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Voyager - April
2008 What exactly is willpower?
Rev. Akasha Lonsdale It seems we have a number of expressions in our vocabulary around willpower. For example: “He/she is a wilful child”. What does this mean? Determined, independent, stubborn, has a mind of their own, wants things on their own terms? Possibly it means all of these things. “They have no willpower at all when it comes to giving up smoking/losing weight etc”. How many times have you heard someone say “I’m determined to …… (whatever it is) and then it doesn’t work? I know I’ve been guilty of that with weight loss – “I’m determined to lose 14lbs by March” – but I haven’t. Why is that? Wasn’t I determined enough, didn’t I apply enough willpower? Maybe that was it. However, I also know that when I really “set my mind to something”, I achieve it. So what is the difference? Well I decided to do some research and it was fascinating because not only did it take me back to the roots of my training in psychotherapy and hypnosis but also linked strongly with a lot of other current day theory around “thoughts vs visualisation”, “conscious vs unconscious” etc. When I typed Willpower into Google (I’d left the dictionary at home!), it led me to the pioneering work of Emile Coué in the early 1920’s, which was then re-created in works by Norman Vincent Peale and W. Clement Stone – the big positive thinking writers of their day. I often quote Coué’s famous verbal experiment, “everyday in every way I am getting better and better”, and had included it in my book “How to do life – powerful pointers for powerful living”. What Coué said about Willpower is that on its own it didn’t work, because it was purely a function of the Conscious mind, requiring exertion, determination and effort – “the efforts we make to conquer an idea by exerting the will only serve to make the idea more powerful”. So saying “I must give up smoking” makes it much harder to achieve than if you say “I don’t smoke”, because in some way the latter has also bedded into the imagination, which is a function of the unconscious mind. To demonstrate his point, Coué used a hand clasping experiment. He would ask his patient to clasp their hands tightly together and then he’d say “Now try and pull them apart. Pull hard. You will find that the more you try, the more tightly they become clasped together”. He would find that no attempt to unclasp them worked until he instructed “Now think – “I can open my hands””. Then they would open. However, one man just pulled his hands apart with no problem so Coué asked him what he had been thinking. The reply “I thought that I probably could open them after all”. To me this seems to prove again that our thoughts do indeed influence our physicality, which is presumably why the medical world finally recognises that encouraging patients to think and believe that they will get better is a powerful part of the recovery process. If that thinking is linked then with visualising getting better or something healing more quickly, there is a strong chance it will work. Even in the case of a terminal illness, life can be extended and I have heard several moving stories of this just recently through the funerals I have conducted. In three instances, when a diagnosis of cancer had been given, the individuals had all decided that they would “fight” the illness. One lady, right at the start had said she was not going to go until she had reached the age her mother was when she died. She passed that age by 5 months! As the health of the others deteriorated, they both decided to reach important dates for them. Not long after those dates were passed, they died. I’m sure you have heard stories like this yourself, and maybe even actually experienced it within your own family or friendship circle. Whilst this might seem like a depressing example, it’s also inspiring - the realisation that we really do have an enormous amount of control over our health and general wellbeing in life both emotionally and physically. However, instead of kicking out the notion of Willpower entirely, I’m going to consider what someone who witnessed the work of Coué said “When willpower is used in line with the idea in the mind (imagination), then both get multiplied”. Now…. where’s that size 12 dress! © Rev. Akasha Lonsdale 2008
Her professional memberships include the Professional Speakers Association, the International Stress Management Association UK and the National Register of Hypnotherapists and Psychotherapists As an individual member of the British Association of Counselling and Psychotherapy, she is bound by its ethical framework for good practice in counselling and psychotherapy and subject to the professional conduct procedure therein. She is in on-going supervision. See her profile here - or visit her website here - www.simplydivineceremonies.com |
Reverend
Akasha Lonsdale is a qualified psychotherapist, ordained Interfaith Minister
and certified Laughter Teacher. Her passion is for developing people and
incorporating everyday down-to-earth spirituality in daily living. She has been
effecting powerful change in people’s lives one way or another for over 30
years. What she brings to her work is humour, humility, clarity, authenticity,
deep insight and intuition, respect, directness and non-judgement. She is an
experienced workshop facilitator, author of the popular self-help book “How to
do life – powerful pointers for powerful living” and writer/narrator of the
relaxation CD “Bliss Out – Serious Relaxation”. She has also been a regular
guest on BBC Wiltshire’s “Sandy Martin at the weekend” as The
Emotional Detective and was a recent guest on BBC Radio London with
Vaz Sriharan, the young and dynamic founder of London’s latest inspiration – The
London College of Spirituality.