As a hypnotherapist Dr. Wanita Holmes is my colleague. She also happens to be my mother so I can vouch that the following story is true. Believe it or not.
A few years ago one of Wanita’s clients – we will call him Fred – walked into her office, flopped down in the chair and began bemoaning his life. He had no money for the rent, his car was about to be repossessed and his girlfriend had dumped him. His complaining went on for at least twenty minutes.
When he finished his tale of woe, my mother agreed it sounded bad but encouraged Fred to shift the focus of his thoughts toward what was possible, rather than what had happened in the past. Like most of us, Fred resisted. He saw no point in “pretending.” Exasperated, Wanita asked, “Isn’t there anything good happening in your life?” Fred hung his head and quietly replied, “No.”
Wanita gently argued by reciting a list of things Fred had going for him: his reasonably good looks, his health, and his expertise with computers. He agreed, though reluctantly. He admitted it was true he was skilled with computers, but he hadn’t had much business recently.
Undaunted, my mother described to Fred how the power of a single word could transform his life.
“It says in the Bible, ‘As a man thinketh, so he is,’” she said.
“It also says ‘In the beginning was the Word’ and ‘The word became flesh.’”
“Fred, what you say becomes reality.”
She asked him to try an experiment. “Fred, I want you to repeat the word ‘abundance’ aloud several times.” At first he barely muttered, “abundance.” “You can do better than that,” Wanita insisted. “Say it louder!”
“Abundance,” he said, still reluctant.
“I mean really loud, and with some enthusiasm!”
Fred squirmed in his chair, “Oh, all right… Abundance!”
Clearly uncomfortable with the exercise, Fred tried to change the subject. “Hey, where does it say that stuff in the Bible?” he asked.
“I’m not sure,” answered my mom. “I haven’t looked it up in quite a while.”
Fred started fumbling in his backpack, “Because I have the Bible on this CD.”
My mother was amazed. “You mean to tell me they have put the whole Bible on that little disc?”
“Yes,” said Fred, “and we could search it to find those quotes in an instant, if you had a computer.”
“Well, Mary has one and she’s in the office right next door. Let’s go see if we can try it.”
Relieved to get out of the spotlight, Fred gladly followed my mother to Mary’s office. But when they got there, Mary was hunched over her keyboard looking confused. When she heard the request she said, “I’d love to help, but I’m doing a system upgrade, and I’m having some problems.” My mother explained that Fred was a computer expert. Mary asked Fred how much he would charge to help her out. He agreed to do it for $300. Thrilled at the prospect of having his help Mary immediately agreed.
While Fred began working on the computer problem, Mary phoned her husband who owned a business where he wanted to do the same upgrade. Her husband asked her to put Fred on the phone and after a brief conversation decided to hire Fred too. By that time, Wanita’s next client had wandered into Mary’s office looking for my mother. When the client noticed Fred working on Mary’s computer she mentioned that she was having problems with her computer at home. “Do you make house calls?” she asked. When Fred nodded yes she hired him on the spot.
The results were no less than amazing. Even though he hadn’t been in the mood to try, after briefly concentrating on the single word abundance, Fred created more than $1200 worth of business within the next 10 minutes. I suppose one could say it was just a coincidence but I like to think otherwise. Besides, it couldn’t hurt. Try it and see for yourself. I’d love to hear about the results.
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Love this article! Many times I’ve witnessed changing the direction of my life by changing my thoughts and words.
Oh, Lee-Anne, I love “brain-ears” too.
I got a chuckle from your post. I’ve taught my kids that they have ‘brain ears’ – another set of ears inside their brains. Only thing is these ears aren’t so smart and if you even whisper “I’m not good at _______” (fill in the blank) they’ll believe you and tell your brain and it becomes fact.
When my youngest was only about 3 and was fearful falling asleep one night, I heard him talking to his brain ears saying “I’m tired & I’m sleepy, I’m tired and I’m sleepy…” A few more repetitions and he was sound asleep.
Brain ears beware!
.-= Lee-Anne Ragan´s last blog ..Do you recognize this sound It’s the sound of change =-.
“Brain ears,” I love it! I’m totally stealing that. 😉
That truly is an incredable and inspirational story! Thanks so much for sharing it, I loved it. No doubt there is more to the mind than we know.
.-= Stephen Farah´s last blog ..man to superman surviving the virtual desert =-.
Linda,
I loved this! It illustrated the point of changing out thinking to change our lives so well! Thank you!
.-= Angela Artemis´s last blog ..5 Exercises to Tap Into Your Intuitive Genius =-.
Linda,
That was a cool and inspiring story. Thanks for sharing it. 🙂
What an amazing story! Abundance goes on my mental list for today.
.-= Alison Kerr´s last blog ..You and I can change the world =-.
What you’ve written is so true. It’s all about what you think and how you think.
Our world has made our lives so much easier with technology and yet we sit with the most powerful tool in the universe between our ears. We all need to upgrade our systems to work on a new operating program called Possibility Thinking instead of Sinking Thinking.
Great post.
.-= Andre´s last blog ..Comment on Do You Fit The Procrastinator’s Profile by Stringfree =-.