That your whole life has been a series of labels you have applied to yourself?
Applied by your mind!!
Labels are part of our lives even if we don’t ever notice them. After all aren’t you a parent, wife, son or daughter, colleague, boss and so on. They may just seem unavoidable society titles but they can stick. Get glued in when descriptions are added before them – supportive husband, good son, hard working colleague.
And then we begin living that label as it also attaches to our mind.
The trouble is some labels come with life, but others are fostered on us whether we want them or not. And it’s these that are often the ones hardest to remove from our own minds and the minds of others.
As one famous singer found out.
Tagged as a troublemaker.
We all had one great friend at school our parents didn’t approve of.
They didn’t know them but labelled them as a trouble maker. From that point they could never see them as anything else. It’s far worse when you are someone famous and the media tags you as someone you are not.
That is what happened to Paul McCartney in 1972.
That year an infamous and shocking event occurred in the British controlled Northern Ireland. At a civil rights march in Derry in January 72, British troops opened fire on unarmed civilians killing 13 of them. It’s a horror that is still argued over to this day. Paul McCartney also felt that horror due to his Irish heritage through his mother.
Believing that such events would happen again and the violence would escalate as a result, his peacemaking side thought it should be better if the issue over the territory was sorted. He penned the protest song, ‘Give Ireland Back to The Irish’.
Instantly he was labelled a political activist, pro-IRA, and a trouble maker so the song was banned from radio playlists. His stance through his music added labels to him that persist to this day and many have never forgotten, or forgiven, him for the song.
And that’s what labels do…..they stick!
Long time labels.
For Paul McCartney the song was released over 50 years ago but the labels remain.
Most of these were generated, and continue to be promoted, by the media.
Our mind is like the media in this way. It accepts a label, often from long ago that was never correct or fair, and keeps running it like a story that the newspapers always dig up and re-use. One we were usually given that seeped into our consciousness.
Let’s say you were called insensitive in the past. Or a selfish lover. Maybe it was lazy worker or poor with money. Some throw away comment made by someone who normally didn’t fully know the whole story.
But, the comment stung or hurt or bothered you and so you held onto it. You didn’t let it go.
And so, like the media who likes to dig up the dirt, you kept the story on file in your mind as some definition of yourself.
You actually began to behave the way the label stated.
You got lazy in your work or spent money foolishly. Effectively you lived how the label classified you. Yes, you told yourself that this proves the label someone gave you was completely correct rather than noticing that is was simply you acting it out.
The ultimate tag before Facebook ever came along.
Labels are simply outdated self-beliefs that you never questioned that hang around you still today.
And because you don’t realise, you don’t even think about it.
What labels to lose?
So what labels you have about yourself do you need to lose to improve your life?
Labels are everywhere. They are part of life and society. All of us are defined by being single or middle class or qualified instructor and the like. We use, and need them, to help define levels of authority, relationships and connections, and understanding who’s who in relation to others.
Most of them are innocent everyday tags.
The ones you need to work out and remove from your psyche are the personal ones ‘about you’ that caused negative emotional reactions in your actions and behaviours. Past labels that made some personal observation or prediction about you that lingers still today. Examples being told you will ‘never have any money as you are too irresponsible’, or ‘no one likes you’. If it hurt then you kept hold of it in your mind and allowed it to limit you.
Life is often held back by old untrue labels.
Your job to rid yourself of them is to revisit them. Take time and think back (as you may have buried them as you felt shame or guilt after hearing them). Remind yourself of situations when an upsetting definition was made about you. It may not take that long.
Write down each label you recall – and yes it may be uncomfortable.
Then face them. Know they’re not right. Tell them they are wrong. See yourself as not that person. Then cut them up into shreds or burn them. Release them from your mind and feelings.
Unleash your unlabelling and be free.
Because the only label you ever need is the one that says, ‘This is me!!’.
References – Wikipedia – Give Ireland Back to the Irish.
Photo attributions – free to use under Pixabay Content License by geralt and kinkate and Maklay62.
Five thoughts, ideas, insights, or quotes to power up your mind to think differently and creatively about life and who we are. Put all previous thinking away and open up a brand new world of the Supermind. YOUR SuperMind.
This week – Equality.
