Mind tools

Tools for personal development

Think of a car that you find highly desirable. Nothing outrageously expensive, just a beautiful 'up-market' machine that you see quite a few of, because quite a few people seem to have one. Now imagine yourself owning and driving an immaculate specimen of that model in the colour of your choice. What thoughts pop into your mind when you try to do this?

Now think of people enjoying a holiday on a luxury cruise ship - no cares, sunning themselves on deck, dining lavishly, visiting exotic and fascinating places during the journey and spending money freely. Then try to imagine that you are one of those people and note your automatic reaction to this image.

Or just try to imagine the daily life experience of someone who is wealthy and prosperous. Think of the choices they have because of their wealth - choices to buy things for themselves and their family, to obtain whatever medical care or other services they want without restriction, to do whatever they want and to go wherever they fancy. And at least as importantly, the security they enjoy and the freedom they have to NOT do the things they don't want to do, and instead to always enjoy life.

Now imagine yourself being in this exact same position in say five year's time - how do you feel about the idea?

If, for each of these scenarios, you find yourself automatically thinking "couldn't happen" , "that's not for people like me" or "I could never afford that" or even "That's too good for me" , then you are (like most people) responding without conscious thought to your subconscious limiting beliefs. Beliefs that make it seem natural to us that while other people can drive a BMW Z4 or Audi TT, have the best private healthcare, dine out in fashionable restaurants and generally experience all the good things in life, we have to make do with a ten-year-old rotbox, an occasional outing to a junk food outlet, and a life of relative poverty and limited choices.

The most important word is 'limiting' because that is exactly what these 'beliefs' do - they limit our lives and experience because the subconscious mind believes that for us to do anything else is not 'safe'. This is one of the subconscious mind's guiding purposes - to keep us safe by making sure that our decisions and actions hold us within the boundaries it sets, based on the information available to it.

The power of 'the rest of you'

The 'subconscious mind' is a collective term for all parts of your mental apparatus that is not accessible to the conscious mind. In practice, that is actually most of it! Few people have any idea of the extent to which their subconscious minds control their lives - even doing much of their 'thinking' for them! Some recent research indicates that during the normal daily routine, most people are only truly conscious for about 12-15% of the time! That is just a couple of hours per day or even less. The rest of the time, their subconscious minds are in the driving seat.

It sounds pretty weird when put this way, but the fact is that your life is only partly what 'you' think, do or want to make of it - the rest (by far the larger part) is actually determined by what your subconscious mind wants you to do, and this in turn depends on the 'programming' it received, particularly in the early stages of life. This programming takes place at a completely unconscious level, and many of the limiting beliefs become implanted in our subconscious minds during childhood, when we were least able to control our world.

Unfortunately, much of the input the subconscious gathers up when it 'writes' the internal directives that shape our lives is irrelevant rubbish - criticisms by teachers or our parents, misunderstanding and mistaken perceptions arising from our childhood experiences, comments made by others (particularly during childhood), hurtful and damaging experiences of almost any kind, as well as the usually far smaller number of positive and pleasurable experiences of childhood. But because of the non-judgmental way in which this part of the mind works, ALL these perceived experiences are stored away and used to construct the system of internal beliefs used by the subconscious mind to direct our lives. When you think about it, this is itself a 'logical' process because at the time the information is gathered (largely during childhood) there are no sound judgemental systems in place to decide on what to keep of what to reject.

But the subconscious doesn't care, because it simply doesn't think in the way that we consciously think, and so is completely unable to make any value judgements about the information that it stores. So far as it is concerned this is how the world is, and our lives are governed accordingly, regardless of what 'we' want. And now, long after the 'programmed responses' have ceased to be of any use to us (if they ever were) they sit in the dark recesses of our minds, ready to jump up and pull us back if we try to live the kind of life we consciously desire.

The net result is that without assistance, our conscious desires and efforts to lose weight, quit smoking, be more confident, stop procrastinating, or to effect change of almost any kind, stand little chance of success against what our subconscious minds direct us to do. For most of the time we are at the mercy of our subconsciously generated habits. Our efforts to change by using our 'willpower' are almost always doomed to failure because our subconscious minds will invariably sabotage anything which would result in a movement beyond the limits it has set. In virtually every way we are unconsciously tethered by a short leash, yet most of us have no idea at all that it is even there.

