11.01
I just finished midterms and it’s quite a relief. Test stress is annoying and draining. I did have a very interesting moment today during my Global Economy exam. It was a 9 question exam and I skipped my way around the exam and had made my way through about 4 questions. I had 5 questions left, and they were all pretty difficult. The first thought that came into my head was !#@$ this is impossible, but within a millisecond another thought and voice popped into my head (my favorite voice-the optimistic fighter). I started talking to myself (in my head) and I began to have a full dialog with myself. I told myself that the next 5 questions were no big deal and that I was really smart so I would make my way through them. Whether or not I believe I’m smart didn’t really matter. What mattered was the peace I felt in beginning to attack those next five questions. It was unbelievable and comedic at the same time, it was as if I was talking myself off the ledge, but amazingly – all of this really seemed to work.
Later on, I was talking to Maria about this situation at dinner. She mentioned to me that what I was doing was a form of self-hypnosis and that doctors actually use this as a common practice when they are faced with a very difficult situation. Sometimes when doctors are confronted with insurmountable odds they have no choice but to talk themselves through because in their circumstance a human life may be at stake. Thus, the stakes are high.
The lesson is when confronted by a challenge you are the best person to help yourself through something, just use that little voice it’s pretty powerful – BELIEVE. Another powerful lesson is draw bigfoot when things get confusing, my friends at school will know what I’m talking about here. Bigfoot is a metaphor for “Believe”.
-Ni