Understand how the mind works

UNDERSTANDING HOW THE MIND WORKS

The subconscious mind takes over in a time of confusion or frustration. This is why each subject should be practiced until it becomes a habit. Learn and practice only one thing at a time.

The mind has three sections. We will talk about the first two sections now. They are commonly known as the conscious and subconscious minds. These two sections of the mind are the sections that we will learn how to control. But first, we will have to learn what they are before we can learn how to control them.

The conscious mind is an analyzer. It is a filter. The subconscious mind is a storehouse or library. Any-thing that is heard, seen, felt, smelled, or tasted is run through the filter. All the information is stored in sub-conscious, but the filter categorizes the information as either true or false. Until you reached the approximate age of five, there was no filter. Everything that went into the mind was true. Until this age, we can also assume that we had no great ability to analyze any situation. All information was coming in, but how we perceived it is not necessarily how it really was. Let's visualize a situation. A child of three is petting a dog. All attention is on the dog. Mother is in the kitchen baking. She drops a pan; the pan makes a loud noise making the child jump. Without understanding, there is fear. The child doesn't see the pan. He sees the dog. He, therefore, connects the emotions of fear to the dog. The possibility of the child being frightened of dogs is great. If this emotion is not altered soon, the child will grow up with a fear of dogs. The adult will not remember the pan dropping or any reason for having a fear for dogs. All that will be felt is the emotion of fear for dogs.

Seeing how this situation could affect the adult life without any understanding, how many other emotional fears do we have that are not true? Many of us are reacting today to stimulus that no longer apply to us or is not a true situation. The misconceptions and the wrong emotional fears that we have will always be in our subconscious mind. There is no way of erasing them. What we have to do is build positive strength in the subconscious mind. The way to do this is through relaxation and visualization.

There are many ways of relaxing, but there is one way that will not work. If you consciously tell yourself to relax with a conscious effort, you will not be able to relax. Let's study the conscious and subconscious a little further now. Imagine a teeter-totter. Let's put the conscious mind on one side of the teeter-totter and the sub-conscious on the other side of the teeter-totter. The more we use your conscious effort, the more we bring the filter into play. The conscious mind is only an analyzer. It triggers the filter into play throwing the mind on alert. The mind is ready to protect you from untrue or unreal information. So the more conscious effort we exert, the farther away we get from relaxation, relaxation being the subconscious-mind and alert being the conscious-mind. As the conscious mind goes up on the teeter-totter, the subconscious goes down respectively, going farther and farther from relaxation.

Let's go back now. We said that everything we see, hear, touch, taste or smell goes into the subconscious. In our years that's a lot of information, good and bad. In today's fast living world, that's a powerful library you are carrying. How do you use it? First of all, we have to learn how to control our mind. Here are a few graded lessons. Practice each one before trying the next.

Take a piece of paper and pencil. Draw a triangle. Look at the triangle for five minutes. Look at the angles. See the lines. Close your eyes and focus all attention on the triangle. In the first minute, this should tell you something. If you want all your attention on the triangle, why do little thoughts keep creeping in? Do we not have control of our own minds? No, we don't, not unless we train them. If we don't control our thoughts, how can we control our destiny or goals? We can't very well. This is our first lesson in visualization.

The first lesson is to look at the triangle. Really see every angle and line. Close your eyes. Then take three deep breaths. Blowing each breath out slowly, just relaxing, bringing all attention on your breathing. Now, let the picture of the triangle come to the inner screen of the mind. Remember; do not consciously force the picture. Just relax knowing that the triangle will come. The first few times you do this, the image might be a little hazy. Do not worry. It will all come clear in time with practice. When the mind wants to wander just make the suggestion triangle. Look at the triangle. See the lines. See the angles. Just saying the word triangle will be the key word for your triangle to return. Practice this for one week every day for 15 minutes before moving on. The reason for this is so the subconscious mind can become comfortable with this exercise. You would not run five miles on your first day of jogging because it would not be good for you. If you could this do it at all. This is the same reason we have to practice each step of the way.

The second step is to follow the same procedure as in the first step, but this time, use an orange, the difference being that the orange is a three dimensional object.

See the texture, see the lines, and see the color. Now we have a new quality color. On your screen in the mind, turn your orange to green, blue, and yellow. See the colors. Practice this for at least four times before moving on.

The third lesson is to close the eyes. Follow the same procedure for relaxing. Bring to mind a familiar room. Look around the room. See the furniture, see the colors. Move around in the room. Look at the room from different angles. Just relax and see the room. We are now experiencing the ability to move from place to place. We can go one step farther. Put yourself on the outside of a familiar house. Go around from side to side. See the grounds beside the house. Now go to the roof. Look down on the house. This creates the sense of floating. Practice this at least four times before moving. Stand in front of a mirror. Look at yourself closely. Look at yourself for about five minutes. Then sit in your relaxing chair. Close your eyes. Bring to mind the image that you saw in the mirror. See this image. Move around this image looking at it. Do you like the way it looks? Let the image walk around. Study and know this image. After a couple of sessions, bring other familiar people on the screen of the mind. Hear the people talking. See the color. See yourself actively with the other people.

