I don't like rain - yes, I do like it

There are sayings around the topic that not circumstances or situations are bad, but what's important is how we deal with them and perceive them. That sounds good and nice. Sometimes it's easier said than done. It's true though.

Last Wednesday it was hot and the postman complained. I told him that now everyone complains that it's too hot, but next time it's cold and wet again, everyone will complain again. This time that it's too cold and wet. I told him that I'd like it to be cooler, but don't like wet much. He said, he likes wet.

Thursday the cooling came and I had to go to work in the rain. I do not like umbrellas, because you've got 1) something in your hand and don't have it free and 2) what do I do with a wet umbrella? I prefer a wet jacket and hands free from umbrellas, dry or wet. Accordingly my jacket got wet on the way from my place to the train station. I had pulled my hood over the head. On the train I pulled the hood back off my head.

When I arrived at the stop at work, the rain hadn't stopped yet. Out of a somewhat strange feeling I didn't pull the hood back over my head. My hair got wet and suddenly I didn't care. No, it wasn't that I didn't care. It was good. I had been wrong on Wednesday. The rain got my hair wet. Inconvenient, since my hair curls up with a bit of natural curls I've got. It looks messy. Also no opportunity to dry the hair reasonably and fast either. At least I've got short hair.

I thought of someone in a movie, who over time has quite many scenes in which he gets more or less wet from rain. Sometimes he's got a hat. More than once he's got nothing to protect his head and hair. I thought of the actor and his character and the rain was suddenly perfectly fine and good. Strange how a simple mental connection can change the feelings for a situation.

No, I won't reveal which movie, actor or character I had in my head. That will stay my little secret. It's my connection anyway. If you don't like rain, you should find your own connection to make it likable. It can be liberating.

The sparkling inventor: Nikola Tesla

Dear reader,

I didn't enjoy Physics at school at all. Biology was more interesting for me and even the Chemistry basic course was enjoyable for me. We once made sparklers ourselves. Something I'd like to do again. It seems that at least some of the ingredients are not that easy to get your hands on as a normal person though, because they're classified as dangerous. Sad actually. I'd especially like to make sparklers that burn in other colours, but exactly those substances are the ones that are difficult to get. Also I'm not certain which of the ingredients are responsible for the colour and would need to be substituted. I hardly remember anything from my Physics class. I can remember we had to calculate stuff with formulas. What exactly we did calculate, I don't have the faintest clue anymore.

I caught up on a bit of Physics later on reading a couple of books by Stephen Hawking. I came across a special Physicist, Nikola Tesla, in the movie Prestige. In the movie he helps a magician. In the book, which I only read several years later, there's much more on what Tesla achieved. Of course the book and the movie tell a fictional story and what's happening in the book as well as the movie, could at least not have happened during Tesla's time. It's been several years since I got curious about Tesla after reading the book and I watched documentaries on Tesla on the internet. Most of the details I already forgot. But I promise you this: if a Physicist of Tesla's time had been able to do what happens in “Prestige”, then it would indeed have been Tesla. Just so you have an idea on what time we're talking about: Tesla was Serbian and lived from 1856 to 1943, so he lived when Thomas Edison was alive, too. In fact Tesla worked for Edison for a while. There's even a rumour that says that Tesla invented the light bulb, not Edison.

If you look at Tesla's life career, it seems to be characterised by a certain restlessness and reoccurring periods of lack of money. 1883 to 1884 Tesla was overseeing the installation of the new electrical light system at the train station Gare de l'Est in Paris and with that he was sort of working for Thomas Edison's European branch of the company. Without any means he travelled to America after that to work for Edison directly. But the two of them had different ideas of Tesla's payment, so the work relationship didn't last long. Tesla went on and got together with two other businessmen and found the Tesla Electric Light and Manufacturing Company. For some readers, who are more knowledgeable about this sort of stuff than I am, the two-phase electric power, may mean something. That's one of Tesla's inventions. With his new found company also started the registration of Tesla's first of many patents. As far as I know Tesla is among the people with the most patents. I heard some day that a Chinese or Japanese guy caught up and topped him now. The English Wikipedia reads “over 300 patents” as a number of Tesla patents in an article specifically on them.

