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You had a long day at work and came home exhausted. You got into an argument with your spouse and spent the last hour before you slept looking through your social media feed, filling yourself up with the news that did not matter. You wake up in the morning feeling overwhelmed by another busy day that you are sure will drain your energy. You grudgingly get ready, and as you are having your breakfast, you get a text reminder of the electricity bill that you forgot to pay; the amount seemed to be inordinately high to you. The drive to work takes longer, and you have a review with your boss. You know how it will go!

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Reena turned 34 last week. Her family reminded her that it was time to find a good guy and get married.
“But, where are the good guys? I am done with these mean, lecherous men,” she confided in her best friend.
“Don’t give up. I am sure there is someone who is just right for you. You will find him someday,” her friend consoled her. If I was Reena’s friend, I’d tell her that she will never find a good guy because she only wants the bad ones. No good guy would ever come near her, or even if he does, he will turn into a bad guy!

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Have you ever had these situations in your life or have you seen someone go through them? I am sure you have because the world is full of people who refuse to be happy. Napoleon Hill said in his book Think and Grow Rich, “You can be anything you want to be, if only you believe with sufficient conviction and act in accordance with your faith; for whatever the mind can conceive and believe, the mind can achieve.” Powerful lines; but they raise an even more powerful question. “What is it that you believe in? Where are you putting your faith?”

Your Beliefs Guide Your Brain

If you are sub-consciously thinking about having a bad day or a bad relationship, you will get that! Through the series of events that we encounter in our life, our brain learns what to expect next. The expected event may actually happen or not. But, because our brain expects something will happen in a certain way, we often end up getting the outcomes that we anticipate. Our belief system or the subconscious mind pattern is largely an outcome of a lifetime of conditioning.

I have often noticed that people who are unable to hold on to relationships have had troubled childhoods or similar painful experiences in the past. Over the years, they develop a belief which guides them towards relationships which do not last. With each bad experience, the belief gets strengthened, and even before they meet the next person, the subconscious mind starts sending warning signals. These signals are strong because they originate from the instinct to survive and protect yourself. Your body responds immediately to these signals, and even before something good could have begun, things collapse.

The same thing happens with people who have a terrible relationship with money. How often have we come across people who, despite having all the great ideas, resources and support, keep losing money in business? It is simply because their mind is conditioned to believe that they can never earn or save enough money and that being rich or abundant is not meant for them. They get what they expect.

People who carry the heavy baggage of limiting beliefs from their past often have a very pronounced flight or fight response. Their primary response to any new situation, even though it may hold potentials of vast happiness, is to look for survival first. Their survival belief system has become so strong over the years that they would choose anything but success or happiness as long as they can keep themselves in the state of survival, inertia and stagnancy. Have you ever seen a leader in any walk of life operating with this instinct?

How Should You Break the Habit of Being Yourself

Dr. Joe Dispenza in his book Breaking the Habit of Being Yourself mentions that the only habit that we need to break in order to have the life we truly desire is the habit of being ourselves. What does this mean? Dr. Dispenza explains that our thoughts are very powerful as they make us respond in certain ways. Our thoughts create the feelings and emotions that we feel within our body. For instance, thoughts of fear create an emotion of nervousness, and our body starts to respond—we feel dryness in our throat, and perhaps, we start to palpitate. If fear becomes our dominant thought pattern, we will end up feeling nervous and anxious far more often. Over time, being nervous or anxious would become our temperament, and eventually, it would become our personality.

I am sure you have seen people around you who are almost perpetually nervous and anxious. They have sweaty palms or short breath or a suspicious gaze, and they avoid interacting with you and other people. Such people are so deeply in control of their subconscious mind which makes them behave this way. It has become their personality.

What Thoughts Are Shaping Your Life

Ask yourself. What are your dominant thoughts? If there are certain things in your life that never work out like relationships, health or money, then what is the underlying thought pattern that is making you believe that you can never get those things? Where did it come from? When was the first time you started feeling like that? Perhaps, it was some event from your childhood that left a deep and yet unknown impact on your mind. Finally, have you allowed that thought to shape and change your personality?

