“If you think about the news broadcasts; what do they broadcast? They’re broadcasting really negative experiences: people dying, wars, financial losses, dangerous economic collapses, natural disasters. Well, why are they doing this? Well, they’re doing this because it captures your attention. It captivates you. It makes sure you watch.
You see, news broadcasts are not-so-much in the business of bringing you news, as in the business of getting you to watch the news. And, would you really tune in every day if they said,
“Hey, today millions of people had a normal day, and actually were pretty happy. And John Smith got up one day, and he had his coffee this morning, he kissed his wife, told his kids he loved them, went to work, and guess what?! He made the company a lot of money. He came home feeling really satisfied that he did a really good day’s job. Then he spent some time with his children, told his wife he loved her. He went to sleep a happy man.”
Now that’s a charming story, but you’re not going to hear that on the news. So what it ends up giving to you, all this doom and gloom and drama, is a really skewed sense of how the world is doing.
We think that really the world is a messed up place and, whatever your perceptions are, you know, feel free to hang on to them. In my opinion, 95% of the planet is happy and healthy, and people are doing good things. It’s just that 5% we’re focusing on that is really unbalanced and unpleasant. And in my personal opinion, I’d rather live in that 95% of the world, where things are happy.
It doesn’t mean that you have to close your eyes to these other things. You just have to be aware that the messages you’re seeing are not necessarily as accurate a representation of the world as you think they are.
Now, why am I saying all these things?
Because I want you to free yourself to generate your own opinion. When you begin to treat information you are getting from these sources – the media, the government, advertising in particular, actually even films and books that you read – with just a little scepticism, you get to choose whether you want to believe this message or not. You get to choose whether it’s part of your life, or not.
The only thing you need to do, to break a negative hypnotic spell that’s been cast on you, is begin to think rationally; to begin to think critically. And if you decide that you choose this message as one that’s good for you, by all means sit back, relax, and enjoy the ride. But, if you decide that this is not something that you want to have in your life, just simply analyse it, criticise it, ridicule it, and say, “Hey, that’s not how the world works.” And you’ll have protected your mind from taking on board something which you really don’t need.”
Excerpt from: The Power of Conversational Hypnosis
