Dr. Emmett Miller explains that thoughts are behavior and many habits run on autopilot. He uses finger exercises to show how ingrained patterns can shift once you notice alternatives, then describes dysfunctional patterns as once-logical responses that no longer fit our current lives.
Our thoughts themselves are behaviors. We have the feeling as though the thoughts come in and "prrrmm, prrrmm, prrrmm" and we stagger through life, but it's not true. The thoughts are behaviors. But you may not know you're behaving that way. You may not realize that you have the ability to change your behaviors. You can change your thoughts. Try this. Clasp your hands. You know how you just interlace your fingers like that? Notice how it feels. Now notice which thumb is on top. It's either your right thumb or your left thumb. Anyone has anything different than that, raise your hand. Okay. Now reverse that. Change every finger so that the other thumb is on top. Notice how weird it feels? Did you ever realize that you always folded your hands the same way? Without thinking about it. It was an automatic behavior that you did always, but until you become aware of another option, you can continue to do that. Now there's no need to change it, but just as a demonstration. How about this? Fold your arms. Alright. Now change it. Fold your arms the other way. Why, you can't even figure out how to do it. See how it feels? Same thing. You've been doing it this way so long you didn't know there There was another way. In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king. In the land of the blind, The one-eyed man is king. Mm-hmm. Okay? So if we can manage to open one eye, we can learn something. The kinds of patterns that bring someone to see me, the kinds of patterns that have brought you here, are what we call dysfunctional, whether they're mental, physical, emotional, behavioral, spiritual, whatever they may be. They are dysfunctional and they are illogical. They are illogical given the context of where we are now. They were logical at some point in your life before you knew better and in the environment you lived in, but right now they're not logical. And yet this brain is a very highly logical thing. You can lie and lie and lie, but it has a basic sense. I talk about bowling ball reality. Bowling ball reality is when you take a bowling ball and you hold it 4 feet above your foot and then you philosophize about what will happen if you drop it. And you say, well, a fairy will sweep down and catch the bowling ball. Well, the bowling ball is going to float up in the air because I'm going to telekinesis it up into the air. Or my foot is so powerful, I've walked through fire, and the bowling ball is going to bounce off my first metatarsal. Bowling ball reality is what happens when you let go of the bowling ball. Try it, just try it. I'll tell you what happens. Your foot's gonna go whoop, and you can pull that dude away. 'Cause that's the way your brain thinks, you see? It's reality-based. When you lie to your brain and feed it nonsense data— there's an interesting principle in the formation of logical systems when you get into higher mathematics and logic, that once you introduce a statement which is both true and false into a logical system, then you can prove any statement in the whole system either true or false at will. Crazy making.
This has been a sample of Dr. Emmett Miller's guided imagery program, Finding Serenity: Overcoming Dependence and Codependence. Find it at shopdrmiller.com.
