Author Archive
5 Ways to Understand the Reasons You Have Addictions and Habits
Posted by: | CommentsThere are many reasons why you’ve been dealing with repetitive smoking, overeating, nail biting, drinking – or any of the myriad of afflictions and addictions that can take over your life. Knowing what’s at the root of your problems can help you to overcome them. Here are a few of those reasons.
You’ve Hypnotized Yourself
Did you ever think that you might be doing self hypnosis to make yourself think that something you’re doing is good or satisfying? Did you ever entertain the idea that you could get your needs met in other ways? You’ve hypnotized yourself to believe that if you eat or smoke or drink something, then everything will be solved in your life or your life will be better. You’ve made it up, and you can choose now to see the light. You can look at how you’ve been selling yourself a bill of goods, and you can make the changes.
Corporate Decisions
Nowadays, many corporations have made decisions to alter the foods or substances that they sell you, decisions that make you want to buy what they sell, that are inexpensive for them to produce, and that hopelessly addict you to their products. Some bakeries put huge amounts of sugary substances into their products. Some tobacco companies put extra chemicals in. You can read about these practices if you like, and it can help you to say that there’s something else that’s here for you in your life, and you can choose to shift your habits right now.
Stuffing Your Feelings
It’s a well-known fact that many people stuff themselves with food and other substances in order to keep away their dominant thoughts and feelings. It’s like putting a wall of cotton around something so that it won’t be hurt or even seen. Instead of participating in your feelings or thoughts, calming them, or transforming them, it’s a way of pushing them down, not allowing them to be acknowledged and then transformed. This too, can shift when you find good ways to handle what’s going on inside.
Where Your Head is At
Everyone operates from natural state of consciousness. Everyone has his or her own styles of thinking or living. Some people like to hang out in bars. Some people like to hang out in libraries. Others like back alleys. And still others like palaces. In any of these places, habits and addictions can take hold. Your habits are determined by your predilections or life choices.
Genetic Patterns
Some people come here with a natural love of alcohol. Others want to smoke like chimneys. Others want to chew tobacco, and still others want to chew on their nails. Sometimes your ancestors have been the forerunners of these habits. In this case, you recognize it, and you can choose to start over again.
Soul Patterns
Many people in our world believe in past lives, and they believe that patterns are carried over from lifetime to lifetime in order to be healed and transformed in the current time. This means that they may have had smoking habits when they lived in Victorian England, or they may have had used drugs in ancient Greece or Rome. They still have the opportunity to make a shift in this life now.
Healing can Happen Now
Whatever maybe the reason for your habits, you are here now, and this moment is eternally new. There is always the possibility to make the shifts whenever you make the decision to do so. Changing a habit begins with the healing decision, the decision that you’ve had enough, and you’re ready for a new phase of your life right here and now.
5 Reasons Why You Have Your Difficult Habits
Posted by: | CommentsDo you ever wonder how you came to smoke so much or overeat or twirl your hair or grind your teeth or drink so many extra glasses of alcohol? There’s not just one answer to this. There’s a whole spectrum of reasons that are also quite fascinating. So here are some of the reasons why you do certain things day after day, often in excess, more than you’d like. Knowing these reasons is a first step to transforming your habits.
The Pacifier
Putting something in your mouth is what you’ve done since the day you were born. At the beginning, this is the way you got nourished and also bonded with your mother. You also received oral gratification through your mouth. How many habits can you think of that are intended to satisfy this basic instinct? When your parents or caretakers wanted to quiet or care for you, they’d put something like a pacifier, breast or bottle into your mouth. You’ve been doing that to yourself ever since. Habits=”binkies”=oral gratification. You can shift this now.
Reminders of the Past
Sometimes your habits take you back to the good old days (or maybe even the bad old days). You want to go back there to blot out the now, so you eat the kinds of cookies your grandmother made or create the smell of smoke your favorite uncle filled the room with. The writer Marcel Prost ate small cakes and tea to remind him of his early days. He soon found that he could remember even without the stimulus.
