Someone once said: Life is 1% perception and 99% perspiration. I tend to think it’s a little different to that. We can perceive things as pleasure or pain depending on what we see, hear or feel. A magician, or illusionist, will make us see something and contort our thoughts into thinking something else is happening.
Have a look at this video and see what is going through this guys brain when he encounters the “illusion”. Prepare to laugh!
The Perceived Illusion
I had to pick myself up off the floor after seeing this one. I hope you enjoyed this one as much as I did. I’d say this guy is experiencing 100% perception and 500% pain.
In your life, it would seem like you would do everything you could to avoid pain. After all, that’s the way our bodies are designed and that’s what our instincts were crafted to do. “Avoiding pain” is a great motivator, yet pain is not something most of us seek out. So why do we still experience so much of it?
The Motivation For Pain
You might want to ask yourself what your motivation for pain really is. This sounds like a trick question, but if you are honest with yourself, you might be surprised to admit that you do have a reason for being in pain. For example, if you notice that people pay attention to you when you have a headache, you might notice you get more headaches. If you see that you simply get attention when another drama unfolds in your life, you might (albeit subconsciously) encourage more drama in your life. This can also be referred to as a control drama.
The Vicious Cycle of Perceived Pain
It can become a vicious cycle of pain that we don’t even recognize anymore because we’re so hooked. Only after sitting alone and thinking about our run ins with pain can we begin to see a pattern of our own involvement. Even when it seems like there’s no root cause to our pain, we can trace it back to a skewed perception of a situation, turning it into a painful ordeal instead of something that just rolls off our backs. Could it just be an excuse we give ourselves to bail out of another situation that we are not comfortable in?
Control Dramas and Comfort Zones
Pain is a pretty good reason to stop doing what you are working on right now! We tend to play out little control dramas to ourselves and make up stories and excuses that justify and give us reason to quit. Don’t recognize these symptoms? Well, welcome to superhero status! Most people have this ability. I fight off these excuses every day. Sometimes they come by thick and fast. I know that’s when I’m out of my comfort zone.
So how can we stop the perceived pain? First of all, there are some rules to life that you might want to begin following:
Emotions. Don’t take things personally
Concience. You aren’t the only one that has to do everything
Guilt. You don’t have to be anything more than who you are (or want to be)
Control The Situation
You can start this process of relearning your pain responses by writing down everything that causes you pain in a journal for a few days.
Once this time is over, look over the things you have listed and honestly assess whether you could have controlled the situation. If you could have, then you know you are inflicting your own pain. And now you can do something about it!
You can read more about Control Dramas in “The Celestine Prophecy” by James Redfield.
We all have a Blockbuster Hollywood movie in us. A successful Bestselling Epic Novel that could top the charts. Most of us become a prime candidate to share this story when we reach a more experienced level (age) in life. That is likely to happen when we slow down from the “Instant Gratification – give me results now” attitude to a more mature outlook in life. Yes, I know some people never lose that “Instant Gratification Need” and that is perfectly apparent from credit card balances across the western world. Mine is no different…
Growing old? Or just more experienced?
I mentioned in my article “Celebrate Now Rather Than Later“, to build an Air Of Success in your life. We build an identity of ourselves throughout our life. That is largely based on Attitude and Experience. The only difference between a young and an old person is their life experience. Some stay young in their outlook and attitude while others get a bit too serious about everything and age incredibly fast. Your life; this “experience” of yours can be harnessed into a story that would be very interesting and compelling to other people.
More bestselling novels come from authors over the age of 50 than from any other age. One could infer that those with more life experience are probably better suited to writing novels that make sense and that dip into the human experience.
Your very own epic blockbuster
One word: Longevity. You have the responsibility to your family, friends and yourself, to hang around for as long as you can in this life. You have unique life experiences that no one else have got to share with humanity. My personal opinion is that everyone has a book in them; a feature best-selling novel that would translate into a blockbuster movie or mini-series on TV. It would hold every other person on the edge of their seats for the duration of the story and only “you” hold the key to translate that “epic story” to the rest of the world.
There is no such thing as an average person or an average life. It is only what we perceive it to be and many times we perceive it to be something we’ve been told to think… food for thought!
You are the most important person in your life! Share your story somehow. You owe it to everyone around but foremost, you owe it to yourself.
P.S. My mum reads my blog (Hi Mum). She has been telling me about the book that she has been thinking about writing for the past 30 years. I’m hoping this post will manifest a resulting book. I can’t wait to read it.
In your life, it would seem like you would do everything you could to avoid pain. After all, that’s the way our bodies are designed and that’s what our instincts were crafted to do. “Avoiding pain” is a 
It can become a vicious cycle of pain that we don’t even recognize anymore because we’re so hooked. Only after sitting alone and thinking about our run ins with pain can we begin to see a pattern of our own involvement. Even when it seems like there’s no root cause to our pain, we can trace it back to a skewed 
You can start this process of relearning your pain responses by writing down everything that causes you pain in a journal for a few days.
We all have a Blockbuster Hollywood movie in us. A 
I mentioned in my article “Celebrate Now Rather Than Later“, to build an 
One word: 
P.S. My mum reads my blog (Hi Mum). She has been telling me about the book that she has been thinking about writing for the past 30 years. I’m hoping this post will manifest a resulting book. I can’t wait to read it. 