Scientists tell us that most people use only about 10 to 15 percent of their actual potential. This means that we die without tapping into almost 85 percent of our potential. Many people that I meet tell me that they are under stress, I believe that part of the problem is that they are doing everything while using only 15 percent of their resources. What they are experiencing is similar to a room full of people with an air conditioner that was not made to cool a large crowd; it freezes up. I believe that we can go through life easier if we just begin to tap into the abilities that we already have. When we learn how to tap into more control over our lives, we will not freeze up. We will be happy and loving.
When I was young I would hear my mother or my father tell me on occasion that I made them angry and hurt. I would hear my friend's parents say the same to their children. When I got to school I heard the same information from teachers to school administrators. I created feelings in others. My actions somehow made others feel happy or unhappy. If I did not do certain thing others would live an unhappy life. If I did not visit my aunt or uncle they would become unhappy. I did not want that to happen. Worst of all I, Paul E. Clayton was capable of even making God unhappy when I did not do what she or he wanted me to do.
I experienced this process myself. Others could make me unhappy, not only people, but animals and inanimate objects. I also heard people take the next logical step and say that you could not be happy all of the time. People would even say that people who were happy all of the time were crazy.
As I grew up in the fifties and sixties all of these theories were reinforced by my formal and informal education. Teachers were telling me that I could even give them a headache. Now I was capable of inflicting pain on others. I was taught that if I held my feelings in I would someday get ulcers or go crazy. When I let my feelings be known, people would sometimes get mad or tell me that I should not feel that way. I thought that I was crazy.
In the early seventies I went on a Marriage Encounter weekend and found it to be a very wonderful experience. I learned that feelings just are they are; neither right nor wrong they just are. I was told to accept my wife's feeling and she learned how to accept mine. That was it! I was just going to have to learn to accept my feelings. Even when I was angry I had to experience the feeling. I was told it was good to have negative feelings and that is just the way life is. I never even questioned the idea that people had any control over their feelings. Why should I think differently, with all that training that I had? I just hoped and prayed that I was lucky enough to be able to go though life with flashes of happiness and joy.
Then I found several new books and met new people that talked of taking control over their lives. I can't tell you how excited I was. However when I shared this with others they just looked at me and said "another pop-psychology book."
These new ideas made sense to me. I created my feelings from my thinking and I could change my feelings by changing my thinking. This book is about how I found control over my life. Since that time I have taught thousands of people across the country how to use these techniques. They have grown and made their lives richer and have helped me in my growth.
Re-thinking Mental Health.
About ten years ago I went to my doctor to get a physical check up. I had had one the year before. My doctor started asking me a series of questions about my lifestyle. "Did I smoke or exercise; did I experience any dizziness or feel any discomfort?" He kept asking me how I felt, and I would answer great. He then told me that I did not need any tests at this time. I asked him how he knew I did not need the routine tests. He said that I did not need them since I felt great. He told me that if I did not feel great or had some symptoms then he might run tests, but I was fine, and he sent me home. That seemed too simple. How do you know that you are OK without a lot of tests? Well, I began to think about it and he was right. Do we need to explore for problems when you feel great. Feeling great means that for now everything is working fine, for now. If it weren't you would not feel great. I started to think about it in terms of mental health. For me good mental health comes from feeling good one day at a time. If I can feel good just today then I am OK. I have tried thinking my problems though, and that has only led to more thinking and not feeling good. I have tried talking my problems through and that does not always work. Good mental health does not have to be complicated. You don't have to feel bad because someone else suggests that under the circumstance you are supposed to feel bad.
A few years ago my now ex-wife and I were having some problems in our relationship. (Since our divorce I can truly say that we have become very good friends.) We argued all of the time about nothing: at the time it seemed like something. We decided that we should get professional help. We found a therapist who came highly recommended. She was good, but I want to tell you what she did that many counselors do that is bad. The "counseling trap," is bringing up the past as if it were the only thing you need to look at in order to be mentally healthy. Unlike my physical doctor who was satisfied that I was feeling great, mental doctors want to explore. Many times my wife and I would walk into the therapist office holding hands. The therapist would acknowledge our closeness and say that we looked good. We would say that we were feeling great, today. She would ask if we had had any fights at all that week. We would think and perhaps say, "Oh yes, I remember we had a fight six days ago." "Well let's discuss it," she would suggest. She might say, "Paul, you tell your side of the story." Well, I would tell my side of Saturday's argument. As I was talking I began to feel anger at this woman next to me, about what was said last Saturday. She also became angry that I was telling a story that happened differently. We would start arguing over something that we had forgotten. By the end of the session we left feeling angry at one another. I kept thinking that it was supposed to be that way. I kept thinking that it was a way to heal the relationship. However, I thought that we were wasting our time talking about last week. If you are feeling OK then it does not seem that you need to bring up the past. When you bring up the past you start to experience it in the present. If it were painful then, you will find it painful again. Why bring it up again, why not forget it?
