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inCOGnito
13-12-14, 14:28
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Intro

I'm not a guru by any means. I've applied these two techniques over the last 6 weeks or so and I am really feeling the changes. I came across ideas like these around 2 years ago but never applied them. I thought I couldn't do them, that they didn't apply to me. There were many excuses. As I've come more receptive to them they start to build up a positive momentum. And it's only then that you start to really feel the effects of their application. Anyone can apply these, in fact you are already applying these techniques, you're just using them subconsciously to build negative momentum! I'm not a guru and I'm not sitting here writing from a place of serenity, but I am getting better using this and other things, and there is absolutely no reason not to try.

Would you rather be positive or negative? In fact it's not necessarily about being 'positive', that might be too difficult to do from where you are now. I know this from experience. But you can start changing your beliefs that make you feel so negative. You might start to feel even a tiny bit better which is always welcome. Or would you rather feel negative and worrisome? You are allowed to feel happier or just a little better despite whatever else is going on in your life right now. Even if you knew something difficult was coming up in a weeks time, like a surgery, challenging event, or a dentist appointment - would you rather be positive or negative in those seven days? But this isn't just about being more positive or "positive thinking" (yeah, I hated that statement as much as you probably do!), instead it is about changing your limiting beliefs that make you feel habitually negative.

Background

These techniques are based on everything I've read and/or come to realise myself over the last 3 years. It's based on the Law of Attraction, and even if you don't know about it or believe it, that doesn't matter. Apply the two techniques and after a few weeks, judge for yourself. The law of attraction states that what vibration you send out into the universe, you then attract back to yourself. If that sounds a little too whacky for you, it is easier to think in very simple psychological terms - what you believe will shape your life. If you think you are not good enough, then you will always find evidence to justify your not being good enough. Or if you believe you are deserving of love, then you will attract more love in your life. It's that simple. But it's not important to believe or understand this, it just helps give you motivation to apply it. These techniques are about changing your automatic thought processes and changing them to more helpful strategies and habits.

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These two techniques are based on shifting up the belief stream to get what you want. First you have to know what you want, which is the first technique. Then you have to move toward that positive outcome in a gradual way. This isn't about getting what you want right here and now, it doesn't work like that. It takes practice and you will find that it may be difficult in the beginning and that it gets easier and easier as you go. This is about building positive momentum and changing thinking habits.

Your current state

If you are mildly anxious or severely anxious, your current state has been brought about largely by what you believe and how you think. Maybe there's medical reasons or life reasons that have contributed to or worsened your anxiety, but your belief systems have in no doubt worsened all of it. If you believe you will never get better (and many of us have this unconscious belief) then you will always find reasons and "evidence" to back up your belief. If you worry about an event then that very worry increases your stress, increases adrenaline and cortisol. So it's no surprise that the event becomes stressful and you succumb to anxiety. It's helpful to understand why we worry.

Why do we worry?

Worry is a self-protection mechanism (as is all fear). Worry is no more than your brain running over potential scenarios in your mind for what might go wrong. It's just doing its job. It's a precursor to planning and strategizing about how to avoid potential dangers. So for example, you might worry about going to the dentist. You imagine yourself whincing in pain at the dentist drill, you worry about becoming anxious in the waiting room, you worry that you'll get hysterical and run out of the dentist chair, you worry about the shame and humiliation. The worry is designed to assess potential danger to yourself (to your physical self or your well-being), and come up with a strategy to avoid that danger. It is no wonder we avoid going to the dentist. It is merely a strategy for avoiding emotional or physical pain. The real trouble is not worry, it is excessive worry and worry in a mind that is already over-sensitized, over-fatigued, and over-emotional. In the anxious mind it merely exagerates the process of worry and the emotional response from it. Worry can actually be useful when it isn't so emotionally laden. This is why we worry... we do it because we believe it is protective. Changing how we think about ourselves and about challenging situations reduces the need for worry and reduces the habit of it. When our bodies become less sensitized and fatigued, the emotional reaction to worry decreases. It takes the fuel out of the fire.

Underlying worry are beliefs like these - "I can't do this", "I'm not good enough", "I failed before, I will fail again", "I don't have the strength or skill to do this", "I'm different from everyone else - my problems are worse", etc. It's these beliefs about yourself that lead to the worry. Would you worry about an event if you believed in your ability to cope with that situation? Of course not.

