Chapter Two: Mind Games

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Pain is part of any growth experience, but unnecessary suffering adds no value to your life. No one gives you extra credit for enduring unnecessary grief. Tragically, a great deal of emotional suffering is avoidable, since it is the direct result of self-esteem’s flawed logic.

People in Great Britain drive on the left side of the road but, visitors from North America proclaim:
“These people drive on the wrong side of the road! This doesn’t feel right!”

Motorists in Great Britain drive on a different side of the road. This experience doesn’t feel right to foreign drivers; therefore, to them, it must be wrong!  But everything that feels wrong isn’t always wrong—just different. This is a distinction that most people never make. They simply trust their feelings as if they all come from the same source. (They don’t.) Would you allow a five-year-old child to drive your automobile? Of course not, but some people allow a five-year old to run their lives.

I’m amused when people say the mind is like a computer. Really? Which came first? Unfortunately, most of us operate man-made machines better than we use our minds. Imagine how many more digital recorders would be flashing 12:00 if there were no instruction booklet. Our mind comes without printed instructions, and we have different opinions on how to best utilize our mind power. Invariably most of us fall into the trap of replaying old experiences and the strong feelings attached to them.

During sporting events, when a player misses a scoring opportunity, my wife and I yell out: “They’ll score on the replay!” They never do. Our mental replays aren’t so accurate. Remember my public speaking example? I replayed experiences when I least needed them. In the process of trying to overcome my panic, those old memories resurfaced. Worse still, my body recreated the appropriate physiological conditions (sweaty palms, increased heart rate, nausea, quivering muscles, flushed face etc.), and my mind responded to those “feelings” with panic. Happily, this cycle can be broken.

Habits form through repetition, but replacing old habits seems hard. This leads to beliefs such as:

• You can’t teach an old dog new tricks. 
• People resist anything new. 
• There is a natural resistance to change.

Careful scrutiny tells a different story. We do not resist all change—just changes we believe are forced upon us. Changing habits, as difficult as it may seem, is well within our control. Imagine having to constantly relearn every habit—dressing yourself, finding your way to work, making coffee, etc. What a nightmare! The problem isn’t your mind’s capacity to develop different habits—it’s accepting how habits form and changing them by choice.

We tend to confirm familiar positions rather than accept new ones or, as one philosopher put it, “Most people don’t change their mind; they just rearrange their prejudices.” Understanding and accepting this human tendency is the first step toward consciously replacing irrational fears with constructive alternatives.

My grandfather delivered milk in a horse-drawn wagon, and he told me that once the horse knew the route, it was hard to change its programming. In fact, the horse wouldn’t move until it thought the milk was delivered. Imagine riding a horse to work. You trot along to an intersection where you used to turn right, and now you want to go left. You pull on the reins and the horse resists. You pull harder the horse resists even more. The habit side of your mind operates just like a trained horse.

 In The Greatest Power in the Universe, U.S. Andersen writes about our two minds: “The subconscious mind is the horse, and the conscious mind is the rider, and the horse does what the rider tells it to, and any rider can take over the horse, but without a rider, the horse acts crazy.” 

The habit side of your mind (I call it the “Inner-horse”) has a distinct advantage—it controls emotions. When intellect and emotions cross, emotions win every time. That’s why knowing the cause of your fears is of little value. Emotions are like finances. Most people have opinions about money-management, and intend to do something about their financial future—but many fail to act on those intentions. Bank accounts grow through money management, not intentions!

Emotional management is equally straightforward and action-oriented. Knowing how to manage emotions is not enough. Until you translate your intentions into action, nothing changes. The Inner-horse wins. Unfortunately, your Inner-horse uses strange logic and flawed assumptions. Most of us let the “Inner-horse” (overemotional reactions) take over.

