The past years have taken a trend in the concept that by changing the words, we can actually change the situation. This is clearly impossible, but yet it does work. I would like to explore how the impossible works.
If there is a problem, no matter what you call it, or even if you ignore it, the objective reality of the situation is the same. If you get in the car and it does not start, calling it a problem or a disaster or a situation or an event will not make the car start.
However, many people find that by using the word ‘challenge’ or ‘situation’ instead of ‘problem’ makes things easier to deal with, it keeps them calmer. How can this happen if the reality of what is going on has not changed? The answer is in finding out where the situation is really occurring.
Back to the car example, the event is happening in the car, the car does not start. But that is only a part of the event. You are sitting in the car, and are also part of the event. Although the car does not start, it also does not think. You on the other hand, think a lot. When you turn the key and the car does not start, your mind races to your destination and the repercussions of not being there on time, an important meeting, taking the kids to the beach or a hot date. Perhaps you are tight on money and now thinking of the cost to repair the car, and how will you get the money. Now we have a stressful problem.
What if it was just to go for a drive to pass time? Then there is no problem, you can go for a walk instead. The problem is not the car, the car simply does not start. The problem is in your mind and your imagination and thoughts.
Since the problem is in your own mind, if you change your view from it being a problem which will get you stressed, and thus make it harder to find a solution, to a situation or some word that gives your imagination and mind a less disastrous potential outcome, then your mind relaxes. You may calmly look at the situation and realize that the shift stick is not fully in park and all you have to do is move it a bit and the car will start. Problem solved by reducing it from disastrous to a simple situation by keeping your mind calm.
The real problem is your mind, this is where all the problems are. By altering the way your mind sees events, you stay present and are able to find solutions. Now the important factor here is that you are manipulating your mind like parents do with their children. You have told yourself something to distract your thoughts and made your mood change, just by changing the words to trick your mind into seeing things differently. The power in this is that although you have simply tricked yourself, you have succeeded in controlling your emotions.
Although this may work, it is the way to manipulate a child and by continuing this process you keep yourself at an immature level. If you are happy with staying at a child’s level your entire life, then fine, stick with this process. However, if you want to continue a path of growth and evolution, then you must go beyond the weakness of the mind which is so easily manipulated and see the emptiness of words by looking at things objectively as they are. Learn the illusionists trick and you can never be fooled again.
The mind makes problems out of non-events just as easily as it neutralizes a problem. The point is that when the car does not start, by calling it a situation instead of a problem your mind stays calm, however, what made your mind get excited if you saw it as a problem? That all happened in your mind by letting your imagination run wild. By understanding how your mind works and is manipulated, rather than finding tricks to manipulate it and keeping it at the same stage of development, along with all the other psychological ups and downs that people endure, we can gain freedom from this emotional swinging life and attain a life of balance and harmony.
My personal view and experience with hundreds of people who understood this principle is that a significant reduction of anger and stress is achieved in a couple of weeks. Yet with people who insist on changing the words, there is rarely a significant change, or the change only happens in the subject of the word change, but then they explode in other situations. That is not a cure.
Knowing the real cause of your negative emotions is the only way to resolve or remove them from your life. It is not the word, but the way you imagine things to be. Changing the word only works temporarily, like the excitement of a new toy which soon gets left aside. Know that you create images in your mind and that you have the power to choose those images, and you will be on the way to permanently fix the problem rather than just be temporarily distracted.
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