Would you like to silence your inner critic and sleep soundly at night?

Can you imagine starting your next project easily, without waiting for everything to be perfect before you begin?

Would you like to move past the fear of what "they" might think, and speak your opinion with confidence and clarity?

 

Think about how much of your life is run by the stories you tell about yourself, or to yourself, at an unconscious level.

All that inner mind chatter is really a series of stories about what you can’t do, where you don’t measure up. Stories like:  Who am I to speak up? They don't really care what I think.  They're so much more together than I am…They've got more experience, more knowledge, more education…I shouldn't have messed that up!! I have to get it perfect – next time I'll have everything figured out before I start!

 

You know, that whole internal dialogue that can kick in and run like the energizer bunny.

 

What's your version? Our inner chatter may not always be negative. But have you noticed – left to its own devices, your inner mind just don't seem to loop through your stories of how great you are with quite the same energy!

 

As a mind re-mapping expert, I think about stories a LOT. I use cutting edge techniques to intentionally shift the stories that are playing like movies inside. You actually can clear out the old, fearful stories that stop you in your tracks, and replace them with your own deep, core knowings – the ones that support you and launch you into being fully and completely who you REALLY are.

 

In a fun and sort of playful demonstration: by changing an internal picture, a person can be easily brought to detest a food that they previously desired to the point of obsession, in just a few minutes. That's cool – and perhaps for some people would be huge. And – think about the broader implications.

 

Consider if the picture (the story) to be changed is one about whom you get into relationship with.

Imagine that you have linked danger, passion and intimacy in your brain wiring. That means that in order to feel passionate, you need to place yourself in a dangerous situation. Picture the kind of relationships you will create – abusive, unavailable, or fleeting. It's a chaotic, horrible cocktail in which you will swim, repeatedly, all your life – until you change it.

 

Now, imagine being able to unhook those neural connections, so you reconnect with the deeper truth that passion and intimacy will only exist when you feel safe, valued and loved.

 

Can you FEEL the immediate difference in the kind of relationships you are going to build in your life?

 

This applies across the board – to relationships, weight, financial stability – you name it. You have a built-in full sensory movie playing inside, at an unconscious level, about what you expect in every area of your life.

 

In the areas where you are happy and satisfied, your inner picture is congruent with what you consciously want. In those areas where you are struggling, your inner movie is NOT.

 

Put bluntly, if you are broke, living paycheck to paycheck, I will tell you right now: you have an inner picture and dialogue about money, that tells you something about how you shouldn't have much of it. Perhaps unconsciously you believe that people who have money are greedy. Money doesn't come without struggle. etc. One thing is for sure: somewhere, at a deep level, you have a negative picture associated with having money.

 

Does this get you wondering? What might your unconscious pictures be?

 

One way to get an idea is to look around you, in various areas of your life. Through this filter, what do you now imagine you expect about money? Relationship? Health? Happiness? Work?

 

It’s a really useful exercise to take on – go through the various areas of your lfe, and inventory the actual results you are seeing in the world.

 

Especially look for patterns. Do you create patterns with money, in relationship, in your work? What happens over and over, when you really examine it? Where are the places where in thinking you were taking on something new – like a new relationship – only to find a few months later that it’s the same old scene with a different body?

 

What does that tell you about the story you are telling yourself about relationship?

 

There are a few things you can do about this – one is to actually rewrite the story.

 

Start with the Snuffleupugus Scramble.

 

Your goal is to scramble the old story – just make it laughable. Think of it like this – the old story is like a vinyl record. By using this technique, you’re scratching the vinyl so the record can never play again. Basically, you’re just teasing it away.

 

1. Begin by writing your story in the most whiny, victimized voice you can elicit. Go ahead – blame anyone and everyone except yourself. Make it a page or two long. You can just do the highlights…or lowlights.

 

2. Find a loving friend who’ll play with you. (You can do this in the mirror, but it’s more effective to have a witness.)

3. Read through your story, as dramatically as you can.  Yes, out loud. To your friend. Feel your victimization, go ahead. Just for now. Try your hardest to really make it real. Get into your story and tap into the hidden part of you that really believes this. You may not want to claim that, but if you’ll tap into it, this process will go deeper. After all, SOME part of you is attached to it, or it would have been gone a long time ago.

3. Read it again, with even more drama. Make it like a soap opera.

4. Read it again, and POUR ON the drama. Over the top.

5. Read it again while you are tap dancing.

6. Sing it to the tune of Happy Birthday, or some other silly song.

7. Lastly, hang an arm down in imitation of Snuffleupugus, the Sesame Street character. Read it in Snuffy’s voice.

 

Now – just how real does this story feel now?

 

Now, replace this with a new story.

 

Write out the story of your life, through your relationships (or whatever life context you are working with). Make it a hero’s journey – which means starting with what is true at the beginning, the challenges that showed up and how you, as the hero, were temporarily taken down by them, how you handled the challenges and came out victorious, what you learned so that that old pattern never happened again.

 

Tell yourself THIS story. Use it to fill the gap that has been left by using the Snuffy Scramble.

 

It’s all in your mind. Yup – so pay attention to what’s in there, and make it work FOR you! Why carry around stories that disempower you? There are many, many ways to change your stories and your patterns.

 

If this was useful, please leave a comment!!