Do you have challenges around thinking good thoughts about yourself? “I’m not so good. I always fail. I’ll never get the job I want. I’ll never make the money I want. I don’t think people will love me the way I’d like them to. I’m not very likeable. I don’t like my body. I’m not so smart. I wish I looked better.” And on and on! If this were different, maybe there would be no international or even environmental problems. It all begins inside. Find out why these problem thoughts exist and how you can heal them as you read on.
Why These Mind Problems Exist
One of the reasons for these self-defeating thoughts is the patterns or habits of mind or thought forms that you carry within you your entire life and perhaps in all of your lifetimes. Many people believe that you bring these patterns of thought with you from other lifetimes. In this case, babies are not the innocents that we think they are. You carry scripts inside of thought forms, neural pathways and habits of mind that will determine what kinds of thoughts you’ll think. If you have a strong critic inside, it will do its critical dance. If you have a strong self-defeated voice inside, it will show up as self defeat. The possibilities are endless.
Another Reason for These Habits of Mind
Your patterns can also come from wounds, whether old or recent –of seeming failures and old hurts. Maybe someone influential in your life had these old hurts as well. Some people have hurts in love, some around money; others have them around feeling healthy. So you keep on recreating the old patterns because your being is seeking to heal them.
How to Heal the Old Thoughts
The main way to heal these habits of mind is to remember the basic truth: that deep within you, underneath all the problems of life, underneath the anger, illness, grief or feelings of unworthiness, is a great essence of healing, illumination, and love. It’s the basic core of who you are, and it exists as the essence of your very being. In addition, you can concentrate on your excellent qualities and create new neural pathways in your brain that reinforce your true greatness.
How Can You Remember This?
Experiencing your essence often involves going within, through meditation, hypnosis or other ways to focus inward. You can also experience your essence in motion, at a time when your mind stops chattering for an ecstatic moment and you feel uplifted, in a kind of flow. Maybe you’re playing a musical instrument or running or loving – and you feel lifted up beyond ordinary reality. When you experience this, you know that your thoughts of insufficiency are not real. This experience of your essence can heal fears, anger, grief and all other challenges that come from your mind and thoughts. You resolve to conentrate on what you want instead of what you don’t want, and in this way, you realize the greatness of who you are.
You Can Shift Your Reality
First have compassion for yourself and be kind in how you speak to yourself. Then see how everything in your life has been an opportunity to grow and expand. You can alter the way you perceive your childhood, your relationships, and your work. You can shift your consciousness level to be able to go beyond your old views of what’s real, to know that you have true worth, that you are the essence, and you merit everything good – great love, success, enlightenment, and joy.
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When you understand how neural pathways are created in the brain, you get a front row seat for truly comprehending how to let go of habits. Neural pathways are like superhighways of nerve calls that transmit messages. You travel over the superhighway many times, and the pathway becomes more and more solid. You may go to a specific food or cigarettes for comfort over and over, and that forms a brain pathway. The hopeful fact, however, is that the brain is always changing and you can forge new pathways and create new habits. That’s called the neuroplasticity of the brain.
I used to drive with one foot on the brake and the other on the accelerator, and I wanted to train myself to drive with one foot only. It took some time, as I had a strong neural pathway for two-footed driving. But because I had the will to do it, I built a new pathway, and I rewired or reprogrammed my brain. You can remove a behavior or thought or addictions directly from the brain.
Because of neuroplasticity, the brain’s ever-changing potentials, anything is possible. People who’ve had strokes can retrain their brains to function again by building new pathways. Smokers and overeaters and many others can learn new behaviors and attitudes and can transform their lives.
Whether you work with others on their habits or you work with your own (or both), you can apply these understandings to boost your success.
Some Powerful Ways to Retrain the Brain
1. Identity the habit you’d like to transform and set the intention.
You may remember the punch line “The light bulb has to want to change.” You have to have a high intention to change as well. If there is this high intention, then creating new pathways in your brain is bound to happen.
2. Observe what the old habit or pathway is doing in your life.
Look at feelings, thoughts, and how the body is responding to the habit, and see what results you’re creating in your life. Be the witness, and be aware.
3. Shift your focus.
This is very important. To create a new neural pathway, you take the focus off the old habit, and then that old habit eventually falls away. Don’t pay attention to the donuts and cakes. Take your awareness and focus it on good, wholesome, healthy delicious foods.
