The power of positive thinking has become a very popular concept in recent years. It began to spread rapidly in 2006 with the release of Rhonda Byron’s bestseller The Secret, which gave hope to millions of people around the world, teaching them that by thinking positively and utilizing the law of attraction, we are all able to perform miracles. Many began to practice the ideas put forth in the book, but were quickly disappointed as the technique simply did not work for them. When we believe we’ve found a recipe for a better sense of well-being and it fails us, we may feel like the last glimmer of hope of living a happier and healthier life has disappeared and we are deeply disheartened. Today, techniques and practices based on positive thinking are being increasingly implemented in many areas of our lives, including business and the field of personal coaching. However, many of us who had hoped positive thinking was some sort of miraculous, easily applicable solution to our problems are now disappointed at the fact that this technique doesn’t really work the way it promises to. Disheartened, we slip back into our old ways of being and give into hopelessness and despair.
I’d like to share a few facts that do not fall into any category of mythical, holistic knowledge, but are science-based. Dr. Bruce Lipton is one of the most prominent researchers in the field of cellular biology, researching the energy of thought and social impact on cell structures. One of his most important findings which he highlights often is the fact that the energy of thought overpowers matter. Put simply, our lives do not depend entirely on the genes and predispositions we acquire at birth, but on our thoughts. Positive thoughts have a profound effect on behavior and genes, but only when they are in harmony with our subconscious programming. This is exactly why positive thinking sometimes doesn’t bear fruit. When our thinking is not in tune with the deep-rooted ideas of the subconscious, positive thoughts will not work for us. Of course, positive thinking, even if it doesn’t work the way we’d like it to, is still beneficial for our bodies and our minds. When we think positively and we aren’t stressed out, this has a very beneficial effect on our body’s physiology – our happiness hormone levels rise and all of our life functions are in harmony. There is certainly no harm in thinking positively.
Our subconscious is a real treasure trove of ideas and patterns that sow seeds in our psyche from an early age. Some of these thoughts and beliefs also come from the experiences of past generations, which Freud referred to as the collective unconscious. Our identity develops through childhood, all the way to adolescence, and this is a crucial time when we accept ideas and influences from our environment. To simplify and exaggerate a bit, let’s look at the following example: imagine a 6-year-old boy telling his mother with playful enthusiasm that he wants to become an astronaut when he grows up. At that point his mother may reply, mockingly, that he should be more realistic – no one from their country of residence has ever flown into space and there aren’t any schools for astronauts where they live. Becoming an astronaut was simply not an option for him. She may even add an especially critical remark, such as: “You’re way too clumsy to become an astronaut anyway. Do you realize how talented and skilled you need to be to handle a job like that?” The dream, which, until just moments ago, seemed like something completely achievable in the eyes of the child, is now shattered, as the person they look up to as the main authority figure in their life has just explained that they are simply not good enough to become an astronaut, because they are clumsy and they live in an area of the world where going after a dream like that is simply not possible.
This is just an example of a type of a seemingly banal conversation which, in one form or another, takes place many times over the course of our upbringing. Initially we may have it with our parents, then with people in our social environment, for instance, in school with our peers, and later we encounter a whole army of informants, from mass media to social networks that fill our subconscious depths with similar messaging.
Our 6-year-old astronaut, now 42 years old, probably doesn’t remember having this conversation with his mother, while his subconscious mind does. The way our subconscious recollect things, however, is by remembering key words and phrases, like: “you are not good enough”, “this is unattainable for you”, “you are clumsy” and “you can’t do this”. The 42-year-old adult has been unconsciously implementing these messages into various segments of his life for many years now and suffers greatly, feeling like he is constantly failing to achieve his goals and desires, believing he just isn’t good enough to succeed. On the other hand, he doesn’t even attempt to take any other road towards his dreams, since he subconsciously believes they are unattainable for him and he wouldn’t have the skills to attain them anyway.
A similar example is the story of 10-year-old Preston, who one day proudly tells his father that he wants to become a successful businessman when he grows up. He wants to have a big house, drive a good car and travel around the world. His father may not give him any feedback, however, this ambitious little future businessman often listens closely to the conversations held between his parents, grandparents and other adults. Thus, he may often overhear them talking about something they saw on the news and saying something like: “Look at the houses and cars these rich people own – only criminals can afford something like that! They should be put in jail! They’re off enjoying themselves, while us honest working folk can barely get by on our hard-earned salaries every month!”
This 10-year-old has now grown up and is still dreaming about getting a well-paid job, owning a big house, driving a good car and having the world at his feet. He’s tried all the techniques of positive thinking and has been utilizing affirmations, but he’s been unsuccessful at realizing his goals and desires, as his subconscious is constantly telling him that what he wants is available only to criminals, and having a substantial amount of money means you must’ve earned it illegally and you should be put in prison for stealing. Because, for Preston, performing criminal acts is not in accordance with his values, his subconscious will “protect” him from being a successful businessman and acquiring everything he wanted as a ten-year-old boy. The most important task of our subconscious mind is to protect and preserve us. The consequences of ideas and patterns from our past that are not in line with what we want as adults hinder us from achieving our goals and this is why mere positive thinking often proves to be completely useless.
The only way we can let positive thinking do its job is to change our subconscious patterns. Fortunately, all the findings of recent years in the field of neuroplasticity have proven that thoughts make up neural pathways in the brain, and we can actually reshape our extremely flexible brains and start creating new neural connections that will serve us. Simply put, the brain can be reprogrammed by replacing old, destructive patterns we have acquired in the past with new ones. Imagine you have an outdated mobile app on your phone that no longer works well for you because it operates too slowly and sometimes may not work at all. As such, it is completely useless and should be updated. It is the same with our brains – when we find that subconscious programs make life difficult for us, they need to be updated.
Hypnosis is an easy and quick way to access the subconscious self-destructive patterns that are holding us back in life. Hypnosis is not in any way ‘scary’, as it is a completely natural state of mind, in which we actually find ourselves several times a day. With the help of hypnosis, we can expose the mental and behavioral patterns that hold us back as we look at the feelings, ideas and events that were key in shaping these patterns. We experience “aha moments” when we finally understand where the origins of the ideas that cripple us today come from. To put it very simply – we use interruption techniques to erase beliefs that have been holding us back from living life to the fullest and replace them with thoughts that are useful to us and in line with our values and understanding of the world. This is the space where an important change can occur, when positive thought patterns begin to work, as they are finally in harmony with our subconscious ideas.
Even if we have already given up on thinking more positively, all is not lost – our efforts to change our conscious actions were probably in sync with our subconscious ideas. Now that we know we can change our subconscious beliefs and align them with our true, authentic selves, life can go more smoothly.
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If the button above still works, I have a few spots left.
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