You have any movies you just absolutely hated?

Yah?

Me, too.

Quick question: Would you go watch it 10,000 times?

Um.

Riiiiiiiiight.

That’d be pretty stupid, eh?

So, another quick question: Why do you replay that horrible scene from your life over and over and over and over and over and over again?

Time to go to a new movie, no?

Depending on where you stand, it seems easier said than done. Sometimes you can control your thoughts, sometimes, they are intrusive and they force you to watch the movie over and over. Yes, you can work on yourself and find some peace about your own traumas. Does it mean they will never ever wake you up in the middle of the night? Oh sure, the movie was horrible (let’s say Hotel Rwanda), and I watched it over and over (still don’t know why but this is another story).... Then I decided to switch movie and to toss the horror ones out of my collection… I got “sleepless in Seattle” instead … Well, this is fine, but does it change anything to what I have seen? I don’t think so. You can try to brainwash yourself away from the nastiness… It will not make it “not exist” anymore. Yes, to start with, finding a different movie is still better than playing the crappy one over and over…. It is just that in life, things are not always as easy as switching movies… Unless I need to be shown otherwise. ...

Didn’t mean to imply it was “easy” per se, just that it makes no sense to replay the horrific scenes in your memory. Of course, Viktor Frankl could never remove the memories of his experience in the concentration camps (something worse than any but few will ever endure) yet he chose not to put his energy on that experience and wrote his philosophy articulating how in his powerful book, “Man’s Search for Meaning.” Highly recommend it.

Hi Reality, thanks for chiming in. :)

The thing about thinking and thoughts is the ones we focus on the most/hardest are the ones we can easily access—and the ones that easily pop up in our mind if we aren’t really focusing on anything in particular. Sounds funny, but focus (thinking) takes practice! And I see what Bri is saying- too many people repeat these scenes in head- which more or less makes it easier to think- and well, it sort of snowballs.

It is just interesting many of us choose those movies/scenes over the ones that make us feel inspired and empowered. Is that a practice worth embarking on? Probably. :)

This is a subject that can be debated at length. Though I totally agree with the idea, i am also very aware that some may take it as an insult, especially if they are stuck in the midst of the freak show!
Amazing Brian! Amazing because I read that book a few years ago and it was indeed very inspiring. And I have my own personal relation towards this book. Touché, right on my heart :).
It truly makes you wonder. How can one find meaning in life after such an experience? And why would you even want to? I do believe that sometimes, some of us (if not all of us!) focus mainly on the tragic side of life, and get stuck in it. I do believe in the active practice of positive thinking and as you mention it NinjaMaster, it takes practice! I am very thankful for the opportunity to discuss the subject a bit and very grateful to Brian for bringing this book back into my mind.

:)

this is definitely a topic worthy of a couple cups of tea, eh?!?

Is this an invitation? I am keen on green tea with fresh mint leaves, a zest of lemon and a spoon of honey …
Seems like we are getting ready to watch a great movie!

:) yum!!! :)

Why is this a hard subject? On the surface it makes perfect sense, as Brian says, why watch the ugly or scary movie? First, I am a big movie watcher and I love romantic comedies and loath satanic violence which sometime seem everywhere. Even though I am forced to watch a flash coming attraction of a scene I detest I generally enjoy mostly my favorite gendre. But watching movies and rerunning old stories in my head hardly seem equivalent. In Vital Lies, Simple Truths: The Psychology of Self-Deception Daniel Goleman tells us how we hide terrible expeiences to keep sane. We create lucunas and hide the harsh truths that give us pain. In other words even when we want to play the game we don’t always get dealt all the cards we ought to have.
I studied the state of consciousness and the unconscious mind for two years and finally threw up my hands and walked away because of the disagreement among the professionals on what theories are prevalent and which ones are to be rejected. Some say we sleepwalk through life (Gurdjieff). Some say our unconscious is always sneaking around telling us what to really do. Some say we can awake and learn to fully use our conscious mind to be enlightened but even at that point we would have to deal with all our previously hidden history of incorrect facts and bad decisions and just bad experiences even while we were healthy and awake.
Figuring out how we oprerate and learning how to be the best we can be is hard but that is the only path I seem to be able to take. I agree it would be foolish to watch old bad movies but I’m not so sure that is relevant to the complex mind-body-spirit process we actually use. I think I will plod on along me pathless way mindful that I wish to know more about this process but for now it seems somewhat beyond me.