Your Mind Has a Mind of Its Own

Do you ever get the feeling there is another you?  A you that is hidden from yourself most of the time?

It’s true that mostly we run on automatic.  We do things, feel things, react to things and events in a pretty predictable fashion.  Often times, it is our friends and family that see us more clearly than we see ourselves.  It as if our minds have a mind of their own!

Of course that is not true.  There is no separate you. No person inside you who is not yourself.  It is more like you are playing hide-and-seek with your conscious self.  Realizing this truth is very powerful.  Although you are running on automatic, you can set the course!  That is a very powerful self-realization.  As if you were a pilot setting the automatic pilot on your airplane; you set the course, direction and speed, then the plane fly’s itself.

What does it mean to run on automatic.  Inside each of us we carry a set of beliefs.  Some of these beliefs are very strong.  They carry with them a strong emotional charge.  Others are weak, and can be changed easily with thought and reflection.  Each of us filter our whole world through these beliefs.  Everything we see, do and hear.  So like our airplane’s automatic pilot,  they keep us on course.

So when something happens in our world we unconsciously and quickly check our beliefs.  We can either accept the input, because it fits our belief system.  We can ignore the input, like it never happened. Or we distort the input to fit our views of the world.  This is exactly how we “stay on course”.  That is the other person inside you.  The other you that seems to make decisions, or feel a certain way, or react predictably.

Your friends and family can “see” how your automatic pilot is programmed much easier than you can yourself.  They will often adjust their own behavior to meet your automatic pilot’s programming.  Children are infamous for learning how to “get around” their parents programing.  So is your spouse.

Of course, beliefs can either be resourceful, and you get what you want out of life.  Or they can be negative, causing you to move away from what you want.

Of the two methods which your “automatic pilot” chooses to set your course, either distortion or deletion, I find that deletion is the easiest to overcome.  For example, let’s say that you wanted to go on a diet.   The most successful and proven method for losing weight is keeping a food diary.  A daily diary of calories and exercise removes the possibility of deleting information.

You write down what you ate and there it is, in a book.  It is very hard to ignore.  The “point” system is the same.  Counting by points is just another way of trying to set your autopilot.  Of course, our minds are extremely powerful.  We will even “forget” to write down or keep track of our points.  Totally deleting the fact that we ever ate anything at all.  This is where the fun really begins.  Taking charge of your automatic pilot, making the lasting changes, and getting what you want out of life!