I want you to stop what you’re doing right now and relax with me for just a moment. For just a moment stop worrying about all the pressure you’re under, the current economic crisis, the bills you have to pay, the family drama you have to endure…
And for just a moment, imagine your perfect life. Does it seem like a daydream? Something unattainable? A fairytale? Well if you’re bruised and battered by life you probably think so.
Many people completely give up on their hopes and dreams and settle for the life they have… created by their circumstances. But what if I told you it doesn’t have to be that way? What if you were not only given permission to dream again, but had the “tools” to actually see what you want most become a reality before your very eyes? Seem too good to be true? I wouldn’t blame you if you said “yes.”
But, it’s not. And in this article, I want to give you some PRACTICAL and PROVEN things you can do right now that will significantly impact your life for the better. Willing to give it a shot? Good.
First you need to understand what’s at work in your mind and how your imagination is CURRENTLY helping to create your present reality. You see, what you imagine on a consistent basis tends to become a reality. That’s because your subconscious, which doesn’t know the difference between what’s real and what’s vividly imagined, starts to work to make what you think about consistently a reality. Especially when you feel very strongly about something.
Ever hear the old cliché “a self-fulfilling prophecy?” That’s what’s going on with you. When you consistently imagine negative outcomes and circumstances, that’s what your subconscious works to make real for you.
But the good news is it works the other way too.
When you consistently imagine what you want most (more wealth, better relationships, weight loss, etc.), your subconscious is there to make it real.
But how do you do that? Well, here’s a tried and true 4-step strategy you can begin using right now to change your life for the better. Here we go…
1. Repetition
The key is to regularly repeat your “daydream” to yourself every day. You can write it on an index card and carry it with you. You can make up a little story or poem or song about it and repeat it to yourself (that’s what I do; I make up affirmation jingles for myself). Close your eyes and imagine what you want for a few minutes each day. And when you do, you want to…
2. Be the Star
Play your dream like a movie in your mind. Be the star. See yourself doing or accomplishing or enjoying what you want most. Enjoy it. Make it yours. You’re the director. Create the movie you want most and watch it unfold. And while you do that, make sure you…
3. Flood It with Emotion
It’s critical that you FEEL what you want most. The key to unlocking your subconscious mind’s potential to bring you good things is to repeat strongly-felt desires over and over. That’s how you’re subconscious knows what to focus on. But in addition to feeling it, you also want to…
4. Make It Vivid
The more detailed and colorful you can make your desire, the more focused your subconscious will be in making it a reality for you. Make it as specific as possible.
There you go. If you will commit to practicing this 4-step process, you’ll soon begin to see what you want most beginning to unfold before your very eyes. Start with something small, like breaking an annoying habit, and build your confidence. You’ll soon feel the exhilaration so many others have felt at finding the keys to obtaining real happiness.
Now all you have to do is DO IT – and that’s where most people fall short. You have to do it every day. It doesn’t have to be work though. As I said earlier, make up a story or song or poem or jingle that you can repeat to yourself. Make it something you enjoy. That’s what I do. I’ve made up these affirmation jingles (just like the jingles you hear on radio and TV), and I sing them to myself – feeding myself positive thoughts all day long. The best part is it requires NO work or special time. They just get stuck in my head and once they are anchored there, my subconscious does the rest.
Go ahead. Give it a try – you’ll thank me for it, I promise.
In Part 1 of this article we discussed why most affirmations end up on your desk gathering dust or in the waste basket. It stands to reason that what you put your attention on most of the time is what you will get. That’s the main theme of the Law of Attraction as made widely known in the Secret. So, this makes a lot of sense and we get excited and write a long laundry list of affirmations about what we want to see happen in our lives. I know I did. I wanted to lose weight, I wanted to get along better with my kids, I wanted to grow my business exponentially, so I wrote all that down and started to write them and repeat them every single day. For a few days, maybe even a week and then my subconscious would start feeding me every reason in the book why I should stop this foolishness right now. We also learned that the reasons for this were two fold
1. We can’t get past our belief filters in our subconscious minds long enough to make the affirmations stick – this is was covered in Part 1, and
2. We don’t really know how to handle negative situations or how to put the brakes on a negative tailspin, so when we start feeling this way, we abandon our affirmations because if they were working we wouldn’t feel this way, right!
