Positive Thinking: Everything you have always known about positive thinking but were afraid to put into practice

The Macho Man

These days, the Macho Man comes in many guises. He is by no means always that gift-wrapped stud that you might imagine. He can just as well be dressed with taste, carry a laptop and frequent the wine bar next to the office in the City.

Though an apparently uninhibited and outgoing person, the Macho Man has one taboo area – the truth about his own sexual performance, which usually leaves a lot to be desired. The Macho Man, however, will not let truth stand in the way of a good story, and he has lots of stories to tell, preferably in the company of other men or, sometimes, a few giggly girls.

His recent conquests will dominate the conversation, and he does not spare the listener details about how he did it, how many times and the name and address of the girl concerned. Alone with a woman, the Macho Man will still go on about other women, how he did it, how many times and the name and address of the girl concerned, which is not only extremely disruptive to any intimacy that might develop, it is also somewhat unpleasant for the woman he is with at the time.

All the talking is, consciously or unconsciously, designed to distract from his inability to perform adequately in bed, and very often the ploy works, as some women will begin to wonder whether it is maybe a shortcoming in them that causes this otherwise virile man to falter in bed with them.

Out of bed and on the motorway, the Macho Man displays more ‘here-I-come’ behaviour. In the fast lane, he will drive up close behind you at great speed and flash his lights at you when it is patently clear that there are two lorries on your left and three in front of you and there is no way you can let him pass. This tailgating is really nothing but an adult version of a little boy crying, ‘Mummy, mummy, watch me!’, the only difference being that now he has a car instead of a tricycle. The stage of maturity, though, is roughly the same as when he had the tricycle.

THE MACHO MAN’S GOOD POINTS

It is wonderful when he stops talking.

THE MACHO MAN’S PROBLEM POINTS

The Macho Man mainly causes problems for others – especially the woman he is with at the time – because he cannot bear true intimacy. He lives on the surface of life and prefers relationships that do not make any demands on him.

The Macho Man is the hunting, haunted kind: hunting the next woman even before he has finished his present adventure, haunted by his own inability to become intimately involved in a relationship.

THE MACHO MAN’S INNER STATE

He is a lonely man whose immature behaviour covers up a badly damaged sense of self-esteem and great insecurity, often resulting from abuse and emotional neglect during his formative years. His inability or unwillingness to admit that anything is wrong makes it nearly impossible for him to seek help.

The Backstabber

There are male and female backstabbers, and they are not confined to the office environment. Backstabbing is a trait that is found in people with an inferiority complex who say ‘yes’ when they really want to say ‘no’, and who find themselves utterly unable to voice their opinion when they disagree with someone else, especially if they regard this other person as being of a higher rank than they are.

The Backstabber will be sweet as pie as long as they are speaking to another person, but as soon as he or she has left the room, backstabbing commences. The Backstabber’s whole facial expression changes in a split-second from a bright, beaming smile to an angry or disdainful frown and then he or she either begins to gossip about the absent person or, at worst, to maliciously slander them.

Backstabbers use an indirect method of letting off steam when they feel that they are under someone else’s thumb. It is an immensely destructive way of dealing with others because all backstabbing does is to poison the atmosphere and make the Backstabber more and more uptight, without actually doing anything about the problem.

Backstabbers in the office will accept more and more work from their superiors, although they know that they will not be able to cope with the workload. Backstabbers feel that they are being exploited and treated badly, and they resent it bitterly. Their solution to this problem it to go round and tell everyone in the office what a lousy boss they have. The only person who will never hear any complaints from the Backstabber is the only person who could do something to solve the problem – the boss.

THE BACKSTABBER’S GOOD POINTS

Lots of energy which, unfortunately, is misdirected.

THE BACKSTABBER’S PROBLEM POINTS

One Backstabber can often ruin the atmosphere for everyone else who works or lives with them. Backstabbers get themselves into a rut of resentment. Because they cannot make themselves address a problem directly, they feel less and less in control of what is happening to them, and this in turn gradually reduces to nothing the little self-confidence they may have had to start with, and so a vicious circle is established.

THE BACKSTABBER’S INNER STATE

Backstabbing can develop (it does not have to, though) when a person has been repeatedly punished for speaking their mind or for complaining. Again, this is most influential when it happens during childhood or adolescence, but it can also happen later in life when a person you live with puts you down continuously. Suppressing someone’s right to speak out can result in that person feeling that they are worthless, or at least worth less than everyone else. They cannot express their anger and frustration, so they have to look for other ways of getting rid of bottled-up tension, and that can be by employing backstabbing.

The Workaholic

For some people, work is the ultimate four-letter-word. For the Workaholic, it is quite the opposite.

The Workaholic eats, sleeps and thinks work and couldn’t stop it if he wanted to. Just like the Mouse, the Workaholic’s behaviour is useful to others and therefore accepted as positive, although for the Workaholic, it is self-destructive. There are people who work hard, but that is not the same thing as being a Workaholic.

Workaholics have made work their only interest in life and, if there is nothing to do, they will create something to do. Workaholics are incapable of relaxing because they do not really want to relax. Relaxation to them is a waste of precious time when they could be working on that new contract.

