By Stephen Hawley Martin
Mind is the Master-power that molds and makes,
And Man is Mind, and evermore he takes
The tool of thought, and shaping what he wills,
Brings forth a thousand joys, a thousand ills—
He thinks in secret, and it comes to pass—
Environment is but his looking-glass.
—James Allen (1864-1912)
In a related article, I explained that there is a mountain of evidence that consciousness is the ground of being and that we humans are offshoots or probes sent out by consciousness. One theory concerning how we came to be is that an almost infinite number of variations of living things were sent forth into the material world as tiny single cell creatures. Those that were most suited to the environment survived. These living things reproduced by the millions, each offspring slightly different from its siblings. Once again, those best suited to the environment survived and reproduced. And so on and so on. As evolution progressed, living organisms became more complete and eventually developed their own intelligence. This intelligence impressed itself upon the organizing intelligence of spirit, and the organizing intelligence of spirit went to work to create ever more sophisticated and evolved adaptations.
Ever-Increasing Levels of Intelligence
The result of this process can be seen in ever-increasing levels of intelligence displayed by ever more evolved forms of life. As intelligence evolves, it becomes more and more self-aware. Plants and earthworms, for example, possess only subjective or subconscious minds, their own small portions of underlying organizing intelligence. Their “minds” are termed “subjective” because they cannot figuratively step outside themselves to think about their own existence. They can only react in a programmed way to the input or stimuli they receive. The same is probably true of most animals in the wild. Perhaps dogs and other domesticated animals, and certainly we humans, have both a subjective mind and an objective mind. Among other things, our subjective minds keep us breathing and our bodies functioning while we use our objective minds to think about and analyze situations. Like those of plants and earthworms, our subjective minds do not stop and think. They don’t analyze. They go to work using input from our conscious minds to create our personal realities based on our beliefs. The function of the subjective mind is important to understand in order to learn how to reprogram your mind for success.
As stated above, consciousness is the ground of being, and that means there is only one mind of which all minds are part. Like the vast majority of water on earth that is connected but divided into oceans, seas, and rivers, we can think of the one mind as being divided into various levels: the universal subjective mind, the collective subconscious mind of humanity, individual subconscious minds or souls, and last but not least the part of each person’s mind of which he or she is aware, the conscious mind. Our personal minds in turn are divided into a conscious portion and an unconscious portion that contains the memories and unconscious programming of this life. Accessing and changing counterproductive programming is necessary in order to reprogram your mind for success.
We’re all familiar with the conscious mind—the place where our attention remains most of the time when we’re awake. It is here that we are aware of what is happening around us. We touch, taste or see something. Impulses travel along nerves such as the optic nerve from the eye to the brain. An event takes place. Let’s say we take a bite of a chocolate bar. To identify the flavor, the conscious mind calls upon the memory of the taste of chocolate that’s stored in the unconscious mind.
What other functions does the unconscious mind perform? Let’s say you get into your car to go somewhere. You turn the key, you release the brake, and you drive. You don’t have to think much about what you’re doing. If you’re like me, you may drive along thinking about something else and take a turn that you would normally take even though today you’re going somewhere else and shouldn’t have taken that turn. After a few blocks you realize you’re on the wrong road. You were led astray by the unconscious, programmed part of you.
Your unconscious mind becomes programmed very much like a computer. Remember the first time you got behind the wheel? When you turned the key and released the brake you had to pay close attention to every detail in order to make the automobile operate smoothly. You had to watch all the gauges, people, stoplights and so on. Over the months and years that you’ve been driving, however, your conscious mind made all those details a part of you. They slipped into your unconscious mind as surely as a computer program is loaded onto a hard drive.
The truth is, all the bits of information you’ve come in contact with in this life are stored in the unconscious part of your mind, including information that in a practical sense you’ve forgotten or never fully understood. Erroneous information is there. For example, as a child perhaps your parents said, “People in our family are cursed with a tendency to be overweight. All you have to do is look at food and it goes straight to your hips. There’s nothing you can do about it.” Or maybe they said, “Nobody in this family ever got rich. It’s just not meant to be. You might as well resign yourself to a life of being poor.” So, today, contained within your unconscious mind are beliefs that because you’re a Jones or a Johnson or a Smith, you are destined to have a weight problem, or to struggle when it comes to money. You didn’t question the information when it was programmed in because it came from someone in authority. But it is still there, and it’s keeping you from a life of joy because as long as those beliefs are in your unconscious mind they are being impressed upon your subjective mind that is duty bound to make your beliefs your reality. For example, if you have a victim mentality, your unconscious, subjective mind will filter out all sorts of opportunities that come your way because it determines what you notice and are attracted to out of the literally millions of things you are exposed to every day, and it is determined to make your beliefs come true. Therefore, if you have been programmed to believe you are a victim, and nothing you do can change that, your mind will dismiss out of hand all sorts of opportunities that might lead to a better life if you would only notice and take advantage of them. My point is that if your life is not going the way you want, this likely is caused by your unconscious programming. You might think of counterproductive beliefs as obstacles holding you back. Once you accept that, it will be possible to reprogram your mind for success.
