Any thought passed to the subconscious well enough is accepted

Keep affirming positive suggestions and outlooks to yourself and this will soon become your normal way of thinking.

Your mind is your most important thing you have. A well-developed mind is what separates us from animals. It has allowed many people to invent great things and produce great works of art. To get the most out of it you need to understand it better. The mind operates at two levels – the conscious and subconscious, or the rational and irrational. You think with your conscious, rational mind. The subconscious, irrational mind is the creative engine and the seat of emotions. Once the subconscious accepts an idea it begins to act. It treats good and bad ideas the same. If you plant negative ideas in your subconscious mind, you will reap negative outcomes. If you plant positive ideas, you will reap positive outcomes. Robert Collier said in The Law of Higher Potential that any thought that is passed on to the subconscious often enough and convincingly enough is finally accepted.

     You reason with your conscious mind. You choose what you want, your partner, your home. Your subconscious keeps your body running. Your subconscious mind accepts what it is told and acts without reasoning. We have all seen hypnotist shows. People who are susceptible to hypnosis are put into a trance by the hypnotist. The hypnotist is bypassing their conscious mind and talking straight to their subconscious. The subjects are very susceptible to suggestion and will do things in front of a large audience that their conscious mind would never allow them do. Your subconscious mind is suggestible. Think about that man walking on his hands and knees sniffing the chairs because the hypnotist suggested he was a dog. Your subconscious will accept ideas without reason even when they are false.

     The subconscious mind is very susceptible to suggestion. You have to use your conscious mind to protect your subconscious from damaging suggestions. If you are on a ship and you tell a rather unconfident looking passenger that she is not looking too good and that she might get seasick, she probably will. She is already worried. But if you tell an experienced crew member he might get seasick he will laugh at you or tell you to get lost. Your mention of seasickness only reminds him he is immune to it. The conscious mind has the power to reject suggestions.

     There is an old saying, “Be careful what you wish for. You might get it.” Murphy tells a story about a man whose daughter had a terrible skin condition and crippling arthritis. Over and over he said he would give his right arm to see his daughter cured. One day the family was out driving and was involved in a serious car crash. He lost his right arm. When he got back from the hospital he discovered his daughter’s arthritis and skin problem were gone.

     Murphy tells another story about a man who was told by an Indian fortune teller that he would die at the next new moon. He told everybody the terrible prediction. He turned from being a vigorous, healthy individual into an invalid. He died of a heart attack on the appointed day. He accepted the prediction instead of laughing it off. If he had not accepted the suggestion he would not have died.

     You should repeat positive suggestions to your subconscious. If you are fearful or losing your memory or constantly angry, make positive suggestions to yourself. Write a prayer to tell yourself how you want to be. Repeat it several times a day including before you go to sleep and when you wake up. For instance if you are susceptible to angry rages, tell yourself you are getting calmer every day.

     I have a list of improvements I want to make, and things I want to be and do, saved as a note on my iPhone that I read morning and evening and in the middle of the day. Over and over I am suggesting what I want to be and do. This keeps my subconscious on track.

     You need to watch out for suggestions others make, and indeed the suggestions you make to others. From the day you were born you have been bombarded with negative suggestions, about you, about life, about the economy, about diseases, about the weather. As a child you were particularly susceptible, and your children are now. I remember that when I was a child, a man said on a chat show on TV that Chinese people believe that if your nostrils are open you will never be rich: the money will come out your nose. For years after hearing this I believed I could never be rich because I could see into my nostrils in the mirror. This is nonsense, but it does prove how susceptible even intelligent people are to suggestions when they are young.

     You should make positive suggestions to yourself to counter negative suggestions others make. If someone tells you the weather is awful, tell yourself tomorrow will be nice and your lawn needs the rain. If someone tells you the economy is terrible, tell yourself that so-and-so just got a good job so it can’t be all bad. You do not have to accept negative suggestions made by others about you or life in general. And be extra careful of the suggestions you make to your children.

     Watch out for the power of a major premise. If you have a self-destructive major premise, for example you think you will never amount to anything or that no one will ever like you, it makes it very difficult to do anything that contradicts this. You need to change to a positive major premise. You need to catch yourself every time you think your major premise, and change it. Write a prayer with how you would like to be and repeat it over and over until it becomes your new way of thinking.

     Your subconscious mind knows all the answers, but does not know that it knows, and could take time coming up with the answer. You need to keep affirming positive directions and in time you will know the answers. Keep affirming positive suggestions and outlooks to yourself. This will become your normal way of thinking. Choose life. Choose love. Choose health. Choose wealth. Choose happiness.

This is an extract from ‘Improve your life’ by George Nicholas. It is based on ideas of Dr Joseph Murphy from ‘The power of your subconscious mind’.