Tesla was repeatedly lacking money. But the industrial magnate George Westinghouse heard of him. Westinghouse was in a dispute with Edison, which was later called War of Currents. I barely know anything about Tesla's personality. But I could imagine that Tesla found stimulation working with Westinghouse and in a way against Edison. Who knows.

In 1893 Tesla was approached and questioned how the powers of the Niagara Falls could be used. He suggested an alternating current system in cooperation with Westinghouse, which was then implemented. To use the powers of the Niagara Falls was a dream project for Tesla for a long time, which finally was finally reality.

There's something else that fascinated Tesla, which was the use of wireless energy. Tesla foremost thought about the sun as an energy source. But the earth is also surrounded by a magnetic field, which could be used as a source as well. More recent documentaries on the universe talk about antimatter, which supposedly can be used as a fuel for spaceships. For now we only know very little about this power. If only the machines existed to collect this energy and transform it for us to use as electricity. Free energy is seen as pseudo-science and there exist (conspiracy) theories that there are already scientists, who managed to build machines, but the knowledge about that is suppressed. I heard Tesla is said to have built such a machine, but destroyed it again himself. I don't know if those things are true or fiction. I like the idea that that energy is free and usable for everyone though. Sadly I know nothing about Physics really. Regardless of how many “knowledge about that is suppressed” stories are true, I do believe that this knowledge would be an actual threat to huge energy companies indeed. Because who would willingly pay even just a penny for electricity, if you can use energy that's free of charge and surrounds us, for free and unlimited?

Until next blog,
sarah

The truth about too positive thinking: the bitter pill

Dear reader,

for the first time I prefer the german idiom (literally “the sour apple” or “biting the sour apple” actually) to the english “biting the bullet” or “swallowing the bitter pill”. Often I like the english idioms more. In this case though, fruit-wise, the german one fits better after my The lemon post than “biting the bullet” or “swallowing the (bitter) pill”. That's not the truth about too positive thinking. That's just something I noticed for myself and it doesn't even have to be the truth at all.


Gabriele Oettingen from the university of New York is researching self-regulation of goal setting and goal disengagement. In 2011 Oettingen and her colleague Heather Kappes did an interesting experiment. They deprived participants of the experiment of water. But they let them experience a guided visualisation exercise in which they pictured a glass of cold water. After that they measured the blood pressure and found that the exercise drained their energy and made them relaxed. They felt less compelled to actually get the real glass of water to satisfy their very real thirst.


Oliver Burkeman from the Guardian writes in his article How to be fitter, happier and more successful: stop dreaming and start getting real, that these findings are actually the reverse of what's very commonly known and assumed. Thoughts of the quite popular and well known The Secret come to my mind, which is full of examples of people more or less wishing for a positive future and then getting it.Gabriele Oettingen and her colleagues show that this intensive imagining is just one way to failure. A positive, new future doesn't come from “thinking up” a perfect world, but actually taking actions and that's other and new actions from what has been done before and brought unsatisfying results. Remember Albert Einstein's definition of insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. Therefore my idea of “thinking yourself thinner” as described in my Thinner too: with savvy - weight and see, was meaningless in the end. At least it's not the only way, if you want to be thinner. Especially girls or women can be seen again and again wearing tight cloths. At least that's not the only way to go, if someone wants to be thinner. In any case, there isn't just this one thing someone has to change or do to be thinner anyway. Tighter cloths can help in some ways. But what some, especially girls and women do, is not helping the “thinking yourself thinner”, but looking like a stuffed sausage and making it visible for everyone else just how not fitting those close are for them, which is certainly not at all the way to do it. Rethinking Positive Thinking: Inside the New Science of Motivation, Oettingen describes the WOOP method. WOOP stands for “wish, outcome, obstacle, plan”. On the WOOP homepage you can not only find more information like WOOP in 24 hrs to listen to and other downloads and help for interested people. WOOP is the idea that not everything is beautiful and perfect with thinking of it that way. The outcome, more specifically one specific outcome you imagine from that changed future helps. The very popular ignoring or “fighting your way” through obstacles may work sometimes. The second “o” (obstacle) in WOOOP and the “p” (plan) help making plans for what to do when ignoring isn't helping the reality and your original goal seems to fade away. That's how so many good ideas fall through after all: a missing plan for what to do when obstacles are there.