If I had gone to a medical doctor and said: "last week I cut myself it seems to look fine," and he said to me: "Let's cut it open so that I can see what it looked like last week," I would believe that he was crazy. If every time I went to a doctor and came out and felt worse than when I went in, I would stop going.
There is a belief in our society that if something happens in our lives that is less then desirable, then we have to talk it over with others many times in order for us to work it out. This can take the form of going to a counselor or calling a hot line or talking to a friend. All of these forms of therapy have their value, however it is my belief that we are all capable of dealing with life situations and crises without having to talk about the same problem over and over. I am familiar with too many people who have been going for professional help trying to work on being happy as if it were something that we could talk our way into. I am going to define good mental health as feeling good about yourself in the present moment. In this book we will explore ways this can be done without always talking about the past. Cutting open old wounds.
Where did we get our information about ourselves? Where did all of our ideas start? You can pick up all of the psychology books and find many different versions of this answer. There are almost as many answers as there are books about the subject. As you wander though the maze you will probably find one thing that is common to all of them. They will all give some credit to the theory that somewhere in our early childhood we learned a lot of our ideas or thinking, if not all of it. This material becomes our program for how to act with others, what we are able to do, how to love and how to act in a relationship. We learn about how to handle feelings. Since none of the experts seem to agree exactly where it all starts, let's see if we can find some common answers.
There are many people who believe that it all starts in the womb. They say that our knowledge begins there. Some say that it starts at birth. These people put a lot of emphasis on the actual birth process. Hospitals and doctors are trying to make the birthing more of an event today then the it was years ago. Today, children are brought into the world with soft lighting, music and even family members are present. No longer are children welcomed with a slap on the reared to get their blood circulating. Gentler methods are used to give the child a better beginning on planet Earth. There are other psychologists who say that it starts between birth and seven years old.
They all, I am sure, have valid points and some of their theories are very interesting. However, for our purpose let's say we put all these theorists in one room and asked them to come to a general agreement or theory. I believe that we could get them all to agree that somewhere between conception and birth and seven years old, we get most of our knowledge. It is also widely accepted that before seven we do not have a good grasp of reason. Religions throughout history have tended not to hold children responsible for their actions until they seven years old. This is the age of reason.
From birth to seven we are like sponges. We just absorb information as it is given to us. Unfortunately, this is a time when we learn the most important information about living and loving. We learn about who we are and what relationships are about. We learn about work and money. We learn how to deal with things that we like and don't like. What we are today is a reflection of what we learned earlier.
At this early age we are not capable of questioning ourselves. We may go through stages of questioning Mommy / Daddy Why, why, why!... These questions are about things outside ourselves. If you are a child and your parents keep calling you dummy or slob, you are not in a position to evaluate the information. You make a mental note and it becomes your reality. You make what is called a precognitive commitment. "Precognitive" because it is before you are able to reason and commitment because we make it our reality. In a circus when they are training a baby elephant they will take a large chain and tie one of its legs to a large tree. As the elephant becomes older and larger they make the chain smaller and smaller. Eventually the elephant will stay in the same place with only a small rope and little spike, that the elephant could easily break away. The elephant has made a precognitive commitment to going no farther then the rope will allow. We have all made precognitive commitments to be on time, use our brains, be neat, be aggressive. We have made commitments to being rich or poor to be confident or to be afraid.
Here is an example of what I mean. This simple example is similar to what goes on every day in our early learning. A father of a three year old girl decides that his daughter needs to learn about dogs. He and his wife do not own a dog. His daughter Mary and he go to his wife and invite her to visit a friend to see his new dog. His wife, who is afraid of dogs, says, "You know that I do not like D-O-G-S." (spelling this out) "Why don't you two go alone, I have things to do." (I am not sure how much influence the mother had on her daughter when she reacted so negatively about this visit. I do remember when my parents spelled in front of me, it usually meant there was something up or a problem was brewing.)
Mary and her father visit the friend. When they get to the friend's house they are greeted by him and his very frisky dog. The dog jumps all over Mary. Mary being new to dogs starts to push the dog away and gets bit. She starts to cry. Her first experience with a dog begins with fear. Her father doesn't seem to be able to talk her out of the fear. They go home with an unhappy experience. When they get home the reinforcement begins. Mother asks how it went and Mary starts to cry and hugs mom and says, "The dog bit me." Mom then reinforces the problem by saying the magic words of victimization, "You're just like me, dogs don't like me either." Mother has now started programming the daughter.
Mary, that same day, goes out to visit a friend (very independent for three years old). Her friend has a dog. When she sees the dog she remembers the first dog and proceeds to push this one away. The dog snaps at her. She leaves her friend's house and starts running down the street and on her way home she sees a dog on a neighbor's lawn. She screams and runs from the dog. The dog then chases her down the street. She runs into the house. (By now there are a hundred and one dogs in the front of the house.) Mom again reinforces the concept that Mary is just like her, and that she really had no control over the situation. Mary is told that she is just like her mother. Mary has nothing to do with dogs biting her. Mary is a victim of dogs.
