“O God, I could be bounded in a nutshell and count myself a king of infinite space, were it not that I have bad dreams.”
Hamlet Act 2 Scene 2
"Yes, we all need a room of our own, and it's alright
Yes, we all need a place to call home."
Billy Joel
We all need a room of our own. This need certainly surfaces and arises in adolescence, if not sooner, and it is something we carry around with us for the rest of our lives. It is a place that we fully identify with, and in which, our freedom, privacy, and our core being are valued and respected. It is often a physical room, like teenagers who have their own space and area where they listen to the music they like and where they can freely talk to and be with anyone they desire.
It can also be a specific location and space that we cherish,
a park bench, a relaxing spot away from the office, a coffee place, or even our
mental space where we can be who we are and do as we like. This room of our own
exists even when we are living with another person, when we are married and
have children, or are surrounded by many people. It can also exist when we find
ourselves in a confined space, such as in a hospital ward or in a prison.
In fact, as Eric Maisel, family therapist and creativity
coach pointed out to me, the medieval monastery cell was not that different
from a prison cell in terms of shape and size. The difference lay in the fact
that the monk had freedom of movement if he chose to do so but there was also a
significant shift in their mindset and overall experience. A monk may
deliberately choose and opt for that confined lifestyle and even delight and
relish in it. Although a prisoner does not deliberately make that choice, he or
she could still consider themselves a king (or queen) of infinite space, but
unlike Hamlet without the accompanying nightmares. Similarly, you could be
living in a luxury home and still feel bound and imprisoned, not physically but
rather mentally and emotionally.
Now that we have established both the physical room,
but more importantly, the mind-over-matter mental and emotional room, I would
like to point out Eric Maisel’s ingenious approach to this mindroom of ours as
depicted, described, and elaborated in his excellent book Redesigning your
Mind: The Breakthrough Program for Real Cognitive Change.
I had the pleasure and honor to talk to him about how
you can not only see and spend time in this mindroom of yours but how you can
actively change it by reimagining, redecorating, and repainting it in various
different beautiful, and colorful ways and manners. In fact, most of us are
living our days in a mindroom that is stuffy and filled with repetitive,
limited, and limiting thoughts circulating in our weary and exhausted heads and
bodies.
But what if you installed large sun-filled windows
into it and opened the window to let the breeze in to clear the stuffy air!
What if you scraped off the old wallpaper and replaced it with new vibrant and
shiny colors! What if you put in a light switch that you can flip on when proverbial
nights set in and, as such, be able to brighten our rooms? For those of us who
have a somber in-dwelling style, an anxious, fearful, critical, and often
angry outlook and feeling, why not imagine a brighter place and lighten your
surroundings with a much better view and vista?
Eric’s idea of seeing your own mind as a room is
immensely creative and commendable. Descartes had seen the mind as a stage but
that would be too much in the public view, and it would be bound with stress
and pressure without barely any privacy or intimacy. To imagine your mind not
only as your own room but to visualize changes and amendments within it, is absolutely fascinating and enticing to me. You are what you think, but what
if you started thinking differently, and, as such, were able to change our
mindset and shift your paradigm towards real change, as the subtitle in Eric’s
book is alluding to.
There is a problem though, but it is not
insurmountable: We all carry a bed of nails in our respective mindrooms. The
room is haunted and imbued with secrets, ghosts, and ghouls of the past,
subjective experiences of failures here and there, and depreciating and
belittling comments, rumors, and gossip that we heard and overheard and that
we infused into our private spheres. The traumatic bed of nails is
pain-inducing, but it can be hauled out and be replaced by a soft comfy bed or
an easy chair.
In fact, CBT (short for Cognitive Behavioral Therapy)
has its strengths and merits and can be moderately successful for dealing with
certain issues and problems related to mental health and healthy functioning,
but it also has its share of shortcomings with (pun alert) significant room for
improvement. Its main dilemma exists in the perplexing feat of trying to
replace a negative thought with a positive one. All this does is accumulate
thoughts, and, in the end, all you are left with is, in Eric’s words, the idea
of merely arm-wrestling thoughts.
But by moving away from this dilemma and changing your
perspective - and keep in mind, he’s a creativity coach - then we can have the
ability to change the source and origin of those thoughts. Once we start doing
that, it is not just about gaining and maintaining control but living in peace
and tranquility where the thoughts we do not want do not even bother to arise
in the first place!
