Posts Tagged ‘mind power’

Personal Growth And The True Power Of Now

If you’re keen on personal development or self improvement, you’ll have some appreciation of the importance placed by many experts on being focused in the present moment. Ekhart Tolle’s ‘The Power of Now’ extols the virtues of what might be described as presence of mind. However, Tolle, together with other personal development ‘gurus’, does not either adequately explain why ‘Now’ is just so important or, indeed, offer practical advice on being more ‘all here’.

First off, now is the only time and place that actually exists – the past is something you learn from (although psychology confirms that most people don’t learn but subconsciously live there) and the future is something that will only transpire the way you want if you’re prepared to be focused and effective in the present. Also, quantum physics suggests that the universe only exists now – and it confirms that universal energy responds to our energy – now. In simple terms, it is vital to be present. Being present gives you ‘presence’ – the true sign of all successful people.

The big problem is that we’re not present. Our subconscious is focused in our so-called formative years, whilst our conscious mind is distracted by useless thought – thoughts drifting towards negative worry and self-doubt. Consequently, it’s hardly surprising that research suggests that the normal person is only one percent present. If that’s true you are extremely unlikely to elicit much response from an otherwise responsive universe.

Basically, it is imperative that you develop your presence. But how? Being present means being focused on where you are and what you’re doing now. Most, according to lots of surveys, are not focused on what they’re doing, preferring instead to do what they’re doing whilst thinking that they don’t like what they’re doing! In addition, most people haven’t understood the simplicity of what focus is. Focus means paying attention – no more, no less. It means tuning into the reality of the moment, using the only mechanism that you have at your disposal to do this – your five senses. Your five senses are your only interface with the world. Yet we pay no attention to what our senses tell us, preferring to let our subconscious put its own interpretation on reality. We use our preconceived notions to make sense of now and, in the process, make utter nonsense of it.

You need to relearn how to pay attention. We were all expert at this when we were young children. The effortless way to re-learn is to set a little time aside to re-focus one sense at a time. I suggest that you find somewhere quiet to sit tomorrow morning. Close your eyes and notice how all the sounds around you become more pronounced. They’re not, of course, it’s just that you’re paying more attention. Notice what you’re feeling in your body – feelings that you wouldn’t notice when you’re normally inattentive. Next time you sit down for five minutes you might focus on how your body’s responses each time you breathe. Five minutes each morning will vastly sharpen your ability to pay attention for the rest of the day – you will be more present, more focused, more in tune with what’s going on and the opportunities the moment offers.

And you can start measuring your presence by reference to your results. You’ll be more responsive to situations and people that they might otherwise fail to see or avoid completely, you’ll be more open to doing things that you wouldn’t otherwise do. And, on the basis that the one thing that has you stuck in a rut is the fact that you rarely do anything different, bold or courageous, this can only be a good thing. Through your presence you will not just be open to new opportunity – you’ll actually create your own opportunities. The net result is that, at least, your life will move forward – in the right direction. At most, your life will never be the same – you will achieve effortless and measurable, success and happiness.

Personal Success: How To Deal With The Crap In Your Head

Haven’t you got crap in your head? Undoubtedly you have – we all have. However, if you’re paying attention to the crap in your head, you are simply creating the crap that you have in your life. You’re what you’re thinking. Unfortunately, it isn’t just the thoughts that you know you’re thinking that create your life, it’s somewhat more subtle than that. In fact, more than anything else, you are what you think subconsciously. Your subconscious mind runs – or ruins – your life. All your behavior, every single thing you do, all your reactions and every single interaction with others – with those who are close to you, your mates, workmates and even with people who you don’t even know – are all dictated by your subconscious. And the gynormous problem is that, because of the way your subconscious mind is wired, all this happens automatically.

However, you’ve got an even bigger problem. Your subconscious mind is crammed with crap. It’s crap because it has nothing to do with who you are or what you’re supposed to be doing right here, right now. All this crap is a hangover from your childhood, when you were young and impressionable – from what we all know as our formative years. And, even though all the automatic behaviour happens subconsciously, every so often you actually know that this crap is ruining your life. at times you might feel down, suffer from stress, negative or depressed. You might think that you’re useless, uneasy or inadequate. At certain times, or in some situations, you might feel nervous or anxious. Perhaps you feel that you’re lacking self-confidence or that you’re being dragged down by low self-esteem. But this is just crap created by crap! This is the crap that has your life stuck where it is – and you’re letting it happen by paying attention, whether you know it or not, to the crap that’s buried in your head.

