Self-control: How to take control of your time and life?

Chapter 17
The Root of Powerlessness: The Subconscious of Weakness
The subconscious mind of each of us is an independent wisdom body, which is a powerful energy platform in the body, helping us to continuously build confidence and clear direction in difficult years.However, the subconscious mind is not infinitely powerful - when you use powerful thoughts to create a difficult situation, and then expect to use action to solve it, the subconscious mind will immediately respond: this is impossible of.

Clark always has some strange dreams, and there are some incomprehensible things in the dreams.He said: "Sometimes I find myself being chased by strangers. I try desperately to escape, but I can't move. I just reach out and grab something to help me, but basically To no avail, in the dream I was weak and powerless."

"Sometimes, I come to a place I don't know what it's called. It's a weak, confusing scene. When I want to come out, I can't find a way out, so I have to go around. Sometimes I can't even tell the words in my dreams. Is that person me? For a while, I feel that I am participating in it; for a while, I feel that I am just a bystander."

Student Glasser also had this kind of dream. He said that a dream that often appeared recently was that his tooth was starting to loosen, so he pushed it with his tongue, and when it became looser and sooner, he simply wanted to pull it out After a lot of effort, the tooth was finally pulled out.When he woke up from the dream, the tearing feeling of the tooth pulling out from the gum was still so clear.

Glasser said painfully: "This is a torment. In the dream, when a tooth fell out, the teeth in the mouth began to loosen one after another, and finally all fell out. I opened my mouth and spat, and the teeth were covered with blood. It fell out, and it was terrifying."

During the course exchange, Clark continued: "Yesterday I dreamed that a pair of beige pants had a hole. I wanted to find a needle and thread to mend it. All I found were huge needles, as thick as bamboo needles. I finally found one. A little thinner, and a piece of white cotton thread. I put on a needle and thread and tied a knot, but found that the thread turned into a very thick black thread, thicker than woolen thread, and I suddenly collapsed.” These dreams are shocking, full of Shows how two feisty people can sink into a sense of debilitating powerlessness.In the dream, they are powerless to the changing scene (situation) and are in an absolutely weak position.The sense of powerlessness in reality can persist in the subconscious so tenaciously, appearing one after another in the form of dreams.

All the outward force of the mind will react on oneself from the material level.So, the fundamental problem is that Clark and Glasser have unresolvable problems in their lives.As they both said: "For a long time, I have been troubled by my life goals, and I found that after more than ten years, these goals are impossible to achieve!"

When you try to control what other people do, say, and think, you also start to feel frustrated and powerless because you can't do it.We've all had the same experience, one afternoon, we yelled violently, just because the husband (wife) didn't listen to us, he (she) did his own way, like a disgusting weirdo - we wanted to kill him (her) , and then collapsed limply on the sofa.

You will groan in pain: "How can I change the status quo?" During the training process, Clark asked me: "Gao, why are so many people's destiny firmly controlled by others in this world?" I sigh with emotion, most people's subconscious is weak and undeveloped, and they are the silent ones of the subconscious.He will think whatever you do to him, so they have no choice but to be led by the nose.

"I'm too tired to do anything!"

Mr. Sun, who currently lives in Hangzhou, sent me an email. He told me about his exhaustion and fatigue, and expressed his sense of powerlessness in the face of reality.He said: "I am a salaryman who works in an electronic company. I can earn about 3000 yuan a month. The work is not too tiring, but I always feel tired. Tiredness does not mean that I earn less money, but It’s because I feel that I always have a lot of dissatisfaction with the people around me, but I can’t express it smoothly, and it’s all suppressed in my heart.”

"The environment at work is always intriguing, and the people around me are also different. Facing hypocritical people, I have to wear a mask to live. Only when I am alone, can I take off the mask and be the real self , and this is the only time I can relax."

"Although I understand that this society is like this, and life is like this, I am cooperating with my actions, but I am resisting it in my heart. I think this should be my problem. Isn't everyone living like this?" Finally, Mr. Sun Ask: "How should I adjust my mentality so that I don't feel so depressed?"

