certain is that it will happen again, I will fail, and not least because as I improve my skills I will constantly be trying to execute more difficult tricks.
Push your boundaries or they will never move and you won't grow as a person. Don't just do the things you can do; do the things you can't.
"Dancing? I've never done anything like that before and it really wouldn't have occurred to me to try... Sounds like fun! Let's go!"
If you need any more inspiration, take a look at this:
Step outside your comfort zone and study yourself failing
I am reminded of a comment I once heard one of my favourite songwriters come out with many years ago now. Sharon Corr, who is a solo artist these days but was best known as the violinist from The Corrs, was talking about the business of writing music for the band to play. Whilst I forget the exact wording the pearl of wisdom she conveyed was that the thing about song writing is that when you start writing the songs you write aren't very good, but if you keep writing they do get better over time.
It may sound like the most obvious statement in the world, and yet I think that there is a truism about the human experience here that so many people completely miss throughout their entire lives.
I'm thinking, as an example now, of what most people say when I suggest they try dancing.
"Oh no," the usual response goes, "I'm no good at dancing, I have two left feet."
Well really? You've not danced much or at all before and you are stating the fact that you don't think you're any good at it as a reason not to have a go.
How, if I may ask, would you be any good at dancing if you've never done it?! Really?
As with most things, the people who are good at dancing are the people who have danced, and have danced a lot. At some point in the past they were not very good at dancing, just like you. What makes them different? Well, they stuck with it long enough to become good.
Here's the lesson:
If you want to be good at something be prepared to be very bad at it.
I think it's important to get away from this attitude toward "talent" that seems to be all pervasive in our society. This notion that exceptional ability is a gift that's given indiscriminately to a lucky few, as opposed to a competence that is earned through persistence.
The bad news is that being exceptional doesn't drop out of the sky and into your lap. The good news is that being exceptional doesn't drop out of the sky and into anybody else's lap either. Yes some people may start slightly ahead and have an easier ride due to circumstances and more resources at their disposal, but long term the one thing that will make all the difference is your attitude. With the right attitude you will always have the advantage.
Afraid you won't be a good hypnotist when you try with your first subject? Guess what, you won't be! Keep at it though and soon enough you will.
I am at present enjoying developing my fledgling skills as a magician. I am not a brilliant magician. I have come to accept that every so often my "is this your card?" will be met with a blank look and a shaking of the head. Heck, I had a day a couple of weeks ago where I did four tricks in a row and none of them worked! The one thing I can tell you for certain is that it will happen again, I will fail, and not least because as I improve my skills I will constantly be trying to execute more difficult tricks.
Push your boundaries or they will never move and you won't grow as a person. Don't just do the things you can do; do the things you can't.
"Dancing? I've never done anything like that before and it really wouldn't have occurred to me to try... Sounds like fun! Let's go!"
If you need any more inspiration, take a look at this:
Step outside your comfort zone and study yourself failing
Tuesday, 2 August 2011
First Timers I ½ - Magical!
Earlier this year I wrote a blog post intended to give advice to all those wannabe hypnotists out there who have yet to take the plunge and hypnotise a subject.
I made a start at the second post, plunging into details for a routine that these hypnotists could try but every time I started writing there was always something that kept nagging at me. Something was missing from the first post, I knew that. What was worse was that I knew exactly what was missing and the reason I hadn't brought it up, which was that I didn't have the answer.
What is the biggest problem for most of us when it comes to starting out in hypnosis?
I don't know about you, but for me the problem is scarcity. It feels as though willing subjects to try this out on are few and far between. What this inevitably means is that we end up subcommunicating neediness whenever we approach a potential subject. They feel as though you want something from them and can get defensive. Some may be curious enough to get past this and give it a go, but the next pitfall comes from being worried about failure because who knows when the next opportunity will be.
This is a biggie. It's THE biggie as far as I'm concerned.
What we really need is a different frame to the situation, and I did hint at this in my last post. Your potential subject should be the one asking, begging, you to hypnotise them.
Indeed, some of the best impromptu subjects I've had in the past have actually thanked me afterward for the huge favour I've done them. One actually apologised for spoiling my quiet evening out.
So how does one arrive at this desirable state of affairs? I figured it out recently and, believe me, what you are about to read could possibly be the most useful lesson you will ever learn as an aspiring impromptu hypnotist.
6. Get a pack of cards. Learn some tricks.
You heard me.
