Alternate reality

Before you throw your hands up in the air, and think I've finally lost it, I don't mean alternate reality in any other way than an alternative way of looking at a past event or memory.

Yesterday's news about Gravity Waves, and confirmation that Einstein was right all along, had me wondering how we could use nature (in this case the gravity waves) to inspire change in our own lives.

The biggest insight for me was that the observations made were from 1 billion years ago - ie way back in time.

Yesterday's blog considered going back in time to revisit our own personal big bangs with other people - to stand in the shoes of the other person in order to minimise the impact of the gravity waves today in our own lives.

Today I'd like to consider going back in time to choose an alternate reality!

Not because I think we should ignore what's happened to us, or turn the other cheek to unacceptable behaviour, but because often how we remember a past event is still impacting us today. Impacting us today - whether our memory of that event is accurate or not, and whether we've taken personal responsibility for our own contribution to the event or not. Impacting us today even though it happened years ago, and even though it's likely that the memory has deletions and distortions contained within it.

In other words

• We never speak up in meetings because we remember a time in the past when our boss embarrassed us when we did speak up.
• We don't apply for the job of our dreams because we remember a teacher telling us we were no good at x.
• We constantly allow others to bully us because we learnt fighting back didn't work, and it was easier to just accept it.
• And so on  

Remember our perceived reality is very unlikely to have happened the way we think it did, and yet we're still acting as if it's true - see an earlier Purchasing Coach blog there's 3 versions of a story - yours, theirs and the truth.

Just like the scientist who went back in time this week we too can go back in time. 

We however can change our interpretation of reality, and allow that new interpretation to impact us today instead of the old faulty and unhelpful interpretation!

To do that you need to go back in time to revisit the memory, replay the memory with new eyes, and bring the insight and learning up to the present day. (NB: We're not looking at a 7+/10 negative emotion memory - more of a 4/10 or less)) 

There's a few ways you can do this:

• Metaphorically using a landscape to represent your memory - follow the link to this blog and apply the process to your memory. This is the simplest and easiest means of making changes - and can be used for higher negative emotion memories than 4/10.  
• Imagine you're in a cinema watching yourself watch a movie of your life. Watch yourself rewind the movie till the start of the memory and then press play. Notice what you notice about the event? You rewind it again, and this time perhaps make changes to the film to make it reflect reality more - perhaps changing where the cameras are pointing, or changing the colours or main characters and so on. You may even rewind a little further to notice what else was going on before hand. Just act as your own producer and director and make amends so that the resulting movie reflects a more realistic, every day sort of memory. Once you're happy watch yourself watching the movie up until today, and then watch yourself get up from your seat, and step into the screen ready for the rest of the movie/life. (There's an amended version of this process for 5+/10 negatively charged memories)   
• Imagine your timeline on the floor - past/present/future, and then step off it, and go back in time to look down on the memory on your timeline, and notice what you notice about the memory, who was doing what and so on, and then step back into your timeline before the event happened, and replay the event, then step off the timeline again and walk up to the present day, and step back onto the timeline and into NOW. (Easier done with a someone talking you through the process).

The key is realising that how you'd been imagining the memory was flawed. and that it had been given more emphasis than it merited.

What alternate reality do you need to embrace so you can have the life you imagine, rather than the one distorted by the gravity waves of a mini big bang of your own making?
 
Alison Smith
Landscaping Your Life
Using nature to inspire change inside and out