Today I got out of my car at my place, and as I was half out, I saw a car the same colour as mine. Not the same make of car, just the same colour.
At that precise moment, I thought, "Hey, is that my car?" Then I looked at the registration plate. "Nope. Different number. Not mine." Then I thought, "Harr!! What a bloody idiot!" and I laughed out loud.
I don't think I'm completely stupid, and I don't think I have such a bad bit of grey matter between my ears. But my brain sometimes behaves as though it has an IQ of about 2.
There is some good news in this true thing that happened to me a few hours ago: My brain
– and yours – does have an IQ of only 2, in some ways. And not only do we not have to be scared of that fact, we can use it to our advantage.
Cutting through complexity
Our own extremely high intelligence (which we all possess in some areas of our brains and our lives) is our best ally in our ability to be happier and feel better dramatically, easily and quickly. We've already seen how we can use our intelligence to feel better, and coming chapters will show more.
However, our own dumbness is our second-best friend. We're going to make big use of our own thick head. Allow me to explain.
There are as many theories about how the human mind works as you've had hot dinners. Many of them are alike, many are complementary, and many of them are mutually exclusive
– if one's correct, the others are wrong. Some people spend a lifetime studying these theories and models, and perhaps even add to the sum of human knowledge. good luck to 'em. I confess that I have never had the time or interest to study these ideas as much as many people, and perhaps not as much as you.
However, I have a basic model of the mind that works for my purposes. We won't look at that whole model of mine in this manual; just the basics. Enough, I believe, for our purposes of being able to become happier at will. We've already discussed Pavlovian conditioning, and this is crucial to my model.
To recap on Pavlov (in a nutshell): I believe that most of our mental and emotional patterns have been created by simple Pavlovian conditioning. This has happened partly when we were adolescents and adults, but mostly as children.
The patterns, or habits, make us unconsciously believe we have to think and feel certain ways, but we don't. Moreover, when we feel good we think well, and when we feel bad, we think in a confused, unclear and negative fashion. We can think our way out of this Catch-22, but usually even the processes of thinking we use are habitual
– making it Catch-44. So we need to cut the Gordian knot.
Are you familiar with the story of Alexander and the Gordian knot? Later on, if you like, you might look it up,
here.
"In Gordium, by the Temple of the Zeus Basilica, was an ox cart, which had been put there by the King of Phrygia over 100 years before. The staves of the cart were tied together in a complex knot with the ends tucked away inside. Legend said that whoever was able to release the knot would be successful in conquering the East ...
"Having arrived at Gordium it was inconceivable that the young, impetuous King would not tackle the legendary
'Gordian Knot'.
"His army leaders gathered round as he struggled with the knot for a few minutes. Then he asked Aristander, his seer,
'does it matter how I do it?'. Aristander couldn't provide a definitive answer, so Alexander pulled out his sword and cut the knot through."
Source
To 'cut through the Gordian knot' is to take direct action instead of getting tangled up. Our aim is clear (to be happier), and we can, if we like, spend a lifetime becoming full of knowledge about our condition. However, the wisest thing is to find a quick and efficient way out of the problem.
I often say, the duty of the prisoner is not to describe the cell, but to escape. Let's cut through the theories and use one, simple model (unless it fails, and then we can always improve it). It doesn't fail me, I know that. And in the past I have had a ridiculously complicated brain. Now I just want results, not clever after-dinner chat.
The dumb brain
Part of my model is that one level of our mental activity is quite unintelligent. It has an IQ of 2. It does what we tell it, but we need to know what language it understands.
Think of a tape recorder. It is full of electronics far more complex than I will ever comprehend, but on another level, it's simply this: you click on a switch and it does what you tell it to (it records).
Then there's a computer. In some ways, it has been modelled on the human brain, so it should be no surprise when I say that the brain is, in some significant ways, like a computer. Your PC or Apple is capable of unbelievably intricate 'thinking'. But look how stupid it is if you make a tiny error in its terms. It doesn't understand a URL if you make a spelling mistake, for example.
My brain, and yours, acts similarly. Yes, it's complex, but the dumb part runs much of the program. And your mother board is programmed by simple Pavlovian responses you're mostly unaware of. Fortunately, while awareness can help, it's not necessary in order to deprogram our unhappiness.