This little scene takes place every day around the world. It may not be about dogs, but it is about life. We are taught the we are victims of people, places and things. In this case, the mother has indicated that Mary has received mom's genes. She has bad dog genes, or all of the dogs get together at night in a large dog house and pass their picture around. They are then trained to bite her and her mother. Mary, like her mother and grandmother, are just victims of dogs.
When we are told that we are like someone in the family we take on the role. We are trained that "we are just like that." We are not responsible for what has happened to us. Any control that we might have is gone.
When I was in second grade, I came home with my first spelling test to be signed by my parents. The reason it had to be signed was because I got an F. My mother signed the paper and told me that I was not like her, she was a good speller. I was just like my father, he was a poor speller also. It seemed to run on his side of the family. Her side of the family were all good spellers.
I did not know about genes, however, I knew that the situation was hopeless. After all, whatever it was that could make me a good speller was left out when I was born. The next time that I had to study spelling I had already decided it was a waste. It was not my fault that I had been born defective. I was a victim of poor spelling. I was just not lucky like other people. I had no sense of control. In my mind it made no sense to put energy into something that was going to be a failure.
In both cases, the dog story and my spelling story, we have become powerless over the situation. We are just victims. It is not our fault, we were just born that way. There is no need to work on change because it is something that we are helpless over. It is just not our responsibility.
What kinds of statements were made to you about what you could and could not do? How often were you told you were like someone else in your family? Maybe you were told you were not like the rest of the family. Perhaps they picked up the wrong baby at the hospital. Every time they called you the chip off the old block, or you heard statements like "like father, like son" or "like mother, like daughter" you were destined to be like that the rest of your life. You had no choices and no responsibility. That was just the way you were and that's it.
The following are statements that are commonly told to children.
These statements are usually followed by some statement about it runs in the family or our family is just like that. These statements are not made out of malice by parents, but usually they are just repeating what they heard.
You will always be heavy or thin.
You're not a good student.
You are not as lucky as others, you'll have to study more. You're shy.
You're always late.
You just can't get up in the morning.
We were not born into a rich family.
People just treat you that way.
Accept that it is the way you are.
Some people were born lucky and some weren't.
You're accident prone.
That is just the way we act, we are Italian, Polish, Irish
Woman or Men just act that way.
Remember these statements because I will show you later on how they help produce many of your problems.
Write down ten things about yourself that you have learned "that is just the way your are." See if there is any evidence to these facts?
When I was younger I believed that some people were lucky and others were not. I happened to be on the "were not" side of the table. I was not motivated to do anything extraordinary because I was just not lucky. That was just the way that I was. I call this attitude or belief "L.B.A." or life by accident. I did not believe that I had very much control over what was happening to me. I just had to do what I had to do and things would just happen. Usually they were bad things. I did not know that I had any control at all.
Later on in life I began doing a lot of reading about successful people. I talked to successful people. Have you ever meet an older person who was in their 70's or 80's but acted young? People who were enjoying life despite the number of years behind them? I always love talking to these people and asking them the secret to their living. In the beginning I would inquire about their eating habits. What did they have for breakfast? Sometimes I would hear them give me the wrong answer. Some even told me they ate eggs and high cholesterol foods everyday. Nobody seemed consistent with food. Some told me things that I believed would kill. Smoking every day! I was always told different things about sleep they needed. It went from three and a half hours to nine hours. All seemed to have different stories. However, there was one thing that all of them would tell me. They all said that you had to think young. Almost all the people would say, "To stay young you have to think you are young." It seemed that thinking had a lot to do with it.
I began talking to people who had overcome bouts of cancer or other types of illness. They to would talk of different things that helped them overcome their tragedy. Again I would hear people speak of diets, no diets, smoking, no smoking. All seemed to contradict one another. Then again I would hear something about thinking and believing that you are healthy, knowing that you can overcome your illness. Again it seemed that thinking had a lot to do with it.
I started to read autobiographies about successful athletes how they got where they were. Again more contradictions about life styles. However, they all talked about believing that they could be a winner. They all talked about what they thought before a game or during the game.
I began talking to successful business persons, and they to told me different things that helped them to be successful. None of those things were as consistent. However, they told me about their thinking and believing or just knowing. Again, thinking comes into play.
Very few of these people placed luck anywhere near the top as their reason for being where they were. Thinking and believing were at the top. Even when successful people speak of luck they speak of believing that you are lucky or thinking that you are lucky.
My life has changed from thinking that I was unlucky to believing that I create my life by my thinking. If you were able to invite to a meeting all of the great philosophers and religious leaders throughout the history of the world, from Moses, Christ, Buddha, Mohammed, Plato and friends, they might not agree on everything but I believe that they would all agree on Christ's statement, "As a man thinks, so is he."
