Structure of the Mind by Wesley Kew.
It never ceases to amaze me just how much of the world is in actual fact a figment of my imagination. At times I forget this and begin to make sweeping statements and react to so-called realities that exist only in my head. This all came to a head recently, when I began to experience anxiety at night just before bedtime. My anxiety began to interrupt my sleeping patterns and soon my sanity. In short, I was convinced that a ‘presence’ had entered into my room. Not my house just my room, this, in particular, became “curiouser and curiouser” as Alice also found in her dream world.
“Once you eliminate the impossible, whatever remains, no matter how improbable, must be the truth.”
~ Arthur Conan Doyle ~
Now my rational mind was not going to just accept this at face value. So one night at the peak of my anxiety and confusion I took a deep breath embraced the NOW. Soon I recalled, “All experience has structure”. I began to explore my life and what could be fuelling this experience. It is here that I believe curiosity to be akin to a superpower. I have found the most efficient way to remain curious is to remain in your NOW state for extended periods of time.
As Anthony Robbins reminds me ‘time is emotion’ basically our emotions/experiences influence how time is perceived. This echo’s what Einstein meant when we attempted to describe how time is relative (to experience). He explains that when you sit beside someone you love, hour’s feel like minutes. When you touch a hot plate on the stove, five seconds feels like an eternity.
I began to pose myself some solution-focused questions:
• What did I desire? To remain in my NOW state for extended periods of time.
• How, by maintaining my state of curiosity and the emotions/thoughts needed to fuel them.
• For what propose I asked myself? Well, I desired to understand the structure of my experiences and again function as a resourceful individual.
I began to ask myself about other times I had experiences similar feelings or emotions. The only memories brought forward by my NOW state were those related to loss. Soon I began to think about the recent loss of someone close to me. I sought to delve into the pain I had created following the separation. And there it was, clear as the crisp blue moon.
I had recently been sheered away from someone that I love very much. If I was to be truthful with myself, I was feeling cold without them in my life. Life had in fact lost some of its colour, tastes and joy. My home had become silent, exercise laborious and I fell into a state of apathy and fear.
As I began to confront the truths and surrender to what I was feeling I could now challenge the way I was looking at the world. As Wayne Dyer reminds us: “if you change the way you look at things the things you look at change. Slowly I began to beat back the cold silence and fill it with occasional songs. I began to ask myself what would I be thinking and feeling if “I was happy and fulfilled”. And one answer resonated over and over again, gratitude, gratitude and again gratitude. I was so busy looking at what I did not have that I was not focusing on what I did have!
Day by day I grew in gratitude and soon began to focus on the learning’s to be found from this experience. For one I am in control of my mind thus my result, however, if I’m not in control of my mind it will control me. Soon it became apparent to me that I so longed for the one that I loved that I would create them.
Even a figment of my imagination was sufficient to remove me from my current situation. It amuses me how I would rather select anxiety and the reality of a haunted room than first acknowledge my pain and sadness. I guess this is the beauty of experience and continued engagement with NLP practices.
In closing I wish to highlight the imperative nature of being filled with gratitude and as my fried reminded me today “don’t take your eyes off what you have while you are going after what you want”. All experience has structure! If you wish to understand your lived experience begin by being honest with how you have created it.
We are what we continually think about and moreover, project this in to the world and then call it reality. All to often I beg “please fill my gap, because I made it for you.” Because of you I am a better person because I want to be the person I think, you think, I am. Sure this has its drawbacks or potential pit falls, but in all honesty what does not have its drawbacks. Nothing in life is perfect, this I know. But when we are with that special someone or thing for brief moment we find a semblance of what we may be searching for. As they say, seek and you will find. I sought and then I found you now what do I do about it?
Wesley Kew, Clinical Psychologist and Master Practitioner of NLP