Meditation and Abundance, Part III -
Climbing Over the Wall of Doubt
In the final part of this series, we
will explore the full potential of the mind in creating better personal
realities. We will learn how to use the power of our beliefs and emotions to
best effect, while remaining aware of the possible pitfalls of employing these
unusual creative techniques. One of those pitfalls is trying too hard to make
things happen, which can lead to frustration and failure, but the main
challenge we must overcome is the constant resistance of the logical, conscious
mind. As we noted at the start of this series, our desire to control our outer
circumstances requires us first to master our own minds.
Belief Modification or Cognitive
Dissonance?
Once we have recognized the
extraordinary creative power of our own beliefs and emotions, and decided to
change them - somehow - into something much more positive, we run into an
immediate brick wall of doubt. If you are not currently enjoying particularly
happy circumstances, then any time you spend believing that things are the way
you want them to be is, in effect, a denial of your current reality. For
mainstream psychologists (who, despite their years of training, have generally
not realized just how powerful the mind really is) this amounts to cognitive
dissonance. In layman's terms, you can't live in a dreamworld. And your
conscious mind is going to constantly remind you of that fact.
In order to function properly in
daily life, it is indeed important to deal with your world as it is. But if you
never lift yourself mentally and spiritually above your current circumstances,
those circumstances are not going to change. The easiest way for most of us to
pull off the necessary balancing act is to confine our belief-modification
activities to distinct meditative sessions - times when we do not have to take
care of anything in the real world and are free to let our minds go. Once the
session is over, we can let its effects linger on at a subconscious level while
we return to everyday affairs, without focusing on any apparent inconsistency
between the two. But what, exactly, should we do in such sessions?
Creative Visualization and Beyond
Maximizing our creative power
requires letting our spirits soar to unprecedented heights. We need to go to
mental places that are far beyond everyday reality and feel emotions we do not
normally feel. This becomes an exercise in imagination - a skill that many
adults left behind in their childhoods but need to rediscover. Yes, it's really
alright to lose yourself in fantasy for a while. But don't make the mistake of
obsessing about the details of your imaginary experiences. It does not matter
whether your dream home is in Malibu or Monaco; it may be one thing one day and
another thing the next. What matters here is the quality of the experience, not
the details. Change the details as much as you want from one session to the
next in order to make yourself feel the way you want to feel. Far from
undermining yourself by giving the universe mixed messages (which is how Rhonda
Byrne would look at it), this mental playfulness reinforces the belief that you
can have anything you want, and that is a seriously powerful belief. This is,
in fact, an example of what I call "success by implication": your
implied belief in having what you want in general can be more effective than specific
beliefs in detailed outcomes.
For logical people - so-called
left-brain thinkers - this type of exercise is particularly difficult. The
conscious mind keeps objecting that the reality you are trying to live in your
mind is unrealistic. Or it insists on everything "making sense,"
requiring a coherent narrative for your imaginary scenarios. Either way, we
need the logical mind to be quiet for a while so we can have the emotional
experience that creativity requires. One of the most useful tools to help
overcome this tendency is music, especially instrumental music. And the new
audio technology of brainwave entrainment can help even more, by encouraging
your brain to leave the Beta frequencies associated with waking awareness in
favor of the more relaxed and creative frequency ranges of Alpha and Theta
brainwaves.
The Two Keys to Successful
Manifestation
Over many years of experimentation,
my own experience has shown that success depends upon two factors: persistence
and intensity. If you are looking to produce long-term changes in your life,
you need to make long-term changes in your thinking. In other words, one or two
good creative visualization sessions isn't going to be enough to give you a
whole new life. But, having said that, the only way to accelerate the process
is to boost the intensity of your sessions. This means feeling very strong
emotions and really, deeply believing that the conditions you want to bring
about are real for you. This is, of course, easier said than done, but when you
have a few small successes under your belt your faith in the creative process
itself will help lessen the doubts that constantly anchor you to your current
reality. When you finally get out of your own way, you will be amazed at what
you can do.
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