Chapter 12
Flipman’s Strategy
Flipman’s Strategy is a simple four-step process that encompasses the pictures, dialogue, feelings, and actions needed to help us replace old habits that don’t serve us anymore with more empowering and positive habits. Flipman’s Strategy will also support us in doing what is necessary to create these new habits and new neural pathways. Instead of just remembering to fake it, we can rely on a system to give us consistency and support when we need it most.
To explain this strategy, let’s use the simple example of feeling tired. Like many expressions that don’t serve us, “Gee, I’m tired” may seem like a throwaway line, but it can have a very negative effect on our energy, especially when there isn’t time for a nap. Naturally, tiredness can be genuine and an important signal that we need a self-caring response: to sleep! But if we are at work or somewhere where we need to be alert, constantly saying we are tired does not serve us. Remember, whatever our conscious mind says, our unconscious mind believes and our body responds. So what do we need to ask ourselves? That is, “What positive behaviors, thoughts, and feelings are the opposite of tiredness?”
Alive! Awake! Energized!
In that moment, do we really feel alive, awake, and energized? Emphatically not! Does our unconscious mind know that? No — because it believes everything that we tell it. Remember that. In the initial stages of developing Flipman, I thought all I needed to do was go around telling myself, “I’m awake, I’m alive, I’m a happenin’ girl!” But nothing happened! Nothing happened because I wasn’t doing anything different; I hadn’t changed any behaviors. I wasn’t faking any actions till I made it. I was simply reciting a dialogue. I realized I needed to support the dialogue with a visual, auditory, kinesthetic, and “take-action” supporting stimulus. This became Flipman’s Strategy.
As I mentioned in chapter 2, one of the most powerful aha! moments that I’ve ever had was realizing that if we know how to do Pitman, then we know how to do Flipman. Creating negative outcomes still requires us to see, say, feel, and do the negatives. Think about it: when we’re in the Pit, we continually think about how bad our life is, then we go around talking about why our life is so bad, then we kinesthetically connect (feel bad), and then our actions follow suit. Like I said earlier — same process, just the opposite outcome. Whatever we see, say, feel, and do... we get!
See It! Say It! Feel It! Do It!
This simple four-step strategy became the very process I needed to support me in changing any behavior that no longer served me. The following examples show how powerful this strategy can be, while giving you a simple explanation of the very complex happenings of our bodymind (thank you, Dr. Pert).
I want to start with an example that at first may seem irrelevant to you, especially if it doesn’t apply to you specifically. But that is exactly why I have chosen it. It is not about the specific example; it’s about getting the strategy, regardless of what we want to work on. I’m going to start with a habit that affects millions of people. Do you know anyone who bites his or her fingernails? (Or are you, perhaps, one of those people?) It may not seem like the most pleasant topic; however, it is an insidious habit because most people who bite their nails do so unconsciously. I was not an exception — I was a very competitive little miss in the days when I was a nail-biter. Nail-biting was something I had done for as long as I could remember, and I was the queen of nail-biters! And I came from a family of nail-biters.
When we’re born, approximately 15 percent of our neural “wiring” is already in place. We have preestablished neural pathways, a genetic predisposition from our parents and their parents and so forth. I was born with a predisposition to nail-biting. I had a skinny little neural pathway that said, “I am a nail-biter. I am a nail-biter.” This neural pathway was reinforced every time I bit my nails or saw another person doing the same thing. Neurons that fire together, wire together.* When I saw my family biting their nails, my young mind thought, “Mmm — a food supply right at the end of my fingertips!”
By the time I was in my mid-thirties, with that constant firing of neurons, I had built a very thick, strong neural pathway that supported my nail-biting without my even having to be consciously aware of the process. (This is true for many of the habits we carry into our adult life, whether it’s eating foods that don’t support our health, judgments about others’ beliefs, angry outbursts, or any of the other bad habits that stop us from enjoying our life to the fullest.)
One morning I came into our family room, and there sat Harison, having a good chew on his nails. He was about three and a half at the time. I said, “Stop biting your nails,” to which he replied with complete innocence, “Why? You do!” As I am not one of those people who follow the “Do as I say, not as I do” school of parenting, I said, “Thanks for the feedback!” and set about working out how I would stop this habit that had been in my family for generations. I also knew that I had to stop biting my nails while Harison was still in the birth-to-seven age group. Ages seven and under are the most crucial years for the development of our children’s belief systems. Children are easily influenced at this age, and I knew that whatever I did would impact him heavily. To beat the habit, I had to work through Flipman’s Strategy.