Until next blog,
sarah

The lemon

Dear reader,

imagine yourself sitting at a table. In front of you on that table is a lemon. It's fresh, bright yellow. Take the lemon in your hand. Feel its structure. It's pretty smooth, but has those tiny dots on the surface of the skin. Now take a knife and cut the lemon in two halves. You can smell the fragrance and some of the juice gets on your hands. Take one of the halves and cut it again. More of the smell in your nose and more juice on your fingers now. Do you dare taking one piece and licking the juice once or actually biting a bit off the lemon and chewing it?

Well, did you have to swallow when you read the first paragraph? I don't know what happened for you reading the first paragraph. But my mouth was watering as I was thinking about that lemon and writing that paragraph.

The effect comes, because our mind isn't very good distinguishing between thoughts and reality. When the thought is detailed enough, our (bodily) reactions to it, are as real as they would be with the real thing.

Picture your own future positive and in details and your half way there. In my entry Darn mirror neurons! I told you about a similar phenomenon, that the same parts of our brains are active when we watch people do something and don't participate, as if we were joining in.

I don't remember where I read it or heard it. I will add it, if I find it. In any case there was this experiment, where people had their arm in a cast and couldn't move the arm, of course. The people of one group were told not to move their arm. The participants of the other group where shown certain exercises for the arm for when the cast came off. Although the arm was in the cast and therefore immobile, they should still imagine doing the exercises for real. When the time was up, they found that the decrease of muscle mass of the people's arm of the second group was less than for the first. Interesting how much positive thinking helps, isn't it?

All assumptions are really true. The conclusions we make, which includes scientists and self-help gurus, aren't quite correct though.

However since it's pretty late now and I should go to bed a bit earlier sometimes and I like the fact that people follow my blog and read several posts, I will tell you the negative consequences of too positive thinking in the nest post. Yes, there is such a thing as too positive thinking with consequences, which could sometimes be very negative indeed.

Until next blog,

sarah

Long live placebo!

Dear reader,

the word placebo comes from the latin and means "I please", certainly does please scientists. Because often when medicine or the effect of something has to be tested, the so called control group gets a placebo, which seemingly looks alike, but doesn't contain anything effectual at all. If there is still a positive change that can be measured objectively on the test person, that's called the placebo effect. Then there's "something" about the way the treatment was given that made the positive change, added to the ingredient, which with a placebo is nothing at all. As far as I know, there is no study so far on placebos as such. They're only used to compare to the "real" ingredient.

In his two part program "Fear and Faith" from 2012, the magician Derren Brown made a fascinating experiment. It was based on the following story: a company had created a drug that was talked about as the new wonder weapon in the military. The soldiers would stop being afraid and be totally fearless. Now the drug was to be tested on a group of civilians and Derren Brown, the well known skeptic wanted to run a documentary on that. In reality the drug was a placebo and the company wasn't real either. What Derren Brown really tested was the placebo effect.

Towards the end of the program he explains to the people, what it was really about. In the meantime however the placebo effect had kicked in with many of them and with very positive effect and I thought sometimes quite surprisingly, indeed. You can watch the whole program on Youtube here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hfDlfhHVvTY (about 47 minutes)

Capsules are more effective than pills and injections more effective than capsules according to Derren Brown. I decided to test that for myself. I couldn't think of something of the shape of a pil, but found that tic tac do look quite like capsules. I bought myself a pack. Since I was for real quite anxcious at that time, I told myself that they would calm me. I sucked them, which took about 10 to 15 minutes and after that I really was calmer. Up until then I thought that the placebo effect could only work, when the test person doesn't know that there is no actual ingredient in. Apparently that's not the case. I was very well aware that tic tac are no tranquilliser capsules, especially since I kept them in their original box. Now there are always different kinds. At least orange and mint. What might be worth testing would be if orange are tranquilliser capsules, whether mint could have another effect and if both would only create reactions according to their ascribed effect. At the moment I don't have an idea or the need for mint capsules. Should I do test that some time, you'll know where you can read about it...