I should explain. A couple of weeks ago I was at a party in London that John Morgan had invited me along to. It was a charity fundraiser, and so John had also invited along another of the London Magic and Hypnosis crew, a magician called Mike Stoner.
Now, Mike is absolutely awesome at what he does, and he's also a people approaching machine. So after we'd spent a little while catching up we started wandering around the tables and Mike wowed each with some incredible magic and mentalism. Now, when I say incredible I mean "that card you chose and signed with a pen isn't in the deck, it's actually here in my wallet" and "also, the name of the card you chose is written on the pen I gave you at the start" incredible.
More than watching Mike at work though, both in seeing how easy he found it to approach people and in his presentation, I am indebted to him for what did next, which was to say this:
"If you think that's impressive, my colleague here is a hypnotist."
And I was in!
Did I mention that this party had the largest number of attractive young women I've seen in one place? It's a hard life it really is!
What's the lesson here?
I'd say it's this. There's a reason why the thought of approaching a group of people and saying "Excuse me would you like to be hypnotised?" feels weird, and that's because it is! It's such an unexpected and unusual proposition that a lot of people will default to the safe "no thanks" answer before even considering it.
As I said before, a different frame is needed. If you approach a group of people with a pack of cards and whilst shuffling them in your hands ask if they like card tricks they are much, much more likely to be intrigued and keen to see what you have to offer. Often if you're at a party all you need to do is produce the cards and shuffle them before someone asks you if you know any tricks with them. Seek out any environment where people want to be entertained and you'll find an impromptu magician is always welcome.
You don't even need to learn that much magic. In these days of YouTube it's so damn easy to learn a few basic tricks too. I know just four, all based on the overhand shuffle, but that's more than enough. You can go from group to group doing the same few routines over and over and getting good at them. Your audience don't know that they've just seen your entire repertoire and they don't need to know.
Set out to do magic, not hypnosis. Set out to entertain others, not acquire something for yourself. Let the subjects come to you.
What you are doing with each group is you're setting the frame. In their eyes you become an authority figure on magic and that sort of thing, you're demonstrating to them that amazing things happen around you and that you can lead them through fun experiences.
I have found that people are naturally curious about how and when you learned magic and when the inevitable question about that comes you can reply thus:
"I'm actually a hypnotist; the magic's just a hobby."
Try it. You'll be amazed at the responses you'll get.
I made a start at the second post, plunging into details for a routine that these hypnotists could try but every time I started writing there was always something that kept nagging at me. Something was missing from the first post, I knew that. What was worse was that I knew exactly what was missing and the reason I hadn't brought it up, which was that I didn't have the answer.
What is the biggest problem for most of us when it comes to starting out in hypnosis?
I don't know about you, but for me the problem is scarcity. It feels as though willing subjects to try this out on are few and far between. What this inevitably means is that we end up subcommunicating neediness whenever we approach a potential subject. They feel as though you want something from them and can get defensive. Some may be curious enough to get past this and give it a go, but the next pitfall comes from being worried about failure because who knows when the next opportunity will be.
This is a biggie. It's THE biggie as far as I'm concerned.
What we really need is a different frame to the situation, and I did hint at this in my last post. Your potential subject should be the one asking, begging, you to hypnotise them.
Indeed, some of the best impromptu subjects I've had in the past have actually thanked me afterward for the huge favour I've done them. One actually apologised for spoiling my quiet evening out.
So how does one arrive at this desirable state of affairs? I figured it out recently and, believe me, what you are about to read could possibly be the most useful lesson you will ever learn as an aspiring impromptu hypnotist.
6. Get a pack of cards. Learn some tricks.
You heard me.
I should explain. A couple of weeks ago I was at a party in London that John Morgan had invited me along to. It was a charity fundraiser, and so John had also invited along another of the London Magic and Hypnosis crew, a magician called Mike Stoner.
Now, Mike is absolutely awesome at what he does, and he's also a people approaching machine. So after we'd spent a little while catching up we started wandering around the tables and Mike wowed each with some incredible magic and mentalism. Now, when I say incredible I mean "that card you chose and signed with a pen isn't in the deck, it's actually here in my wallet" and "also, the name of the card you chose is written on the pen I gave you at the start" incredible.
More than watching Mike at work though, both in seeing how easy he found it to approach people and in his presentation, I am indebted to him for what did next, which was to say this:
"If you think that's impressive, my colleague here is a hypnotist."
