How To Get Whatever You Want - Just By 'Talking to Yourself'!   PART 2
by Peter Roe

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Because of widespread confusion over the nature of the subconscious mind, the language used in the ‘subliminal’ suggestions embedded in many commercial recordings is often not appropriate. This issue also effects the potential usefulness of 'hypnosis' recordings, as the same levels of mind are targeted.

In fact the subconscious mind processes information primarily in symbolic or directly pictographic (imagery) form. Spoken language is a tool the conscious mind uses to communicate with other conscious minds, and so reflects the way in which the conscious mind works. For this reason it is not an ideal tool for communicating with the subconscious mind, which has very limited language processing capabilities.

For this reason it is important to limit ‘suggestions’ to short and simple phrases and to avoid ‘qualifying’ words, especially negatives such as no, none, never etc. In addition, because the subconscious mind does not seem to deal with the concept of time in the same way as the conscious mind, the use of tenses other than the present tense (I am, etc.) should be avoided.

There are quite a large number of similar issues that arise when constructing effective subliminal suggestions, but for the moment it is only necessary to recognise that the precise phrasing of subliminal suggestions is of great importance, and that failure to get the phrasing right will render suggestions ineffective, or even cause them to have effects opposite to those intended!

The designer of a subliminal recording has to make a lot of assumptions. He or she obviously cannot know the actual needs of the listener, and so has to guess at the causes of a problem and address these issues.  This means that the embedded suggestions are often generalised, and may even miss the mark entirely.

For example, if ‘overweight’ is the problem, many subliminal product manufacturers will work with the frequently voiced, but scientifically unsupported assertion that the actual issue is a lack of ‘self esteem’ which is causing overweight people to over-eat (the reverse is more likely to be true). So there is often a long list of suggestions designed to improve self-esteem, plus perhaps some more dealing with ‘body image’ and ‘social confidence’ and finally perhaps some well-meaning but ineffectual suggestions about eating smaller portions and avoiding fatty foods. Or the designer may harbour simplistic stereotypes, for example that all overweight people got this way because they are 'binge eaters' or 'couch potatoes'. Some overweight people may well be one or both of these, but there are many other possible causes and these will not then be addressed.

So even if suggestions actually reach the subconscious level, they will be ineffective as they will simply be irrelevant. Also, dealing with unrelated issues weakens the central purpose of the suggestions and confuses the issue. The answer is to address the 'symptoms' of any condition rather than try to anticipate exactly what it is that needs changing at the subconscious level. The subconscious mind will know what actually needs to be done to obtain the suggested outcome. It simply doesn’t make the same ‘connections’ that the conscious mind does and it is pointless trying to outguess it.

The purpose of using subliminal suggestion is to ‘implant’ by repetition desirable suggestions at a subconscious level in such a way that they displace or over-write the negative and damaging store of ‘self image’ phrases previously acquired at random.  But consider for a moment how most of this negative trash got there in the first place: It was put there by the people you have known!

All though your childhood, your parents, relatives, teachers and so on will have said things to you that were highly negative – often with the best of intentions, sometimes out of anger (‘You’re lazy’, ‘It’s simple, why can’t you understand?, ‘Stop that’, ‘Try harder!’, ‘Idiot!’, ‘Stop pestering me!’, ‘Why can’t you be like x?’, ‘You’ll never be a success'). It has been estimated that such negative admonitions outnumber positive loving comments by anything up to 100:1 in an average family.

At the same time you will probably have experienced more negativity from siblings, friends and schoolmates (‘You’re useless’, ‘Pratt!’, ‘Fatty’, ‘You wimp!’, ‘You can’t be in my gang’, ‘x thinks you’re ugly!’, ‘Four-eyes!’, ‘Teacher’s pet!’). Later on, at one time or another you will have probably been criticised by people you work with or for, and by your flatmates, spouse, partner or other adults in your life, and although the effects of such criticism or put-downs will be much less than during formative years, it all adds up.

