Weekly Food for Thought - The Power of Interpretation

‘If you are pained by any external thing, it is not this that disturbs you, but your own judgement of it, and it is in your power to wipe out this judgement now.’ ~ Marcus Aurelius

Dear Friends,

How often do you allow one single event, to ruin a series of beautiful events?

This is not a question of the event itself ruining the other events. It is a matter of interpretations. We get caught in them all the time. If we take events like they are, if we abstain from evaluating them or thinking of them in terms of good and bad, if we just think of them as existing, it is clear that events aren’t good or bad. They simply are. However, after we start interpreting them we often evaluate them, which inevitably leads to us judging them.

This means the interpretation of events is an important leverage point for how you respond to those events and how well you handle them.

You have often had the experience while talking with friends, that they have provided you with a new interpretation of events - a new interpretation which either made you sad or glad, which either put a stumbling block in front of your feet or made you more efficient in handling them.

Let me give you an example. I was with a couple of people and one woman was a bit down. A well intended man asked her what the problem was and she went: ‘Relationship!’ He enquired what about the relationship was problematic, and her reply was brief and to the point: ‘No relationship!’ Now, in an effort to be helpful he started to explain about a friend of his who had
become single and during this painful period used it for reflection and came out stronger on the other end. The lady didn't react very well to this story; she was cringing and looked as if she was in pain.

For some reason I had an intuition about what to say and I said: ‘No relationship is good ...’ She looked questioningly at me and I continued: ‘ … It simply means: No one to get rid of, when you find Mr. Right.’ And at this she smiled, her eyes widened, she got plenty of color in her cheeks and sat much taller.

In this case it was just a slight change in the interpretation - according to the first interpretation the state of being single was an invitation to a painful journey of self discovery. (I never understood why it had to be painful!) and according to the other interpretation being single
was just a necessary prerequisite to finding a right partner.

Wit this in mind, may we invite you to start making a very clear distinction between descriptions and interpretations, start noting the effects different interpretations have and start providing your friends and yourself with more fruitful interpretations.

And if you succeed you might end up as wise as Marcus Aurelius, which is not a bad thing. He did pretty well for himself, you know, considering he was just a Roman emperor.

Wishing you a wonderful week and sending you oceans of love,

Your imperial trainers :-),
Thomas and Lidija

Lidija Markovic - NLP Trainer (Classic & New Code)
Thomas Bjorge - NLP Trainer (Classic and New Code)

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