And I was in!
Did I mention that this party had the largest number of attractive young women I've seen in one place? It's a hard life it really is!
What's the lesson here?
I'd say it's this. There's a reason why the thought of approaching a group of people and saying "Excuse me would you like to be hypnotised?" feels weird, and that's because it is! It's such an unexpected and unusual proposition that a lot of people will default to the safe "no thanks" answer before even considering it.
As I said before, a different frame is needed. If you approach a group of people with a pack of cards and whilst shuffling them in your hands ask if they like card tricks they are much, much more likely to be intrigued and keen to see what you have to offer. Often if you're at a party all you need to do is produce the cards and shuffle them before someone asks you if you know any tricks with them. Seek out any environment where people want to be entertained and you'll find an impromptu magician is always welcome.
You don't even need to learn that much magic. In these days of YouTube it's so damn easy to learn a few basic tricks too. I know just four, all based on the overhand shuffle, but that's more than enough. You can go from group to group doing the same few routines over and over and getting good at them. Your audience don't know that they've just seen your entire repertoire and they don't need to know.
Set out to do magic, not hypnosis. Set out to entertain others, not acquire something for yourself. Let the subjects come to you.
What you are doing with each group is you're setting the frame. In their eyes you become an authority figure on magic and that sort of thing, you're demonstrating to them that amazing things happen around you and that you can lead them through fun experiences.
I have found that people are naturally curious about how and when you learned magic and when the inevitable question about that comes you can reply thus:
"I'm actually a hypnotist; the magic's just a hobby."
Try it. You'll be amazed at the responses you'll get.
Monday, 9 May 2011
Self-deception
I was recently catching up on episodes of a podcast that I listen to, and highly recommend, called Radiolab. It's a science podcast predominantly but what I like about it most is that it is presented by telling the human stories behind the science. Go have a listen!
Anyway, there was an episode from last summer entitled Deception which was all about lies, why people tell them, and how they can be spotted. The full episode is still available to listen to here. The last section, at 47 minutes in, was to me the most interesting because it covered the subject of self-deception.
It's really worth a listen. The conclusion that the researchers being interviewed came to is that our abilities at self-deception can actually be looked on as a good thing, as a gift as such. They discovered that people who are more successful and happier in life tend to be better at deceiving themselves, where those who look at just the cold hard facts may tend to be down or depressed. The obsession with being objectively correct that many of us with a more scientific or logical background may have can be a very bad thing at times.
To me this all makes sense and it ties in with my last blog post, which was about faith. I guess faith is in itself a form of self-deception.
There is a message here to anyone looking for success or happiness in life, and I think especially to aspiring hypnotists. Disregard anything in the past that, however real and tragic it may seem, gives you negative feelings, step into the moment and go forward expecting happiness and success.
You are awesome and can do anything you put your mind to. Believe it! Deceive yourself for long enough for it to become true.
Anyway, there was an episode from last summer entitled Deception which was all about lies, why people tell them, and how they can be spotted. The full episode is still available to listen to here. The last section, at 47 minutes in, was to me the most interesting because it covered the subject of self-deception.
It's really worth a listen. The conclusion that the researchers being interviewed came to is that our abilities at self-deception can actually be looked on as a good thing, as a gift as such. They discovered that people who are more successful and happier in life tend to be better at deceiving themselves, where those who look at just the cold hard facts may tend to be down or depressed. The obsession with being objectively correct that many of us with a more scientific or logical background may have can be a very bad thing at times.
To me this all makes sense and it ties in with my last blog post, which was about faith. I guess faith is in itself a form of self-deception.
There is a message here to anyone looking for success or happiness in life, and I think especially to aspiring hypnotists. Disregard anything in the past that, however real and tragic it may seem, gives you negative feelings, step into the moment and go forward expecting happiness and success.
You are awesome and can do anything you put your mind to. Believe it! Deceive yourself for long enough for it to become true.
Wednesday, 16 March 2011
Faith
Another day, another comment on Facebook written by a fellow atheist taking a dig at religion.
This time: "Science flies you to the moon; religion flies you into buildings"
Years ago I may have applauded along with the crowd at such a comment but nowadays I sigh at how my left-brained friends manage to so completely miss the point, which is one about belief.
Now, I'm agnostic; I see no evidence for the existence of a supreme being so I do not believe in one, but at the same I cannot disprove the existence of one either (if that sounds wishy-washy to you bear in mind I have a similar stance on the subject of the easter bunny).