I had to ask myself: What were the pictures, words, feelings, and actions I needed to take in order to support me in creating the outcome I wanted — which was long, healthy, unbitten nails?
One of the greatest strengths of being human is that we can have experiences in our head before we actually have them in real life. We’re able to simulate an experience that we want in our future, all because of our brain’s wonderful frontal lobe (more specifically the prefrontal cortex). Development of the frontal lobe is the most recent stage in the ongoing development of our brain. The frontal lobe allows us to be creative, decisive, focused, contemplative, and adaptable. It gives us a long attention span; a strengthened sense of self; disciplined behavior; individuality; proactiveness; an ability to make dreams, goals, and intents more real than what’s happening externally and to learn from mistakes — the list goes on. My kids laugh when I say, “I’m in love with my frontal lobe!” But I want them to realize just how important our brain — and in particular, our frontal lobe — is to our overall quality of life. I’m always telling my kids about the importance of wearing a helmet during sporting activities and the damage that could occur if they were not to wear one. Our frontal lobe gives us the ability to imagine our future, so if we want to have a more fulfilling, positive life, we need to take ownership of the pictures, dialogues, feelings, and actions we create on a day-to-day basis.
Let’s get back to overcoming that nail-biting habit and work through each of the four stages of Flipman’s Strategy.
The first thing we need to do is create the four opposite, positive corollaries of the See, Say, Feel, and Do of the (negative) state of nail-biting. We need to focus on the result that we want and then create the visual, auditory, kinesthetic, and take-action stimuli that will give us that result as if we had already achieved it. Let’s go through it step by step.
Flipman’s Strategy
Fake it till you make it!
Fake the opposite thought, feeling, and behavior
to the negative thought, feeling, and behavior
you are experiencing.
Flipman’s Strategy
1. See It! Using positive visualization, make a picture in your mind of your hands with long, healthy nails — the more visual, the better. When you can make the picture as clear and as specific as possible, it’s much easier for your mind to duplicate it. Having an actual picture of what you want to create can also help keep the visual really strong.
2. Say It! Next, using a positive auditory stimulus, tell yourself, “I have long, healthy nails.” It can be easy to think we have this part right, but I often hear people use a negative auditory stimulus such as “Stop biting your nails.” Winning and not losing are two very different states, even though they may sound similar. One forces the mind to focus on the behavior of winning, and the other focuses on the behavior of losing. No one depicted this better than one of the greatest Flipman role models we have ever seen, Mother Teresa. She said, “I was once asked why I don’t participate in anti-war demonstrations. I said that I will never do that, but as soon as you have a pro-peace rally, I’ll be there.” Can you see the difference? One directs energy toward war; the other directs energy toward peace. That’s the power of effective dialogue! This is such an important part of the strategy that I have expanded on it further in the following pages.
3. Feel It! Now, imagine how you will feel in the future when you look at your long, healthy nails (kinesthetic stimulus). This is the one step that most people leave out; either they intellectualize it (just think it) or they avoid it because they feel silly acting out a feeling that isn’t real. Yet this is probably the most important part of Flipman’s Strategy. When we pretend to have the feeling of achievement and do it with the best acting skills we can muster, we help the brain send a message to the body that connects at the cellular level. Your brain thinks you already have achieved what you feel, so it supports the neural pathway production.
4. Do It! Finally, you must keep fingernails out of your mouth. Take actions that support the outcome of long, healthy nails — we need to live as a person who has long, healthy nails and not wait until we actually have them.
So off I went with my new Flipman Strategy: “I have long, healthy nails … I have long, healthy nails.” I kept pictures of long, beautiful nails around me, and I imagined feeling incredibly proud as I saw long, healthy nails on my fingers. I pretended (faked) that feeling. I even jumped in the air with joy at the thought of having long, healthy nails. Then, and most important, I would act like a person who doesn’t bite her nails. I had my nails (such as they were at that point) manicured. I painted them with nail strengtheners, and each day I would feel myself achieving long, healthy nails. Now, as I look at my hands, I have long, healthy nails. I’ve had them for the past thirteen or so years! By continually repeating the process, over and over, I kept firing the neurons. (Remember, neurons that fire together, wire together.) And I finally created a new neural pathway of “I have long, healthy nails,” which replaced the old dominant pathway of “I am a nail-biter.”
