You have the ability to reframe your thoughts especially if those thoughts are negative and hold no truths at all. Just like the book by Byron Katie Tiger, Tiger Is It True?, where tiger found evidence that his beliefs of people not liking him and caring about him is not true, you get stuck with your beliefs but there is no reason for you to stay stuck. We can find that turnaround because we have the power and intellect that will tell us why people like and care for us and how they are showing it. Give yourself credit and learn to stop thinking in absolutes that will limit your beliefs.
I am here to present one of the more interesting Tuff Loves I’ve done. It’s based on the children’s book called Tiger-Tiger, Is It True? by Byron Katie. This book has changed a lot of how I thought while reading it to my seven-year-old on a nightly basis. I must have read it 100 times at this point. The beauty of this book is powerful. I noticed I was using it in a coaching session and thought it might be valuable to you, my faithful audience. Let’s join the show in progress.
The topic for this episode is a very interesting one. I would suffice to say that this might be one of the most unique Tuff Loves to date, this being show 091. This one is on a book called Tiger-Tiger. It is a kid’s book. Why is a children’s book on Tuff Love? That is a very fair question that you might be asking. The answer is because this book has changed my life. Everything you read, everything you do, everything you look at, changes your life in some effect. This is a big book for me. On this show, we’re not going to have a coachee. We’ll have fun talking about Tiger-Tiger with a very different rant.
Tiger-Tiger, Is It True?: Four Questions to Make You Smile Again
The topic is called Tiger-Tiger, Is It True? Part of me wanted to read the book because what happens every night in the Mellas-Kandell household, that is my fiancée Morgan, her two kids, Ariella and Estee, we read the same book every single night. Sometimes once to one kid, sometimes twice to two kids. This book is a big part of my life because they’re like, “Robby Bobby, tiger, tiger.” I’m like, “I’ll do it.” Then I lay in bed, I read the book and I do the voices. It’s an amazing ritual. All kids’ books are awesome and inventive. The thing I love about this book is written by this woman named Byron Katie, who is an incredible teacher. It’s illustrated by Hans Wilhelm, who I read has done 300 children’s books. The message in this book is so awesome that I was coaching and realized that I was using the Tiger-Tiger technology inside the coaching session. I was quoting Tiger-Tiger. I was quoting Byron Katie in the coaching session and I was just like, “That’s interesting.” I thought about it and decided to do a show on it because the message is so good. I thought about doing the book with the voices but I thought that wasn’t going to translate very well. I’m going to give you the synopsis.
Basically, there’s this kid named Tiger-Tiger. He has a rough morning. He gets out of bed and trips over his little car. His parents are arguing. He’s feeling ignored and not cared for. He goes to school and gets picked last for games. We’ve all had days like that when no one wants us and we’re the last person to be picked. I don’t know if you’ve had that experience of being picked for last for schoolyard games. It’s awful. You feel rejected. The things kids go through. To top it all off, at the end of the day, his best buddy, Rhino decided to play with the Zebra. He’s feeling ditched yet again. Poor Tiger-Tiger has been ditched all day. He ends up on a dock by the water. He’s crying and he’s thinking, “No one likes me and no one cares about me.” All of a sudden, the wise Turtle shows up. Is Turtle a teacher? Is Turtle an adult? We don’t know, but the Turtle knows his shit. Turtle’s got it down. The Turtle is a badass. Turtle says, “What’s up?” Tiger-Tiger is like, “Nobody cares. No one likes me and I’m being rejected.” He speaks in absolutes. This is part of Byron Katie’s work and I want to get it across because we do this to ourselves all the time. We speak to ourselves in what’s called superlatives. We talk to ourselves like nothing, no time, everyone, everything. When things go bad, we think in these absolutes. Language creates reality and reality creates language. What happens is when you tell your body this, when you tell your soul this, there’s an effect. There’s a very big negative effect because you’re living inside this belief system that no one cares and no one likes me. Your body believes it. The first important point of the great book Tiger-Tiger is start to look at if you start to speak in absolutes. Start to look at if you’re telling your brain something that isn’t true. That’s what Tiger-Tiger does.