--Nothing Changes Until You Change--

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Change IS possible

So are we all inevitably stuck with a life that reflects whatever junk is stored somewhere deep in our heads? Condemned to forever repeat events and outcomes that reflect our personal negative patterns of life? Fortunately, no. There are many ways to make changes to the subconscious directives that govern our lives, and so to bring about the changes we want.

Considering how long many of your buried beliefs have been in place, it is not only possible to deliberately change them, but surprisingly easy to to do so. BUT, what makes any profound change in the pattern of your life is that the sunconscious derives the 'directives' that control your life not from individual beliefs, but from 'patterns' of belief. Each pattern is a complex web of mutally supportive beliefs that actively seeks new input to 'recruit' into supporting the overall pattern. These patterns are known as 'memes', which behave in some ways almost like entities, seeking to grow and perpetuate themselves.

As an example, lets take the very common 'worthiness' issue: Because of the overwhelming negative nature of childhood leaning input (it has been estimated that negative input such as criticism outweighs positive input such as praise by somewhere in the range of 10:1 to 30, 40 or even 50:1 in some 'deprived' children). The subconscious draws the obvious conclusion - that 'I' am different from others, less able, less deserving and so on, and this collection of negative junk thus becomes an 'unworthiness meme'.

That would be bad enough, but this meme will seek to grow through finding self justifying 'proof' in the form of further experiences that conform with the meme's precepts. Not only will the meme act through the non-judgemental but extremely powerful subconscious mind to produce expectations and outcomes that are in alignment with its nature, but it will actually alter your perception of neutral outcomes so that these are seen in a way that supports its own existence.

This is a difficult idea to grasp, and is right at the forefront of modern psychology, but anyone seeking to change more than superficially needs not only to understand it, but also to find out how it applies to them, which in turn will identify what 'memes' thay are operating by that need to be changed. However the rewards of making the effort and taking appropriate action will be immense in all areas of life.

Your subconscious power

What if instead of being in conflict with your subconscious directives, there was a way for you to take control, so that your inner 'beliefs' and memes match what you consciously desire?

Now, instead of opposing your wishes, the enormous power of the subconscious becomes your greatest ally, working on your behalf to bring what you want into your life, often almost without conscious effort and in ways that can seem almost magical at times.

When your subconscious mind is co-operating with you rather than controlling you, you will quickly find yourself just naturally doing those things you need to do to achieve your goals, even if these previously seemed difficult or even impossible. You will discover internal reserves of energy, drive and persistence you never knew you had, and old tendencies to procrastinate or flit from one thing to another will just fall away. New ideas and ways of doing things will become 'obvious' and you will find others, even people you have never met, actively co-operating to bring about your objectives.

Your circumstances will suddenly start to be more benign, and more and more you will experience apparent co-incidences and 'serendipitous' events that all contribute to your success, and which often seem to come right out of the blue. Finally, the excitement, anticipation and wonder that you may not have experienced since childhood will return to your everyday life as you find yourself more and more in control.

This may all seem hard to believe, but this kind of life 'in the flow' is becoming reality for increasing numbers of people who are discovering how to bring it about, and it could very soon be your reality too. And once you are in this 'flow' it becomes almost impossible to remember why you once chose to struggle so long and so ineffectually, letting opportunities pass you by, always doing things the hard way. Generally just 'getting by' and vaguely hoping for better thing in the future, rather than enjoying what life has to offer right now.

Now, the tremendous power that may have worked against you for most of your life will finally be working with you - an unstoppable combination, just as it was meant to be. This mighty ally is ready and willing to bring into your world everything that you desire and need in order to live your life to the full. All it lacks is your direction - your specific instructions and clear goals, delivered in a way it understands.

So are we all inevitably stuck with a life that reflects whatever junk is stored somewhere deep in our heads? Fortunately, no. There are many ways to make changes to the subconscious directives that govern our lives, and so to bring about the changes we want - but identifying effective 'Mind Tools' that will actually make a difference can be difficult.

That's what this web site is about - helping you to cut a path through the fake and exaggerated claims, and providing information that we hope will help you find your path to personal development.

Just hover your mouse cursor over the 'Mind Tools' item in the top menu to explore the information on this site about the various Personal Development systems and techniques, or go straight to 'Products' to see what is available to you right now.