Changing Your State
Your “state” is your state of mind, and it can even be your state of body or consciousness. How many times have you used food, drugs, alcohol or other substances to shift your state of mind? Most everyone wants to get “high” in some way – though that may mean “happy” to some or “euphoric” to others or “in a stupor” to still more. The main problem with using substances to change your state is that they often have side effects, and also, they work less powerfully over time. There are alternatives.
Compulsive Personality Traits
Some people just like more and more and more. They grab hold of something, and if a little bit is good, a whole lot seems to be even better. Like Mae West said, “”Too much of a good thing can be wonderful.” This may not be the case for most people, as too much of a good thing can actually be way too much. But anything can be transformed.
Addictions
Addictions are a case in which too much of something can be a burden. You can be physically or emotionally habituated to some substance or food, and it then has an open invitation to enter your life whenever it wants to come in and grab hold of you. When the “I’ve had it moment” comes into your life, you then have an opportunity to lock the door of your personal “house” and tell the substance to leave. Then after you clear your “doorstep” with cleansing and new decisions, your visitor finally goes somewhere else.
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Three Great Powers of Your Mind for Healing and Success
Posted by: | CommentsYou Can’t Overestimate the Power of Your Mind
Whatever you’re thinking determines the kind of world you’re living in. Your mind is one of the primary creators of your life. And your thoughts are intimately connected with your feelings. Your mind sends and receives frequency and vibration, and the nature of your thoughts determines the very quality of your life. John Milton said, “The mind is its own place, and in itself can make a heaven of hell and a hell of heaven.”
You are electromagnetic, as are your thoughts and feelings. You bring things to yourself on the same wave length as that which you’re emitting in both thoughts and feelings. So if you wish to bring the highest good into your life, you need to train yourself to be in harmony with those higher vibrations. Then you’re a powerful magnet for your good.
The Ups and Downs of Your Thoughts
You go through so many flows of thoughts throughout your days and nights. Up one minute, down another minute, reacting to stimuli according to deeply ingrained habits of mind, family conditioning, what you’ve decided upon as your reality, the belief systems of your social groups, and more. Either consciously or unconsciously, you’re choosing your thoughts and realities all the time. The great thing about this is that you can choose to shift your thinking at any moment. You can choose to leap into an entirely different frame of mind.
What Thoughts are You Thinking and What Words are You Saying?
You can think at higher and higher levels on a regular basis.
Ask yourself this question:
“What would my Wise Mind tell you about these thoughts?”
Your Wise Mind might tell you something like this:
“You, highly deserve the fulfillment of your aspirations. You have much to offer humanity. You are not only as good as you’d like to be; you’re even better than you know. No matter how many times you’ve tried and failed, there is always the moment that you take a leap beyond all that, and you move into fulfillment and realization. What you think are your failures are actually learning experiences you needed on your way to this moment now. Everything is working out beautifully for you now. It is coming to fruition in its perfect time. You are a great success”"
Another Way to Turn Your Thoughts Around
And here is another important way to turn your thoughts around. It’s something you already know, and when you hear it, you’ll say, ‘Well, that’s obvious.’ But it’s of the highest significance. Here it is: Be Grateful. You can begin to say, “Thank you for my…. and my….and my…” and then you’ll see that you are indeed lucky and already blessed.
‘Thank you for my food and my comfortable bed and my friends and all my gifts, the inner ones and the outer ones’ – and you can continue on with this. You’ll find a miraculous shift into a whole different level of thought and feeling.”
You know this already, though it’s sometimes easy to forget, especially when the Gremlin of “Not Enough” enters your habitual mind.. And through the vehicle of gratitude, there’s also the feeling-flow of love. This is an uplifted state.
How Do You Speak to Yourself?
It’s also good to speak positive, affirming words to yourself. You’ll know the ones that have particular power for you. Here’s what someone I know says to himself whenever he wants or needs to:
‘Everything always works out for me.
‘I’m lucky.
‘I’m blessed.
‘I’m loved.
‘I expect miracles, and I get miracles.
‘The universe is doing everything at perfect speed for me.’
Your Mind is a Power Center
Your mind is a power center, and it can create for you a world of abundance and peace. See how you can transform your reality with the electromagnetic power of your thoughts. Your mind is a magnet, and with awareness, you can be at the center of this divine operation.
