The power of mind

Introduction

What This Book Can Do for You

THIS BOOK IS WRITTEN to suggest techniques and to give examples which demonstrate that you do not need to be defeated  by  anything,  that  you  can  have  peace  of  mind, improved  health,  and  a  never ceasing  flow of  energy.  In short, that your life can be full of joy and satisfaction. Of this I have no doubt at all for I have watched countless persons learn  and  apply  a  system  of  simple  procedures  that  has brought about the foregoing benefits in their lives. These assertions,  which  may  appear  extravagant,  are  based  on bonafide

demonstrations in actual human experience.

Altogether too many people are defeated by the everyday problems of life. They go struggling, perhaps even whining, through their days with a sense of dull resentment at what they consider the “bad breaks” life has given them. In a sense there may be such a thing as “the breaks” in this life, but there is also a spirit and method by which we can control and even determine those breaks. It is a pity that people should let  themselves  be  defeated  by  the  problems,  cares,  and difficulties   of   human   existence,   and   it   is   also   quite unnecessary.

If you read this book thoughtfully, carefully absorbing its teachings, and if you will sincerely and persistently practice ,  you  can experience  an  amazing  improvement  within  yourself.  By using the techniques outlined here you can modify or change the circumstances in which you now live, assuming control over them rather than continuing to be directed by them. Your  relations  with  other  people  will  improve.  You  will become a more popular, esteemed, and well-liked individual. By mastering these principles, you will enjoy a delightful new sense of well being. You may attain a degree of health not hitherto known by you and experience a new and keen pleasure  in  living.  You  will  become  a  person  of  greater usefulness and will wield an expanded influence.

Chapter 1- Conscious And Subcoscious Mind

Your mind has two levels—the conscious (rational) level and the subconscious (creative/intuitive) level. You think and reason with your conscious mind, and whatever you habitually think sinks down into your subconscious mind, which creates according to the nature of your thoughts. Your subconscious mind is the seat of your emotions and is the creative mind. If you think good, good will follow; if you think evil, evil will follow. This is the way your mind works.

The main point to remember is that once the subconscious mind accepts an idea, it begins to execute it. It is an interesting and subtle truth that the law of the subconscious mind works for good and bad ideas alike. This law, when applied in a negative way, is the cause of failure, frustration, and unhappiness. However, when your habitual thinking is harmonious and constructive, you experience perfect health, success, and prosperity. Whatever you claim mentally and feel as true, your subconscious mind will accept and bring forth into your experience. Your conscious mind gives the command or decree, and your subconscious faithfully formulates and executes a plan to make it happen.

The law of your mind is this: You will get a reaction or response from your subconscious mind according to the nature of the thought or idea you hold in your conscious mind.

Psychologists and psychiatrists point out that when thoughts are conveyed to your subconscious mind, impressions are made in the brain cells. As soon as your subconscious accepts any idea, it proceeds to put it into effect immediately. It works by association of ideas and uses every bit of knowledge you have gathered in your lifetime to bring about its purpose. It draws on the infinite power, energy, and wisdom within you. It lines up all the laws of nature to get its way. Sometimes it seems to bring about an immediate solution to your difficulties, but at other times it may take days, weeks, or longer. . . . Its ways are beyond human understanding.

Through the wisdom of your subconscious mind you can attract the ideal companion, as well as the right business associate or partner. It can find the right buyer for your home and provide you with all the money you need and the financial freedom to be, to do, and to go, as your heart desires.

I have seen the power of the subconscious mind lift people up out of crippled states, making them whole, vital, and strong once more, free to go out into the world to experience happiness, health, and joyous expression. There is a miraculous healing power in your subconscious that can heal the troubled mind and the broken heart. It can open the prison door of the mind and liberate you. It can free you from all kinds of material and physical bondage.

Chapter 2-  “Your Inner Self”

YOU are what you are today because of everything you have been from the cradle up to the present time.

Thus we summarize the innumerable factors that in their effects combine to produce the character and personality of the human adult. From the moment of birth, nay, even in the mother’s womb according to some scientists, every thought, feeling, and experience has a bearing upon mental development. Character and personality are like composites, gradually built up; or better still, like a component of forces constantly changing in an infinite variety of ways with no single factor too insignificant to produce perhaps an indelible impression.

An experience occurring to a child of five may have a direct bearing upon its whole future life. A fright, an unexpected discovery, a love interest during these tender years may be responsible for making or marring an entire career. The shame of undeserved punishment may burn into a child’s brain and its scar never be effaced. A dread of closed places (“claustrophobia”), because of which a woman dared not enter an elevator, street car, theatre, or, at times, even her own room, was traceable directly to a shock received at the age of eight when in a game of “hide and seek” a playmate forgot to unlock a closet in which she had been hidden.

Such experiences are often forgotten in fact, usually are. It does not follow that the more important an experience is the more likely it is to be remembered. A factor that determined the failure of a whole lifetime was lost to memory soon after it happened, although its influence was felt indirectly through other channels. The woman mentioned above had completely forgotten the accidental carelessness of her playmate.

This leads to the interesting conclusion that we do not possess simply one mind but, in effect, really two. We have an unconscious or subconscious as well as a conscious mind.

Such a classification may seem arbitrary, and in a sense it is, yet it helps us to understand the curious manifestations of mentality. Like a diamond, the cut surface of which is an inseparable part of the stone mass and the stone mass an inseparable part of its cut surface, so stands the relationship between the conscious and the unconscious. The facets of the diamond have no thickness, they are just the top. Penetrate them for ever so small a fraction of an inch and you immediately have left the surface and are within the stone mass underneath. The latter, in turn, derives its value and brilliancy from the cut surface. One is absolutely and inseparably dependent upon the other.