The world is not the place it used to be since the turn of the Century. Humanity is now looking at, questioning, and repairing how things have been in our history. This is to ensure a fairer future. Equality is at the forefront of this revolution in behaviours, standards, fairness, and society norms. But trying to right the wrongs has itself stirred up a hot bed of issues. This means SMS has to take a look and ask some questions perhaps others are not. Or won’t.
1. Where to start?
Yes, straight into the fray. Many will shout that it is obvious….but is it? The first clear equality is for human rights for everyone. Rights to be who you are and not punished or penalised for it. However there are other well voiced inequalities that also require some improvement or wide range change. There is the equality of gender, of skin colour and race, of religious faith, of sexuality as the largest areas that demand attention. All groups have a justifiable right to more fairness. But society has always struggled with mass change like this. It works best through a gradual altering of how we live.
So where do we start with mass equality? What is the starting point to ensure the equality is here to stay?
2. A Human list?
Equality seems a simple premise. In reality though, equality can be hard to define in some areas but very clear in others. Added to this is that various people and groups seeking equality themselves aren’t in agreement about how that equality should look. There’s our challenge. We believe equality to be right but how it should work in practice has not been defined in some set parameters. It would help if we had a specific list of all areas that equality should be made to exist in and applied to.
Should we have a list of human needs that all equality has to be measured by?
3. Is equality reality?
Now the controversial question. Life is not fair. What one person gets, another doesn’t. Some seem born lucky. Others less so. That’s how life works. We all attempt to make life fairer, but it’s never going to end up that way. Maybe equality reflects that. We are attempting today to make society more equal on many levels. From legislation to attitudes equality has become a vital part of everyday life. But we never be able to make life entirely equal because it, well, it is life.
At what point do we reach before we decide equality can never be full reality?
4. Are our foundations wrong?
Equality is how we should live. It helps preserve and progress life. But, we live and are ruled by another method. A method that makes creating extended uniformity more and more difficult. Money. Over the last few decades capitalism has spread across the Earth. This drives division. Those who had, have now got more. Those that had less have struggled to keep that. More people are fighting this than they are equality as it effects everyone.
Is the modern love and need for money harming the need for equality?
5. Will we DO equality?
The famous Hollywood actor Will Rogers observed, ‘We will never have true civilization until we have learned to recognize the rights of others’. Compared to the past we now recognize more rights for each other than we have ever done. But, recognizing is only the first step. The real step is to physically DO something about this. Apologies for the past help but won’t go far at providing real rights today and the future.
What is the main step or action we need to do to ensure we live in a more equal world?
Ok, that’s another SuperMind Saturday done. Thank you for being here for the SuperMind time. Keep thinking about these. We need more minds thinking about this issue and the others issue on SuperMind Saturdays. Why? Because it’s needed. Because the world requires new thoughts and ideas. Perhaps YOURS!!
See you next time for more super thinking.
Photo attributions – free to use under Pixabay Content License by MrWashingt0n and Simp1e123
Have you ever heard of someone being in a ‘real state’?
Typically this means that their state of mind has become distressed or confused and this has spread to their emotions and actions.
We often use the phrase but don’t understand the full underlying mentality that creates it. The reason is that the vast majority of us never get that far down the mental road to arrive there. Sure we have the odd upset, but we never become so worked up that it spills intensely over.
But, there IS one mental state that millions of us around the world experience every single day that is equally dramatic. The trouble is it’s less an outburst that requires immediate attention. It’s more of a lurking influence in the background that takes over our life.
That state is one of negative expectancy.
And it is one I know well.
The wrong ‘what happens next’.
Our minds are our security system.
Not only do they think, remember, direct, and hold information for us. They also act as our defence mechanism. A mechanism that can become over alerted and predicting threats if life puts stresses on it. Pressures that lead us to expecting negative events to happen.
Prolonged periods of challenges can tip our mental state from balanced to increasingly pessimistic.
A pessimism that sets in and determines our outlook.
One that I never realised I had developed until a recent trip to St Louis in America.
My last decade has seen challenging home and work circumstances, financial demands, and health scenarios that led me to being less than an hour from potential death. Rather than looking on the bright side, my mind read this as a growing sense of danger.
It began to live in a state of negative expectancy though I put down my feeling listless, unenthusiastic, edgy, and frustrated to a heavy schedule.
