Just as you can't wash the floor you are standing on, you can't change the thoughts that you identify with.
If we could teach our children that there is a reality beyond thinking, they would have the ability to look at their thoughts objectively.
When we can't step back from our thoughts, our choices are limited.
Recently, a college student committed suicide after being secretly videotaped by his roommate.
The thoughts that created his reality were only a creation of his mind and can be changed.
We need to teach our whole society that life is more important than any thought in our mind and this has to start at a young age.
The main problem is that there are very few adults that realize the freedom of this beyond-thought reality, so it is hard to teach.
Children learn at a young age that this beyond-thought reality exists in play.
As adults, our best athletes discover the power of this when they enter The Zone and perform with excellence.
Today, The Zone has been applied to almost every aspect of life, from dieting to patient participation.
When children are young, it is easy to develop conscious habits in a playful scenario.
We can teach our children how to trigger a new mind-set with a word or a phrase.
If a person views a situation from a negative self-image, it is possible with a trigger to view that same situation from a positive self-image.
This can happen almost instantly, once the habit has been developed.
Let me share an example from my practice: There was a man who grew up in a dysfunctional home, where he was belittled as a child.
This created a negative self-image, which he gave the name "bad boy.
" He was starting a family of his own and was afraid that he would treat his kids in the same way.
In his counseling, He created a positive self-image based on the good times in his life that he called "pride.
" He learned to create a habit of switching from "bad boy" to "pride" with a simple trigger.
After weeks of developing that habit, whenever he felt "bad boy," he could switch to "pride" and view the situation from a completely different perspective.
When you can't wash the floor you are standing on or change the thoughts you identify with; by changing your self-image, you can view them from a different perspective.
Norman Cousins said that we either reside in our body or preside over our body.
We all need to learn that presiding over our body is as important as reading, writing and arithmetic-or anything we can learn in school.
Imagine if you are caught in a situation you could not control.
Wouldn't you think that your stronger character could deal with it better than your weaker character?