Did you ask life for a Snickers and get a Milky Way?

You set out on the path toward your dreams long ago and now, here you are years later and you still haven’t reached your goals.

Frustrating! It’s like the candy vending machine scenario that we’ve all heard about or dealt with. You put the right amount of change in and you selected F2, which was supposed to feed you back a Snickers bar. Instead you got a Milky Way or worse, nothing at all, not even your money back.

Deep down, you expected that didn’t you?

Up comes a young child. He doesn't insert any money but begins randomly pressing the buttons. TA DA! Out falls your Snickers bar right into his open hand. The little guy promptly unwraps it and begins enjoying it.

We get exactly what we believe we deserve.

Often, we simply don’t believe we deserve to have what we want. Oh, maybe consciously we think that we believe we deserve it. Still, deeper within us are thousands of files full of experiences, acquired self labels, false self perceptions, and inaccurate or incomplete conclusions about ourselves.

These files that we’ve written are used by our negative self talk as bodies of evidence to support its incessant, nasty and dream sabotaging remarks. Remarks that undermine our self esteem and negate our belief that we deserve to have what we want in life.

Some years back, I had a glitch in my computer system. The strangest thing began happening. Old files began to randomly appear on my monitor. Old files that I knew I had deleted months; and in some cases, years ago. I called my computer guru who came to the house and explained some things to me about computer memory, files and deletion.

It turns out that when we delete old files, we are simply removing them from current listing or from easy access availability. The files themselves actually remain stored in the computer’s memory forever, regardless of deletion. Unless, we write over them.

The same is true of us, we may believe that we have deleted those old files that contain unpleasant memories but in most cases we have simply removed them from consciousness, or easy access availability. They are still in subsconscious memory and they still have power over the course of our lives until we write over them.

In order to write over them, we have to have several positive experiences to counter that one negative experience with, and gathering new experiences in life takes a lot of time.

Another, faster alternative is to rewrite our conclusions about the experiences that we have already had. In order to rewrite those conclusions, we must first regain access to the old files.

5 Steps to accessing and rewriting past experience conclusions:

1. Pay attention to your self talk.

Your self talk is an open door back into those old experience memories.

When you hear some of those negative and self defeating comments that your self talk interjects, ask it where it got that idea from. Ask it for the evidence. Ask it to support its statement.

Then willingly receive the memory answer. It may come in the form of a picture, thought or feeling.

Allow yourself to experience whatever emotions come up with that memory and validate any emotions you feel.

2. Write the experience down exactly as you remember it, and in as much detail possible.

Look specifically for and write down any conclusions that you came to about yourself as a result of that experience.

3. Re-evaluate your experience and your conclusions about yourself.

Ask yourself, how true are these conclusions about myself? Often, they are completely inaccurate or based on someone else’s incorrect judgments of us. If any elements of your past conclusions were true at the time, are they still true now? If not, how and why are these conclusions no longer valid? If they are still true, ask yourself what action you can take to change that conclusion and then take that action. Whether it be seeing a therapist or working with a self help book, or taking a self development teleclass or workshop. Commit to it for your sake right now.

4. Identify and add these points to your re-evaluation and give yourself credit for these points:

-The lesson that you learned in that experience.

-The personal values that you realized are yours because of that experience. Perhaps you learned that you value honesty, open communication, cooperation, sincerity, compromise or peace .

-The strength you showed, realized or acquired in that experience.

-Your personal gifts, talents, or characteristics that displayed themselves during that experience.

These might be:

mediation abilities, common sense skills, ability to stay calm in a crisis, sense of humor, determination, kindness, tolerance, courage, intuitiveness etc.

-The wisdom you gained as a direct result of that experience.

5. Summarize the re-evaluated conclusions about yourself and that experience.

Make your summary as brief and complete as possible.

Now you are armed and ready for your negative self talk. The next time that your self talk attempts to use that same body of past experience evidence to support it’s negative comments, remember Step 5, your summary of your re-evaluated conclusion about that particular experience. Boldly present your counter evidence summary and motion to have that negative self talk comment stricken from the record.

It takes time to catch all of your negative self talk interjections and a little effort to re-evaluate your unpleasant experiences but it’s easier and faster than waiting and hoping to have new experiences to counter that one negative experience with. And, it’s worth it! You will be free to live the life of your dreams without fear of sabotage.

What about that child that got your Snickers bar? Why was it so easy for him?

He hasn’t formed any concrete beliefs about himself or his world yet. He hasn’t had many experiences with which to form assumptions about himself or life or what he does or doesn’t deserve. Life is a wide open, endless opportunity and possibility to him. He absolutely believes that anything he desires is possible.