What I’m about to launch upon that mind of yours, that ever curious mind of yours, is something you’ve never thought about before — but something that you may suffer from.

If you suffer from this disease you’re not going to want to Google it, ever, because the more you Google it, the more you’re going to concentrate on what you read.

You see, you’re one of those people that will read an entire article.

Listen to eight hours of audio.

And you’ll concentrate on one thing and one thing only. One word, and I call it this new disease, the disease that’s inflicting so many people. The disease that inflicts every generation from the millennial’s to the baby boomers.

It’s One-Word-Itus.

And it’s so, so, so dangerous. You can sit down and talk to somebody and have a stimulating amazing conversation connecting with somebody, feeling them.

Getting so close to feeling like you want them inside you, and then all of a sudden…

They say something.

Woah! You shake your head in disbelief. You can’t believe what they said, and then you start spinning inside your mind. What did they mean by that? It’s usually the first spin that goes on in the one word disease.

What did they mean when they said Mickey Mouse?

Do they think I look like a mouse?

Do they think I have a weird tail?

Does my breath smell like cheese?

What did they mean by that!?

All of a sudden, the other words coming out of their mouth aren’t even being heard at all.

Not one word is being heard because you’re fixating on Mickey Mouse. And then you remember the time your father left you at Disney Land, and you had the Mickey t-shirt on and he had the Mickey t-shirt on, and you couldn’t find him anywhere. He never found you again.

You grew up without a father because of that, and whenever you hear the word Mickey Mouse it doesn’t matter what the other person says, the other person can make you feel comfortable and secure, or whatever it might, and then Mickey Mouse is this trigger, and you freak out.

Eight hours, five hours, four hours, they said perfect beautiful things and they Mickey Mouse’d you, because it triggered you to something traumatic that happened to you in your life. Something that might have been programmed into you by your parents. Something that might have happened to you with the past relationship.

Something that happened to you and this new person sitting in front of you right now is no longer new. They are the enemy. They’re the enemy in your story.

You’re the victim, they’re the enemy, because when you get one word in you start thinking not as the positive thinking person that you are, you think as the negative side of you. And freak out over just one word, and it spirals you down the path, almost like a battling top. The top just spins, and spins, and spins, and spins, and spins, and spins.

So what do you do?

Well, the worst thing to do is to blame the person.

What do you mean by that?

You’re an asshole.

Now, when anybody one word ituses me and I concentrate on one word, you know what I do now? I take a time out.

Time out, I walk away. I think to myself, I just had seven good hours of this person, she said one thing, I’m officiated on it right now and I need to figure out what triggered me, or why I was triggered, or what happened and I need to take full responsibility, I’m not pointing the finger at her or pointing the finger at him, I’m pointing the finger at me, because if I don’t point the finger at me, what happens is that I will blame them and continue to go through my life, being triggered by this one word. This phrase, this Mickey Mouse.

I look in the mirror and I take the blame for myself and I think to myself, why the fuck did Mickey Mouse drive me up the wall this time? And I remembered, it was the time that my father abandoned me, my mother abandoned me, it was an emotional abandonment, like think about it.

And then I think to myself, this is my Mickey Mouse moment, and I take a deep breath, and I look at myself again, and I think to myself, I’m going to take full responsibility, she meant nothing by Mickey Mousing me. Her one word, meant nothing. The seven hours before that meant everything.

So the big question is…

What is the Mickey Mouse in your life? What is your Mickey Mouse moment? Your Mickey Mouse moment that turns you into one-word-itus, that gets you spiraling down a path of self-destruction before you just come back out of it again, and go, hi, here I am, I’m fine, you Mickey Mouse’d me. You exposed my Mickey Mouse.

Next time someone triggers you, don’t blame them, don’t point a finger. Look at the word, write the word down.

Write it down and ask yourself, Mickey Mouse, why am I triggered by you right now? And you’ll see exactly what happened, and you’ll learn from an experience, instead of blaming somebody for an old experience.