“I’m sorry, I have a cold”

A line from a Monty Python sketch giving a completely irrelevant answer to a question asked in an interview.

Why have I quoted this?

It demonstrates the use of another potentially dangerous word, and one you and I use all the time.

It’s one of the key communication channels between our conscious mind and the subconscious.

One of the rules of the mind, as collated by Marisa Peer, is ‘the mind only does what you tell it to do or what it ‘thinks’ you want it to do’.

Hence the need for absolute clarity in what we think and say in our conscious minds.

The danger, the risk, comes when you and I think or say the words “I have”, our unconscious mind takes it as read that we do actually ‘have’ or possess it in reality.

This is how it works: my job (says the subconscious mind) is to sustain the situation I’ve been told about or to make it happen.

Let’s consider some examples.

You or I say “I have a cold”.

Our subconscious mind accepts this as the status quo.

It hasn’t been asked to do anything about it, so we keep the cold, or the headache or any other ailment or situation we say to ourselves we ‘have’.

Our subconscious, which could fix it, instructs the body it’s the current state of affairs and it doesn’t need to do anything about it as we have taken possession of whatever it is we, to be honest, don’t really want or enjoy.

Of course, the opposite works as well. ‘I have’ can be extremely useful.

Let’s take a simple example.

You or I say “I have an amazing home”. Now, here’s the thing.

If the statement doesn’t conform to actuality, to reality, and you don’t have such a thing, the subconscious will work on the basis that you do, and put into place all the circumstances and actions you need to operate in order to make it happen.

I appreciate this concept may sound unusual or difficult, but I can assure you it’s real and has worked for me many times over the last 65 years.

The whole concept of ‘having’ and ‘possession is entirely human, involving the ‘left, conscious mind, brain’. No other life forms on the planet ‘possess’ or ‘have’ anything and even if they seem to they don’t as far as we know have the concept of ‘ownership’.

Other life forms do ‘have’ abilities, to swim, to run, to hunt, to gather and so on but again it’s doubtful if they ‘know’ or conceive anything about it.

Indeed ‘awareness’ itself is largely a human concept. We have no evidence other life forms on the planet are ‘aware’ of anything and of course neither do we humans have, or are aware other life forms experience the thoughts and feelings we do.

They may respond to changes in the weather or other environmental circumstances but there’s no evidence they do anything other than respond to them in an appropriate (for them) way. Ask yourself – what does a tree ‘do’ when it rains?

We humans ‘have’ things, ‘possess’ things, which in my opinion is entirely contrary to the ‘laws of nature’ and how this has developed is a conundrum. Getting forward to basics you and I, as ‘human beings’ need to properly understand what we are ‘doing’ when we talk or think about ‘having’ or ‘possessing’.

If you’d like to discuss this further please book a call.