You are getting sleeeeeppppyyyyy

I bought this book called The Self Hypnosis Diet. I know, diet fad books are a bad idea. This one seemed different and it also said you could use the techniques on other aspects of your life. There are certainly some things I would like my subconscious to get over in addition to my chocolate addiction. They encourage you to read the first three chapters of the book before using the cd for guided meditation/hypnosis. I read those yesterday.

My brain and I have an understanding - I'll surround myself with tons of stimuli and then I don't have to hear myself think. I don't think this is the most successful practice, but it's what I do. I'm rarely without the radio or tv on, I've gotten into the habit of needing the tv on to fall asleep (I love a sleep timer!), and the iphone has made this much worse. Instead of watching the scenery go by or people watching while on a bus or getting coffee, I'm playing solitaire or checking my favorite websites.

There was a concept introduced in this book about how the brain hears everything you think in a very literal way. For example, if you tell yourself to NOT think of rainbows, you're already thinking about a rainbow. The authors say the brain cannot understand the concept of "not". So to help your brain along you have to phrase things in a positive form. If you don't want to think of rainbows, instead tell yourself to think of clouds. It also talked about giving yourself permission to allow distractions. This topic was covered in one of my most favorite books; Eat, Pray, Love. The author of that book is describing what happens when she tried to meditate - her brain and she would have a conversation that occupied her thoughts more than concentrating on meditating. She eventually learned to give those thoughts permission to exist and move past them.

With both of those concepts in mind, I did something very hard today. I'm going avoid much detail because I just don't think this topic deserves that much attention, but I did something that was hard and almost unimaginable to me. I cut someone out of my life. Someone I've known for a very long time. But they were bad for me, they were cruel and selfish and they were repeat offenders of those crimes. I thought I was being the bigger person for forgiving and accepting, but I know that isn't the case any longer. (Just for the record, it's not Colin - he and I are still pals and we're as good as good can be for people who are separated and living in two different cities and still like the other one to know everything going on in their lives.) I gave myself permission to put them in the past and to be angry. It may not sound like much, but this is a big day.