Who Started This Hole Mythology? by Mandy Evans

Who Started This Hole Mythology?

by Jennifer Hautman

Option Method dialogues go to the very core and center of all unhappiness, our beliefs. The process gives you the opportunity to first SEE your beliefs, then allows you to investigate them to see whether they are serving you in your life. The hundreds of thousands of beliefs we have that make up our belief systems may have been acquired long ago from parents, teachers, society, etc, yet are still operating as the source for our feelings and actions in the present.

The Option Method is unique in that it offers the opportunity, sometimes for the very first time, to look at and review these beliefs head on, in black and white, and with your eyes wide open. Often our self-defeating beliefs crumble under the scrutiny of investigation. Once you change a limiting belief, what results can appear miraculous but there is nothing mysterious about it. Without the limiting belief, you are free to experience powerful, life-changing results. Issues and challenges that caused years of discomfort can often be dropped with ease.

Why is it so easy?

Think of it this way. Imagine you work in an office with ten other people. In the foyer, which you pass through each day, there is 12 x 12 foot area rug. The receptionist warned you the first time you came in the office that there was a big hole in the floor under the rug and to stay clear of it. It was dangerous. You’ve now been working for this company for 2 years. The rug and hole have become a natural fixture to the office. The people who work there just know to give that area of the building a wide girth. Walking in from lunch you and your co-worker don’t miss a beat in your conversation as you walk around the rug. You don’t even think about it much anymore.

You’ve had discussion with other co-workers about why the owner doesn’t fix the hole, or at least put up a barrier with signs until it’s fixed. There have been theories proposed like the owner doesn’t care because he doesn’t come in the office, that the business isn’t doing well and he can’t afford to fix it. Not impeding your work, you accept the hole as a “necessary evil” for working for the company.

Then one day a new employee gets curious and pulls back the carpeting. He wants to see the hole. To his surprise, there is no hole!! He calls to everyone to come see. As you all are standing around looking at where the hole was suppose to be, you try and figure out why you all believed the hole was there in the first place. Who started this hole (whole?) mythology?!?

As it turns out the owner had the hole fixed the weekend following the damage, but didn’t inform the employees. “Just like management,” one employee says, “they don’t tell us anything.” You each take a turn tentatively stepping on the floor where there was suppose to be a hole. You laugh as each person tests the area by jumping and dancing on “the hole.” It’s as solid as a rock. You’re surprised and amazed.

After some discussion, you eventually make your way back to work. The next day when you enter the office you start to walk around the rug. You chuckle to yourself thinking “old habits” and turn and walk over the rug to your office. With each passing day you quickly forget all about the hole and think nothing of where you walk.

Was it difficult to walk on the rug once you saw there was no hole? Did you need to go through years of therapy in order to do so? Did you need to analyze your childhood? Heal any wounds? Release your anger? No, you just walked on it. No big deal. Your actions and experience naturally changed once you knew there was no hole there.

This is how it works with beliefs. Changing what you believe changes your behaviors and feelings. You no longer make a circle around the rug. You no longer warn new people. You no longer look at the rug and think, “Why doesn’t someone do something about that?” All because your belief about the hole changed.

It can be that easy.

Inspired by Mandy Evans’ Choosing Happiness audio tape

If you’d like to have someone help you through the dialogue questions the first few times, consider working with an Option Method Practitioner.

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Who Started This Hole Mythology?