Our life and successes are not created by accident but are created by our thinking. Whatever you sow in your mind you reap in your life. As we go through the chapters I will show you ways that have helped thousands of people to grow. Keep in mind the things that you learned about your early learning about yourself.
Have you ever driven home from somewhere and not know-how you got there? Have you gone outside your house and thought that you forgot to lock the door? Shut out the light? Only to go back and find that all of these things were done. You had done them and not remembered. You had gone home from somewhere and not remembered how you did it. What you have experienced is your unconscious mind at work.
Every day we set goals, and every day we reach them without even remembering how we did them. Do you know how you just got in to the room that you are in now? How does that work? How did you get there? You can begin to understand the power of the unconscious mind and how it works. It is easy to use it and have it work for you. Most people take the power of the mind for granted. It becomes easy to live in the world when the mind is used for positive outcomes.
We have a conscious and unconscious mind, sometimes referred to as the subconscious mind. From all that I have read and learned, the conscious mind only represents ten percent of all our thinking and our daily activities. The conscious mind is the part of your mind that is thinking about the book, what you will have for dinner, what you will do tomorrow and what you did yesterday.
Your unconscious mind takes care of the other activities such as breathing. Your unconscious mind takes care your heart, kidneys, blood pleasure and even locking the door or getting you home. The unconscious mind is open 24 hours a day. Unlike your conscious mind it never rests or naps. It listens when you are not listening. It takes notes about everything that happens. In all, your unconscious mind keeps you alive. Your unconscious mind will take you where ever you want to go, and you will not know how you got there. Just like locking the door or going home. In Dr. Segiel's book LOVE MEDICINE AND MIRACLES he says that even during anesthesia that we hear what is going on and can change our blood pressure or heart rate when instructed to do so.
The following is a list of twelve things that would be helpful to know about your mind.
Have you ever worried about something and even became physically upset over the problem? Later finding out that what you worried about did not even take place? Your mind can not tell the difference between real and unreal. It only knows what facts you feed it. Try this, close your eyes and imagine that that you are in a classroom and there is an old fashion black board in the front of the room. Now imagine that someone is running their long fingernails down the board (do this now). Did you feel the sensation? Did your body physically react to the screeching sound? The event did not take place in reality but only in your head. When you tell yourself something on the conscious level the unconscious takes for granted it is true. How often have you watched a movie, knowing it is not real, however, coming from the movie feeling as if it happened? How often do we worry about untrue things?
The unconscious mind does not make judgments. It does not decide if what you want is good or bad for you. It just does what ever you tell it. It is like a program in a computer, it does not argue. It just does what it is programmed to do. If you say that you are late all of the time, then you will find yourself late. If you tell it that you have a hard time getting up in the morning, it will produce a person that oversleeps through the ringing of an alarm clock. If you convince yourself that you are not good in school it will oblige you 100% of the time whether you are right or wrong. The subconscious mind does not make decisions, it just follows orders. Once you make a decision and give the order, the subconscious mind just carries out the act. What kinds of things do you tell yourself during the day that you can and can not do. We have people write down a list of ten things that they believe they can not do and then we have them challenge themselves. 99% of the things people say they can not do are just precognitive commitments that they have made early in childhood. Do the same thing. Write down a list of ten things that you tell yourself that you can not do, and see if you can challenge yourself. The main reason you can't do it is because you have tied your rope to the tree and can not get beyond it. Remember just because you were trained that you could not go beyond the rope in your early years doesn't mean that you can't change it now.
The subconscious mind has its own built-in clock and it is set for now, the present moment. It only operates on the program that is set in your head now. Computers are built like the brain. When you put a program in the computer it interprets all the information according to the present data. In order to get the information interpreted differently you have to change the program. The computer only acts on the present program that is in its system. Our brain is the same way it only operates on the present system. If you are overweight and want to lose weight then what you need to do is to stop saying and acting as if you are overweight. Being overweight is the program and the subconscious mind interprets it that way. Every time you think of food and you say you are overweight the mind slows down your metabolism and speeds up the hunger. If you want to change the program then you have to change the things that you say about yourself in the present moment. This means that you start telling yourself that you are already where you want to be, in the present moment. If you are 160 pounds now and you want to be 140 pounds then what you say to yourself is, "I am 155 pounds." You begin to talk as if you are presently the weight that you want to be. When you reach 155 say, "I am 150 pounds." You act as if you are already there. If someone asks you how much you weigh, you look them straight in the eye and say, "I weight 150 pounds." People who are successful talk as if they are successful even in the face of a disaster.
If you are late, don't like getting up, or have no money, speak differently. Talk as if you are on time all of the time. Your mind listens to everything that you say. Remember you are creating a program every time you say something about yourself or others. Tell yourself that you like to get up early in the morning and that you are very wealthy. There have been many people in our classes who have been on welfare for years. They have had training, education and job search techniques, but they can't find a good job. Much of their problem is from the program in their head. It believes that they are poor and dependent. A job will help change that problem but they can't find one because it is a contradiction to poverty. They find it very hard to say, "I have money," because they have not had that experience. We tell them to start thinking that they have money and tell their children that they are wealthy. We tell them to explain cash flow to the children. "We are wealthy but have a cash flow problem."
