Not everything in this world is both simple and effective. There are no magic pills you can take to wake up transformed overnight. The good news is that even modern pharmacy isn’t trying to sell us such a thing—because it would quickly become obvious that it doesn’t work.
Yet there are a few things that can change your life in minutes. No matter how miraculous or unbelievable it sounds, it’s true. The problem arises when we’re faced with a direct instruction: “Go do this, and you’ll feel much better!”
In that moment, doubt often creeps in. What is this they’re trying to sell me, push on me—or what kind of cult are they dragging me into?
These are common questions many of us have. When I first read about something like EFT (the classic version), I didn’t believe that tapping on your forehead could help with anything. It wasn’t even right away that I let myself be convinced to try it. But personal experience forces reflection—and it pushed me to want to know more.
Sometimes I can’t help but question a person’s mental readiness when I demonstrate how it works and a problem simply vanishes. But we humans are funny like that: when something is expensive and might work, we’re sad we can’t afford it; when it’s inexpensive, we assume it’s too cheap to be effective.
Many of us build our lives around our problems. We create an identity with a label on our forehead—it happens to nearly everyone with a mental or physical issue. I can’t guess the exact percentage, but I believe far more than half of the people on earth, even if they knew something could help quickly, would never reach for it.
This piece is for those who aren’t like that—for those who are, like me, eager to change their lives fast. It’s especially for anyone whose life is being eaten away by… the past!
Many of you have read Eckhart Tolle on living in the present, but few truly manage it. It takes more effort than it seems. Why? Because we learned to be this way. We’ve practiced (feeling lousy) as diligently as we practiced driving a car. We get better and better at creating problems even where none remain. And even if we could change quickly, we fear losing our identity.
Becoming someone new isn’t just a step outside your comfort zone; it’s a skydive that misses your comfort zone by dozens of miles. Your subconscious will do everything to keep you where you are—because it’s familiar. Even if it’s not good, at least it feels like “you.”
That’s not all bad. Jumping without knowing where you’ll land can open unlimited possibilities.
I don’t need to know my future. I don’t care. I know I create it every day by who I am. And I know that if I change my problems slowly, I may never reach my destination. Life is too short to suffer—especially from our own past.
I also know that slow change is useless. Even when we’re “past it,” we tend to circle back to our problems, again and again.
If you bend a sheet of metal slowly and then let go, it springs back to the same shape. But bend it quickly with enough force and the material yields; it won’t return—you’ll struggle to straighten it again.
That’s what I write about: going into the mind and changing what holds us in the past—the unresolved stuff we can analyze for years in therapy or medicate with tons of pills for the rest of our lives.
Let’s skip that—and do something new and unusual.
Many of you reading this have memories that chase you. Maybe you think of them every day—sometimes for hours. Your mind runs big, oversized images; you hear sounds and feel awful. Now imagine even if you obsessed for just 1 hour a day (I suspect it’s more), that’s 365 hours a year—and in ten years…?
Imagine how your business or creativity could grow if you invested 3,650 extra hours over a decade.
Human excellence has no limits. With the time you spend on the painful stuff, you could do something extraordinary—discover a breakthrough for the environment, paint stunning works, compose beautiful music, or simply create something remarkable. Do it!
Another common claim: “I am who I am!” and “You can’t change that!” I ask: How do you know who you are? So much of it is absorbed from parents and from experiences—often the bad ones.
The truth is, you don’t really know who you are—yet.
You can be who you choose and do what you choose for the rest of your life. Sometimes the effort is small; sometimes you have to push hard. But the possibilities are truly unlimited.
The best thing about the past is this: It’s over.
End what haunts you. Pick a miserable memory that shows up often. Notice the image tied to it. Where is it? Life-size or oversized? Right in front of you? Are you inside it? Do you see through your own eyes or do you see yourself in it?
Now take that image and shrink it into the top-right corner. Make it round, no larger than 1/8 of the original size.
Now rapidly switch its color between black and white. Make it flicker very fast for at least 5 seconds.
Great—your brain has just begun key changes.
Now it’s time for the second part of the work.
Most memories aren’t just static pictures; they’re little movies. I want you to freeze that movie on a single, final frame.
Now run the movie backward in your mind. Everything happens in reverse—people speak in reverse—and it goes faster than the normal pace of the memory.
Overlay a circus tune as you rewind all the way to the beginning.
When it ends, clear the image to blank.
Now return to the original memory and notice how your feelings have changed. You may feel a relief you haven’t felt in years—especially if your past has been stealing your life for so long.
You have a free hand: “recoding” any negative memory this way is up to you.
This process takes only a few minutes—and it can set you free.
I’d love to hear your comments and wins with this simple technique. There’s much, much more you can learn—and I encourage you to do whatever it takes to feel better and better every day.
OCD? Obsessive thoughts? Change those too.
You don’t have to change only the past. You can also alter those imagined future scenes and free yourself from obsessive thinking.