John G. Geier, Ph.D., co-author of The Energetics Of Personality, coined the phrase Private Logic—our “makes-sense” system. People create their own little world and behave sensibly towards it. I have a friend whose idea of relaxation is inviting friends over for a party. To me, unwinding is spending time with a small group of close friends or, better still, curled up with a good book. How many times have your friends told you about a terrific movie, enthusiastically suggesting: “You’ll love it!”? You go to see it and leave holding your nose in disgust. This is Private Logic! We see life our way. As much as we “know” this, many of us act shocked when others see things differently and behave accordingly.

For example, an executive attends a weekend retreat climbing rocks, ropes, and paddling a canoe down a raging river proclaiming: “What a great team building experience. We’re all going! It’ll be terrific!” Shocked when others respond unenthusiastically, the executive labels people as “negative,” “resistant to change,” or “a poor team player.”

In my vocabulary, good and sweat do not go together. To me, it’s an oxymoron. Objective opinion is another oxymoron. While most of us try to see both sides, we all have a distinct point of view.

Other people’s fears seem strange to us, and psychology’s quest for a deep-rooted causes often ends in disappointment. In fact, some professionals view some panic disorders simply as misinterpretations of normal body sensations.

Reread this important statement:

“Many panic disorders are misinterpretations of normal body sensations.”

With this in mind, here is the first in a series of simple, action-oriented fight-back strategies designed to help you counter self-esteem’s dirty tricks.

At first, it may be necessary to have this conversation after the panic subsides.

Here are examples of “killer” phrases and their alternatives:

  •  My back is killing me!
Substitute: My back feels sore.

  •  He/she is a pain in the (body-part of your choice.)
Substitute: I’m reacting to...

  •  I’m all stressed out!
Substitute: My demanding programming is...

  •  I am angry.
Substitute: I am getting myself upset.

  •  I can’t think straight.
Substitute: My reactions are clouding my thinking.

  •  I have to succeed.
Substitute: I want to succeed, but I don’t have to.

  •  I can’t do this!
Substitute: I’m having trouble doing this.

By strongly disputing negative or exaggerated self-talk, you significantly reduce negative stress while accepting full responsibility for choosing your emotional reactions. Please don’t let the simplicity of this idea fool you. That which appears simple may not be easy. What may be easy to do is also easy not to do.

When I was a boy, my friends played a game where we asked a person to study a room filled with obstacles such as tin cans, chairs, tables, etc. We blindfolded them and quietly removed the objects. Our “victim” carefully avoided objects that were no longer there—vividly illustrating the famous quote: “We have nothing to fear but fear itself.”

Even though your “Inner-horse” tells you: “This approach is cold-blooded and unemotional,” applying this simple procedure uses strong emotions to challenge the human tendency to pander to immediate gratification. If and when irrational fears strike, covert them into manageable concerns, responding in a way that is constructive and practical. Repeated application of this technique creates, by choice, new and different habits of thinking.

What comes out of your mouth represents your thinking. Your thinking creates your actions. Your actions produce results. Change what comes out of your mouth (even spoken in your head), and you gain access to creating new behaviors, giving you access to new and different results.

Emotions are not you. They are predetermined responses based on old thinking habits. Thinking and acting like a helpless victim is a dangerous habit and one of the many negative by-products of today’s system of self-esteem.

Joseph Wolpe works with people to overcome irrational fears by changing their behavior—not uncovering some supposedly deep-rooted cause. He routinely cures people in several weeks, not years.

In 1988, David Clark, an Oxford psychologist, proved that many panic disorders are simply misinterpretations of bodily sensations brought on by anxiety. Under mental stress, a faster heartbeat and shortness of breath are caused by over breathing—not symptoms of a heart attack. Using sound medical information, panic-stricken individuals can learn this important distinction and stop escalating harmless feelings into full-blown panic attacks. This technique produces a 90% cure rate, while for some users miracle drugs come with a host of undesirable side-effects.

The body does not analyze; therefore, using your mind in concert with your body is an effective (and intended) use of your faculties. Unfortunately some of us allow our bodies to dominate our thinking. Failing to choose and create our own feelings turns us into robots—automatons—the very outcome most of us fear! 

Managing self-talk begins our journey beyond self-esteem towards creating the life we choose!

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