General Rules about the Mind

GENERAL RULES ABOUT THE MIND

These are some general rules of the mind that are a useful reminder. They are really important and many of us don’t truly realise how powerful our thoughts can be for our own health and wellbeing. When we don’t follow these rules, we can get ourselves in a lot of trouble.

Every Thought Has A Physical Reaction

The mind is where the action is, the body is where the reaction is.

Example
Stress headache or butterflies in your stomach. Our feelings and thoughts change our bodies and over the long term can cause major problems with our health.

How can this affect my life for good?
Understand that thoughts are just thoughts, you’ve had plenty of them and just let them pass. It’s like thinking about buying something, then not doing it. The buying thought was just a thought that had no effect over you, unless you let it;)

Holding on to negative thoughts and feelings can have a negative effect on your ability to handle situations and can hurt you mentally or physically in the long run.

Where Your Attention Goes, Your Energy Flows

Wherever you put your thoughts, good or bad, you go in that direction.

Example
Ever been looking for a new phone? You’ll see phones everywhere, you’re in phone finding gear. Looking for faults and incompetence’s, you find them too.

How can this affect my life for the good?
Focus on what you DO want not what you DON’T want, because it’s hard to not focus on what you’re trying to not focus on. Instead of ‘I don’t want to be stressed’ try ‘I am calm and in control’.

Perception Is Reality

What you expect to happen often does.

Example
You expect that the new way of doing things isn’t going to work. It doesn’t.

How can this affect my life for good?
Henry Ford said, ‘If your think you can or you think you can’t, you’re right’. If you believe that you can’t do something, you’ll probably not try it. That’s a definite failure, while going out and doing something might end up in success.

This is also true for our relationships with others. We also affect other people without our awareness. We make small variations in our movements, our voice, or our reactions on what we believe or feel about someone at the time. When we expect someone to be difficult or demanding, we tend to start out on the defensive, and that person picks it up and responds in kind, a self fulfilling prophecy. We react ‘as if’ they are that way, and so they shift to fulfill our expectations. Look with compassion and you’ll tend to find good.

The Mind Works By Association And In Pictures

Our imagination is more powerful than ‘the facts’.

Example
You have a healthy meal in front of you, but dream of dessert, sooner rather than later, you have your dessert. You KNOW that the team is prepared but keep creating worst-case scenarios and it’s starting to affect your work and confidence.

How can this affect my life for good?
Learn about feelings and how to let unhelpful ones go. Understand that the critic in your own head might just be inherited from someone else, or might have outlived its usefulness.

Learn to create fantasies about your ideal ‘destination’. This is especially powerful whilst in hypnosis or during a meditation as you are in re-programing mode at this time. Before you go to bed at night or first thing in the morning is a good time to do this as you are close to your subconscious mind at these times. Using your imagination in this way, you’re planting powerful seeds for great achievements.