4. Use your imagination.
You can build new neural pathways not only with new behaviors, but through the imagination. Just imagine the new behaviors over and over and over. Keep repeating that in your mind so you build new pathways. Focus your mind and retrain your brain.
5. Interrupt your thoughts and patterns when they arise.
Say “no” or “cancel” when an old thought or impulse comes in, and say, “I don’t have to do that anymore.” Then turn toward the new neural pathway you’re building and keep on going in the right direction.
6. Use aversion therapy.
This isn’t everyone’s cup of tea. It’s an optional path. I like to call it “the maggots on the chocolate cake technique.” I used to love candies and sweets, and when I stopped eating them, I still had to pass by them when I walked by the candy store in town. I used aversion to train my brain to walk on by: “That’s junk,” I said to myself. “It’s made in factories, sickeningly sweet, makes me feel bad. The company makes it so sweet just to addict buyers. I don’t want any of that.” So I talk myself out of it. I’ve use it with many clients (only those who say they want it) on smoking, junk food, cocaine and many other behaviors.
7. Create a specific plan and choose what to do instead.
When you get specific, it’s easier to build new neural pathways. You “make it official.” Decide if you want to exercise instead of overeating or if you want to eat fruit instead of candy. Just keep focused on the new choice. You may want to create affirmations and anchors to reinforce your choices. This can be “I’m free or “I’m in control.” Reinforce this with energy therapies like EFT or other techniques.
8. Transform the obstacles.
Look at what’s in the way. Look at secondary gain – what you’ve been getting out of the old habits or pathways. Look at the stress in your life and how you can handle it differently. Get your mind in the place of possibility. Handle the emotions and thoughts and get on a new superhighway in your mind.
9. Connect with your Higher Source for inspiration and support.
Listen to our guidance. Know you have the Force within you, and therefore you have great power. Meditation creates new pathways and brain changes. Actual studies have been done on the brains of monks to show meditation’s effect on neural circuits of the brain.
10. Transform and make the shift.
Know that transformation is always possible and that you can create new brain pathways whenever you’re ready to make the shift. When you keep your mind in the “I can do it!” space, you get a clear sense that you’re done with the old and on a new beam now.
Some people feel we’re being rewired spiritually for anew era. There’s great upheaval now in our world. And there’s a process of transformation happening on earth in which huge changes are taking place for all humanity. You have to be present in the moment, overcome fears, and get to know the Infinite source so you can be a vehicle for the light to predominate on the earth.
I have to say I was happy to receive this email: “I won first place in the speech competition!!!” To make it even happier, that was from a person who had had such fear that she felt paralyzed in her tracks with an apprehension that she’d “go blank.” She didn’t believe in herself and had so many stinkin’ thinkin’ thoughts about not being good enough, that she was talking herself out of speaking at all.
But she got it together. We created a plan for her, and she followed it to a “T” – ultimately creating a situation in which she was on the top of the list. She did it in six powerful steps.
1. Look at the Nature of Your Thoughts
What have you been thinking that’s creating this uproar inside? These are the culprits that can undermine your well-being. “I don’t know if I can do this. Maybe I’ll forget everything. Maybe I’ll be judged. Maybe I’m not as good as I need to be.” Just take a look at the thoughts without judging them. You’re just taking inventory here.
2. Dig in Deeply and Find the Origin of the Problem
See if there’s any particular incident that may have given rise to such low self-esteem. Did you fumble at one time? Did people try to undermine you at any time in your life? Have you received criticism that you allowed to erode your self-esteem? Again, no judgment here; just look as objectively as you can from the point of view of the “witness.” You might have the understanding to know that all these incidents are just stories in the mind, and so they can be ultimately transformed.
3. Find a Part of Yourself that’s Already Strong and Capable
More inventory. Take a look at that other part of yourself, the self that is whole and complete, able and competent. Again without judgment, look at experiences you’ve had of successfully fulfilling what you’ve set out to do. You may have received accolades, or you may just know of your competency. Remind yourself of the times when you’ve responded in powerful ways.
4. Create a Special Technique for Yourself as a Reminder of Your Strengths
You can create a self-hypnosis technique that you specially design for your particular situation. It might have you breathe in and out for relaxation. It might contain some numbers for you to count down. It might contain the word “Relax.” The next two ingredients are important. It can have a potent affirmation. “I know this stuff, and I am an excellent speaker.” And it can have you imagining yourself looking, feeling, and doing what you’d like to do and be.