Where I part company with many of my other godless friends is that I think that a life without faith is likely to be empty and unfulfilling. I just personally don't agree with religious faith.
To explain, as a hypnotist I feel I have more than a little insight into the human mind's capacity for belief. Let's face it, we're all capable of unquestioningly believing crazy things, evolution has wired us up that way, and the most impressive thing about belief is the way that it affects the nature of reality. I don't think that any kind of thinking is going to affect the objective universe, such as allow people to use telekinesis to unbend corkscrews, open a channel of communication to the deceased or make deities pop into objective existence, but bear in mind that none of us actually lives in an objective universe. You, and everybody you meet, live in a subjective universe, which is just your mind's interpretation of what your senses are telling you.
You are responsible for generating your perception of reality.
To the faithless the only way to think is one where belief follows evidence. This is fine if you want to work out something objective, such as calculate the age of the universe, but I think it's important to realise there are other areas in life where the scientific mindset doesn't have all the answers and can actually lead to mediocrity and misery. Those all too real entities in our worlds such as confidence, happiness, fulfillment are not objective quantities.
Faith, to me, is to place belief before evidence. Successful people, happy people, achievers, don't look for evidence that they will be successful, happy or get what they want; rather they believe it first. When we believe something our mind and body work overtime in thousands of imperceptible ways to make that thing true for us. This is why, for example, athletes will actually spend time just imagining perfect performance.
I think that a little faith is missing from a lot of peoples' lives. There are too many people waiting for evidence of the things they want from life so that they can then believe that they can have them, and in doing so they place the cart before the horse.
Faith
Faith and relationships
Here's an example that's been on my mind for the last few days.
I recently read a book entitled He's just not that into you by Greg Behrendt and Liz Tuccillo (two of the minds behind Sex and the City). It's a self-help book aimed at women wanting to understand men, but I was curious to get a bit of perspective and indeed a lot of it could apply to both sexes. It covers all sorts of different situations that might come up but there is a common theme, which is that there are times when by far the best thing to do is to cut the guy loose and move on.
This is a lot easier to say than to do of course, for both men and women, because this scene is set against the backdrop of what I've heard called, rather aptly, "the great emotional depression". This is a concept I read about in a book called If I'm so wonderful why am I still single? by Susan Page (both of these volumes reside on my allocated "scare women away" bookshelf). Page comes to a similar conclusion as Behrendt, that people perceive their own self-worth to be so low and good partners to be in such short supply that they stay in better-than-nothing relationships lest they never find anyone else. Low self esteem everywhere; it's like the economic depression of the 1930s except it's not money that's not circulating freely, it's singles.
A lot of my friends are couples and when two people are really good for one another there's a chemistry that I think is just wonderful to see and this somehow transcends my jealousy. They remind me why I am single.
There are no two ways about it, being single is very difficult at times but there are worse things than being single. There is, for example, being in a relationship that isn't going anywhere and yet holding on in hope that there is a future, somehow things will get better, or kidding oneself that this is as good as it's ever going to get. The problem is that this isn't so apparent from the inside; it's very difficult to admit to oneself that there are no butterflies and that low self esteem is at least partly responsible for cementing a relationship together.
I know lukewarm better-than-nothing relationships can be comfortable but the terrible truth is this: whilst someone is invested in such mediocrity one they are closing themselves off to finding something truly amazing. That person with the capacity to truly melt their heart may just show up, see they're unavailable, sigh, shrug shoulders and move on to pastures new without them even realising.
This is where we come back to faith; to choose to be single in todays world is a massive leap of faith. It's about knowing what you want, what you truly desire, and believing without question that somewhere out there at some point in the future you will find it. Keeping the faith through the inevitable lonely evenings is difficult; keeping it in the face of romantic opportunities that are admittedly agreeable but fall short of ones needs is even more difficult.
There's no way to prove that special person is out there; it's about having faith.
Faith in oneself
Heraclitus, a greek philosopher, once said "Character is Destiny".
The people who live truly remarkable lives suffer the same setbacks and circumstances as anyone. What makes these people different? Well the difference comes from inside of them in the form of their set of beliefs.
I think it's important to decide who you are and where you want to go with your life, be it in your career, relationships, or any other goals.