There are lots of things that can happen in a day to set us up for one of those downward tailspins. You get up on the wrong side of the bed and it’s all downhill from there, right? That used to happen to me a lot. I used to have a saying, “I’ve earned this depression and I’m going to enjoy it for awhile.” What a crazy belief, but believe it I did. Somehow I really thought I was getting something out of being nasty and grumpy. But the Law of Attraction states that what you spend most of your time thinking about and focusing on is what you will get. You can probably guess that I was getting lots of reasons to be nastier and grumpier, that’s for sure.
But, when you look at the other side of the coin, the more you can focus on what you want to have in your life, the quicker it will come to you. If you can focus on it with emotion and feeling, well then, so much the better. So it makes sense that the more time you can spend feeling good and keeping the dark clouds at bay, then the easier it would be to bring about your desires.
So most teachers of the Law of Attraction stress that you need to control your thinking and CHANGE your negative thoughts to positive ones. Just DO IT, right? But that is not as easy as it sounds. The usual recommendations are affirmations – been there done that – some wonderful books to read or beautiful meditations (which I love to do), but it is not normally easy to drop everything and find a quiet space to meditate, or find the perfect passage in a book to help you in the moment. These are all long term strategies, but it’s rare to be in the middle of a crisis situation and be able to stop RIGHT NOW and meditate until you feel better.
In times like this, you can’t wait for the right quiet moment to come along to work on your feelings later. You need something to grab onto RIGHT NOW, in the very moment that you realize the tailspin is starting. You need to have a tool available to you that will literally turn your emotions around, just like flipping a switch on and off. That’s what you need to find.
Most people have been suffering in their negativity for so long that the idea of changing their thoughts in an instant seems literally impossible. But my suggestion is to put in some thought today, this minute when you are feeling pretty positive, about how you might flip the switch the next time you are feeling down and out. What could you say or do or sing that might turn it around on a dime. Get something stuck in your head – a little jingle or something that the minute you recognize that – “Geez, here we go again” – you can say – “NO, not this time.” Something that you can apply without giving it any thought, it just goes on autopilot. Something that your ‘Belief Detective’ won’t recognize as an affirmation. Song lyrics are great for that because you suspend your disbelief when you are singing. You don’t have to believe the words, it’s just a song.
So the moral is – be prepared. Think about it right now, while you are reading this. Don’t wait until the next time that life hands you lemons to wonder why it is happening again and again. Take the bull by the horns and be ready with your own secret weapon. You’ve been to the Pity Party enough times and there’s nothing there for you any more. Be ready!
Finally, I’m alone. With all of the boys home from college for the holidays, it has been impossible to find even a few minutes to be alone to try and meditate. It’s been “Mom, where’s the Wii remote and Mom can you make me a snack” now for several weeks. I’ve really been feeling the need, but just couldn’t get away. But today, everyone is gone, even hubby. So I go into my office, shut the door, settle down in my comfy chair and put on my headphones…Ahhhhhh
This bliss lasts approximately 3 minutes before I hear the dogs, Snickers and Sam whimpering and scratching at the door. I try to ignore them for an additional 2 or 3 minutes and finally decide to get up and open the door and let them into the room.
Back to bliss…..for about another 3 minutes before I feel a cold nose rubbing up against my hand and a tentative lick for good measure. Ok, I can ignore that and back to bliss – not so much. Snickers (my jumbo mini dachshund) thinks I might be dead, so she decides to jump up in my lap and give me a good tongue lashing just to make sure I’m still alive.
Now that they are sure I’m still breathing, they decide to leave me alone, but within another minute or two, someone happens to walk by out on the sidewalk 200 feet away and “we must bark, bark, bark, bark, bark, to let them know we are in charge here.”
By this time I’ve about given up, but know that I only have a limited window of opportunity to get this darned meditation done. Focus, Debbie Focus…. like I am Genghis Khan and I’m going to conquer this meditation or else.
The next thing I know, I hear one of the boys yelling from downstairs, “Mom, what’s for dinner?”
I can’t believe it, I went and slept away my entire meditation time. Oh well, I guess I must have needed the sleep more. Time to stop feeling sorry for myself, so it’s best to “Get Over It.” That’s why I have my jingles.
Having A Bad Day
Here’s a thought – Maybe I should write a meditation jingle. Hmmm….
