January 2012 - Taming Your Drunken Monkey – Part 2

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Did you know you have a crazed animal inside your head? We’ll call it your Drunken Monkey because honestly that’s how it behaves. We’re really talking about your conscious mind, and if you pay attention, and it’s hard not to, all it seems to want to do is a negative read-out 24/7. I’m sure you already know what I mean. Have you ever actually tried to quiet your mind and not think a thought, such as during meditation? It’s impossible to not think thoughts. Unfortunately most of the thoughts you’ll notice from your Drunken Monkey mind are pretty negative, fear based or self-limiting. That fact is, you don’t have much control over it, and the big problem is you probably believe a lot of what your Drunken Monkey is telling you.

If you haven’t read part 1 of Taming Your Drunken Monkey, go to my December newsletter. If you read part 1 you will benefit more from part 2.

If you want to accomplish your goals or any New Year’s resolutions you may have made, you’ve got to get control of your Drunken Monkey. If you don’t, it will run the show and your life. Ever wonder why year after year you keep getting the same results in your life, or that nothing changes? It’s all because of your Drunken Monkey.

Quite frankly, this Drunken Monkey is not really your friend. Although your conscious mind is useful for critical thinking, planning and daily tasks, its main purpose is to keep you safe and alive. It’s about survival. So how does it do that? Every time you set a goal or tell yourself you’re going to accomplish a certain task or try something new, you hear something like: “You can’t do that!” “Who do you think you are?” “You’ve tried before and you know it won’t work”. “Don’t even try, everyone will laugh”. Etc. Through all those fearful self-limiting thoughts it’s pulling the strings and you may feel like a helpless little puppet at affect of what it thinks, especially if you believe those thoughts. If you’re not aware of its traps you may feel you’re a servant of your Drunken Monkey, or that it seems to order you around. It snaps its whip and you respond and cower. The Drunken Monkey assumes you have no self-respect and pulls out its negative whips to motivate you into action. Negative thoughts are actually your conscious minds way of motivating you into action but what it typically causes is avoidance. For instance, your Drunken Monkey might say: “Get to work you lazy slob and start making some money!” or “You must have a man in your life or you’re a loser!” Even though it seems to be motivating you to take action, its message is so negative that if you believe it, it will simply reinforce your doing nothing and just staying in that familiar stuck place.

In part 1 of this article we started talking about how the talking in your head is not even you. You are simply observing it. It talks 24/7. It talks whether you want it to or not.

Here’s the good news: That Drunken Monkey inside of you is just biology. It’s just what it does, it’s not much different than your bowels. Your bowels help eliminate waste and toxins from your body. Your mind has its function too and that is to steer you in a direction of safety so that you can populate the human species with your DNA and stay alive long enough to get the next generation of Drunken Monkeys off to a good start. Pretty pathetic, huh?

The purpose of this article is to help infect you with the truth and you’ll be able to see the Drunken Monkey for what it is. I’m going to give you an antidote. If I didn’t give you some solutions it would continue to drive you insane. By understanding its motives you are set free.

The Antidote: The Truth Virus

The side effects of having this new understanding can be at first brutal. The truth will set you free, but first it will rip your life apart. You will wake up to the reality that you’ve been in a trance for a long time and you will see how your Drunken Monkey has been pulling the strings all along. At first when you don’t know what to do about it, you might feel helpless. It can get even worse; once you’re infected with the truth your Drunken Monkey adapts to your new awareness (it’s very clever) and tries to use that truth as a new way of making itself superior. It does this by making other people wrong. Example: You might be thinking, “Boy, my sister really needs to know about this truth”. “By boss is such a jerk, now I understand why”. Your Drunken Monkey now adapts and tries to make others wrong for not being as enlightened as you. The question is, how do you get out of this madness?

The reality is your true state of being is that of pure bliss, joy and happiness. Have you ever looked at a new born babies and sensed how pure and joyful they are? In part, it’s because their Drunken Monkey mind has not yet fully developed. When you were a toddler you danced and sang and played and totally marched to the tune of your own song. You never judged your actions or others. You were just being you, authentic and happy. But then something happened along the way. You discovered that if you didn’t fit in and do what you’re told you wouldn’t be loved, you’d be abandoned and you might even possibly die. So at that point, your Drunken Monkey kicked in to protect you and your life went down hill from there.

The antidote to this madness is to develop an awareness that you are not those thoughts, to simply observe them, and in some cases just have a good laugh. If you can do this, congratulations, you’ve finally been infected by the Truth Virus and you will no longer be caught up by the trappings of your Drunken Mind. If you do get caught up momentarily, you can be simply notice it and choose to become aware again.

Think about your Drunken Monkey like this: it is not an enemy to be subdued but simply a biological mechanism and your job is to simply observe it. By observing it you can free yourself from your manipulative Drunken Monkey and set yourself free. You can then live life on your terms!

Until you can simply learn to observe your Drunken Monkey and not buy into it, you are a prisoner of your mind. The fact is awareness gives you choice. With choice you have options. With options you have freedom. People who have the most options have the most power. Options give you power and options give you flexibility.

As you experience more flexibility you can be in any situation, even undersirable ones, and your options will allow you to take advantage of answers and solutions that other people without conscious awareness would miss. People who become infected with the Truth Virus are no longer at affect of the Monkey Mind and can more easily accelerate their dreams and goals.

I hear people often say “Boy I could use a little luck”. The truth is luck cannot show up when you’re letting the Drunken Monkey run your life, because your Drunken Monkey is only about survival and protecting you. If you choose to play it safe as the Drunken Monkey wants you to, your life will be the same twenty years from now. Nothing will change.

Think how different your life could be if you didn’t let the Monkey Mind rule your life. So, in short “awareness” is the antidote. To reflect on what we’ve said so far: with awareness comes choice. With choice you get options. With options you get freedom. With freedom comes power. And, it all starts with “awareness”. Once you are infected with the Truth Virus you will trust more in your decisions, your life and your dreams. You can set yourself free.

Quick note: To summarize this article, your Drunken Monkey keeps coming up with self-limiting and self-sabotaging thoughts because it remembers old unpleasant experiences and memories from your past. It wants to protect you, so every time you think about trying something new in your life, it brings up all the dangerous and disastrous things that happened in your past. It’s like an old broken record, (for those of you who remember records). Hypnosis by the way is a powerful way to quickly and permanently release these old fears and stuck places. Consider a session or two. Make 2012 your year!

In my February 2012 newsletter I’ll be sharing part 3 of how to tame your Drunken Monkey and stop letting it rule your life. This is such an important topic that I will be doing at least 3 parts on this, possibly more. Keep watching for more.

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