When I drive, I almost always listen to educational programs.
I call it my University on Wheels.
It doesn’t mean I never listen to music, but it is rare.
So this past week I have been listening to Maxwell Maltz’s Theatre of the Mind by Matt Furey.
Excellent CD program from a giant in the personal development field:
Nightingale Conant
I highly recommend it.
As I am listening to it, I am learning about the power of mental imagery, mental movies, and learning about the FEELING of what you are picturing.
How does your mental movie make you feel?
When you are imagining a goal, it’s so important to listen to the feeling.
Right now it is my lunch break.
Often during my lunch break I head home, and then come back. And as I was driving home I got behind a very smelly asphalt truck.
The road in front of our house is being paved and this truck was part of the crew. Now on the road I was on, I have two ways to get home.
#1 is the “usual”. It’s the way I usually go home because it’s a direct shot.
#2 is the first exit, but it has curves to it, and not as much of a direct shot.
But either way I go, it takes roughly the same time to get home.
Well today as I was imagining heading home for lunch I came to option #2. I had just recently pulled up behind the smelly truck and I “felt” that I should turn.
Only I didn’t.
I reasoned that I wouldn’t be behind the truck for very long and I would be on my way.
My “left brain” started talking to me and telling me why my “right brain” was wrong. Whenever you start thinking and not feeling, you have moved into the left brain.
Only that was only part of the story.
Yes, the truck turned at the upcoming intersection, but the road was now closed because they were paving!
So I had to turn around anyway!
And this is my point…
These types of things happen to us each and everyday.
We are getting the signals from our subconscious of the appropriate action to take. But we aren’t listening. We just speed on by with our brain in hyperdrive not even paying attention.
And this happens with our health. Oh boy, does it ever. The average person is completely oblivious to what is happening inside their own body.
Sure, they are paying attention on a crude level.
But there is soooo much more.
And I think that is one of the most interesting things I have noticed in past 10 plus years of being a doctor.
It happens time and time again, that a patient who has been under care for a few weeks, few months, or sometimes more will come in talking about how they “feel”.
Not the average way of talking about how they feel, where people describe their pain, or their ailments, but something much deeper.
An Inner Sense.
And it is absolutely fascinating to watch.
Because a connection has been made. A reconnection really, to a part of the brain that has been ignored in our “modern world”.
These patients will say things such as…
“I just knew I needed to come in today. Is that weird?”
“I felt something pulling me to the office today.”
“I ‘feel’ different but I don’t really know how to describe it.”
“I feel energy flowing through my body.”
Or any variation of those themes.
And another thing that is interesting…
These people heal way faster. They become less focused on their ailment, and more focused on living an amazing life.
And that is where your imagination MUST be. So pay attention to what you are “feeling”, not just what you are “thinking”.
Albert Einstein was quoted as saying:
“Imagination is more important than knowledge.”
Here is a highly regarded scientist that changed our world forever telling you to listen to a different part of your brain!
Smart man.
Best,
Dr. Brant
P.S. I set this email aside for a few days, then overhead my father in-law talking to my boys. He was telling them how it was so weird that at work he often thinks about something and then it happens.
Specifically he was telling them that on an almost daily basis he thinks about a delivery, (he is a commercial plumber), wondering where it is, when the phone rings…
and guess what!? It’s the delivery!
Our minds are more powerful than we can even imagine…