For the really old habits, it can take approximately a thousand repetitions to create a really strong new neural pathway. So if we do a new behavior once a day, every day, it will take three years. That challenging time commitment alone can have us retreating to our old ways faster than a lizard drinking at a waterhole! But if we are serious about making long-lasting changes in our life, we’ll do whatever it takes to make that happen.
I should point out that this is a very simple explanation of the far more complex phenomenon called “neuroplasticity.” The most current research in neuroplasticity shows that we don’t actually lose the old pathway; it simply lies dormant until we become stressed, and the temptation (Pitman) to revert to our old habits rears its ugly head. This is why so many of us slip back into our old habits when we experience stressful times in our lives. However, if we’re aware of this temptation and have Flipman’s Strategy in place, we’ll be more likely to stick to our new healthy habits.
It’s What You Say
As Flipman’s Strategy shows, our perception and how we use language is so important. Step 2 in Flipman’s Strategy (Say It!) is about how we dialogue what we want. Effective dialogue can mean the difference between achieving our goals and not, so we’re going to look at this step of the strategy in more detail.
Using the nail-biting example, a lot of us would start by saying something like “Stop biting your nails.” But wait. Look at this statement carefully. The unconscious mind makes a picture — that is, it focuses on the behavior, not the command. So when we say, “Stop [command — Captain] biting your nails [behavior],” our mind has to first make a picture of biting the nails in order to stop. Once that picture is created, the unconscious mind immediately thinks that’s what you want [Crew] because that’s the picture you made, so the neurons fire once again as a nail-biter, even though we think we’re doing the opposite.
Another common example of unconscious ineffective dialogue is when we pour a child a glass of milk. Some of us say, almost habitually, “Now, don’t spill the milk.” Just as soon as the words are out of our mouth, the milk is all over the floor. “I specifically told you not to spill the milk!” The child thinks, “Wow, Dad’s a clairvoyant.” So what happened? When you said, “Don’t spill the milk,” the child had to make a picture of spilling the milk in his or her mind in order not to (by which time it’s too late). The unconscious mind received the data, the body aligned, and whammo, milk was everywhere. It’s the same when people use negative dialogue, such as, “I’ll never be able to stop smoking.” Listen to that! The unconscious mind just says, “OK. You know far better than I do.”
It’s the same with expressions like, “I always...” or “I can’t...” or “I find it so hard to...” In our house, we’re not allowed to say, “I can’t.” We must instead say, “I am” or “I have.” (“I have long, healthy nails! I have long, healthy nails! I have long, healthy nails!”) As we have discussed, to take ownership of creating a new future for ourselves, we need to focus on the end result that we want and then language it as if we already have it:
I Am … I Have...
The younger we are when we learn this, the better! When Harison was about four, he walked into the kitchen, all slumped over (in the Pit), saying, “I can’t find Thomas the Tank Engine, Mama! I can’t find Thomas!”
I knelt down to his eye level and said, “Harison, remember, we don’t say ‘I can’t’ in this house. We say — “
Before I could finish, his eyes lit up, and he jumped in with, “I am finding Thomas, I am finding Thomas.” After I left the room, I could hear him searching in his toy box, enthusiastically chanting, “I am finding Thomas, I am finding Thomas.” Next, there was a squeal of delight, followed by “I found him!”
Then I asked, “How was that?”
“Worth it!” he shouted back. That was our little dialogue to encourage our boys to persist at things instead of choosing to quit.
Jackson is a little different from Harison, though. When he was about three, he was having trouble doing up the buttons on his shirt.
“I can’t do up my buttons, Mama! I can’t do up my buttons.”
I responded with the usual, “We don’t say ‘I can’t,’ we say … ?”
He angrily shouted, “No more ‘I am’ — I said I can’t!”
I just burst into laughter — Flipman’s Strategy can have its funny moments. I realized we’d have to give this little guy a bit more time.
