Yesterday I was fortunate enough to attend a training seminar through work called Managing Your Emotions a Fred Pryors seminar. All the information is from my notes and their manual. These are not my ideas but with all the posts on this website I learned some things that I thought might benefit others.
Learning to change your behavior - permanently-is THE most important skill you can develop!
Who causes you to feel the way you do?? YOU do!!! No one has the power to determine your emotional and behavioral reactions but you.
Let's talk a bit about your brain! We will refer to your conscious level as the Rider and your subconscious level as the Horse. Your Rider hears what you are thinking and can intellectually control your behavior. Your Horse is where all your habits are stored. It controls your feelings and heavily influences your behavior. What's 2 + 2? 4 Right (you didn't even have to think about it!)- how did you know that?? Your Horse told you because that information was stored long ago.
You see - most of us walk around with our Horse in control! To effectively remove a habit, you must retrain your horse. The Rider needs to take control! When the Rider takes control, you can get rid of unwanted emotions and behavior, install desired emotions and behavior and pass your perceptions from the Rider to the Horse so that the behavior and the emotions become just as automatic as the old ones used to be. You can stop irrational thinking, you can replace bad habits with good ones, you can be in control of your emotions.
Let's talk a bit about emotions!
Your Horse has the ability to bring out powerful, extremely negative emotions with a simple flick of the hoof so to say. Some emotions you may experience are hurt, inadequacy, depression, anxiousness and guilt. The Horse even has the ability to combine these emotions and turn them into Anger.
Learning and Relearning!
The essence of self discipline and emotional control is learning how to relearn. Specifically, you are interested in those beliefs that cause you to overreact emotionally or behave in ways you wish you hadn't. At this point, you are an expert as causing yourself to overreact because you have been doing it for years.
This is where I feel smoking relates so heavily to what I learned yesterday! My horse has been telling my Rider for years that smoking is something I need, something I can't live without. My horse influence my attitude towards quitting, staying quit and having a postive/negative attitude towards it. This is where I can tell my Rider (on my conscious level) that the horse is incorrect. That I do not need the bad habit! I have to retrain my Horse so it will not think smoking is what I need. I have the power to retrain my Horse (stubborn as he may be!!!) that smoking is not something I need.
Now -- for any of those that have horses or ride them, you know a horse can be stubborn. They don't want to go where they don't want to go! But, with your guidance and some discipline you can get them to do exactly what you want them to do! This is the power you have as the RIDER!!!!
I know I can quit forever because I've already retrained my Horse to stop nagging me about smoking! It was tough at first and with any animal with such strength you have to be consistent! Repetition is the key!
You can apply this information to any area of your life! If your Horse continually tells you to behave a certain way and you don't like that way -- take the reins and pull on the horse! Don't allow your horse to be in control. The Horse is automatic based on your beliefs that you taught it in the past (in some cases your horse probably was taught behaviors from others as well). So - flip that horse over on it's back where it's the weakest, retrain it and get going with life!!
I hope this makes sense and you get some value from it! Remember -- when someone upsets you or makes you cry -- you are giving them control of your emotions! Remind yourself that you are the only one who can make you feel the way you do! Don't give away your control! Stay Strong! Retrain those horses and kick the habits and behaviors you feel are stopping you from living the best life you can! Retrain those stubborn horses with self discipline and structure.
Good Luck!!!
There was so much I learned, if you are interested in more information or have other questions, I'm by no means an expert but I will help if I can.