If you believe, truly believe, that you can achieve great things your mind and body will move mountains to make this true. If you decide that it is in your character you will put yourself out there, get the knowledge, take the risks, make the mistakes, earn the experience and learn the lessons to get where you want to go.
The way to a great destiny is through character and a great character comes through belief.
Faith is a wonderful thing.
This time: "Science flies you to the moon; religion flies you into buildings"
Years ago I may have applauded along with the crowd at such a comment but nowadays I sigh at how my left-brained friends manage to so completely miss the point, which is one about belief.
Now, I'm agnostic; I see no evidence for the existence of a supreme being so I do not believe in one, but at the same I cannot disprove the existence of one either (if that sounds wishy-washy to you bear in mind I have a similar stance on the subject of the easter bunny).
Where I part company with many of my other godless friends is that I think that a life without faith is likely to be empty and unfulfilling. I just personally don't agree with religious faith.
To explain, as a hypnotist I feel I have more than a little insight into the human mind's capacity for belief. Let's face it, we're all capable of unquestioningly believing crazy things, evolution has wired us up that way, and the most impressive thing about belief is the way that it affects the nature of reality. I don't think that any kind of thinking is going to affect the objective universe, such as allow people to use telekinesis to unbend corkscrews, open a channel of communication to the deceased or make deities pop into objective existence, but bear in mind that none of us actually lives in an objective universe. You, and everybody you meet, live in a subjective universe, which is just your mind's interpretation of what your senses are telling you.
You are responsible for generating your perception of reality.
To the faithless the only way to think is one where belief follows evidence. This is fine if you want to work out something objective, such as calculate the age of the universe, but I think it's important to realise there are other areas in life where the scientific mindset doesn't have all the answers and can actually lead to mediocrity and misery. Those all too real entities in our worlds such as confidence, happiness, fulfillment are not objective quantities.
Faith, to me, is to place belief before evidence. Successful people, happy people, achievers, don't look for evidence that they will be successful, happy or get what they want; rather they believe it first. When we believe something our mind and body work overtime in thousands of imperceptible ways to make that thing true for us. This is why, for example, athletes will actually spend time just imagining perfect performance.
I think that a little faith is missing from a lot of peoples' lives. There are too many people waiting for evidence of the things they want from life so that they can then believe that they can have them, and in doing so they place the cart before the horse.
Faith and relationships
Here's an example that's been on my mind for the last few days.
I recently read a book entitled He's just not that into you by Greg Behrendt and Liz Tuccillo (two of the minds behind Sex and the City). It's a self-help book aimed at women wanting to understand men, but I was curious to get a bit of perspective and indeed a lot of it could apply to both sexes. It covers all sorts of different situations that might come up but there is a common theme, which is that there are times when by far the best thing to do is to cut the guy loose and move on.
This is a lot easier to say than to do of course, for both men and women, because this scene is set against the backdrop of what I've heard called, rather aptly, "the great emotional depression". This is a concept I read about in a book called If I'm so wonderful why am I still single? by Susan Page (both of these volumes reside on my allocated "scare women away" bookshelf). Page comes to a similar conclusion as Behrendt, that people perceive their own self-worth to be so low and good partners to be in such short supply that they stay in better-than-nothing relationships lest they never find anyone else. Low self esteem everywhere; it's like the economic depression of the 1930s except it's not money that's not circulating freely, it's singles.
A lot of my friends are couples and when two people are really good for one another there's a chemistry that I think is just wonderful to see and this somehow transcends my jealousy. They remind me why I am single.
There are no two ways about it, being single is very difficult at times but there are worse things than being single. There is, for example, being in a relationship that isn't going anywhere and yet holding on in hope that there is a future, somehow things will get better, or kidding oneself that this is as good as it's ever going to get. The problem is that this isn't so apparent from the inside; it's very difficult to admit to oneself that there are no butterflies and that low self esteem is at least partly responsible for cementing a relationship together.
I know lukewarm better-than-nothing relationships can be comfortable but the terrible truth is this: whilst someone is invested in such mediocrity one they are closing themselves off to finding something truly amazing. That person with the capacity to truly melt their heart may just show up, see they're unavailable, sigh, shrug shoulders and move on to pastures new without them even realising.
This is where we come back to faith; to choose to be single in todays world is a massive leap of faith. It's about knowing what you want, what you truly desire, and believing without question that somewhere out there at some point in the future you will find it. Keeping the faith through the inevitable lonely evenings is difficult; keeping it in the face of romantic opportunities that are admittedly agreeable but fall short of ones needs is even more difficult.
