I’m sure you have noticed attributes of another person to be appealing or admirable. This is normal, and can be used to your advantage if you understand why and what you can do with this awareness. Using the characteristics of others can help you to build these up in yourself. This method is called modeling.

You can use the desirable attributes you notice in others as a model to begin thinking and feeling how they can be in you. Actually, the reason you notice and admire specific characteristics in others is because you already have them yourself, they are just subdued. You noticed them in others because these characteristics in you want to be more fully expressed.

Modeling is a powerful way to heighten attributes within you that you want to be more dominant in your daily life. There is a powerful natural human characteristic that you can use to do this. Your mental state and your physiology are linked. You probably know that what you think and feel is transferred and expressed in your body and actions.

What you may not be aware of is that the opposite is true as well. Your thoughts and feelings will respond to your physiology. So, the power in this is that when you see the body posture and behavior of someone exhibiting a trait you admire, you can mimic them and get your mind to respond with like feelings. This has been clearly demonstrated in both the fields of sports and psychology.

So, for instance you admire what appears to be confident behavior in someone, use that as a model. You can at first imagine yourself acting as they do. How are they standing, holding themselves, and projecting themselves? How are they communicating - the tone and inflection of their voice? What feelings do you notice while watching them? And this can be done not only when you are actually watching them, but also in your mind as you think about them and see them in your mind.

Think about the people you have admired some attribute of, and make a list of them. You can categorize them by characteristics. This way you can group similar people together to better help you relate to the attribute you want to heighten.

Like anything new this may take some practice, as you apply some time to doing this. As noticing how you feel when doing it and gradually being able to get yourself to feel your mind and body associating with the trait, you will be applying more energy to aligning and empowering this in yourself. NLP and other disciplines have some techniques for aiding with this process which you may want to look into.

You are capable of doing this on your own, but for most it is not something we are accustomed to doing, so tools and techniques can help us do so. It can be helpful to have a method to help us do something new to use because the mind can tend to resist our efforts just to keep things the way they are. Discomfort is one of the main reasons we discontinue anything new before it’s taken hold in our behavior pattern. 

Just start, and don’t give in to the, “I can’t do this” or “I don’t know how to do this” chatter you may get in your mind. That’s all just your ego mind resisting change. Don’t fight it, rather choose to step through it, you can!

It’s so easy to identify what you don’t like or want, we all do this very well. But there is trouble in dwelling on it. Everything in our reality is energy, including our thought, so where it is focused is important. Our thoughts and feelings are the steering mechanism for our energy. When we focus on what we don’t want, we are giving it our energy.

In recent years science has been proving this age old wisdom that everything is energy vibrating at different rates. This is everything, from solid rock, to flesh and bone, to our thoughts. This is how a plant can be registered as responding in a way that could be described as fear when a person in another location thinks about doing specific harm to the plant. All of the energy we are all a part of is interconnected.

Our thoughts are like seeds, there are predictable results based on the energy focus. The intention of an onion seed is to express as an onion plant, the onion cannot change this energy focus. The Universal Spirit ( whatever term you use for the intelligence and power that we are a part of, commonly God.) responds by fulfilling the ‘request’ of the seed, as intended.

We, on the other hand create seeds with our thoughts, which can be changed. Our thought seeds are acted upon in the very same way by Universal Spirit. What we think and feel is a request for something which is fulfilled. We may not be able to see this directly in many cases in our lives because we are not usually clear about what we are requesting. Spirit puts the pieces together and provides an appropriate response or outcome.

When we harbor the negative thoughts and feelings about something that someone did that we dislike, we are actually perpetuating this. Have you ever noticed how a person acts that is stuck on how awful it was that something happened to them. Through their actions, many times they are acting out being a victim, or they may have some kind of retaliatory attitudes and behaviors.

When you feel bad about something, I’m sure you have noticed how it affects your attitude and behavior. One very common way that we perpetuate things is by continuing to talk about them. Griping, complaining, expressing resentment, cutting down the ‘responsible’ party or group are all just the extension of the original occurrence.

