Read an Excerpt
Make It Intentional
Harness the Power of Positive Perspectives
By Barbette Spitler Balboa Press
Copyright © 2016 Barbette Spitler
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-5043-4599-6
CHAPTER 1
Stinkin' Thinkin' Disempowered Thinking
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It seems so unfair to allow the children of our world to grow up without the basic understanding of how our thoughts become things. It's unethical! Understanding our intentions and the power of positive perspectives is every bit as important, perhaps more so, than reading and writing. Why? Because stinkin' thinkin' almost always starts in childhood. And it's preventable. It's so easy to teach children these concepts. Children want to be loved, lovable, and loving. They are also eager to share their love without conditions. Unfortunately, it's all too easy to squelch their gentle natures and turn their loving spirits to sadness or worse, anger. We inadvertently teach them our fears and our limiting beliefs. How many of your beliefs about life are the beliefs from your parents imprinted upon you? We restrict children's natural creativity and their natural ability for self-expression. Were you encouraged to sing and dance and draw freely when you were a child? We fail to recognize that their need for freedom, when restricted, often leads to self-conscious teens and limited adults.
Interestingly enough, beliefs are nothing more than thoughts we have thought often enough to believe they are true. It doesn't mean they are true. But we believe that they are. Someone tells us he or she had a horrible experience with a snake and we develop a belief that snakes are dreadful. Someone tells us the neighbor is creepy and we suddenly see his or her every move as sinister. Our religion tells us another religion is wrong so we believe those of another faith are misguided. Clever advertising slogans and marketing campaigns are built upon this premise. Advertisers want you to hear something often enough that you will believe it to be true!
Nearly every one of us can remember a situation where we were laughed at or felt out of place or worse, were bullied or made fun of by another student or a teacher. Seldom does the other person really intend to cause us hurt, long-term harm or sadness. No one purposely intends to teach us to devalue ourselves, right? Yet, the comments are forever etched within our subconscious. We never forget them. And if we receive other comments, thoughts or feelings which support the original comment, soon we believe it to be true. It becomes our truth.
Recently, I was reunited with a friend from grade school. We both attended an event and I recognized him. I study human behavior and can often be found watching the dynamics and interchanges between people or reading the energy of the group. I knew I would go over and reacquaint, but for a few moments I just watched him from a distance. I quickly noticed he was conflicted. He wanted to be outgoing and fun and participate in the group. Yet he sat quietly and withdrawn as if trying to be invisible. His shoulders were rounded slightly forward and he was slouched in the chair. He smiled and chuckled as he watched the animated group but he remained outside it. When I went over to chat with him, we caught up with each other and soon I discovered the reason for the inner conflict. He answered my gently probing questions with ease. He talked freely about his younger years and how his parents raised him. I learned that as a child, he was often told he "wouldn't amount to anything" and he often felt as if he had nothing to contribute or to share with others, at least nothing of value. He had little if any intrinsic value. Now in his early fifties, he realized he has made no real valuable contribution to the community. Nor had he any big success to show for his life. (I could argue for his contributions but for the sake of this discussion I will acknowledge that this was his awareness.) It was easy to see his inner conflict.
As a child, his subconscious mind had been programmed with the stinkin' thinkin' that he wasn't good enough, nor would he ever be good enough. He had heard it often. It was a consistent message delivered in a variety of different comments he heard from his parents. He felt strong emotion with it so it became his constant subconscious programming. On a conscious level he knew he could be fun and engaging. Yet, he had an inner recording reminding him he was not good enough. He felt he wouldn't be accepted by the group because of his inner knowing he wasn't good enough. No one around him knew of those thoughts. And since they were his subconscious thoughts he didn't have a full understanding of them either. Regardless, his inner dialogue continually led him to situations which supported his subconscious thoughts leading him to job losses and relationship failures. Now, I'm not at all suggesting his parents knew what they were doing. That's my point. Had his parents asked themselves, "What is my intention in saying these comments to my son?" they may have chosen different verbiage with very different results.
