If you ever find yourself trapped in circular thoughts, stewing, trying to solve problems that seem intractable, I’m about to offer you a solution that works so well, I believe it is actually magic.

Hello, my name is Anna Bellissima I am an extremely powerful magician, as, of course, are you. And in a moment, I’m going to give you the specific method for untangling the tangliest of conundrums without breaking your brain. But first, let’s have a look inside that beautiful head of yours. Now, of course, our minds are infinitely wondrous and perform almost unimaginable feats of intellect on a daily basis. Personally, I would not wish to be without one, but I have noticed that sometimes, like a piece of software glitching, they become stuck in a loop, replaying a particular question over and over again, overheating as they grind away to discover a solution and provide us with an answer.

It can be quite distracting while you are at the beach intending to enjoy the sea air, the delicious breeze, the game of Frisbee with your loved ones, the sensation of sand between your toes and in your picnic, your sweet, diligent mind keeps interrupting your experience. An error message, a well-meaning error message popping up every two minutes to say, This is lovely, but the car was making a funny noise. How are you going to pay for the repairs? And more often than not, there is no immediate or simple solution.

And if there were, it wouldn’t be interrupting your day at the seaside. So instead of trying to think your way to an answer, try thinking a better question, because one of the fundamental things that our thinking brain has wrong is believing that it is its responsibility to come up with a solution when in fact the best solutions come from the part of our mind that has nothing to do with thinking at all. Now, I do appreciate that thinking about thinking can be rather tricksy.

So let me give you a concrete example. So you are self-employed and times are hard as they are for everybody at some stage setting up in business now pondering questions like should I launch a new product? Should I hold a flash sale? Should I see if I can get a part time job? Should I invest in more business advice or less? is wonderful. If you can give yourself a quick answer that feels good and is actionable, but there is no correct answer to these questions, so you may well find yourself ruminating, in which case I invite you to ask instead a very different type of question, which is actually extremely related to the practice of writing a hypersigil which which we explored in an earlier episode of Practical Magic.

The exercise is this: cast your mind forward just a little way into the future. And from that perspective, ask, Wow, when did business become so easy for me? Where did all these perfect customers come from? How did I become so confident and when did I become so lucky? Asking the right questions is what gives you the right answers. Be sure to include key words for how you want this to feel.

Easy, perfect, creative, confident, lucky. Then shrug your shoulders, shake your head in wonder at all your good fortune and let your brain chew over these delightful questions until at some point in the next few hours or the next couple of days, it will deliver you a part of the answer, a thread you can follow. And as you keep on mulling over those delightful questions about how everything worked out so easily and so, so beautifully for you, your unconscious mind will drip feed you – will drip feed your consciousness – with each next step in turn.

I would love to know how your thinking mind responds to this. So leave me a comment and don’t forget to explore the rest of my channel, particularly the very relevant lesson on hypotheticals I mentioned, which I will link in the description. Thank you so much for being here with me today and I look forward to seeing you next time. Bye bye.