Your thoughts are designed to help you
Monkey talk
Take a moment and look back at your relationship with your Monkey.
Usually, it seems Monkeys throw us a mixture of random and unrelated thoughts but is this really true?
The nature of their dialogue and your history together obscures the underlying reasons for these thoughts. It could be that your Monkey is trying to complete a task that only your unconscious knows about.
There’s an example in the book:
My Monkey is a ‘he’ –
I am sitting in the sun trying to read a great book called ‘Ego Is the Enemy’ by Ryan Holiday. I am enjoying exploring the possible links between Holiday’s ideas about the Ego and how our Monkeys work. I am content sitting here in the garden with my book.
In the middle of all this my Monkey appears. He is very excited about building a new house on a plot of land that we do not yet own and have not even found. The plan is exciting, it is an eco-house on a sloping plot. The garage is halfway down the plot on the right and there is an office or music room built under it with a view over the water. He presents the ground and first floor layouts with a resounding tee dah!!
I resist the urge to get involved. I do not think the subterranean garage room will work. This is still hard for me to do but instead of talking about the house or the subterranean room, I pause and ask him a question about purpose, ‘What’s this all about?’
He shows me a series of conversations and google searches I have been involved in over the last three months or so. He then shows me three good reasons why we need to start this project now and returns to his design— tee dah!!!
I can now see why this has happened but he doesn’t know that things have moved on while he has been working away in the background.
Once he gets involved in a task, he does not look up much. He gets his head down working to deliver for our cause and is unlikely to notice any changes in the outside world or in my thinking.
These unsponsored projects waste his time, and mine, Even when the projects are sponsored and agreed upon, the results typically arrive at a time when I am up to my ears in something else. Left to its natural course my experience supports the traditional view and as a result, I treat his efforts only as interruption and distraction. I don’t look for the value hidden just below the surface and so I don’t see it.
If you keep a simple diary of interruptions and distractions you will start to see patterns. Patterns that reflect what it is you Monkey is doing to help you. Without a good partnership in place, It’s often misguided or on the wrong track but if you look with an open mind, the evidence of help is there in our day to day experiences.
To reengineer your relationship with your Monkey and align their help top your outcomes , goals or dreams get the book here