So, this makes it sound like we are doomed to be stuck in a continuous mire of expanding negativity and unwanted experiences in our lives, but that is not the case. It is actually very important to notice what you don’t like, not for the purpose of carrying on with it, but as a way leading to noticing what you do like. In fact you should recognize and accept something undesirable as what is, trying to ignore it can also just perpetuate it.

Once noticed we should release our focus on it and bring our attention to our true spiritual self which is calm and of good feeling. This is the point where what you want, that is different, is energized. You may not be consciously aware of the exact details. Now you can develop specific thoughts about what you want, which then is what you should be focusing on.

Now this doesn’t mean that the only way to get to what you want is that you must experience something unwanted, but it is one common way. We can see what we want in what others have experiences, or in ideas on how something can just be even better than it is. But, generally it requires a point of notice, I’ll call it, where we become aware of something.

The pivotal point is in accepting what is, becoming at one with your true self and noticing what you do want. Then, keeping your thoughts away from the dislike and more on to your true self and what you do want, is important to guide your energy more to the experiences you would like. I know how it is so easy to continue to dwell on something, but if in this very moment you can’t do anything about it, you don’t need to be thinking about it.

Think of the seed analogy, and that every thought and feeling you have is a request to Spirit, God. Now, what do you want to think about? If you treat your thoughts as if they are seeds, just like a physical plant seed, you can come to realize their affect on your life. They are acted upon just as any seed is, it gets what it says it wants.

In fact, by dwelling on something undesirable and allowing your fear, doubt and worry thoughts to become most prevalent, you are closing off your connection to Spirit. Negative thoughts actually cause your brain to shut off the intuitive, creative, receptive faculties, it puts you into ‘fight or flight’ mode.   So you are less likely to get an inspired idea on how to best deal with an ongoing undesirable situation.

Our power is in our command of our thoughts and feelings, which is why paying attention to your thoughts is so important. Setting aside time each day to consciously analyze your thinking and how you feel allows you to discover more about yourself and allows you to then notice how you ‘do’ want to think. Just as you can notice how you would like society to be different in some way, you can notice what you would rather experience in your life, then how your thoughts can be more in alignment with this.

Noticing what you don’t want is the impetus to change. Your feelings about something are meant as a signal to you to notice it, but not to continue to experience long term. It’s like a fire alarm, it’s no longer needed once you know there is a fire. Harboring negative or low level emotions is very destructive to you mentally, spiritually and physically, choose to step away from then as soon as you can. Replace them with a higher level emotional feeling as much as possible.

There is nothing more exciting than being in a life that is going and blowing! I think that term, ‘going and blowing’ is an old railroad analogy, it describes a locomotive that is racing down the tracks full speed with a steady stream of smoke blowing out of the stack. We can use this to relate to living a life of constant self-discovery, personal growth and development.

Now I’m not implying that you should be pushing yourself all the time. There is a big difference between moving forward consistently and confidently, and in being in a hurry, rushing around. Rushing is when you are late for work or are trying to cram too many things into a short time frame, this is not freedom! This kind of behavior comes from a lack mentality, usually including the feeling of not enough time, among others.

When you are in a mode of consistent self-discovery and growth you get very excited with what is going on. You see new possibilities for yourself on a regular basis, which lead to more and more. You feel more and more freedom, the feeling of really being alive and unrestricted.

Even discovering what in your thinking has been responsible for an undesirable condition or behavior is exciting as this opens up your understanding and what you can do about it. You will see first hand how life works, what your role is and how you can best participate. You find out more of what you are capable of, which opens even more possibilities.

Your confidence rises substantially as you take command of your thinking, as well as responsibility for it. Your vision expands greatly as your faith in both your abilities and the possibilities available to you grows. Your ability to just accept your current situation along with taking responsibility for it becomes easier and easier. You see how change is more about choices and faith than about current conditions or past experiences.

You become more open to the new and different, and less attached to your existing beliefs and perceptions. You become comfortable with change as that is really life, always evolving. You stop trying to create a perfect, set, predictable life situation for yourself, as that is just fighting the natural flow of life.

