Wednesday, July 25, 2012

The Innocent Folly of Positive Thinking


The other night I chanced across a video on Youtube, featuring a very erudite and articulate scientist called Bruce Lipton. Normally one watches this type of content, get's mildly inspired but then quickly forgets the information as they click off down another digital rabbit hole.

But on this occasion, what - or perhaps how - Mr Lipton delivered his spiel, proved very enlightening. So much so that I thought it worth sharing the main points, with the intention of helping people 'get' a very important part of personal and professional self-development. 

The central theme of the good Dr's delivery was Positive Thinking. More specifically, how dangerous -  and a little tragic  - it is that so many people have been swept up by the great PT movement without knowing the full story. Canonised by The Secret and the central tenet to perhaps every form of personal development content, Positive Thinking seems to have defined a large part of the last decade. Yet for many people, myself included, when used as tool to intentionally create/manifest/acquire certain 'things' we want, PT often proves to be the proverbial chocolate fire guard. 

Before I break down Mr Lipton's explanation of this, let me affirm that I'm all for PT, and am in no way mocking it. It's actually common sense that one should spend his days thinking good, positive things. Especially when working towards a goal or intentional acquisition. But the disappointment and frustration arises when we use it in isolation, and expect the skies to rain money (cars, houses, careers etc..) on us. 

So, here's the rub on why positive thinking is not enough to create the things you want in life, and what we can do really make the changes we want 

// 2 minds are not equal to one //

When we're exercising PT, we're using our mind. Modern physics now proves that those thoughts create energy patterns that affect physics and biology: our inner and outer environment. In other words, it is now scientifically proven and accepted that the world inside and outside of us, at an energy level, moulds around the shape and texture of our thoughts and intentions. 

But there are two parts to the human mind. The conscious and the subconscious. And whilst many people consider these one and the same, the fact is they are two very different entities working on two very, very different levels. 

The conscious mind is what we use to think. Discern. Reason. Choose. Create. Analyse etc. It's what makes us Human. Individual. We are directly connected to it, and can control it at will. Some better than others.  Our subconscious mind however, is quite different. Although it belongs to us, we are only connected to it by association, and in fact it can be most accurately described as a tape player.  

// And this is where it gets very significant //

The subconscious essentially records experience, beliefs and patterns and plays them back, on loop, relentlessly. So we have a thinking mind, and a tape player mind, and the difference is very profound. Firstly, the subconscious is a million times more powerful at processing information than the conscious mind. Second, the subconscious is running our biology 95  - 99% of the time. So regardless of how actively we exercise our conscious mind, its the subconscious that's running the show, 95% of the time. And here's the thing; the subconscious is neither good nor bad. It runs on programs. And its these programs that are either good or bad. It's the programs that this machine is running on that are taking away, or indeed giving, us our behaviours, powers and abilities.

So what is the relevance of this to Positive Thinking?

Positive Thinking is a creative process that comes from the conscious mind . But whilst you're creating and visualising all these wonderful thoughts from the mini processor of the conscious mind, you're competing with the super computer and the programs of the subconscious mind. Which is a million times more powerful, and running the show 95 - 99% of the time!! So if your conscious thoughts and intentions are not supported by equivalent programs in the subconscious mind, which one do you think is going to win?

For example: if you want to have that perfect body and have created HD visualisations and powerful thoughts of you in possession of that body, but your subconscious is running on a program or belief system that doesn't support your ability to active that. It simply isn't going to work. You behaviour will quickly support that program and before you know it you're back where you started, staring down at the scales, laughing back at you.

Now here's the thing; to free up our conscious mind so that we are able to be the creative, pioneering race that we are, the subconscious has learned to run the show automatically. And if we aren't paying attention, which we very rarely are, we don't notice it when the subconscious mind is playing back negative, destructive and counter productive programs to what we are consciously trying to create! Ever met someone who behaves exactly like their parent, although vehemently denies it....there you have it.

So what happens when we do the all the conscious work and PT, and don't get what we want? We blame the outside world. We look for reasons and things 'out there' as the cause, because we miss, or have not been paying attention enough to the fact that its the programs 'in here', being played back by the super computer of the subconscious mind that have been causing us to sabotage and keep us from what we want. 

So once we learn to recognise our self-limiting and self-sabotage programs in the subconscious, we can start to stop blaming 'out there' and start doing the work 'in here' to change those programs, and so start changing our lives.

But here comes the next problem...

Many, if not most of us bought the idea that we can talk to our subconscious mind. That like our conscious mind there is someone directly attached to it; able to listen and reason. Which is where, like PT, the limitations of self-affirmations come in. You can no more have a dialogue with your subconscious (using your conscious mind) than you can stand over a stereo and reason with it to stop playing. The more we try, and oh have I tried in the past, the more frustrated you become, the less confident you are, and the less you believe in your ability to change. And so the sabotage loops on, getting stronger with every fail.

The 'aha...'

There is only one way to manipulate the tape player, and purposely begin to realign your subconscious programming with your conscious PT. And that is, quite simply, to engage it in 'record' mode. 

Knowing how to press record is the absolute basic foundations of intentionally changing our lives. Once we've pressed record and started the reprogramming, PT, self-affirmations and all the other creative conscious manifestation tools we have access to start to work in turbo mode. And you will change your life.

So how do we press record? That's coming next. But if you can't wait and want some immediate help with unearthing your negative programmes, and begin the reprogramming process, we'd standing by to help. 

Click here and drop us a mail, and we'll be in touch to discuss how we can help.

For now. Be Well.




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