All or nothing thinking causing limitations


I don’t tend to watch the news as I find it all rather focused on the negative and as a hypnotherapist I know the importance of focusing on the positives in life. One thing that I do enjoy however is reading people letters on Teletext.
This morning I read such as letter and the writer was talking about express tills in a supermarket, the sort where you scan everything yourself. They had used one and thought they had scanned their card to pay. They then left only to be stopped outside and told they had some unpaid for goods.
From this experience the person decided they would never use self-scan tills again. Here the embarrassment of being asked to return to the shop was so big that the person decided to avoid the situation at all costs. Their conscious mind resolved there was only 1 way to avoid the experience again and that was never to use the tills again.
What would happen if the writer had viewed the experience as a positive experience? How could they do this? Well they made a mistake. They clearly didn’t realise they were making the mistake so now that someone was pointing it out they could request a demonstration of what should have happened so they could get it right in future.
Teletext letters are very brief so there were many questions I had about what the writer described, for instance did they get a receipt and did they enter their pin for the card.
Once the mind is enquiring about the situation it is far easier to consider new possibilities that while not guaranteeing there will be no embarrassment from taking goods by mistake will make the chances very small and allow the benefits of being able to use self scan tills.
As a final thought what happens if the writer one day forgets to put a bottle on the check out with all the rest of their shopping? The person could then be accused of not paying for an item again. The very thing they were trying to avoid at all costs. If they take the all or nothing view again and refuse to use any self service check outs where do they have to shop? An old fashioned shopkeeper service shop if such a thing still exists or they have to get someone else to shop for them because shopping is too stressful and they are starting to fall in a massive trap. Where else will their lack of confidence at using shopping tills cause them problems?