But what do all these ‘inputs’ have in common, apart from the fact they are negative in nature?  Simply that they have virtually all been said by people you know. Other people – strangers - may have called you names at one time or another, perhaps while driving or in an excited crowd, but these occasions are rare and in any case who cares what such people say? The opinions you take notice of are those of people you know, and the closer they are to you, the more their negative opinions matter to you, both consciously and subconsciously.

So when the subconscious mind hears spoken words it automatically grades the ‘importance’ to you by the familiarity of the voice, and the emotional association you have with the speaker. If the voice is unrecognised, it is assigned a relatively low ‘importance’ status. This means that when you hear a subliminally-presented voice that your subconscious doesn’t recognise, saying things ‘at you’ from a recording, it is not surprising that the subconscious mind may fail to pay much attention to the message. As far as it is concerned you may as well be hearing background chatter on the radio.

But commercial recordings have to be made using professional ‘voiceover artists’, or simply the voice of the technician who makes the recording, and this virtually guarantees an ‘unfamiliarity’ problem.

The best ‘commercial’ solution (unfortunately only adopted by a very few manufacturers) is to use voices that are deliberately manipulated in the sound studio to result in a high degree of neutrality, with ‘androgenous’ pitch, as accent-free as possible, and then further processed to result in a ‘whisper’, largely stripped of identifying characteristics. Not a perfect solution, but a pragmatic method of minimising the problem, which unfortunately is only adopted by a tiny minority of manufacturers.

The Real Answer......‘Personal’ Subliminal and Hypnosis Recordings

The solution to all of the problems described above is actually surprisingly simple......

...... All you need to do is make your own ‘personal’ subliminal and/or self-hypnotic recordings - - using your own voice!

Look at the advantages, in the light of the potential problems with commercial recordings described earlier:

1. You have complete control over the ‘components’ that go into the mix. This means that you control the exact phrasing of the ‘subliminal’ content or the words to be delivered under hypnosis, so that it will exactly match the issues you want to address, in exactly the way you want them to. It also means that you can insert specifics that would be impossible in a commercial recording, for example, ‘I weigh 145 pounds/70 kilos’, or ‘I now earn $x00,000 per year’, or ‘I live in a 4-bedroom villa in (wherever..)’.

2. Similarly, you have complete control over selection of masking and background tracks and of relative sound levels, which you can adjust for your own hearing. Not only that, but because creating such recordings becomes very simple once everything is set up, you can easily make a series of recordings with different ‘sound masks’ or backgrounds or just make a new one each time you begin to find a particular recording boring or irritating.

3. And most importantly, you can employ the simple ‘ace up your sleeve’ that NO commercial manufacturer can use – your own voice. The opportunity to use your own voice in subliminal and self hypnosis recordings is an asset of enormous importance. Your own voice is the ‘ultimate’ in familiarity – you hear it all the time as you speak. It is so familiar that you even create it in your head when you ‘self talk’ or think in words. For this reason, when you use your own voice in a subliminal or hypnotic recording, it is almost as if you are thinking to yourself, just as you would when you mentally say to yourself ‘I could never do that’, ‘what a moron!’, ‘I could never own one of those’, ‘I wish I was like that’, ‘S**t, why did I say THAT!’ and all the rest of the mental self abuse that most of us are prone to. Only, when you make your own recordings the stream of ‘self talk’ is NOT negative or abusive, it is completely positive; a steady flow of supportive and inspiring suggestions that YOU design, and which are automatically accepted at the subconscious levels of mind.

And this is not just theory - the power of your own voice to convey beneficial suggestions to your subconscious mind is established fact.

If you have only ever used commercial subliminal or hypnotic products and experienced little or no change in yourself or your circumstances, here at last is the simple secret you need to ‘turbocharge’ the power to direct absolutely any area of your life.

Peter Roe, MindWaves.co.uk