A paradigm or mindset is a collection of thousands of beliefs we hold hidden in the deep recesses of our minds.
It’s akin to the idea of a complex software program that is installed in our minds in early childhood and continually updates itself with new data and evidence that makes each pattern within the program either stronger or weaker.
For instance, you may have learned at age three from watching a sibling that it is funny to stir all your food together on your dinner plate before eating. For a while, you did it too, until the game wore off or you realized you didn’t like your food mushed together. That’s a simple example of changing one’s mind.
You may also have grown up in a family where there was a lot of sarcasm and belittling, where your ideas and dreams were mocked or discounted, and without knowing you were doing so, you formed a belief that you’re not worthy of joy or love or happiness. But as your life progressed, you got so tired of feeling that way about yourself and you looked around and realized there was information available to help you change your self-image. And you decided to take the task seriously, and steadily move toward your goals. Now, each time you slide back into thinking thoughts of discouragement, you catch yourself and replace that with a feeling of “Yes, I can” gumption.
In my opinion, we greatly need an overhaul of our collective paradigm about the power of our thinking.
While walking through Central Park during the writing of this book, I heard two men on the path behind me talking about Meryl Streep’s speech at the Golden Globes ceremony the previous evening. Golden Globes are awards bestowed by members of the Hollywood Foreign Press Association. During her acceptance of the Cecil B. DeMille Lifetime Achievement Award, Streep asked the press to hold Mr. Trump accountable now and in the future, citing his well-documented mocking of a disabled news reporter.
Here is part of Meryl Streep’s speech:
“They gave me three seconds to say this, so: An actor’s only job is to enter the lives of people who are different from us, and let you feel what that feels like. And there were many, many, many powerful performances this year that did exactly that. Breathtaking, compassionate work.
But there was one performance this year that stunned me. It sank its hooks in my heart. Not because it was good; there was nothing good about it. But it was effective and it did its job. It made its intended audience laugh, and show their teeth. It was that moment when the person asking to sit in the most respected seat in our country imitated a disabled reporter. Someone he outranked in privilege, power and the capacity to fight back. It kind of broke my heart when I saw it, and I still can’t get it out of my head, because it wasn’t in a movie. It was real life. And this instinct to humiliate, when it’s modeled by someone in the public platform, by someone powerful, it filters down into everybody’s life, because it kind of gives permission for other people to do the same thing. Disrespect invites disrespect, violence incites violence. And when the powerful use their position to bully others we all lose. O.K., go on with it. [She was being prompted to speed up.]
“O.K., this brings me to the press. We need the principled press to hold power to account, to call him [Trump] on the carpet for every outrage. That’s why our founders enshrined the press and its freedoms in the Constitution.”
Now, let’s go back to the two men talking behind me in Central Park. What drew my attention to their conversation is that I heard one of them say, “Okay, so he played a dirty game and he won but now he’s the president and Meryl Streep had no business mocking him.”
In other words, now that Trump has won, we are supposed to accept whatever he does because he is the president, and if you hold up his behavior to the light, you are the one doing the mocking?
The words that man spoke reveal his paradigm: he believes that being president gives Trump a free pass to do and say what he wants, and it is unreasonable to hold him accountable.
What can we do about such thinking? We can’t force people to change. Change has to come from within each of us in order to be real change and not just a surface compliance with what someone more powerful than you has decreed.
No one can think our thoughts for us.
No one can feel our feelings for us.
No one can create the pictures in our minds for us.
No one can take our actions for us.
But we can be pushed and goaded—and if we haven’t learned to disconnect those buttons and are hot-wired to react, then that other person does indeed call the shots.
Want to be a free agent instead of a puppet on a string? Learn more about using the law of attraction in your life. Understanding is the key to lasting, beneficial change in our lives.
For change to be effective, each individual must want to experience better results in life than what they now realize is their limiting set of beliefs about their abilities and self-worth, and they must be willing to try new things and open up to new ideas.
When someone tries to force change on any of us, no matter how well-meaning, we always resist. Think about all the times your parents scolded you to stop being messy or to change a certain habit they labeled as bad—didn’t you dig in your heels and become more determined than ever to hold onto the behavior or belief that was seemingly under attack?
Let’s not waste energy on trying to change other people’s minds and opinions. We’ve got more than enough work to do in mastering the laws of the universe so that we can attract the greater good we progressives desire for our country, even with a misogynist and racist in the White House.
Charles Haanel (1866-1949) was a New Thought teacher whose books remain popular today with those studying personal development. Below are eight lessons that Haanel offered as part of his “Master Key System” to help us better comprehend the universe we live in and the mental power we all are born with.
- That much gathers more is true on every plane of existence and that loss leads to greater loss is equally true.
- Mind is creative, and conditions, environment and all experiences in life are the result of our habitual or predominant mental attitude.
- The attitude of mind necessarily depends upon what we think. Therefore, the secret of all power, all achievement and all possession depends upon our method of thinking.
- This is true because we must “be” before we can “do,” and we can “do” only to the extent which we “are,” and what we “are” depends upon what we “think.”
- We cannot express powers that we do not possess. The only way by which we may secure possession of power is to become conscious of power, and we can never become conscious of power until we learn that all power is from within.
- There is a world within a world of thought and feeling and power; of light and life and beauty and, although invisible, its forces are mighty.
- The world within is governed by mind. When we discover this world we shall find the solution for every problem, the cause for every effect; and since the world within is subject to our control, all laws of power and possession are also within our control.
- The world without is a reflection of the world within. What appears without is what has been found within. In the world within may be found infinite Wisdom, infinite Power, and infinite Supply of all that is necessary, waiting for unfoldment, development and expression. If we recognize these potentialities in the world within they will take form in the world without.
Once we learn that there are specific rules that control the results we live with each day, then we gain access to the power of creating more joy, freedom, justice and prosperity for all.
I’ll get into all of this in greater detail in my new book America’s New Breed of Freedom Fighters—coming on Inauguration Day.
Are you in? Okay, then put aside the panic, breathe mindfully, and realize this is an incredible opportunity for all of us to “fight” for the freedom and justice we desire. More to come in the rest of this blog countdown to Inauguration 2017, and in my new book which will be released that day: America’s New Breed of Freedom Fighters: With Liberty and Justice for All
Pre-order now on Amazon at: http://bit.ly/NewBreedFreedomFighters
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