Another story that comes to mind is when Jackson was looking high and low in his bedroom for “Huggy” (the little security blanket he’d had since birth). He shouted out to me, “Mama, I can’t find my huggy! I keep saying, ‘I am finding my huggy, I am finding my huggy’ — but I just can’t find it!”
I replied with a chuckle, “That’s because it’s in the car!”
Pay the Price and Pay Attention
You may be saying, “Well, that’s all fine and good with something as simple as nail-biting” (try telling that to a nail-biter!) “or looking for a toy train, but I can’t see how it would help me with really strong habits.” Let’s take smoking as another example.
I, too, had my doubts that Flipman’s Strategy would work for smoking. I was a very heavy smoker for many years. I started smoking when I was nineteen, and I remember that at the time my Pitman told me it would be easy for me to stop any time, if I wanted. How foolish I was to listen! I would smoke as fast as I spoke, and sometimes I’d have one resting on the ashtray, unnoticed, while lighting another. It didn’t matter how hard I tried to quit, it seemed as if these little white sticks had complete control over me, even though my father died from lung cancer at forty-eight years of age. When you’re nineteen, forty-eight can seem an eternity away, but as you get older, you realize just how young that really is. And as for the belief systems that form between birth and age seven — well, five out of my father’s six children became heavy smokers! I thought I would never be able to quit smoking, and I used to fear that I would end up with lung cancer like my father.
But life has a wonderful way of helping us out if we pay the price and pay attention. We need to keep listening for the messages that life brings us — and to do whatever we can to remove the distracting noise of blame, victimhood, and Pitman. (I was soon to receive some unmistakable messages, as you will see.)
Some of these messages come as a little metaphoric tap on the shoulder to capture our attention. Life doesn’t want us to experience great pain and suffering in our learning, but if we’re not paying attention, then it will get our attention any way it can! If we don’t respond to the tap, we’ll get a slap. If we don’t pay attention to the slap, then we’ll get a punch. If we don’t pay attention to the punch, then it will be a sledgehammer, and if we’re still not listening, a Mack truck will come along and smack us fair and square in the face and say, “Now will you listen?”
Think about it. When do most of us decide to get our health on track? When we get a health scare. When do most people read a book about relationships? That’s right — when the partner has packed her bags and is headed out the door. We turn the pages of the book and acknowledge, “Hmm, so that’s what went wrong. Page 32 had the answer. Bummer — two weeks too late!”
For most people, the Mack truck experience is a crisis situation. In my case, within the space of one week I met four people who had throat cancer. Then, as if the message wasn’t clear enough for me, a woman came up to me during a coffee break during one of our training programs. She was in tears as she grabbed my arm and, with fear written across her face, said, “Terry, put that stupid cigarette out! My husband has just been diagnosed with cancer of the esophagus.” Well, you could have knocked me over with a feather. In that moment, I knew I would never again have another cigarette. I don’t know why it was that moment, but it was as if I just woke up. That’s the best way I can describe my experience. It was another satori, another instant awakening. It was as if all the lights had been turned on for me in that one moment. Wow! But then I thought, “Now that I’ve made this powerful decision, how on earth am I going to quit these horrid things?”
Then I remembered Flipman’s Strategy. Yay! “Flipman will help me through!” Still, I feared that Flipman might not be enough. What if he didn’t work for me, after all the time I’d spent preaching about him to others? I didn’t feel that confident. But the wonderful thing about Flipman is that you don’t have to feel it to succeed. You just have to do it — you have to do all four parts of Flipman’s Strategy.
So again, let’s work through this one together. I want you to learn the strategy so that you not only understand it but also remember it. That’s why I am giving you a few examples — so that you have practice using it to create powerful new habits.
What could be the positive See (visual), Say (auditory), Feel (kinesthetic), and Do (take action) aspects that would combat my negative feelings, thoughts, and behaviors of wanting a cigarette? (Be careful not to slip back into old dialogue habits — like “Don’t smoke! Stop smoking!” Remember, the mind makes a picture of the behavior.)
Important Tip: Even though we’re not actually there yet, think about where we want to end up. Some people might say, “A nonsmoker with healthy, pink lungs,” but this is an outcome. Ask yourself, which pictures, words, feelings, and actions do I need, to support me in creating the opposite of being a smoker? If you’re struggling for an answer, I’m thrilled. It means that you’re beginning to realize that although the formula may sound easy, it’s not quite so easy to put into practice. We’ve spent years and years using inappropriate dialogue — and one of the dangers here is to assume that we already know this. There’s a wonderful saying: “Some people are so far behind, they think they’re out in front.” We need to be cautious in our rush to “get” this. It is far better to go slow and allow ourselves the patience to really integrate this information.