As a child, my family always made fun of my weight. Sometimes my brothers were mean and taunted me about eating sweets and where they would land on my already fat frame. I can remember far back into adolescence they called me names like "hippo-hips", "rhino-rump", and "barrel-butt". There was a lot of laughter at my expense. There was also the look of disgust that often came with the making fun, as if the teasing and poking fun were not enough. There were indications that I was disgusting to look at because I was so fat. Looking back at photographs from that time you can see I was far from being any of those titles. I was not skinny by any description. But I was not obese or fat either. However, I heard it often and it came with such shame and embarrassment I spent my teenage years internalizing the titles. I began sneaking food and eating it when no one could see me. I slipped away from others so no one would see how shameful I was. I ate anything and everything I wanted. I justified it by saying to myself, "I'm already fat and ugly; what's another cookie or candy bar?" I hid food in my dresser drawers and under my bed. When the mice invaded my Pecan Sandies, I was mortified! I was further humiliated because it became fuel for more poking fun at me. Then, I began to put on extra weight, too.
I carried that stinkin' thinkin' straight into adulthood. As a young adult, I continued to struggle with my weight. I would successfully lose weight and gain it back. Twice, I was over two hundred pounds on my five foot, seven and one-half-inch frame. However, once I learned how thoughts become things and how to rid myself of that stinkin' thinkin', I was able to change to healthier eating habits and was able to maintain a healthier weight and happier lifestyle. Can you imagine how much easier it would have been had I learned how to recognize and rectify the disempowering thoughts long ago? Again, it's not always easy. Internal dialogues from long ago are often deeply imprinted and a challenge to erase. But it can be done with awareness, intention and determination. Awareness is the critical first step.
What about you? What memories do you have of situations, events, or exchanges when you walked away with thoughts or feelings about being less than, not good enough, unloved, devalued or even unworthy or unacceptable? Can you remember when the initial thought was anchored into your subconscious? Are you able to see how subsequent events or life experiences fueled that belief or anchored it more fully?
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Stinkin' Thinkin' is just a silly name used to describe a much more serious pattern of thinking. Here's a partial list of other words to describe this destructive way of thinking: pessimism, low self-esteem, negative self-talk, negative thinking, low self-confidence, cynical, defeated, worthless, dejected, distrustful, unhappy, depressed, bad attitude, hateful, disempowered, rejected, judgmental, condemn, disapproval, inept, unable, can't, shouldn't, contrary, adverse, unfavorable, naysayer, and detrimental. All those descriptions are destructive. Each one describes a harmful, hurtful, and toxic way of living and being.
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Nothing good ever comes as a result of stinkin' thinkin'. You are either thinking "less than" for yourself or for another. Either will cause good situations to go bad or keep you from getting to a good situation. Interestingly enough, people who are struggling to reach their goals or for whom success seems to consistently evade them can trace back in time and find the source of the stinkin' thinkin'. There is always a root cause.
Most people are totally unaware they have some level of stinkin' thinkin' about themselves. They explain away their negative or disempowered thinking. It is far easier to blame someone else or another situation for the negative thoughts, feelings or fears.
Some people have an awareness of their own stinkin' thinkin'. They will tell me about all the work they do with positive thinking or positive affirmations. Clients will tell me about the books they've read, workshops they've attended, and lectures heard. Yet, they're confused how, in spite of their efforts, the blocks or barriers remain. They fail to see, feel or experience forward movement or attain consistent empowered thinking. Or, as soon as they remove one block, limiting belief or barrier, another one will sneak up to the surface making them feel like they're never getting ahead. One client exclaimed, "It's like there are hundreds of them waiting in single file to be heard!" It can be so overwhelming that many people will simply stop trying. They do not understand the source of the stinkin' thinkin' or how to change it.
In every book or workshop, there are messages, concepts and ideas that can facilitate our forward movement, personal growth and development. Understanding what to do with the concepts or how to integrate them into our daily practice is the key. Feeling supported while making the changes facilitates the transformation. How else can we know we are on the right track? How else can we feel the forward movement? How will we know what to do or where to turn when the momentum slows or another limiting belief surfaces?
Knowing the frustration of trying to incorporate the concepts learned from the experts into our daily lives, I started sharing the concepts in my workshops. Regardless of the workshop topic, I always include advanced concepts that often bring about great discussions. As we discuss the concepts, we each learn how to more easily integrate the philosophy of the concepts into our every day lives. And that's the purpose of introducing the concepts in the workshops and in this book. What good are the ideas, suggestions, or concepts written about in books or heard in lectures if there is no easy way to integrate them into our daily living? What help is the self-help book if its application into current lifestyle seems out of reach or too difficult to apply? Too often I've heard workshop participants express their frustration at having read the books and still feel like they have no understanding of how to put them in motion. Worse yet, those who are attempting to work the concepts into their everyday activities only to find they are experiencing backward movement or stasis - meaning no movement in any direction.
