By Dr. Stanley T. Lewis MD, MPH, AAHIVS
VIA: St. Hope Foundation
Sit down and buckle your seat belt. We’re about to go deep. For this ride, you’ll need to use your mind to examine your mind. It’s like doing an investigation of yourself. But when you think about it (no pun intended), you’re the only person that can actually conduct this exercise because you’re the only person that knows where all the bodies are buried. You know all the secrets you keep from yourself. You know all the lies you’ve told and continue to tell yourself. The only question you don’t know the answer to is, “Can you face you?” Or is that thought just too intimidating?
Next you need to understand that the mind that you’re investigating is probably set. To succeed in this exercise and in life in general, you’ll need to open your mind to learn, unlearn and relearn over and over again. You’ll need to break the ‘set’ part of mindset. You’ll need to ‘set’ your mind free. Freedom of the mind will ultimately lead to the ultimate freedom – freedom of the spirit. But setting the spirit free is a separate conversation. Breaking the mindset is the essential first step.
To ‘break the mindset’, you must understand that the mind is set. It is set in ways of thinking that beget behaviors that have been a lifetime in the making. It is set in ways that may be good or bad, creative or destructive, pathological or preserving. The issue is not so much the character of the mindset, but the fact that it is ‘set’. Breaking the set is about truth. It has been said that the truth will set you free. Well, if by ‘you’ the saying is referring to your mind, then the saying is absolutely true.
The mind is the conscious jailer of ourselves (our spirits). The mind can be influenced by experiences or thoughts. If experiences or thoughts guide the mind, the person becomes the product. That is, “I think; therefore I am”. However, if the mind guides the experiences and the thoughts, then, I just am. We must stop being victims of our mindset and become liberators.
The problem with change is mindset. Put another way, the problem with change is that the mind is set. Unset the mind; release the change. Change your mindset; change your world. Your health is a good place to start. When you look in the mirror or down at the scale, do you see what you want to see? If not, the path to changing what is to what should be starts with the mindset. Picking the plan or the process is a small matter rooted in education. But knowledge alone is not going to get you to the change you want. You must make healthy your mindset. Only then can healthy become what you see and who you are.
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