Perfect Poise, Perfect Life
Bring your body into balance and revolutionise your life
By Noel Kingsley
Publisher Hodder Mobius
AVAILABLE HERE

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Don't let your past undermine you

Letting go of the Past

Several people have commented on my post a few days ago about Seeing Things Differently and the discussions brought to mind a rather powerful and negative experience I had as a young man which I'll share with you in a minute. But I am always relieved and encouraged when I look back at what happened to me and then consider how I subsequently changed my attitude, posture and sense of well-being so I have come out of the situation wiser, happier, healthier and better off.

During our lives we are constantly living new experiences, some of which are good and some are bad. All experiences have a profound effect not only on our consciousness but also on our subconscious. Having a good experience tells you that it’s OK and that you’re good at this and you can do it again. It’s positive and you feel that there is no need for fear. Having a bad experience, particularly when we’re young, tells us that this is hurtful and painful, and that we’re not successful, that we’re a failure, and it makes us timid when a similar situation occurs. So we go through our lives, constantly experiencing things that add to and change our perception of ourselves and our abilities or limitations.

If I go on stage and make a presentation as I have done hundreds of times and it goes well, without suffering nerves, then this positive experience tells my subconscious that it’s OK, I can do this and it’s likely to go well when I do it again. Conversely if it doesn’t go well then this negative experience can affect me on subsequent occasions. This happened to me once many years ago when I was quite young.

I was in Amsterdam on business with some colleagues as a young up and coming manager and we had an important meeting with the directors of a large Dutch retail organisation. I had been out late the night before and having had some drinks, not slept well then had a salty breakfast and become rather dehydrated I was very much the worse for wear. I went into their boardroom with my colleagues from London at 9.00am on the top floor of their corporate offices where the windows went from floor to ceiling and the hot sun was blasting in. When it was my turn to speak, I completely dried up, couldn’t think properly and felt a strong sense of panic. I went pale and only managed to splutter something and made my excuses for not feeling well.

This type of experience can seriously undermine our confidence, and it goes into our subconscious and tells us that this situation is fearful. Next time we’re confronted by a similar one, we are possibly going to feel nervous, if not down right frightened, as it happened to me all those years ago. The little voice inside of us won’t tell us that we shall do this easily, but that we should fear the situation as a cause of discomfort and distress. We won’t feel good, but threatened.

This bad experience affected me deeply. During the short period of leading up to my next presentation, I was checking to see if my fear was appearing again. I was almost trying to find my fear, just to confirm that I really was frightened! And with every attempt to find the fear in me to justify my nervousness, I was rehearsing the bad experience, and becoming even better at my negative habit that was undermining me. And I found it. Indeed I managed to create it by looking for it. I was right! I was frightened! And by finding the nervousness I was satisfying my ego in some perverse way. I had actually made myself fearful, even though it was actually all in my imagination. It was all in my head, my body and the feeling was one that I had created for myself. They were feelings that I had never experienced before I got a scare on that one particular occasion.

Not only did I have the voice inside shouting that I should run away and be fearful, I also had my muscles tightening up, stiffening my neck, shoulders, legs and back in a fight or flight response that would also throw me off balance and cause me to hold my breath. Being undermined by excessive tiredness and dehydration made it particularly difficult for me to consciously taken control to ensure that I didn’t respond physically in that manner. This all happened over twenty-five years ago and is now a distant memory. I regularly give public presentations these days and thoroughly enjoy them.

The condition in which we are physically, is linked up very much with our emotions, and one affects the other. If I am able to control myself so that I don’t stiffen, and maintain good balance and breathe easily, I’m not setting up the physical response to fear and I’ll be more likely to remain calm and be successful. The recurring thought that “I can’t do that” and the physical tendency to stiffen are both habits; one mental, and the other physical, that is if they can be separated at all, which is unlikely.

From these sorts of bad experiences we get an attitude about our abilities. Being scolded constantly by our parents for not doing well enough at school can have quite an effect on our self perception. We may eventually feel that we’re not and cannot be successful. We may grow to lack self-confidence, and also have a poor sense of our worth. So when we are then confronted with challenges outside of our comfort zone, we may subconsciously believe that it’s not even worth trying to achieve it, because deep down we feel that we don’t have the ability. With constant verbal attacks and lack of emotional support from our parents, it’s also possible that we will have developed certain postural characteristics that are based on fear, and lack of self worth, for example, a hollow chest, stoop, rounded shoulders and general collapse.

We can see clearly that our posture affects our emotions, and also how we think can affect our posture and how we feel too. We create our own reality. Some negative experiences can become so deeply ingrained that they affect everything we do. But if we can see where they may have come from and realise that our emotions and physique are all of our own making, we can understand that with some intention and perseverance we can 'unmake' them; we can change how we are by consciously choosing to be different. This is the wonderful potential that we all have....every single one of us. If we are blessed with being able to think as most of us thankfully are, then it is through this wonderful attribute that we can make a difference to our lives. We can change our posture; learn the Alexander Technique to help. We can choose to focus on the positive, to think of what we DO want rather than what we do not, to choose to be happy. If we decide not to bother and continue as we are then that is our choice. But it's worth reminding ourselves that This is Our Life and it's the only one we've got, so we may as well make the best of it and give ourselves something to remember and be truly proud of when we look back in our old age and reflect on our life.

Hey, we can have such a good time here if we choose!! :-)

[This blog includes anecdote from Perfect Poise, Perfect Life by Noel Kingsley]

Posted by Noël on May 24, 2007 11:35 AM | Permalink