The second part of "Fear and Faith" deals with Derren Brown testing whether he could turn an atheist woman in a believer in about an hour. With indirect hypnosis. I won't tell you how it ends. Only this much: like with all the other programs in which he does bigger experiments with and on people, he tells her at the end of the show what really happened and why.

Here is the link to the second prt: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LksVbHxLRvY (about 47 minutes)

Until next blog,
sarah

Postscript: Stop feeling sorry, but be compassionate!

Dear reader,

Susanne was so kind to point me to something very important about my last post: there's a difference between pity and compassion. I want to elaborate on that more now. Many thanks to Lisa as well for the stimulating chat!

For me pity is what I described in my last post. The professor has no arms. In my view, we need arms. She doesn't have arms, so I pity her. But as I already wrote, the professor at least seems to be happy, even without arms! So there is no reason to feel sorry or shocked or whatever for long. She's fine the way she is. It seems to me that pity has a lot to do with assumptions we make. Those assumptions should be tested and if possible lead to action of some kind or another afterwards. A bit like Sherlock Holmes. It would be bad to be stuck in an assumption and that was it.

Compassion is something different. With compassion someone might be shocked or startled at first. For example to learn that I'm missing my right foot. An important next step could be to ask, if or how I needed help. When I explain that I can walk, run and ride a bike fine, it's okay that I have got only one foot. I would need help swimming. Because I have to take off the prosthesis for that. That means that I have to get to the edge of the swimming pool or as close to the sea as possible with the prosthesis on, but then the prosthesis should be away from the water so it doesn't get wet all over. Then when I get out of the water I need the prosthesis back and someone either has to get it for me, or help me get to the prosthesis.

That's important and necessary. Generally speaking the professor and I are fine with our handicap. It's also fine to feel sorry for a moment that we lack arms respectively a foot. The important thing is how to react and deal with that in the longer term. That if we need help, we don't only have people around us who feel sorry for our situation and don't dare helping us or for whatever other reason don't act. When we need help some time, it's important for us to have people around, who understand and help us.

In the social field or among people working in communications there's a word often used: empathy. Recognise and understand what the other person is feeling. That may sometimes mean crying along with them. That's important and right. However it should happen for a limited time only. After that it's important to think it through together how things can go on from there. That's very important. Because if someone is really in a bad situation, that person needs help and not only someone to cry along with them. Even though the saying goes: A sorrow shared is a sorrow halved. It's even better if this sorrow has an end and one can get out of a bad situation easier and faster with others than alone.

Until next blog,

sarah

Stop feeling sorry!

Dear reader,

many people, especially those I meet on the internet, feel sorry when they learn that I was born handicapped. I'm missing my right foot from birth. But, as I keep telling those people all the time: I can walk normally, run, ride a bike with a prosthesis. Still the first reaction from many is, “I'm sorry.” Why anyway? Sometimes I say or write to them that probably they feel more sorry than I ever feel for myself. I was born this way. I don't know any other way. I don't miss my right foot. I never had it, but I always had a prosthesis.

Years ago, during my studies, I had some seminars with a professor with no arms. Although I never dared asking her directly, I assume she doesn't have arms because of Contergan. Once her son was in the seminar and she told us she's got a second son. In one discussion group in a seminar, she told us that she never had the need to put her arm around someone. The reaction of all of us at first certainly was shock. We're so used to hugging someone. Be it as a form of greeting or to comfort. And she has got two sons! Of course would I have the need to hug my sons, comfort them, put my arm around them, and cradle the little kid in my arm. Wouldn't I? And yet she seemed at the very least content with her life. She had said it herself, she never had had the need to put her arm around someone. Why then do I feel sorry for her, that she, especially with her two sons, could and can never put her arms around someone? I think, we're feeling sorry very quickly for others when we see or learn about something that's existing for us or possible for us, but not existing or not possible for them. But what good does it do to feel sorry then? Not at all.

