Changing Channels on Your Thinking

Changing Channels on Your Thinking — While certain aspects of our personality and behaviour are hard-wired in, what we choose to do with each situation is, fortunately, completely our choice.

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A while ago I was fin­ish­ing up a Body­work ses­sion with a client, fol­low­ing a dis­cus­sion about her pat­terns of behav­iour. She had noticed that, when some­thing in her rela­tion­ship went side­ways, she found her­self ques­tion­ing, judg­ing and blam­ing herself.

I said, “As we’re standing here, every radio and TV channel that reaches Waterloo is present in this room. That we can’t hear or see them is immaterial.”

She brightened, and replied, “We get to choose what channel we listen to!”

Obvi­ous, right? Well, it is now that you are think­ing about it.

Now, imag­ine there was a sta­tion (say FOX News…) that only broad­cast hate­ful, judge­men­tal, annoy­ing, creepy mes­sages. 24 / 7 sew­er bilge.

You’d think that such a station would never get a listener to tune in.

But when it comes to the chan­nels in our heads, which are also there and avail­able 24 / 7, almost every­one has a “hate Chan­nel,” as in:

• it tells you how ter­ri­ble you are, or 
• how every­one is out to get you, or
• “If you don’t get straight “A’s” eas­i­ly, you are stu­pid and will nev­er get a good job and will end up liv­ing under a bridge. (The “liv­ing under a bridge” part is MY favourite!)

Yeah. Right. It’s got the highest listener-ship on the chart.

Yet, as my client said, “We get to choose what chan­nel we lis­ten to!”

Refus­ing to under­stand and prac­tice “chan­nel shift­ing,” refus­ing to see what’s “real­ly going on,” is the great­est imped­i­ment to liv­ing full and rich lives.

• Some­one has a friend who con­stant­ly berates and judges her. She ends the rela­tion­ship, then “runs into” the per­son, and off they go, to talk. 95% of the time, the old pat­tern re-emerges.
  In the words of today’s arti­cle, “I start lis­ten­ing to the chan­nel that tells me that every­one has to like me.”

• Anoth­er has dif­fi­cul­ties set­ting relat­ing bound­aries with his part­ners. He sets one, his part­ner invites him to cross it, and he does. Feels used and mis­er­able.
  “I start lis­ten­ing to the chan­nel that tells me to always say yes to pret­ty much every­one, and espe­cial­ly women.”

• Anoth­er upsets her­self any time some­thing does­n’t go “right.” In an instant, she’s boil­ing mad.
  “I start lis­ten­ing to the chan­nel that tells me that every­one is out to get me, and that I have to fight back.”

If you listen, you can quickly find the favourite channel for yourself, and for everyone you know.

The joke, of course, is that the “favourite chan­nel” is one of many.

And, there are even sev­er­al chan­nels avail­able that pro­mote stuff that actu­al­ly works. (Being present, doing things dif­fer­ent­ly — the stuff I write about!)

This rule applies across the board — even if I have a “real, diag­nosed” men­tal con­di­tion, like depres­sion or anxiety. 

If all I lis­ten to is sta­tion, “O.H.M.Y. — the Poor Me sta­tion that rocks!” — I can guar­an­tee stay­ing stuck.

If I switch chan­nels, and say, “Giv­en who I am and how I am, here is anoth­er choice of action” — “Smooth Blues, sta­tion C.H.O.I.C.E.”, for exam­ple, then a door opens where there was a wall.

Changing the channel requires… changing the channel!

When things go wrong…espe­cial­ly then… I must consider: 

“Will I try to fix this prob­lem by repeat­ing my pre-exist­ing under­stand­ings, or will I let go of think­ing that old pat­terns that nev­er worked will mag­i­cal­ly work this time?”

I can still amaze myself over how willing people are to make excuses for clinging to what doesn’t work.

There is a huge dif­fer­ence between accept­ing who I am while also mak­ing bet­ter choic­es, and jus­ti­fy­ing stay­ing stuck by defend­ing and imple­ment­ing what does­n’t work.

The appeal of “repeating what doesn’t work” is simple.

Change requires both effort and the con­quer­ing of fear of the unknown. 

Remem­ber, 100,000 gen­er­a­tions ago we hud­dled with our fam­i­lies and tribes around fires, trem­bling in the dark, and life was short, and brutish, and filled with preda­tors and enemies.

Our “fear — threat” pat­tern­ing is ancient and hard-wired.

We appear to be much more sophisticated, until we are “threatened.”

“My boss does­n’t like me!” “I only got a ‘b’ — my life is over!” “(Wo)men don’t treat me right!” “What if I choose wrong?”

Sud­den­ly, we’re hud­dling again, even though there is no threat. And we’re lis­ten­ing to the famil­iar voice of the DJ at 

“C.R.I.P.E.S. — the sta­tion that wants you freaked out and scared — ’cause it’s good for the ratings!”

So, is there ever a real threat? Of course! For most of us, there are like­ly one or two real threats in a life­time. (Unless you choose a pro­fes­sion like cop, fire­fight­er, mil­i­tary per­son — then, there are dai­ly threats. Due to choice of occu­pa­tion, not cre­at­ed out of smoke and mirrors.)

Living our lives in fear and trembling isn’t a necessity — it’s a habit.

“It’s how I am,” is a cop out. Always. “I can’t help it,” is untrue. Always. “I’m the way I am because of what was done to me,” is fool­ish. Always.

What is true is that doing things dif­fer­ent­ly takes great courage and great under­stand­ing, and most peo­ple sim­ply don’t want to exert the effort to repeat­ed­ly change the channel.

Lazy and stuck is simple.

I found a pret­ty good quote the oth­er day:

“There is a great dif­fer­ence between know­ing and under­stand­ing: you can know a lot about some­thing and not real­ly under­stand it.”
–Charles F. Kettering

Understanding requires clarity of thought and shifting of being, as opposed to lip service.

The way I am is the way I am until I choose to make oth­er choic­es. Get­ting all defend­ed and annoyed is child­ish, and of course means you stay stuck.

This week, think about all you know about your­self, and go ahead and feel good about what’s work­ing. Then, focus in on the things (behav­iours, actions, inter­pre­ta­tions) you know about your­self that reg­u­lar­ly get you into trouble.

Won­der a bit what you are miss­ing, and why you are choos­ing to keep enact­ing the things that get you into trouble.

Ask your­self,

“What would hap­pen if I stopped jus­ti­fy­ing and defend­ing what does­n’t work? What would hap­pen if I ded­i­cat­ed myself to com­ing into a place of under­stand­ing, and from there, into mak­ing oth­er, bet­ter choices?”

What would happen if I changed the channel?

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