You learn to know the difference between guided and inspired thought and the ego based protection thoughts. You take purposeful action based on the correct thoughts knowing that this is what you ought to do in order to have the experience meet with the idea, your role in the law of attraction.

Human history has shown that all this does not happen very often accidentally, although it does. But if you make it your intention to live your life in constant growth, you will. It is really an every day activity that you will have to develop into. Your days are already full, right. You will want to gradually make room for YOU time to do something related to your self-discovery and growth, and you will see that it will expand into everything that you do.

One thing that can help is to get a picture and even the feeling of what you want, because you will actually want to think, feel and act like the person doing and having what you want, in this case a lifestyle of consistent growth and development. Back to the train analogy, we can elaborate on this picture of the train going down the tracks and how it can relate to our life. It can be useful to have mental pictures that you can relate to as a way to further engage your thinking and enhance your feelings.

• It’s steadily moving forward.
• The scenery is always changing.
• It’s moving confidently, it knows where it’s going.
• It’s being guided on it’s way.
• Moving is what it was created for.
• It’s getting something done.
• It’s involved with people, things and places.
• It has purpose, taking purposeful action.

And maybe there are more aspects we can relate to, what do you think of when visualizing a fast moving train?

You will find that in choosing constant growth rather than trying to create a ‘perfect’ life, life is much more comfortable and satisfying. You will be less likely to be rushing around and more likely to be calm mentally and physically, getting more done - of what you want and enjoy.

Everything that you do is an outflow of energy which effects whatever you are part of. And, you are part of the universe we all live in. You may be aware that your attitude and actions effects the people you are around, but actually it effects everything. Your thoughts, feelings and actions are all energies that contribute to the collective energy that radiates throughout the world. Carl Jung coined the term, “collective unconscious” which refers to the totality of all shared experiences of the human race. He was certainly not the first to talk about this vast database of human awareness that not only makes up all that has been, but of all that could be. We are all contributing to it and are all influenced by it.

On top of all that, there is something else that is effected, you, the individual. Whatever thoughts, beliefs and perceptions you have will be supported and expanded by your mind, that’s just part of it’s job the same as it keeps your heart beating without your constant attention. Everything you think and do is reenforcing a belief of some sort, helping you to continue to do the same with less and less conscious thought.

So, are your thoughts and actions really supporting what you say are your principles, what you want to stand for? Or are you acting and reacting based on thought programming you have not considered to question? If you say that we should be treating all people equally, are you? Maybe you are most of the time, but what about those certain people or situations? We all have advice for other people on what they can do to make the world a better place, when we can’t actually change anyone, except ourselves. As you change and align your thinking and actions with the ideals you desire, it effects everyone in a positive way not just by direct contact but through the collective unconscious.

What you are thinking and doing is contributing to the overall consciousness of your family, your community, your country, the world. In recent years science has proven what the great spiritual leaders have espoused for centuries, we are all part of the collective unconscious which is energy constantly interacting and changing form. Many of the beliefs you now have were passed on to you through the consciousness of the people around you, your parents, relatives, close groups and community. And you are unknowingly perpetuating these same beliefs.

In order to change this constant repeating of the same beliefs and related actions one must choose to take command of their thinking. David R. Hawkins, in ‘Power vs Force’ states that the first major step to raising our consciousness is in accepting personal responsibility. And our responsibility starts with our thinking. Our ultimate power lies in our command of our thinking. We can consciously question our thoughts, our beliefs, our perceptions and our actions and determine which ones presently support what we want. We can release or alter thoughts that were put into place years ago so that we are more congruent with the direction we want to be going with our life today.

As we upgrade our thinking we are not only helping ourselves, but also everyone around us and the world as our energy becomes part of the collective unconscious. How we effect the world is part of our responsibility, we are the only ones who can do anything about it.

                                                                                              
What do you want to be today?    

Happy, joyful and pleasant, OR unhappy, miserable and crabby?

Will you expect good or will be expecting something to go wrong?              

 Will you feel confident in yourself or afraid you aren’t good enough?

 You get the idea here. The thing is, you can actually decide which way you will be. All of your attitudes and feelings are the result of a definition. Your definition of yourself. The key is, this is not set in stone - it is set in your mind. And you can change it. You can choose a new and different self definition if the one you are now holding does not fully support the life that you want.