We don’t spend enough time focusing on our own dialogue. We pay insufficient attention to the unhealthy thinking, speaking, and doing habits that we pick up along the way.
Remember, neurons that fire together … it’s the same for both unhealthy and healthy neural pathways.
So let me ask you, “What do nonsmokers hate?”
“Smokers!” people normally respond. We don’t hate the smoker; we hate the smell of the smoke. (Love the criminal, hate the crime!)
See It!
So using visualization, let’s picture ourselves being physically sick when we smell cigarette smoke (the more visual, the better).
Say It!
Next, using an auditory stimulus, we tell ourselves, “The smell of cigarette smoke makes me sick.”
Now we imagine a feeling of nausea when we smell it (kinesthetic stimulus).
Do It!
And then we walk away from the temptation.
I used this exact method. I would recite to myself over and over, “The smell of cigarette smoke makes me sick, the smell of cigarette smoke makes me sick, the smell of cigarette smoke makes me sick...” In addition, I imagined a nauseous feeling and pictured myself being physically sick. Well, do you think it made me sick for the first few weeks? Not on your life! For the first few weeks, I would walk past a smoker hoping they would breathe out when I breathed in — mmmmm, beautiful! But inside my head, I persisted with Flipman’s Strategy: “The smell of cigarette smoke makes me sick, the smell of cigarette smoke makes me sick, the smell of cigarette smoke makes me sick...” because my unconscious mind didn’t know any different.
About six weeks later, after landing from a midnight-to-dawn flight, I stepped out of Sydney Airport and walked past a group of smokers at the front entrance. Without thinking, I took in a breath and felt physically sick — at last! I even dry retched! Let me tell you, I did a happy dance all the way to the car. “The smell of cigarette smoke really makes me sick — yay!” It was music to my ears. And to this day, the smell of smoke continues to make me feel nauseous, and I love that!
A couple of years after I had stopped smoking, my partner and I were at a dinner party, and I had eaten way too much. One of the guests lit up a cigarette, and in an instant Pitman was circling around me, whispering in his seductive voice, “Gee, it would be nice to have a cigarette right now!” Aaaagh, Pitman! He was trying to sneak back in! “One won’t hurt you. Just have one. You’ll be OK.”
No, Pitman, you will not get back in! As an excuse to leave the scene of the crime — an oh-so-familiar situation that was resurrecting those old neural pathways like a horde of ravenous zombies — I picked up a couple of empty glasses from the table and removed myself from the temptation. Inside my head, my inner voice said loud and clear, “The smell of cigarette smoke makes me sick,” just making sure that not one little urge could leak its way back in.
We have to pay a price in life. I know I keep saying this, but it is so important. We have to pay attention! These stories are not about me, and they’re not about smoking or nail-biting (those are just examples). They’re about you and about anything in your life that’s stopping you from moving forward. I’m not telling you to quit smoking, nor am I judging smokers. Do whatever you want to do, but when you’re ready to make any changes to your life, Flipman will help. We won’t help ourselves by making a choice to smoke and then feeling guilty — that’s doubly toxic. The most important part in all of this is the decisions we make about the life we want to create.
“I Only Have a Glass a Night!”
Drinking alcohol is another example from my own life that gave me the opportunity to use Flipman’s Strategy. There was a time when I would come home from work in the evening and have one glass, two glasses, sometimes more than that. People would ask me, “How much do you drink a night?” I would answer jokingly, “I only have a glass a night. It’s not my fault it’s shaped like a bottle! Why pour when you can straw!” But behind the joking, I knew deep down that drinking alcohol was not serving me well. It was really a bit like soda pop to me, and I would use the excuse that I was just a bit of a party girl!