A trip to the USA would sort that to see family. All went smoothly, very smoothly, until the second day of my break. Out of the blue being treated to a fabulous meal in a plush restaurant, I felt nausea, a bit dizzy, and very hot. In short, a panic attack. An experience I had not had for decades.
But, this time I was in reverse. My mind was so concerned that I had a few days of everything being great, it got spooked that a bad happening was bound to occur based upon my previous few years of life. It went into full negative expectancy and formed a subconscious worse ‘what happens next’.
Because when it’s like that, good is just as often going to set it off as bad.
What we expect, we get.
The mind does not know reality.
It can be easily convinced or fooled into believing that what you think (and then imagine), is 100% true. Through regular repetition it becomes sure and set that the views it holds are absolutely how things are and nothing else.
Examples will be someone who fully believes their partner is cheating on them (when they’re not) will see evidence everywhere. Or an insecure person who becomes certain that all their work colleagues are talking behind their back every day.
When our mind gets locked into a specific belief pattern, it won’t let go.
What we expect, in our minds, we get.
I think we all know this well and have gone through some form of this in our lives. Maybe like me though, you haven’t noticed it creeping back in or starting in the first place. That’s because it’s subtle and in the background. Until a very simple situation triggers it like my high quality night out in Missouri.
If we have it long enough a basic event can trip us up. Even a happy one!
But you may not have got that far yet. It may already be affecting your mindset and you haven’t picked up on it. You feel it’s merely that you are being dragged down by life’s ups and downs. Or you make some excuse why you don’t want to go out with friends anymore or do the activities you used to enjoy.
Well, it’s less ‘you’ and more that negative expectancy has formed in your mind. An expectancy that’s shutting down all the good that is on offer in life to protect you in case things turn out wrong.
So, let me show how to change that round in your favour.
Scale it up not down.
Negative expectancy is an automatic response in silence.
Without realising it becomes our fixed attitude as we don’t challenge it. It simply defaults to it. Let’s see if you have this mental habit.
Think ahead about an event or situation or even how life will turn out in general.. On a scale of one to ten in either direction (feeling great/positive v feeling anxious/negative) on which side would you put your thoughts and what score? You can even be specific to see if it’s a certain subject that floors you. So repeat this exercise about finances, health, relationships, work….anything most people will have in the mind almost daily.
So, how did you score it? Where were you on that negative/positive scale?
If you were brutally honest then you were on the negative side of things with scores 5 plus on that scale.
When you have a negative expectancy set in you will be at least 5 on most, if not all matters, you think about but DEFINITELY if you look at life ahead generally and mark that over 5. Overall thinking that is low or pessimistic or even lapsed into fear develops into a firm negative expectancy. And that mental trait is what is robbing you of joy in life.
Time to reverse it.
Short term super thinking.
You are not going to crack positive future thinking in the short term.
Well, not long term positive expectation. You CAN easily begin to change it in the short term. Like training for a running race and needing to steadily get fit, you can build up your better mental levels.
Begin thinking about an event (a work day you always worry over/always on edge awaiting the credit car bill etc) a week before the date. Start small and simply keep repeating that it’s going to turn out really well. Just that for a few days. Two or three days in continue with that thought (or you can even say it to yourself) but add a couple of images of how it will turn out.
Keep them bright, happy and again short. You want a few seconds of you smiling or laughing or people around you pleased you are there. Again, nothing more.
The day before be brave and ramp it up. Keep the previous two mentioned above but throw in some sounds now (good sounds such as someone saying ‘Yes’ or clapping). Then add them all together in one picture. Finally, on the morning of that day get up and do 10 minutes of this and make it bigger and full of colour in your mind like a huge advert by the highway.
This has to be a regular part of your schedule (like your breakfast or latte from Rockys Coffee Stop). A week of upping the mental expectancy that finishes with a big boom image in your mind. An image that will erode your old negative expectancy until it takes over as the weeks and months pass by. OH YES THIS WORKS!
So, welcome to the good thinking side of life now. You’ve got what you need to walk down a new mental road. A better, more confident road. From one state to another.
A state of positive imagination and mental excitement I expect you will find there.
Photo attributions – free to use under Pixabay Content Licence by Smiln32 and Vilkasss and Nika_Akin.
What is your vision for how things will turn out and your future?