Consciousness is the medium through which we receive impressions from the outside world. By means of our sense organs eyes, ears, nose, mouth, skin we see, hear, smell, taste, and feel. All these mental images of sight, hearing, smell, taste, and touch linger in consciousness only for the briefest period. Often with astonishing rapidity they are submerged into the underneath, the unconscious, in order to be put away and stored up for future use. The reason consciousness holds them only for a short time is that room must be cleared as quickly as possible for new impressions.

I examined a patient who complained that her thoughts passed to and fro, recurring with maddening repetition. She couldn’t thrust ideas away. New impressions thronging from the outside world bewildered her. She no longer could think clearly. Her mind was all in a hodge-podge. In her case consciousness had lost the power of submerging ideas quickly. This woman was developing a mental disease. The conscious mind is the intermediary between the unconscious and the world about us.

We pass a friend in the street; we greet him. We proceed on our way looking at the shop windows, occupied with other thoughts. At night, in conversation at dinner, we recall the meeting of the afternoon and describe it. Having during the interval, for purposes of convenience, stored away the visual image of our friend in the fore-conscious, we are able at will to recall it in minutest detail.

Although the unconscious is actually a storehouse for all our experiences we cannot always lay our hands on them when we want to.

Again, we may have difficulty in banishing a thought, or as we say, forgetting it. This happens when some strong disagreeable emotion is attached to the conscious impression. For example, suppose the man we met has forfeited our friendship by betraying our confidence. Not only shall we have an unpleasant feeling while passing him, but his image and the painful associations it recalls will keep bobbing up again and again into consciousness, and very likely form a continuous undertone to other thoughts, until the pressure is relieved by ventilating the whole incident through the talk at dinner time.

Further, in this underneath mind in this your real inner self there is an orderly arrangement of what is stored away.

Science has already discovered that to certain portions of the brain is given the task of storing up certain kinds of impressions; they have a specialized work to perform. In the back of the head, in the occipital lobes, are the centers for sight. The speech centre is supposed to be on the left side of the brain, above and in front of the ear. Future experimentation will doubtless determine in much greater detail this localization of function. It may be added here that most of the work of the brain seems to be taken up by the left side, the right being, relatively speaking, dormant.

The unconscious has well been called one’s historical past. The multitudinous events of each day, but especially its landmarks, are all recorded there.

You will ask whether every experience, important or not, is actually engraved somewhere in the unconscious and is never effaced. Do not some impressions gradually fade out? Is there no such thing as absolute forgetting?

All mental images may conveniently be divided into two types, the purely intellectual and those to which some emotion is attached. The average thinker, pondering the obscurity of Einstein’s Law of Relativity, may be exerting the highest intellectual effort of which he is capable, but the subject is so abstract and impersonal that it arouses in him no emotion whatever.

An impression of this intellectual type, when relegated to the unconscious mind, tends to fade out because it lacks the vitalizing element, emotion. To Einstein himself, however, all thought on this great law which he has formulated, is doubtless surcharged with intense emotion.

If, on the other hand, we contemplate even abstractly mother-love, a thrill within us marks the stirring of emotion. If furthermore this thought is transferred from the abstract to the concrete and attached to some woman, the thrill strengthens, the impression made on the unconscious is deepened the record will be permanent.

The mind, in its infinite variety, is indeed a complicated mechanism. Yet it is a machine like any other organ of the body, and its workings can be studied.

The brain is the solid substance or material of that machine. It is made up of various parts called nerve cells and nerve fibers. The functioning or working of these nerve cells produces thoughts. All the thoughts considered together and bound together into a system constitute the mind.

All other organs of the body are machines also and each organ has a definite work to perform. Just as the brain cells manufacture thoughts so do the liver cells manufacture bile and store up sugar in the form of glucose. When all the liver cells are doing their work properly you are pleasantly unaware of their action. When certain of these cells begin to secrete too little and get out of kilter in some way with the rest of the liver, then this organ gets sick and perhaps for the first time you appreciate the fact that you have a liver.

This is the essence of all disease, a disharmony or wrong functioning of the parts of an organ or its disharmony as a whole with the rest of the body. What has been said is true also of the mind. When the mind functions well, when the conscious and the unconscious are working in harmony, there is a sense of well-being, a feeling of being properly and intimately attuned with nature and the world in which we live.

If our two minds are not cooperating, if the inner, unconscious self is in disharmony with the outer, conscious self, well-being disappears and in its stead come uneasiness, worry, and depression.

It is the inner self that we must study, that vast, complicated storehouse that has made us what we are. Let us enter and examine its contents. Perhaps our mental commodities are not labeled correctly, perhaps they have been shelved wrongly or have been mislaid. If we enter fearlessly, ready and willing to face facts as they are without cavil or prejudice, we are certain to profit by the experience if, indeed, we do not actually set our mental houses in order.

Chapter 3-  Your Personal Power

“Nothing determines who we
will become so much as the
things we choose to ignore”.

Sandor McNab

Why your life is the way it is

Whether you are conceiving your inner world or perceiving your outer one, you are using the same nerves.  A continuous feedback loop connects your inner world and your outer one as your mind is constantly projecting your internal models outward, where you experience them as external reality. This leads to the basic illusion I spoke of in the first chapter. The contents and characteristics of your outer world are shaped by the contents and characteristics of your inner world.

When a couple walking in the park sees a large German Shepherd dog running toward them, one person becomes afraid while the other begins to smile. Each person thinks he is reacting to the same physical dog. In fact, they are reacting to different mental ones.

You have been largely unaware of this process until now and have paid little attention to the contents of your mind. Yet the circumstances of your life reflect what is going on inside of you. The qualities and characteristics of the contents of your mind are constantly being projected outward, appearing to you as qualities and characteristics of the physical world.

If you believe in obstacles you will encounter them.

If you believe in angels you will see evidence for them.

