what we avoid stays close to us
avoidance is a strange way of paying attention.
On Ganesh Chaturthi, a friend said, “Don’t look at the moon today.” Me & my other friend asked, “Why?” while looking at the moon.
You see, human mind doesn’t think in words. It thinks in images.
It uses words to explain those images.
Words like ‘Don’t’ or ‘Do not’ doesn’t has any image for us. So if someone says:
Don’t drink
Don’t sleep
Don’t play games
Don’t watch TV
Don’t drink poison
All we can think about is: drinking, sleeping, playing games, watching TV, drinking poison.
One morning, when I was writing my freewrite, I wrote, “There’s a pain in my hand. I am holding the pen too tightly.”
Even after saying this there was no change in how I held the pen. I was still experiencing the pain.
When I wrote, “relaxing my grip on the pen”
The word relaxing did something to my brain. I subtly relaxed my hand.
The word relax - a verb, told me what to do.
Following what to do is much easier than what not to do.
It’s like Newton’s 1st law, objects in motion, stay in motion or at rest unless an external force is applied to it.
A thought we keep returning to gathers momentum. It keeps our attention in the same place, which leads us to repeat the same actions. The pattern continues until a new thought, question, or perspective interrupts it and gives our attention a new direction.
Instead of using the word ‘Don’t’, if you say exactly what’s the other thing you want, it tends to be more effective.
Instead of saying Don’t drink, you can say Eat this or Drink that.
Instead of saying Don’t sleep to a sleepy person, you can say go for a walk. It will be 3x more helpful.
In all of these scenarios, I am taking away the attention from what you shouldn’t do to focus on what to do.
This is how manifestation works as well. You have a vision of what you want & where you want to go. You are focused more on striving towards it and giving less attention to what’s taking you away from it.
Few years ago, I watched a Ted Talk by Dandpani, he said, for concentration there are two things at play: Awareness & Mind.
Imagine awareness as a glowing ball of light, like an orb that can float around.
Now imagine your mind as a vast space with different sections within it. These sections are anger, jealousy, food, sex, happiness, joy, science, art.
The glowing ball of light called awareness can travel within the mind, and it can go to any area of the mind it wants to go to. When it goes to a particular area of the mind, it lights up that area.
When it lights up that area of the mind, you become conscious of it.
To avoid something, or to say you don’t want something, you are shining a light on what you don’t want. Making your consciousness aware of it.
While the thing you truly want, stays in darkness.
Avoiding something is an act of attention. Attention is what brings it closer to you. You build a relationship with the thing you don’t want.
There’s an idea called Black Coffee Theory that explains this best. I read this on Sahil Bloom’s blog:
Imagine you walk you into a coffee shop.
When it’s your turn to order, the barista asks you what you want.
“I don’t know. But I don’t want black coffee,” you say.
The barista looks confused, “Ok...but what do you want?”
“I’m not sure. All I know is I just really don’t want black coffee. Anything but black coffee.”
The barista shrugs, takes your payment, and tells you it’ll be a few minutes.
After handling several other customers, the barista walks over to the drink station to make your coffee, but forgets what you ordered.
“Hmmm, what was it?” they think to themselves. “I remember they kept saying black coffee. Black coffee...that’s right.”
And after five minutes, you’re handed a beautiful, bitter, piping hot cup of exactly what you didn’t want.
Black Coffee Theory says that the world will deliver what you focus your energy towards.
Focus on what you don’t want (the black coffee) and the world will deliver just that. Focus on what you do want (perhaps a cappuccino) and the world will deliver that instead.
I have personally made a habit of saying out loud:
What I want
How I want to experience something
Affirmative sentences
Opposite of negative words
It helps.