Of all the information I’ve made available on how to heal your Tinnitus this lesson is probably the most difficult. Why is that? Because it has to do with how you were raised and how difficult it is to change something about yourself which seems completely natural.
You see, our brains are wired to collect information and form judgments based on that information. The only problem is, the information we receive is often the opinion of others and very often those opinions are just plain wrong. Yet because we value the opinion of others we often accept it as truth even when it’s not.
In other words, we are products of our environment. We’ve learn from our teaches, our parents, our friends, from the media, from television, from our co-workers and so on. So what happens if we learn something that just isn’t true? We accept it as truth no matter what. For example that’s why there is so much hatred in the world because we learned it from others.
Therefore, nothing has meaning except for the meaning we give it. Our brains make judgments about something, a judgment we most likely learned from others and therefore it has meaning.
What’s all this got to do with Tinnitus? Well, tinnitus is real and of course our brains have accepted it as real. But, we often listen to the opinion of others when it comes to how we think, react and feel emotionally about tinnitus. When the doctor says, “go home and learn to live with it” our minds think that everything is hopeless. When a fellow tinnitus sufferer says, “tinnitus can’t be beaten,” we believe it. And, when we say to ourselves, “I can’t believe this is happening to me,” we believe it and wallow in our own grief.
Yet, what if I were to tell you that the meaning that we give tinnitus is made up? What if I told you that it is possible to shut off the parts of our minds that give meaning to tinnitus? What would you do for that kind of information? Would you give anything? Pay anything?
It is possible to shut off tinnitus and it won’t cost you a cent. It is possible to not give meaning to tinnitus and it’s not hard to do, it’s just unfamiliar. We’re so used to giving meaning to bad things we can’t see the forest through the trees.
All that’s involved is simply waking up to the fact that your life is what you make of it. If you give negative meaning to tinnitus then, that will infect all areas of your life. If you wake up to the fact that tinnitus can help your life in positive ways then that will affect all areas of your life.
Use tinnitus as a tool to strengthen your resolve. It came into your life for a reason. Is tinnitus life threatening? No, only if you allow it to be. Is tinnitus keeping you from doing anything you truly want to do? No, only if you allow it to.
What I’m trying to explain is that we give so much meaning to the negative side of tinnitus and we forget the positive side. What is the positive side? By refocusing your attention and giving less meaning to tinnitus you can actually get more accomplished in your life. By learning about and doing what you love your ears will stop ringing and start listening to the beautiful sounds of music all around you. Everything is music to your ears. All you have to do is stop focusing on what you don’t want to hear and start focusing on what you do want to hear. Listen to the wind, the voices, the children, the ocean and the birds and you will begin to hear again what tinnitus has taken away from you; the joy of living.
Paul Tobey is a professional motivational speaker who has performed many seminars for ringing ears sufferers and is author of Tinnitus Free Living a Tinnitus Handbook Self Help Guide which helps people reduce their tinnitus volume.