Know Your Symbol of Power

The inexperienced Navy JAG was a man of short stature, but full of life and determination. During the trial of his lifetime he had moments when he felt like giving up, but then he always reverted back to the time of his glory: during his teenage years he was a baseball star and had won numerous games with his last minute home runs. So when the going got tough during the trial, he mentally grabbed his baseball bat as he agitated Jack Nicholson, and when the Colonel shouted the now famous words "you can't handle the truth", he literally saw the ball flying towards him and he hammered it with his imagined bat over the wall for the game-winning home-run.

Do you have a symbol of power as Tom Cruise had in A Few Good Men? Actually, I have seen some self-help books advising you to create one, like a magic wand, a sword, or whatever works for you. I don't know about that, but there is something fascinating when you happen to have a symbol of power. When your symbol flashes in your mind, you actually can analyse what event, person or words triggered this response. If this happens often, you will learn a lot about the workings of your mind that way. Our mind can sometimes be quite predictable and by analysing and understanding our trigger points, we can make a big step forward on the journey towards mindfulness.