A few years ago I decided to become a mentalist. On my journey to mentalism I came across a stumbling block. PRIDE – it is called. It’s blinding and deafening, making us lose focus and stop hearing inner voice that speaks common sense.
I tried several techniques of mind control and it amazed me how easily it worked. It appears we all can do it. We can control pain, we can use our mind to control our bodies, we can overcome the fatigue.
The first thing that I tried was simple pain from eye-brow plucking. It can be very painful if somebody else is doing it for you, so I decided to use my imagination as stated in some of the sources on mentalism. I imagined that it wasn’t my own skin, it was a cover on my face that she was plucking. And it worked! I didn’t feel anything. Not true, I could feel that she was doing something, but not pain, as if I had had a shot of anesthesia.
Then, few days later, I went on my training run (I am training for a marathon) and decided to try imagination and mind work again. Usually in the middle of the run I get so tired that there’s no desire to run anymore, I slow down and the rest of it is no fun. This time I decided to imagine I was on a bike, my legs weren’t running on the ground, I was just pedaling and sitting on a comfy bike seat. The next moment my breathing changed, it calmed down and I started running faster and easier. It was amazing!! Unbelievable! The rest of my run was pretty easy and I even had to hold back from speeding up. Not enough, apparently!
The next week was eye-opening. I was too amazed, proud and arrogant to realize that my mind games got me too excited. I had increased my mileage and speed too soon, which led to several health issues. Now, my doctor doesn’t allow my to increase intensity of physical activity.
It didn’t discourage me to continue my journey of a Mentalist newbie but helped to be more careful. From now on, I will keep in mind that our body is very complex as is our brain. So, it’s dangerous to play games with it and imagination can lead to unwanted results. Pain is a necessary mechanism that tells us something is wrong – pay attention. Fatigue is important to let us know we should stop or slow down and rest. Ignoring those signals could lead to disaster.
Natasha Bazilevych
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