Your brain has a long memory. We've seen that: it remembers (unconsciously) a learned pattern or sequence of emotions from your childhood. But, it is also stupid and if we distract its attention (on that level), it will forget. And you can zap in with a new pattern. One you like and feel great about.
Have you ever noticed something like this? It happens to me as a writer all the time: I'm in the kitchen making a cup of tea. I have a good idea to put in one of my articles. Let's say it's an idea about Aztec calendars and Western notions of Time. I take my tea back to my desk, and try to think of that idea, but it's gone. When I try to recall my idea, all I have in my mind's eye (and ear, nose, etc) is the kitchen, the boiling kettle, the smell of tea and some vague notion of an Aztec stone calendar. The idea I had in the kitchen just won't come to mind.
What do we always do in these situations? I'm sure you do it too. To have any hope at all of remembering my concept, I go back to the kitchen. We do this because our thoughts are linked to the Pavlovian stimuli very closely. By recreating the physical environment, including the kitchen, the sounds and smells of tea-making, we stand a chance of re-stimulating the same responses we had back then
– we might feel like we did in the kitchen, and recall the thoughts that were attached to that feeling. This is just another illustration of how are thinking, our feelings, and what we carry in our mind's eye (our focus) are strongly related to Pavlovian conditioned responses. And it's also an example of how we can manipulate our brains.
I hope I'm not confusing you with my different analogies, so we return to our former image, the Etch A Sketch from Chapter 5.
We're going to shake it up. We're going to snap out of it.
Shake up the pattern
Remember Pavlov's dogs, also in Chapter 5? How they got so shaken up they forgot their conditioning? I'm sure by now you have a good idea what I'm saying. We can shake ourselves out of our patterns. However, at this point I must say that, although we can do it dramatically, quickly and easily, we need to practise and we will get much better at it. We might find we can do these following things one day very well, and the next day not so well, just as if we were learning the saxophone. That's how people learn and become skilled, so don't sweat it. Remember, progress, not perfection. If it doesn't work so well one day, say "Oops", and know that small slips are part of the process, but we are improving at this.
Earlier on, I told you that the methods in this manual are simple. So don't go looking for 20,000 words now on how to snap out of your patterns. Everything I know I learned in the first 15 minutes of stumbling upon this technique. It's so simple, sometimes I don't want to believe it myself, because I am a complex person living in a complex age, and one of my patterns is a naive expectation that the great solutions are complex. Hogwash! That held me back for decades. I've read so much, and talked with so many brilliant people, and listened to so many lectures by professors, that I couldn't see the needle in the haystack. Little wonder I ended up crazy, confused and depressed.
So, what's Pip's big secret? We snap out of it by doing something else. The dumb part of the brain, the Inner Moron, doesn't know what we're doing. The Inner Moron is easily distracted. We have inside our brains a creature of habit, and when we grab it by the shoulders and shake it up, or throw a bucket of water over its head, The Inner Moron forgets much of what it knew.
(Oh no, I just lost every reader with a university degree!! Just kidding ... I hope you'll stay with this.)
We can't pre-arrange a flood
No, we can't arrange a flood or some other catastrophe, or the alcoholic's 'rock bottom', every time we want to feel better. But we can use the principle. We can extinguish our bad patterns with lots and lots of little extinguishers. This will become clearer when you practise what follows below.
You see, we can't erase all our conditioning in one go. We have thousands of patterns on our Etch A Sketch. We can, however, erase or partially erase each of them every time we are aware that we are feeling bad, or even suffering.
Pain is part of life. Pain is mandatory, but suffering is optional. Big, painful patterns, naturally, are harder to extinguish than little ones. For example, if you are grieving the loss of a loved one, life will extinguish much of the painful feelings, but we have to give it time. (And we need to fully experience, not deny our pain
– more in later chapters.) As they say, "Time heals all wounds".
Most of the time, for most of us, our suffering isn't about immediate and huge matters such as recent loss, though we all will go through that at some time. We mostly suffer on account of practically nothing. It's just habitual.
What we need to do is to develop the observer within us to watch every day to feel what we are feeling. Remember, what we are feeling
– what our breathing is like when we get stuck in a 'mood'. What our face muscles, scalp muscles and our tummy muscles feel like. What our skin and chest feel like. What's happening in our neck and even inside our mouths. Do we get a ringing sound in the ears with such-and-such an emotion, with such-and-such a train of thought?