Have you ever been told not to forget something and then a few minutes later you forgot it? As a child many times my mother would say to me not to forget my lunch. I would leave for school and guess what? I would forget my lunch. In school I would talk out of turn. The teacher would tell me to write a few hundred times "I must not talk in class." However it seldom worked. The next day I would still talk without being called on. I really didn't want to talk, I just could not stop it.
The problem with the mind is that it only understands concrete statements. It does not pick up on our "don't or do not statements" If I were to ask you "not" to think about vanilla ice cream with hot fudge poured over it and a topping of whipped cream and a cherry on top, what happens? Our minds start thinking about the vanilla ice cream as soon as it is mentioned. Our minds pick up on the concrete statements and not the NOT. If you are on a diet and you keeping saying, "Don't eat," the mind is picking up on the "eat" end of the statement. One of the worst things that a person can do when they stop smoking is to keep saying "don't smoke". This only reminds them about smoke. When we want something to take place in the mind we must put it in a positive concrete statement. "Don't forget your lunch" translates "forget your lunch." "Don't talk in class" becomes "talk in class." The mind would be better programmed if we used statements like "Remember your lunch" or "Keep quiet in class".
When talking to others it is also important to tell them what you want and not what you don't want. Many times the reason that our children are not responding to our request is because we are saying it wrong. Recently, a woman in our class reported that her son kept leaving the lights on in the house. This became a source of irritation for the family. Her son keep saying that he would not forget this time to shut out the lights. However, he always forgot. His mother went home the night that night and told her son to "remember to turn out the lights". She said that he began to change right away.
It sometimes becomes very tricky on how to talk to the brain but it can become an easy habit. Another time in class, I had a man who's nine year old son wet the bed every night. It was very embarrassing for the boy as for the family. The father told me that every night he and his wife would go into the room and tell the boy "don't wet the bed." However, after the father left my class that day he went home and told his wife what he had learned in class. That night they both went into their son's room and told him to "remember to stay dry." The next day the father came in and told the class it worked. For the first time that he could remember his son did not wet the bed. I have heard from him since and the boy has stopped. Not only did the boy stop but his self-image has improved greatly. If you remember to talk in terms of what you want then speak in terms of the positive outcome. If you want to remember something, talk about remembering. Be careful not to say things like, "I can't forget ...". If I want to eat less food, I need to talk about the desired outcome. I could say, "I am full with very little food." If I wanted to stop smoking I could say, "I enjoy breathing clean air everyday." With family and friends, remind people of things you expect. Remember to drive safely. Remember to be home on time.
Did you ever talk to someone and they said one thing but you in your heart knew that they did not believe what they said? "I'll really do it this time." However you walked away and registered disbelief. The subconscious mind will only register what it truly believes that you believe.
One consistent experience I have had in class is that people will say that they want to be a certain way,. happier, thinner, etc.,. however, they talk about it as a future event. They want to be on time but in reality they are always late. They will be asked to change the statement to "I am always on time." I will ask them to say it out loud for the class to hear. Usually they will say it in such a way that we all know that they do not believe it. If you, on the outside, don't believe it, your mind does not believe it either. It is very important that you say what you want with much conviction. Say it in such a manner that you begin to FEEL it is true. If you say that you are always on time and then smile as if you don't mean it, you cancel out the statement. Go to a mirror and say who you are. "I am .... and live at...my phone number is...." Now make the statement that you want to change about yourself. Example, "I am always on time," "I am very wealthy." See if you are just as believable as you are about where you live. We need to look believable to ourselves. Say it with such convection that the mind believes it.
Affirmations are beliefs about ourselves. We affirm who we are and what we are about. Every statement that you make about yourself then becomes an affirmation. One of the ways that people change is to say new things about themselves. For example, you are always late and begin to say that you are on time. This affirmation will only work when you really believe it. I meet a lot of people who say a new affirmation a few times and then expect it to work. Affirmations are like seeds, they take time. You would not expect to plant a seed one day and then say it did not work because the next day you did not have a plant. New affirmations about ourselves only work when they become believable. 99.99999 % = 0 in the mind. You must believe it 100% and that may take time and energy.
Not many people in the world like to be told what to do, how to do it, and then supervised all throughout the task. Can you imagine someone following you around telling you what to do all of the time. There are many people who tell me that there is someone in their life that does that, mother, father or spouse. Even children do not like to be followed around. Not only is it bad for the person being followed but also for the person doing the following. Both situations have the potential of creating stress. Your mind functions the best when you leave it alone and just tell it the results that you want.
