Are You Comfortable Sitting On A Thorn?

In this track, Jacci shares three actions that can help when the prospect of changing an aspect of our lives is daunting. There are many times in our lives when a particular habit or behaviour that we have is doing us no good at all, and yet we find it almost impossible to change that habit or behaviour for something better. There is a way!

Transcript

Hi there and welcome to this track where I'm going to be posing this question,

Are you comfortably sitting on a thorn?

My name is Jackie Wright,

I'm the Cockney coach and I'm going to be talking to you about something that I learned when I was going through my NLP training.

So there are many times in our lives when a particular habit or behavior that we have is doing us no good at all and yet we find it almost impossible to change that habit or behavior for something better.

And it's not just habits like smoking or overdoing the alcohol that come under this heading,

It can be habitual ways of thinking or responding to situations that may result in rows or negative feelings that undermine our relationships and lead to bad outcomes.

So,

How is it possible for us to maintain and continue doing what we do when it's obviously making our lives miserable,

Unhappy and dissatisfied?

It is amazing how incredibly well we allow for something that we neither want,

Need nor like in our life to continue to be part of our lives.

And it's all because the idea of removing it and changing it is just too,

Too difficult.

We tend to anticipate that the whole process will be long,

Painful and really just too damn hard.

The thing we neither want nor need is like a thorn in the backside.

It's already a pain and yet the anticipated hardship of removing it is somehow more than the pain of keeping it going.

Sometimes when it seems that the choice you have is just two different types of difficulty and pain,

You're going to choose the least difficult and painful and stick with that.

It's just human nature.

You still have pain,

But it's the lesser of two evils.

And how many times do you think,

Do you know what,

I'll stick with better the devil that I know.

And what happens over time is that the pain and hardship that the thorn makes in your life becomes the norm.

And you quite often don't even notice the damage it's doing to you.

The slow,

Insidious way that the thorn buries itself deeper and deeper gets ignored,

Managed,

Incorporated.

We are amazingly good at adapting to keep things going,

Making small adjustments all the time just to maintain the status quo.

And sometimes those small adjustments add up to huge convoluted strategies,

All designed to keep that thorn well and truly stuck in your backside.

You have in fact become comfortable sitting on that thorn.

And yet it's a false comfort and you know it.

You don't want that thorn,

But can't face removing it.

Changing the status quo is too scary a prospect.

What will happen when the thorn is no longer there?

How do you remove it without hurting yourself?

And maybe others in the process?

Will you need to replace it with something else and choose something equally as bad?

Help!

I hear you crying.

And every time you consider removing the thorn,

Changing your life and freeing the discomfort,

You may find yourself held back by fear with no clear idea of what a future without the thorn would be like.

Even thinking of an alternative to the thorn is almost impossible to contemplate.

So how would it be if there was a thorn removal system that can not only remove the thorn easily,

But can also help you find a future without it?

A thorn free alternative that supports you and helps you move on to better things in your life.

Well there is such a thing.

NLP coaching and therapy,

Neuro linguistic programming,

Is a change methodology that does exactly that.

It uses the natural thought processes of our amazingly adaptive minds.

The thorns in your life that hold you back can be removed with the same effortless process that put them there in the first place.

And then once removed,

The coaching process helps you focus on what you always wanted,

Building strategies that support you in the way you think and behave,

Carrying you into your future.

Change is manageable and can be a simple,

Swift and pleasant experience.

I love change,

This is why I love helping people remove their thorns and reach their potential.

But there are things that you can start doing now that will help to remove that thorn.

So what I want to share with you are three things that you can start to do now and over time,

In the same way that the thorn got embedded,

You can weed it out again,

Heal the wound and move into a life that no longer has the thorn.

So if you have a pen and paper then get one to hand,

You can make a few notes or you know just pause this track and grab a pad and I'll go through the three steps.

Three simple things that you can do.

Now the first one is to build a compelling vision of what life would be like if that pain was not there.

It may take time to put together so make it a daily task,

Think about it every morning or every evening.

Create a story in your mind of the life you would have free from the thorn,

Whatever that might be.

Now when you do this you give your unconscious mind an instruction and it has a positive thought to focus on.

