Part 2 - The power of your thoughts

In my previous post, I mentioned that I attended a conference.  This post is about a specific session I attended about the power of your thoughts.  Vanessa and I entered a classroom in the basement of the  League.   There were two other woman and an instructor in the room.  The room was dark, the lights were not working, the instructor used an old transparency projector to give light to the room.  Let's just say, it was no accident that the lights weren't working;  this was just part of the two hour journey that we were headed on.

 Lolita, was the instructors name.   She was an older woman, with a mid-sized build.  She was dressed in a skirt, a matronly blouse and mentioned that she forgot her shoes so she was wearing ankle socks and tennis shoes.  For those of you that have spent any time on a college campus you have seen this look a million times, most of us foreigners call it, 'the Ann Arbor look'.  Her voice was soft, and she was eccentric, some may even describe her as bizzare.  I noticed immediately that Lolita was not overly skilled in technology, her entire presentation would be delivered with powerpoint slides loaded with pictoral images and complete with sound.  I was wondering if Vanessa made the right decision to miss her session and stay with me, where was this going?

Lolita started with : Your thoughts, why are they important?  How much energy do we waste "over reacting" about things?  What is it that you believe, Why do you believe it? (what does the little voice in your head say?)  I knew immediately this is the place I wanted to be, as for Vanessa, she would have to decide.

 Lolita went on:   Brain science tell us that 'you repeat a thought in your mind over and over and by doing this you condition your brain to ACCEPT this thought without condition.  You create---or visualize things before they happen, (forecasting what you think the outcome of something will be) and you visualize images from the past, (focusing on things you cannot change) .  Your mind is a garden that repeats your thoughts over and over again.. The garden is filled with blooming flowers or with weeds (negative vs positve thoughts) .  You can change your thinking, Lolita says.    You can change the messages that you create.  Just like any bad habbit (smoking, over eating) change is difficult and there are lots of excuses we make to avoid change.


Lolita shared her own experiences of her bad temper and how she needed to change how she was 'reacting' to things or spending alot of emotional energy on things. It was difficult to imagine this woman having a bad temper.  She would continuously laugh at herself during her presentation, often as she was reading right from her script, she also used alot of Star Wars references and would make the little voices:  Darth Vadar: The Force is with you. LOL --Luke I am your father (this was complete with voices). 

I started to give character to this woman and decided that if she were a cartoon she would be a 'fairy god mother" -her mannerisms, her crazy laughs at herself, and her voices. I wondered ,for a second ,if when the session ended would she disappear into thin air and I would be left wondering if this was a dream.

She talked about women who overcame adversity and made changes, she pointed to examples.  She spoke of our needing to decide if the changes that need to be made (the negative self-talk) was really worth our time.  She quoted "Yoda"  "Do or do not, there is not try".

 Her lecture then shifted to gratitude, and the importance of being grateful.  The research says that keeping a gratitude journal for just 3 weeks can have an effect on your well being for 6 months. (Look up the research she mused as she had several times previously).   She spoke of focusing on the present moment,  to practice shifting any thoughts away that aren't in the present moment.  She shared some resources for future reading  "Happy for No Reason and Seven Pleasures; Essays on Ordinary Happiness. 

I loved this session, it made me wish I could go back to school, get my masters, then my PHD, study and research, make presentations, talk in a soft voice, wear tennis shoes with my skirts and have 20 somethings refer to me as a fairy God mother.  It was thought provoking at the same time a little wierd.  " I heard the Fairy God Mother say, " you can't wish, you must ACT"!   (Did she hear my thoughts too?) Her final words:  "Don't let what you  can't do get in the way of what you can do!"  I may not be able to go back to school right now but I can wear tennis shoes with my skirt! -- watch for a photo soon!