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Creating Your Own Reality - Minerva – Gordon Artrias Rosenberg - Ion
Mind tools
Tools for personal development
Anyone looking for ways and means of changing their lives through ‘self development’ would be justified in feeling baffled and confused by the range of ‘tools’ on offer. As well as self hypnosis and subliminal techniques, there are NLP (neurolinguistic programming) and related systems such as reframing, there are ‘energy’ techniques such as EFT (emotional freedom technique), temporal tapping, TFT, BSFF and several others, there are various forms of religious prayer, meditation, strategies such as visualization, goal setting and repeating affirmations, and a host of other software, systems and techniques (including outright ‘magick’ rites) which promise to help.
In the case of psychological tools such as hypnosis, subliminal suggestion, NLP etc, the basis of operation is in line with scientific research and the ‘modus operandi’ is therefore clearly understandable.
But how can anything else work - the ‘energy therapies’, prayer, goal setting and other techniques that are NOT based on psychology and science? After all the ideas which underpin these various techniques range from Western and Eastern religious philosophy to angels, spirits and occult ‘laws’ and forces, with a good sprinkling of pseudoscientific junk about ‘magnetism’ ‘holograms’ and ‘quantum physics’ thrown in for good measure.
Well the truth is that this incompatibility with modern science does not matter at all. All that matters is results. The fact is that many of these techniques WILL get results - often spectacular ones.
And the reason is that NONE of these techniques is ‘the truth, the whole truth....’. They are simply tools to do a job - different approaches to the same problems. The rationale behind the invention of any particular ‘tool’ or set of tools simply does not matter, because with just a few exceptions, the actual reason they work probably has little or nothing to do with this rationale.
Will the real culprit please stand up
You will know about the ‘placebo effect’. This is what happens when people believe they're taking a real drug but they're actually swallowing an inert capsule. Because the recipient is convinced it's helping, he or she will often actually experience healing effects. Not a subjective ‘feeling better’, but real, measurable clinical benefits. There are many documented cases of serious, even life-threatening maladies being ‘cured’ through the placebo effect alone (but please don’t take this as a recommendations to take a dummy pill if your are ill!).
So what brought about these effects if it was not an inert pill? Quite simply, it was the subconscious mind of the pill taker, responding to the ‘signal’ provided by the inert pill. Not to the pill itself, but to the message implicit in embedded cultural beliefs accompanying the action of ‘pill taking’. The pill itself is just a symbol that invokes the beliefs - exactly the kind of language ‘spoken’ by the subconscious mind.
So does this mean that all self help products are just placebos? Not at all. Many tools such as hypnosis, subliminal suggestion and NLP are designed from the outset to communicate with the subconscious mind. But where this is not the case, regardless of the belief system behind them, on at least one level these techniques work because they have one thing in common: - they are systems for communicating desired outcomes to the subconscious mind.
You are the sum of your 'programs'....
Most people have little idea of the extent to which their subconscious minds control their lives - even doing much of their 'thinking' for them! The latest research indicates that during the normal daily routine, most people are only truly conscious for about 12-15% of the time!
That is just a couple of hours per day or even less. The rest of the time, their subconscious minds are in the driving seat.
It sounds pretty weird when put this way, but the fact is that your life is only partly what 'you' think, do or want to make of it - the rest (by far the larger part) is actually determined by what your subconscious mind wants you to do.
When you think about it, you can easily see the truth of this: From the moment you wake up, your actions are probably much the same each day - you are literally not 'thinking' about what you are doing. For most of the time you are on autopilot, with your conscious mind just ticking over, rehashing memories from the day before, vaguely planning, fantasizing or idly generating other inconsequential thoughts of one kind or another. Even when you consciously engage with a problem or a change from normal circumstances, your ideas and reactions and even your thoughts will largely be drawn from your stockpile of previously stored concepts and reactions to similar circumstances.
And when someone speaks to you, do you really think about what you are going to say, or does a reply normally just 'come to you' automatically? (that is, without conscious thought). We all have first hand experience of the conversational abilities of the conscious mind in situations where the connection to the subconscious 'speech prompter' is temporarily blocked - for instance in highly-charged social situations involving emotions such as anger, apprehension, embarrassment, fear, humiliation and so on!