Then Turtle goes, “That sounds pretty bad. Can you absolutely know it’s true that there’s nobody in the whole wide world who cares about you or likes you?” Turtle calls him to the mat and says, “Can you absolutely know it’s true? Definitively, can you absolutely know that there’s no one with your belief system?” Tiger-Tiger is taken a bit aback and he’s like, “I can’t say that. I’m not sure if I absolutely know it’s absolutely true.” What Turtle did to good old Tiger-Tiger is he broke the cycle of his belief system. That lock that goes on our brain so strongly, he messed with it. He unlocked it. Turtle repeats back to him, “It’s not true that no one cares and no one likes you.” Then Turtle says, “How does it feel inside when you have that thought that no one cares and no one likes you?” Tiger-Tiger is like, “I feel sad and lonely and miserable and rotten.” Then Turtle flips around and says, “What’s the thought feel like when you don’t think that thought? What is the world like when you aren’t stuck in the thought that no one cares and no one likes you?” Then there’s a picture of the book and there’s a big happy tiger and he goes, “I would be a happy tiger. I would feel great. I could do anything and nothing would bother me.” Tiger-Tiger is amazed and he’s like, “That’s amazing. It’s not my parents or my friends who bug me, it’s my thinking. That’s cool. ”
You have the human ability at any point to reframe anything. Click To TweetJust the flip of the thought; the thought from, “No one cares,” to “That’s not true,” from true to not true enables Tiger-Tiger to see that it’s his thinking. It’s his own belief system. It’s his way that he’s stopping himself, that’s a limiting factor. It’s not his friends or his parents or Rhino or not being picked for games that has him bummed out. It’s his thinking. I was thinking about this, the wisdom of Turtle and amazed because it is, we can reframe anything. You have the human ability at any point to reframe anything. We think we’re a prisoner to our thoughts but we’re not. We’re very powerful when it comes to the ability to flip our thoughts around. We have our cortexes. We have reasonable thinking, one of the few animals that do. We have the ability to take one thought and say, “No, that thought might not be true.” Tiger-Tiger sees that it’s his thinking. “That’s cool. ”
Then Turtle hears some voices and he goes, “You got it,” said Turtle, “It’s your thinking. Now try something different. You think that nobody cares, nobody likes you? Can you turn this thought around? Can you find the opposite?” Then Tiger says, “Somebody cares and likes me?” He flipped it around. It’s called a turnaround in Byron Katie terms. It’s taking the negative thought that no one cares and no one likes me, and someone cares and someone likes me. Turtle says, “Can you find evidence? Can you find three ways that your parents like you?” Tiger-Tiger didn’t have to think very long. “They never forget my birthday,” he said. “They take me on great vacations and they give me the best hugs in the world. They don’t just care about me, they like me.” The mighty Turtle has now added evidence into your mind, evidence into Tiger-Tiger’s brain that there are ways that this thought isn’t true.
He does the same thing with his best friend. He talks about it at school and how people like him. He keeps hammering at this strong viewpoint, “That wasn’t true.” Finally Turtle is like, “Can you find another turnaround for nobody cares and no one likes me?” Then Tiger-Tiger says, “Like I care and I like everybody?” The turnaround flipped from external back into internal, from looking outside at all this evidence of why the world is shit basically, but into this internal of how we have this power inside of us to be full and real and rich. At the end, Tiger-Tiger sees the error in his ways and how he doesn’t have to believe these thoughts. He never has to believe these thoughts ever again. It’s on him to continue to live his life where he thinks outside the box and outside his negative thinking.
That’s Tiger-Tiger, Is It True? I’m teemed with the idea of me doing my own version of Tiger-Tiger and doing my own voices with it and creating a video. The point is that we do this as adults all the time. The thing about adults compared to kids is we have years and years and years and boxes and boxes and suitcases and file cabinets full of evidence of why our thinking is real and permanent and static. We live in this world where we don’t give ourselves the credit or even the chance to turn these thoughts around. I find myself doing this in my own life. I’m looking at my weight. I went to therapy, I did an EMDR session. I did 60 yoga classes in 80 days. The weight didn’t drop. I’m 47 years old and there’s a possibility that this is going to be like this the rest of my life. Just looking at the angstful feeling I feel in my body every time I wake up and how do I turn that thought around? How do I look for evidence to the contrary? Morgan digs me. Morgan’s a hottie. How could I not be attractive or looking for the evidence, the three ways.
Reframe Your Thoughts: Take these thoughts that you feel are limiting you and turn them around to find the evidence against it.
I don’t want to harp too much on this. The point got across and it is about your ability to take these thoughts that you feel are limiting you and turn them around to find the evidence against it. Byron Katie has more adult-based work. I’ve watched her, I’ve never read her so she’s on my reading list somewhere down the line. There are these ways where if you feel stuck and limited in your beliefs, just know that you have the power, you have the intellect, you have the ability to take these feelings and thoughts and flip them around so you can have the life exactly the way you want it. The only limiting belief truly, truly, truly is you.
I’m going to end my rant there. If you want some daily love, I’ve been doing Nine Minutes at 9 on my Facebook wall, Robert Kandell. Go out there and stop believing the shit that has you stop living your life. That’s the show for now. Thank you so much for joining me. I love you and I’ll talk to you soon. Take care.
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