Due to the recent pandemic and social media I have had the opportunity to observe how we all project our our perceptions onto our reality, the vegans are taking it as proof that eating animals is bad, non vegans are taking it as proof that eating bats is bad, people who have issues with the chinese are taking it as proof that the chinese are bad, conspiracy theorists are taking it as proof that their conspiracy is the right one, everyone seems to be coming up with a different theory based on their perception of reality. People like me who have issues with authority are very uncomfortable with the government response, the censorship and the police state that seems to be forming around us is very worrying for me but other people seem to be wanting more of it.
The government’s original plan was herd immunity which would have meant 80% of people becoming infected but it would seem that public pressure forced a lockdown. The models originally said 500,000 would die in the U.K, that number has been repeatedly downgraded and many experts are now saying this virus is actually less deadly than the flu but the media still seems to be stoking fear, reporting the death numbers like football scores and many people’s perception seems to be getting molded around this.
Fear and Tunnel Vision
The fear seems to be giving many people tunnel vision and affecting their ability to think rationally, this lack of rational thought could be the reason that the original panic resulted in the supermarkets selling out of toilet rolls. Fear is part of the fight or flight response and it makes us more susceptible to becoming ill so I find the media coverage of this pandemic to be questionable, once the fight or flight response is triggered our attention becomes fixated on the perceived threat and we look for information to reinforce our belief in that threat.
There is a theory that humans can only be aware of 7 + or – two things at any one time, if everything that all your senses were picking up was made available to your brain it would be overloaded because there is about 14,000 different bits of information going on around you at anyone time.
The reticular activating system (RAS) is a walnut shaped network of neurons located in your brain stem. Its purpose is to help you sort information so you can make decisions quickly, it does this by filtering out anything that it isn’t relevant to you, your past experiences programmed your RAS on what to filter and what not to filter. Traumatic events program the RAS very quickly which is why people in the fight or flight response develop tunnel vision but the RAS is also programmed by repetitive stimuli over longer periods of time.
All your life experiences have distorted your view of reality. This is proven by the way different people are reading different things into the current pandemic, everything you see around you is a projection of your beliefs. Someone who grew up in a wealthy family will not form the same beliefs about money or lack thereof as someone who grew up in a poor family, rich kids generally grow into rich adults and poor kids generally grow into poor adults. The good news is that by changing your beliefs you can change what you see around you.
How Can You Change Your Beliefs?
Since I am a hypnotist I expect you can guess what my number one method for changing beliefs is, I have created a law of attraction hypnosis recording here but there are other things I advise clients to do as well:
Goals
If you went to the travel agent and they said, “we have a special flight offer, you get on the plane and it flies around hoping to land somewhere nice before the fuel runs out” would you buy the ticket? It’s the same with life, if you don’t know where you are going you’re never going to get there. It’s really important to set yourself some goals because once you know where you want to go you can plan a way to get there.
Gratitude
Start looking for things to be grateful for and you will be surprised by the magic that happens. A really good way to attract more of what you want into your life is by gratitude journaling, every morning when you wake up right down at least 5 things you are grateful once you have done this a few days in a row you will find that you automatically start looking for the good in situations and when you look for good things you will find them.
Meditate
Many people think meditation is about stopping thought but that’s not the case, the purpose of meditation is to calm your mind and allow you to detach from your thoughts, to see them as separate from yourself by doing this you can stop yourself being swept away in hysteria like so many have been recently, you can go from reacting to acting and actually begin to take control of your life.
I believe the current crisis has pressed the global reset button and presents an opportunity for all of us, if we don’t use it to create something better I fear we are going to get something much worse.
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