Life is full of problems and challenges. We all know it in our hearts, but we will always get stuck at a certain "node" and feel powerless to deal with it.But what about the facts?We don’t have to deal with these difficulties alone, you let go of the pressure, drive the feeling of powerlessness out of the body, lower the demands on the environment – ​​it’s always hard to do, but you have to do it.A person who can persist in life is because he has found a life goal that he is willing to manage.This goal can be very low: "I just want to be happy. As for deposits and houses, I don't have too many extravagances." When you live with an easy-to-satisfy attitude, you will find a support point for your soul.

"I don't want to do anything!"

If a person suffers too many setbacks in life, he will have fear of life.A negative life attitude and psychological symptoms appeared in him, including social phobia, place phobia and other specific phobias, which, like anxiety disorders, were rooted in panic.The difference is that the fear of life is caused by certain specific places or situations (past failure experience), and when he is not in these specific places or situations, it will not cause anxiety.For example, I am afraid of social situations or interpersonal relationships (because I have failed experiences), and start a business (I have experienced entrepreneurial failures), marriage registry (I have had nightmares about divorce), etc.

In the training center, there was a trainee named Mona, who was afraid of taking the subway or bus. As long as she took the above-mentioned means of transportation, she would have anxiety attacks, which was extremely painful.In order to avoid anxiety attacks, she dared not go out and did not want to do anything.She suffered from severe mental illness and became unable to control herself.

The root of all pain is "thinking but not doing", lack of courage to face it.Mr. Chen from Beijing told me about his experience. He said: "I have been out of school for almost a year, and I have a certain amount of work experience. However, I have always been in a state of confusion. I have changed three jobs. I have done it, and I will leave after the probationary period expires. I always feel that these jobs are not what I want to do. I can’t get happiness from work, and I can’t experience happiness. I can always feel an invisible pressure. Recently I think a lot, I have been thinking: my tomorrow, my ideal, what do I want to do? I tried to ask myself many times, but I can't find the answer, I feel sick, emotional Constantly erratic, highs and lows, I knew I had a serious depression, I could see it myself."

"I tried to see a psychiatrist, but I gave up because of the real problems, and I thought I could overcome those problems, but I still couldn't change my mentality, my behavior, my thoughts, I hated myself so much , I hate myself why I can’t do it! I am timid, cowardly, and my willpower is not strong enough. I know this myself. I really feel powerless, unable to change my weakness, and unable to change reality! I really don’t know what to do now I'm in so much pain, I can't find purpose in life, and I feel like I'm terrible."

After two months of course practice in the training center, we cured his "disease" from three aspects:
1. I let him replace his brain with a lot of fresh things, let him discover and observe a life worse than his situation.For example, a teenage out-of-school child works in a vegetable market.

2. Ask him to spare a certain amount of time to realize his wish for many years. Mr. Chen’s goal is to buy a scooter, and he also has the financial resources. I told him not to worry about his future money needs, but to buy it first.As a result, Mr. Chen's condition improved immediately.Because the realization of every wish is a huge filling of our psychological energy, which will have a positive therapeutic effect.

3. Let go of what he can't let go of at present, and don't care about being fired from public office.With my encouragement, Mr. Chen gave up a business that did not have an advantage in the competition, gave up the project to his colleagues, and then gained the friendship of his colleagues. This made him very pleased, and he obviously felt the importance of interpersonal relationships. Improvement, but also experienced the existence of "courage".

always one step away

The research on "learned powerlessness" began in the late 20s. It shows the problem of people's internal motivation, and refers to a kind of feeling formed through some kind of experience, which will have a negative impact on later life. special mental state.That is to say, with the experience of being unable to control external events, a sense of learned powerlessness may arise (the individual has experienced failures and setbacks, and has a sense of powerlessness when faced with problems), which makes people's motivation level decline.

In 1967, the American psychologist Seligman proposed the concept of "learned helplessness" when studying animals.He did a classic experiment with dogs: at first, he kept the dogs in a cage, and gave them painful electric shocks as soon as the buzzer sounded.After many experiments, when the buzzer sounded, the cage door was opened before the electric shock was given. At this time, the dog not only did not escape, but fell to the ground before the electric shock appeared, and began to moan and tremble.It could have voluntarily run away, but now it is desperately waiting for the pain to come.