How to Overcome Discouragement and Transform Your Life
Posted by: | CommentsJust about everyone gets discouraged at some point or another in their lives. Some people try to do something once, and if it doesn’t immediately work, they give up right away. Others have a bit more fortitude, and they hang in there for a while longer. Some people just keep on keeping on. They never give up, and finally one day, the rainbow appears, the sun appears in the sky, and the band starts playing – well, maybe not all this, but results begin to take place when they least expect it. How do you overcome discouragement and keep on going when it seems most bleak? How do you keep your faith and your smile and your hopes up? How do you keep on going?
The Power of the Bright Side
First of all, you need to know that looking at the dark and hopeless side is only one way of looking at the situation at hand. Allowing this constriction in your thinking is seeing only one side of the coin. If you were taking a walk one day, and that walk seemed endless and interminable, you might not see that just a few feet away and around a corner, there’s a whole new life. If you had stopped and never turned that corner, you’d have missed the answer that could have shifted the course of your entire life. So if you can expand your mind beyond the moment of discouragement, and you see beyond that moment, you can find the solution when the time comes for the universe to hand it to you. That’s your magic moment, and it comes at just the right time.
The Power of Thoughts
Next, shift the nature of your thoughts. See if your thoughts are taking you deeper into the problem or into the solution. See if you can dream about what you’d like to have happen – instead of what you fear. Keep moving your mind into an upward direction. Choose to shift your thoughts from what you fear to what you want. Keep focused.
The Power of Emotions
Also, pay attention to the way you feel. Experience your feelings, but don’t wallow in them. See if there’s worry, negative thoughts, tiredness – or any other feelings that pull you down. Then breathe into them, and as you exhale, breathe these negativities away, and imagine yourself as you’d like to be. Keep this vision close to your heart, and allow it to manifest for you when the time is right.
The Power of Meditation
You can also meditate if you be come discouraged. Become quiet and see if voices of encouragement will come through from the core of yourself. Sometimes, when your mind is still, the light can shine through from deep inside. You also need to move your body, exercise, rest and listen to whatever messages wish to come up from within.
Take a look at this story:
This man had an unhappy childhood with much conflict in his home. He was plagued by depression, anxiety, and fear. He also became interested in intellectual pursuits, though he had suicidal feelings. One night, he had an “inner transformation,” and there was just peace, a feeling of “beingness.” After that, everything was miraculous and peaceful at the core. Eventually he became a counselor and spiritual teacher, and Eckhart Tolle then became a best-selling author with The Power of Now.
There are thousands of stories just like this. If you never give up, you can shine like a million stars and transform your life.
How to Have a Happier Mind
Posted by: | CommentsLiving in the Now has come to network TV! Good Morning America reported that a new study on happiness has been done at Harvard. It showed how our wandering minds make us unhappy. An app was created for the iPhone that interrupted people at intervals during the day and asked them three questions:
* How are you feeling right now?
* What are you doing right now?
* Are you thinking about something other than what you’re doing?
Forty-six per cent said they were distracted, and their minds were wandering.
What are Wandering Minds Like?
People are less happy when their minds are wandering, the study went on to reveal. People are worrying about the future or revisiting something unpleasant from the past. People are simply happier when they focus on the moment. The Harvard study said it would next need to do another study about what to do instead of wander with your mind.
What to Do About the Problem?
This is the question that enlightened beings have been attempting to communicate to one and all for millennia. Ram Dass wrote Be Here Now, and every guru and teacher from Chopra to Tolle to Buddha to Christ has told humanity to stick around in the present moment.
A Technique That Might Help
There’s a technique called The Sedona Method. It is the product of a realized man named Lester Levenson, and several prominent teachers have been teaching it for years. It offers three questions to ask your mind as you move throughout your days and nights:
* Could I release this?
* Would I release this?
* When?
Of course you can release your thoughts if you want to – and that’s the reason for the second question, which is your willingness to just let go. The last question asks your mind when you’d do it – and guess what the answer almost always is: “Now.”
When would you release your thought – not tomorrow or yesterday, but Now.