There's no way to prove that special person is out there; it's about having faith.
Faith in oneself
Heraclitus, a greek philosopher, once said "Character is Destiny".
The people who live truly remarkable lives suffer the same setbacks and circumstances as anyone. What makes these people different? Well the difference comes from inside of them in the form of their set of beliefs.
I think it's important to decide who you are and where you want to go with your life, be it in your career, relationships, or any other goals.
If you believe, truly believe, that you can achieve great things your mind and body will move mountains to make this true. If you decide that it is in your character you will put yourself out there, get the knowledge, take the risks, make the mistakes, earn the experience and learn the lessons to get where you want to go.
The way to a great destiny is through character and a great character comes through belief.
Faith is a wonderful thing.
Friday, 25 February 2011
Intuition
I recently had a disagreement with a person I know. I won't go into specifics but suffice to say I had stated something to her which I knew to be a fact.
No, I was told, that's not right. I was even called a liar.
Well fine, I responded, but here's why what I say is true. Fact, fact, fact, and therefore, orignal fact.
All of that is true, came the reply, but I am going to believe my intuition.
Any logically minded individual will recognise the kind of frustration this has the potential to engender. What does this say about this person? Does it mean she's stupid, or insane? Well, no. What it means is that she's just human.
Imagine you were rolling dice and you rolled a 1, say, five times in a row. What does logic tell you the result of the next roll will be? What does intuition tell you it will be?
I once knew another person who insisted to me that her first impressions of a person always turned out to be right. As I got to know her better I could see that in her subjective view of the world she was absolutely right. The reason for this was that everything she saw of a new person after their first meeting was being viewed through the filter of her first impression. It's not uncommon either, it's something everyone does to some extent.
A few months ago I was at a social gathering and I made eye contact with a woman I'd never seen before. I met her gaze and held it, and it was about four or five seconds before she looked away and wandered off. Now, any guy who has studied attraction will know what effect holding a woman's gaze until it's her that breaks it can have. Sure enough when I actually got introduced to her she was all smiles and visibly nervous. I met her on several more occasions and by the end she was dropping fairly unsubtle hints that she wanted me to ask her out.
I am willing to bet that had I acted differently in those first few moments my relationship with this person would have been entirely different. Why? Because when she and I actually met her intuition was probably already telling her that I am strong, comfortable and confident and therefore attractive. If I'd done what a lot of men do when they make eye contact with a woman, which is to look away and down, she certainly would not have thought about me in the same way. The same people, the same lives and values, but a completely different relationship.
This isn't just with women of course, men are also completely capable of thinking this way. We all, trust me, do it far more often than we realise. Women are, on the whole, much more prone to making up their mind based on the premise of their infallible "Women's intuition".
Actually, whilst I'm commenting on the complete irrationality of the fairer sex I'll mention an interesting thing I found during my brief forray into online dating, which is that in this context women trust their intuition despite (given the nature of communication being text only) most of it not being plugged into anything. It's like a case of communicational phantom limb syndrome.
Most men of course simply see large breasts and think "Hmm, that woman must definitely be a nice person!"
This is what I'm getting at: often the intuition is arguably very wrong, but as far as the person is concerned it is right. Get the other person's unconscious intuitive process on board and there is no end to the sort of stuff you can get away with; likewise strike the wrong chord and it doesn't matter how honest you are. This is why, for example, people will happily get taken in by con artists, and why some of the most harmless honourably intentioned yet lonely men get rejected by women as creepy.
So there are two things to take away from this I think. The first is the understanding that getting a person's intuition on your side is crucial to having a positive influence on them. People don't instinctively judge you as good or bad based on your expressed morals, beliefs or intentions, they base it on your presentation of yourself. Putting yourself across in a way that wins over another person's intuition is learned skill, but it's worth learning because if you can do it their logical brain will often jump through hoops to agree with you. I would call the extreme example of this hypnosis.
Conversely trying to fight a person's intuition with facts, regardless of how true and clear they are to you, is a losing battle. The telltale is the emotional attachment, and clawing at it with logic will only make it dig itself in deeper.
The second thing is to begin to recognise when this is happening to you. If somebody challenges you on something you believe and you feel yourself getting emotional about it this is a good sign that there is some level of irrationality to your thinking. One very important lesson I've learned is which feelings to take as a sign that I need to stop and reconsider my own beliefs - there's a particular feeling of discomfort that tells me I'm definitely onto something.
