Page 104 - Taming Your Gremlin A Surprisingly Simple Method for Getting Out of Your Own Way (Rick Carson)_Neat

hypnotic control over you. Remember the Zen Theory of Change we
discussed earlier:

I free myself not by trying to be free, but by simply noticing how I am

imprisoning myself in the very moment I am imprisoning myself.

Every time you simply notice one of your gremlin’s less-than-positive
tapes, especially if you do so as the tape is playing, you can attend to it with
a sense of relaxed detachment, even with humor, and you can choose your
response. This gives the natural you a chance to evaluate the tape’s value in
the context of the present situation. You needn’t strain to change or waste

time delving into your past to ferret out the tape’s origin. Just relax and
place your awareness on the message. Really attend to it. Turn up the
volume on it for a few moments. Hear it but don’t take it too seriously. Do
this on a few occasions. Before long the message on the tape, if it is untrue,
outdated, or simply no longer beneficial to you, will begin to fade in
intensity.

Your gremlin will attack you with fear tactics in the form of catastrophic
predictions and painful memories in an effort to keep self-limiting concepts

and habits in place. Follow his lead and you’ll feel blah from repeating the
same behaviors over and over again, blue from feeling that no one knows
the real you, or bottled up from over-censoring true expressions of yourself.

The natural you, on the other hand, is masterful at modifying self-
limiting and counterproductive thoughts and traits once you bring them and
your gremlin’s wailing out of the shadows. The brighter the light you shine
on old fears, outdated beliefs, and cumbersome habitual behaviors, the

better the natural you, the observer, can see the absurdity in them.

Later, when we discuss playing with options, we will explore other
strategies for foiling your gremlin. For now, know that: