Re-blogged from www.stressmanagementnaturally.com

I would like to talk today about the power of our mind not as us to be able to make wondrous scientific discoveries or medical achievements, but our mind as a part of us, a gift which was given to us to use wisely.

Captain and the crew

There are two parts to it – conscious and subconscious mind. We think that conscious mind is mainly used by us and subconscious mind is somewhere there as an insignificant part playing a minor role. But it is an opposite; conscious mind is about 7-10% and the rest of it is subconscious mind suppressed and pushed into insignificance. Or so we think.

A lot of times we want to achieve something and we decide: “I am going to do it.” And we try our best, but we are not loosing weight, quitting smoking, feeling better, or finishing a big project. Why is that? Our mind is like a ship – the conscious mind is a captain and the subconscious mind is a crew. To achieve our goal or reach our dream, the captain has to work in harmony with the crew. It is a team work. Can you imagine what will happen if the captain will give an order and the crew disagree? There is a mutiny and the ship goes nowhere.

The same situation is when we want to quit smoking after doctor mentioned to us how unhealthy it is or our girlfriend or boyfriend can run faster and longer distance without struggling for breath.  But also at the same time, somewhere there, in the back of our mind sits a desire of belonging to a “smoking pit” group, of an atmosphere of almost friendship. And it is a recipe for a failure.

Another example of the mutiny on the ship is when the doctor tells us that everything is good now; that the treatment is finished and now we just need to recuperate. But the time passes and we do not feel better, we do not feel improvement of our health, even maybe pain didn’t diminish. And there is a tiny voice in the back of our mind which tells us that if we will be in perfect health, nobody will care what is happening to us and we will be left alone, forgotten.

Seeds of doubt

Did you ever have a situation when somebody said to you: “Are you OK? You do not look your best” And you went to the bathroom to look in the mirror carefully examining your face, colour of your skin, what you can see in your eyes. At some point you could almost feel that there is something going on and you wonder “What is it?” And suddenly you don’t feel so great.

The seed of doubt was planted in your mind. “What did they see? Maybe I didn’t get enough sleep or maybe there is really something wrong with me?” And perhaps in few days the headache starts and you remember the comment about your looks. And you listen more carefully what your body is trying to tell you.

Or when you were a little child you loved to sing with a freedom and abandonment, not even thinking and caring if you are doing a great job or not. It was a joyful manifestation of being alive.

And maybe one day when you were at school, you were asked to sing a song during the music class. Your voice didn’t cooperate and your throat was closing tight from the fright of performing in front of the crowd. And your classmates laughed at you when you tried to sing in front of them and the teacher laughed too … And from that moment on, you strongly believed that you are not able to hit a note properly and you stopped singing whatsoever.

It is very interesting how easily we accept negative suggestions.

When somebody will tell us that we are worthless, ugly, not enough, we have a tendency to believe in it faster than if somebody will praise us for our knowledge or wisdom, commenting how smart or beautiful we are.

Everything is energy

Lately you can hear that quantum physics scientists say that everything is energy.  Following this statement we can assume that our thoughts, physical objects, and words are also energy.

Maybe you remember how often you heard “Do not harm another by thought, speech, or deed” …

We have to be very careful how we use words as they can be used as a weapon when we are angry or they can influence somebody’s happiness.

Do you remember how painful a verbal attack can be? Did you experience a physical pain in your stomach or heart almost like you were hit with a stone or kicked? Did you see in somebody’s eyes a great anger, bordering with hatred and you new what that person was thinking and you felt a discomfort or even pain?

Do you remember, especially when you were a child when your parent or somebody you admired praised you for your achievements? The warm feeling of happiness, your heart brimming with it; you could almost feel the wings on which you could fly. Or maybe pride of your accomplishment. Your chest swelling with it. That positive energy was making you believe at that moment that everything is possible.

Mind over matter

You can easily experience on yourself how your mind can influence your body reaction. Close your eyes and think about lemon; picture it in your mind, the smell, colour, texture. Now imagine that you cut it in half and you are squeezing its juice on your tongue. Think about its taste; the sourness mixed with smell of it. What is happening to your mouth? Is it watering? Maybe you can feel a contraction of your salivary glands? What else?

Years ago on the news there was an appeal to the public from a young mother diagnosed with an aggressive cancer. She was asking for help to find some decent couple to take care of her little children when she will die. And at the time when she was supposed to be dead, the cancer vanished and she was healed. Some people said that it was a miracle and for others it was a proof of power of the mind over matter. For me it is both.

Do not think “Pink elephant”

But if it will be so easy to just wish to live; to have a strong desire to be healthy there will be no terrible diseases or sickness and clinics will be empty.

There is a funny thing with our mind that if somebody tells us: “Do not think about pink elephant” first what we do is to think about pink elephant and only after that we can think about something else.  Our subconscious mind does not recognize word “not”. To be able to think about something else than forbidden image, we have to think about it, recognize that it has to be something else and in the next step we think about different image.

This way if we focus on thinking: “I do not want to be sick, I don’t want to be in pain” our subconscious mind hears something else.

Universal Law of Attraction

It is also a little bit more complicated than this. If we focus our thoughts, our energy on some specific subject we trigger the mechanism of a universal Law of Attraction which can help or hinder us in achieving our goal depending how well we understand it.  For example if we want to improve our financial situation and we worry about lack of money our main focus is on the lack not abundance. And we will attract more lack. To trigger improvement we have to be able to focus on abundance, thinking positive thoughts, imagining prosperous future. And not everybody can easily do it, especially if there is no money to pay rent or mortgage.

Our thoughts are energy and depend where we focus our attention we will create a desirable or undesirable reality for ourselves. And we have to remember that our reality is created by our mind. Everybody experiences the same situation through their reality and thanks to this each of us sees the world differently.

Your vision will become clear only when you look into your heart. Who looks outside, dreams. Who looks inside, awakens ~Carl Jung