Believe the Impossible

Listen to me

Part 2

Welcome to the second part of Believe the Impossible. Earlier in the week, we focused on fear as a driver that reinforces our habits. Now we continue the journey a little further.

The human body has been studied by doctors, scientists, biologists, and other experts for centuries. To be honest, it’s amazing what we know about how the human body actually works and what it is capable of. Naturally, there are certain limitations to our physical abilities, but in spite of these, there has been a number of cases of incredible feats performed by humans that go well beyond what most think is even possible.

I love the name they have given this- it’s called hysterical strength, also known as superhuman strength, which is a display of extreme strength by humans beyond what is believed to be possible. Normally it occurs when people are in life and death situations, people are believed to perform some extraordinary tasks such as lifting cars with bare hands. In Lawrenceville, Angela Cavallo lifted a car from her son, high enough and long enough for two neighbours to replace the jacks and pull Tony from beneath the car. An 18-year-old from Austria survived an incredible 18 days without food and water in a holding cell when forgotten by policemen responsible for him. Just amazing isn’t it?

Let’s, now look at the things we strive to achieve which are beyond what we feel is humanly possible. Vendrell, a professional free-diver from Spain, set the new world record for voluntarily holding his breath under water for 24.03 minutes. That is just staggering! A Georgian man, Pataraia, earned himself a place in the Book of World Records by pulling a 7,734-kilogram helicopter just over 26 meters using just his ear. It’s an amazing example of what we can achieve with practice and belief.

Then there are things that happen to us in the face of disasters, coming away unscathed from a huge accident. Vulovic, a former flight attendant, holds the distinction here, he’s the world record holder for surviving the highest fall without a parachute: 10,160 meters after falling out of a plane that exploded. She suffered multiple fractures, and she was in a coma for 27 days but after that, she fully recovered from her injuries and even continued to fly.

I could go on forever as there are so many amazing things that people have done or achieved that seem just mind blowing.  What we need to do is harness just a small fraction of this belief and use this to make a positive change in our lives.

Let me tell you a personal story from my life, while I was on a training course we were studying the power of our minds, the belief system and the impact this has on children.  Children are amazing when they are young they will believe anything we tell them, they are just sponges ready and willing to learn the world through the eyes of the people around them. My son who is 25 now, was 2 to 3 when he started to get eczema. It wasn’t major, but it was a discomfort for him, the doctors recommended creams, but there’s not much they can do as its classed as a autoimmune disease.

In one of the lectures they talked about how children could be susceptible to things, that as adults we have been conditioned out of believing possible. So, I decided to try see if my son would sell his eczema! It sounds strange, but the concept of selling things was something my son already understood.  We are more receptive to things when relaxed and at bedtime as we often read our children stories and these metaphors help our children learn more about life.  I decided to ask my son if he was willing to sell his eczema and that there was someone who wanted to buy it from him.  He liked money and playing with money, so again this was a great motivator for him and his first question was how much!  I decided that to build the belief, taking time for this to happen would really help the process, I said we would write to them and find out how much they would pay.  Of course, kids now would want an instant answer, but letters and mail was still part of our regular lives back then.  We wrote the letter together about selling his eczema and I took my son to the post box letting him post it, we then spoke every night about the letter and whether it would come back the next day.

He would run to check the post every day, I gave it about a week to build up the suspense and then posted the response back to him.  He was so excited to see the letter with his name on it and when we opened it we read it together, the letter was short and simple to help him understand it.  `I wrote the letter saying they wanted to buy it for 50p, if he wanted to sell it he must write back and then then they would send the money by post.  We spent time writing back and I let him post the letter in the post box accepting that he would sell it for 50p. I put the letter by his bed and read it every night, again he checked the post every day and continued to ask when it would come. Finally, the letter came with 50p in it and the instruction to not spend the money until they had taken all the eczema from his legs and that it would start to be take in the next few days.  We watched and waited, but this time looking at his legs, I was very encouraged to see it getting smaller. Then as if by magic it did, before my eyes it started to go, we kept looking and we kept talking what to spend the money on and over the space of about a week or so it was nearly gone.  We did as the letter instructed and waited until it was fully gone and then we went and spent the money. He chose to spend it all on sweets! It was quite a few sweets for him, more than I would have bought for him normally. After that he never really mentioned it again. I was nervous and firstly thought it would come back, over time I became more comfortable. But was very cautious about not mentioning or reminding him about it, in fact I never even told him about it until it came up when he was 17 or 18 just in conversation.  Still to till this day he is eczema free.

Let us be children again … Let us lie out under the stars with our minds wide open to all possibilities.

 The crazy thing about all of our programming is that there are basis principles which influence the foundations of how we function. Why does the brain believe what it believes? Like an organic computer your brain has an operating system. A series of rules that organise and define all the chaotic input which flows in all day long. In fact, it is the very programming of your brains operating system that defines your perception of reality. A key foundation we have as children, is that we have to start decipher chaos and create order. This is a foundation our mind is always striving for and if you have read Down the Rabbit hole safety is at the root of this.

Our minds rejoice in order, you will have noticed how children love routines and often like things to be experienced many times over. For adults, it’s no different just think about how it feels to hear out of tune music, see clutter instead of our normally tidy room, being faced with things out of order, it can make us feel uncomfortable and anxious. This is because our first basic instinct in to create order and the uncomfortable feelings we have when things aren’t in order are those primeval fears that if things aren’t in order then we are not safe.

The next blog will be covering this in more detail, so keep your eyes peeled for the next weeks blog The Cave Man.  I will leave you with one final thought

 Are we all just waiting for enough people to believe that the impossible can be possible

Thanks for dropping by Sara x