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I’d like you to do the following…………..
Whilst not thinking about a polar bear.
Just work though the next few lines and do what it asks but don’t think about a polar bear, ok?
1. What’s your name?
2. How old are you?
3. What did you have for tea last night?
Did you answer them?
All perfectly normal questions.
Did you think about a polar bear at all whilst you were answering them?
You might not of done.
But you probably did, didn’t you?
Despite not thinking about a polar bear for, probably, days, months or years before that.
It’s hard to “not think” about something isn’t it.
Like it can be hard to “not do” things.
The easiest way I could’ve got you to “not think about a polar bear” would’ve been to tell you to think about, I dunno, a cabbage.
You probably wouldn’t have thought about the polar bear then, would you?
Doing, or thinking, something else, is the best way to not do, or think, something.
Yet we often just try to “not do” things.
“I’ll stop snacking”.
“When I’m bored, I just won’t eat cake”.
“I won’t eat after my last meal”.
“I’m not going to drink alcohol this week”.
And so on.
And we get that.
Makes sense on the surface.
And, as always, if it works for someone, that’s cool.
But it often doesn’t.
Like the polar bear, that’s the thing we’re then thinking about.
And, therefore, the thing we’re likely to do.
The last bit we hear each time we think or say that is;
“Snacking”.
“Eat cake”.
“Eat after my last meal”.
“Drink alcohol this week”.
If we, instead, plan to do something else that’s kinda the opposite…………….
That thing might have to make room.
“When I do my weekly shop, I’ll get in what I need for tasty, nutritious meals that will make me feel good and look better”
“When I’m bored, I’ll watch my favourite programme / go and and do something / give a friend a call”
“After tea I will ……………….”
“I’m going to meditate when I feel stressed, deal with the things that need dealing with and wake the next day feeling good”.
Or whatever.
Just stopping cake leaves a ‘cake shaped hole’ in our lives.
Fine if that works.
But, if not, find something to put in that gap.
No right or wrong answer.
We’re all different.
But, perhaps, ‘add in’ rather than ‘taking away’.
In a way where the other thing will, kinda, have to ‘make room’.
Much love,
Jon ‘Express’ Hall