We Grow by Overcoming Obstacles
Life is difficult, and anyone who thinks it isn’t or shouldn’t be is whistling past the graveyard. Overcoming difficulties is how we grow and evolve. If the theory about consciousness and how life evolved related above is true, humans started out as one-cell animals in the primordial sea. Think of the obstacles and difficulties your ancestors had to overcome for you to arrive where you are today—at the top of the food chain. All I can say is, “Hats off to them.”
James, the brother of Jesus said, “Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance. Let perseverance finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything.” (James 1:204 NIV)
James was right. Trials can be opportunities to build strength, self-control and perseverance.
To Overcome Obstacles, First Identify Them
Step one toward a life of success and joy is to identify the obstacles standing in your way. Once you do, it will be possible to reprogram your mind for success. Here’s one way. Make an effort to move your consciousness outside yourself and tune into your moment-to-moment stream of consciousness in order to observe what makes you worried, anxious, resentful, uptight, afraid, angry, and so on. What triggered a negative emotion? Why did your temper flare? Why was it so important for things to go a certain way? If you retrace what you felt back to its cause, in most cases you will come to a particular variety of fear, and it’s been said that only two fears are instinctive: the fear of high places and loud noises. Others were acquired, and whatever was acquired can be disposed of.
Fears usually can be grouped under one of six headings: the fear of poverty (or failure), of criticism, of ill health, of the loss of love, of old age, and of death.
I’ve listed the fear of poverty (failure) first because in many ways it can be the most debilitating. It is self-fulfilling in that traits develop that bring it about. For example, are you a procrastinator? An underlying fear of failure is probably the root cause and can be counted upon to produce the result you fear.
Are you overly cautious? Do you see the negative side of every circumstance or stall for the “right time” before taking action? Do you worry (that things will not work out), have doubts (generally expressed by excuses or apologies about why one probably won’t be able to perform). Do you suffer from indecision (which leads to someone else, or circumstances, making the decision for you)?
Are you indifferent? This generally manifests as laziness or a lack of initiative, enthusiasm or self-control.
Step back and listen for internal voices that say “can’t” or “don’t” or “won’t” or “too risky” or “why bother?”
How do you get rid of them? Shoo them away.
Whether you are the president of a company, or a bum on Skid Row, the only thing over which you have absolute control is your thoughts.
You may say, I can’t control what thoughts pop into my head. That’s true. You may not control what thoughts arise, but you can decide whether to discard one or to keep it. You can decide that it is counterproductive and throw it away, or you can turn it over and over in your mind, nurture it and let it grow. Unfortunately, whatever thoughts you keep will expand and eventually manifest.
Reprogram Your Mind With Positive Thoughts
Beginning now, each time you catch yourself with a negative thought, a thought that says, “you can’t,” “it’s not possible,” “maybe someone else but not me,” get rid of it.
But you say, “I’m poor, I’m not a good student, I’m not a good salesperson, I’m in the lower third of productivity.”
You are what you are because of your thoughts. You consciously want the best for you—you want lasting happiness and joy—but your programming is holding you back.
What about the other fears? They’re to be discarded in the same manner. If you suffer from fear of criticism, for example, it probably came about as a result of a parent or sibling who constantly tore you down to build himself up. You’ll know this is a problem if you are overly worried about what others might think, if you lack poise, are self-consciousness or extravagant. (Why extravagant? Because of the voice which says you need to keep up with the Joneses.) You must rid yourself of inner voices that tell you to think even twice about what others will say. Simply eliminate them.
Let’s think for a minute about the fear of criticism. There have been places and times in history when what others thought was worth worrying about. My great, great, great, great, great, great, great grandmother, Suzanna North Martin, for example, was accused of being a witch, falsely convicted, and hanged in Salem, Massachusetts, in 1692. I wrote a book about her and the Salem Witch Hysteria called A Witch in the Family: The Truth About The Salem Witch Hysteria Based on 21st Century Knowledge. I learned a lot about my ancestor. She was an old lady. She probably looked like a witch. But her downfall was the stir she caused after her husband died. She was able to run the farm successfully without a man around. Think of the talk. Such a thing wasn’t thought possible, or so they believed, without the use of witchcraft. The opinions of Suzanna Martin’s neighbors mattered a great deal. They led to an unpleasant and untimely death.
What about today?
