"The mind is a servo-mechanism. What you think is what you get, not only in your thoughts, but in your reality."....Elizabeth Bohorquez, RN, C.Ht
We all have an inside Self, but few of us truly get to truly know this part of us & for many, it remains a secret. Without getting to know yourSelf & developing a relationship, one tends to stay in old holding patterns. This is not surprising because few of us have been educated or trained to work with the different, distinct parts of our Self, nor with our body. Instead we live on autopilot & taking whatever comes along.....often complaining that we don't like what's going on in our life. Then ,because the mind is a servo-mechanism, we get more of the same. This can not only get us into trouble, but in addition we miss out on working directly with our creative source, that part of the mind that is rather like a genie in the bottle.
While we have an inner or secret Self, there is no secret about how to communicate with it. The techniques to do so are really quite easy. The difficulty lies in developing both a practice discipline & then an application discipline. It's rather like sports. Those who practice with the mind goal of being a weekend athlete, will never reach the same level of play as someone who practices with the mind goal of going to the Olympics or becoming a professional athlete. It's the same with training the mind.
DIRECTION - DECIDE ON WHAT YOU WANT & THEN ASK FOR IT. THE REST WILL TAKE CARE OF ITSELF.
When I first learned meditation, I came to find out that my big issues weren't with the actual practice, but with the idea of the discipline of meditating twice a day for twenty minutes. I remember my internal arguments, as well as the emotions that worked earnestly to get me free of this "burdensome" task. These emotions were not strangers to me & what amazed me was how they knew to turn up on occasions such as this. Each time they appeared, they were more & more powerful, displaying both mental & physical angst.
It took me a long while to decide on what I truly wanted & so the chatter & arguing lived in my mind & body for this entire time. Quite frankly, the inner arguing was exhausting. This is another example of how procrastination leads to burnout. This is a common happening that tends to repeat itself in most of my patients & so when I write CD's or mp3 programs, I do have to address this issue, because if not, the reader or listener is not going to step into the action & to stay there.
The above "direction" is absolutely true. Once I commited to what I wanted, the rest simply followed. The key was not just the word or idea of commitment, but much more. For this I utilized the written word. I spelled out all of the details of what I wanted "as if" I already had achieved it. Then, i emotionalized it. For those of you who are following the workshop blog, you already know about the inner mentor. Here was another opportunity to plug into this part of my creative Self.
When working with the development of inner discipline, the outcome must be very clear & concise & there is no negotiation with the thoughts or emotional states. It is truly set in stone. When the subconscious mind comes to know this, then the plan for success is demonstrated in real time. If you have never experienced this, you have lots to look forward to.
DIRECTION - THOUGHTS ARE THINGS THAT YOU MANUFACTURE. THEY ARE DELIVERED BY THE EMOTIONS & ARE ALWAYS IN TRANSIT & AVAILABLE FOR EDITING.
I was stunned to learn that I had this power. Forever I held the belief that I was my emotional states. In fact, my language reinforced this to my subconscious mind. Other people also helped greatly with the reinforcement process. As my self-image & self-esteem were lowered by these beliefs, it was now easy to understand why I was so gullible, absorbing whatever someone told me about myself. But, this was about to end. Never again would I be opened to this type of programming, either from mySelf OR from anyone else.
Working with special tools of Awareness Meditation, it's not dificult to locate the problematic mind programs & especially if you ask your own subconscious & unconscious mind to make these available to you. Throughout the blog I've given examples of some of my mind programs, as well as those from my patients & students. Now is the time for you to begin to study your own.
MIND EXERCISE
Find a quiet place & enter stillness. Deepen the stillness, either by body scanning, mental biofeedback or imagery deepening. There are examples of this in other sections of the blog. It just takes a minute or so to become sufficiently relaxed in both mind & body. Next, place your fingertips on your lower abdomen & either observe your breath OR repeat a word mantra. Stay with that focus. Very soon you will sense a thought.....simply notice it & then return to your mantra or belly breath. Continue along like this, noticing the thoughts that flow through.
Imagine that you can take any thought & hold it in the palm of your hand. The thought is a "thing." It also has many facets, as well as a marinade. As you become more skilled you will be able to change the strength of the marinade, as well as to edit the facets. But for now, just practice noticing & returning to the focus breath or mantra.
LIVING EXPERIENCE
The other day i was flying up to Providence. We were about to begin the decent when the flight attendant came on the loudspeaker. "I'm sorry to be the deliver of BAD news! There is a storm over the airport & the air traffic controllers SEEM TO BE CONFUSED about where we can land safely. We are running out of fuel & so, we must hurry up to Boston BEFORE the fuel runs out." This is truly what she said & not an exaggeration. Now think about how these words were playing out as mind & body programs in each of the passengers.
Luckily, I'm very well mind-trained & so I used a specific image to protect my own mind & body from the kind of energy that must have been flowing around that cabin. There was no way that I could or would allow any negative thoughts to enter my space.. I have a powerful image that I use in circumstances such as this. First, I relax into the moment.....deepening. Then, I place a golden egg shape around me. In this instance I placed one around her & then around each individual in the plane, sensing everyone deeply relaxed & visiting our separate mind screens. On mine, I future-paced images of being in the airport in Boston, looking around the different shops & finding some unique items. Then, we were over Providence & landing beautifully.
For those of us who work in the field of mind & body, we are keenly aware of the power of emotional energy & the law of attraction. Unfortunately the flight attendant, for whatever reason, put out negative energy that could easily pull the energy of all of the passengers onto a path that obviously no one wanted. This is extremely dangerous & so we come to know not only the power of the words we use, but the energy that we apply to them. In addition, if someone is in the position of power, then this can worsen the situation.
We did land safely in Boston & I'd like to say that this was the end of the flight attendant's poor judgment, but unfortunately it wasn't. There was a small mutiny of the passengers, who began to take matters into their own hands. Luckily nothing negative happened, but it was interesting to observe how people refused to be programmed, even though this woman was in a leadership position.
CATEGORIZING THOUGHTS
There are many ways to work with thought processes & categorizing them is just one way. This technique teaches you to set up mind folders that are labeled with your most frequent categories. These can be negative or positive. Building this type of discipline is very helpful in the area of focus, flow & mind flexibility.
Keep in mind that thoughts are things that are in transit & can be edited. Also, remember that the mind is a servo-mechanism, delivering back to you what you think. Therefore, why would anyone want to be playing thought files of failure, anxiety, depression, low self-image & esteem, lack of confidence, etc.
