As I mentioned before I am kind of curious as to how and if the phenomenon known as The Law of Attraction works. We talked about the use of the right kind of affirmations (see previous post) to oneself as a component in this manifestation theory. But an equally large part of it involves using your mind to create mental “movies” of events or situations that you would like to happen.

What we think about and subsequent events that occur in our lives are sometimes too close to be regarded as coincidence. You think to yourself, “I knew that was going to happen”. What you think about dictates your behaviour and attitudes, and consequently our actions and the lives of the people around us. As are our thoughts, so are our lives so it is important to be careful about what we think about, especially repeated thoughts.

Our thoughts are accompanied by a visual image and what we see with our “inner eye” on a repeated basis shapes our lives. It is like watching the same DVD repeatedly. But if we want to change what we see on our mental DVD we have to change the DVD. New mental images if played over time will foster new behaviours, attitudes and actions and attract these new thoughts will attract the corresponding  people, events and situations into our lives.

This mental process of repeated playing of your new DVD is known as “visualization”. New ways of thinking cannot occur overnight with just one thought but need to be repeated often to gain strength and a strong root in the subconscious. This might sound like hard work requiring deep concentration but it is actually quite easy. All that is required is to choose the right thought and KEEP repeating it.

It is a little like daydreaming, where you are (often randomly) imagining a certain scenario you are involved in. Except that this is more like a practical form or daydreaming where you actively choose what to daydream about. Not only that but you can pick the details of your perfect scenario, right down to the colours, sounds, even smells of the scene in your mind.

If this created scene is played often enough in your mind, your subconcious will accept it unquestioningly, and naturally work on making the changes to your life to move it closer to this imagined reality.

In this way you can bring about changes such as developing new habits, gain new skills and pretty much anything you truly desire. This really can happen but you need to give it enough time and be sincere in your efforts, giving over the necessary time for your new way of thinking to gain power.

Visualization techniques do require mental work but they are not difficult. You may not realise it but you have probably used this power many times in the past without being consciously aware of what is happening internally. Now that you have an understanding of how it works, decide what it is that you want to achieve and start “daydreaming” about it during the day or a specific times, and with a little time these thoughts will get stronger and bring about inner and outer changes.

Thoughts are real things and can cause real change. Now you know how to use them in conjunction with affirmations, you have the ability to effect real improvements and transformations in your life.

Affirmations are little sentences that we either think or say out loud to ourselves on a repeated basis at certain times throughout the day. Sounds pretty simple and straightforward doesn’t it? Well it is but the affirmations have to be worded correctly and said with the right positive mindset and belief or they will have no effect. The words themselves need to be imbued with real intention and feeling or they won’t be accepted as fact by the all-believing subconscious mind.

So how should we structure our affirmations? They have to be phrased in positive words in order to obtain positive results. If you mix a positive work with a negative one in the same sentence, the subconscious mind will perceive this as a mixed message and will consequently not be able to work out what it means. It may therefore actually interpret it as a negative affirmation rather than a positive one.

As an example take these two sentences:-

“I am not weak anymore”

“I am strong and powerful”

Both these phrases convey the same sentiment on the face of it but the first uses a negative word, creating a mental image of weakness in the mind. This is an example of the wording being wrong, whereas the second sentence is correctly structured. It conveys an image of strength as it contains only positive descriptive words.

As mentioned above, you also have to use all the tricks at your disposal to embed the message you want into your subconscious. This means creating the appropriate visualizations to accompany the affirmations you make, as well as saying  the words with strength of will, having faith in your desired outcome and persistence.

You also need to make sure that the affirmation you chose is something that you are comfortable with otherwise it may not work for you or might result in an undesired outcome. Make sure the words you choose are positive rather than negative and you will be able to let your thoughts build the life you want.

Here are some good positive affirmations:

Day by day I am becoming happier and more satisfied.

Love is filling my life now.

Healing energy is constantly filling every pore of my body.

I always stay calm and in control of myself, in every situation and in all circumstances.

Loving myself heals my life. I nourish my mind, body and soul.

I am my own unique self – special, creative and wonderful.

When I believe in myself, so do others.

I choose to make positive healthy choices for myself.

I trust in the process of life.

Life is a joy filled with delightful surprises.

These are chosen just as examples to get you started and cover different situations. There is no rule about when or how many times you should repeat them. Just be sure to do them every day using the guidelines above, and positive change in your life cannot fail to be the result.

Here’s another subject that is kind of linked the previous post about the Law of  Attraction. What I want to discuss is affirmations. What are affirmations you may ask? The word itself is defined as “a declaration that something is true” or in the New Age sense, simply the practice of positive thinking. So when people talk about practicing their affirmations, they are referring to the practice of saying positive declarations to themselves in the hope that the words they repeat will somehow come true for them.

But does any of this actually work and if so, how?

Well let’s deal with the theory behind it first. It is believed that it is possible influence the subconscious part of our minds with thoughts and utterances, if the thoughts or words it is presented with are repeated often enough. As human beings we tend to let thoughts of the more negative kind, worries, fears, anger etc. whirl around our minds in a constant inner conversation. Because this inner chatter is constant, and negative, it begins to get embedded in our subconscious as real and the truth, which in turn affects our actions and opinions.

Because the subconscious mind makes no distinction between a “good” thought or a “bad” one, it will diligently accept what it is fed, and gets to work try to align these words and thoughts into a reality for the person saying or thinking them. As you can see, it is very important, if this is the case, to be careful of what the subconscious is exposed to, as it will carry out this process of  “thought alignment” whether you want it to or not. It is very powerful in this respect.