My landlady and friends of my parents, consequently also mine, I guess, told me the other day that she was to give one of her sons money. That money was to come from another person, who didn't give it to her on time for her to give the money to her son on time. So when the son asked her about the money, she had to tell him she didn't have it... and said to him that she was sorry. Talking to me and thinking back about it, she questioned, why she had felt sorry about it. It hadn't been her fault that the other person didn't give the money on time!

Stop feeling sorry for yourself and especially stop feeling sorry for others! That's not helping anybody. When someone is in a bad situation, he or she needs help, not pity. If you want to help and the other person genuinely needs help, help them. That's all you can do. Everything else ends in you feeling sorry and then what? Then you feel bad yourself. That's not helping you or the other person.

Until next blog,
sarah

Freedom Today

Dear reader,

in a time today where half of the world seems to be on facebook, I see my freedom exactly in not being on facebook. Although I do have a mobile phone (cell phone, for some of my readers) and even one with a land line number, it's the only way to contact me all the time, if you wanted. The only four exceptions are: 1) when I'm taking a shower, 2) I'm out to do some quick shopping or 3) I don't hear my phone, likely because I'm out and listening to too loud music on my ipod or 4) I can't reach it in time.

It's a bit strange that my mobile phone is the best way to contact me instantly of all possible ways. Because I generally don't like phoning that much and I prefer writing or talking to people directly.

Most people, with whom I have communicated or still am communicating using chat programs, have the decency to write me when they're leaving when they're on invisible status. Many people I know, who use that status, have their good reasons for it. I only feel sorry that they're always the one writing to me and I don't have the possibility to be the one to contact them first. I don't know if they're there or not. For all I know, judging by their status, they could just as well be gone or have turned off their computer all together, just as their status suggests they're “off”. Luckily that only happened to me on few occasions.

For me what tops off the invisible status is being online with (hooray!) smartphones all the time now. That way some people are (almost) constantly online with chat programs, but with away status. Considering their status to be true, I don't write to the very most people in that case. Either they're really not on their phone or computer or don't want to be disturbed. So I don't write to them. Which is fine with me. Honestly. It only makes me wonder, why they're online still.

The answer quite possibly is facebook. Half of the world (at least) is on facebook, so I have to be, too. Ever more people have a smartphone and with that a phone that connects them to the internet. So it's the possibility to be online, especially on facebook, where most people are online almost all the time. Or is it not? Panic, when the battery of the smartphone gives up unexpectedly and one is out somewhere without the possibility to recharge. I can't read anymore what others have written to me on facebook! Boohoo! On the wikipedia page on facebook, under the section Criticisms_and_controversies, you'll find a 2013 study on why people quit using facebook. 48% said it was privacy concerns. It is the main reason why I don't even want to register there. Followed by what can be read under reception, that companies fired employers after keeping an eye on employers facebook accounts and firing them for what they posted there. Thanks, but no thanks. I don't need that. 6% of the study on quitters of facebook said that facebook is addictive. Thanks, I'm happy with the internet as addiction already. Whoever wants to get in touch with me, can call me, write me an e-mail or chat with me with a chat program. I do not need to register on a website, to keep in touch with my friends. The real world is still out there, away from screens, where you can see the whole person and do stuff in the real world.