5. Create a New Neural Pathway in Your Brain
Create a “program” in your brain in which your success is guaranteed. This can happen through frequent repetitions of your special affirmations and visualization of your ultimate success. It doesn’t matter if your brain has a neural pathway for the opposite, which created the fear in the first place. This old pathway will dissolve and fall away as you build a new sense of confidence and success.
6. Prepare, Practice, and Present
Of course you have a sense of what you want to communicate when you speak. You also prepare your mind with an understanding that the people watching you are connected with you – not separate from you. Then you practice either in your mind or in your life. And finally, you present your spoken words to people, knowing that you’re coming from your heart and from the most authentic place within you. Know that you have something to communicate that’s uniquely from your own experience and that can make a true contribution to others. And you think about that contribution more than you think about whether or not you feel you’re of any worth. In this way you make your contribution to the world just the way you’ve always dreamed you would.
There are states of mind much deeper and higher than ordinary everyday logical thoughts and judgments. These deeper and higher states can help your mind to focus, deeply relax you, inspire your imagination, remind you of long-forgotten memories, bring you into states of deep meditation, and provide the fuel for creating healing and success.
What Are the Brainwave States?
Here are four of the most important ones: Beta, Alpha, Theta, and Delta. When you relax deeply, you can access these states of consciousness, and you can miraculously shift the course of your life!
* Beta states create alertness of mind and concentration.
* Alpha states create deep relaxation, visualization, and creativity.
* Theta accesses meditation and intuition. This is an almost magical state of mind in which you may feel like you’re floating and your mind slows down. You may get many mental images, and you may be in touch with your deep subconscious mind.
* Delta is a very slow and deep level of mind in which you may be asleep – and yet there is healing and restoration that’s taking place.
How Can These States Take Your Life to Higher Levels?
Any time you can reach other levels of consciousness, you can access an extraordinary part of your human potential. For example, if you remember that your mind is electromagnetic and that you have the ability to magnetize things to you through your level of thought, you’ll want to reach these deeper levels of mind so that you can send out a clear vibration of what you’re manifesting into your life. If you’re working on healing something, you can reach levels of mind where the healing power resides. If you’d like to transform old memories, look in the deeper places inside. Access the memories in the subconscious, and transform them with higher levels of mind.
What Are the Different Levels of Mind?
There’s the conscious mind, and it’s the part of you that thinks logically and performs everyday functions. There’s your subconscious mind that’s in charge of your bodily functions and is a storehouse of everything that has ever happened to you. It’s a file system or a search engine that contains all the records of your life. The superconscious mind is your higher mind or higher self. It is the healing mind that has the capacity for unconditional love, peace, wisdom, and healing. These are the primary levels of mind, though there are more.
How Do You Reach These States?
There are a number of ways. Some people naturally reach these states doing what they love to do. They naturally go into “flow” states in which they rise above their ordinary thought processes. Other people are elevated by love or inspiration. Still others go into altered states through physical activity or creativity. Many people reach them via meditation or hypnosis. When you work in altered states of consciousness, you can reach states beyond the ordinary, uncover the roots of habits and issues, and find the healing and wisdom power of the universe that exists inside.
Marilyn Gordon is a life transformation teacher, healer, award-winning speaker and board certified hypnotherapist, hypnotherapy school founder/director, and author. She helps you to transform anything in your life and does telecourses, seminars and sessions. She offers recordings, books, home study courses, and more. Go to http://www.lifetransformationsecrets.com
It may be the perfect time for you to move beyond the difficult events of the past. You may have had your share, but it’s always possible to use them as stepping stones to the transformation of your life rather than as impossible boulders in the way. Maybe you’ve had relationships that for one reason or another haven’t lasted. Perhaps your work or career didn’t go where you expected it to go. Projects that you’ve created many not have achieved the acceptance that you hoped for. No matter what, it’s always possible to move on to another level of your life.
These Are Not Failures, but Steps
You may have been hurt, your ego may have been crushed, you may have had losses, but you have been led through these challenges to the next step in your journey. Someone asked Thomas Edison why he had so many failures in the process of inventing the light bulb. He answered that he didn’t have failures; he found out 10,000 ways for the light bulb not to work, and that was a success for him. So you may have had great challenges along the way, and each one was teaching you that there is yet another step in your process, and you now have the opportunity to move forward in a new way.
Healing the Wounds
Sometimes if you have a boil, it needs to be lanced. In the lancing process, it can be painful, and a lot of “gunk” can be released from inside. But after the wound heals, you’re better than ever, and the old stuff from within has been removed. This can happen with your life if you take the time to heal rather than replay old patterns. A new life is possible.