Let me repeat a few situations and look at how they relate here. If you are a typist and you start to pay attention and direct your fingers, you will fail. When you go home at the end of the day, do you direct everything that is going on or do you just give end results? "Go home." Whenever we concentrate on every movement and tell our brains how to do it we create stress and many times failure. There is an old proverb that says "don't control, let go". For the longest while I thought that it was a nice saying but did not know what it meant. For me letting go means to give my mind a direction and then to stop following it around to make sure it is doing the right thing. We do this through worrying. I know that when I tell my mind to remember something and I let go of it I will remember what I am supposed to remember. The idea of giving the end result and letting go of control is another way for me to have faith and trust that I will do the right thing at the right time.
Recently I heard a mother tell her son to pay attention to where he was walking. On one level this sounds like a good idea. However on another level this is impossible to accomplish. In order to pay attention to where you are walking you would have to watch the ground all of the time. Our conscious mind would then take over the job of the unconscious mind. I believe the reason that we trip or have accidents is because we are sending two different messages to our mind. One message might be, go home and another might be I am bad, punish me. If "punish me" is a stronger feeling than "go home" then an accident will occur. When you want something done just tell your mind what you want done. Don't tell it how to do it.
Have you ever had the experience of knowing material in and out, then going to a test and forgetting everything, only to remember it later. Or being a proficient typist and messing up during supervision? These are only a few of the examples of the things that happen when we are under stress.
Our minds operate to their fullest when we are relaxed. Stress is caused by fear. We fear things will not turn out all right. This fear is created by a lack of trust. If we believed everything would be just fine we would not have stress. If you went into a test and truly believed that your mind would recall everything, you would not worry and there would be no stress. However, because you doubt, you create worry and stress. There are a lot of courses and books written about relaxation exercises, it is not necessary to go into all of them now but you might want to pick one up. There would be no stress nor need for relaxation exercises if we began to trust ourselves. I am not saying that these exercises are bad, I use them often. However I do not need them when I truly trust. People who are very successful have the personal faith that everything will turn out fine. If it doesn't they believe that it will eventually turn out for the better at a later time. For the most part they believe that they are part of a bigger plan. Successful people know that whatever will happen will happen. If you use this as a principle you will not be stressed by tests of any kind. Use the affirmation "I handle all situations well".
Why is it that when we take a nap, we wake up more tired, than before the nap? I exercise regularly, however, many times when I come back from a workshop, I will tell myself that I am too tired to exercise. I usually give myself the same old talk. "You have had a hard day... Take a few days off... You will feel better if you take a nap..." However, I go exercise, and somewhere in the middle of the exercise I get energy. By the end of the exercise routine I am more energetic than I was all day.
A rule of the mind is that whenever we focus on something the mind will expand on that concept. When we focus on being tired, the mind expands on that concept. If we take the old saying, "the rich get richer and the poor get poorer" to mean just money, then we are missing the point. If you are tired and you take a nap, most of the time you are more tired. Or if you get too much sleep, you have a hard time getting your energy started. If you are a typist and you focus on not making a mistake, your mind will pick up the "make mistake" and expand on it. You will wind up with more typos.
Everyone reading this book has had good days and bad days. Days in which everything was right on target or way off target. Usually what made that day go right or wrong was not what was going on, on the outside, but what we were doing on the inside. Think about the chances of people getting together that day and working on making it work or not work for you. That is like winning five state lotteries in one week. It was not others, it was what we focused on that day that made it successful or unsuccessful.
We all start the morning the night before. That gives the mind a lot of time to focus on what the day will be like. When you go to bed what kind of things do you tell your mind? Tomorrow is going to be a tough day. I don't look forward to tomorrow. When you go to bed tonight start focusing positively on tomorrow. Tell yourself that you are going to have a great day. Look at it as a challenge, a chance to grow.
How often have you been in an argument with a loved one, and it got out of hand. You can't remember what started it. You were just focusing on all the negative things that the person did and said. When people are depressed it is usually that they feel nothing is going right in their lives. They perceive everything is out of their control. They focus on all that is wrong. Often just by restoring the perception of control we can feel good again. I often tell people who are depressed to clean a sock drawer. After they complete it, they feel a small measure of success and control. It spurs them on. They start to clean the closets or maybe the rest of the house. The next time you do not feel like doing anything, clean something small that has been bothering you. Watch how you will feel when you are done and how that cleaning will expand to other situations.
I own a computer that seems to do a lot of what a secretary can do. The computer was designed to work like the human mind in many aspects. The computer is called a piece of hardware and it will do many things. If we program it. On its own it can't do much of anything. I have bought different types of software packages called programs. I store the programs in the computer and they do what they are told to do. For example, one program is a word processor and when I put it in the computer it allows me to type these words and move them around. It even checks my spelling. Another program does my finances. Each program has a code that the manufacture's make up. I use a program called WORDSTAR in order to start my word processing program; I have to type the letters W-S, and that sets up how my computer is to work. If I hit a key that I did not want to hit, it still set up what it is programmed to do even though I may not want it to. That is the bad news. The good news is that every computer has a few more keys than a typewriter. The one key that I use the most is a key called the "Escape" key. It interrupts the program from moving on and allows me to go back and change where it was heading.