If you have followed each step and practiced each step as instructed by now, you should have noticed that each time you close your eyes and relax you have more and more control over what is going on in the mind. Keep practicing with your own visualizations.

By now you should also be realizing that there is some-thing happening when you visualize your scene. You are starting to relax. If you are relaxed you can think clearer. If you can think clearer you can see clearer. If you can see clearer you can control your own destiny better. If you have control of your destiny, you can become more content and happier.

Now that we are learning how to relax and visualize, we can control our life. Follow these instructions exactly. You will be successful, happy and content.

Write down all your negative qualities. Now rewrite them in the opposite, positive form. Write down all the positive qualities that you would like to have. Put your lists together making sure there are no duplications.

BEFORE WE CAN GO ANY FURTHER IN OUR PATTERN CHANGING WE HAVE TO BE SURE A CHANGE IS NECESSARY.

HERE IS A CHECKLIST TO TEST THE HABIT OR PATTERNS THAT YOU WANT TO CHANGE.

WE HAVE THREE BASIC NEEDS IN LIFE PHYSICAL, MENTAL, AND ELMOTIONAL NEEDS.

EACH QUESTION IN THE CHECK LIST IS ASKED IN A WAY THAT WILL FULFIL ONE OF THREE QUALITYS.

TO QUALIFY A HABIT CHANGE IT MUST OBEY AT LEAST THREE OF THE QUESTIONS ON THE CHECK LIST

I. IS THIS REALISTIC
2. IS THIS HEALTHY?
3. WILL THIS HELP AVOID CONFLICT WITH OTHERS?
4. WILL THIS HELP YOUR EMOTIONAL GROUTH?
5. WILL THIS HELP YOUR MENTAL GROWTH?
6. WILL THIS HELP YOUR SPIRITUAL GROWTH?
7. IS THIS A CHANGE THAT I WANT TO MAKE?

Take your list to a quiet room with a comfortable chair (work with only one quality at a time until you have attained that quality). Read the most important quality. Read it several times. Make sure you understand what you really mean. Then pick a few key words to represent the total quality that you would like to attain. Take three deep breaths and let the air out slowly through your mouth. Concentrate and listen only to the air blowing slowly through the mouth. Take one more breath, letting it out rapidly, just like sighing, letting go, and letting the body go limp inside and outside.

Bring to mind now a safe, comfortable, relaxing scene. Bring to mind any safe scene. Just make the suggestion to the mind for a relaxing scene and let the mind select the scene. It may be hazy at first, but don't try to force your scene. It will come clearer and clearer in time. Just let yourself see the color. Smell the air. Feel the temperature of the scene. Become totally part of the scene. See yourself healthy and happy and active in your scene. Become totally involved in your scene.

When you are totally relaxed in your scene let your key words come to mind. You don't have to say them over and over. Just let them come to mind. Then relax in your scene. See yourself being the way you want to be. Before waking, always tell yourself that when you wake you will be totally relaxed, mentally and physically feeling full of energy and able to relax more and more each day.

When you visualize doing something, you actually send signals through the nerves to the muscles as though you were performing the task. This process not only strengthens the nerves, it also creates a positive confidence. We stated before, the mind does not know the difference between thinking about doing something and actually doing it. As you think you are, you are. Thinking is the same as doing.

If you would like to be a better public speaker, just say the word speaker while relaxing. See yourself speaking to a crowd of people. See the people. Talk out loud. The mind does not know the difference between an imaginary or real situation. This is to your advantage because you can practice as often as you like. The more practice, the better you become. And the mind becomes confident in this area. You can do this with everything. Even if you would like to shoot better basketball practice visualizing yourself shooting at the basket. See yourself making the basket. Then actually shoot the basket. You will be overwhelmed by the results.

When working with affirmations we will build positive thought patterns in the subconscious. If we have a negative pattern already present in the mind and we would like to change that pattern to a positive form, remember that the negative pattern will always be there. What we are doing with the affirmation is not destroying the negative pattern. We are creating another pattern. This new pattern has to be stronger than the old negative pattern. As we start working with our affirmation there is not enough strength to our new pattern to create a confliction of patterns. As we work with our affirmations the new pattern becomes stronger and stronger, soon to become as strong of a pattern as the old negative patterns. At this point you will notice yourself becoming irritable for no apparent reason. This is when we should work more intently with our affirmations. By working with the affirmations more intently we will make the new pattern stronger than the old pattern. What happens at this point is that the negative pattern is in conflict with the positive affirmation. At this time you become irritable because you have a subconscious conflict. The conscious usually has no idea of why you are irritable. This is why we work with only one habit at a time. Know what affirmation to work with. Make the pattern stronger and stronger so that the new pattern is the strongest and then motivation comes from the new positive pattern.

When you become irritable let this be a signal to you that something is now beginning to happen. You are just about ready to give up the old habit for a new one. You can also fall back into your old negative pattern if you don't work with your affirmation. Motivation for working with your affirmation will be low at this time. Work harder than before and push yourself. Know this now. When the time comes you will be ready. One or two more days of your affirmation and you will be through with that habit. Know what affirmation to work with. Make the pattern stronger and stronger so that the new pattern is the strongest and then motivation comes from the new positive pattern.