September 6, 2008 by gus
If it is my opinion and I can change it, then what should I change it to? I found the answer to this question for me. It was most effective to pick the opposite statement of the one that hurt. I don’t know why, but through experience I have found that the opposite brings joy and is usually true.
I know through thousands of permeations of this; the flip has so much more truth it is not even comparable to the original statement. Take a second to imagine the ramifications of knowing whether a statement is true or false instantly. Even if the flip weren’t true there is a major therapeutic benefit to bringing the opposite to neutralize the original thought.
Because the opposite is been denied for so many years the acceptance of it brings in new realms of possibility that one was unable to consider before. Being able to consider the opposite gives you a 100% increase in your possibilities. The paradigm has been broken. The meme that once had a horrifying grip on your mind is now completely neutralized and proven false.
Because the ego thinks it’s such a big hotshot, it will refuse to hold a false idea once it has been proven false. The ego hates to be proven wrong and would rather die than have to admit fault. Once you tell it you know what it’s doing, it realizes it can’t trick you with that again and it would that rather die than hold a false idea.
It’s really hard to run around convincing people of something you absolutely know is false. Now, once we have flipped it, the ego does a couple of things pretty predictably. First, it is easier to get you to believe the old way than to switch all of your thoughts around in your mind to the new thought so what it will do is begin to try to convince you that the new thought is false.
It will tell you: “That Clint guy doesn’t know what he is talking about.” “I read it in a book or saw on TV that what I’m thinking can’t be true.” “It can’t be this easy.” “We couldn’t have been wrong all those years.” “It has to be more difficult.” “The new information is not valuable.” “Big deal, one new idea, that won’t change anything.” Second, it will immediately bring up another false idea that feels bad to think about (OK money is gone, lets talk about health).
The ego will almost always do one of these things fairly quickly. All we have to do to defend ourselves against the ego’s tactics is to begin to make the new statement as true as possible. Here are some examples: Original: I should have more money now. Flip: I should not have more money now. Is it possible for you to have more money now than you actually have now?
No. This is obviously an insane idea even though “everyone” is thinking it. Original: My parents should not have abused me. Flip: My parents should have abused me. It is over. So is it possible for them not to have abused you now? It is not possible, because you cannot undo the past.
This is a toughie but this is the truth: who you think you are today is a result of how you responded to what they did. You had total control of your response the whole time! Who you think you are tomorrow is the result of how you are now responding to what they did to you. If you respond in the same way you will get the same you. If you respond in a new way, you will get something new.
All of the pain you are feeling today is completely generated by your response in the past that you now carry into today. It is totally self-contained. When you talk to them you just flip your own switch for pain because of habit. The great thing about this past experience is that it gives you something big to practice on.
If you overcome a big one like this you can overcome the smaller ones in everyday life more easily. Original: People shouldn’t lie to me. Flip: People should lie to me. In order to get the second sentence to be true for ourselves we have to let go of our opinion about it. I don’t want people to lie to me is my opinion. The fact is at this time everyone is subject to lying at one time or another.
It is completely insane to believe that nobody’s ever going to lie to you again, ever. Since you will find about 300 lies that you’re telling yourself in your 4 step process it is not likely that you will go a day without lying to someone else either. It would be awesome if people didn’t ever lie, but it’s not very realistic to expect that to happen right now just because I want it to be true.
Original: People should eat health-food. Flip: People should not eat health-food. Mirror Image Original: People should not eat health-food. Flip: People should eat health-food. People should eat the food that they are eating now, anything else is an opinion. They might eat healthy food in the future, or they might not. My opinion about it doesn’t change anything. The underlying belief in the first one is probably the goal of life is to live as long as possible.
I don’t know if that’s the goal of life. Having emotional problems about people eating health-food is four times is bad for you as smoking cigarettes (for real). If your goal in life is to live longer, let go of the hang-up about what you and others eat. The underlying belief in the second example is that people should enjoy life. I don’t know if that’s the goal of life. I do know that enjoying life is fun.
So I’m going to enjoy life more. Being upset about mine or someone else’s health is not enjoying life. Health food is probably good for you, so eating it wouldn’t seem to be unreasonable. This last example hopefully has shown you that trying to have a rule about something causes you to feel bad.
The problem is, there is no rule without an exception. The only rule that works in every circumstance is: the rule is there are no rules. I told a colleague about this and he countered with: the rule is God is the rule. Every single solitary circumstance is different. No two circumstances are identical. All rules will be broken (except for Gods of course). The underlying principle behind the flip is twofold.
Resistance to anything is resistance to what is. You have to judge something in order to have resistance. The illusion is that we could possibly know what is good or bad. The only thing that we can hope to know is our opinion about it. Humans are not even capable of knowing the true from the false.