Can We Inhibit Our Thoughts?

INHIBIT THOUGHTS In week 2 we are asked to 'inhibit' our thoughts by Charles Haanel. Not so easy.....but take it easy folks. You've got a few more weeks of trying to do that while doing things with your body. YIKES! My first go round with this had me wanting to throw in the towel.  I could sit for 15-20 minutes, still.  Stone cold still. But my mind would race......then really get going. :-) 24 CINEMA SHOWCASE? Trying to inhibit my thoughts was kind of hard......er impossible with 24 movies running in my head. Did the Sox win last night? Gotta get dog food. Do I need other stuff at the store? How much is Cod and Haddock today? I gotta get by the Starboard Galley before 2 to pick up a check. Chelsea's piano lesson, Derek's soccer game.....WAIT....inhibit. Confused, I tried to convince myself I did not know what inhibit really meant.......but if I reach for the dictionary I won't be sitting still and have to start all over again.  Who invented the dictionary?  Where was mine anyway?  Oh, yeah....I remember, in Derek's room.....NO! WAIT!  Concentrate....inhibit. And these were just the previews....my mind raced from how to avoid traffic heading into Boston to redesigning the entire tax system and running for Congress.....really? MIRACLE I had missed the point.  I think.  I can't be sure because I never had a conversation with Haanel. I realized, as Billy Joel's River of Dreams was racing through my head, that maybe he was making a point while encouraging us to do this exercise. Joel talks about the River of Dreams as being 'wide and to hard to cross' and the idea that came into my mind was the gazillions of ideas we get bombarded with daily....from commercials to movies were other people's illusionary standards intended to make me feel inferior so I would buy their stuff.....hmmmm I needed my own dream.....not society's idea of what was 'normal' and 'right'.....and certainly not the Madison Ave. Ad-men creating my standards. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F_wxIMHvXB8 And, I remember thinking.....what do I really want? My mind went blank for a couple of seconds. Eureka! I knew it was possible, as he said....that I could get a few moments at a time. I learned, right there in that moment or two that my standards were not really mine......I was not creating but reacting. I have always wondered if Haanel knew when folks first attempted this they would begin to discover how much noise there is and we needed to learn how much, daily, was pouring into our subconscious..... A HOLLYWOOD ENDING Did he have this exercise designed to do two things?  The stated goal was one......but was he trying to get us to realize the habitual bombardment of all our senses, all day long....was a wake up call so we'd start using our conscious mind as a 'vigilant guardsman'? Week 3 I'd have several moments [2 seconds here......3 there......] of being able to inhibit all thought. Just like anything in life.....I got better with practice. Part of the improvement was practice.....and part of it was becoming an 'observer' of all around me and deciding what I was going to 'pay attention' to ...... I shut the TVs off and cut the cords. And the sitting got better. I stopped listening to the radio. And the sitting got better. I stopped reading about politics and things got a LOT better. :-) I discovered being relaxed about it, physically and mentally, not only was amazing [when I hit the sweet-spot] but my energy level skyrocketed. Now I can get into that state easily and for decent periods of time. Re-carving a new identity in the areas I wanted to improve or change sounds great but until we can empty our minds.....that is just not going to happen.....it's like bringing new furniture [thought] into a room already filled with furniture.  Just more stuff. The Hollywood Ending was the result of effort.....who'd have thought doing nothing, absolutely nothing, with body and mind was so hard. Knowing....that is becoming aware....of how much was going on made it easy for me to press on because I had a moment where I realized my mind was filled with other people's ideas ........and they had so cluttered my mind that I simply do not have the space or time to think and think creatively..........time to allow this amazing gift we were all given, free.......our minds.......a clear track. How did it happen? Awareness is the beginning of change. I became aware while failing how much nonsense I was let pour in ......gumming up the workings of the most remarkable mechanism we were all gifted with. That alone was so stunning a revelation that it gave me the courage and tenacity to keep trying.......and eventually experience and acess  the thrilling power that had been latent all those years.   believe mark januszewski world's laziest networker