When in the 8th grade I learned Lavoisier at school, I never forgot his law:
“In nature, nothing is lost and nothing is created, everything is transformed.”
And although this statement (more or less as I wrote it, there are relatively different versions) has always stayed with me, the consequences of this law, with which I have been faced over the years, have been countless.
The other day, talking to a client, he told me that he was unable to ‘control’ his thoughts regarding a situation that was causing him stress.
I asked if he knew Lavoisier’s Law. He didn’t remember, but as soon as I said it, he recalled it immediately. And he asked: “How does this apply to my situation?”
I explained that we cannot control thoughts: we cannot annihilate them and make them disappear, as if by magic, from our mind.
But, as Lavoisier explained, we can transform them. We can take the negative energy of the scenario we are creating in our heads and transform it into something different: into another type of energy, more productive, more suited to our intentions.
So, for example, if we are anxious because we are going to give a difficult presentation or expose ourselves in front of an audience, instead of trying to “control” and annihilate our negative thoughts (such as “what if my mind goes blank?”, “what if the my slides fail?” or “what if I embarrass myself in front of 100 people and it’s the most humiliating moment of my life?”), what we can do instead is replace these thoughts with others (everything changes).
Alternative thoughts for this situation could be:
“I’m so excited to be able to share this part of my work with those people.”
“I’m so grateful to have been given this opportunity to talk about a topic that I love so much.”
“I’m looking forward to being faced with a new challenging experience, which makes me step out of my comfort zone and expand my limits.”
“I’m curious: what will I learn today in this new situation?”
The latter was the invitation I made to my client: to let his curiosity lead him in this new situation and try to identify learning opportunities.
All the energy we use fighting negative invasive thoughts translates into emotional exhaustion and fatigue.
Our brain is wired to think.
And our brain is wired to prefer negative thoughts over positive ones. It is a primitive survival mechanism.
So forcing him to do something he wasn’t designed to do (stop thinking) is like rowing against the tide.
Or as a mentor I love says: it’s like swimming in a pool of lava. We may even be able to take a few laps, but we quickly find ourselves completely burned out.
So: don’t try to control or fight your thoughts. Use it instead as an ally to lead you in the direction you want to go.
We can transform anxiety into enthusiasm.
We can transform fear into opportunities to overcome our limits.
We can transform a lack of confidence into curiosity.
Antoine Lavoisier would be proud of this law enforcement (I’m sure!)
And remember: the mere fact that you are here, today, at this moment, living an earthly experience, on a boulder floating in space, already makes you special and incredible!