Teach Someone How to Think

Teach Someone How to Think

I had an experience recently with someone dear to me. I periodically take this woman to doctors and check ups, so there is a sense of responsibility for her. One day last week, she had to go to the diabetes doctor at Vanderbilt.  When I got to her house to pick her up, I asked her if she had her glucose meter.

She told me that she had put it in her purse. When we got to the doctor’s office and the nurse asked for the meter, my friend reached for her the phone in her purse and said, “Oh, my goodness, I thought this was my meter. It looks just like my phone.” It was the worse case of acting I had ever seen.

When we got to the examination room, I asked my friend point bland, if she has lied to me. She admitted it. I was furious and walked out of the room and told her I would wait for her in the main admissions office waiting room.

While there, I called my therapist and told him how angry I was. He said this to me: “Figure out what’s under your anger, sit with it, and face it. Then you will get some healing out of this.”

I had twenty minutes to mull over my anger in the waiting room. What I realized was that I was hurt—not angry, extremely disappointed, that someone whom I had taken time to honor and care for, would lie right to my face. I had a choice, then. Would I express the truth and my authentic feelings or continue to seethe in my anger.

When she came out of the doctor’s office, I asked her to sit down by me. I simply said, “When you lied to me, it felt like someone put a knife through my heart. I have had so many people lie to me in my past. Each one has hurt worst than the next. You were the last person in the world I had expected would do that. I’m so hurt.” There were tears in my eyes, because I was living in my genuine feelings.

She didn’t try to explain as before in the doctor’s office that the reason she lied was because she was embarrassed about how bad her sugar readings were and didn’t want the doctor to know. She simply grabbed me by the neck and held me close. She started to cry and said, “I’m so sorry. I will never lie to you again.” Then she hugged me closer to her heart and whispered over and over, “I love you so much,” until I actually felt healed.

The moment was magical. By being authentic and dealing with my real feelings, I turned what could have been a week long face-off of angry emotions into a love fest where both of us learned an extremely hard lesson that healed both of our hearts.

We always have a choice with our emotions. Sometimes emotions come on fast and furious. But when you learn to be an observer of your mind and body, you can see that emotions are much like adrenaline when you’re running away from danger. If tiy take the time to let your heart stop racing and you sit with them and calm yourself and do as my wonderful friend and counselor said, “Sit with your emotions and discover the truth beneath them.” Then, and only then, will you learn to teach yourself and others the true road to finding your authentic self!

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Bo Sebastian is a Hypnotherapist and Life & Health Coach, available for private sessions to QUIT SMOKING, Lose Weight, New Lap-Band Hypnosis for Weight Loss, CHANGE YOUR MIND, CHANGE YOUR LIFE! at 615-400-2334 or www.bosebastian.com.

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