You can make it as perfect as you want it,

Don't hold back by restricting the possibilities,

Make it as wild as you like and let your imagination loose.

Make it colourful with lots of positive voices and actions,

Refining it every time you think about it.

This is what the most positive thinkers do all of the time.

Your second step is to consider the question,

What would I lose by making this change that I want to keep?

What benefits of having this thorn do I want to keep when I'm free of the thorn?

Now that sounds like a pretty strange question,

It's one question.

This one question will decide whether change will work or not and I'll give you an example.

Everybody agrees that smoking isn't good for us,

Smoking has a really bad effect on your body and yet people will continue to smoke right up to the point of death.

You think that at some point that they would stop smoking and that's a thought process for many non-smokers.

How is it that someone can continue to do that damaging thing to themselves when we've got so much information about how bad it is?

So people will try and stop smoking and you know of smokers possibly that have tried to give up and then have failed and gone back to the cigarettes.

This is because as mad as it sounds every behaviour has a benefit and smoking to smokers does have a benefit,

Not just the nicotine addiction but there are lots of other things that come with smoking that when you stop smoking go away and there may not be things that you want to lose.

So for example a smoker when they're at work say will have the benefit of getting up from whatever they're doing and maybe going outside of the building and having a cigarette.

Now that will give them a bit of downtime,

A bit of time away from the work environment,

A bit of thinking time.

If you've got a stressful job it may give you a bit of space to think about a problem to solve or if you're in a physical job it just gives you a bit of a rest.

Whatever it is you've got away from what you're doing from your desk or your job.

The other thing is that most smokers have a big social life outside.

When they go out for that cigarette there's normally a few other people out there they're going to be having a cigarette too and they build up a bit of a social circle.

They'll get to hear what the latest gossip is in the office or in the factory or wherever they're working.

They will get to just have an exchange of information.

There's lots of benefits to smokers and of course when you stop smoking you stop having that time away from your work.

You actually don't get to talk to people outside.

You don't get that bit of downtime.

These are things that you might want to keep.

So when you're going to make a change like that,

When that particular thorn is going to be removed it's really worth thinking about when this thorn is gone what do I benefit from it that I want to keep?

And then if you're a smoker then you can be thinking oh how do I make sure I get downtime from my work?

How do I make sure that I stay in on the social circle of the gossip?

How do I do all of those things that I don't want to lose but not have the cigarettes?

Because it's guaranteed nine times out of ten that the reason somebody will go back to smoking is because they go back to the things that they are losing that they didn't want to lose.

So consider that question.

What would you lose by making this change that you don't want to keep?

Because behavior that you have now that you want to change that thorn that's there does have benefits.

And the third step is to just make one small change at a time.

One small change at a time that will help remove that thorn.

So going back to the example of a smoker.

If a smoker may decide to only buy 10 cigarettes rather than 20.

Then after a few weeks reduce it to one packet of 10 every other day.

Or even change their route to work so they don't pass a tobacco shop and pass a coffee shop instead.

Buying a latte as a reward once a week.

So just making those small incremental changes can make the job of that change chunk it down into smaller pieces.

There is a saying,

How do you eat an elephant?

One mouthful at a time.

And where people are the thorn then you can over time reduce contact and look for healthier relationships.

Or just use the time to engage in activity that you will enjoy.

Replacing that unhealthy time with that unhealthy relationship.

So there's three things that you can start now that will help you remove that thorn.

Imagine what life will be like without it.

Check what you would lose that you'd want to keep and do one small change at a time.

Adjusting as you go.

Weaseling out the same way that it got embedded.

A little at a time.

So thank you for listening.

I hope you enjoyed that and would find it useful.

Please leave me a review.

Check out my other tracks and courses if you can and also consider following me.

That means you'll always be notified when I put up a new track,

A course or if I'm delivering a live talk.

So thank you again.

Take care and much love.

Reviews

Hi, I thought it was Excellent. I just didn’t like the elephant analogy how to eat an elephant one spoonful at a time because I’m vegan, but otherwise I thought it was truly excellent soothing and very helpful.

My thorn is Trump
I wish you could tell me how to remove that thorn
😪🤯😵‍💫
Seriously though this is really helpful! Thanks ☺️ 🙏