Your own personal crap won’t go away – but you can choose whether or not you pay attention to it – either consciously or, in actual fact, subconsciously. That’s what personal development or self improvement is all about. You see, as a grown adult, you can actually take charge of your subconscious mind – choose, in each moment, what you’ll pay your attention to. So you’ve got to decide to pay attention to reality instead of letting your subconscious mind just lead you by the nose into ever decreasing circles of crap. The only thing that’s really real in your life – the here and now. This is where you could actually be the very best you if you could just stop paying attention to all your inner crap. Start paying attention to now – to what you see, feel, hear, smell and taste. This focus will drag your subconscious (sometimes kicking and screaming) away from its hard-wired obsession with all the unreal crap. As things stand, you don’t really experience anything real because you see it through a fog of crap. You must clear the fog – it won’t clear on its own because it’s your personal fog. Clear the fog by understanding that it isn’t there at all! There is no fog.

All that’s real is what is here now. So train yourself to experience your five senses – make sense of the here and now instead of nonsense. It’s life changing.

Depression And How To Beat It

Even though the evidence of depression may be all too real in your life, depression isn’t real. If you think that you’re suffering from depression, it’s just your imagination because depression is the direct result of your subconscious mind’s obsession with useless thoughts that you took on board during your formative years. It is normal for your subconscious mind to dwell on the past – everyone’s does – it’s simply that the crap that yours is focused on is probably a little (or a lot) abnormal. This is not your fault – your subconscious mind was impressed with those thoughts by others, people and events that made you feel bad, guilty, dejected during those childhood years.

Even though it’s normal for your subconscious to dwell on past deeply-rooted thoughts, this obsession doing you damage – you have the evidence of it in your daily life. Again, you shouldn’t feel bad about this – everybody’s subconscious mind is doing the same damage – at least you have the advantage over others in realizing that you’ve got a problem.

But that problem is completely down to what your subconscious mind is thinking about. What you must do is drag your mind away from those self-destructive thoughts and redirect your attention to the only time and place that’s real, the only place and time that you can fully live – the present moment. If you succeed in turning your attention to the present moment you will experience something that you probably have never experienced before – depression is an illusion, there’s no such thing as anxiety or fear, there’s simply this world full of possibilities and opportunity – and quantum physics proves that that wonderful world is simply waiting to respond to your hopes and dreams.

Pills or medicine won’t enable you experience the difference between reality and the illusion of stress – they may well make the pain go away for a while but your subconscious mind will always slink back to those thoughts that aren’t real but just an imprint of a past long gone. The one way that you will experience reality – one devoid of depression – is to learn how to clear your mind. This is no big deal because, as a youngster, you had a totally clear mind – that’s how those bad feelings were impressed upon you in the first place. All you have to do now is re-train yourself to pay attention to what your five senses are telling you, just right now – without adding your subconscious mind’s warped interpretation onto the facts.

I know that the best way to relearn how to pay attention to the reality of your five senses is meditation – preferably, for starters, guided meditation. It will take you a while to get into it, you may find it difficult, but a little commitment will produce the enormous benefit of your being able to live your life to the full.

The Problem With Personal Growth

Wherever you are, whatever you’re doing, you are in the company of people who have no idea that their subconscious mind is creating their lives at this very moment. They have no idea that their subconscious mind controls them and, by virtue of the fact that they don’t control their own mind, that they are actually crazy.

In contrast, you, having delved into the world of personal development (if you hadn’t you wouldn’t be reading this!), have some sense that your thoughts create your life. Many books have been written about it, numerous self improvement websites tell you that you can, indeed, fashion your own life experience. And perhaps you already have achieved some results to show for your endeavours.

However, therein lies the danger. If you are aware that your thoughts create your own life, that your subconscious mind can be controlled by you and that your resultant actions, behaviours, interactions and, therefore your life, can be directed by you – you have a weighty responsibility to yourself that you must rise to moment to moment. Because, just in the same way that many books have been written on personal development, much has also been written on just how badly things can go wrong for you if you know how the game of life is played and choose, either by act or omission, not to play by the rules.

Complacency is a far more subtle enemy than worry, stress or fear. It gives us a false sense of security that permits our mind do what it does habitually – slip back into its normal state of autopilot that allows our programmed subconscious mind start to disassemble the benefits that we might have gained from being more focused, more mindful, more present.

For almost everyone in this world – normal people – it is too great a challenge to awaken from the deadly hypnosis that our programmed subconscious mind wields over us. Indeed, for the vast majority of normal people, they will die without understanding that this challenge was even to be taken on. For those of us who do rise to this challenge and succeed, the real challenge is not to awaken but to stay awake and stay focused on a continual basis. We never know when life will throw a spanner in the works – one that will set us off down another path of self-sabotage, so we must do our very best to do what little it takes every day to make certain that our minds are tuned in and that we are as fully present to the best of our ability to the only place and time where life can be lived – the here and now.