Being pregnant gave me good practice at going without alcohol, and I cut down a lot after having my babies, so that I was drinking only a couple of glasses of wine mixed with club soda in the evening. But I still needed those couple of glasses just to take the edge off. Looking back, I have to say that I’ve consumed a lot of alcohol since I started drinking at eighteen (the legal drinking age in Australia). I was not alone with my nightly drinking ritual; I’m sure that many readers can relate from their own experience. I have known many people who consume alcohol every day and feel they have it completely under control. Yet when faced with the prospect of not drinking for a certain period, the cold reality of their possible dependency is revealed.
I am not passing judgment here; our daily drinking habits are certainly a personal choice. I simply want to be sure that we don’t hide from our reality by being in denial or using the “Oh, that’s not me!” excuse. It can be so easy to dismiss our habitual behaviors by justifying the truth away. I, for example, would tell myself all the time, “It’s only a couple of glasses. Relax, it’s not that bad!”
When my older brother died at the age of forty-three from alcohol-related liver failure, I became strongly motivated to do something about my personal habits. Just as smoking had had a hold on me, it seemed impossible to contemplate a life without alcohol; I really felt that I needed those couple of glasses each evening. Yet there was something deep inside telling me that alcohol was incompatible with my life goals and my personal values.
As luck would have it — and this was my sledgehammer — a few years after my brother’s death, I went to see a doctor because I wasn’t feeling too good. She ran a few tests and discovered that I had become infected with quite a serious parasite. “I can’t have,” I laughed. “That old boyfriend left years ago!” She laughed too, but then she said that she was very concerned about my condition and recommended that I undergo a heavy course of antibiotics. She then added that because of the high dosage, I was not to drink alcohol for four whole weeks!
Everything seemed to go into slow motion. “Hooooow looooooong did you say?” I asked, hoping that I’d misheard and that she had really said only four hours!
“Four weeks,” she repeated firmly.
“What? Four whole weeks?” I found this very confronting. I kept weighing it. Drinking — parasite — drinking — parasite … Maybe if I drank enough alcohol, I would kill the parasite! Joking aside, I really was confronted by the two options that lay before me — my health or my alcohol habit — and to be honest, I found it a very difficult choice to make. Even though I knew deep down I would ultimately choose my health, I was angry that I had to give up something that I enjoyed and felt I needed — for four long weeks. I had never experienced adult life without alcohol.
It can sound so pathetic when we play it back to ourselves, but when anything has a hold of you, it can be very hard to let it go, even if it isn’t good for you. This was an incredibly confronting situation for me. My liver was not as healthy as it should have been, and my brother’s death was a pretty strong influence, so in the end, I chose my health. The hardest part for me was the first few days. I even held a ceremonial dinner the night before I quit, and I marked my calendar for four weeks later, to the day. Day one was tough, day two was a bit worse, day three got a little easier, and as each day went on, I felt myself gaining new strength. Every day, I focused on Flipman’s Strategy:
See It!
I could see myself at the end of the four weeks, alcohol-free.
Say It!
The dialogue was easy: “I am on medication and not allowed alcohol.”
Feel It!
Each day, I would imagine I was at the end of the four weeks and feeling fabulous!
Do It!
Each day, I chose to drink club soda and lemon in a wine glass, no ice!
The four weeks were over before I knew it, and I felt healthier, clearer, and so much more empowered. I felt like I had come alive. Not only had my skin tone dramatically improved, but my mental clarity had never been sharper! And the fact that I had followed through for the entire four weeks gave me a powerful sense of pride in myself. I had kept my word. Encouraged by this renewed strength, I decided to persist with my course of abstinence. I didn’t know how I would fare, so I didn’t put any pressure on myself. I decided that if I really felt like having a drink, I would simply have one. Initially my dialogue had been “I’m not drinking because I’m taking medication,” so I changed it to “I’m alcohol-free at the moment.”
Little did I realize that my last alcoholic drink would turn out to be the one I had on August 9, 2003. If you had told me that night at dinner that I would never drink again, I would have laughed. I am so grateful for that parasite! Now, when I’m asked, I simply reply that I only drink non-alcoholic drinks. My wiring has completely changed, to the extent that I no longer can stand the smell of certain alcoholic beverages. At a conference dinner one evening, one of the delegates commented on how strong I must be to refrain from drinking at “events like this.” That’s when it clicked about my wiring, and as I explained to him, it isn’t even a conscious choice for me anymore. And then I had another amazing realization.