Since the body and mind are inherently and intricately
connected, you can indeed use the mind to make and bring about the changes that
you want to see and make in your daily life. All you need to do is to go to
your room, a well-chosen and well-suited metaphor for our purposes, and imagine
it differently; you would make changes that make sense and that are useful to you
at that specific moment of your life. Visualization and imagination are proven
and evidence-based ways that can help us break out of the rut and the vicious
cycle we have gotten ourselves into and we have become entangled and enmeshed in.
To return to the previously mentioned prison metaphor,
we can transform the prison cell into a monk cell. As Eric explains, medieval
monks and prisoners were technically in the same place, it was practically the
same dark-walled place after all, and yet, they had different experiences, and
they related to the place in very different ways and manners.
So we can overcome our own limiting metaphors and completely
change the orientation of our very own mindroom as well as how it feels to us;
we can do so by metaphorically removing the bars and by being aware that we literally
are able to get out of this perceived prison. In this way, we can become aware
of and activate and engage with our inherent potential and the many opportunities
and possibilities both within and without.
One of the problems is that we are just not honest and
truthful enough with ourselves. This is to our detriment as we have
wall-papered our mindrooms with lies, falsehood, delusions, and deception.
Moreover, we do not feel prepared for life and do not know how to respond to
various situations in our life that may feel out of control. Hence, we simply
abandon ideas or disregard and sabotage opportunities that could be helpful and
beneficial to our psyche. In fact, we get badly stuck in life because we have
simply not thought things through.
The way to overcome and circumvent this is to create
our very own speaker’s corner in a designated corner of our mindroom. That is
the place where we can freely speak and say what is on our mind without
worries about getting into trouble and without censorship. Just say it, let it
out whatever it is, and speak your mind.
This type of visualization is a form of rehearsal, the
same way we can prepare for all types of performances, athletic or artistic, as
well as for upcoming challenges and difficult and potentially stressful
situations like job interviews or marriage proposals. Yet by rehearsing talking
points, by going through it in our mind, we are priming and preparing ourselves
for potential success and we will have answers ready at hand.
Eric’s creative, insightful, and humorous book, which
makes psychology even more fun and interesting, can help us not only see things
and ourselves differently and in a different light and room but it can also facilitate
change in our lives and help us become better versions of ourselves. Without
that bed of nails and the fear and insecurity nagging in our entrails, we can
free ourselves towards fully being ourselves.
Yet I want to take this metaphor a bit further. It is
true that we crave a room of our own, a private and even scared space that
represents us, that is the home of our home, the heart of our heart and in
which we can truly and fully be ourselves without worry or concern about
pleasing others, friends, and family members, nor be concerned about displeasing
others with our words and actions.
It is true that we need to use words and language to
communicate and express our ideas and to identify and label our feelings. Thoughts
expressed in words are vital and unavoidable, and they can potentially, when
practiced with awareness and mindfulness, lead to gains and insights into our
beings, that of others as well as our relationships with them.
But here’s a radical thought: what if you do not need
to change your mindroom after all? What if it is the thought and language that are
creating the limits and establishing the boundaries within yourself? What if
there is “no best version” out there but there is an “only you” version: your unique
way of being yourself. What if the most beautiful and life-transforming feats
are not enshrined and enveloped in thoughts but simply are what they are
without any comment or judgment, thoughtless and yet filled with feelings of
bliss? What if there is after all a spiritual realm that we can simply tap into
and connect with?
Did Eric’s idea for this book not come from in-spir-ation?
Was it not that spiritual realm and sacred place that presented him with a gift
and that he accepted, unwrapped, sculpted, and chiseled for us in elaborate and
precise words as a form of dedication of and devotion for divine knowledge? But
then again, the truth of truths cannot be spoken nor expressed, and as such,
some unspoken truths are better left unsaid.
Acknowledgments
I want to thank Eric Maisel for this mind-blowing interview. He was also the catalyst for me finally buying a new, more comfortable and convenient, and well-deserved chair for my office! Thank you for the inspiration and motivation!
Here are some additional links to his book:
Amazon- http://bit.ly/RedesignYourMind
Chapters-Indigo- http://bit.ly/RedesignYourmind
Bookshop- http://bit.ly/RedesignyourMind
Barnes and Noble- http://bit.ly/redesignYourMind
Indiebound- http://bit.ly/redesignyourmind
Moreover, I recommend checking out the full-length interview,
which includes fascinating topics that are not covered in my blog post above,
including further insights into creativity and the creative process, authoritarianism,
and Improv comedy!
You can access it via YouTube or via my podcast: Arash’sWorld Podcast.
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