I am dumb.
I am stupid.
I don’t do anything right.
I am broke.
I am cursed.
My life sucks.
Nobody likes me.
Nobody loves me.
I am a failure.
I can’t stick to anything.
I am not a good mother.
All of these statements were things I used to tell myself and my life reflected every one of those negative beliefs.
Today, I am an entrepreneur, a published author, a playwright, a producer, an actress, a podcast host, a public speaker, a speech writing coach, a mom, a grandmother, and a girlfriend to name a few.
So, how did I get here? It all started with belief and understanding the subconscious mind.
When I began writing my book, I discovered an author by the name of Dr. Joseph Murphy who wrote The Power of the Subconscious Mind. That book taught me the importance of monitoring what I allowed to enter into my mind. What you see and here causes thoughts and thoughts become beliefs. Beliefs filter through to your subconscious and your subconscious causes action.
Most of our thoughts when not monitored are negative, which causes limiting beliefs. Our physical lives expose what is happening in our subconscious. What are you believing about yourself? Most of us are fearful to pursue dreams and passions and that is normal because nature made us that way. In pre-historic times we had to be this way for self-preservation, for survival so that we wouldn’t be eaten by a saber-tooth tiger or be exorcised from our group. We had to stay safe.
My complete turnaround was caused by me changing what I believed about myself and developing a growth mindset. Dr. Carol Dweck wrote the book ‘Mindset’ and goes into detail about the behaviors of a person with a limited mindset versus a person with a growth mindset. I was living with a negative and limited mindset and made the conscious effort to change.
So where did I develop this lack of belief in myself? There are several factors that contributed to my negative outlook on life, but it all began with the development of my subconscious mind during childhood. Dr. Bruce Lipton, a cell biologist and author of “The Biology of Belief” defines the conscious mind as the creative mind. It is able to solve equations, read a book, listen to seminars and lectures. This is the mind that can think. Dr. Lipton calls the subconscious mind, the programmed mind, or the habit mind. He compares the subconscious mind to a computer. When you turn on a computer, the built-in operating system prepares it to work, but if there are no programs in the computer, then it really can’t do anything. Dr. Lipton tells us to relate this to a child. When the brain develops it has an operating system, but there are no programs in it. Science has proven that from birth until around age seven, you were in a hypnosis state known as the theta brainwave which is just below consciousness. During those first seven years of life, we freely download programs by what we see, hear, and observe of those around us. The sad part is that most of those programs were not necessarily good programs. However, these programs formed our beliefs about our environment and what we believed about ourselves. The scary part is that 70% of those downloaded programs are negative and self-sabotaging. These negative programs are what keeps most of us stagnant in our lives and afraid to dream big and live a full life.
So how do we change our thoughts? First, you must become aware of your thoughts by paying attention to the words you think and speak. I encourage you to journal to discover your deepest thoughts. My complete turnaround was caused by me changing what I believed about myself. As I stated before, we are in theta brainwave from birth until age seven, but there are other times as adult that we are in theta. We can put ourselves in theta during meditation and we are automatically in theta when we are drifting off to sleep and just before fully waking up, during that groggy state. While in theta, the conscious falls asleep and the subconscious is freely accessible to download new programs. The quickest way to change programs is listening to positive affirmations while drifting off to sleep. Another way to change negative programs is through repetition. Repeating positive affirmations, whether you believe them or not, changes negative programs, but you have to be consistent. Please note that your job is not to convince yourself to believe what you are saying, only to constantly repeat it.
The important thing is to turn down the noise of negativity by monitoring the music you listen to, what you watch on television, and negative conversations. Start establishing positive relationships with people who speak life into your vision and goals. Surround yourself with positivity. It is imperative.
We may also change our limiting beliefs and focus on our goals through visualization. Visualization causes you to be reminded of what you want and causes your brain to seek it out. This is neurological. In the base of your brain, there is a network called the RAS system. What the RAS does is filters out unnecessary information and causes you to focus on what is important to you. Here is an example – when you decide to buy a new car, you may start doing research. Let’s say you are buying a brand new, black, Mercedes G Wagon. You rarely saw that car on the road, that is until you purchased it. Now it seems like you see Mercedes G Wagons on every corner. That’s the RAS system at work. But it doesn’t stop there, when you set goals and focus on them, the RAS system starts seeking out ways for you to achieve those goals. The information was always around you, but now that you are focusing on it, you are allowing your brain to go to work. But if you are focusing on doubt and negativity, the RAS will seek that out, too, it does not discriminate, it sets out in search of what you are focusing on. That’s its job.
In order to accomplish goals, you must intentionally use the conscious and subconscious mind. The conscious deals with the physical world and the subconscious deals with the spiritual world, and both working together causes action, whether you are being intentional or not.
These methods I have mentioned have been tried and tested. I am a living witness that they work. Focused and repetitive thoughts become things – good or bad.
This has been an amazing journey and I am the happiest that I have ever been in my life. Why? Because I took responsibility for my life and my choices. I made awareness my center and removed victimhood from my life. I am a victor, not a victim.