I’ve heard that some support groups use phrases like “I am an alcoholic. I am an incest survivor. I am an over-eater,” and so on. In my opinion, this dialogue just keeps reinforcing the negative patterns of the past. It reinforces the wiring. Why would anyone keep reminding himself or herself of the very thing they want to be rid of? I’m not an expert on the psychology or science of addictions, but I do know that anything that can support a positive outcome must be of benefit. Whichever word we place after “I am ... ,” we reinforce. We fire those neurons, making the pathway stronger and stronger. Such phrases do not serve us in rewiring our pathways in a powerful way. They keep people constantly focusing on what they don’t want, not what they do want.
Please understand that I do not mean to criticize any support group and the tireless work they do for their members. I just think that sometimes we can get stuck in the way we have always done it — results are results, and my goal, especially when it comes to our health and well-being, is to keep looking for ways that give us a better outcome. I could have easily left this part out of the book, for fear of offending people. But one has to ask, why do we get offended? If we get heat for speaking up, let’s look at it and not be blinded by our beliefs, which may have become outdated without our even noticing. Remember, we once thought the world was flat. It would be foolish to think we know it all now. I am just asking that we contemplate our current beliefs to check whether they still serve us in achieving our goals.
At this point in my life, I see myself never drinking alcohol again. Do I miss it? Not at all. I was actually amazed at how easy it was to completely stop — although I do admit that in the early days, there was the occasional evening when I felt that a long glass of icy cold champagne would have slid down beautifully. I’m not suggesting that we should have an alcohol-free world. I’m only speaking for myself here: I’m simply not good with alcohol. Alcohol doesn’t work for me, and it doesn’t fit with the way I live my life anymore. Again, I am not saying to you, “Don’t drink.” Your constitution may be completely different from mine. Being a nondrinker is a great choice for me because I didn’t like who I became when I drank. You may be completely different. Just be totally honest with yourself. Deep down, there’s a part of you that knows the truth, and that part knows whether you’re using a substance to push away whatever you’re running from.
When we use anything to numb ourselves to the reality of our issues (food, drugs, alcohol, anger, work, chocolate, the Pit, and so on), we’re not getting rid of problems — we’re just pushing them down. The moment we stop the habit, up they come! My greatest realization was that drinking numbed me. I didn’t have to face my “stuff.” My problems and issues became less important after my nightly couple of glasses. Alcohol became like a mild sedative, and I lived a lot of my nights in a gentle haze, which of course I didn’t realize until I stopped drinking. When I stopped drinking, everything I had been pushing down came up, and I was now faced with the ordeal of dealing with my stuff.
But now that I had a clear head, the most amazing thing was how much easier it was for me to deal with the very issues I had been drinking to avoid. I think that the saddest part of our current society is that we don’t let our stuff come up, whatever these issues may be. We forget that we have put a lot of repetitions into creating the unwanted behaviors, so we also need to put a lot of repetitions into creating the new, wanted behaviors.
I heard someone describe creating new neural pathways as being similar to creating a new waterfall. How do some waterfalls begin? With one drop of water, and then another and another and another — until one day there’s such a massive force of billions and billions of drops of water that a waterfall is formed. But we’re not used to doing it the tough way. We’ve been spoiled by the quick and easy solutions prevalent in our current society.
Dare to Delve
Many years ago, I wasn’t sleeping very well because my eating habits weren’t that great, I had been flying a lot for work, and my then-husband was a big snorer. After quite a few weeks of sleep deprivation, I felt exhausted. I also had an extremely painful right shoulder and elbow, which worked in tandem with the snoring to ensure that some nights I had no sleep at all. All of this, plus I was working full-time and had two little boys (I sound like a bit of a Pitman, don’t I?).
I dragged myself off to the doctor in search of a remedy for my lack of sleep. By this stage I was very teary and a bit spacey — I felt like I had been hit by a truck! After a few minutes of consultation, the doctor prescribed antidepressants.
“But why?” I questioned in shock. I had no reason to be depressed. I had a loving marriage, two great toddlers, and a fulfilling business, and I was happy with my life. “I certainly don’t feel depressed!” I said.
The doctor replied, “I think you’re not sleeping because you’re depressed.”
I was absolutely dumbfounded by this diagnosis. So I clarified what he’d said: “You’re saying I’m not sleeping because I’m sad, is that right?”