Tomorrow and Yesterday are Just Thoughts
So you come into the Now and release whatever is going on in your head. You notice that you have to release your thoughts over and over so you can get here to the Now. The wandering mind is truly wayward, and it’s a commitment to your own happiness to keep on bringing your thoughts home over and over. But it’s a worthwhile commitment, as your thoughts are proverbial monkeys on tree branches or bulls in the china shop, and through the power of your own mental strength, you can find the happiness that shines at the core of everything.
Wow! Your answers to our survey are just awesome!
Posted by: | CommentsMy heart stayed open every second as I read the answers to my three questions. What a beautiful group of people subscribe to our newsletter. I’ll give you some ideas about the answers you gave, though I’m not doing them justice here. There are many different issues that people here are working with, though they are all about being a human being, and we truly connect on that level. So let me give you some idea about what people said:
Question #1: What’s the greatest challenge you’re experiencing in your life – the kind of challenge that really weighs upon your mind?
Finding meaning in life and work, finding passion in life, feeling stuck in life; keeping up with finances and creating financial security, creating and maintaining a good business; relationships with family, mate, kids, others; doing well in school; health issues of all kinds; anxiety; weight, loneliness, political grievances; loss of trust, loss of loved ones. A few lucky people had no challenges.
Question #2: What would you like to know more about?
Health, spirituality, law of attraction, hypnosis, wealth creation and success in business, higher vibration, meditation, relationships with others and with guides, aging and balancing hormones, being happy, intuition, how to attract the right partner, hypnosis and self-hypnosis, the mind, the universe, inner peace, self-discipline, reducing anxiety and fear, reinventing self, clearing out roadblocks and life hurdles, “heal the healer wisdom” for confidence, power, endurance, clearing out negativities and stresses.
Question #3: What do you aspire to in your life?
Recovering personal power, living with confidence, creating income, being a hypnotist healer, Reiki practitioner, coach; doing God’s work; being successful in business, earning a substantial monthly income; helping people who suffer; success in relationships with family and friends; being a good person; having no worries, having stamina; being a leader and powerful healer, raising vibration, making a difference, living in the here and now, doing life’s work, smiling and helping others to smile; “listening to the wisdom of the light;” excelling in abilities; being at least 120 years old; being less reactive to external stimuli; travelling the world; helping children and grandchildren, healing myself, creating a more loving and spiritual world; continuous physical, mental, and spiritual growth; becoming enlightened.
Of course, there were more answers, but this give you a good idea of what’s deep inside our kindred spirits and ourselves. I’m still processing the meanings behind the answers, and I’ll just see in what ways the answers speak to me. What do they mean to you? Leave some comments here.
Success Techniques for Transforming Obstacles and Creating Results
Posted by: | CommentsWhen you have great aspirations and you’re reaching higher in your life, there are sometimes obstacles that come up not only externally, but from within you. Fortunately there are tools that you can use to transform these inner challenges. Here are four powerful techniques that you can use right away to move the obstacles away and come into a place of personal power.
Creating Success by Finding Inner Resources
Close your eyes for a few moments, take in a deep breath, and allow yourself to relax. In your deep inner mind, imagine a time when you overcame an obstacle. You allow yourself to know deeply within yourself the feeling of a breakthrough, the experience of overcoming a hurdle, the feeling of coming through to the other side of something. Allow yourself to feel this success, and find a word or phrase that symbolizes this experience of success. You then put your thumb together with your index finger, and you say your word or phrase to yourself as you anchor this deep feeling of having been successful. Now apply this feeling to your current situation and remind yourself that you have the tools inside to overcome any obstacles.
Handling Worries
Find something you worry about, and remind yourself that you’re projecting a negative thought onto the future. Decide then to think about and feel what you want instead of what you don’t want. Write down a new projected picture that’s life-fulfilling and positive to replace the old limited fear thoughts. Breathe into your worries over and over, and imagine with each breath that the worry thoughts are disappearing. Come back to the new positive image that you’re creating in your mind, and imagine it in as much vivid detail as possible.
Connecting with Your Wisdom
Your Wise Mind is the higher faculty of advanced consciousness and guidance. Imagine an issue for which you’d like a solution. Ask yourself this question: “What would my Wise Mind tell me about this?” Listen to the answer, and see how it can impact your life.