Our brain works just like the computer or visa versa. Our brain is the hardware and the software is all the information that we learn in our early childhood. For an example let's use the story that was used earlier about Mary and the dog. After she was bitten by the dog, she was programmed to feel. After being conditioned to react with fear at the sight of a dog, she created a program in her computer. The program tells the computer to create the feeling of fear. For her the code D-O-G will start the program of fear. That is the bad news. The good news is that we all have an escape key in our head. This key can interrupt the program we set in motion and allow us to change its direction.
I notice that young children use this key all of the time. Watch a young child push the escape key. The child breaks his toy and that starts the "cry and get upset" program. The adult comes along and helps push the escape key. They interrupt the crying and sadness by pointing to something else. "Look at this toy isn't it fun." Whatever the adult can come up with to interrupt the crying program. The child hits the escape key and goes into another feeling. If it is a new toy, the program may go from sad to happy. We all still have that ability to change our focus.
If you have programmed yourself to like smoking and you want to change the program you can do it by using your escape key. Let me give you an example. Suppose that you have programmed yourself to like cigarettes, and now you really want to change. All you have to do is change your focus every time you start to think of a cigarette . Think of something that you don't like. I used to love raw clams. But something happened and I ate too many and got sick. I now associate clams with sickness. I love chocolate chip cookies (C-C-C). As soon as I would press the C-C-C program it would set into motion a craving for the cookies and if I could get near them I would eat and eat and eat. I do not need the sugar, and the few moments pleasure that I attained, I have to carry around for years. Now, when the C-C-C button is set off, I just escape by hitting the C-L-A-M-S key. As soon as I start to interrupt the program I create a new one. Another pattern I have that helps me escape is to "bypass." For years I would eat dinner, then sweets and coffee. I wanted to avoid sugar yet the mind had become programmed to love sugar after dinner. I noticed that when I finished dinner, and I wanted my sweets if I bypassed to the coffee, the next pattern, I could stop the craving for sweets.
As I get older I notice that things have happened before in my life that are happening again. Maybe you have experienced this, dating a new person, only to find that s/he is just like others you have dated. Or maybe you find your finances are always the same even though you are making more money. Maybe you find you are having trouble in a relationship that has occurred in your life before. I that a good place that this shows up is in your job. How often have you found yourself in the same position with your new employer as you have in past jobs. I know a woman that has been in six different executive jobs and in everyone of those jobs she has ended up leaving them because everyone gives her most of the work to do.
The mind will repeat every pattern until it is told to stop. There is a catch to this and that is you can't tell it to stop until you see that you are causing the problem. Almost everything that happens to us can be seen as an accident. However, if we take all the kinds of things that have happened to us over a long period of time we will see there likely is a pattern. In class we have people make a list of things that have occurred in two different areas of their life, jobs and relationships. Try this yourself fill in the next section and see what patterns you might have.
If you have held at least five jobs there is probably a pattern in you relationship with that job. Take five jobs you have held and compare the following things.
1. How long did you stay in that job?
2. How did you get along with fellow employees?
3.How did you get along with the boss?
4. How many raises did you get?
5.How many promotions did you get?
6. How did the job end, were you fired, laid off, or quit?
7. How often were you at odds with your boss and were the problems similar?
Under relationships how many times have you repeated the same patterns? In this section select the sex with which you seem to have the most trouble. Some men I have met get along well with women but not other men. Some woman get along with other women but not men. Whatever your weakest area, select that one. After you have identified the sex name five people you had a relationship with but no longer have. Compare the following things.
1. What was the age difference?
2. Where they single, married, separated or divorced.
3. What kind of families did they come from ?
4. Where they happy in their job?
5. How did the relationship end?
6. What kinds of temperament did they have?
You will probably see there is a pattern to this. You will be destined to repeat it until you stop it. To stop it you must acknowledge you created it. Do the same thing with projects you start. See if you have a pattern. A real trap that you could get caught into is asking yourself why. Remember one question will lead to another. Whatever you focus on will expand and you many never be able to work on the pattern. For now just be aware of the pattern.
Have you ever met anyone who seems to have one problem after another? No matter how hard they try they seem to always get into trouble. If we do not like ourselves we will find ourselves unconsciously attracted to disasters. If we love ourselves we will be attracted to fulfilling things. People who do not like themselves somehow manage to be attracted to people who abuse them or take advantage of them. People who like themselves are attracted to people who will help them build their self esteem. A good way to find out what you are thinking on the unconscious level is to see what is happening around you. Are the people in your life supportive? Later on we will discuss self-esteem in more detail.