In Iran, China, Russia, or North Korea one might have to watch out what neighbors think or what the “virtue police” hear, but this simply is no longer a valid concern in developed, democratic countries. What others think or don’t think of you or anyone else is their problem. Yet worrying about what they think can cause a great deal of misery and unhappiness as well as programming that keeps you from a life of happiness, success, and joy.
What about the fear of ill health?
To rid yourself of this, it should be enough to know that what you worry and think about is eventually what happens. Ever noticed that it’s the people who talk about illness, worry about illness, are preoccupied with this or that possible illness, think they feel a pain here or there or were exposed to some germ, who are precisely the people who stay sick most of the time? The power of suggestion is at work.
Suppose you’re a tennis buff. You’re in a big match, and it’s close, and you arrive at a crucial point. Your opponent is serving. Yell out, “You’re playing great today, Morris. Don’t blow it. This is a big point coming up. Whatever you do, don’t double fault.” You’ve caused him to start worrying. Watch him double fault. It’s dirty. It will create negative karma. But it works.
How about the fear of the loss of love? This one manifests in the form of jealousy and is self-fulfilling like the others. The person you try so hard to hang onto feels smothered, with the result that you end up pushing that person away. Try being yourself. Give them love, but give them room. If they leave you, they would have done so anyway. You can now move on to a truly meaningful relationship.
Next is the fear of old age. This is closely connected to the fear of ill health and the fear of poverty because these are the conditions a person really is concerned about deep down. The power of suggestion is hard at work here, too. If you think you’re too old to do this or that, you will indeed be too old.
Consider this. The physical body is the overcoat of the mental body. It gets old and decrepit because a person expects it to. It gets older and decrepit because a person stops learning, growing, and playing a role in the evolution of humankind. When you’ve learned all you can from this life, the time will come for you to check out. And check out is what you will do. No one says you have to look old or feel old, no matter how old you are chronologically.
Now we’ve come to that final bugaboo, the fear of death. The truth is, there’s nothing to fear except having been fearful in this life. Consider the millions who have had near-death experiences and are no longer afraid to die. They’re convinced they’ll be greeted by their guides, or angels, as well as by loved ones who have gone before. They look forward to being bathed once again in the all-encompassing light that many have described as total, unconditional love. Most do not expect to experience pain. It has been reported by many that the spirit exits the body the instant it looks as though death is inevitable.
Only a handful who have had hellish experiences worry about what they may encounter in the nonphysical world. These folks need to know what you now know. Each of us creates his own reality. We experience what we expect to experience, what we think we deserve. In the physical world, this takes time. In the nonphysical world of spirit, which is the medium of the mind, we instantly create our reality, just as we do in dreams. If we expect Hell, the Hell we believe we deserve is the Hell we will get. If we expect Heaven, our vision of Heaven is what we will have.
Use Autosuggestion Recordings to Reprogram Your Mind
If you are serious about reprogramming your mind for success, I can offer you something that may be helpful in addition to the advice above. It’s access to a page on my website where you will find two self-hypnotic recordings.
Hypnotism works because the hypnotist bypasses his subject’s conscious mind and speaks directly to the subject’s subjective mind. Because of this, a subject’s conscious, objective mind is unable to question or disregard the hypnotist’s directives. Of course, once the subject emerges from the hypnotic trance, his or her objective mind will take over and will be able to nullify the hypnotist’s directive. That’s why it is advisable to use a hypnotic recording many times, i.e., over and over, until it becomes ingrained. Here is a link to the page:
https://www.shmartin.com/autosuggestion
Start with the recording at the top of the web page. Follow the instructions and listen to it at least once when you are not likely to fall asleep so that you will consciously know what it contains. Then listen to it nightly at bedtime as you drift off to sleep each night for at least 30 days. Coupled with the techniques suggested above, doing so should banish the six basic fears and reprogram your mind for success.
The second recording, the one lower on the page, ought to be used periodically after the first 30 days in order to reinforce and refresh the programming instilled by the first recording.
While you are on my website, I invite you to check out books I have written. Have a look at the menu at the top of the page and click on “Fiction & Nonfiction Books.” I think you will find some of them not only interesting, but also useful in your quest for success and lasting happiness.
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Stephen Hawley Martin is a former principal of the advertising agency that created the GEICO Gecko and “Virginia is for Lovers.” Today, he is the editor and publisher of The Oaklea Press, a traditional book publishing company. He is also the author of more than three dozen books, including six business titles under his own name and five novels. Listed in Who’s Who in America, he is the only three-time winner of the Writer’s Digest Book Award. He has also won First Prize for Visionary Fiction from Independent Publisher magazine and First Prize for Nonfiction from USA Book News. To learn about books Stephen has written that expand on this article, simply follow this link: https://www.shmartin.com/home