by Lata Gwalani

Created on: December 26, 2008

DON'T THINK OF A WHITE ELEPHANT!

The minute your eyes fell on the title of this article, I bet you thought of a white elephant.

But, why? It says, DON'T think of a white elephant.

Well, the reason you disobeyed is what this article is all about.

The bigger the don't, the bigger the elephant in your mind!

Do you recollect how your instructions such as, "don't spill the milk,", "don't touch the remote,", "don't watch TV," got you exactly the outcomes you did not want?

Think about it. You tell your two year-old, "don't put your finger in the plug point," and even before you can finish, his finger is in the plug point! How exasperating?

No! How interesting!

Interesting, because that is the magic of the mind. The mind and we are not separate. We are what our mind is and obviously, the mind is what we are.

Do you have a conversation with your mind?

Yes you do, all the time. Our thoughts, our opinions, expressed and not expressed, our ideas, our wishes, spoken and not spoken are all slices of our conversation with our mind. In other words, all self-talk is a way of conversing with the mind.

However, there is a huge difference when you converse with others and when you converse with your mind.

When you converse with others, you may or may not get the results you desire, because, they choose what they want to do. Your instructions may or may not be complied with.

But, when you converse with your mind, every little thing you say becomes an instruction to it, whether you meant it to be or not.

So, that just means that we have to be really very alert in our self-talk. Always remember the mind is listening.

Let us examine closely the way we speak to others. When we want things done, we give clear instructions, without any ambiguity, so that the instruction is complied with effectively. When instructions are vague, the outcomes are also not up to the mark, or at times, even undesirable. The saving grace is that the other person can seek further clarifications and make us reframe or rephrase our instructions clearly.

The same is partly true of our conversations with the mind. Partly because, if our instructions are ambiguous, the outcomes will also be disappointing. A major difference here is that the mind does not seek further clarifications.

The language of communication with the mind can determine the outcome of your efforts mind power is triggered by the kind of words we use to give instructions to ourselves.

My approach to the subject is based on Neuro Linguistic Programming (NLP)

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