In the first episode of the 11^th Doctor in “Doctor Who” (The Eleventh Hour), aliens darken the sun for the humans on earth and prepare to incinerate the earth. The Doctor stands outside and watches the people, who have nothing better to do than taking pictures of the sun or filming it on their cameraphones. The comment of the Doctor to all of that personally makes me very sad, “Oh and here they come. The human race. The end comes, as it was always going to... down a video phone.”
Call me egoistic, arrogant, old fashioned or whatever negative description you can think of. But I myself do not want to be part of a society, in which I have to be on call online always and all the time and even though I write this blog here online, I do not have to record every single tiny bit of my life online. In the episode “The Bells of Saint John” (season 7, episode 7) in a quiet moment, the Doctor describes the situation so far, the way he understands it as follows, “This whole world swimming in Wi-Fi. We're living in a Wi-Fi soup! Suppose something got inside it. Suppose there was something living in the Wi-Fi, harvesting human minds, extracting them. Imagine that. Human souls trapped like flies in the World Wide Web, stuck for ever, crying out for help.” Clara's comment on that, “Isn't that basically Twitter?”

Everybody vanish in the internet. Everyone, register yourself on facebook and twitter. I won't know what's going on for you then, because I'm not registered on either of that. But what the heck. If communication today gets reduced to facebook and twitter, then this here is my good-bye to you. Maybe we'll see each other again when the world stops existing or maybe already when the third world war broke out. I have a hunch neither of that might happen online exclusively.

Until next blog,
sarah

Good morning!

Dear reader,

how many different meanings can the seemingly simple statement of "Good morning!" have?

When Bilbo Baggins wishes the wizard Gandalf that in "The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey", instead of an expected greeting back, he gets a stream of interpretation possibilities.

"What do you mean? Do you wish me a good morning? Or do you mean that it is a good morning whether I want it or not? Or perhaps you mean to say that you feel good on this particular morning? Or are you simply stating that this is a morning to be good on?"

Confusion or surprise can be one way to induce a trance. Even moreso because Bilbo didn't expect those questions. Your fault, Bilbo. Precise wording and language is very important and sometimes defining.

Bilbo, smart as he is, answers to the many questions Gandalf has, with what I would think to be the only possible answer that makes sense, "All of them at once, I suppose."

Until next blog,
sarah

Thinner - the easy part: the body

Dear reader,

so now the post some have been waiting for for a long time and for which the last posts have been sort of to prepare for. Some thoughts on how I lost weight a couple of years ago.

Some time around 2002 I wanted to lose weight. At first I thought of going to the fitness center. But then I saw the well well-conditioned men in front of my minds eye and me, the short, untrained girl among all of them? Hardly. But I wasn't happy with my belly. I wanted definitely to have a thinner belly and that was the beginning of all.

1. The absolute and definite thought of change.

Some dream of changing "the world". This big planet as a whole. It's too big a project, I'm telling you. Just as bad as a blank "I want to be thin." So something else is important, too

2. The thought of only changing one definied part.

But more on thoughts and the mind in my next post. The way I see it, that's in fact the even more important and more powerful part of the whole thing.

So I wanted to lose weight without going to the fitness center. I decided on push-ups and something that seems generally to be called crunches. I started with 10 push-ups as you know them. Then do the crunches to relax the arms. That's lying on your back, legs bent, feet on the ground. Now for example lift the left leg a bit so that the left knee and the right ellbow can touch and vice versa. So it's touching crossed knees and ellbows. Just as a variation to the "normal" lifting your head. Do 10 of those each side. (I always did left ellbow right knee, then right ellbow left knee and again left ellbow right knee.) Then to relax the belly I did so called "woman push-ups". That means you're on your knees, feet bent in the air (and crossed at the ankles is the most comfortable, I think). These are easier and even untrained I can do at least 15 of them easily. Then again go on your back and do the "normal" crunches": legs bent, feet on the ground and lift your head and shoulders just up.

For the arms what I did "back then" when we still had birds and bird grit, I once filled up two small plastic bottles with the grit and used them as dumbbells. I don't do that anymore these days. It's easy to do exercises with that when you're just sitting in front of the tv. Apropos of nothing.

About the legs: a really easy exercise can be done sitting, too. Put both feet on the ground. Then lift one. Just a tiny bit and tense up the leg. Imagine you have weights on your ankle, which pull down the leg. Do 10 to 15 of those, just as you please and then switch to the other leg. That's something that can be done again apropos of nothing, like at work or when you're having a coffee with a friend or when you're at the bus stop waiting for the bus to arrive. But it's important to do all the exercises I mentioned here on a regular basis! Going through them once takes no time at all. So doing them once a day or at least every second day should be really easy.