Of course, you did not sit down one day and lay out your self definition . . but you can! What you think of yourself has developed gradually over the years with much of it being a result of interpretations you made about experiences you were involved in. Now you were not likely consciously aware of these interpretations either, most of them were done based on other past experiences a well. All of these interpretations build upon themselves and without realizing it you just believe it all as just being the way you are.

You can actually change they way you interpret things, as well as the way you see yourself. Your unconscious mind, which is where all the automatic thinking and reactions come from is really serving what it knows that you want. And at some point, you instructed the unconscious mind what you wanted. And it’s function is to serve you. Your unconscious mind acts on your behalf all the time, after all it keeps your body functioning without you having to pay it any attention. 

But there is a key fact with all of this. Your unconscious mind is not in charge - your conscious mind is. It may appear the other way around because so much seems to happen so automatically. The only way your unconscious mind knows what to do is from an order from the conscious mind. And your unconscious mind is very loyal and obedient. What you may have told it 25 years ago, it is still following as law. Your conscious mind is in charge. You can issue new commands to your unconscious obedient mind when you choose. The only catch is - that you must first know that you can. Well, now you know.

Now you can pay attention to what is happening automatically with your thought, your attitude, your perceptions - everything can be changed. You can decide which of these automatic functions serves you well in the way you want your life to be. You can rewrite the script for these thoughts and behaviors. Just because you have had a certain demeanor does not mean you are stuck with it. How do you want to carry yourself all day long? Your attitude? Your reactions? Your tone of voice with others? How you see everything?

Once you begin to notice characteristics about yourself, you can see which ones you like and which ones not so much fit your ideal way. Then, you can choose how you would rather heave it be. You can choose to be pleasant, happy, trusting, confident and more. And at the beginning of the day is a fine time to set things straight. In the morning, right after awaking from sleep, you can tell yourself what you will be like today. You can preset your disposition and your attitude. And know this will affect everything you do and experience. In this universe we are in, like attracts like - it’s a law.

You can declare, “I AM calm” “I am at peace.” “I am happy.” “I am confident.” “I am good with change.” “I am highly capable.” Now this may take a little while to take effect. It’s possible to change right away, but your unconscious programming may need a little coaxing to drop something it has operated with for many years. It will tend to fall back to the old ways in the beginning. But you, being in charge consciously, have the power to outlast your unconscious mind as long as you stay alert and diligent. I won’t say it’s not easy to fall back, it is, but you are stronger than your unconscious programming - you are in charge, consciously.

So, in the morning, set yourself up to be more like you want. Choose to be happy and joyous, and to treat people well - including yourself! Use affirmative statements repeatedly essentially to convince your unconscious of what you want, it will get the message and make the changes. Set the tone for yourself, and your day. You will be amazed at how much better things seem to go.

It’s your life, your mind - so take command, and choose.

John

Many people involved with self improvement and personal growth give affirmations a thumbs down,      actually saying they are worthless, but there are also many who give them the status of being the absolute key to success. So how do you look at something that is described as being at total opposite ends of the spectrum, from magic elixir of change to a useless waste of time?

I would like to inject some clarification into the topic of the usefulness of using affirmations in your self improvement efforts to change and further expand your life. The topic of affirmations is no different than any concept, there are two end of the spectrum which can be looked at. What I have found with most things there is a fine line in the middle between the two end which is where the value and power is found. And certainly with affirmations one can look at them from a perspective too far one way or the other.
  (more…)

It is commonly stated that knowledge is power – well not exactly. Unless what you are looking for is a pat on the back for what you know, great, but by itself will not get you much more.

There is potential for power in having knowledge, but the mere possession of it does not cause any power packed action to take place. That’s our job, to take specific action based on the knowledge – this is where the power is! It’s not what you know that has power, but what you do with it. (more…)

With what is going on right now with the financial industry, housing, the stock market and the economy anxiety levels are running high. The more things appear uncertain, the more we can imagine ways they can be even worse, humans are creative creatures. And it seems we can imagine the negative quite easily. As we create more undesirable possibilities I our mind we have more to be fearful about.