Our subconscious mind is absolutely amazing. Every single thing we have ever seen, heard, felt, thought, or experienced is permanently embedded in our subconscious memory. We cannot forget anything even if we try. That is why lying is so easy to detect. Because the truth is always within our subconscious memory and cannot be erased. We may have trouble accessing the memory of particular events, but they are always there. This fabulous feature of our fantastic brain is also the same feature that can cause us some frustration later in life. What I mean is that every negative or hurtful event from your childhood sits right beside the positive or helpful ones. Every comment the local bully said about you is etched in your subconscious. Every time someone told you how you couldn't possibly be good enough, fast enough or smart enough, your brain permanently etched it in your subconscious.
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The brain makes no consideration for sarcasm. The words heard are the words imprinted. The brain does not decipher the sender's intention. The brain records the words and our feelings about those words. If the comments are delivered with a sick sense of humor, we not only record the words but we also imprint how they made us feel. The combination of the words and the emotions they elicit have the greatest impact on our subconscious thinking.
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This begins the subconscious thinking patterning process. They can be pleasant and positive, neutral or negative messages and experiences. They can lead us to pleasant and positive thinking or they can lead to stinkin' thinkin'. Most of us have some of both. The patterning begins in childhood. It is the pattern most reinforced with repeated imprinting that becomes the inner guidance system. When those feelings or emotions are triggered later, the subconscious brain begins its internal dialogue of the historical event and quickly we are deep in the emotion of it again.
Here is an example of this subconscious patterning process. A child's peers laugh at him or her for being overweight. The child's parents tell him or her "you are too fat". Hearing new comments reinforces the message. The feeling of humiliation when laughed at becomes associated with the message. The pattern is initiated and when reinforced expands. Soon, the child's stinkin' thinkin' associates unrelated messages into the pattern. They see a commercial for a weight loss product and add that to the pattern. They try on a new pair of jeans that don't fit well and add that to the pattern. They walk between two desks at school, bump into one of them and add that to the pattern. The commercial was not created for them. The jeans were cut for a different body shape. The desks were situated too close. Each scenario is clearly unrelated but the subconscious mind records everything and files it away. Stinkin' thinkin' allows the subconscious mind to file the unrelated events into a negative pattern already in place. It's a complicated process. However, it is easy to repair, heal and reconstruct new patterns with positive perspectives.
For many people, the memories of those negative events are stronger and easier to access in our subconscious than the more positive memories. Dr. Phil once described this phenomenon by saying, "It takes a thousand atta-boys to counter one criticism". This is especially important to consider when parenting or working with children of any age. We are literally programming their subconscious mind with every comment, conversation and interaction. We have the ability to profoundly affect their future with goodness and positive perspectives or we can cause a great deal of harm resulting in hurt and anger which may take years to heal. Or they may struggle through adulthood and never find resolution to the internal dialogue of stinkin' thinkin'.
Several years ago I was at a child care center preparing to teach a workshop for the evening. It was closing time for the center and there was a lot of activity going on as teachers were closing down classrooms, children were preparing to go home and parents were in and out talking with the teachers and picking up their children. Amongst the frenzy of activity I happened to notice a young boy about the age of four. He was absolutely adorable and had a delightfully playful energy about him. I squatted down to eye level with him and said, "Well, my goodness! Aren't you just the cutest young man!" One of the staff members overheard me talking with the boy. She came over to correct me. She informed me he was not at all adorable he was "Chuckie". I gave her the quizzical look indicating I had no idea who "Chuckie" was. She explained that Chuckie was a character in a horror movie. She added, "This boy is evil itself".
I was so stunned by her comment I nearly stumbled while I tried to stand up. I was horrified. I was trying to counter her comments by looking him square in the eye and telling him he was a wonderful young man and how happy I was to meet him. I was trying to get her to stop talking while still trying to counter her verbiage. I saw the person who coordinated the evening event and waved her over. I asked the little boy to go play with the blocks over in the corner of the room. I did not want him to hear the conversation we were about to have.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from Make It Intentional by Barbette Spitler. Copyright © 2016 Barbette Spitler. Excerpted by permission of Balboa Press.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
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