Our mind is the most powerful gift we have in our body – if used the right way.
If we take care of our inner – our mind, it will manifest in the outer – our reality.
Otherwise, it will be our worst nightmare if we don’t take control over it.
What it will do to us if we don’t take control over it is seriously harmful.
How we let our minds be programmed is how we will respond to life.
“You are not your mind; Don’t let it use you, you use it.”
Eckhart Tolle
I’ve been living life on auto-pilot.
I know life could be better.
Yet, my reality remains the same, year after year.
My goals were seemingly out of reach as the milky way.
It was until then I realized and have deeper understanding of what “It all starts within us” really mean.
We work on our inner first, the outer will follow.
We need to take care of ourselves first.
We need to take care of our mind.
So, how do we take care of our mind?
We begin by understanding how the mind works.
The Subconscious Mind
The job of the subconscious mind is to store data – thoughts, actions, memories, events.
It ensures that we respond precisely the way we are programmed and makes everything we say and do fit a pattern consistent with our self-concept.
It is designed that way to bring us back to what’s familiar – the comfort zone – that protects us from what’s unfamiliar or danger.
Most of our subconscious programming happened at a younger age.
Our personalities were formed through experiences in our childhood as well as an inheritance from our parents.
Personality Types
According to most personality type theories, the individual’s type is inborn and does not change as patterns are embedded in the subconscious mind.
However, new studies have found that personalities can change over time.
I do believe this myself.
According to the first book I’ve read about the subconscious mind, The Genie Within by Harry Carpenter, a concept cannot be eliminated and it is embedded in your subconscious mind, and your subconscious mind does not forget.
He said, however, that there is no need to eliminate bad concepts; it just has to be overpowered with a positive one.
The subconscious mind will only give up on the dominant concept when a stronger, opposing idea is impressed on it.
For example, you want to change your belief about being fat and is not capable of becoming fit.
The opposing concept of that is the belief that you are capable of losing weight and maintain physically fit.
You will have to start embedding the belief through subconscious programming strategies.
With the right strategies, you will start believing that being fit is very easy and your mind will look for ways to prove the belief.
Your mind will start looking for ways to be fit and form habits that lead to losing weight.
Otherwise, if you have started dieting but you haven’t changed your belief – you still believe you are fat and not capable of losing weight – it’s most likely you’ll either temporarily lose weight but eventually goes back to your old patterns, or you never lose weight at all.
To change your patterns, you will have to be aware of the right strategies.
Your subconscious mind patterns can reprogram through hypnosis, energy psychology, repetition, high impact events.
Some situations are beyond our control that changes our subconscious programming such as high impact events (e.g., separation from marriage, trauma, death of a loved one)
Focusing on the ones that we can control is a requisite.
Let’s tackle the one that has worked for me – REPETITION.
Related Post: Beat Negative Habits
Repetition is the language of the Subconscious Mind
These are a few of the ways that can program new beliefs through repetition:
- Affirmations
- Visualizations
- Mini Actions
Repetition of Affirmations
Affirmations are potent that it can transform your life if done daily.
Whatever you repeatedly say to yourself, you become it. – So, never tell yourself you’re crazy!
With enough repetition of your affirmations, your subconscious mind will begin to believe it and eventually manifest in your reality.
Write positive affirmations and read them daily. – while many influencers and experts suggest you read them just before sleeping or the moment you wake up, there is no time requirement to when you should read them, you can read them any time of the day.
Lastly, you should write affirmations the right way.
Otherwise, it can be risky or even harmful.
Always, always use positive affirmations.
Repetition of Visualizations
I’ve had several experiences of imagining the bad scenarios before taking a speech in class when I was a student. I never study, lol.
By imagining the bad scenarios due to not studying, it always ends up… well, bad.
But whenever I genuinely imagine myself doing good in a speech, my mind works 10x better and I can think clearly what I have to say – which makes me calmer than the other way around.
Even if I don’t study, it always ends up – if not excellent – better than imagining the bad scenario.
I bet you have those kinds of experiences too.
Visualizing has been used by many successful people in ages.
In Harry Carpenter’s book, it was mentioned that experiments have been reported in which three groups of novices are taught a new skill by three different methods; one group listened to lessons about the skill, a second group went to physical training, the third group practiced using only imagination.
After each of the three groups practiced for the same length of time, the group using visualization or mental practice always did as well, or better, than the other two.
Of course, physical practice is also necessary.
Visualization is standard in athletic training and athletes use both mental and physical training to obtain the best result.
By repeating visualization, you program your mind with the images you send it.
This can be an excellent combination for your affirmations.
Through affirmations, you will focus on the goal, which leads you to your imaginations.
Visualization will boost the chance and pace of embedding a concept in your mind.
You can use metaphors or visualization board.
Repetition of Mini Actions
Doing a little bit every day has a more significant impact than doing a lot on one day.
If you do something small (and you do it daily because it’s easy), it becomes a habit over time.
If you do something big (and you skip days because it’s overwhelming), you’ll fail consistency
Consistency is the language of the subconscious mind.
I learned how to make a long-lasting habit the right way through Stephen Guise.
I always recommend his Mini Habits book in my blogs because I just can’t get over it.
It has changed my life in many useful ways.
I don’t even have much time to make the not-so-good habits anymore even though I’d still want to (so they’re gradually being eliminated from my habits list) because I love doing the healthy ones much more now.
Stephen Guise is one of my favorite mentors who helps people to have more understanding about the mind and the right strategies to build a long-lasting habit.
Plus, it’s an easy-to-read book which I always prefer. No need to have a scientist’s mind! You just have to be open-minded with the ideas and practice it.
Now that we know the basics of what the mind can do to us, from this moment on, we should aim every day to take care of it.
That’s how taking care of ourselves really mean, to get to know of ourselves – to get to know of our mind – and to actually do something about it once we figure out.
“The human mind is much like a farmer’s land. You may plant in that land whatever you choose. The land doesn’t care what is planted. But what we plant must return to us.”
Earl Nightingale
Leave a comment below for questions and opinions.
I’d love to hear from you!