If you believe people respect you, you will feel respected.

If you believe other people are against you, you will encounter resistance.

As long as you remain blind to this on-going feedback system, you’ll accept the negative aspects of your life as things you simply have to put up with. But It doesn’t have to be this way. When you change your mental models your life will change.

You have as much freedom to choose the contents of your life as you do to choose the furniture in your home. But if no one has shown you how to exercise this choice, you won’t have this power. As you begin to control your thinking, you will gain creative power over the contents of your life.

There are many levels of unconscious thoughts and many ways to consciously influence them. The basic skill is to become aware of the patterns which already exist in your mind and to gain a measure of control over them.

Changing your personal reality

Until now you’ve considered your world to consist of events. You’ve focused your attention on trying to produce more of the events you want while avoiding those you don’t. But this isn’t the way it works. You’ve been focusing your efforts in the wrong place

Your personal reality is not so much made up of events but of your perceptions and the meaning you attach to these perceptions. When you take apart this unconscious network of perception and meaning you discover that your past, your present and your future have changed. Events haven’t changed but your life has!

This is personal transformation in the true sense. Exercising this power leads to a new understanding of your past, since memories that used to trigger pain now trigger pleasure. It changes your future, since what formerly intimidated you now excites you.  Over time, as your thinking changes, your external circumstances begin to line up with the new pattern of perception and meaning laid down by your new thought patterns.

As you wake up to your power to make these kinds of changes you realize that the activity of both your brains is intertwined like two snakes fighting. It’s difficult to tell if your thoughts are leading your feelings or your feelings are leading your thoughts. To separate the activity of each brain requires insight and awareness. The best way to gain this insight and maintain this awareness is to begin keeping a journal in which you keep track of certain kinds of ideas. I’ll explain more of how to do this as we go.

Unconscious thought patterns

Working with unconscious thought patterns involves working with powerful forces of which most people are blind. When you know what to look for you can see their effects everywhere. From now on begin to notice the following kinds of thought patterns:

Images

If I ask you the color of your favorite shirt you can tell me, proving you have a visual memory. Yet many people are blind to the flow of imagery constantly playing just beneath the surface of their awareness. Write this statement on a card and carry it with you so you’ll be reminded of it on a continuous basis: My ability to visualize is improving daily. This will prepare you for the visualization training you will be doing shortly.

Self Talk

You have a little voice carrying on continuously just below the surface of your awareness. Sometimes this voice says things you don’t want to hear.  Unless you take control, these unwanted comments can affect you in ways you don’t want. Learning to change the content and the tone of this internal voice is a very powerful way to influence your internal and your external world.

Denial

Have you ever noticed yourself thinking something like, “It looks like such and such is true, but that wouldn’t make sense, so I must be mistaken.”? The decision to ignore information that doesn’t fit with your beliefs is an unconscious mechanism your mind uses to avoid painful feelings. Denial is very influential in creating the unwanted conditions you have been experiencing up to now. Catching yourself doing this will become one of your most powerful tools in creating the life you want. Failing to notice yourself doing it will keep you from developing any real power.

Negative feelings

Your feelings provide a vital clue to the thinking patterns of your right brain.  Learning to control them is one of the most important keys to developing your power. We think of ourselves as logical beings because much of our thinking seems to happen in a logical sequence. But feelings are different. They aren’t logical. They endure over time, influencing the content of your experience. You can feel good for a few minutes, angry for days or depressed for weeks. The shock of a powerful negative event might effect you for years. On the other hand, a friendly glance from a stranger can cause your feelings to shift in an instant.

Intuitions, emotions and states

It’s important to pay attention to your feelings since how you feel affects how you think. We can divide feelings into three categories: intuitions, emotions and states, each one more intense and exercising more control over your life.

Intuitions are subtle nudges, giving you valuable insights helping you make choices.

Emotions are powerful forces which affect your thinking and your perceptions. They influence your memory of the past and your expectations for the future. They affect your perceptions of your past, your present and your future. Things which mean one thing when you’re feeling up can mean something entirely different when you’re feeling down. Emotions create self-fulfilling prophesies. You’ll expect less success when you’re feeling down than when you’re feeling confident.

It is a great mistake to deny your negative feelings and dismiss them as of no importance. Emotionalized thoughts are powerful creative forces. One moment of anger can destroy a relationship you have spent years nurturing.

States are intense emotions that charge your entire being for good or for ill. Some examples of states are anger, fear, confidence, being in love. Although any emotion will influence your thinking to a certain degree, an intense state can transform a heaven into a hell or a hell into a heaven.

We consider states so important that we even identify people by their states. We call one person a worrier, another an optimist, a third scatterbrained. These terms also describe the worlds in which these people live, since each person’s life reflects their predominant states. Developing and maintaining a set of positive states not only allows you to enjoy the present. It also allows you to remember more positive things in the past and to expect more positive things in the future. A state of self-confidence increases the chances of bringing your positive expectations into your life as physical realities.

The underlying premise of this book is not simply that you can create your reality but that you are creating it right now, unconsciously! Unconscious mental images, self-talk, feelings, intuitions, emotions and states are powerful forces which are creating definite effects in your life today. Becoming aware of them gives you insight into why your life is the way it is and provides you with powerful tools to begin changing it. As you wake up to the existence of these unconscious thought forces, you wake up your power to influence both your inner and your outer worlds.

Chapter 4-  Attitude

“Your attitude, not your aptitude,
determines your altitude.”

Rev. Jesse Jackson

No one denies the importance of attitude. A poor attitude about work makes your job a drudgery and damages your chances for advancement. A poor attitude about your partner will have immediate and lasting effects on your relationship. A poor attitude about life will create stress in your world, play havoc with your emotions and affect your health. Your attitude determines the impact an unexpected event has on your life. Even the most negative event can be a source of positive growth when viewed in an empowering manner.

