Find Your Fences and Figure Out What's Holding You Back

from The Rea Centre Collection: A Work in Progress edited by Chet Day

Did you know that your subconscious mind “fences” you in?

Well, it does, and we'd like to help you understand how this self-limiting phenomenon works. We're also going to show you what you can do to break down the fences that may be holding you back from meeting your goals, goals such as weight loss, business success, loving relationships, even athletic performance.

To begin, think about the computer you're sitting in front of while reading this article. In addition to all the hardware that makes it work, your computer uses a specialized “language” to interpret the tasks it is intended to do. Like your computer, your subconscious mind communicates with your body by using its fleshy "hardware," but the workhorse tool used by your subconscious mind is “language,” i.e. English or French or German or Chinese or whatever.

Embedded in the language used by your subconscious mind (subcon) are specific key words and phrases, language recognized by subcon as “shorthand.” These keywords and phrases enable subcon to cut corners and find references for you even faster. Having said that, the basic speed is fractions of a fraction of a second to start with, so shortcuts really do make it lightening fast to get neurological messages hurtling round. Some of the key words, however, are double-edged weapons, and they can either be misinterpreted at subconscious level, or they have links to bodies of data and learning which are the very opposite of what we actually want to say to the biocomputer via our spoken or “thought” speech.

Here are some of the most important key words and phrases:

• I should
• I ought to
• I must

With just these three examples, you can catch the drift of where we're headed.

These phrases, subconscious shortcuts, have a habit of digging through the trashcans of the memory and picking up a lot of debris on the way.

Huh?

To clarify, let's work with an example with which many of us can identify, a phrase many people these days use on themselves on a fairly regular basis…

I should lose weight.

Who says?

You?

Or is someone else constantly kicking you with this "I should"?

Do you really want to lose weight for yourself, to feel better, to feel fitter, to look after your one and only body? Or is there a different “driver” like…

• Your spouse's eyes are wandering;
• You feel out of the "in" crowd, the group that would meet all the membership requirements for the Walking Stick Insect Society;
• Your physician is nagging you;
• You are feeling depressed about how you look and staying away from external things to avoid any comments.

And this list can go on for pages.

Do you see the point now?

If the pressure to “should” comes from outside sources, the chances of it having enough oomph to become something you actively take up and participate in are close to zero. You’ll make a bid at doing it, but you can be darn sure at subconscious level you won't find a successful outcome.

So you fail with the "I should," and the failure sets up future troubles because you beat yourself up for “failing.”

Why do you beat yourself up? Easy. This wasn’t “your” project in the first place. The "I should" was bought in for you by someone else, and this simple fact practically guarantees failure.

Worse still, key phrases like "I should" are also internal, subconscious short cuts to past learning. You can read an encyclopedia volume in a week or two, if you have unlimited time. Your powerful subconscious mind can “read” it cover to cover, in a matter of seconds, and not miss a single period or comma. That is fast, and when the find is circulated for comparison against known standards and “house” rules, the possibilities for internal mischief skyrocket.

Huh?

Let's say you are thirty years old, safely in the adult range. You have a complete set of rules of life, standards against which you can judge what is happening in the external world. You have moral codes, ethical codes, rules of society -- either legal or the sort of folk-generated herd rules that are almost as dire. These rules just dropped in like presents from a passing pigeon, did they not?

If that's the case, then where did you learn to be “you”?

In the family, for most people, is the starting point. Your parent(s) perceived the world through their own filters and applied their own rules and codes. This is right, this is wrong. This is good, this is not good. I “should” be like this, I “should not” be like that, and so on. And in the process of teaching their junior to become a senior, parents lay this wisdom down like tablets from the mount. Where did they get this wisdom from? Same place you will when you are doing exactly the same thing to your kids. They got the wisdom from their parents, our first teachers, in a long line of teachers, all with their rule books.

Okay, so what's the point?

Just this: many of the rules and standards and perspectives we apply in life are not our own, but they have been acquired from infancy and installed in our biocomputers to guide us through life. This is all very well if the rules are sound, and if the rules actually help you and serve you well.

But what worked for Great Granny when the Old Queen was on the throne may not have the slightest relevance in a totally different world and environment inhabited by her great grandchild.

In fact, the rules may fence you in.