Admitting to being wrong in the face of strong emotions that tell us we're right can be difficult, but those who can do it stand to learn a lot and grow as people.
It's harder to be wrong than right.
So going back to my earlier disagreement. As you would expect I performed an amazing feat of conversational hypnosis, engaging her on an emotional level, so convinving her that my opinion is worthy of her trust and thus winning her over to my argument.
Actually no I didn't. Sometimes you just have to let people believe whatever bollocks they want to believe. Sometimes the best thing one can do is just walk away.
No, I was told, that's not right. I was even called a liar.
Well fine, I responded, but here's why what I say is true. Fact, fact, fact, and therefore, orignal fact.
All of that is true, came the reply, but I am going to believe my intuition.
Any logically minded individual will recognise the kind of frustration this has the potential to engender. What does this say about this person? Does it mean she's stupid, or insane? Well, no. What it means is that she's just human.
Imagine you were rolling dice and you rolled a 1, say, five times in a row. What does logic tell you the result of the next roll will be? What does intuition tell you it will be?
I once knew another person who insisted to me that her first impressions of a person always turned out to be right. As I got to know her better I could see that in her subjective view of the world she was absolutely right. The reason for this was that everything she saw of a new person after their first meeting was being viewed through the filter of her first impression. It's not uncommon either, it's something everyone does to some extent.
A few months ago I was at a social gathering and I made eye contact with a woman I'd never seen before. I met her gaze and held it, and it was about four or five seconds before she looked away and wandered off. Now, any guy who has studied attraction will know what effect holding a woman's gaze until it's her that breaks it can have. Sure enough when I actually got introduced to her she was all smiles and visibly nervous. I met her on several more occasions and by the end she was dropping fairly unsubtle hints that she wanted me to ask her out.
I am willing to bet that had I acted differently in those first few moments my relationship with this person would have been entirely different. Why? Because when she and I actually met her intuition was probably already telling her that I am strong, comfortable and confident and therefore attractive. If I'd done what a lot of men do when they make eye contact with a woman, which is to look away and down, she certainly would not have thought about me in the same way. The same people, the same lives and values, but a completely different relationship.
This isn't just with women of course, men are also completely capable of thinking this way. We all, trust me, do it far more often than we realise. Women are, on the whole, much more prone to making up their mind based on the premise of their infallible "Women's intuition".
Actually, whilst I'm commenting on the complete irrationality of the fairer sex I'll mention an interesting thing I found during my brief forray into online dating, which is that in this context women trust their intuition despite (given the nature of communication being text only) most of it not being plugged into anything. It's like a case of communicational phantom limb syndrome.
Most men of course simply see large breasts and think "Hmm, that woman must definitely be a nice person!"
This is what I'm getting at: often the intuition is arguably very wrong, but as far as the person is concerned it is right. Get the other person's unconscious intuitive process on board and there is no end to the sort of stuff you can get away with; likewise strike the wrong chord and it doesn't matter how honest you are. This is why, for example, people will happily get taken in by con artists, and why some of the most harmless honourably intentioned yet lonely men get rejected by women as creepy.
So there are two things to take away from this I think. The first is the understanding that getting a person's intuition on your side is crucial to having a positive influence on them. People don't instinctively judge you as good or bad based on your expressed morals, beliefs or intentions, they base it on your presentation of yourself. Putting yourself across in a way that wins over another person's intuition is learned skill, but it's worth learning because if you can do it their logical brain will often jump through hoops to agree with you. I would call the extreme example of this hypnosis.
Conversely trying to fight a person's intuition with facts, regardless of how true and clear they are to you, is a losing battle. The telltale is the emotional attachment, and clawing at it with logic will only make it dig itself in deeper.
The second thing is to begin to recognise when this is happening to you. If somebody challenges you on something you believe and you feel yourself getting emotional about it this is a good sign that there is some level of irrationality to your thinking. One very important lesson I've learned is which feelings to take as a sign that I need to stop and reconsider my own beliefs - there's a particular feeling of discomfort that tells me I'm definitely onto something.
Admitting to being wrong in the face of strong emotions that tell us we're right can be difficult, but those who can do it stand to learn a lot and grow as people.
It's harder to be wrong than right.
So going back to my earlier disagreement. As you would expect I performed an amazing feat of conversational hypnosis, engaging her on an emotional level, so convinving her that my opinion is worthy of her trust and thus winning her over to my argument.