This is learned helplessness.If used to solve human behavior, we will find some interesting phenomena.Some people who acquire a sense of helplessness in an initial situation (like the experimental dog) remain unable to escape from the relationship in subsequent situations, thus spreading the feeling of helplessness to other areas of their lives. All areas (becoming a gut reaction).This diffused sense of helplessness led to his depression and made him hopeless about life.

There are many similar cases in love life, people are full of feelings of irreparable in the presence of the partner who is about to break up. "It's useless for me to do anything, and she has left me." Under the control of this feeling, some people will think that they are powerless and do not make any efforts and attempts: "I can't succeed, so I still don't work hard." "I couldn't escape, so I didn't escape at all." On the battlefield, many prisoners would not escape even if they had a chance (even if the chance was great), but were obediently taken to the execution ground for execution—— Even if they were killed, they would not risk their lives.These behaviors and reactions are all signs of depression.An important reason for this problem is the pressure from reality.For example, some students can't teach at all. They are born "bad students" and only know how to be mischievous. This will make the teacher feel powerless.At this time, teachers are under pressure from all aspects and are often in anxiety.These negative emotions will cause people to struggle in their hearts, and the "superego" and "ego" fight, so people become irrational and only want to protect themselves: "I don't care about these students, let them fend for themselves. Just take care of yourself and teach those students who are willing to learn.”

For people with learned helplessness, they crave the elixir of the outside world, which is why such people are so gullible.Those who are incapable of making money are most likely to be brainwashed by MLM organizations. They often regard the MLM theory as the bible and believe that it will surely cure the disease.When another failure came, reality ruthlessly dealt him a new blow.He doesn't want to face reality, so he will have a new self-deception, telling himself and others: "I'm always one step away, just try again; I still need time, you have to believe me!" This is because we I often set the goal too high, the requirement is too perfect, and I always miss the requirement by one step. If this happens every time, after a long time, I will have a strong sense of powerlessness, thinking that I have lost control of things.

why you can't change reality
"Why can't you do anything about reality?" All the course participants mused when I asked this question.Everyone has a feeling of powerlessness about their own life.Those who are unwilling to be mediocre and dissatisfied with the status quo, they always want to change something, they are looking for ways and making plans every day, but they feel that the effort is half the effort, their life is still the same, and their life has not changed.

So, he immediately sighed with emotion: "The reality is helpless. It seems that no matter how much effort I put in, it is futile! Then why should I continue to work hard? Just sink!" He gradually lost confidence in life.Over time, he began to get used to maintaining the status quo and no longer tried, because "experience" told him that maintaining the status quo and doing nothing is the safest and surest way.

When our life falls into a trough, there are always two ways to go, either to blame ourselves and others, or to find a way to change the status quo.The former complains about the unfairness of the society, the teasing of fate, being depressed, depressed, and physically and mentally exhausted all day long, thinking that the reality cannot be changed, and then collapses.The latter try to change themselves, the world, and ultimately their circumstances through their own efforts.Some people succeed, some people fail, and if you don't try, you never have a chance of success.

Zhou Yan from Beijing is a very good girl. During her business trip to Los Angeles, she met with our course consultant and was invited to tell her story to the students.She majored in economics at university. After graduation, she worked as an economic reporter for a newspaper for six years.

Suddenly one day, the leader told her to "make a living by herself".The newspaper that Zhou Yan works for is in a recession and is on the verge of bankruptcy.Hearing the news, she was sad and upset.Wanting to give up the job she likes all of a sudden, she was at a loss at first, not knowing what to do.

Not long after, she came out of her depression and chose to study in a broadcasting academy.Later, she entered the economic department of CCTV as an intern.At the beginning, she was under a lot of pressure. She always felt that everyone else was so good, but she couldn't do anything well.But she was not discouraged, on the contrary, she studied harder.She gained a wealth of experience in CCTV and changed her situation. Half a year later, she successfully applied for a job in a well-known media, became the director of the media's reporter department, and became a hot workplace celebrity.In today's highly competitive real life, there are too many difficulties in realizing one's own value.We are powerless to overthrow the norms that have been formed in this world, but we are capable enough to change our understanding of reality.When you have the courage to change yourself, you can definitely draw fresh strength from it-it comes from the improved mental vitality in us, and our good progress in self-management!
(End of this chapter)