As I coach or generally observe people around me, I have come to believe that one thing that stops us from being successful is our limiting subconscious thought pattern. I have worked with people who understand everything that they hear and read. They agree with the concept of building awareness and clarity in life, and the importance of taking action. Yet, when I meet them a few weeks or months later, they tell me that they have not progressed.

It is deeply frustrating for them as it is disappointing for me as their coach. But, the reason is simple. My method of teaching is based on three broad pillars – Awareness, Attraction and Action. Attraction is the concept that we are learning now. It is the bridge between awareness and action. If the bridge has poor foundations, it will eventually break. It can’t handle the positive energy that needs to travel between the points where you become aware and the point where you have to take determined action.

Failure comes swift in such cases, and with every failure, comes a deeper loss of faith in self. Dr. Joe Dispenza says that in order to get past the habit of being yourself, you have to ‘think greater than you feel’. This means that we have to stop thinking in our old, habitual way and initiate a new belief system that is in harmony with our highest purpose and vision.

How Do We Do It?

To bring about this shift in our thought pattern we must change the beliefs that remain stored in our subconscious mind. It means that we must become aware of the limiting or self-defeating thoughts that are hindering our growth. Becoming aware entails far more than just ‘knowing’ what those thoughts are. It actually means that we also become aware of how our body reacts to those thoughts, what actions do we take or do not take as a result of these limiting thoughts and what outcomes do we eventually get. As you do this deep inner inspection of your own thought pattern, you will start to recognize the futility of such self-defeating thoughts. You will also become aware of the fact that the things that you fear or doubt are often unfounded and they actually never manifest.

The next stage of starting to think greater than you feel is to make a conscious effort to replace your limiting thought pattern with more powerful thoughts. It is almost equivalent to replacing infected files in the computer with a fresh set of files. This may take time, but this is the most important work that you can ever do for your own good.

Use Meditation As a Tool to Changing Your Habits

One effective way of breaking the habit of thinking negatively is to meditate each day. In a guided meditation that I help my participants to do, we first build deep awareness of our limiting thoughts. We remind ourselves of what those thoughts do to our body. Then, we start visualizing how we really want to think and feel. When we meditate with the highest vision in our mind, we start becoming aware of the thought pattern we need to imprint in our brain. These are the supportive and empowering thoughts that are needed for the vision to turn into reality. Eventually, in the course of this meditation, we envision living our life to our highest potential. It is at this stage that we begin to reap the benefits. This is where we start to replace the corrupted or redundant files in our brain with a fresh set of files.

When done over a period of time, this meditation can be incredibly powerful. As new thoughts start replacing the old ones, we no longer feel the same way as we used to in the past, and with time, we start to develop a new personality. Dr Joe Dispenza says that our personality defines our personal reality, and that is what we must strive to do.

The post How to Change Your Limiting Subconscious Thought Pattern appeared first on Complete Wellbeing.

The golden rule they forget to highlight

The most important secret to making all of this work is: Consistency. No matter what the obstacle, it takes complete dedication and commitment to making visualisation work for you. So after you write the goal, be absolutely sure to read it every night, until the goal is achieved. It is imperative that you do not stop mid way; I cannot emphasise this enough. Without you following through every single day, the universe will not conspire to make it happen.

My first experience with visualisation

I experienced the power of visualisation firsthand, when I was working as a young executive in a large multinational company. My son who was very young at the time, was admitted to the hospital for a week as a result of some infection. There he watched a programme on TV, featuring Disneyland and made me promise him that we would go to Orlando for the summer vacations. With my meagre salary at that time, it would have been impossible for me to fulfil his dream. But I promised him and visualised every night that I am with my son in Disneyland. A few months later, out of the blue, my boss walked up to me and said I was to be deputed to USA for a while—and could take my family with me. Suddenly, my dream became a reality. That was my first brush with visualisation.

Today, I take this exercise many steps further by making the audience in my show take some random decisions on the stage. Using visualisation, I predict who will come on the stage and the exact decisions they will make. It leaves the audience spellbound to witness visualisation materialise, right in front of their eyes.

Using visualisation for weight loss

Let us take a simple example and say we want to lose 10kg in the next two months. We write that down as a goal and keep it next to our pillow. Chances are we will read it every night for a couple of nights, stand on a weighing scale, and when we don’t see any real change, we will quit—that’s exactly the mistake that leads to the failure of the exercise.