But what exactly is an attitude? Is it internal or external? a cause or an effect? the result of something or a determining factor in its outcome? An attitude is all these things, yet it is very easy to explain.

An attitude is a frame of reference that gives an event meaning.

Your attitudes shape and color your thinking, giving it tone and texture. They influence not only what you perceive but how you perceive it. Your attitude about any event determines its meaning, changing your feelings and your behavior in reaction to it. Since your behavior is the structuring cause for your experience, your attitudes ultimately affect the content of your world.

Changing your attitudes enables you to control your feelings and your reaction to events. This shift from unconscious reacting to conscious creating is the key to setting up the structuring cause for a life of your own design. As your life increasingly takes on the structure you have decided to experience, you move from being a victim of life to being the conscious creator of it.

To get a idea of how your mind creates attitudes and the effects they have, try this little exercise.

Attitude Exercise

Answer this question … On a scale of ten, how friendly are dogs? Whatever number you get as an answer represents one of your unconscious attitudes about dogs. It might remain unconscious forever. But you immediately become aware of it as soon as you ask the question. But if you think your answer contains any information about dogs you have confused your map for the territory.

Notice the images, sounds and feelings that come to you as you slowly read and think about the following words …

school … work … mother … father … money … sex … relationships … success … failure … the past … the future … happiness … woman … man … love …

The thoughts and feelings triggered by these words indicate some very specific things about your unique map of the world. As you become aware of your limiting attitudes and change them, you remove their effects from your life. When you add a new, positive attitude to your mind you experience its positive effects.

Psychologists tell us that the main structure of our attitudes is formed by the age of eight, so we see the world through the eyes of an 8 yras old. The stress you feel comes from trying to squeeze your life into the conceptual framework of an eight-year-old. How much do you think your emotions, your personal power and your success are influenced by this effort? If you want to develop power over your circumstances you will have to let go of these outdated thinking patterns and adopt new ones.

Your attitudes are a non-verbal mental language. The development of your attitudes parallels the development of your speech. You learned to speak as a child from copying your parents. You can’t remember learning to speak and are unaware of the unconscious movements of nerve and muscle used in speaking. The way you construct sentences, your tone of voice, and the rhythm of your speech all developed before the age of eight. Although your accent identifies you as one of tens of thousands of people from your part of the country, a friend can pick your voice out of a jumble of conversations in a crowded restaurant. Amazing, isn’t it?

The unique nature of your voice is mirrored by the unique nature of your attitudes and the unique meaning you give to your life. Although you’ve experienced virtually the same past as thousands of others, the reality you have created for yourself is as unique as your voice.

The structure creates the meaning

Both your speech and your thinking are made up of smaller units which have no meaning until assembled into patterns. Consider these two sentences …

”John hit the ball.”

”The ball hit John.”

The words in these two sentences are exactly the same, yet the meanings are quite different, as are the implications. Another agent is implied in the second sentence even though none is mentioned. Both the meaning and the implication of these sentences are due to the arrangement. The words hit, ball and John can each mean a number of things.

No event of your life has any meaning until you give it one with your attitude.

Your personal reality consists of the meaning your attitude gives to the events of your life. You created this pattern of attitudes before the age of eight.

You can’t control the way events unfold but you can control the meaning you give them. To change your life you simply need to adopt a new attitude. Placing things in a different context changes the tone of your life and gives you a new level of personal power.

Attitudes focus and filter the senses

You can’t possibly pay attention to all of the data bombarding your senses each minute of the day. Your attitudes filter some things out and other things in, making you blind to some aspects of your experience and acutely aware of others. Lovers are blind to their partners’ faults. Buy a new car and it seems everyone is driving one. Adopt a new attitude and you see its effects everywhere.

Attitudes affect memory and expectation

Your attitudes affect both your inner and outer senses, influencing what you perceive in both your outer and inner worlds. Your expectations of what the future holds and how it will unfold, your memory of what happened in the past, what it means and how it influences your life today are all affected by your attitudes.

Changing an attitude changes your past your present and your future.

Attitudes are both causes and effects

An attitude starts out as a hypothesis, created by your explainer, but once adopted becomes a structuring cause. A person with the attitude life is fun will experience more pleasure than someone with the attitude life is hard. She’ll do things the fun way, get results with less effort and enjoy the game of life. The second person will expect problems and encounter them. She’ll feel badly when things don’t work out and tend to give up sooner. Each will experience the results their attitudes lead them to expect. Each will focus on aspects of the past and future that agree with their attitude, making them become stronger over time. The Chinese say, As the twig is bent, so grows the tree.

People are as blind to their attitudes as to their voice tone, experiencing the same patterns of events repeatedly, unaware they are doing it to themselves. Learning how to modify your attitudes opens the door to a flood of new experiences and new ways of enjoying life. A new attitude leads to new beliefs and more personal power. Your attitudes are the keys to your new world.

The right attitude

Growing up under the often critical eye of parents, we learn that certain things are right and others wrong. Many people still see life this way, but absolute right or wrong is a Newtonian concept. Any attitude that creates stress in yourself or another does no one any good. Rather than asking yourself, What’s the right thing to do? asking yourself, What is the appropriate attitude under the circumstances? helps you discover the point of view leading to the results you want. A positive attitude is one that allows you to accept the reality of the situation, allows you to feel good and supports your learning and growth. To operate out of habit when conditions have changed causes problems. Constantly reevaluate your attitudes in light of your present circumstances.

Is an attitude a thing or a process?

An attitude is the frame of reference giving meaning to an event, but if we forget that thinking is a dynamic activity we will confuse the arranging of the pieces for the arrangement. This is like confusing the driving with the route driven. To conceive an attitude as a thing is a perfect example of a nominalization. This robs us of our power to modify them. An attitude is an automatic, unconscious behavior pattern similar to dancing, speaking or tying your shoelaces. It is a process that can easily be changed.

