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Have you ever noticed how easy it is to get stuck in a mode of complaining about things even though that’s not you conscious intention? Why is this, even when we basically don’t want to be doing it? In personal growth work, understanding your thinking can be a great help with managing what you may think you are stuck with and not have any control of.
What I’m talking about comes out in a glaring way at times when we are in a group of people that gets going on complaining or criticizing another person. Have you witnessed how the group seems to get on a roll, with each person adding another and another related comment? If we are not careful about our presence of mind we can get pulled right into it.
Now, the reason complaining starts in the first place is a different matter, here I want to address what happens in our mind to keep feeding it. Once we start it is so easy to keep on with it and even enhance it even when it may not be in our normal character.
It has to do with the way your brain works, your brain is a seeking, answering mechanism. It wants to solve or satisfy what you are telling it through your conscious thought. Essentially everything you are thinking is a question to your brain. A question your brain is programmed to either answer by finding proof or find more of the same to validate your conscious thinking. Your brain wants to support and please you! It will quickly show you that what you are thinking is ‘correct’.
So, when you either start complaining yourself or you are listening to others complain, the brain goes to work finding more related content for you to back up your current thoughts. This validates your thinking, and yes what another person is saying, you are thinking about. If you agree or go along with what they are saying, you are thinking it yourself, thus asking for more of the same, or validation.
This is how you get a related thought popping up which leads to your statement about it. If you had complained, this new thought will likely be another related complaint. If you are making negative comments about another person, your brain will help you find more, and even bring up other people to criticize in a similar way.
Of course this works for all thinking, so it if very beneficial to you when your thoughts are happy and positive. Your brain will seek more of the same for you. The key in this is thought command. All of this brain activity is instigated by your conscious thought. Your conscious thought, which you can choose all of, is ultimately the director of your mind. If you are in command of your conscious and subconscious thinking.
However, the subconscious mind might be doing some things that it thought you wanted at an earlier time. This is where thought habits and beliefs are stored as programs to be turned on when a new related thought comes from your conscious mind. This is a topic for another article, but briefly, this is why you may have behavior that you are not sure why you have.
Even though these programs turn on automatically and direct your thinking and behavior, you are still ultimately in command consciously. You just need to recognize what is going on so that you can redirect or reprogram them as you now want.
In regards to complaining, in order to not have our mind help us complain, it is necessary to take command of our thinking. This means that you must first notice what you are thinking, then you can make a choice to keep on with it or change it. This is where the ‘master switch’ of your thinking is, in your conscious choice of thought. You don’t need to stay with a complaining though, or agree with others as they complain.
Just because something did happen, it does not mean you must let it continue. Because others are having a complaining session, or that you have noticed that you complained, you can choose to change that pattern of thought. You must specifically put in new thoughts, there can be no voids in thought, thee must be some thought. Choose a line of thought that is based more on being happy and loving.
Choosing your intentions and watching to keep your thoughts aligned with them is where you power is. Like anything with regards to managing your thinking, it can take some practice to get efficient at it. But doing what you can right now is better than waiting for some perfection, the doing will bring about more ability to assert your command of your thoughts.
Many will say that you must ask God to be given what you want, in a “will you please” way. But this is relinquishing your natural ability and right to know for yourself, to think for yourself and to choose what you want. What we receive from the Intelligent Universe is not based on the whim of a human like mind, it is a clear cause and effect system. We are here, as individualizations of God, to notice what’s possible and ask for it. And, yes we can expect it to come into our life experience, but we must prepare for it first.
We don’t actually make anything happen, God, the Universal Intelligence does that, but we do request it and allow it. We ask for it and we allow it to connect with us, through our thoughts, feelings and vibration. For anything that we ask for to show up in our life experience, we must first align with it – we must be the person who does, has or is that which we want. The thing we want will not change us, or make us into what we need to be, we must do that first.
Once you have asked for something through your thoughts, feelings or vibration, or usually all together, the Intelligent Universe gets it all set up for you. If you are still waiting, what you have asked for is already there, you are just not yet aligned with it yet.
What very often happens is that we think strongly that we are thinking and feeling in the right ways for something to occur in our life, but we are actually not. Much of our life is commanded by our unconscious thoughts, where automatic functions are in place to simplify your conscious thought requirements. It is here that you may have strong thought patterns that are not in support of what you say you want. And guess which thinking usually wins out?
