I am at times confronted with the frustrating dilemma posed from clients indicating that a chronic, undermining dynamic appears to still be active in their thoughts, feelings or behavior even though they have been dutifully enacting strides to change. The erroneous assumption is that the change desired and focused on is not forthcoming or is not occurring. Often, it is not that one has not shifted or begun to shift into a greater paradigm of expression but that the habit of certain negative thoughts and reactions is still present. As I recently reflected to a client, there is a difference between the point of reference that forms, fuels and sustains a negative habit and a “hollow” habit.
When you are still identifying with an undermining issue (“I am” fearful, doubtful, negative, weak, unfocused, a procrastinator, unsuccessful, etc.) then sabotaging thoughts and behaviors are fueled by this point of identity reference. The negative habits – such as procrastination, debilitating self-doubt and the like, are formed out of identifying with the conditioned perception wrought from personal experience. When one, however, through whatever means (personal inner work, hypnotherapy, self-improvement practices, etc.) begins to release identifying with (which is not the same as ignoring) what has happened to them – the most significant step in transformation by the way – then what can remain are the “hollow habits” of negativity and self-sabotage.
This discernment is crucial to avoid unwittingly undermining your progress by presuming “things are still the same” and consequently defaulting back into erroneous negative identification. A hollow habit is much easier to neutralize as it only reflects the brain’s wiring rather than a point of identification. It is akin to moving a trash receptacle from a long-positioned station to another area; the first several times you automatically go to throw away trash the brain will default to throwing it in the old (wired) familiar location. After enough times of reminding the brain that the receptacle is now in a different location the hollow habit (as the trash receptacle is not actually in the former location) is rewired to the new location. We rewire hollow habits all the time; a wall clock has been moved from its familiar location yet we continue to glance at the old location for the time of day until we have re-wired the brain to the new location.
It is no different with matters of significantly more relevance – to the brain, the “habit” of defaulting to negative thinking is to be rewired to supportive thinking that presently reflects the shift in identification that has been engaged. How do you know that you have shifted or begun to shift your point of identification and that a negative habit is hollow? As you find yourself increasingly recognizing that, intellectually, “I know better!” – than what the habit being witnessed reflects. This is a clear indication that you are dealing more with a hollow, wired habit of thought or reaction than an identification-fueled habit.
You then, as I submitted to a client, render the negative thought or thinking innocuous by recognizing it is a habit of thought rather than giving credence to the content of the thought itself. This is how hollow habits of thought are dissolved; by not giving serious attention to the content of what the thought says. By not “feeding” the heretofore habituated undermining thought with serious attention to its content, thoughts of a more positive and supportive nature naturally begin to proliferate – because there is now room for the growing shift in identification that reflects them – and you participate in “wiring” them in the brain by affirming their reality.
Your healing is just a perception away.
You. Are. More. Then. What. Has. Happen. To. You.
(You guys are going to see a black man turn blue as that statement is my constant refrain! – I will video tape the color change and it will go viral! Haha!)