One day in class there was a woman who said she had a sleeping disorder. She had been to a specialist for almost a year and a half. She had done everything she was told to do, new diet, exercise etc. However, none of this seemed to be successful. She persisted on telling everyone that she had a sleeping disorder. I asked her to stop saying she has a sleeping disorder and to begin saying she could sleep like a baby every night. We had her talk as if she were already there. The next day she came in and told the class she had her first full nights sleep in over a year. The one thing all of the specialists forgot to tell her, besides all of their good information, was to have her believe she could sleep at night. She has not had a problem since.
All day long each one of us affirms to ourselves and to others what we believe about ourselves. When someone says "how are you doing today"? We answer with a belief, we affirm how we believe. When we answer "I am OK" or "as well as you can do on a Monday morning", we are letting our brain know how we feel. Since our brain can not tell the difference between real and unreal, it produces the feeling of " OK" or the "blues". Whatever we tell ourselves about ourselves or others we will always get.
What kinds of statement do you make about yourself? Every time you affirm something about yourself or others you will get to prove it.
When people ask you how you are, why not tell them how you would like to be. Why not say: "I am doing great," or "I feel great". You will find is how you will begin to feel. Your mind is always listening and then producing. People who are late all the time affirm that they are late. When they decide they have to be on time, they are still are late. Watch what happens to a person, who on the conscious level wants to be on time but on the unconscious level believes they are late. They will get started early, but something always happens to keep them from being on time. They may get half way to the appointment and remember they forgot something. They will go back home and get what they forgot and in the process be late. Something will happen but they will say "it was not my fault". "I am just like that". No one ever told them it is easy to be on time if you just program yourself. "I am always on time" and believe it. Remember, every time you say something about your self you produce the effects. Only say things you wish to be true.
Write down ten things you say that you can't do. Things you were taught you could not do because you were just that way. Now challenge them; show the evidence to prove you can't do it.
Have you ever has the experience of waking up at three in the morning and getting an answer to a question that you asked yesterday? "Who was that actor that was in the 1939 movie." "Where did I put my gloves?" Without you consciously thinking about it your mind went into its file and accessed the answer. However, if you ask the wrong questions then you will get all the wrong answers. Negative questions always give you negative answers. People who are sick all of the time are always asking, "why am I sick all the time?" The problem is not , "why am I sick" is not going to be solved with this type of question. Successful people ask positive questions. "How can I stay healthy?" or "How can I get healthy." People who do not have prosperity consciousness, that is people who have lower income, "why can't I pay my bills." People who are wealthier might ask "How can I become wealthier?" The mind has access to all the answers. What we need to do is program the mind to come up with the right answers for us. Begin now by getting an index card and writing three or four questions down that would help you to find answer to you current problems. Look at these questions every morning when you get up and every night when you go to bed. You will find that you will be able to solve the problems. Let me caution that if you pressure you mind and demand an answer now you probably won't get you answer. What you need to do is do what you did with your movie or gloves. Ask the question and let go, your mind will let you know when you have the answer. Don't struggle with the answer let it happen naturally. I have on my index card three questions that have improved the quality of my like these are three consistent questions. How can I improve my relationships with my friends and family? How can I have fun at work? How can I become financially wealthy?
Other questions that you might find helpful are:
What is my vocation or purpose in life?
Where is the job for me?
How can I make more money?
How can I save money?
How can I get a Promotion?
Where is that man or woman that I am to full in love with?
How can I have a closer relationship with my spouse?
How can I have a closer relationship with my child?
How can I have a closer relationship with ________?
How can I complement my child, spouse, everyday?
How can I ask the right question?
How can I lose weight?
How can I learn to exercise?
How can I read more about self improvement?
How can listen to more self improvement tapes?
How can I take on healthy habits?
There is an old saying that "Seeing is believing." My experience is that is wrong the reality is that your mind will only let you see what you believe is true so the real truth is the "believing is seeing." Your mind will only let you see the things that you believe in and it will do what ever you wish it to do. It is like the magic genie in the bottle.
Your unconscious mind will even blind you to reality to give you what to what you want. Have you ever been asked to get something from a closet or refrigerator? You went to get it but you really did not want to. You thought that the other person should get it. However to save peace in the house you said that you would get something. Lets say shoes from the closet. You are told that they are on the first shelf on the right hand side. You look for them and tell the person that they are not there. They tell you that they are there. You can not see them you even start pulling shoes out to find them. Finally that person comes to look for the shoes themselves. (This is what you thought they should do all along.) They open the closet and there they are right where they said they would be. They mumble something to the fact that if they had teeth they would bite you. Your mind gives you just what you wanted. You did not want to get them and you didn't even see the obvious. Just think of all the opportunities that you miss when you tell yourself that you can't do something.
I have met many people who have been unemployed for many months and even years. They tell me that they can not find a job because there is nothing there. Yet in the same town, other people are finding exactly what they are looking for but can't find. Many people never come into money because they believe that they are poor. We can be blinded to many riches in our life if we program the mind to be poor or victimized.
How many things do you not see in life because you do not believe that you are good enough to have them.