To illustrate how easily meanings can change, we’ll use the same sentence as before, simply altering our tone of voice while saying it. Try it and you’ll see what I mean.

Changing Meanings

Say this sentence aloud … John hit the ball.

Now say this one …John hit the ball?

Now this one …John hit the ball?

And this one …John … hit the ball!

Changing your tone of voice alters the process, giving four different meanings to the very same arrangement of words. Is a sentence a thing or a process? Is voice tone a thing, or a process? An attitude is exactly this kind of dynamic activity.

Your attitude about life is just a habit

You’ve been tying your shoelaces the same way for decades but can change this pattern today if you want to. With a little awareness you can change an ineffective attitude just as easily. If you conceive memories as things and believe feelings are caused by events you endow our past with extraordinary power over you and imply you are powerless to change your situation because past events can’t be changed. This attitude makes you a victim … not of our past but of your point of view.

The past has no meaning. It’s only a thought form. Your attitude about it is no more fixed than your voice tone or the way you tie your shoelaces. Changing your attitude about the past creates a ripple effect that spreads outward, touching every aspect of your life. The focus of your thinking shifts. Your mind puts together the data of your senses in new ways. You notice new things. Your life takes on new meaning. Negative events become transformed into sources of power. By exercising this power to change an attitude we regain stewardship over the course of our lives. We erase negative emotions and discover resources to which we have remained blind because of our limited view of ourselves.

In the next chapter I will share with you the most powerful technique I have ever learned for uncovering limiting attitudes and changing them.

Chapter 5 – Affirmation Principle

“It is the mind that maketh good of ill, that maketh wretch or happy, rich or poor. “

Edmund Spenser

The Affirmation Principle is the most effective way of gaining insight into your attitudes and easiest way of changing them.

You can use the Affirmation Principle to do three specific things:

To discover your negative attitudes.

To erase negative attitudes from your mind.

To insert positive attitudes into your mind.

Don’t confuse this technique with other uses of affirmations you may have learned elsewhere. This is a specific tool for a specific purpose.

Here’s how it works.

Take a sheet of paper and divide the page into two columns. The left column is titled “Affirmations”.

The right column is titled “Response”.

In the last chapter I wrote that no event means anything unless and until  it is placed within a specific frame of reference which gives it a meaning.

The purpose of the Affirmation Principle is to make you aware of the structure of these frames of reference so you can modify them.

Events with similar meanings are linked together in your mind, forming networks of references supporting specific attitudes. For example, if I ask you, ‘On a scale of ten, how friendly are dogs?’ you might answer ‘8’ meaning you think dogs are friendly, or ‘2’, meaning you think they are not very friendly. A person who answers ‘2’ might even be afraid of them.

Every attitude you have is supported by specific references (examples) the way a table is supported by legs.

So, no matter what your attitude about dogs  —  no matter what number you get in response to the question  —  you’ll be able to bring to mind a number of examples of times when dogs were friendly (or unfriendly) to support your point of view.

A person with an ‘8’ attitude will have lots of ‘8’ (positive) references. A person with a ‘2’ attitude will have lots of ‘2’ (negative) references.

If you want to strengthen any attitude, you simply need to add more references (supports) to it. If you want to weaken it, you remove the supports. When all supports are removed the attitude will disappear.

Step 1: Uncovering specific negative attitudes

We can use the ‘a

Affirmation Principle’ to uncover specific negative attitudes and the references that support these attitudes.

For the purpose of this exercise, an affirmation is considered to be any general, positive statement which represents a possible way of looking at things. It might be quite different than the way you are looking at things now.

Step One: – Write the affirmation on the left side of the page and read it over a few times. Get yourself into the state of mind where you feel the affirmation is true. Imagine looking at your past, your present and your future through the eyes of a person to whom the affirmation really is true.

Step Two: – Pay attention to the specific, negative responses that your mind gives you in response to the affirmation.  Write these in the ‘response’ column.

Suppose we begin with the affirmation, ‘I succeed at everything I try.’

Because you don’t really have this attitude yet, your mind will react by presenting you with specific negative responses, saying in effect, ‘This affirmation is not true and here’s why.’ Write these responses on the right side of the page.

These responses are very important. They identify the references which are supporting the opposite attitude to the positive one represented by the affirmation.

These events have acquired a negative meaning and have become lodged in your subconscious mind where they are working against you below the surface, creating situations and circumstances you don’t want.

‘When I started using the affirmation, ‘I succeed at everything I attempt.’ My first response was a big, ‘No way!’ I felt it was a joke. As I wrote the affirmation again, I got another specific response, ‘I even failed math in grade six.’

‘When I thought about it, I realized that this event had been lurking in my mind for years, supporting the negative attitude, ‘Learning is a pain.’ which has been a belief of mine and a negative part of my self-image since grade six.’

Using the Affirmation Principle with this affirmation made Joel aware of a specific negative attitude about life and about himself that had been causing him inner conflict for years.

As he explained it, during his school years, every time he had to study something, he felt immediately negative about it, anticipating problems.

This negative meaning had unconsciously been created by Joel’s ‘explainer’ when he was twelve years old.

Once he became aware of this negative attitude, he was ready for the next step, erasing the negative attitude from his mind.

Step 2: Erasing specific negative attitudes

I led him to examine how this past event had acquired this negative meaning and to explore if we could give it another interpretation.

We discovered that he had changed schools near the end of grade six, an event which had influenced his performance on the math test. Because he joined the class late in the year, he was not up to speed with the rest of the class and failed the final.

As we explored his history we found that he was good at learning lots of things. He was an accomplished skier and scuba diver, could play guitar and speak Polish and German.