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But this is the tricky thing about belief - you believe them! According to Abraham Hicks, a belief is just a thought you have practised over and over. So it's not that you're not capable or not good enough, it's just that you believe you are not good enough or not capable enough. So you find situations and 'evidence' in your life that supports these beliefs. This is the self-fulfilling prophecy. These two techniques below are designed to break you out of that self-fulfilling prophecy. They are there to stop you attracting what you don't want and to start attracting what you do want. Suddenly starting to believe you are good enough may be too difficult in the beginning, because your belief in yourself is so deep. But changing your beliefs in a systematic way can actually change your whole belief structure and therefore, your life, gradually and resolutely.

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Next post: Technique #1 - Knowing what you DO want

---------- Post added at 14:28 ---------- Previous post was at 12:01 ----------

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Technique #1- Knowing what you do want

As I mentioned in the previous post you get what you attract. So the first place to start is getting to know what you do want. This might not be as obvious as you first think. I've spent my entire teenage and adult life knowing what I don't want, but never what I do[/i] want. When you have a belief, be it positive or negative, you attract more of the same. So if you worry, you attract more worry. If you are positive you attract more positivity.

To get what you want you have to know what you want. If you go into a restaurant and the waitress asks you want you want, do you say I don't want the beef and hand her back the menu? No. You tell her what you want and you get what you want. When you go on a date and your date asks you where you want to go tonight, you don't say "I don't want to go to the cinema" and expect to know where you are going. The example Hicks uses is that you put your desired destination into your SATNAV and the SATNAV guides you where you want to go. You can't say to your SATNAV I don't want to go to Nottingham and expect to get to Wolverhampton. [b]You have to know where you want to go before you get there.

In the anxious mind, and probably for many months or years, you have been focussing on what you don't want. how many times have you said to yourself - "I don't want to feel like this", "I hate this, won't it just go away", "I don't want to be anxious", "I don't want to panic", "I don't want to experience this emotion anymore". Most of your thoughts are focussed on what you do NOT want. Not what you want. By focusing on what you don't want, you don't tell your mind (or life, god, or the universe - whatever you are comfortable with) what you DO want. Therefore, you attract the very things you DON't want. Or you are so focused on the absence of what you do want that you don't make clear what you want. So start being clearer on what you want!

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Pivoting

I started to use this technique before I found out that someone gave it a name! They call it pivoting and it's so very simple. It transfers your attention away from negative worrisome thoughts toward positive desires. That very act in itself is enough to make you feel more positive, or at least not as bad as you were before.

All this is based on something very very fundamental. As Hicks puts it - knowing what you DON'T want allows you to know what you DO want. All of the bad things in your life are in actual fact pointing you to where you want to go. Knowing this takes the sting out of all those fearful thoughts and feelings. So when you have a fearful thought about something, what is the opposite? What do you want this situation to be like? How do you want to feel in this situation? Knowing what you don't want allows you to begin to focus on what you do want to manifest. Now that your attention is focussing on what you do want allows life itself to create the conditions for what you desire to come to fruition. Now you are putting where you want to go into the SATNAV!

Pivoting in Action

When you have a negative thought or fearful feeling you want to think about what you do want. No longer do you have to recoil at the anxious thought, instead thank it. Thank it for showing you what you really want. Use pivoting as often as necessary. The more you use it the more you will start to see positives even in the darkest spots. You can apply this to any fearful thought you have.

For example, let's say you have a fear of going to the dentist. You start imagining all the things that could go wrong. Stop. Say "Mind, thank you for showing me what I don't want to happen." Now you ask for what you do want. "[Mind, life, god, universe], I want to feel at ease at the dentists. I want to be able to relax in the waiting room. I want to feel comfortable in the dentist chair. I want the dentist to be kind and comforting. I want to enjoy the experience of having my teeth cleaned! I want the dentist to say I have great teeth and everything is getting better each time I come in."

Just re-focussing alone will take attention away from negative thoughts. By doing so you interrupt the spiral of negative feelings that come from negative thoughts. You start to focus on positive aspects which makes you feel better. Even if it is only a little better to begin with.

Other examples are;

I don't want to feel anxious when alone - PIVOT - I want to feel at peace being alone
I don't want to worry about my presentation next week - PIVOT - I want to feel more confident about my presentation than I do now.
I don't want these panic thoughts - PIVOT - I want to be so comfortable with my thoughts that they don't matter any more.


Important points

With pivoting you make it very clear what you DO want. You aren't plucking random things out of the air, like wanting a new car or to win the lotto. Your desires are borne out of what you do not want. Pivoting can be done anytime, anywhere. It really is turning that frown upside down!