Most of the thoughts formed through thinking we are not even aware we have made, which makes it all the more important to learn how to control our thoughts. Things we hear and see outside our control often determine what we think about, limiting our freedom of thought. Only through learning techniques that teach us to consciously choose words and phrases that we want our subconscious minds to receive and get to work on, can we bring about change in the ways we think and act, creating new circumstances and situations in our lives (see Law of Attraction).

The way this is done is through the repetition of certain phrases and are called Affirmations. They are repeated on a regular daily basis at certain times and (after 20-30 days apparently) sink into the subconscious ready for it to manifest their intentions.

The affirmations have to be said with heartfelt feeling and true belief (ie. with as much feeling as the negative stuff has) or the subconscious won’t accept them as real. The phrases and words also need to be totally unambiguous, by which I mean they must have no conflicting words or contradictory messages. Straight to the point simplicity is the key.

As for whether they work or not I don’t know. Some say they do and others not. Its probably very much down to the individual and the extent to which they use the techniques correctly and their faith in them. All I can say is that they sure seen to work all too easily for creating negative realities, so I see absolutely no reason why they should not work in the reverse sense just as effectively. I will suggest some useful positive affirmations in a future post.

Not long after becoming involved in the self-development/positive thinking area I came across a phrase that I had seen a number of times in the past but never taken any notice of. I’m referring, of course, to something called “The Law of Attraction”. I have to say I am usually none too struck on these kind of “new age” kind of philosophies that have no real scientific or hard anecdotal evidence, and are usually based on some kind of superstitious belief or half baked mysticism.

But the sheer weight of interest that there appears to be out there has eventually brought me round to the point where it needs some investigation and how it relates to the topics within this blog. A good place to start would be with a quote from the great Jim Rohn who says:” Success is not be pursued, it is to be attracted by the person you become”. Read that  again. It is a very profound statement, which kind of reverses the accepted notion that people need to get motivated to go after success, like it was some kind of quest.

Rather he is saying that if you concentrate on the qualities and attributes you acquire on your journey, you can’t help but arrive at your intended destination. I think! Whatever it is that you give your attention, focus and energy to will naturally be “attracted” to you because it is a like force. Of course this can either work in a positive, life-fulfilling manner or in a negative one where whatever negative thoughts you dwell on manifest themselves in unhappiness with your lot.

Unfortunately a lot of what we think to ourselves about day-to-day is not of a positive nature. I don’t know why, but our default mental self-talk setting is set negatively. Maybe its some kind of  self-protection that developed to keep us in our comfort zones from times when the world was a much more dangerous place than it is now. The problem is that this Law of Attraction (which is governed by our subconscious) doesn’t  distinguish between good thoughts or bad ones and embeds them regardless. Basically, whatever you think you will attract.

So how can we develop “success thinking”? You simply have to ask yourself-”What, exactly, is it I really want?” Define and write down exactly what it is you want to achieve in every aspect of your life. This would include your home and family life, business, personal goals and ambitions etc. Don’t hold back on this, be brutally honest about your hopes and dreams in an ideal world, even if they seem too far fetched and unrealistic to your negatively programmed subconscious.

Instead, use techniques like affirmations or visualization to literally flood your mind with positive, motivating thoughts and feelings, that over time will be accepted as fact by your subconcious. This will lead to a process whereby you begin to develop a success thinking habit that will ultimately attract the things that you told yourself you were going to achieve.

As long as you have no medical condition regarding your mental health such as depression, it is generally regarded that positive thinking really can have a huge impact on your life. If you can train yourself to think more positively you will feel freer, have more self belief and the power to shape your own destiny.

Although naturally positive people do exist, they are generally quite rare. As children, our default response to challenges we meet is one of positivity. We see the world as a wonderful and exiting place to explore and have fun in. When we get older this attitude is replaced with one that tends to looks for reasons not to do things-face a new challenge, try a new activity, meet new people etc. This is to protect us and keep us in our comfort zone-the world we know about and already accept-even if its not the one we really want to inhabit.

Over time, negative thinking patterns and thoughts are embedded in our subconscious minds to the point where we often don’t realise they are having an impact on our decision making or view of the world. As you may know, the subconscious part of our mind is very powerful and governs many aspects of our behaviour. These aspects are often the actions and tasks that we can perform “without thinking”, the things we take for granted that we know we can do easily and without effort.

Unfortunately this also applies to the less positive aspects as well, the bad habits we have formed over the years, maybe a negative self image (affecting  our self esteem and confidence) reinforced by others, and whether we have “glass half-full”or “glass half-empty” attitude to life. But just as these negative traits have formed in time, so they can be replaced with positive ones.

The subconscious mind is like a pet that responds to repeated commands and eventually does its masters bidding, like a dog being trained to retrieve a stick you have thrown. If you start feeding it new positive thoughts that it can assimilate and believe, it will take these on board as truth, thus creating a new “default” setting-a positive, happy one.

Thus it is entirely possible to reprogram yourself to think positively using tried and tested positive thinking techniques. These techniques include affirmations, meditation, hypnosis and general immersion into positive thinking materials and knowledge. They will teach people how it is possible to instantly remove any negative thought before it has time to manifest itself and affect how you think .

In a way, you can perceive this as a sort of an automatic negation system, one that will protect you from  lack of self confidence, low self esteem, fear and negative thought patterns. These methods will make you feel much more confident, less anxious and certainly less predisposed to depressive illnesses. You will be able to stop any negative thinking without too much effort and eliminate much of the unnecessary stress from your life.