So it is no secret to anyone who has looked into almost any aspect of 'self improvement' that the key to real, effective and permanent personal change is in the 'subconscious' mind - specifically the beliefs and assumptions we hold deeply within ourselves. We are barely aware of this hidden belief system (which has usually been assembled more or less at random, and for most people consists largely of illogical junk built on unfounded association) yet the subconscious parts of our minds use this stuff to drive and control almost every aspect of our lives.
We may think that 'we' are in charge of our lives, that we have 'free will', but the truth is that our actions and even our very thoughts are largely governed by habit and by the way we feel at any given time. But these 'habits' and 'feelings' are NOT a part of our conscious waking minds, or even a consequence of our thoughts - they actually originate in the subconscious mind, which constantly directs our behaviour by 'pulling our strings' and 'pushing our buttons'. When we act in response to one of these cues, we may supply 'logical' reasons for our actions so that we can maintain an illusion of being in control, but in reality we are to a very large extent under control.
This subconscious control mechanism has only our best interests at heart. It is in a very real sense who we are - our personality, habits and beliefs - and we certainly couldn't live without it. As well as ensuring that we eat, drink, sleep and carry out all the other biological imperatives we have inherited, it 'automates' all the skills we acquire as we develop (such as talking, walking or riding a bike) and keeps us alive by supplying the 'unthinking' reactions that keep us out of obvious danger (such as making us fearful when we approach cliff edges or suddenly realise that we are driving too fast, or when we are confronted with creatures such as snakes or scorpions).
But along with all these basic and generally beneficial 'programs', the subconscious also accumulates a ton of garbage that leads to inappropriate fears, feelings of inadequacy, unnecessary limitations, 'personal problems' and a host of other behaviours that either don't serve us well, or actively conflict with our conscious needs and wants.
Some people - just a very few, and often from 'privileged' backgrounds - have been lucky enough to develop internal programs which are largely positive. These people tend to be successful in whatever fields they choose to enter, are usually confident and outgoing, enjoy wealth and success, and generally lead rich, fulfilling lives. Put simply, they expect 'success' and never doubt that this is how things will be, and so this is what their subconscious minds ensure that they receive.
Unfortunately, most of us are NOT that lucky. The fact is that much of the input the subconscious gathers up when it 'writes' the internal directives that shape our lives is irrelevant rubbish, such as negative comments made by others (particularly during childhood), hurtful and damaging experiences of almost any kind, inappropriate associations, misunderstandings and so on. But because of the non-judgmental way in which this part of the mind works, ALL perceived experiences, whether useful or damaging, accurate or misleading, are stored away and used to construct the system of internal beliefs used by the subconscious mind to direct our lives.
This means that without assistance, our conscious desires and efforts to lose weight, quit smoking, be more confident, stop procrastinating, or to effect change of almost any kind, stand little chance of success against what our subconscious minds direct us to do. For most of the time we are at the mercy of our subconsciously generated habits. Our efforts to change by using our 'willpower' are almost always doomed to failure because our subconscious minds will invariably sabotage anything which would result in a movement beyond the limits it has set. In virtually every way we are unconsciously tethered by a short leash, yet most of us have no idea at all that it is even there.
These limits can be placed on almost any aspect of our lives, from body weight to financial or social success. As soon as we find ourselves approaching such a limit, we will be automatically hauled back to our internal set points to (as the subconscious sees it) protect us from risk or uncertainty. Because of this, anyone seeking intentional change, whether it involves dieting, exercising, increasing their income, behaving more confidently in social situations, or getting rid of inappropriate behaviours and habits, will find themselves in conflict with their subconscious guidance system.
And make no mistake - in this battle there can be only one outcome: they will lose!
The subconscious mind is immensely powerful. It has encyclopedic knowledge of you and all the people you come into contact with, powers to 'make things happen' that we are only just becoming aware of, and a single-minded, inexorable driving purpose. And this purpose is to ensure that our life experience conforms with what we believe is 'safe', deep down in our inner selves. Against this power, your 'willpower' is a feeble thing indeed, as the almost universal failure of diets, attempts to get fit or to climb out of the financial rut amply demonstrate.
The fact is that that your subconscious mind holds all the cards, and it simply WILL NOT allow your life to deviate from the course IT sets, no matter how much YOU (the conscious mind) object.
So are we all inevitably stuck with a life that reflects whatever junk is stored somewhere deep in our heads? Fortunately there are ways to make changes to the subconscious directives that govern our lives, and so to bring about the changes we want.
Changing your mind - 'software updates' for your inner mind
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