Together we reframed the memory of the math exam in grade six to mean, ‘External circumstances can influence my performance’.

When asked what his achievements in sports, music and languages could mean, he came up with the statement, ‘I’m good at learning things I enjoy.’

This is an entirely different attitude than, ‘Learning is a pain.’ and the expression on his face as he stood in front of the room showed it.

For Joel, this simple exercise highlighted a specific event which had acquired a negative meaning, and which had unconsciously influenced his life for years. A simple analysis of the event revealed that the negative meaning had no real foundation and had blinded him to abilities he’d been taking for granted.

With this negative attitude gone, his self esteem experienced an immediate increase.

All Joel needs to do to is to strengthen this new attitude toward learning by spending a few minutes each day reviewing his past through the ‘lens’ of this new attitude. As new, positive memories come to him, he needs to write down the references.

The more references he can think of, the stronger the new attitude will become.

With a new attitude about learning, Joel will be more open to learning new things. He will anticipate more success. Linking learning to enjoyment rather than pain will affect other areas of his life too. It will lower his level of stress and open doors to new opportunities.

To erase a negative attitude, all you need to do is take each of your negative responses and ask yourself,

What does this event mean?

Why does it mean this?

Could it mean something positive?

Make a list of possible ways of viewing this event until you find a way that shifts its negative meaning to one that’s at least neutral, and perhaps even positive.

As the meaning shifts, this event will no longer support the negative attitude, and it will become weaker.

Once all its supports are removed, the negative attitude will simply disappear from you mind to be replaced by the positive affirmation you were using that triggered the negative response.

Its negative effects will disappear from your life, to be replaced by the positive effects of the positive attitude.

Your perception of the past, the present and the future will shift. You’ll feel better about your life and your future will unfold differently.

Step 3: Inserting a positive attitude into your mind

Depending on the affirmation used, you may find that it triggers a whole host of negative responses, revealing a great number of negative attitudes.

It doesn’t matter. Simply continue the process.

As you systematically eliminate the references for the attitude that is opposing the positive affirmation, your mind will begin to accept the new affirmation as a valid statement about your reality.

As you continue to consciously view life through the filter of this new attitude you will begin to notice more and more events from the past and present that confirm it.

If you make a list of these positive, supportive references and begin living your life through the filter of this new point of view, it will eventually sink down into your subconscious mind where it will begin automatically working for you under the surface.

It will begin filtering in sense data that conforms to it and filtering out sense data which doesn’t.

You will begin to expect more positive situations in the future that resonate with it.

You will automatically find more supportive references. Over time your new attitude will take root and grow in strength. Your perception of reality will shift. Over time the new, positive affirmation may eventually become one of your more predominant  attitudes.

The Importance of Mental Gardening

By choosing your affirmations, you can probe a specific part of your mind, uncovering specific negative events and attitudes which have been unconsciously working against you in this area of your life.

As you continue to work with the Affirmation Principle, you will become aware of progressively larger areas of your inner reality.

Working with your attitudes is mental gardening.

This is a very important practice in which you simultaneously root out the old as you cultivate the new.

It’s not unusual to encounter negative attitudes with roots stretching back to early childhood, with a large number of supportive references.

These attitudes will seem so true you may have a hard time even imagining another way of looking at life.

But such an attitude is simply a large mental structure with many legs. When you remove its references it will wither like a tree whose roots have been cut. Numerous areas of your life it has been interfering with will become transformed.

You can count on it.

Sample affirmations

Any general, positive statement will help you uncover specific negative attitudes which are inhibiting the natural flow of your creative energy. With practice, you’ll be able to create affirmations that apply to your specific situation. In the meantime, here are some sample affirmations you can experiment with. These represent attitudes you might want to plant in your mind. Any specific negative references these affirmations trigger should be examined carefully, their meanings changed.

Affirmations about your goals …

“I deserve all I desire”

“All my goals are attainable”

“The more fun I have, the more successful I become”

“I easily achieve all my goals”

“My written plan is the road map to the future I desire”

“Nothing is holding me back”

Affirmations about love …

“I feel love all around me”

“I am loved and I love freely”

“All my relationships are perfect”

“I am always appreciated”

” I love myself ”

“The more I love, the more I am loved”

“I deserve to be loved”

“I attract ideal lovers easily”

Affirmations about money …

“Money is good”

“I deserve to have lots of money”

“All my investments are profitable”

“I save money easily”

“My net worth is increasing steadily”

“I like money and money likes me”

“Money is my friend”

Affirmations about sex

“Sex is fulfilling”

“I enjoy sex”

“Sex is the highest form of communication”

“Good sex is good medicine”

“Women appreciate me and I appreciate them”

“Men appreciate me and I appreciate them”

“Sex is a spiritual communion with another”

“In sex, I give and receive equally”

“The more I trust sex, the more it rewards me”

Affirmations about health . . .

“My body is perfectly healthy”

“I have a beautiful body, and I respect it”

“I love my body”

“My body loves me”

“My body is my friend”

“I get plenty of exercise”

“I am full of energy”

” I have lots of enthusiasm ”

“My weight is perfect”

“I have a naturally beautiful body”

Affirmations about spirituality…

“God is on my side”

“I live in a safe universe”

“The universe supplies all my needs and desires”

“I am naturally spiritual”

“I love myself and the universe in which I live now”

“The power of the universe works for me”

“The laws of the universe are for my advantage”

“The powers of the universe flow through me”

“The universe is my playground”

“I deserve all the good of the universe”

Affirmations about relationships …

“My relationships are perfect”

“Those I love, love me”

“The more love I accept, the more I receive”

“I trust others and others trust me”

“I enjoy an ever expanding circle of friends”

“I attract ideal lovers naturally and easily”

“I am naturally attractive”

“I have all the friends I want”

“My relationships are always fulfilling”

Affirmations about success …

“All my limitations are imaginary”

“I have unlimited opportunities”

“Everything works out to my advantage”

“I deserve all the good I desire”

“I can’t fail”

“I enjoy making mistakes, because I learn from them”

“I am getting more successful every day”

“Obstacles provide their own solutions”

“I am easily successful”

“I am a winner, with a long history of success”

Strengthen your new attitudes

Your new attitudes need to be nourished regularly if they are to grow. Do this by sitting quietly and imagining yourself going through your day as though this new point of view were already an established part of your life. Use your imagination as a creative force.

