Lessons in Leadership – XXIII – Conquering Our Mind

January 19th, 2010 > Ziad Khalil Abu Zayyad

One of the things which our mind enjoys doing for us is to keep reminding us that what happened in the past would happen again. Failure and Painful experiences are remembered by the mind more than anything else. The results which we get from the past become the information which the mind uses in order to deal with the present challenges.

This procedure takes place in everything which we live: relationships, making decisions, taking risks, and going forward in life. Our mind keeps on telling us that the best thing which we need to do once we need help in deciding anything is to get back to the past and see what the result of similar incidents which we faced was. Most of us prefer not to get themselves in an argument with their own minds because they are usual to listening to what it asks from them. Facing our mind is similar to starting a revolution against someone who is ten times stronger than us.

The outcome which we could get after trying to make any change in the way we think and decide will be a complete change in all the parts of our life. Surrendering to what our mind learned from the others without trying to add something which we create will make our life become simply another copy of those whom we use as a manual for our life. Living in conflict with ourselves will prevent us from solving our conflicts with the others. The first thing which one must make is to reach peace with his/her own self.

The journey begins in returning to the past which we sometimes prefer not to remember because of certain memories which we describe sad, suffer and painful. Once you read the last words I wrote your mind will tell you that this is wrong that the best thing which you need to do is to keep on moving forward without the past. Actually you will be moving forward but your mind unconsciously will stay in the past using these memories and their results as your source for dealing with the future. Therefore, you must start by making your first original decision which is that you need to go back to those memories which you prefer to stay away from and live them again. This time you won’t live them in order to feel the pain but instead to convince your mind that what happened once is not necessary what will happen again.

Let’s take relationships between men and women for example. Some relationships may not turn out not to be as good as we want. The effect of old relationships is usually felt in new relationships and even in the period before going into a new one. Many are affected by old experiences and would even shut themselves from the world only to make sure that they won’t live the past again. Others would start new relationships but will keep on comparing it to former ones. The result in both situations would be another round of the past which our mind convinced us not to live again without feeling this. Those who isolate themselves will be losing the joy and happiness which they would get from new relations and those who compare their relations with old ones will only bring more “Painful” memories to their life.

So what the mind did was preventing us from facing our past again in order to deal with it and instead continued to keep us living in patterns which are brought from the past. Therefore what we need to change is the way our patterns are made. The way to change it is by understanding what happened in the past is not what will happen in the future and that painful memories can become the energy we need in order to make a change which will affect us and those who around us positively. The strategy which our mind uses in order to make sure that we are safe is not fair for us because we may be in safe from being hurt but we will also be missing the other half of any experience which we usually describe in words such as happiness, success, joy, love, helping and satisfaction.

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