Page 110 - Taming Your Gremlin A Surprisingly Simple Method for Getting Out of Your Own Way (Rick Carson)_Neat

8

Choosing and Playing with Options

I want to emphasize the word playing in playing with options. Playing
implies enjoying yourself, and that is precisely what I mean here.
Experimenting with change can be scary. When you change a habitual way
of responding to emotions and to life circumstances, you really won’t know

if you’re going to get roses or rotten tomatoes. As I’ve mentioned, however,
underneath your fear is probably excitement. If you can enjoy the
excitement and unpredictability inherent in letting go of those habitual
responses and the concepts on which they are based, your Gremlin-Taming
Method will be a smooth one.

Enjoying the process is an integral part of taming your gremlin. Your
gremlin would have you believe that feeling good requires working hard,
straining, gutting up, trying, analyzing, grunting, groaning, working things

out, and most of all worrying. The truth is, there is no positive cause-effect
correlation between the action implied by any of these terms and gaining a
genuine sense of simple peace and contentment.

Your sense of inner contentment and satisfaction will increase as you
enhance your gremlin-taming abilities; that is, as you become more adept at
simply noticing your body, the world around you, your habits for

responding to your emotions and to life circumstances, and your concepts;
choosing and playing with options; and being in process.

If you are aware of telling yourself you should change, your gremlin has
got you buffaloed. Should, ought, and must are gremlin terms that dampen
the spirit of experimentation. Instead, simply change for a change. Play