Hi,

How are you today? I hope you’re doing well.

I know you probably think I’m crazy because of today’s title: Bipolar Disorder and Purple Elephants. But I’m not. Just hear me out. There is a lesson to be learned from purple elephants, really there is. Ok, here goes.

This guy comes up to me at the gym the other day and we start talking. Now, he has his own business and he’s pretty successful, so I have a tendency to listen to what he has to say, figuring he knows what he’s talking about when he talks about business. But he tells me he wants to teach me a life lesson.

Yep. That was my first thought. Uh-oh. Yeah, right. This guy is my age, right? What is he going to teach me about life?

So he says, “Don’t think about purple elephants.”

I thought, “What???”

He says, “No matter what I say or do, don’t think about purple elephants.”

He goes on, “Don’t think about purple elephants running through this gym, don’t think about purple elephants jumping over your head, don’t think about purple elephants crawling on the floor… just do NOT think about purple elephants at all!”

I’m thinking at this point that this guy is out of his mind, you know? But guess what I’m thinking about? You got it! Purple elephants!

And he’s just standing there staring at me. Doesn’t say a word, just stands there and stares at me.

Like, a whole minute goes by… And he’s staring at me… And I can’t stop thinking about purple

elephants.

So finally I give up. And I ask him to tell me what the thing is about purple elephants (and to wipe that smile off his face, by the way!)

He says that our subconscious mind has no filter on it. It lets everything in it, whether it is real or not. I told you NOT to think about purple elephants and no matter how much you tried not to think about them, you thought about them anyway!

Now, here’s the bipolar lesson I want you to take away from this.

In the purple elephant story, it seemed like I didn’t have any choice in how I reacted to the thoughts he “put in my mind” at all, though, did it?

Ah, but here’s the thing: I DID have a choice! I did NOT have to thing about purple elephants at all, did I? I could have made a CHOICE to think about something else. But it was like a trick was played on me, wasn’t it? Like I wasn’t expecting what he was doing to me. So my mind didn’t know how to react.

But if you know what’s coming, you can make a CHOICE in how you’re going to react. You can make good choices. I could have chosen to think about something else.

And the next time something negative comes against you, you can choose to think about something else, too – something positive!

It’s your choice.

Just do NOT think about purple elephants! LOL

Well, I have to go!

Your Friend,

Dave