The Dickens Process – What Are Your Beliefs Costing You?

A lot, says I! Honest, when I first moved here, I met wonderful people.  An array of wonderful people, then when one incident (in terms of not being let into a bar because I was black, and hearing rude remarks, and seeing how my Irish and American colleagues were treated far better at work and society than me) led to many others….I decided to believe that all Thai people were openly racist towards people of color.

I want you to ask yourself these questions…
What has each belief cost you in the past, and what has it cost people you’ve loved in the past? What have you lost because of this belief? See it, hear it, feel it.

What is each costing you and people you care about in the present? See it, hear it, feel it.

What will each cost you and people you care about 1, 3, 5, and 10 years from now? See it, hear it, feel it.”

Here’s an example from an audio text from a persistent smoker….

“If they are coughing like crazy right now [from lung cancer], how do they keep smoking? They say to themselves, ‘Well, I smoked for years and it was never a problem.’ Or they say, ‘It will get better in the future. After all, George Burns lived until 102 smoking cigars.’ They find the exception to the rule because no one knows what the future is. We can make it up, we can convince ourselves it’s going to be okay. Or we can remember a past time in which it was okay. That’s how people get out of it.”

We continue to do the same things that we know are killing us, from past thoughts and actions, incidents, to physical things such as smoking.  We always find a way to convince ourselves that it’s going to “be all right,” don’t we?

It’s kind of like when we feel pain in one time zone—meaning past, present, or future—we just switch to another time zone rather than change, because change brings so much uncertainty and so much instability and so much fear to people.

There was a time that Tony Robbins held a seminar called Unleash The Power and did an emotional flood exercise which I practically do every morning in terms of thinking of some of the best times I felt loved, in joy, and in tune as a child.  With Oprah Winfrey in attendance, among so many others, you can see tears streaming down the faces of the attendees because we literally forget about all the great that has happened in our lives. Video: (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=smhzRqHkpZs)

“Perhaps it’s time for you to take a temporary break from pursuing goals to find the knots in the garden hose that, once removed, will make everything else better and easier? It’s incredible what can happen when you stop driving with the emergency brake on.”

Excerpt From: Timothy Ferriss & Arnold Schwarzenegger. “Tools of Titans.”