This can snowball out of control when we collect our worries from several different areas at once, it can be overwhelming. We can feel totally out of control, which can bring on more anxiety by itself, bringing about emotional overload. When this happens we can cease to function in our normal way, giving the vast majority of our attention to all the worries and fears. Your behavior will change, to be more in following your thoughts and feelings. You will find yourself complaining a lot and not able to focus on accomplishing tasks which will increase your anxiety too.

We become consumed with it. As our thoughts are more focused on these fears, then on the anxiety itself, then on worry about being fearful and anxious it becomes a spiral you can’t overpower. You can feel like a beach ball caught in a hurricane being whirled around with no control. When you actually feel you have little to no control apathy can set in, which also will increase the anxiety.

So, you can see, this worry thing can become all encompassing if you allow it. And this is the key, if you allow it? Here’s the thing, any of the situations that you point to as the basis of your fears do not come with these feelings. In fact they come with no feelings at all, that is your doing. This is hard for many to accept but it’s true. Even when someone treats you badly, how you feel about it is all of your doing.

Yes, there are some very common reactions and feelings that you can have, but ultimately you have command over these. They are brought up from your unconscious programming automatically on cue, with out your conscious permission. Much of the reason you have these common reactions is that you tend to easily buy onto concepts and how to feel about when you see this exhibited by many others. You don’t realize how much of your inner programming was developed through modeling others. These common reactions and feelings are passed on by the masses without knowledge. 

However, you don’t need to keep them in place. You can choose to have any reaction you want to something. So, back to your reactions to the fear, worry over the state of things in the economy, you don’t need to continue with them as you have. You can reduce or even eliminate them, thus the anxiety level drops as well. 

The tough part is that right now it is much easier to fall prey to the negative news and your existing reactions than it is to take command of your thought and consciously consider other ways look at the situation and new interpretations that don’t include so much fear. 

I would suggest not listening and reading current news as much as possible, stop allowing yourself to be continuously ‘prodded with a hot poker’ antagonizing your fears. The more news you get, the more this is reinforced. If you are directly involved in one of the problem areas, be concerned based on facts and look at what you can actually do about it, then take action. But just to worry is self destructive because it is based on fiction, choose not to get wrapped up in. And choose to not let yourself worry about anything you can’t do anything about.

Many try to find ways to eliminate anxiety without much success because you must actually look to changing what the anxiety builds on, in this case self chosen fears and related thoughts and feelings. All of these things going on, that you can’t personally do anything about, will evolve as they will with or without your feelings about them. Well, if anything, you will be mentally supporting them with your fear thoughts and even physically supporting them if your behavior follows suit. For example, if you get so fearful that you stop spending money as you normally do when there is no actual reason preventing it, you will be contributing to the economic slowdown. You surely don’t want to do that if you can help it.

Take mental and physical action:

• Choose to take command of your thinking and analyze the situation.

• Is your involvement in the situation causing your thoughts and feelings about it, or is it your fears about what could happen?

• What are your perceptions of the situations, and how can they be changed to bring about different reactions?

• What are your reactions, and must they be this way? How else can you react that would allow you to feel better?

• Is there an actual personal involvement that you should be dealing with rationally, or are your actions being motivated by fear?

• Choose to stay away from the constant bombardment of the news which just highlights the negative.

• What can you do purposefully to keep yourself positive, upbeat and productive? Look for the good and create it.

 The more you seek out why you think and feel as you do, the more you will understand, the more you can do something about it. When you change the way you look at these things, the way you see them will change, the way you react will change, the way you feel will change, the way you act will change and it’s all based on choice.

Make the choice to take command of your thinking, change it and the anxiety will dissipate.

Are you focusing your time and attention to the right things? Are you placing importance on the right thoughts, feelings and behaviors?

