“Here’s my top 5 ranking of the (for me) worst horror films.” I hear this sentence from Steven Gätjen, who is often on duty for the German television channel Pro7 and whose post I’m currently looking at on Instagram. Now he shares his five movie titles, of which I’ve only heard one in my youth. “That one really got to me,” Steven says over and over again. And as he calls on people to post their own top 5 movies in the comments, I scroll through the first messages from fans. There are things written that make me, as a consciously living person, think, “Why would someone voluntarily watch something like this if that’s the effect?”
“I watched it during the day and was totally disturbed.”
“After the cinema, I didn’t dare to get out of the car and go into the house. It had a long-lasting impact.”
“Movie X and Y have burned into my brain – really bad.”
We talked about this last Monday with our Caribbean Rebels Online community. The topic was supposed to be “relationships.” While for some, the words relationship and horror are on the same trajectory, we came at it from a different angle. Anke and I talked with our rebels about the 13 points that often lead to massive discussions, fights, and trouble in a relationship and how to quickly change these issues. At the point of “health”, Josh, one of our rebels, speaks up and says that mental health is also important. And that’s how we got to the topic of horror movies.
So, my tip of the week: Pay even closer attention than before to what you allow into your mind. Because everything you don’t consciously deselect is processed unconsciously. It passes through your brain, and the stronger the emotion, the more this information is burned into you. Look, every person who watches a movie knows it’s a movie and the scenes are staged. And yet it disturbs you and has a long-lasting effect. Your subconscious doesn’t know if it’s real, what’s happening right now. It just looks at the emotions coming in and triggers commands to make your body act.
“Why do people voluntarily watch something like this?” I ask our Caribbean Rebels. Josh speaks up with his psychology background and says, “So they can feel something at all.” Yes, unfortunately, that’s the case. So many people are completely disconnected from their emotions that they only function. There’s no real joy anymore. Trying to control this joy through material things outside doesn’t work in the long run either. So, what to do? After the pandemic-related cancellation of my Porsche Arena show, I had to reconnect with myself and find my way back to myself. That’s why I wrote my second German book on this very topic: Re-Connect to Love and to Myself.
We all need to reconnect with ourselves more. And it would be sensible to avoid all disturbing and negative messages that could be avoided (e.g., horror movies, bad news, etc.). Not letting them into the brain in the first place is the solution. That’s where you start, before gradually moving towards self-love. My book will help you with that.
Have a wonderful week and greetings from Ocho Rios in Jamaica.