Understanding is Power
Why? why? why?
When we’re really young children, we just accept everything, see the world around us as it is without question. As we grow, we start to want to know why. Anyone that spends time with toddlers can soon get frustrated with the never ending ‘but why’ questions. Until it makes sense to them, they will keep asking, they won’t be fobbed off with ‘because it is.’ (I know I tried that one many a time). It is their quest for understanding.
A good example of this is a rainbow, it appears like magic in the sky and fills us with awe. Then we get to a stage when we want to know what it is and how it occurs. As humans our natural curiosity it to be inquisitive and to find the meaning and understanding in ourselves and the world around us. The more you know about something the easier it is to understand it. Therefore, understanding actually gives us power.
Understanding how our mind works
A lot of the time we don’t really pay attention to things, especially when things are going along smoothly. For instance, a washing machine, when it works you don’t question it, you just fill it up with dirty clothes, press a few buttons and it makes your clothes clean again. We don’t need to understand how it does this, just so long as it does it. Same as with electricity, if the light comes on when we switch it on, we’re happy.
We tend to be a bit like this with our health, especially our mental health. We only take notice of something when it stops working the way we want it to. We don’t often visit the doctor unless something really starts to trouble us. Just like we know that exercise and a healthy diet helps to keep our body functioning well, taking time to understand how our mind works is also a great idea. It can really help us to be aware, so that we can easily pick up or notice if we start to feel or respond differently to situations.
So how can we do this?
The first step is being honest with yourself, taking the time to assess your feelings and thoughts. Asking yourself questions such as
- Are you generally happy with how you feel?
- Do you feel present in your day-to-day activities?
- Do you look forward to the day ahead?
- Are things going the way you want?
- Do you feel stressed, worried or anxious about anything?
- Have you got a short temper or get angry easily?
- Do you enjoy your own company?
- Do you like to spend time with others?
Once you’ve got some answers to these questions you can then decide if everything is how you want it to be or if you need to look in more detail at certain areas or feelings.
Outside influences have a massive effect on how we feel and it’s really good to assess these too. For example, how negative situations or circumstances affect your mood and outlook. Does the daily news (it generally tends to be all bad and hardly any good news) lower your mood or can you brush it off easily?
When you really delve into your thoughts, feelings and emotions and understand how you are affected by things you can judge what action, if any, you need to take.
What can you do if things are not how you want them to be?
This is really important as very often we choose to ignore our feelings, hide from them. Push them aside or push them down with alcohol, food or other influences. We might not even realise that we are actually doing this. If this action is sustained over a period of time, it can often lead to problems further down the line. This quote by Henry Maudsley says it all
“The sorrow which has no vent in tears, may make other organs weep.”
It’s vital for our wellbeing to acknowledge and feel our feelings.
Some practical ideas then… It’s a great idea to write stuff down. It gives us another way to asses and understand our thoughts. Talk to someone, it’s an old saying but a problem shared is a problem halved. Sharing our thoughts with someone we trust can help us, again to understand them. Have strategies in place to help us if we’re feeling a bit low, such as uplifting music, inspirational videos/podcasts, watching things that make us laugh and spending time in nature.
If the strategies don’t help and you find that things aren’t changing then you may need to seek other solutions.
A great way of finding understanding, is through hypnosis using RTT, as it’s a fast track to your subconscious mind where all beliefs, rituals and habits are formed and stored.
Understanding is Power and understanding in hypnosis is the most phenomenal power. If you would like to explore this further, book a free 30-minute discovery call with us by clicking on this link.