Success And Managing Your Energy

Our universe, our world and your daily life operates like a huge energy-exchange machine. So says quantum physics – everything is made up of energy and the basic building blocks are what are known as superstrings of energy. You have trillions of superstrings of energy that combine into particles, molecules, cells which, all together, add up to the physical you. To quote the physicist Brian Greene, your superstrings are something like violin strings and, when they are all in tune, your day is like a beautiful symphony. But how often does that happen? It’s more common that your strings are out of tune and your daily life sounds more like a third-rate school brass band!

Forget the jargon of Personal Development, everyday language has turns of phrase that describe how it feels to be ‘out of tune’ and, no coincidence, these generally refer to the main centres in our body which ancient mysticism describes as the key energy centres or ‘chakras’. Let me explain by way of example. If you’re nervous, you’ll feel like you have butterflies in your stomach – the direct physical consequence of a state of mind. If you’ve something upsetting or unpalatable to say, you might have a lump in your throat. If you’re feeling disenchanted you might have that sinking feeling in the pit of your stomach – a key energy centre often referred to by successful people when they talk about gut feeling. And how come that tension and nervousness can result in a ‘tense nervous headache’?

In other words, whether you knew the scientific explanation or not, you somehow feel that your state of mind produces physical knock-on effects. So what? Well, our normal state of mind, which psychology confirms tends towards the negative, causes all manner of ills and, crucially, is the source of unhappiness in our everyday lives. The normal subconscious mind turns our energy in on ourselves – and, as a consequence – so that we end up sabotaging our best efforts. Sometimes we are all too consious of the consequences of a negative inward focus: low self esteem, poor self confidence, a general feeling of unease in certain circumstances, anxiety, stress (all the way up to panic) and depression. But these are the obvious examples of a more subtle and deeply-rooted problem.

The inward focus of our energy means that we don’t have a sufficient amount of energy available to put into what we should be doing right now and it is this ‘disability’ that keeps normal people within the confines of a not-too-bad, normal life. And as our universe and your life operates so that you get a return on the energy that you put into the act of living, with little concrete investment comes precious little return. It’s no big surprise then that people are unhappy and unfulfilled.

You must break this vicious circle of self destruction. You’ve got to start investing more of yourself in your life, by putting more of you into living in the here and now. Start, right now, by taking a few minutes, sitting somewhere where you won’t be disturbed, closing your eyes and simply listening to what you hear around you. This silences the constant noise in your head and drags your subconscious mind’s attention away from its inward self-destructive obsession and gets you used to turning that inward energy out into a universe that is only waiting to respond to a greater investment on your part.

The Cycle Useless Thought: How To Escape

You are being tortured by useless thought and you many not even be aware of it! Whilst the normal adult is overwhelmed by around 50,000 thoughts every day, it is also true to say that the average adult is largely unaware of anything that is going on in his or her life. Wow – that’s a big statement!. You may think it couldn’t be true, certainly it will come as news to you. That said, research that started in 1936 and which continues to be being built upon proves conclusively that normal people are only one percent aware – they are only one percent in the present moment. More than that, the most important part of your mental power, your subconscious mind, is generally paying attention to your past – a time long-gone in which you were actually aware, were actually present and were not prone by useless thought.

Of course, you are aware of the odd useless thought that flits through your head – thoughts like “I can’t stand my job” (this has nothing to do with your job, it has to do with what you think about it!) “I wish I was out on the golf course” (a thought that’s a complete waste of your energy if you’re in the middle of a client meeting!) “I feel talking to this person” (a thought related to your perceived inadequacy as a normal adult, rather than anything to do with the other person). You may well also be aware of one of the most destructive forms of useless thought – the curse of worry. Then there are the deeper, darker thoughts that skulk in your subconscious – these you take to be beliefs or hard facts. All our perceived weaknesses, all the things that we may not like about ourselves, all our shortcomings are simply thoughts based on events that made us feel a certain way about ourselves during our early years. They are dangerously toxic thoughts.

Useless thought presents us with three major headaches! First of all, it distracts us from doing what we’re supposed to be doing – to the extent that we only one percent do it! We’re not going to get much out of life if we haven’t bothered to turn up for the event!! Secondly, useless thought presents us with a familiar, habitual way of going through or, perhaps even, coping with our day. It’s a habit that we’re so used to that we’re not aware of it. Thirdly, useless thought prevents you progressing towards the life that you really want. Continue thinking useless thought and you will never change your life. We can all achieve whatever we believe in – but if our resident useless thoughts are up against us, how will we ever believe?