Now let’s assume a second scenario. You write down your goal to lose weight and you read it every single night—and do not stop reading it for at least a week. What happens is, over the week you slowly began to internalise that goal. You slowly begin to eat better and exercise. Soon you see the result of your effort. All this backed by the positive reminder every night that you are going to lose weight.

And voila, in time, your visualisation helps you lose weight.

Visualisation for professional growth

Visualisation can be used for anything, from the pettiest to the most lofty goal. Want your income to increase or to receive a promotion at your workplace? Write out the goal and read it every day. Internalise it and slowly you begin to work harder and more efficiently, read more about your industry, reach out to influencers to learn from their experiences and so on. And in time, you begin to see the growth you want in the world around you.

Thought into words and words into actions leads to results

So after a show, when I tell people this, they usually walk away dejected. Took me a while to realise why. In the world where everything happens in the flick of a button, we are hoping visualisation would also work that way. Change, however, takes time. You have to keep visualizing without losing faith but you also have to work towards your goal.

Also, remember to set realistic timelines. But, most importantly don’t quit half way. It is a process and it will work for you, like it has for the millions who have benefited from it over the generations.

The post Does visualisation really help attract your heart’s desires? appeared first on Complete Wellbeing.

• Introduction: Laws of Attractions vs Laws of Creation
• If you don’t create your future, fate will
• What you accept, you experience
• Testing the limits of your potential
• Creating your own reality
• Knowing what you really want is important
• The 10-step approach to creating the reality you desire
• Learning to drive your experiences
• Reinventing your reality
• Conclusion: See what you can become

Introduction: Laws of Attractions vs Laws of Creation

The Laws of Attraction are concerned with how to draw close the things that you value and wish to acquire. This is achieved by forming the image of what you want, then attracting that within your reality. If what you want doesn’t already exist, you either need to create it or wait for someone else to do so.

The Laws of Creation are not about attracting what you want, but rather creating through desires, imagination, expectation, belief, persistence and energy the things that you wish to exist within your life.

Humans throughout the ages have created everything that can be observed within today’s physical world. Inventors, explorers, artist, architects, and others have created within reality what previously didn’t exist by using their knowledge of the Laws of Creation.

If you don’t create your future, fate will

The Laws of Creation or The Laws of Attraction are both vulnerable to procrastination, weak desires, lack of perseverance and the inability to maintain focus until what is desired is achieved. Many give up because what they wanted hasn’t been obtained within the limited time-frame they imagined. This could be due to lack of programming or not persevering long enough until what they want becomes real.

As the creator of your own perceived reality, your actions, thoughts, beliefs, and your mental and physical health, all contribute towards what you finally experience and perceive. If you don’t spend the time and the energy to create the future then fate will do that for you.

When you create the future you have choices but when fate creates your future you have to accept what comes your way almost unconditionally, at least initially.

What you accept, you experience

What you are prepared to accept is what you usually end up experiencing. Making no attempt to change or manage what is occurring means that you accept that such a state has the legitimate right to exist within your reality.

Creation is not only about bringing what you want into your life but also controlling what you wish to accept or reject. When things don’t go right, when undesirable situations get legitimacy within your life experience, the sole reason for their continued existence is that you didn’t negate or change them.

Your abilities are infinite, beyond comprehension, being limited only by your potential to perceive the possibility for success. All that is necessary are the desires, belief, expectancy, focus and perseverance, together with the application of the necessary energy levels to achieve your heart’s desires.

Testing the limits of your potential

It is important to wake up to the reality that there is no necessity for anything to be difficult, and that with the right mentality, everything does indeed become possible. Don’t be a “creation” of circumstances, challenge who you can be.

Readily accepting what has become the current condition, or surrendering to fate without even considering or testing the limits of the potential that could exist is how most people live their lives—this is a completely unnecessary state to endure.

Without searching for and pushing the boundaries of reality, the full potential of what can be achieved will never truly emerge; what is currently experienced will always be the basis of your ultimate reality. Only by testing the limits of potential is it possible to maximize life’s experience to the full.