You’re Being Strengthened
Something in you is being shifted in the process of your growth. Strength is being forged. You needed every lesson on the way to grow you to the point you’re at now so that you can be filled with wisdom. You needed to have the slights and hurts to open your heart wider. Even if it’s painful at the time, everything that has taken placed in your life can make you stronger. Some people do succumb to the difficulties, but others rise to the occasion and realize their inner power.
Teaching You about Impermanence and Attachment
The Buddha recognized that the greatest cause of human suffering was attachment to the way things have been. Because everything is always in flux, and change is the law of the physical universe, suffering comes from holding onto the ways things were and not the way they are now. Yes, it is appropriate to feel loss and grief when things change, but it’s also possible to let things go when you’re ready and “go with the flow” of life.
Helping You Find Peace, Healing, and Understanding Inside
Perhaps you were left for another in a relationship. You may have felt a profound sense of inadequacy. You may have thought that if only you’d been enough, then you would never have been left. You’d have been treasured. But perhaps there might come a time when you’d let a peaceful part of yourself speak to the hurt part. It might tell you that the end of the relationship had nothing to do with your self worth. Perhaps something was just not right about this relationship. Maybe it wasn’t the right one for you, and as much as you felt it was and wanted to continue it, it was time for it to be over. It didn’t matter if you were a god or goddess (which indeed on some level you are); it was time for it to end, as new parts of your life were ready to unfold. You can reach inside and find this type of guidance and wisdom in any circumstance – and it can help to melt away your pain.
Learn the Art of Forgiveness
When you forgive, you are letting go of the heavy weight of the wounds you’ve been carrying. You choose to release them and the person you feel has perpetrated them. Your forgiveness is an act of grace for you because the problem lifts up and is no longer weighing you down. It frees both you and the other person. It may be difficult or impossible to forgive. Only do it when you’re ready.
Know You’re Worthy No Matter What
No situation or circumstance can define your worth. You have greatness in you. You have your life path, and the sacred energy of the universe dwells inside you. No one and nothing can tell you whether you’re a good or bad person or someone who is unworthy of the highest regard and respect.
Focus on the Blessings You Have
Instead of dwelling on what’s wrong in your life, see what gifts you’ve been given, what talents you have, what strengths are naturally yours. When you focus in this way, you shift your eyes away from what you view as limitations and deficiencies, and you move into the realms in which everything is possible. This is a perfect way to transform your mind and your life.
You are made of electromagnetic energy, and like a magnet, you bring to yourself things, people and events that match the rate of your vibration. So to bring in good fortune, love and happiness and to send those out to the world as well, you want to create as powerful a force field in your being as you can. So how can you increase the quality of your thoughts and feelings and lift yourself to a higher level of life? Read on.
Imagine That You can Take Your Life to an Entirely New Level
What would your life be like if you transformed the thoughts that dragged your energy down? What would it be like to feel a sense of calmness inside and to feel love and happiness? What would it be like to have positive expectations for your life and to have a sense of fulfillment? What would it be like to feel that spiritual connection that reminds you that you’re a truly great human being? Imagine that it’s all possible when you make some significant shifts in your mind, your emotions, your imagination, your sense of possibility and connection with your spiritual self.
Cultivating a More Positive and Happier Mind
Your mind is the number one most significant element in the quality of your life. If you have recurring mental “programs” or thoughts, it can be a heavy weight in your body and mind. If you take everything that happens to you as a “horrible” experience, that can affect your happiness. If you’re critical of yourself or others, or if you tend to get angry easily, you may want to connect with deeper parts of yourself that can lift you up and transform you.
* For one thing, you can begin to “see the advantage of everything.” This means that you look for the positive potentials in everything.
* You can also stand back and observe rather than judge things and events. This gives you the chance to take the negative spin off things and just to observe them as they are.
* You can cultivate gratitude and give thanks for all you have and all you are.
* You can watch the ways you speak to yourself and vow to be more kind.
* You can live with the possibility that a miracle could happen for you – and re-paint the vision of your possible future.
* You can see how your worries are negative thoughts about the future, and you can promise yourself to transform your thinking.
* You can decide to think about what you want instead of what you don’t want so you can attract what you do want into your life.
* You can cultivate the connection with your spiritual self so that you can feel greater peace, happiness and wisdom.
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.
There 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.