You’ve got to break the cycle of useless thought. This is best done by stopping yourself from entertaining simple, irrelevant useless thoughts. Example! You’re walking down the street and you see a nice car. That’s cool – you should simply walk on and observce whatever happens next. However, you might say to yourself “That car is better than mine!” That’s a useless thought – it has nothing to do with the reality of the current moment (the only time and place there is!). And it leads to other useless thoughts: “I wish I had a better car!” “I couldn’t afford a new car!” “I cannot afford to go on holidays this year either!” “What if I can’t keep making my home loan repayments!” Useless thoughts take normal adults down alleys and mug them all the time. It’s how we’re built as normal adults. However, we have to break the cycle of useless thought, if we don’t we will continue to live cyclical mundane lives. Is that what you want?

Personal Development: Exploring Awareness

I get these odd replies to some of my posts and articles. I recently posted a piece on the importance of paying attention to the present moment, which made the point that it’s the only time and place that you can be – and if you don’t bother to turn up to the reality of the moment, how can you reasonably expect to get anything much out of life. One of the comments – from someone who signed themselves as a “personal development expert” said that, OK, the here and now is all very well – but really personal development is about awareness and choice.

So, here’s the big question: What is Awareness? Let’s make it simpler – what can you be aware of at any particular point in time? Of course, you could be aware of what you’re thinking – most people aren’t because, as decades of research prove, most people aren’t aware of anything much at all. You could be aware that you’re feeling anxious or fearful – but these so-called emotions are only the product of the thoughts that you’re not aware of in the first place. You could be aware of how you feel about yourself – your own self-image – but that’s not awareness, that’s getting involved in the continuous internal power struggle between you and your personality (remember, personality comes from the Latin word, “persona”, meaning a mask and your personality is nothing more than the amalgamation of all the personal “snapshots” you took as a child).

True awareness is being aware of the here and now. To paraphrase the Buddha, when I am walking, I am aware that I am putting one foot in front of the other. Only in the present moment is reality to be found. In fact – scientific fact as explored by quantum physics – only in the present moment does anything exist and all that exists is changing moment to moment.

And what of the choice we must make? We have a life-changing choice that has a fundamental impact on our lives – we can choose to be aware or we can (and this is the unaware choice made by normal people) choose to live in a make-believe world created by our own, predominantly negative, thoughts. This is a choice that we must make again and again, in each moment because nobody becomes aware and stays aware – it is a continual in exactly the same way that the reality of our universe is a continual process.

Your life is how it is as a result of your action, reaction or inaction now. The normal person reacts to their own thoughts and perceptions. The highly successful person acts on the basis of the facts in the moment and, as a result, creates a life that is exciting, spontaneous, adventurous, fulfilled and successful. Now, there’s a choice!

Personal Development Is No Use Unless You’ve The Results To Show For It

I talk with many people – clients and readers of my Personal Development Ezine – who enthuse that they have become far calmer, more mindful and tuned in as a consequence of the various little “mental exercises” that they practice to banish distraction and move themselves in the direction that they want their life to go. I often get feedback from some who tell me that their lives have changed and that they have seen many of their objectives being achieved almost effortlessly. But others wonder why, if they are developing calm, clarity and presence of mind, they don’t see their goals simply materializing in their lives.

In addressing this issue, I often quote what a good friend from Northern Ireland said to me at the height of the so-called “Troubles”. He said “Obviously, for some people, doing their mental exercises is a bit like the way some of my fellow-countrymen go to Mass on a Sunday, kneel down and pray and, on a Monday, go out and shoot someone!” A well made point – if your efforts at personal development don’t make an impact in the ordinary course of your everyday life, there is really no point in fooling yourself into thinking that you’re on the road to the life that you want. Personal development isn’t supposed to make you feel good for just a few minutes during the day, it’s supposed to change your life and if it isn’t doing that, then you’re doing something wrong.

As I write this, I’m expecting a client who is going to spend the next couple of days with me here in the Alps. I received an advance note from him – what he called his “agenda” – and, in that note, he asks how to bring the calm and focus that you get through meditation or mental exercising into the rough and tumble of everyday life. My answer to him will be simple. During the course of the day, especially when the going gets tough, you’ve got to regularly stop yourself, notice state of mind and compare it with the calm and clarity that you get during your personal development exercises. If you’ve drifted from your benchmark calm then you’re going to have to take a momentary step back from what’s happening, take a few deep breaths, and restore the mental calm and focus that will make the difference to your actions and personal effectiveness in the here and now.

