fore your health
The HOLE Perspective Thing... You’re 100 yards from the hole. You swing a perfectly smooth pitching wedge and your ball flies straight as an arrow, stopping, what seems to be just a few inches from the hole. The thought even crossed your mind that it might go in. A fantastic shot! You pat yourself on the back, as you clean your wedge and you start heading to the green. Your putt from this perspective, seems to be just a formality. But the closer you get to the green, the more evident it is that while your shot was good... it was not as good as you thought. The ball which seemed only inches away, is actually a dreaded 6 feet from the hole. All of a sudden the gimme you thought you had, has turned into a possible and even likely two-putt... The thoughts of failure run through your head and you get carried away envisioning the two-putt and who knows... maybe you’ll do badly enough to make it a three-putt... who knows, right? You’ve now allowed yourself to be consumed with negative thoughts, when just as easily you could rejoice in your ability in the last shot and prepare with confidence for a one-putt. So here’s how you can benefit from this concept of perspective, on and off the course. We can control what happens to us... only some times. But we can always control how we respond to what happens to us. What we focus on is entirely our choice. So why choose to focus on building our situation handling skills? To learn a way to separate your thoughts and feelings from situations so that you can gain a new perspective, maybe you’d find it useful to think your mind as a factory that creates and constructs things... the things the factory of your mind creates are carried around in a railroad system... as you look at the railroad of your mind from the control bridge above the tracks, notice 3 things: your thoughts, your feelings and your urges to act or coping strategies you use. From the vantage point of the control bridge it’s easy to experience and evaluate what happens in your life from a detached perspective - and makes it possible to recognize your
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thoughts as “just thoughts” and send them in the appropriate train without getting on the train with them... in your thoughts you can find your selfevaluations, predictions, etc. Your feelings can be recognized as subjective experiences created by your thoughts - therefore they too can be “just feelings” and these feelings include physical sensations as well as emotions or “just sensations” and heading out on their own train... and lastly, catching yourself in your attempts to cope with situations and your urges to act, you can send those urges on the appropriate train of your mind’s railroad.
By Juan Acosta, Hypnotist GolfHypnosisFloridda.
Note: I have created a guided audio
A great skill to learn, is to remain on the control bridge as we go through life’s situations, so you can be more objective when responding to challenges. You see, from the bridge it’s easy to keep an eye on things to make sure no thoughts, feelings or urges get derailed. It’s easy to check on things and make the appropriate adjustments without taking our eyes off the other trains. But when we get so carried away with, say... a feeling, that we bury ourselves in the emotions’ train and go for a ride. In the meantime the other trains could be on a path of destruction and we’re unaware, blinded by our current perspective.
version of this “Mind Train” exercise, based on Steven Hayes’ work and you can find it in my media room at http:// GolfHypnosisFlorida.com - It’s an 8 minute audio program that will reward you for the rest of your life! - and of course it’s free. You’re welcome! :-) An objective in life then, could be to develop our ability to view challenges from the control bridge and live in the present. With a little practice it becomes second nature to go back to the bridge when we realize we are chugging down the track. I wonder if you’re up for a challenge? - for the next 21 days, set up a calendar reminder and invest these tiny 8 minutes out of the 1,440 you have every day, to listen to this audio program and let me teach you how to observe your trains from the bridge. If the idea of a better relationship with yourself peeks your interest at all, make a commitment to do this religiously for the next 21 days. What’s in it for you is an increased sense of self-awareness, which leads to being pro-active about changing the things you want to change. Following through with this challenge will increase your ability to move through life’s situations in a more intelligent, objective and rational way. Also, accepting this challenge will teach you how to regulate your emotions and observe and direct, not micro-manage. In other words, it’ll give you a brand new perspective on many things. With the proper perspective you can enjoy all the fantastic shots that life gives you - and you can be confident about that six footer you are about to sink. Go for the challenge... I double dog dare you!
Florida Golf Central • Volume 13, Issue 3