John Morgan Newsletter – S P A C E S

REUNION

I just attended a grade school reunion in an area I haven’t lived in for over 30 years. I drove by my old house, visited with some family members and had a rather nostalgic weekend with faded memories coming to life in full color. It was a pleasant experience.

I noticed two things:

1. Many people live in the past.
2. Most people keep their patterns.

LIVING IN THE PAST

Since I was at a reunion, you’d expect most conversations to be about the past and they were. It was fun hearing about other peoples’ memories of me and mine of them. The living in the past observation went well past the conversations.  

The accent in their lives had little to do with the present moment. There was so much lamenting about what did or didn’t happen in their lives and the disappointments they have endured and continue to endure. They were keeping their past alive in their conversations and it was preventing their enjoyment of what was going on now. The blame was out in full force and the overall feeling I had was to scream, “Wake up!”

The real news is: REALITY HAPPENS! It happens to the rich and poor, the winner and the loser, the good and bad, the braggart and the wallflower. Reality is what happens. Our response to reality is what causes the emotion, and our penchant for continuing to tell our tale of woe is what keeps the emotion in place.

This is in no way a suggestion to become stoical and pretend you don’t have emotions. We all do and, at times, they seem to take on a life of their own. I recommend that you give credence to your emotions. Acknowledge them. Feel them as deeply as you can and then give them your permission to move on.

If you are having difficulty with your emotions, please contact someone who can offer assistance – a counselor, the clergy, or some other type of people helper. Don’t tell your friends – again – for the hundredth time. That is not helpful. It keeps your draining emotions in place because they are entrenched within the story.

I can be honest with you. Your friends, family members, etc. are tired of hearing your story. They may not say so but you know it’s true. And you know it’s the truth because you are tired of telling it even though you continue to do so. But somewhere along the line we got the message if we tell our story enough times, we will get to the solution of our problem. That is what is called a BIG LIE. Tell it often enough and you begin to believe it.

My experience is that life becomes much easier when you learn to “Dance with Reality.” It’s been said in so many different ways over the years – go with the flow – roll with the punches – take the good with the bad. Jackie Gleason, the comedian and actor, said it another way. He said, “Go out when the tide is going out and come in when the tide is coming in.” He noted that when he did it any other way he always paid the price.

The price you pay by telling your threadbare story is the misery you continue to heap upon yourself by telling it again and again. This is a topic I have covered in the past and I thought I would revisit it after witnessing so much counter-productive story telling this past weekend. You can read more about this in my free ebook, THE SUCCESS TRIANGLE. Just logon to http://johnmorganseminars.com and go to the Recommended Reading section and click on the SUCCESS TRIANGLE and download it to your computer. It’s a PDF file. If you don’t know what that is, ask one of your computer savvy friends or family members.

OUTGROWING PATTERNS

If you’ve ever been to one of my seminars or viewed them on DVD, you will hear me talk at length about patterns. They are the routines that run us. We don’t run them, they run us. There is a part of our mind that learns without us knowing how. It’s the way we learned to walk and talk and the way we got our accent. This part of our mind that learns without us knowing how learns patterns. Many of them are useful and worth holding on to. Others have served their purpose and it would be beneficial to have them melt and fade away.

Patterns were formed for a purpose. Many of the purposes they were learned for are long gone yet the pattern remains in place. Take smoking for example. The purpose for learning to smoke for most people was to become someone who they weren’t – older, cooler, one of the gang, chic, sophisticated, tough guy, like my older brother, etc. Even though you don’t consciously think that you are being cool every time you light up a cigarette, there is a part of your mind that does – the patterned portion of your mind – the part that runs you. You will never think your way out of a pattern. You must outgrow it.

The patterns I witnessed this past weekend at the reunion are the same patterns many of my class mates ran in grade school. I didn’t know about patterns then, but my memories of some of these classmates made it abundantly clear that patterns stay in place and run us. There was my classmate, Joe. He had a pattern of regularly spending time with his school work after the final bell had rung. You might guess that Joe is still a brilliant person and you would be correct. Joe also has a pattern of narrowing his eyes and furrowing his brow when he is about to address something serious. I remember that pattern from 3rd grade. He has no idea that he does that because it’s a pattern that runs him that he’s unaware of. He didn’t study that pattern in a book. He learned it somewhere along the way and it runs him until this day.

Another classmate has a pattern of perpetually smiling. She had it in the third grade as well. The ever-present smile is a cover she has learned to mask critical thoughts she is having about others. She doesn’t even know she does it. The smile takes on different aspects depending on how critical her thoughts. She stated that she doesn’t like to say things to people that they may think are unkind. What she doesn’t know is that she communicates those thoughts anyway by the way she smiles. I have the training and experience to be able to spot it and articulate it but everyone gets what she’s thinking at some level just by subconsciously noticing her pattern of smiling.

The outgrowing of patterns begins with noticing you have one. The second phase is recognizing the pattern while it is running. The third and final phase is to interrupt while it is running.

Let me give you an example. I noticed that my son had begun using the word “whatnot” regularly in the last few months. He had no idea the frequency it had taken on in his speech. He uses it as a catch-all word. Let me point out that there is nothing wrong with using the word “whatnot.” It was just a pattern his mind had formed that he was unaware of. I mentioned it to him and explained how this pattern recognition/interruption technique works. I then witnessed the results. At first, he would say it and notice it just after he said it. Then he would notice it halfway through saying it and interrupt himself and restate his sentence without saying “whatnot.” Then, He told me that the word appeared in his head before speaking it and the editing process began before saying it and the selection of another word or words took place. It won’t be long before the conscious editing stops and the new pattern of selecting another word happens automatically at the patterned level without him having to think about it.

You may have a more serious pattern besides “whatnot” going on. The process is the same.

1. Recognize you are running a pattern of thought or behavior.
2. Interrupt the thought or behavior in midstream.
3. Watch a new productive pattern take root in your life.

It takes diligence and practice and the results are worth it. Get into the habit of interrupting your patterns and watch what happens.

EXTRA CREDIT: If you are really adventuresome, ask someone close to you about the one thing they would change about you if they could and go to work on that pattern. This approach takes a lot of guts and the learning it provides is invaluable.