And since the rules are automatically triggered in your subconscious mind, which is so vast and fast and powerful, you have an exceptionally vigilant secret police force at work 24 hours at day internally, and they do have penalties for infringements. Not parking tickets, but bad feelings, or a swift memo to some of the guys in the internal village in your mind to get out of bed and haul you back into line. Which means the hot line rings in the hut of the biggies with requests for help. Biggies being the characters in the village with names like “Fear,” "Guilt," Old Habits"!

You get the drift now, don't you?

So, when you use phrases like "I shoulds" casually, be very careful. The phrases do work, but not necessarily in the way you might like. They can end up as “fences” that box you in and either stop you from doing something you really want to do or herd you in a direction someone else does want you to go. This may not be the direction you want.

Okay, we now have quite a bit of theory. Let's try a practical application of how you can make your fences work for you. You can work with your fences on paper to actually clear away some of the rubble. Although there are several ways to understand and make your fences work for you, let's use a method that requires pen and paper and about thirty minutes of time.

First, jot down a list of numbers on a sheet of paper. Five will do as a minimum and ten is probably a sensible maximum.

Then beside each number, write down one of the “I shoulds” in your life. Do this until you have 5-10 of the fences on paper. Don't think too hard or too slowly. You want to grab these "I shoulds" from beta consciousness, a bit below usual conscious level.

Don't make this a school exercise that rakes your brains. Just take your line of numbers and scribble down five to ten "I shoulds" as fast as you can write, like…

1. I should lose weight.
2. I should stop smoking.
3. I should be more confident.
4. I should be a nicer person.
5. I should use my credit card less often in the department stores.

When you look down your list, you may well notice how most of the “I shoulds” tend to be a little negative.

Next step.

Rewrite the whole list underneath the first list, but this time write them in this form:

1. If I really wanted to, I could lose weight.
2. If I really wanted to, I could stop smoking.
3. If I really wanted to, I could be more confident.
4. If I really wanted to, I could be a nicer person.
5. If I really wanted to, I could stop over-using my credit card.

At this point, a funny thing has already happened. Internally, you are now looking in a different direction, a direction driven by curiosity and the desire for self-knowledge.

Interestingly, the “bullies” of your internal village -- the chaps with names like "Fear" and "Guilt" -- will tend to yawn and look at this new list and be bored out of their gourds and disinclined to say anything because they don't see any perceived threat to you.

Now, instead of the "I should" line of introspection, you are asking decent questions with the phrase “Do I, actually, really want this?”

And if every fiber of your being shouts back, “No, I darn well do not,” then it is clearly already a dead duck. To be on the safe side, just do a mental check to be sure all parts of you concur with your decision to throw out that "should." If you don't have a good reason to change, trash the “I should” and save yourself a lot of grief. Then re-write the rule that sparked it off, in your own words, and not in the words of your parents, teachers, etc, etc.

But if every fiber of your being says, "Yes, I want to make this change," then progress is being made, more progress than you may realize because you are now pointing in the right direction, and you are now ready to start the most important part of fences.

At this point, you again put pen to paper but now with each of the new sentences you ask yourself:

Do I really want this for myself? If I do, what is stopping me from getting it?

Answer that last question fully and to the best of your ability. The answer might be a single line or it might be a whole page of bullet points, done at high speed.

Visually, your list will now look something like this…

1. I should lose weight.
2. If I really wanted to, I could lose weight.
3. Do I really want to lose weight? I do, so what is stopping me?

• I love the taste of junk food.
• Eating when I'm depressed makes me feel good.
• I can't seem to stop eating even when I'm no longer hungry.
• I like to eat and watch TV.
• I like to eat and read.
• … and so on.

As you write down all the things that are stopping you, many different emotional feelings may rush through, and some of these feeling won't be comfortable. Fear, Guilt, and Old Habits will try to grab the conductor's baton to scare you away from the new music you're making for yourself!

To handle these emotional feelings, simply keep re-assuring yourself. Stick to it, and this time do not be anything less than a true friend to yourself. Write everything down. Do keep in mind that this exercise is still a game. Even after you have everything written on paper, nothing compels you to take action if you ultimately choose otherwise.

But if you keep going and play by your rules instead of by the rules that others have ingrained into your being, by identifying your fences and your choices you will have the problem and the solutions mapped out on paper, and you will see that what you thought was the real problem is not the real problem -- it is secondary, a symptom.

At this point you know the real job ahead of you, and you have on paper the areas you need to work on, so you can stop wasting all your time and energy walking round in an endless circle, trapped within your inner fences.

Now you can either dismantle the fences or build yourself swinging gates you can use to exit the areas that hold you captive.

Free to move on, your fences no longer hold you back.