"Help! Not Getting Results" Let's Fix That - Part 1 - The Devil You Know

Change is fear.

If you’re not getting the results that you want, or not getting results at all, don’t fret. I do believe that we can perform a little psychosurgery to fix that right up for you. The road may be hard, but ask yourself, what’s harder: staying the same or the effort of change? Most people, consciously or not, decide that the pain of change is more difficult than the agony of staying the same. This decision is reflected in their behavior and they are right in their choice. The pain of change is more difficult to endure than staying the same. The reason for this is clear: if you stay the same, your life is predictable, and predictability is safe. When you change your life is unpredictable, unpredictability is dangerous (or it feels as though it is because you don’t yet have the mental models to handle your new life). This principle of predictability being tied into a sense of safety is summed up in the old adage “Better the devil you know than the devil you don’t.”

In one line let me say that the above is a delusion and illusion. But it’s important to realize how deep the roots of this sentiment go. You’re body and mind will fight change. Change is potentially dangerous due to its unpredictability. Your body has one goal, keep you alive. Your body is a machine forged in the fires of evolution to live, and it will live even if it means living in unnecessary misery. If nothing changes in your life, then your brain and body has a strong model for how the following days, weeks and years will unfold. You’ll wake up around the same time, you’ll eat the same foods, you’ll punch the same time clock, you’ll sleep in the same bed, and you’ll see the same friends.

You’ll wake up around the same time even though you never get enough sleep. You’ll eat the same foods even though they are killing you. You’ll punch the same time clock even though the job is deteriorating your psyche. You’ll sleep in the same bed, even though you sleep in it alone. You’ll see the same friends because you’re too scared to expand your social circle.

You will not thrive, but your body and brain can predict that you will live. Recall, its goal is to keep you alive not much else. Procreation seems secondary to survival. And, these days, with the easy accessibility of porn, it’s possible that for many dudes porn hijacks the procreative drive, essentially tricking our brains into thinking that we are the ones getting laid when we watch porn. I don’t feel the need to follow that train though.

When you change, even slightly, suddenly your safety is no longer assured because you no longer have a strong mental model that can be used to predict your safety.

Change triggers fear. It’s a deep, primal fear for survival.

Tens of thousands of years ago, minor irritations could cause death. Today, if you fall out with a lover or friend, it’s not a threat–there are billions of people connected through the internet, just find a new tribe. If you get fired, get a new job. If you lose money, make more. The modern industrial world is very forgiving. Tens of thousands of years ago, if you fell out with your lover or a friend, you might be exiled from your tribe, left to fend for yourself in the wild, this was a death sentence. If you could no longer perform your job, again, you might be exiled or left behind as dead weight, which was a death sentence. You see my point. Things that are minor today would kill our ancestors. An argument with the wrong person could be fatal because it could threaten the safety of the tribe.

A change could kill you it was something to avoid unless it was absolutely needed.

Be nicer to yourself, there’s a reason why change can be so difficult, many many reasons. Next time, we’ll look at how to make the process of change less terrifying and something to embrace. If you can do that, then the process of using subliminals becomes far, far, easier.

The take away is this: accept that change tiggers fear, that the fear is justified, that it’s natural, and that it doesn’t mean you’ve done anything wrong. This Primal fear of change may be related to the process of reconciliation and the negative mind states it can cause.

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Needed to see this, thanks for posting this.

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