There's always a lot of talk about doing lots of sports and being active. You don't necessarily have to do that as such. I didn't do that, apart from the exercises I mentioned here, which I don't do on a regular basis anymore these days. It starts with little things such as going the stairs instead of taking the escalator or elevator. With that alone you're already more active. Or just stand up and walk around while on the phone. Especially these days where practically all phones (mobile phones anyway) are wireless, that's no problem anymore.

Recently I found juggling for myself again, after I started it for a bit in 2011 and taught myself quite fast to juggle with 2 balls and then stopped doing it until a couple of months ago. My next long term goal would be to juggle 4 balls. Also I found so called contact juggling to do. That's juggling, but not throwing the ball, instead it's always in contact (hence the name) with the body. There are all sorts of quite impressive contact juggling videos on youtube both tutorials and simply to watch and enjoy. Some of them are very meditating and relaxing to watch. As is doing it. ;-)

A lot of people often suggest to go jogging. Jogging isn't my thing. Never interested me really. Althought there's this thing of combining jogging and juggling, which is called "joggling". There's even sort of marathons where you are allowed to drop a ball only so many times and you're running and juggling with others. Find your own sports to do. I am fascinated with juggling. Sitting on the bed or on the sofa it's easy to do apropos of nothing. It's good for coordination, a nice arm exercise and it's proved that activities that involve using both hands also help to (re)connect both of the brain hemispheres better (again). Which is also, by the way, why it helps with depression and increases the creativity! Which is not to say that I want you all to start learning to juggle now. Everybody should find their own activity they enjoy to be active. I for one like juggling at this moment with great fun and it's easy to carry 2 balls in your bag. That's my thing at the moment.

That's it for now. Being thinner the first, the easy part: the body. Next time will be the harder part: the brain and the mind!

Until next blog,
sarah

Try Not To Try

Dear reader,

there is one thing that I want to write about as a sort of preparation for the topic that I know, some are waiting to read about already.

Today I want to write about the word "try" or "trying". There is a scene in Star Wars, in which Master Yoda is with young Luke Skywalker. They're in this moorland or whatever you call it. Luke's spaceship has gone under there and Yoda told him to take it out with the help of the force only, through the power of the mind. Luke says he'll try. To which Yoda says the famous words of, "Do or do not. There is no try."

Many people know, how I think about "try". If someone doesn't know and uses the word "try" in my presence, I usually tell Master Yoda says hi. Some don't think this is a bad word. They say, "if you don't know if the thing will work or not, you can well say you're trying." Can you? Either it works or it doesn't. If you try and it works, you made it. If you try and fail, you failed. In both cases this is a clearer position than "trying". I think, Master Yoda is right. Either the thing will work out one way or another: positive or negative. To "try" however is an uncertain position in between those and in fact unnecessary. Say, there's a person, who's uncertain if something will work or not, for whatever reason. Even then this person doesn't need to try. It would be far better, especially because of that uncertainty, to get at it with "I'll do it." If something isn't quite right yet and it will fail because of that, then it will fail anyway. A bit more self-confidence, please! A positive attitude works much to make something to well.

To try something means resistance, that something is difficult. Yes, to dare something new can be difficult. I still stick to it: if you have a positive attitude to go with this thing, you have a better chance of succeeding. And something that is bound to fail, will also fail with the best of positive attitudes. So there is no reason to anticipate failure in any way. Lately I told people of the pink elephant and said to them, "If your thoughts are negative, you'll have the pink elephant in your mind, and you don't want that, do you?" (Tag question, by the way! See my last post.)

I practically deleted "try" of my vocabulary. There would be only one exception, in which I would use that word very consciously and where it would be highly effective. If you want that something doesn't work. I'd especially suggest that in hypnosis. For example if you aim for the arm to be stuck and can't be moved, catalepsy, I might say, "Try in vain to move your arm."