Very few people can avoid this. It’s an element of the mind’s workings that it pictures likely and possible events so that it can help keep us safe and alive.
Vision and imagination are core elements of our mental process.
The trouble is that most people don’t realise that this is occurring automatically as we go about our daily lives. Operating based upon the views and considerations we put in there. And most of them aren’t very positive at all.
And so we end up seeing our once hoped for good future slowly disappear in front of our eyes.
So, here is how and why a strong vision is the key to lifelong lasting achievement.
The Future from the past.
Many people predict the future.
Most of these however are basing it on how today will turn out. In other words, adding some extra developments to build from current times. It’s perhaps less a vision for the future as a plan for next steps.
It’s far more impressive to see a future that in no way looks anything like today.
That’s what Jules Verne accomplished. You hear or read his name and old fashioned tales of trips to the Moon that have featured in films come to mind. Victorians travelling on basic boneshaker rockets to the stars as if it was that easy.
But, he was far more accomplished than that actively predicting where science and technology would end up. End up from the fairly limited understandings they possessed at the time.
He spent long hours in the BNF (France’s home of all published works) fuelling his mind with scientific journals. This led him to expanding his own ideas and publishing them, these visions and concepts at the time seeming far fetched, even crazy.
Not to him. He clearly saw submarines, helicopters, air conditioning, skyscrapers, and most famous of all, moon trips on advanced space ships that could break the Earth’s orbit. His books have been translated into 150 languages, far more than Shakespeare can claim!
He was revolutionary in vision. A strong vision that improved his life until the end.
The Beginning not the end.
Strong, powerful vision sees the end result, not the current situation.
It’s one very ill people often utilise. And Bob Champion was one such person.
He was a successful National Hunt jockey riding hundreds of winners. Then in 1979 he was struck down with cancer and given only a 30% chance of survival at best. The treatment was invasive and debilitating and nearly killed him then and there. At the same time his beloved mount, Aldaniti, had suffered a terrible injury in a race and the vets recommended he should be put down as it was his 4th bad injury.
Both were in dire straits.
But Champion always believed that the horse would win England’s prestigious Grand National race with him on board. And while in bed seriously unwell he began to imagine just that. Something that appeared to have about 0% chance of ever coming about.
His vision got him fighting. It gave him a goal and dream to pursue.
He did recover and back to health and immediately went to see his pal Aldaniti, who was now amazingly doing the same. He told the racehorse’s trainer his belief about the race and luckily he also thought it could be possible.
In April 1981 both Bob and Aldaniti lined up in the race and powered to victory. Bob is still alive and going strong himself 45 years later! His story was even made into a successful movie called, naturally, Champions.
Everything he saw in his vision came true.
A champion vision in every sense.
Have the vision, hold the vision.
It’s easy to have a big vision.
We can all conceive some dream scenario for ourselves. One where our life is rosy or stunning outcomes have manifested. But, two factors are a MUST in ensuring these imaginations turn out as conceived.
You have a crystal clear vision of what you seek to bring about and keep holding it no matter the challenges (hold ’em, don’t fold ’em as they say in cards). If you truly believe in your final aim, don’t drop the ball in your mind if things get tough and
The initial vision must be founded on strong ground not fantasy. If you aren’t very good at football, seeing yourself as the world’s best player is setting yourself up for a fall.
Bob Champion WAS a jockey and Jules Verne WAS a writer when they set out on their quest to personal achievement. Both lifted themselves up from a sold platform underneath them that was there already.
The basis of strong vision is found in a strong individual with a strong awareness of who they are and what that person can accomplish.
Only Picasso knew he was Picasso. Which is why many pretenders try to copy the original and never get near. The same in business, music and life as well as art. Mastery is often being the only one doing what only you sought to do that your mind kept showing you.
Personal individuality expressed via a vivid mental picture is the key to a pinnacle life achievement. That and abiding by the two factors above. Whether you want to create a new hot drink or form of clothing.
Be yourself, be fully clear what this you wishes to create, keep that image alive in the mind, and stay the course to your own mountain top. History proves this – Picasso couldn’t ride racehorses. Verne could not paint Cubist style art. And Champion could not pen about futuristic machines.
What they could do and chose to do, their own strong vision helped take them somewhere memorable.
And if you use this too, you could follow them to lifelong triumph.
