The Five Second Rule

that is truly how life feels sometimes.......

photo from unsplash.com

Eh? What's this? What is the five second rule?

Disclaimer: I truly don't get into the whole positive thinking charisma thing.  So many of the public people promoting this, are out to make money by selling their "tricks", so that we, the not so charismatic, and unachieving people (us), can be just like them.

Honestly it just does my head in. Preying on people and their insecurities. In order for the promoter to be "rich and famous, yet humble and kind". Yeah. Whatever.

I don't want to be like those people. Nor like anyone else. I've done that, it was a ridiculous failure. I now just want to be me. 

This sort of persuading, to be better, more beautiful, make more money. It is so insidious. I do feel that it has contributed to insecurity on so many levels, for so many people. I truly have to steel myself to not watch or read anything that is telling me that I'm not good enough, and that I need to do what the persuader is saying to be better. Like them. Occasionally, usually by accident, I do come across something useful, from a public figure (keep reading to find out)

Transformation?

I did a talk on Global Unity Festival (see the Earth Elders link, below) about transformation. The main message I gave, was that we are fine. We don't need transforming. What is useful to transform, however, is what "covers" us. Meaning, the things that obscure our true personality, and our Inner Light. Those things that erode our self esteem. Make life feel hopeless, make us feel that we are : bad; useless; pathetic... honestly this could be a long list. Sadly.

We are all prone to these feelings. And this is what can be transformed. Not by "being mindful"; "being positive"; doing "ra-ra" cheerful type things and all of the rest of those unhelpful suggestions. Oh, and do this and that expensive course to do them, too. 

What is my beef about all of this?

Well, I've already mentioned people who prey on our insecurities to make money. Most of us are decent people. Which is the best that we can be, really. And I know that there are people who do chose to be horrible, nasty, evil, and so forth. They are not whom I'm talking about. I'm talking about the lovely people who have been abused, and ended up with problems. The whole arena around this, the results, the outcomes of abuse, these are what need to be "transformed." They are not us, but these traumas and abuses, they have affected us in not a good way. 

I gave a really lovely meditation on facebook/earthelders (link is below), to connect us to the part of us which is loving, understanding, and nonjudgemental towards oneself, if you're interested. 

But there are lots of other tips to help deal with the overwhelming sensations which arise from trauma. 

A funny thing happened on the way to the loo (yes, really)

Anyways, here is a funny story (about moi, of course), regarding a simple tip. So I twisted my knee one morning. Holy hell, I never knew that so much pain existed inside our kneecap. A well kept secret, to be sure. So, I found that I couldn't stand, or walk. But for some things, you actually do need to do both. Such as going to the bathroom. 

So there I am, seated on the edge of my bed. I'm already in terror and making scared noises at having to stand up and get to the bathroom, which is luckily next to my bedroom. 

I just couldn't make myself stand. Because I'm was too scared of the pain, to do so. I tried all sorts of psyching myself up, tricks. Useless. I then tried counting: 1-2-3. That was useless too, as my legs were smarter than that. In desperation I next tried, 5-4-3-2-1-liftoff! It worked. Miraculously. I managed to quickly stand, take one step forward, then fling myself between the doorway, arms outstretched sideways like a giant eagle, to hit the walls and stop me falling flat on my face. I made it to the loo! Yay! I did the same counting backwards when I couldn't stand up after. Because it worked. I did a lot of darned counting in that way, with or without "liftoff!" Didn't stop the pain, but hey, I could get from bed to bathroom. It was a hungry day, by the way, as the kitchen was too far away.

5 second decision

How did this counting backwards work? Because it so obviously did. A few days later, I watched a talk on youtube by Mel Robbins, recommended by a friend, called the "5 second rule", which explained it all. And Mel had discovered it during an amazingly horrible time in her life. 

So, briefly, we really don't want to do things that we have difficult feelings around (such as excruciating knee pain). But of course, usually it's emotional stuff.

When we are immobilised by difficult feelings, the 5 second rule, counting backwards in that way, makes us able to move. Because it breaks habit loops in the brain associated with feelings, taking energy away from the feelings area of the brain to a more awake, learning, area in the frontal lobes. 

So you know those mornings when you don't want to get up? Especially when you're sad, depressed, insecure, or even being just plain ornery. Try counting backwards from 5. It works.

Link to post about happy thoughts, here

Link to transformation meditation, my talks and other meditations on Earth Elders: here.  Click "join" if you haven't already, then click the search icon, and enter "Ratnamurti Saraswati". 

Link to Global Unity Festivals on you tube, here. I'm in the Wave 1, Asia/Pacific episodes.

Link to a post explaining Global Unity Festivals here 

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