Personal development isn’t personal development if you’re not seeing concrete results in the course of your everyday life – if your life is still all over the place, you’re simply lulling yourself into a false sense of success where you may well make decisions or taking what you think is action that may well make your life worse rather than better.

Personal Development: How About A Quick Fix?

Wouldn’t it be wonderful if you could flick a switch to change your life? What if you could simply press a button to achieve your ideal life? Well, if you look around the internet for a bit – not much searching required, you will come across plenty of personal development websites that suggest that changing your life can be just that simple. Naturally, there’s no such thing as a quick fix when it comes to living the dream – if it were so everyone would be doing it. But even though there’s no magic button that you can push, even though your life isn’t going to change in a single mouse-click, in fact, personal development or self improvement is quite like tuning in an old-fashioned radio. But like old-fashioned radios, the signal keeps coming and going, you have to keep fine-tuning.

On the other hand, the mind is tuned out – or, more to the point, completely turned off! Psychology confirms that the normal mind is about 1% tuned in to the only place and time where life is lived – the present moment. Most of your attention – and you’re not even aware of it – is focused on the things that you learned about yourself during your childhood. Your self-images are the reference points that your subconscious mind uses to create your all-too-automatic reactions that everything that you think is happening now. And, as we’ve said, you’re not aware of it at all.

But life is taking place in front of your very eyes and you’re trying to listen to life’s radio station but hearing nothing. That’s because you’re not paying attention. If you want to change your life, you’re going to have to re-learn how to pay attention to what’s really going on now – this is how to tune in and transform your life. I use the word “re-learn” because, when you were young, you were great at paying attention – perhaps not at school because maybe school didn’t turn you on – but, when you were even younger, when, for example, you got a new toy, you gave it and possibly the box it came, in all of your attention. You examined it, looked at it inside out, smelled it, licked it, shook it, held it up to your ear – you used all of your senses to completely experience the new toy. Every moment is like a new toy – to fully appreciate what’s going on, you’re going to have to see it, feel it, hear it, smell it and taste it as if you’d never come across anything quite like it before. And, of course, you haven’t because every moment is a unique one-off.

For sure, changing your life is as simple as tuning in. The one problem, however, is that the radio signal keeps coming and going – you’re going to have to learn to tune yourself in again and again. How about starting not start each and every day with five minutes fine-tuning?

Self Improvement – Life’s Ups And Downs – All Things Pass!

Most people struggle with things about which they can do nothing. Most people become upset or annoyed about things over which they have no control. And oh so few people take control of the one thing in life over which you have total control – if you did, it would change your life. Like puppets, we allow our mood to be jerked up or down according to the ups and downs of life.

But the downs – or even just the “not-too-bads” – that happen are what they are. These things are sent to try us and we are invariably found wanting. Like everything else in life – in fact, like everything else in the universe – all the trying times, events or people that we come across in our lives will pass. Everything arises and passes away. And, if we do encounter circumstances that we don’t like then, on the basis that they will pass, we simply need to hunker down and simply get on with it. It is what it is!

On the other hand, there are things that we can do about situations that are continuously intolerable – if your job is truly awful to the extent that no amount of mental self-discipline will enable you focus on just doing the damn thing, then you need to move on and, if you do, like everything else in life, it will have passed. If you don’t then the consequences are the result of your own inactions. If you’re stuck in an abusive relationship to the point that no amount of resilience or tolerance will help you through, move on. Again, if you don’t, your problems are now partly of your own making. If you do, for your own sake, don’t repeat the same mistakes – something that often happens – people jump from the frying pan into the fire.

But apart from ongoing chronic misery, the vast majority of downs in life are no more than minor irritations in the greater scheme of things – they will pass. In addition, the vast majority of those minor irritations are neither of our own making nor can we control them. However, if some of them are of your own making – through act or omission – then more fool you.

What of the one thing in life over which you can exercise total control? Well, everyone, no matter how bad things get, can choose their state of mind. After all – by act, or more often, omission – we’ve already chosen our state of mind. Most of us, without understanding that we have a choice, will allow our state of mind to be as variable as Irish weather – all four seasons can arrive in one day! We allow ourselves be tugged upwards when good things happen, dragged downwards when things aren’t going our way. If you fall into this category, again, more fool you. Grab a hold of your state of mind. Decide to focus your mind, to be calm, focused and present. Choose to pay attention to the reality of the here and now for, in this reality, it will become incredibly obvious that everything arises and passes away.