Follow The Rules Of The Mind

Alona Demjanova

Understanding the rules of how your mind works will help you influence your mind positively, rather than being influenced by thoughts, beliefs and behaviors that you do not want. Imagine if you bought the most up to date washing machine or computer and it came with no instructions: how would you use it? We come into this world with the most amazing computer like brain that is capable of doing so much but there are no instructions that tell us how to get the best from ourselves, no manual that shows you how to programme yourself for success, and so we muddle through when we are capable of so much more.

Rule 1. What is expected tends to be realised. The brain and nervous system respond only to words and pictures, regardless of whether the image is real or imagined, positive or negative, good or bad. Words tell our mind what we are feeling and we need to use positive words that don’t make a negative picture in order to overcome stress, fear and anxiety. Your mind has to accept and act off the words and pictures you give it. Using words like “it’s hell, it’s a nightmare, it’s driving me crazy, it’s killing me” makes your situation or how you feel about the situation even worse. Instead keep your dramatic words and descriptions for things you want to feel: “I’m amazing, it was fantastic, I feel phenomenal.” Whatever we tell ourselves our mind absorbs and accepts without a question as true, and because of this, getting into the habit of telling yourself only positive things is extremely effective. Worrying is a form of programming a picture of what we don’t want, but the subconscious mind acts to fulfil the picture it’s seeing regardless of whether it’s your desire or your fear. That’s why it is so important not to hold on to pictures in your mind of what you don’t want. Focus on what you want, hold these images in your mind and these expectations will be realised.

Rule 2. Every thought causes a physical reaction. Thoughts have consequences and create changes and chemical reactions in your body. Ideas that have strong emotional content always reach the subconscious mind because it is the feeling mind, and once accepted, these ideas create the same reactions in the body again and again. To change negative reactions in the body it is important to change the ideas responsible for the reaction both consciously and subconsciously. So if you have strong negative emotions linked to taking risks, like going for interviews or speaking in public, they will move into your subconscious mind and have a very real and negative effect on you. Whereas by changing fear to excitement you have strong positive emotions linked to inter- views or public speaking and the effect your thoughts and emotions have on you is positive.

Rule 3. The Mind Cannot Hold Conflicting Beliefs. The mind also cannot hold conflicting thoughts. We can't be confident and anxious at the same time or happy and sad simultaneously. If you hold conflicting beliefs it sends the mind into a spin. It blocks the mind. Making lots of jokes about failing, referring to yourself as a loser or an idiot does this. We cannot plan to succeed and then engage in joking about all our weak points because the beliefs are contradictory. They confuse the mind, which has to take literally everything we say as the truth. We are run by what we link pain and pleasure to. If you want to be hugely successful but link pain to hard work or not having your weekends free, then you have mixed associations which you must change. If you want to become a fantastic salesperson but can't talk to strangers, if you want to be a trader but are scared to take risks, you have conflicting beliefs. Choosing our beliefs and changing beliefs that don't benefit us makes our life so much easier and humans are the only creatures able to do this.