 Did you know that for most people, much of what they do in life was not consciously chosen by them? And many times we have done these things for so long they now do seem important to us, but deep down they really are not. At least not as important as what truly is deeply important. This is because doing so requires us to take command of our thinking and analyze the state of our life. But letting our minds just run things is easier, efficient and more comfortable. Most people have not taken the time to discover what is truly important to them, life just kind of goes along with many seemingly important activities going on all the time. Your brain will ‘take care’ of you in it’s own way and understanding this is very helpful if you want any kind of change in your life.

 When you put your attention to something you will see and experience more of it, you will think about it more and even expound on it. Have you ever become interested in a certain model of car from reading and pictures, and then in the next few days you all of a sudden see lots of them on the road as you are driving around, and you hadn’t really noticed many before? Now that you have placed some of your attention, and maybe with some heightened emotional feeling, into the car you want your mind will help you experience more of the same. Your mind is just doing it’s job, to help keep you as comfortable as possible, and make your life easier with patterns, habits and easily repeated behaviors.

 When you understand the way your brain works you can better work with it to get and experience what you want. In this case, it is valuable to be aware of what your mind will tend to do automatically so that you understand that you must be purposefully proactive with your thought and attention. Your mind gets programmed through repetition to see and pay attention to what you have already paid attention to. So if you don’t consciously otherwise direct your thinking, your mind will normally keep replaying the same things you have already done and have experience with. This is makes life easier, you don’t have to ‘think’ about a lot of things.

 This is why we can feel as though our life has just been going on by itself, because it is. Until you step in, taking command of your thought, and direct your thinking – it will remain as it was. Well actually not exactly the same, your mind will continue to help you expand and develop on the theme – good or bad! In addition, whatever your mind focuses on becomes more important to you. This importance does not differentiate between good or bad.

 When you place your attention on anything, this is a command to your brain telling it what you want. So, your brain works to fulfill this. Now this can be anything, even what you don’t want, or a bad experience, or a fear – anything you have focused conscious attention on your brain will help you experience more of it. This is one reason why habits are so hard to break, you keep falling into routines and have the same reactions and feelings over and over.

 What can be done about this? Your brain is performing as intended but you are stuck repeating many experiences you would rather not have anymore or you want something new and different. You need to consciously take command of your thinking and override the automatic aspects of your brain. This is where your true power resides, in your conscious command of your thoughts. Just because your brain throws out thought and defense of it does not mean you must follow this – your conscious thought is ultimately in control. It may not seem this way because you have become accustomed to allowing the brain to keep things going automatically, but you can step in and take command anytime you choose.

 You may not even know your deepest desires even though they have likely popped up once in a while. You will need to take some time and give attention to discovering what is deeply most important to you, it may not be what you have thought is important. There are different ways to go about this, with most consisting of quieting your chattering mind talk and learning to be receptive to inner information coming up to the conscious level. Doing things like asking yourself questions about yourself and becoming receptive to answers may not be something you are accustomed to doing, so it may take time, patience and persistence realizing that you are really in charge of your thinking. Even adding this kind of activity into your day means that you will need to make time by replacing something already present.

 There are a few factors to be aware of that can hamper your progress:

•  Realize that new and different are not usually the easiest, most comfortable routes. Understand that your brain will certainly let you know this.

• You will need to exert more authority than the automatic thoughts your brain wants to continue with. Exert your true power here, take conscious command of your thought.

• Your brain will attempt to defend the repeating thoughts, throwing out ‘mind chatter’ to dissuade you from your new thinking and actions.

• There is more short term comfort in what you already know, even if it is very bad for you. Keep your vision on the long term intention and satisfaction, as a way to get by the desire for feeling good now.

• You must remain persistent, more persistent than the brains need to protect what you are trying to displace. Utilize whatever tools and techniques you can to help yourself stay on track. Persistence reveals the winner!

 When you begin to see what is truly most important, you will then want to start to change what you focus some of your time and attention to. In order for the new desired experience to come to fruition you will need to continuously give it attention and time in your day. It is like a seed that needs to be nurtured. As you do this your brain will help expound on this and gradually have it become part of the automatic norm for your life just as it has with what you experience now.

