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Using visualisation and affirmations as ‘positive brainwashing”
Brainwashing is a term that is perceived in a negative way by most people. But sometimes it might be a good idea to ‘wash away’ some of the junk we all accumulate in our heads!
Everyone comes into this world with a clear mind, and as children we have no reason to doubt that anything is possible. As a child, you could do and become everything, without any boundaries., so the world was literally, unlimited. But as we grow up, we learn that there are things we may not do, or which are impossible, places we cannot go, even things we must not think!. We pick up beliefs, fears and limitations from our surroundings and peers that gradually form the ‘realistic’ and ‘practical’ person we are today.
This ‘social programming’ begins almost at birth and can be subtle and insidious. It is especially pernicious when we are children and don’t have the experience or confidence to disregard negative inputs from others. Even the smallest – seemingly harmless - remark from a mother like “Let me do that, we don’t want an accident!” can convince you that you are useless. A teacher who calls a pupil “the clumsy one” can do more harm with this remark than he realizes when repeated often enough. With every remark, the belief will become more deeply embedded in the child that it indeed is clumsy. Even though a remark is said with a smile or with the intent to be funny, it still leaves a legacy in the belief system. The subconscious mind has no sense of humour and simply fails to recognise that the remark is not meant to be taken literally.
The programming of course doesn’t stop at adulthood; it carries on influencing people in all stages of life. Throughout our lives we are being influenced by our parents, peers, partners, friends, relatives and colleagues, and by television, newspapers, and magazines and other media. Sometimes this input is positive, but very often it is negative in someway. No wonder we limit ourselves in so many ways!
Because most of these beliefs are negative (things which are impossible, or barred to us for some other ‘reason’), as we build our lives they come to limit us in our actions and being - they become an ‘iron curtain’ of the mind. Very often they therefore contribute to unhappiness or feeling unfulfilled in our lives and business. Belief is powerful. If you believe you can do something, you can. But if you belief you can’t do something, which is far more common, you will be right too.
Almost every thought or thought picture you have becomes an affirmation - the question is, what are you affirming?
The good news is: we can ‘reprogram’ our minds and replace our negative, limiting beliefs for positive contributing ones, using some very simple techniques such as affirmation and visualisation. This is ‘positive brainwashing’!
Affirmations
An affirmation is a positive self talk statement, stated in the present tense that covers a goal you want to achieve and that ‘overrules’ negative beliefs towards that goal. An example is “I easily do 10 sales calls a day”, or “I am an excellent negotiator”. By stating this affirmation regularly during your day, you will gradually replace the ‘old’ negative belief with the belief represented by the affirmation. As the new belief becomes more established, this in turn will make the goal you have set for yourself easier.
This positive self talk helps your mind to overcome beliefs that you have about yourself, that limit your success and actions. Compare our mind with a computer: when you change the input, the output will change accordingly. So for example, if you have the limiting belief that you are no good in public speaking (probably because of related fears, or negative experiences in the past) you can actually reprogram your mind by repeatedly stating the affirmation: “I am an excellent public speaker. I love to speak for huge audiences and people love to hear me talk”.
By affirming this belief over and over, you actually start to believe it and your mind will find a way to make this statement a reality. As a result, your behaviour will gradually changes ‘of its own accord’. At some stage, you might decide to do a course in public speaking, or someone might ask you to speak at some kind of seminar, which forces you to work on your speaking skills. Somehow, these affirmations help you to reach the ‘goal’ you have set for yourself and open doors for you that would otherwise have been kept closed. And this works for virtually everything. Believe and it will happen. Some people call this process ‘The Law of Attraction’.
Imagine standing by a wide river, which looks deep and scary. To get to where you wan to be, you have to cross it, but you don’t think you can actually do it. You imagine losing your footing, being swept away and drowning. Your belief that this will happen keeps you from crossing, although you physically should be able to do it easily. It just looks too risky and too difficult! Then someone else comes up from behind you, and without thinking wades in and reaches the other side without problems. His belief was positive - he never doubted he could do it, so he just went ahead.
The interesting thing is that this will probably influence your belief: “If he can do it, I can do it too” and you will then also cross the river without any problem at all. Similar things happen when a group of people is introduced to the phenomenon of fire walking. At first a big group of people will say that there is no way they will walk on fire. Until…other people with higher beliefs go first, then all of a sudden everyone else rushes over to do it as well.
So think about YOUR beliefs, and try to discover which beliefs are actually holding you back from reaching your full potential in your life. Then, one by one, start eliminating these beliefs from your system. In each case, formulate an affirmation that counters your negative belief, and re affirm it daily. Write them in your diary, on your bathroom mirror, next to your computer; anywhere you see it often and say the affirmation out loud as often as possible. You will be happily surprised by the results!
You can also use various techniques and technologies to speed up the process enormously. In particular, subliminal suggestion and meditation.
Visualisation
Another powerful way to manifest your goals in your reality is by ‘visualising’ them. Visualisation (‘visualization’ if you are in the US) in this context is a meditative process which involves going into an ‘alpha’ state and imagining yourself in a reality where your desired goal has been achieved.
This means trying to create a ‘first hand’ experience in your mind, complete with sights, sounds, smells and sensations, while at the same time feeling real gratitude for what you ‘now’ have in your imagination. This process is right at the core of the ‘Law of Abundance’ and you can find much more information at our LOA page.
There is also another tool in the visualisation armoury that you might want to consider - the ‘visualisation board’. This is simply a place where you assemble pictures or small objects that represent your goals, for example pictures of your dream house or car, exotic destinations you want to visit and so on.
By looking several times a day at a picture of your goal or dream with a strong desire, you will literally start attracting them into your life through ‘Law of Attraction’ principles. What is happening here is a process of familiarisation. By seeing your pictures every day, what they represent literally becomes a part of your life, in that they become accepted by your subconscious mind, which in turn begins the mysterious processes that will bring them into reality.
The only ‘caveat’ is not to get hung up on not having the things represented on your visualisation board. It takes time for the mechanisms that lie behind ‘reality’ to grind into action, and if you find yourself dwelling on the gap between your present circumstances and those you desire, you risk undoing any progress. In this case, you may need to consider removing the visualisation board and focus on changing yourself before trying to change your reality.
But there is another way you might want to explore... A system we have been developing and testing for several years.
Click on the image below to learn more... (page opens on this web site)
The Ultimate manifestation tool..