While we're on hypnosis, one more thing about the topic of failure in the context of therapy and generally difficult goals: a therapy means work and relapses. Sometimes it doesn't quite work as the therapist and especially the patient wish. Or good resolutions like being thinner or quitting smoking and similar things seem totally destroyed with the first bigger meal or the first cigarette after some time without one. I personally don't have the qualification to do therapy, so I can't give therapies. But I would urge each therapist to anticipate relapses and talk about that in therapy early on. A paradox? First I write about not using the word "try" and now I suggest explicitly talking about failure or rather relapses in therapy before they happen? Yes! Absolutely! Say, someone is depressed. There can be days on which the person feels bad. This happens to not depressed people, too. If the therapist doesn't talk about the possibility of bad days, the person could feel like a complete failure. It would be better to talk about the bad days explicitly and make them part of the therapy process, "You will feel bad on one or two days." What happens, if the person some day feels bad then? Well, it's okay then. The therapist said, I would feel bad one or two days. No problem. What if the therapy ends and the patient is not depressed anymore and didn't have bad days? Even better! The person can be proud, because s/he is better than even the therapist seemed to have thought, who said there will be one or two bad days. The simple anticipation of bad days gives the whole thing a different, a positive view!

By the way, the irish writer Samuel Beckett said the following about failure, "Try again. Fail again. Fail better."

Until next blog,

sarah

On Should, Should Not and Not

Dear reader,

why is it easier to follow "should not" than "should"? "Should not stay up online late at night." Done. I am online late at night. "Should be in bed early." Not really. "Should eat less sweets." A pack of haribo jellybabies last a couple of days at best. "Should eat more fruits and veggies." I'm allergic to some fruits and my guinea pigs eat more veggies than I do. (Okay, we often divide into three.)

I think, part of the answer to that question is in the choice of words, the phrasing. It's similar to asking you "Do not think of a pink elephant." What are you thinking of? Smart people among you may answer with "A blue elephant." Yes, yes... it's a harmless task and everyone smiles about it. But it's less funny when something might happen. Like a mother telling the child, "Do not knock over the glass." I can guarantee you that the possibility of the child knocking over the glass is quite high.

Some say this happens, because we first have to have a positive image in our head of the thing that should not happen. To know that you shouldn't think of a pink elephant, you first have to have a pink elephant in your head. For the child to know not to knock over the glass, she has to see a glass knocked over. In case of the child this is more unconscious than the pink elephant. But still both is in the head.

In german this is relatively harmless so far. English is more complicated. Because the english "not", "knot" and "nod", if spoken the first two are the same and almost undistinguishable from the "nod". What helps is the over all context. For someone where english is a foreign language, the process of "not", "knot" and "nod" and hearing the right one may possibly be more conscious than for someone with english as a native language. In the "right" situation it may still happen that I hear or read other things in the text.

As a hypnotist you can play with that in a beautiful way. There are things called "tag questions". They're easier and more elegant to use in english, I think. In german they don't come across that beautiful. A statement is said and you tag a question to it at the end. A simple thing, isn't it? (In german they're literally called "refrain questions", but the actual refrain isn't there. It's obvious in english though.) To go back to the "knot" from earlier: "It's easy, is it not?" And how did you react to that just now? With a (unconscious) nod? Wonderful!

There's something else, which is called "yes-set" and can be played with and used to manipulate perfectly. Say I want the person sitting with me to agree to a certain thing or be positive about something. I set it up with a bunch of questions or statements, which I know the answer will be "yes" or the person will agree with it. So the person will be programmed to "yes", positive and nodding and eventually will agree to the thing or the statement I want him or her to agree to. But: if someone asks me a chain of questions and I repeatedly say "yes" all the time, I get suspicious. I don't need to be a hypnotist for that. You can vary all that by asking questions in a negative way and the negative will be confirmed. Example: "Kids should really not play with fire." You agree with that statement by shaking your head or saying "no" to confirm it. Although you say "no" or shake your head for "no", you still agree positively to my statement and I keep you in a positive mind-set.

Until next blog,

sarah