 Remaining in focus with what you have now or with what you don’t want will only tell your brain to perpetuate it. The first and necessary step for anything to change is your taking command of your thought and choosing what you do want based on what is important to you, then focus on it even if your brain throws up resistance. It’s up to you to choose your priorities and tell your brain what you want to focus on, not the other way around. Your brain will follow your lead once you’ve established your athority over your thinking. Take charge of your life, utilize your true power, choose your thought and your priorities. 

Your life is going on and on and on. This is a good thing of course and your brain is designed to keep it this way. Part of your brains function is to simplify as much as possible and to help you feel good which it is very good at. Now you may think that you are always feeling as good as you want this is because your brain sees keeping things the same as more comforting than change. So even what may not be good for you is perpetuated. Your brain is very good at keeping everything the same, in fact it helps to enhance whatever has already been experienced. The way the brain sees this is, you must want it – you chose it, even if not consciously.

The easiest course for your life is for more of the same and that is likely what you have been experiencing. This of course may be all good if you are totally satisfied with everything. But if you want anything about your life to be different, that’s not what your brain is in charge of. When your day is completely full of what you already think, feel and do where does the new come in? When your unconscious and conscious though are consumed with what is now going on, which I assure you they are, all of your attention is there as well. Your day to day life is essentially a habit that continues to feed and support itself, keeping you locked in as it is.

What happens is that you can become blind to other things, that are different. How this affects your life is this – You can become so involved with your repeating thoughts which increase in importance by default that you are not even aware of what you are not doing, what you are missing, and what is deeply important to you. I ran across a video that illustrates this. Pay attention to the guy speaking and do what he instructs you to do. Perception

This attention blindness keeps us doing what we have done and away from what is different and unrelated. You’ve heard the saying, “you can’t see the forest through the trees.” You may not see things that are right in front of you because your attention is already taken up with something. When focusing on the trees that are right in front of you, you are not able to see the scope of the entire forest and it’s varied landscapes.

Many of the things that you have grown to think are important because of your continual involvement, may not be so important to you at a deeper level. As you focus your attention on something it’s importance increases just from the increased presence of the involved thoughts and actions. With this higher level of importance your brain gives it more attention too making it even more prominent in your conscious and unconscious thought, thus many other things are completely shut out of your awareness.

It is important to know that you can really only focus on one thing at a time. When you are ‘multi-tasking’ you are actually jumping quickly back and forth from one thing to another. There is only so much of this that your brain is capable of doing. Plus, there is the time utilized factor. There are 24 hours in a day and when you have allowed the repetitive thoughts to inhabit those hours you are awake, there is no more time for other, new thoughts. You can easily use up your day pretty much thinking about the same things as you did yesterday and the day before. So where does new thinking fit it?

Essentially your life is easily consumed with what you have already experienced, have thought about a lot and have established feelings for. This is almost too simple. Allowing your daily life to continue on in the same way, as your brain helps you do, you are actually preventing yourself from seeing and experiencing anything new and different.

You do however have the ability and the right to make changes in your life anytime you want, you must choose to first and then follow through with persistence and determination to override what is already established in your mind. Your real power as a human lies with your ultimate command of your thought. Just because your brain functions the way it does does not prevent you from aver changing any of it. Where the problem lies is that most of us have a pattern of allowing our minds to perpetuate the same thoughts and experiences over and over rather than making frequent changes. Making frequent changes and adjustments to your thinking can become part of your normal operating system once do do it for a while. Your brain will support this just as it has supported anything else you have focused on.

To change any of your repeating life experience you will need to assert your command of your thought and make choices about what you do and don’t want to be your life experience. Just be aware of how your brain works, it wants to keep you comfortable by keeping things as they are.

 As you work on change you may experience some of the following:

•  Un-supportive ‘Mind Chatter’,

• Negative thoughts,

• Doubt and worry,

• Challenging your ability and self-esteem,

• Brain fog, clouding your thought,

• Anxiety,

• Distraction,

• Short term gratification,

• and more.

Don’t let this stop you, you don’t need to remain blinded by your existing life experience. Realizing what may occur up front you will be less likely to be influenced by it. Determination, persistence and the belief that you are fully capable will help you learn to make the wanted adjustments to your thought and what you focus on. It’s your mind, use it to your benefit.