Why I Know You Can Change Reactivity

   Your brain cannot think two things at the same time.  It may seem like you can, but actually, you’re popping back and forth between streams of thought.

    And, sense YOU’RE IN CHARGE, you can force feed something new into your brain and blast those nasty little put down thoughts OUT.  When I was showing jumping horses I had a bad crash on a wall.    Okay, now I was freaked.  (I was never a monument to guts to start with.)  But now I was paralyzed.  I’d go around a series of fences, then came the wall.

   The thoughts screaming in my head were:  ”You’re going to crash!  You’re going to mess this up!  You’re going too fast–no too slow–too fast–LOOK OUT!”  Because my Emotional Guidance System was running the show, my THOUGHT STREAM was likely to CAUSE TO HAPPEN what I FEARED would happen.

   My coach’s plan was this, “Barbara, from the instant you come through the In-Gate, I want you to sing Mary Had A Little Lamb at the top of your lungs.  She planted herself on the railing in the coliseum and anytime my voice straggled, she yelled, “I can’t hear you!  Louder!  Louder!”

   It worked. I stopped concentrating on all the terrible “what ifs” and let the horse take care of both of us.  Of course, my singing nursery rhymes at the top of my lungs sort of took the horsy set dignity out of my ride, but it wasn’t like I’d never humiliated myself in the showring before.

  This is a start.  For now, try to collect a few of your “thought streams” that create difficulties in your life. 

Possibles:

      “I know he doesn’t love me.”

        “You are such a control freak!”

      ”You jump on every chance to say I’m wrong.”

      “I’ll never accomplish my goals.” 

     “No one in the world knows how to drive except me.”