Spend a few minutes each day contemplating the implications of your new attitude. Imagine performing future tasks as a person with this attitude. You’ll soon find yourself viewing ever larger areas of your life through the filter of this attitude.

Combine the use of the Affirmation Principle with this visualization exercise in a quiet, relaxed mood when you have the opportunity to feel the effect. The idea is to coax your mind into giving up a few of its secrets. Be gentle with yourself. Expect positive results. Adopt the attitude that you deserve to become the person you desire to be, that mental gardening represents a natural stage of your personal growth. Adopt the attitude that developing your personal power is good for you and good for others. Cultivate a win/win attitude.

Establish a daily routine.

Work with the Affirmation Principle for a few minutes each day. Before long you’ll gain a great deal of valuable insight. Your perception of yourself and of your world will shift. You’ll gain the power to influence your mind and your circumstances.

Chapter 6 –  “Your Forces And How To Use Them”

WHEN you have made up your mind what you want to do, say to yourself a thousand times a day that you will do it. The best way will soon open. You will have the opportunity you desire. If you would be greater in the future than you are now, be all that you can be now. He who is his best develops the power to be better. He who lives his ideals is creating a life that actually is ideal. There is nothing in your life that you cannot modify, change or improve when you learn to regulate your thought. Our destiny is not mapped out for us by some exterior power; we map it out for ourselves. What we think and do in the present determines what shall happen to us in the future.

When we proceed to train the subconscious along any line, or for special results, we must always comply with the following law: The subconscious responds to the impressions, the suggestions, the desires, the expectations and the directions of the conscious mind, provided that the conscious touches the subconscious at the time. The secret therefore is found in the two phases of the mind touching each other as directions are being made; and to cause the conscious to touch the subconscious, it is necessary to feel conscious action penetrating your entire interior system; that is, you should feel at the time that you are living not simply on the surface, but through and through. At such times, the mind should be calm and in perfect poise, and should be conscious of that finer, greater something within you that has greater depth than mere surface existence.

When you wish to direct the subconscious to produce physical health, first picture in your mind a clear idea of perfect health. Try to see this idea with the mind’s eye, and then try to feel the meaning of this idea with consciousness, and while you are in the attitude of that feeling, permit your thought and your attention to pass into that deep quiet, serene state of being wherein you can feel the mental idea of wholeness and health entering into the very life of every atom in your system. In brief, try to feel perfectly healthy in your mind and then let that feeling sink into your entire physical system.

Whenever you feel illness coming on, you can nip it in the bud by this simple method, because if the subconscious is directed to produce more health, added forces of health will soon begin to come forth from within, and put out of the way, so to speak, any disorder or ailment that may be on the verge of getting a foothold in the body.

Always remember that whatever is impressed on the subconscious will after a while be expressed from the subconscious into the personality; and where the physical conditions that you wish to remove are only slight, enough subconscious power can be aroused to restore immediate order, harmony and wholeness. When the condition you wish to remove has continued for some time, however, repeated efforts may be required to cause the subconscious to act in the matter. But one thing is certain, that if you continue to direct the subconscious to remove that condition, it positively will be removed.

The subconscious does not simply posses the power to remove undesirable conditions from the physical or mental state. It can also produce those better conditions that we may want, and develop further those desirable conditions that we already possess. To apply the law for this purpose, deeply desire those conditions that you do want, and have a very clear idea in your mind as to what you want those conditions to be.

In giving the subconscious directions for anything desired in our physical or mental makeup, we should always have improvement in mind, as the subconscious always does the best work when we are thoroughly filled with the desire to do better. If we want health, we should direct the subconscious to produce more and more health. If we want power, we should direct the subconscious not simply to give us a great deal or a certain amount of power, but to give us more and more power. In this manner, we shall secure results from the very beginning.

If we try to train the subconscious to produce a certain amount, it might be some time before that amount can be developed. In the meantime, we should meet disappointment and delay, but if our desire is for steady increase along all lines from where we stand now, we shall be able to secure, first, a slight improvement and then added improvement to be followed with still greater improvement until we finally reach the highest goal we have in view. No effort should be made to destroy those qualities that we may not desire. Whatever we think about deeply or intensely, the subconscious will take up and develop further.

Therefore, if we think about our failings, shortcomings or bad habits, the subconscious will take them up and give them more life and activity than they ever had before. If there is anything in our nature therefore that we wish to change, we should simply proceed to build up what we want and forget completely what we wish to eliminate. When the good develops, the bad disappears. When the greater is built up, the lesser will either be removed or completely transformed and combined with the greater.

That the subconscious can increase your ability and your capacity is a fact that is readily demonstrated. Whenever the subconscious mind is aroused, mental power and working capacity are invariably increased sometimes to such an extent that the individual seems to be possessed with a super human power. We all know of instances where great things were accomplished simply through the fact that the individual was carried on and on by an immense power within them that seemed to be distinct from themselves and greater than themselves; but it was simply the greater powers of the subconscious that were aroused and placed in positive, determined action. These instances, however, need not be exceptions.

