Getting Caught in a Rip Current of Thoughts

Getting Caught in a Rip Current

It's funny how our thoughts can lead us into all sorts of situations. I was only thinking yesterday about what story I could include in this week's blog, along the lines of my friend Margit's quote from Wayne Dyer 'Change your thinking, change your world' and then something happened to me ..........

My family and I went to our local beach on a beautiful, sunny Sunday morning, to try out our children's new Toysrus boogie boards. I borrowed my youngest daughter's board and went out to have some fun with my two older girls. We were having a wonderful time. What I didn't realise was that every time my girls said "No, not this one Mummy, let's surf the next wave," we were going further and further out and the waves were getting higher and higher. In between dipping and rising on the big waves, I could see my husband in the distance waving at me from the beach and it wasn't one of those 'hope you're having fun' waves. I knew we were out of our depths.

I told my two daughters to hit the next big wave and head back to the beach immediately. Luckily they followed my instructions and the next few big waves hurtled them back to the beach. I wasn't so lucky as I had got caught in a rip current. Every time I tried to hurl myself forward, the rip current kept on dragging me back further into the sea. The tide was going out too, so I was being dragged by the suction of the sea in the wrong direction. The more I tried to take myself in the right direction, the more I kept on getting sucked back. My thoughts were in a complete torment. Worried I was going to end up like Tom Hanks in Cast Away (only he didn't get washed up on a deserted island on a pink, children's polystyrene Toysrus boogie board), I kicked harder and harder to head in the direction I wanted to go. My thoughts ranged from 'I'm getting nowhere' to 'this sea is getting bigger and deeper' and 'I hope I won't have to be airlifted from my pink, polystyrene children's boogie board!'

I had so many thoughts in a short space of time, but it seemed like an eternity. While wondering how I was going to get out of this predicament of getting nowhere, a young Matt Damon lookalike swam up to me on his surfboard and asked if I needed help. I was so relieved to meet this kind gentleman and like a scene from The Bourne Identity, he towed me back to safety. What a relief!



Do you ever feel like you are caught in a rip current of thoughts? The more you try to push away, the more you get sucked in, until your thoughts get deeper and deeper. The deeper you go, the harder it is to see anything else but these thoughts. You can end up in a sea of thoughts that overwhelm you. It's as if you cannot control your thoughts and they have a mind of their own.

The good news is that we can control our thoughts and we can easily change them. With hindsight, I realise that my biggest mistake in the sea was failing to paddle across the waves and head out of the rip current. Instead, I hoped that by going forwards, I would miraculously find myself back to feeling good and in control. If we use this analogy in life, it's like having some positive thoughts 'on the surface' but you've become so habituated to a certain path, you end up back in the underlying current of unresourceful thoughts. Unfortunately the force of the rip current was so strong, it kept on pulling me back, like one of those toy ping pong balls attached to a bat on elastic. The best thing to do was to break the grip of the rip, just as we need to break the grip of our thoughts when they are not sending us in the right direction.

As the anonymous saying goes:

"Watch your thoughts, for they become words.
Watch your words, for they become actions.
Watch your actions, for they become habits.
Watch your habits, for they become character.
Watch your character, for it becomes your destiny."

Be careful of your thoughts. Your thoughts can either help or hinder you. You might as well choose the ones that will help give you a good destiny.

'Change your thinking, change your world.' Learn more about how you do this beyond just positive thinking, by attending our NoLimits NLP programme in Bali. See the link attached on my blog for more information.

Janet