“To hell with circumstances, I create opportunities!” (Bruce Lee)
In psychology a well known phenomenon is “learned helplessness.” Many years ago some research psychologists did a series of experiments using dogs as their subjects. They compared two groups of animals. One group were given a series of unpleasant experiences from which they could not escape, such as mild electric shocks. The other group were exposed to the same experiences but were given an easy way to escape them by jumping over a small fence for example. What they found was that later when the original group were given a way of escape they failed to act as they had become habituated to the punishment.
Another example is the story of the elephant who was tethered by a string when a baby and continued to be confined by that string even as an adult (even though it had long gained the strength necessary to break free). Do you see where I’m going with this? Learned helplessness can be very subtle and we can all experience it at times. Do you ever find yourself thinking “It’s too hard!” when contemplating a positive change? Another way to look at it is that we all have “comfort zones” in different areas of our life from which we are reluctant to move.
Circumstances are rarely ideal and it would be a mistake to wait for some perfect time in which to make a positive change. Psychologists also refer to internal and external locus of control. In other words, do we rely on others or on circumstances to enable changes to occur in our lives or are we, like Bruce Lee, self starters who create our own change?
One of the changes we can make very easily is how we think, our attitude and even our beliefs about what is possible for us (maybe this last one is a little more challenging). If you feel you would like some effective help in any of these areas then please consider the very powerful experience of hypnotherapy. We have throughout our lives learned many of our unhelpful attitudes and habits and hypnosis can be way to learn a more positive way to deal with things. Hypnotherapy enables us to reset our minds and install some positive programmes.
