Good morning, folks! I am Jin with Morning Mindfulness Podcast. Hope life is treating you great! Let’s breathe and smile.

We’ll talk about Mindfulness Blind Spots today

I like talking about self-talk. To me this is one of the most important mechanisms of steering our lives where we’d like it to go.

We’ll go a little practical today again, ok?
So, usually I see two major mistakes people make during self-talk.

One of them is using a negative form of positive affirmation. Let’s say somebody is making a statement, “I don’t smoke any more, I don’t want to smoke!” This statement definitely has a positive intent. The person is trying to stop smoking, pretty obvious. However, let’s look at the mechanism of action.

The word “don’t” has no emotional connection with the person speaking it. But the word “smoke” does. As a result, the mind is not registering the former, because the smoking part will get all the attention. So the intent behind this statement is definitely positive, but because of emotional ties it may actually support the destructive habit of smoking.

I like using the metaphor of mind acting like a small child. Can you imagine a child who wants to play, but it is time to go to bed. Now, take the child’s favorite toy, show it to him or her and say, “I can’t let you play with this toy, because you are going to bed”. Ha ha! Now you got a scandal on your hands. Well, depends on child’s mood, but I hope you got an idea.

So, I use the approach in which I try to discover the root of the problem, and then switch attention and to reprogram the mind without mentioning the forbidden words at all. There are affirmation statements designed by shrinks. I am sure you can find it, or just talk to the coach who will help you.
Hope this makes sense.

That was mistake number one. And number two we will discuss tomorrow.
Thanks for tuning in! You can subscribe to my podcast on my site HPLN.org. Now let’s breathe and smile. I will talk to you next time.

PEACE!
Jin

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