Ampersand Answers: Stop Thinking

Freedom from the past, or anything else for that matter, Susan, always comes in the very instant you stop thinking about it.

Mike Dooley, TUT.com  

The Question: 

How do I stop thinking about something? 

&mpersand Answers: 

An age-old human query, this one. The truth is: humans don’t not do things very well. Think of Beauty and the Beast. What does he say to her? Any door but that one. Which door does she want? 

Except … there’s a secret to be ferreted out here. 

It’s called the Law of Substitution, and it works a dream once you know how to use it. There are some specifics you need to know before you try it. 

Whatever you substitute for what you’re trying to let go, it has to have the same emotional intensity. 

If you’re so mad you’re shaking, thinking about that time you had a chocolate milkshake might not be powerful enough to countermand the anger. 

Equal intensity. 

The second specific is that you’re likely to fail at this for a while. Take heart, though. It’s just because the primitive brain always trumps the conscious mind. Always. 

If someone has scared the socks off you, the fear will win until you manage to get some distance from it, and diminish it. 

So, here’s how the Law of Substitution works. You want to forget … that awful break-up scenario from just last weekend. It’s intense. It feels very present moment (although it isn’t.) I feels like you’ll never heal from it. 

And you’ve already planned a trip to Disney World that you feel great about. 

Picture the bad scene, and then superimpose the good one onto the bad one. Feel the feelings you’ll have in the good scene. Imagine how fun it will be. Enjoy your fantasy about it. Keep at it, whenever the bad scene comes to mind, until the good one automatically overrides it. Then the bad scene will be distanced from you, and the good one will be present to you. 

That’s how you let go. You work at it.  

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