Attitudes, Values and Beliefs

One of the challenges that a hypnotist faces is in teaching  the fact that no one makes you feel any certain way because of what they are doing.

To make this point…..There are two kids going to lunch in an elementary school in separate shifts with all of their classmates.  The first kid gets up to the counter with the plate with food separators.  The child gets the veggies, apple sauce, and a main dish that resembles hamburger helper.  Then heads off to find a place to sit.  On the way, the kid slips and falls in front of everyone in the class.  The food goes everywhere, even on the face and clothes of the child.  All of the other kids laugh and point.  The child starts to cry, runs out of the room and feels terrible.

The next lunch shift our second kid gets all the food like before, is walking to the table and slips on the spot where the other child fell.  The food goes everywhere, even on the face and clothes.  The other kids all laugh and point.  Our second child immediately jumps up and takes a bow.  The child says “Thank you, Thank you very much, my next show is at 3”.  

The same thing happens to each kid exactly… yet the meaning is chosen in the brain.  It doesn’t have a meaning until then.

The event means nothing, the kids laughing means nothing until the child chooses the meaning internally.  That internal meaning is set up by a conglomeration of attitudes, values, beliefs and expectations.  

Do you understand that thoughts, feelings and judgements are not a given.  You are picking and choosing them based upon many factors.

• The need for control.
• The need for attention.
• The need for connection.
• Fear or hope.
• Boundary habits.
• Past emotional automatic responses.
• Assumptions
  

All get in the way of noticing that it isn’t  good or bad, up or down to your mind until you hang a label on it and compare it to expectations that are made up in the first place.  Your question has to become, “Is this set of actions, behaviors and comments useful or unuseful to the outcomes?” or “Am I just doing the routine I always do at this level of intimacy or stress and expecting a different result?

Comments that prove a person doesn’t know the point include; “Of course I was mad everyone would be”. No, that isn’t true.  “You would feel the same way in my position”. No, that also isn’t necessarily true.  But you see the dilemma.