Frustration produces great movies
Once upon a time, I was helping set up Wi-Fi at a place. In two weeks, I spent six hours calling the internet provider. The reality was always creative in coming up with issues such as account setup, no Wi-Fi when they claimed there was, delay of communication as the place was in the woods or had no cell reception, etc.
Meanwhile, this article was not to criticize the internet company—I didn’t reveal its name 🙂 In the middle of the process, I became pretty frustrated and defeated. Why was it so hard? Was I doing anything wrong? If other people had been doing it, they must have been resolving it much faster. I was pretty stressed. And tears came out during this pressured experience. In tears, I could see the voices coming from a teacher’s figure: “You are useless; you can’t even do this well.” In reality, I firmly know that my teacher would never say these things to me.
My brain made a vivid movie to watch and believe in, and I binge-watched them.
Do you hear this voice too?
Similar voices happen at other times:
Before writing my Nepal article, my brain sent out these voices, such as “Why are you even spending time writing, not working on your coaching business? Earn some money. You are worthless…” And it seems to come in the shape of elderly relatives.
After achieving my coach certification from ICF, I could not celebrate, as my brain was talking like, “Oh, there are so many things ahead! This is nothing, not valuable enough to celebrate!” And those voices seemed to come from my parents’ figures or even my future older self.
And when scrolling on social media, I bet we all experienced that what other people achieved—vacation, status, or even number of likes—”made” us feel this tug in the stomach, this heavy sensation of “aw, I don’t have this, that means I am ____.” Usually, the filling in the blanks are statements that we would never say to our good friends or loved ones.
The movies in our head
Movies will go away once we have the things we desire. I made a decent amount of money working for LinkedIn as a Technical Program Manager. However, those movies still started playing when I could not get a promotion or when I realized this corporate job was not bringing much meaning and value. Now, I am doing this line of work that is more meaningful and valuable; my brain brings back another season of the movie “I am Not Valuable as I’m not making a lot of Money.”
Title of the movie that is forever playing: “You are not valuable.”
Wow, I see typing it out shows the strength I have now. It is ok if you feel resonated but are too scared to admit it. I trained myself to observe with coaching and meditation for a long time.
The Protective Shield of the Mind
So now what? The first reaction might be telling me, “You are valuable, useful, worthy.” It might work a bit, receiving this encouragement. Meanwhile, the movie will play again when a particular situation matches as the “evidence” of “I am not valuable” or when my mind is empty and it needs to play something.
This movie brings certainty to my brain, and in a sense, it is comforting. My brain doesn’t have to deal with the full-of-change and everything-takes-effort reality, and I get to sit there watching its movie. How safe it is, especially with some popcorn 🙂
A Three-Step Shift
How do we break through this shield? Here is what I learned from my teacher Dr Maria Nemeth and tested that it actually works:
First, have compassion for the brain.
I pat the side of my forehead and tell my brain that I know you are scared; you are tired and spent a lot of time worrying about “I am not valuable.” Thank you for sharing. It is like we are comforting a scared child. It is ok. I know you are afraid of it.
Second, observe the movie.
In the end, it is a movie. Some people may or may not see some visualization; others may experience more sensations or hear voices. The point is to observe what we experience at that moment. And also start to see that we are the one who watches the movie.
Third, shift our attention to be who we are.
“Shifting” means we can choose not to watch the current movie anymore, but to direct our brain’s focus to who we truly are: our core values or the contribution we want to make.
So, in calling the internet company, I realized that I would love to act with the quality of “patience” instead of watching the “I am worthless” movie. So, I continued to do a few steps I needed to do.
When trying to write the article, I realized that I would love to contributor to my community as I know some friends would love to read it.
Have compassion, Observe, Shift. Three-step process 🙂
And this process is not to “terminate” this movie. I often think that if I do the process, I will feel valuable and worthwhile, and the sun will always shine. It is more like the more I practice, the faster I shift, the more inner strength I have, and the movie will still play—with much lower volume.
It is not about controlling the thoughts. We can’t control our thoughts, really think of all the times we tried, did it work? No.
Slowly, you will realize that you are that which has the capacity to see all the movies that are playing and to choose where to focus.
Have fun with your movie 💗