Creating your own reality

Reality is based solely upon desires that are given perspective through imagination, and then the credibility to be brought to life by your firm belief in them. You create life from the pieces of reality that you bring together like a jigsaw puzzle.

Every moment is an opportunity to create what you desire most—by clearly focusing your imagination on what you want first, then through expectancy backed by belief to make desires legitimate.

You create each moment from the massive number of thoughts that you have, either consciously or subconsciously. Some experiences come to dominate your life, while others are fleeting in their ability to have an effect, yet they all contribute on some level towards your reality. The remainder of reality is either created by others or randomly by fate.

By taking full control of your thoughts, it becomes possible to take back the management of each element of your entire life, which can then be controlled as you specifically desire—outside the influence and manipulation of others or by chance.

The path that you create or follow does become the story of your life.

Knowing what you really want is important

Many are deluded into desiring various things that are basically just passing fantasies. There is a common trend to constantly shift desires, which change depending upon a particular infatuation at the time. Very few people stop to think clearly about what they “really” want or need, then put all their energy into pursuing that vigorously.

The decisions as to what you wish to pursue in life is your right; you should pursue those desires relentlessly until they become part of your life. Challenge the future by making changes that will come to enrich your life.

The 10-step approach to creating the reality you desire

The five pillars of creation are: imagination, clearly defined desires, positive expectations, belief, and persistence. Combining these elements of thought you are able to create in reality the things that you truly desire.

Reality is born through your imagination, which is crystallized into form by your desires, given impetus by your expectations, and made real through your beliefs. You create life from the pieces of reality that you bring together like a jigsaw puzzle.

Let’s look at each step:

Step 1: The objective

An important factor is to identify clear and precise details of what exactly you want, then to hold that image with a strong desire. Focus only on one specific desire at a time.

Step 2: Imagination

Utilizing the powerful combination of intuitive thoughts linked with creative inspiration, determine “all” the various elements that make up what you want. Remember to be thorough, for whatever is left out, fate or chance will fill in randomly. These elements are the main points to focus the imagination upon. What you seek cannot be drawn to you or brought into existence until you define it clearly.

Step 3: Desire

The energy of your desires set the stage for the potential you can attain. Desires are the basis of making things possible; to bring your thoughts into reality more clearly and precisely. Strongly desire what you want to be yours; drawing it to you with a focused intent.

Step 4: Visualization

Visualize in great detail the factors making up what you desire, then focus on those images intently, keeping the desire fixed and unchanged until what you desire actually becomes yours.

In order to gain the full benefit of what you wish to obtain or achieve, it is necessary to visualize your desires as existing in the current time and place—as if it has happened or is happening here and now.

Step 5: Belief

Your beliefs give legitimacy to your desires. The key to attracting or creating anything is by believing it to be yours, living your dream and playing the part like it can, in fact, become real.

Belief is what enables you to perceive in your mind’s eye what you desire. How quickly your desires materialize will always depend upon the intensity of your beliefs and your keen perception.

Step 6: Expectancy

Your expectations govern how your life will turn out. Have a strong expectation that what you want will become real within your reality; expectancy gives your desires energy to manifest within a reasonable time period.

Step 7: Perseverance

Persistent effort is required to keep focus upon what is desired until it is actually achieved. Don’t give up. Without changing the key elements you can embellish the various elements you isolated with more detail. Then continue the focused intent on the desire until what you want is achieved.

Many find they can’t hold the desire long enough, losing focus or changing their direction continually when what they desire doesn’t materialize immediately.

Step 8: Effort

Nothing was ever achieved without effort, both physical and mental. Determine whatever you need to do in order to create what you want within reality. And be willing to do whatever it takes.

Step 9: Dreams

Fortify your desires with dream planning. Think intently about your desire and what you wish to become real within your life. Prior to sleep follow the steps of imagining exactly what you want, together with a strong focus of desire, believe the desire is achievable, and expecting that what is desired will be yours for sure. It is ideal to cycle through the imagining, desiring, believing and expecting stages a number of times.