Transforming Limitations
Close your eyes and relax as deeply as possible by counting backwards from ten to one and breathing on each count. Go deeply inside and experience the part of yourself that holds you back. Experience it as a person inside yourself. Speak kind words to that part, telling it that it’s a new time now, and you can move forward with courage and the power you’re receiving from your wise inner voice.
You have profound inner resources, gifts, and talents for moving yourself and your life forward. You’ve already overcome many obstacles and you have the ability to overcome them in your current situation. Just say to yourself, “I am confident and optimistic, and my mind travels in the realms of positive thought force. Everything has a way of working itself out.” Your mind will take you to solutions that are for your highest good.
Want to learn more about life transformation, spiritual growth, and healing? You can download our 100 page free ebook, Extraordinary Healing at http://www.lifetransformationsecrets.com. You can also subscribe to our wonderful free monthly newsletter, “The Transformation News.” Marilyn Gordon is a life transformer, board certified hypnotherapist, teacher, speaker, healer, school director, and author with over thirty years of experience. Her latest book is The Wise Mind: The Brilliant Key to Life Transformation and Healing.
The Chilean Miners: A Mythic Story of Shamans and the Subconscious Mind
Posted by: | CommentsThe story of the Chilean miners who descended into the earth and were ultimately retrieved and reborn – is a mythic tale. It’s fascinating and has the most profound meaning that’s inherent in all cultures and for all time. It’s a story about shamans or healers, about the underworld of the subconscious mind, about rebirth that even touches on the story of Jesus who rose from the dead. Interestingly enough, Chile has a deep tradition of Shamanism or healing and provided a perfect location for this mythic tale.
Shamans and Healing
Shamans came to this earth to heal and teach. But first they had to undergo their own transformation – and in some cases, this process was painful, arduous, even tragic – as they often went to the brink of death. They underwent illness and suffering, and when the time was right, they awakened to new life. They were then ready to be healers and teachers.
The Healing Mission of the Miners
The Chilean miners had a healing mission too. They were underground (in the mythic underworld) for two months. The first 17 days brought suffering, starvation, and life-threatening conditions. Their healing mission was to bring hope (“esperanza”) to others in the world who also are struggling with having fallen into their own types of underworlds. The love they brought to the surface when they came back from their underground world brought healing and happiness, if only for the moment, to the world.
The Subconscious Mind
So it is with the deep subconscious mind – especially if someone is going through profound challenges like illness, loss, or strife of any kind. It’s a time of travelling to the underworld of the deep inner mind with all of its fears and darkness. But there is a time when the travail is over and the healing happens. This process can take place in healing sessions as well, in which you may go to the deepest inner place of human dilemmas and finally emerge with wisdom and strength.
What the Miners Found
The miners went down deeply into their subconscious and experienced their fears. They then found the superconscious, their faith and connection with God, and then they came back to earth, the conscious mind, where they emerged as transformed beings. They can never be the same again.
A Story of Rebirth
The Phoenix (or Fenix) capsule in which the miners were brought back to the surface – penetrated the opening into the mine – and through this action, a rebirth could take place. It’s primal and is the story of birth and rebirth of all beings, with the exception only of those brought here by divine conception alone.
The Meaning for Everyone
It’s okay to descend into the depths of the underworld. There are profound lessons there – shaping and molding character, developing courage and faith, and coming back to the surface as a transformed being. This is the story that is shared by all of us, and it’s the mythic tale of enlightenment and healing that is the cornerstone of life.
The Lily Pad Visualization for Confidence
Posted by: | CommentsHere’s a visualization to surround yourself with the great things you’ve done.
“You’re in a fantastic castle looking down from a high tower. The day is balmy, and you can see everything with great clarity. You feel a sense of expectancy as you look down and see a moat surrounding the castle. The water is a pristine blue, and there are waves created by the breeze. Floating on the water are lily pads, one after another. You feel a sense of awe as you see an image sitting on one of the lily pads, floating by one by one slowly and gracefully.