“Yes,” he replied confidently.
“Might it be the other way around — that I’m sad because I’m not sleeping?” I said through gritted teeth.
He became quite irritated that I had questioned his diagnosis. And I was annoyed that he prescribed antidepressants so casually, without discussing my diet, exercise, or lifestyle or running any tests. He knew nothing about my personal life, my eating habits, or anything else about me, period! (Back then, my attitude about exercise was simply, “Why walk when there’s a good car parked outside!”) And there he sat, happy to tell me that I needed antidepressants, while offering no other tests, no other form of therapy, or any other relief for my sleeplessness.
I’m not saying there isn’t a place for antidepressants. If they’re going to prevent someone from taking their own life or if they’re going to give someone a jolt from a habitual Pitman state, then I say go for it — but they shouldn’t be prescribed that casually.
I walked out of my doctor’s office completely disillusioned. When I had a chance to clear my head, I thought, “How dare anyone so easily play with my body and my life like that!” It wasn’t until many years later that I discovered I had contracted an autoimmune condition — and that my profound exhaustion, depression, sense of loathing, anxiety, and painful right shoulder were just a few of the symptoms! I am so grateful that I trusted my inner guide. I knew I wasn’t depressed, but I also knew something was wrong.
Love yourself enough to keep asking. Trust yourself enough to know that you know you better than anybody. Dare to delve into your own life. We will talk about this more in Chapter 14, but for now I urge you to dare to be the explorer and search for the deeper meaning rather than just doing a quick cover of those “taps on the shoulder” concerning drugs, food, work, alcohol, or things. As Scott Peck’s wonderful book title says so eloquently, take The Road Less Traveled. Also, teach your children to take the tougher, more challenging road. Show them that walking through our pain teaches us to be resilient. We become much braver and more courageous by facing our pain instead of numbing it, and we also create far more opportunities for ourselves.
Flipman Is a Choice!
Changing our old habits into new, more positive and empowering ones can take a lot of commitment and dedication. Life is challenging! Being a parent is challenging, being married is challenging, being single is challenging, being twelve is challenging, being seventy is challenging, running a company is challenging, running two miles is challenging — life is challenging! There are no free lunches in this world. When we start to accept that life is challenging, everything begins to get easier. We stop looking for an easy way out and accept that there’s work to be done, and Flipman can help us accomplish these goals.
Over the years, I’ve heard countless stories from people about how Flipman has influenced their life: from losing weight to quitting smoking; from saving a person’s life to becoming the number-one salesperson in the firm; from healing themselves from an illness to falling back in love with their partner. People have shown me that Flipman lives in the choices we make in each moment.
At a client function, I ran into someone whom I had trained a few years back. She was so excited; she wanted to share a story about her final exam to qualify as a firefighter.
A building was on fire, and my partner was inside. My task was to find my partner and get him out of the burning building. This was my last task before becoming a fully qualified firefighter, and I had trained so hard for this moment. I had only a certain amount of time, and for some reason, the heat, the pressure, the race against time started to have a negative effect on me. I started to panic. My breath became short, I couldn’t find my partner, and I felt like I was burning up. It was awful, and I was about to give in and give up when I remembered!
You should have seen the look on her face as she shared her story. I had goose bumps on my arms and tears in my eyes.
She continued,
I knew that if I just focused on Flipman, I would be OK. I was still terrified, but I concentrated on slowing my breathing. In, out, in, out. My heart was pounding so hard I thought it was going to burst through my chest, but I kept breathing in, out, in, out. I then clearly visualized myself finding my partner. I started moving forward into the fire, saying out loud, “I am finding my partner! I am finding my partner!” Within what felt like a few seconds, my partner appeared before my eyes. We got out of that fire, and I passed my test! I love Flipman!
As she finished, we fell into a beautiful hug.
That story still inspires me today. I love Flipman too, and the number of situations where he turns up never ceases to amaze me. Flipman isn’t there for us only in life-threatening situations; he can also be with us in ordinary, stressful day-to-day situations.
It’s wonderfully empowering when we not only learn these strategies but also implement them to help to create the life that we want. This can kindle a passionate enthusiasm for sharing this knowledge with those we share our life with. In the next chapter, we’ll take a look at how to do this by being a Flipman example rather than by calling out others’ Pitman behaviors.