Step 10: The Meditation

Everyone has a favorite method for achieving a meditative state, these techniques can be quite fast, or be elaborate and take time. Meditation, when used proficiently, with suitable supervision can empower the ability to create within reality. As with dreams, focus your attention during a meditative state upon imagining exactly what you want, placing a strong focus of desire on obtaining what you want or wish to achieve, believe the desire is achievable, and expect that your desire will manifest without fail.

Learning to drive your experiences

Belief in the outcome is the fuel that drives reality

I took part in a speech contest against a number of professionals who were far better and experienced speakers than I was at the time. A few days before the event, I started imagining taking part in the contest, focusing in detail that everything would go perfectly. I imagined actually winning the contest, and visualized receiving the award. I won against all odds, surprising others and beating the favorite who had won many years in succession.

If you don’t decide exactly what you want fate will step in to rule your life

There was a man who desired a red sports car. Every day he imagined this car parked in his driveway, diligently. One morning he opened the living room curtains to find a red sports car in his driveway as if by magic. Rushing outside he met his neighbor who was very apologetic for parking his new car in the wrong driveway as there was no space in his own.

On analysis the man had gotten exactly what he wanted, simply a red sports car in his driveway. He had forgotten to add into the imagining the desire, the belief, the expectancy, that it was paid for, but most importantly that the car would belong solely to him.

Reinventing your reality

It is the combination of imagining every detail with a strong unending focus of desire, together with the belief that what you want is already yours—not will be or maybe—but already is yours; this is what will make your desires manifest within your reality more easily.

You have the sole responsibility for what happens to you in life, and are limited only by the unwillingness to take action.

Conclusion: See what you can become

The future will either be what you want, what others want, or what fate throws your way. Only by fixing your destiny clearly in your mind will you be able to achieve your dreams and life desires. Life will only give you what you demand, and then pursue.

The cost of anything is what you are prepared to do in order to achieve it. Don’t be a creation of circumstances, challenge who you can become. Open your mind to the infinite possibilities that exist for you by harnessing the powers of creation within you to make a life you truly deserve.

Don’t be so wound up in who you are that you fail to see what you can become.

The post The 10-step approach to creating the reality you desire appeared first on Complete Wellbeing.

There is a joke about a man who dreamed day and night about winning the lottery. At first he used to pray to God but it didn’t work. Then he learned about the law of attraction and he started visualising, affirming and imagining—so much that eventually the Angels felt sorry for him and approached the almighty with a request: “Lord, please let this man win the lottery, he’s doing our head in with his non-stop praying, we can’t take it anymore.” “And you think I don’t want to?” replied God, “He’s driving me crazy with all his affirmations—but someone please tell him that to win, he first needs to buy a lottery ticket!”

This is one of the many ways the law of attraction [LoA] was misconstrued. It painted the universe as a giant vending machine that will send you whatever you desire; all you need to do is insert the appropriate ‘tokens’ in the form of gratitude, affirmations and visualisations. Millions of people fell for this trap and thought that they had finally found the magic wand that will alleviate all their problems. But they also sensed that it seemed too good to be true. Not unexpectedly, disillusionment and cynicism followed.

If you google the phrase today, you will find a number of articles and posts rubbishing it as some unscientific, unverifiable mumbo jumbo. But there are still thousands who believe in the phenomenon, claiming that it has changed their lives for the better. So what exactly is the truth behind LoA? Is it really a big hoax or has it simply been misunderstood?

In this month’s cover story I have tried to answer this question. While writing it, I have resisted the temptation of glorifying LoA. Instead, what I present is the most plausible explanation of why and how it actually works in real life. I have learnt that experience triumphs over theory. My own experience supports the key premise of LoA: our thoughts create our reality. But, as you will observe when you read this month’s story, I don’t depend on some mystical explanation to build my case; nor do I use proletarian science. I prefer simple logic—and that is why I think the paradigm I offer is watertight. I have tried to take both the sceptics and the believers along with me—especially while introducing the missing link, without which LoA is unusable. I hope I have succeeded in my attempt.

I now invite you to read the story and reflect upon it; then write back to me with your views—even if they are critical. I also urge you to share your experiences with the law of attraction, if any.

Read the full story here.

The post October 2014 issue: Law of attraction—not just a token of gratitude appeared first on Complete Wellbeing.