You can have something blocked because you are obsessed with having it. I know this sounds odd on the surface, but I’ll explain, what can be a more powerful want than obsession? It’s what is linked to it that is the biggest problem. And the most common restrictive factor is, a condition attached to the desire. A commonly attached condition is one related to happiness. Like, “I will be happy when I have . . . “
* You notice what you want, picture it and you see happiness as part of having it.
* This picture in your mind, is what is conveyed to Spirit as what you want.
* The Intelligent Universe (God) goes about to set it all up for you.
* And your role now is to align yourself with the desired outcome and to take any actions you are guided through Spirit to take.
* For you to experience what you want, you must be a vibrational match for it. You must be the person who is in and at one with what you want. Your vibration is based on your thoughts and feelings.
* Then, like two perfectly matched magnetic puzzle pieces, you are drawn to what has been created for you.
Now, going back to the happiness condition we placed on our desire. That happiness condition says, “I will be happy when . . . ”
Notice this about your happiness – it’s not before, but when!
In order for you to be a perfect vibrational match for what you want, you must be that happy person first – before the match can take place.
So. . . this attachment to your desire that says “I must have this in order to be happy” is keeping you away from it. You are stuck in a cycle: you have declared that you won’t be happy until it happens, and the Universe will not connect you to the experience until you are happy. The two can never come together under this scenario.
Consider this, when you are saying that you will be happy when what you want shows up, you are saying that right now you are not happy. This is a command to the Universe, like all thoughts are. You are saying, and commanding, “I am not happy now.” This is what you will get, because this is what you are resonating with vibrationally right now. Unhappiness begets unhappiness.
So even if consciously you are saying clearly what you want, but you are not a vibrational match for it, it will not come. But at the same time, unknown to you, you are actually saying and resonating the vibrational match for more unhappiness. You get the thing you are resonating with. This could be considered a form of self sabotage as you are preventing yourself from getting something you say you want.
I’m sure you have heard before, “Be happy now”, well, now you know why. Because if what you want has happiness as part of it as most things we want do, you will need to be happy before the Universe delivers it to you. What you want is already there, waiting for you to be a match! Time is a relative thing we use in our reality, but to the Universe – there is only now. So what you are now, is what you will be when anything new happens. Think about it, anytime anythign actually happens, it’s now!
Also, many times when we are saying that we want something really badly, we are actually spending a lot of our time focusing on what we don’t want. What you don’t want may be the logical reason why you do want something, which is fine, but remember – what you focus on and resonate with will be what you get.
Noticing what you don’t want serves the purpose of helping you to identify what you do want, but don’t remain dwelling on it, or feeding it emotionally. Move on to focusing and feeling what you DO want so that you resonate with it. Our emotions have a very strong affect on our vibrational energy, which is why you’ve probably heard it’s best to get emotionally behind what you want.
Eckhart Tolle said in his book, A New Earth “You cannot manifest what you want; you can only manifest what you already have.”
This means that you must have a very clear picture of it, with appropriate emotional feelings and be a vibrational match for it. This is the state of being with it already in your mind, and feeling it, which includes being the person that fits into the picture.
The Law of Attraction is valid and it lines up with what Jesus and others taught us about how to operate our life, it just needs to be better understood for us to get what we really want.
This is one example of what can be going on unconsciously and there are other factors which can affect your easily getting what you want as well, I will discuss those in later posts here.
Your growth is a work in progess, if you undertake it.
John
Personal growth and development is an ongoing process and many people seeking to make changes in their lives know that any success comes from changing their thought. But also many find this to be not as straight forward as they thought. With the movie, “The Secret” the Law of Attraction has been brought out and embraced by many, but the movie actually is just a basic introduction on the Law of Attraction not a full blown ‘how to’ course.
Unfortunately many are left thinking that all they need to do is think their way into any success or new life experience. Managing your thinking is a large part of how you make changes but not all there is to it. It does not help that some teachers just do focus on the changing of your thought without delving any deeper. This basic part of The Law of Attraction deals with only your conscious thought, but does not get into the power your unconscious thought holds over your everyday thinking, feeling and behavior.Continue reading
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:
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:
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.