Any individual, under any circumstances, can so increase the power of their mind, their thought and their will as to be actually carried away with the same tremendous force; that is, the power within them becomes so strong that they are actually pushed through to the goal they have in view regardless of circumstances, conditions or obstacles.

This being true, we should arouse the subconscious no matter what it is we have to do. No day is complete unless we begin that day by making alive everything that we possess in our whole mind, conscious and subconscious.

Whenever you have work to do at some future time, direct the subconscious to increase your ability and capacity at the time specified, and fully expect the desired increase to be secured. If you want new ideas on certain studies or new plans in your work, direct the subconscious to produce them and you will get them without fail. The moment the direction is given, the subconscious will go to work along that line; and in this connection, we should remember that though we may fail to get the idea desired through the conscious mind alone, it is quite natural that we should get it when we also enlist the subconscious, because the whole mind is much greater, far more capable and far more resourceful than just a small part of the mind.

When demands are urgent, the subconscious responds more readily, especially when feelings at the time are also very deep. When you need certain results, say that you must have them, and put your whole energy into the “must.” Whatever you make up your mind that you must do, you will in some manner get the power to do.

There are a number of instances on record where people were carried through certain events by what seemed to be a miraculous power, but the cause of it all was simply this . . that they had to do it, and whatever you have to do, the subconscious mind will invariably give you the power to do. The reason for this is found in the fact that when you feel that you must do a thing and that you have to do it, your desires are so strong and so deep that they go into the very depths of the subconscious and thus call to action the full power of that vast interior realm.

If you have some great ambition that you wish to realize, direct the subconscious several times each day and each night before you go to sleep, to work out the necessary ways and means; and if you are determined, those ways and means will be forthcoming. But here it is necessary to remember that we must concentrate on the one thing wanted. If your mind scatters, sometimes giving attention to one ambition and sometimes to another, you will confuse the subconscious and the ways and means desired will not be secured. Make your ambition a vital part of your life, and try to feel the force of that ambition every single moment of your existence. If you do this, your ambition will certainly be realized. It may take a year, it may take five years, it may take ten years or more, but your ambition will be realized.

This being true, no one need feel disturbed about the future, because if they actually know what they want to accomplish, and train the subconscious to produce the idea, the methods, the necessary ability and the required capacity, all these things will be secured.

If there is any condition from which you desire to secure emancipation, direct the subconscious to give you that information through which you may find a way out. The subconscious can. We all remember the saying, “Where there is a will there is a way,” and it is true, because when you actually will to do a certain thing, the power of the mind becomes so deep and so strong along that line, that the entire subconscious mind is put to work on the case, so to speak; and under such circumstances, the way will always be found.

When you put your whole mind, conscious and subconscious, to work on any problem, you will find the solution. If there is any talent that you wish to develop further, direct the subconscious every day, and as frequently as possible, to enlarge the inner life of that talent and to increase its brilliancy and power. When you are about to undertake anything new, do not proceed until you have submitted the proposition to the subconscious, and here we find the real value of “sleeping over” new plans before we finally decide.

When we go to sleep, we go more completely into the subconscious, and those ideas that we take with us when we go to sleep, especially those that engage our serious attention at the time, are completely turned over, so to speak, during the period of sleep, and examined from all points of view. Sometimes it is necessary to take those ideas into the subconscious a number of times when we go to sleep, as well as to submit the matter to the subconscious many times in the day during the waking state, but if we persevere, the right answer will finally be secured.

The whole mind, conscious and subconscious, does possess the power to solve any problem that may come up, or provide the necessary ways and means through which we can carry out or finish anything we have undertaken. Here, as elsewhere, practice makes perfect. The more you train the subconscious to work with you, the easier it becomes to get the subconscious to respond to your directions, and therefore the subconscious mind should be called into action, no matter what comes up; in other words make it a practice to use your whole mind, conscious and subconscious, at all times, not only in large matters, but in all matters.

Begin by recognizing the subconscious in all thought and in all action. Think that it can do what you have been told it can do, and eliminate doubt absolutely. Take several moments every day and suggest to the subconscious what you want to have done. Be thoroughly sincere in this matter; be determined; have unbounded faith, and you can expect results; but do not permit the mind to become wrought up when giving directions. Always be calm and deeply poised when thinking out or suggesting to the subconscious, and it is especially important that you be deeply calm before you go to sleep.

Do not permit any idea, suggestion or expectation to enter the subconscious unless it is something that you actually want developed or worked out, and here we should remember that every idea, desire or state of mind that is deeply felt will enter the subconscious. When there are no results, do not lose faith. You know that the cause of the failure was the failure of the conscious to properly touch the subconscious at the time the directions were given, so therefore try again, giving your thought a deeper life and a more persistent desire.

Always be prepared to give these methods sufficient time. Some have remarkable results at once, while others secure no results for months; but whether you secure results as soon as you wish or not, continue to give your directions every day, fully expecting results. Be determined in every effort you may make in this direction, but do not be over-anxious.

Make it a point to give special directions to the subconscious every day for the steady improvement of mind, character and personality along all lines. You cannot give the subconscious too much to do because its power is immense, and as far as we know, its capacity limitless. Every effort you may make to direct or train the subconscious, will bring its natural results in due time, provided you are always calm, well balanced, persistent, deeply poised and harmonious in all your thoughts and actions.

Conclusion

YOU HAVE FINISHED this book. What have you read?

Simply  a  series  of  practical  and  workable ways of for living a successful life and with positivity . You have read a formula of belief and practice which should help you win victory over every defeat.The art of making and breaking your life is all in the mind

Examples have been given of people who have believed and who have applied the suggested techniques. These stories have been told to demonstrate that through the same methods you can obtain the same results as they did. But reading is not enough. Now please go back and persistently practice each technique given in this book.

I wrote this book out of a sincere desire to help you. It will give me great happiness to know that the book has helped you.