“On the first lily pad is a replica of something in which you’ve succeeded in your life, something that is one of your achievements, no matter how large or small. You take it in and acknowledge it. Then another lily pad floats by on the water of the moat, and you find another replica of something that you’ve done or been in your life that’s been successful and joyful. Then a third lily pad floats before you, and on this one is also something that you’ve done well. Now a fourth one, with yet again a replica of something that is favorable for you. Now a fifth and last accomplishment floats by on the last lily pad.
“Now see if there’s a word or a phrase that symbolizes how you feel about these successes, and you say the word to yourself, anchoring it by pressing your thumb together with your index finger. Each time you say this word and press your thumb and finger together, you experience these good feelings again, and you reinforce your great feelings about yourself. You know of course, that you need nothing external to prove your worth. You’re already worthy in the very essence of yourself. This visualization just helps you to remember.”
Positive Mind – Eight Great Ways to Handle Your Worries
Posted by: | CommentsIt seems like there are a lot of people worrying these days. Even if they’re not naturally prone to worrying, they can find something in the world to worry about. It’s not necessary to go through a litany of things that seem worrisome. You can create a list in less than a minute. But is there some alternative to this recital of all the possible negative things that can and might happen? Is there another way?
Yes, there’s more than one alternative. And here’s the first: Recognize that when you worry, you’re projecting your negative thoughts onto the future. You’re creating the worst possible scenario. You’re painting pictures with a shadowy paintbrush. This recognition is your acknowledgement that you have some responsibility in this matter and that there is some choice here. Take a look at your negative projections. Seeing that there’s another possibility and that you can take an alternate point of view if you like is an important step in shifting your worrying mind.
Next, tell yourself to think about what you want instead of what you don’t want. See that when you worry, you’re making a mental list of what you don’t want. And since your mind is electromagnetic in its very nature, it attracts what it thinks about. So decide to think about what you want instead.
Then you can create in your mind or write down new projected pictures that are life-fulfilling and positive, even if you feel at a given moment that they may be difficult or impossible. Think new projections anyway, and shift your thinking onto another level. Think about, write about, record it or put it on your computer – the thoughts, feelings, images, projections of what might be possible if and when everything goes well for you.
Next, here’s a fascinating idea from a man named Noah St. John. He changed the word “affirmations” into “afformations” and decided to express what he wanted in the form of questions. It goes like this “Why am I so rich, happy, loving, loved? – Or whatever words express what you’d like to see in your life. “Why do I receive so much good luck?” “Why is my life getting better and better every day?” You phrase these the way you’d like to phrase them for yourself. Noah says that the brain likes and responds to questions. Try it. These “afformations” can help you to feel very expanded and uplifted.
Another way to work with your worries is to find a part of yourself that habitually feels doubt, insecurity, and worry. Imagine going over to that part of yourself and perhaps putting your arm around him or her no matter how old that part of yourself might be. Then you reassure that part that it’s okay, that everything’s okay, and that vast improvement is coming now. Then you watch that part grow courageous and confident and integrated with who you are now.
It also always helps to work with your breathing. Breathe in deep breaths, and bring those breaths into your worries. Then exhale and as you do, exhale them into the universe as you transform the way you’re feeling.
Here’s a major question you can ask yourself: “What would my Wise Mind tell me about this situation?” Your Wise Mind is the part of you that knows the answers and has great wisdom. If it’s something positive, you know it’s coming from this source of wisdom, and you can listen to it telling you the truth.
Tell yourself comforting positive things like:
‘Everything will work out for me. It always does.
‘This may be a challenge, but tough times don’t last.
‘Everything will be fine in the end.
‘I don’t know how this will be solved, but I know it will.
‘I think about what I want and not what I don’t want.
‘I’m grateful, and I think grateful thoughts.
Your mind can always be transformed if you look upward and don’t dwell on the difficult things. There’s such thing as faith, and when you cultivate it, you can open yourself to miracles and expanded possibilities that are waiting to be seen.
Would you like more material like this? Take a look at our web site at www.lifetransformationsecrets.com for courses and programs and our free 100 page ebook. And check out www.realizeyourgreatnessnow.com for an uplifiting and fascinating adventure to success, transformation, and spiritual power!