Women Workaholics are often found in the middle echelons of companies, and they become Workaholics because of an inner pressure to have to be better than male colleagues in order to be accepted by them.

Workaholics will not be stopped by anything or anyone: while they are still in hospital recovering from a stress-induced heart attack, they already have arranged for a telephone by their bed and get a collaborator from the office to smuggle in the latest files ‘… on the Bramble and Lawson case, just so that I can stay on top of things’. They spend the first half of their lives ruining their health to make money, and then they spend the second half paying out that money to get their health back. It simply does not make sense, does it?

THE WORKAHOLIC’S GOOD POINTS

Workaholics are very conscientious people with a lot of drive who are highly motivated and have a great sense of responsibility and commitment.

THE WORKAHOLIC’S PROBLEM POINTS

Workaholics are not necessarily very efficient and they certainly do not control their work: their work controls them. (It is this point that gets Workaholics to co-operate with me when they come for stress management. As I know that they will not be impressed by the prediction that they might drop dead within the next half year if they carry on like that, I tell them that they will achieve a lot more if only they changed their ways, and they are wonderfully receptive to this idea and ready to get going!)

Relationships do not stand a chance in the life of Workaholics because they cannot bring themselves to allocate any of their waking time to non-work issues. Workaholics’ health is bound to suffer considerably because they run down their bodies consistently without giving them a chance to recover.

THE WORKAHOLIC’S INNER STATE

Incessant working can be a sign of latent depression. Being perpetually busy prevents you from sitting down and allowing critical thoughts about yourself to come up. Other reasons for compulsive working can be a feeling of being inferior to colleagues, of being in a job that is two sizes too big for you, or it can be an escape route out of an unbearable situation at home.

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8 How to Use This Part of The Book (#ulink_02ad2cdb-51a3-533c-91b5-645438c7532f)

In this part of the book, you will find discussions on a few specific problems that participants of my courses or clients that come to see me individually mention again and again as being particularly aggravating.

At the beginning of each chapter, you will find a list of Statements that characterise that particular problem. Take the time to read through each point and decide whether it applies to you. There is no need to count how many Statements in the ‘Loneliness’ section are true for you. You are not more lonely if you ‘score’ ten points than if you score only one. The Statements are simply there to heighten your awareness of what reasons people think lie behind their feelings of loneliness.

The section following this list looks at each of the Statements in turn, examining what attitudes lie behind them and how you can learn to approach a problem from a different angle and think in a more positive way about it.

Following that, you will find Scripts that will help you establish the new constructive thought pattern in your subconscious mind. There is always a Script at the very end, but in some sub-sections there are additional Scripts to help you deal with that particular point.

It is essential that you read your Script several times a day. Copy it on to a piece of paper and carry it around with you. Learn it by heart and say it over and over again to yourself, plant it firmly into your subconscious mind by constant repetition.

As the Scripts contain only positive thoughts, you will also feel a beneficial physical effect. As you think pleasant, constructive thoughts, your body relaxes. If you doubt this, just try to do the opposite. Recall a past experience where you got very angry. Bring it back into your mind for a moment. You will notice how your body reacts to these negative thoughts: your jaw muscles tighten up, you tense up around the stomach area, your blood-pressure goes up, which produces a feeling of pressure in your head, and you are generally feeling very uncomfortable.

Luckily, the system works just as well the other way round. When you fill your mind with positive memories or thoughts, your body releases tension, your muscles and organs relax and work together in harmony, and a sense of well-being pervades your body. To enhance the effect of the Scripts, spend some time in the evening relaxing and visualising the positive solution to your particular problem.

Don’t waste any more time thinking about the problem, spend time thinking about the successful outcome. For every hold-up you encounter on your way, for every obstacle that bars your way to success, you will find two new possible ways of dealing with it. If one door closes, another two doors open. Don’t spend time looking at the wall, look for the doors in the wall. Be constructive in the way you are dealing with problems. It happens very often that people cannot imagine how their particular problem could possibly be solved and you despair, get frantic or lose all hope and get very depressed.

Think back. This is not the first time you have had a problem. What happened last time? Suddenly, out of the blue, a solution appeared, and I bet you anything that it was a solution you had never dreamed of. It makes a lot more sense to calm down, relax and believe that a solution will present itself at the right moment in time than to make yourself unhappy worrying about the problem.

Although we solve problems day in and day out we still lack the belief that the next problem is going to be solved. Our rational mind is far too restricted to anticipate the solution that we end up with. Let’s stop over-estimating our brains, they are not as wonderfully competent as our IQ makes us believe. A person who boasts about their high IQ is like a prisoner who boasts about his big cell.

Intuition, which originates in the subconscious mind, is far more efficient at solving our problems. Pay attention to your dreams and intuitive thoughts, and you will often find that they show you the way to the solution of a problem. Solving problems has nothing to do with hard work, it is child’s play, born out of a relaxed attitude. The greatest ideas, the most ingenious inventions were made by ‘accident’ while the person was not even thinking about the problem. Albert Einstein said that when he was trying to solve a mathematical problem he formulated the problem precisely in his mind and then stopped thinking about it. The answer would invariably come up after a while, spontaneously. The subconscious mind works for us all the time, even while we are asleep, and produces the answers and solutions we need.