A thought that her phone was in the washing machine sent the speaker into a panic attack with a racing heart and near-fainting. She uses it to show how your mind triggers your body, then explains how to flip that around: catch negative thoughts and redirect them toward what you're grateful for instead.
Chapters
So, today I had a really acute experience of the power of the subconscious mind. I was gathering up the laundry to put a load on, and as I was gathering things up from the bedroom, I often chuck in things that need to go downstairs into the kitchen anyway, so used coffee cups, and it crossed my mind that my phone needed to go on charge. So, gathered up all the laundry, went downstairs, put the load on, and as I came back through the kitchen, I noticed the place where I normally charge my phone was still an empty cable, and that thought went through my head, I have just put my phone in the washing machine. Ran back to the machine, and at that stage already the drum was full of water and there was no way I was going to be opening the door. Wow. The thought hit me of— straight away my mind went off on one. Could I cancel what I was going to do today to go and buy a new phone? No. Could I cancel going to London tomorrow to go and buy a new phone? No. When am I going to get a new phone? Then what have I already lost? When did I last do a backup? And in the probably, I don't know, 10 seconds or so it took for me to get back upstairs to my bedroom, my mind had gone through all of that thought process. So by the time I reached the bedroom, my heart rate was at about 5,000. I was feeling sick, to then walk into the bedroom to see my phone still lying in the middle of the duvet. And at that point, I nearly fainted with relief. That's the power of the mind. All of those thoughts created such acute emotions that I almost lost temporary consciousness. Fortunately, I have a phone, which is what I'm talking on now. But what was a really strong reminder for me was that if a thought alone can create such an extreme response, if we use that power to focus on the positive, it can also create such a positive response. I'm normally pretty good at this kind of stuff. It's what I teach to all of my clients much of the time, so it's a great reminder to do it myself. So today I have been really making an effort to— if my mind wanders into any of those negative places, I pull it straight back to focus on the positive. Because it's Friday afternoon, the sun is shining, my 2 dogs are bouncing around doing goodness knows what here. I've got the whole weekend ahead of me. There is a huge amount of positive things to focus on, and I'm making sure that the acute feelings I'm having for the rest of this weekend are going to be the best that they can be. I hope you can do that too. Have a wonderful weekend.