Actually no I didn't. Sometimes you just have to let people believe whatever bollocks they want to believe. Sometimes the best thing one can do is just walk away.
Tuesday, 1 February 2011
Serendipity from misery
Last night I figured something out about my own hypnotisability. It's early days, but I think I've hit on something fundamental, and what's more it's so blindingly obvious that I can't believe that it didn't occur to me sooner.
To make this discovery I needed to be extremely miserable. I have to say one of the best pieces of advice I've ever been given about being single, which I wish I'd know years ago, is that it's important to give oneself permission to be miserable from time to time. Don't get me wrong life is great at the moment for me but inevitably for any singleton there will be a day each month when they come home late to an empty home after a long day at work and the lack of companionship does tend to bite somewhat. In these situations it is best to face the negative feelings directly to get over them rather than to try to deny them or feel guilt for having them and end up wallowing in it for days.
For some reason on this particular occasion I decided that a hypnosis mp3 or two would be a good idea for something to listen to whilst I mulled over my state of mind. I find that when hypnosis is working best my thoughts fly off on a tangent and then fade, rather like a spark from a Catherine wheel. My idea was I'd listen to the mp3 whilst distracting myself with my own contemplation.
I went out like a light.
Not only that, over the course of the fastest hour in history the feelings turned from misery to intense joy.
Here then is my discovery about my own hypnotic response, and indeed why in the past it has varied so much. It seems that for a good trance I need to be emotionally charged.
The most ridiculous thing is that I have known about the significance of emotions in hypnosis for a long time. Indeed one of my pet peeves is the people who come to hypnosis from a background of computer programming (why are there so many of them?) and think that it is basically the same kind of dry, emotionless, command-action based process. "if this, then you will do that", and so on. A true hypnotist doesn't care about eliminating syntax errors, they are more interested in making sure their subject feels good. Crucially, following a suggestion should always be downhill for the subject; easier and more pleasant to follow than to snap out of it.
The concept that an emotional state is powerful catalyst, if not an absolute requirement for hypnosis should have been obvious to me.
This another one of those things that good hypnotic subjects know already, and thus a lot of hypnotists don't know because it's not something they've ever needed to instruct. Indeed the mp3s I have been listening to do nothing to induce an emotional state other that instructing the subject to relax.
So here's the lesson boys and girls: if you want a good trance, go for an emotional response.
To make this discovery I needed to be extremely miserable. I have to say one of the best pieces of advice I've ever been given about being single, which I wish I'd know years ago, is that it's important to give oneself permission to be miserable from time to time. Don't get me wrong life is great at the moment for me but inevitably for any singleton there will be a day each month when they come home late to an empty home after a long day at work and the lack of companionship does tend to bite somewhat. In these situations it is best to face the negative feelings directly to get over them rather than to try to deny them or feel guilt for having them and end up wallowing in it for days.
For some reason on this particular occasion I decided that a hypnosis mp3 or two would be a good idea for something to listen to whilst I mulled over my state of mind. I find that when hypnosis is working best my thoughts fly off on a tangent and then fade, rather like a spark from a Catherine wheel. My idea was I'd listen to the mp3 whilst distracting myself with my own contemplation.
I went out like a light.
Not only that, over the course of the fastest hour in history the feelings turned from misery to intense joy.
Here then is my discovery about my own hypnotic response, and indeed why in the past it has varied so much. It seems that for a good trance I need to be emotionally charged.
The most ridiculous thing is that I have known about the significance of emotions in hypnosis for a long time. Indeed one of my pet peeves is the people who come to hypnosis from a background of computer programming (why are there so many of them?) and think that it is basically the same kind of dry, emotionless, command-action based process. "if this, then you will do that", and so on. A true hypnotist doesn't care about eliminating syntax errors, they are more interested in making sure their subject feels good. Crucially, following a suggestion should always be downhill for the subject; easier and more pleasant to follow than to snap out of it.
The concept that an emotional state is powerful catalyst, if not an absolute requirement for hypnosis should have been obvious to me.
This another one of those things that good hypnotic subjects know already, and thus a lot of hypnotists don't know because it's not something they've ever needed to instruct. Indeed the mp3s I have been listening to do nothing to induce an emotional state other that instructing the subject to relax.
So here's the lesson boys and girls: if you want a good trance, go for an emotional response.
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