Identify, then shake it up
When you identify one of these patterns cropping up, and you recognise it by all these physical feelings (for all the emotions are movements of chemicals in your body, nowhere else), and you are aware of its relationship to the kinds of things you are thinking, you are nine tenths the way to liberating yourself from the hold it has had on your life!
Identify your pattern, then change it, as dramatically as you can. Don't be slack, for your power comes from action.
When you find yourself in a knot of thought, with a knotted stomach and knotted brow
– act now. Think of Alexander. And think of the Etch A Sketch. Move!
Take yourself immediately into another room, or better still, outside. At this crucial point, we want to get that whole body of yours to shake up the Etch A Sketch and extinguish the pattern. Go to the bathroom if you want, and jump around like an idiot! I won't tell anyone. Hang loose and act like a goose! It's at this point of your pattern, when you recognise each bad thought-habit and the body habits associated with it, that we can make huge changes in our own crazy, unwanted thinking.
Let me emphasise here, if you can get your body immediately into a 'posture of ecstasy', you will extinguish your pattern better than any way known to man. At the point of identifying where you're at, mentally and emotionally, and feeling what you're actually feeling in your body, if you radically alter your breathing and whole inner landscape straight away, you will have shaken up so much of your Etch A Sketch on that knot that you won't believe you could have done it. A faint picture will remain on the Etch A Sketch, but you'll shake that up another time ... next time. And next time, I promise you this (and, as you know, I make few promises in this manual) ... I promise you this, you will (a) identify more quickly, and (b) snap out of it more quickly.
With each successive shake-up, you rob the bad past of its hold on you. You have snapped out of a toxic pattern, maybe not completely, but a lot, and you see your thoughts shifting, following your new body posture and breathing.
Breathe! The more air you can get in your lungs and hold in for maybe ten seconds each breath at this point, the deeper the shake-up will be. Oxygen will help extinguish pain!
Change your body. Go into another room. Take a walk. Dance. Breathe! Shake your bootie. Have a shower. Slap yourself in the face. Jump up and down on the spot. Imitate a religious posture of worship or bliss. Walk around the office. Pretend you have to clean something on the office ceiling. Get a chair and stand on it.
Whatever you do ... just do it! Don't wait until you feel like doing something goofy with your body, like jumping around and acting like a goose. If you wait till you feel like it, it won't happen. That's just my point.
I know it can feel hard to do ... that's a measure of how much we need it. If it were easy, you know, there wouldn't be much need for the pharmaceutical industry
– except for maybe a few bottles of Wart-Kil ™.
No one's watching, so run around your room like a crazy 5-year-old. Your kids won't care
– they probably already think their parents are slightly brain damaged.
Use your five senses. Look around you. Where are you? If you are in the street, count the lamp posts between you and that building. Go outside and smell the roses. Listen closely to the air conditioner's hum. Put some gum in your mouth and taste the peppermint. Pick up the water bottle off your desk and feel the ridges on it as though they were a lover's body. Feel your own body's sexuality. Get up and count the dots on your curtains. Change your feelings in all five senses.
Be aware. What time is it? What's the date? The past has gone. That thing you're afraid of, can you see it? Of course not! It's an illusion. That bully is long gone. That ex-spouse is long gone. Your kids are probably safe and sound at school. Everything's OK. Where is the past
– can you see it? Of course not! It's gone. It's an illusion, so don't be fooled. That thing you're afraid might happen
– that's illusion too. Where is the future right now? Can you see it? Of course not! It's not here. What's here? Check out the room again. Breathe deep and long! Hold your breath. Breathe out slowly. Do it ten times. Feel your face and body. Shake them around. Make them feel good. You can. Look around the room, up and down the street
– can you see the past or the future? No! Only the present moment is here. The rest is illusion, and each time you do this, you are freeing yourself from illusion's grip. The hold it had on you no longer has power. You are becoming a champion illusion-slayer.
With each small victory in snapping out of a pattern, you gain confidence that this is a tool you can use many times a day for the rest of your life, each time making those old patterns fainter, and fainter, and fainter, and fainter, and fainter, and fainter
And that's all there is to being fantastically happy, right?
Wrong! This manual isn't seven chapters. In Chapter 1 I said we would have about 15 chapters. Hell, you're only half way there, and so am I! Don't be so impatient! Sheesh!!
Abundance and gratitude,
Pip
The
FeelGood Manual is now
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