pathetic and weak. Your life is a failure. You’ll never change. You’re too
much like your mother. Why don’t you just quit. As you continue this
“awfulizing,” the body is tempting the mind to return to the state it has
unconsciously memorized. On a rational level, that is absurd. But
obviously, on some level it feels good to feel bad.
The moment we listen to those subvocalizations, believe those thoughts,
and respond by feeling the same familiar feelings, mental amnesia sets in
and we forget our original aim. The funny thing is that we actually begin to
believe what the body is telling the brain to say to us. We immerse
ourselves back into that automatic program and return to being our old self.
Most of us can relate to this little scenario. It’s no different from any
habit we’ve tried to break. Whether we’re addicted to cigarettes, chocolate,
alcohol, shopping, gambling, or biting our nails, the moment we cease the
habitual action, chaos rages between the body and the mind. The thoughts
we embrace are intimately identified with the feelings of what it would be
like to experience the indulgence. When we give in to the cravings, we will
keep producing the same outcomes in our lives, because the mind and body
are in opposition. Our thoughts and feelings are working against each other,
and if the body has become the mind, we will always fall prey to how we
feel.
As long as we use familiar feelings as a barometer, as feedback on our
efforts to change, we’ll always talk ourselves out of greatness. We will
never be able to think greater than our internal environment. We will never
be able to see a world of possible outcomes other than the negative ones
from our past. Our thoughts and feelings have that much power over us.
Help Is Only a Thought Away
The next step in breaking the habit of being ourselves is understanding
how important it is to get the mind and body working together and to break
the chemical continuity of our guilty, ashamed, angry, depressed state of
being. Resisting the body’s demand to restore that old unhealthy order isn’t
easy, but help is only a thought away.
You will learn in the following pages that for true change to occur, it is
essential to “unmemorize” an emotion that has become part of your