Your pivoting thoughts should be very specific. For instance, knowing you don't want anxiety let's you know you want peace. Instead of just focusing on peace make it even more specific. "I want to be at peace when alone. I want to be at peace when out in the street. I want to feel peaceful in my body and in my mind. I want to feel relaxed when talking with others." And so on. Make it as context specific as you like. Making it more specific allows you to focus more and more. It allows to conjure up the images and feelings that help to create it and make it real.

Get into the feelings. As well as focusing on, say, being more peaceful at home alone. Imagine what it would feel like to be at home alone, peaceful. The more you get into the groove of it the easier and more positive it actually becomes.

Final note of Pivoting

Pivoting isn't some technique just to use when you are in a panic. It's not an anti-panic technique. It;s about a long term strategy to shift your attitude and belief systems. It's actually not difficult at all, it's very very easy. The only problem you might have is really believing and getting into it. This is because you already have built a negative momentum. It might take a little time to slow that momentum and change direction. Introduce it into daily life and it'll start to build its own positive momentum. The next technique is one that is used in tandem to this one. It compliments the Pivoting technique and builds that momentum. :)

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Next post - Technique #2: Hierarchy of Positive Belief

inCOGnito
29-12-14, 13:07
Technique #2 - Hierarchy of Positive Belief

I know how difficult it is to be positive. In fact it's one of the things you hate most when people tell you to be positive or stay positive. You believe that if only you felt better then you could be more positive. The key here is to be more positive than are. That doesn't mean jumping all over the place professing how you love everything and exclaiming how great everything is. We know that that is futile. But why?

Why doesn't jumping around forcing yourself to be happy make you happy?

The answer is simple. Because you don't believe it. And it's your beliefs that drive your thoughts and emotions. Esther Hicks uses a great example to put it into perspective, and it's an extension of the analogy I used this in the last post.

If you want to get to your destination you don't expect to get there right away. When you go for a drive you put your destination into the SATNAV and it plots the route for you. But that doesn't mean you get there straight away. In fact, sometimes it can take some time depending on where you want to go and how far away it is from you are currently at. If I want to get to London from Edinburgh I first have to go past Berwick, Newcastle, Doncaster, and so on. You can't expect to get to London or even pretend your way there! It takes time, [u]but knowing that you are on your way makes the journey more bearable![/b]. It provides encouragement and it lets you know that you are on the right path! Imagine you were on your way to London from Edinburgh and you got to Newcastle and thought "This isn't London". You would get fed up, you would be disappointed, you would be sad, depressed, hopeless, and would slide back to Edinburgh fearing you will never never get to London. That's just silly isn't it. But it's exactly what goes on in your mind when you try to be positive. You try, maybe even feel a bit better for a short time, but eventually you can't maintain that positivity, and you slump back into negativity believing that you can never be a 'positive person'.

How this technique compliments the first

Now that you have set your destination by identifying where it is you want to go - or what it is you want - then you need to start getting there! The trouble with technique #1 is that you don't quite know how to get where you want to go and soon you start to question whether or not it works. But with technique #2 you know have the destination and the route to get there!

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What is technique #2 - The Hierarchy of Positive Belief

As I mentioned it is your beliefs that drive your thoughts, emotions, and your reality. This technique is all about starting to change your beliefs is a systematic and gradual manner. It isn't about convincing yourself of anything. It's not about convincing yourself that you are awesome when you feel like crap. But it is about breaking out of your negative mind patterns where you start to see that you ARE actually much better than you believed you were.

To do this you have to start small and work your way up toward what you want to believe or where you want to go. With a negative mindset you automatically find the negative in things. With a switch to these techniques you can start to see the positives. It's about finding out what is true about you, finding out the good things, the things you have neglected forgotten, dismissed, ignored, avoided, and under-appreciated. It is NOT about lying to yourself. When you start to actually see the positives you build up a new momentum, a positive momentum. So with each step of the hierarchy you build on the last.

First you find out what you believe right now. It can be about any aspect of your life or yourself. You then re-state that belief in a different way. A more positive way, and importantly, in a way that you BELIEVE. You then find the opposite of your first negative belief. This is from technique #1 - you find out what you DO want. Remember technique #1 is about identifying what you DO want using the negative situation that tells you what you DON'T want.

So now you have your negative statement, you ultimate positive statement, and you've made your first step up the hierarchy of positive belief by changing your negative statement into a slightly more positive one. You might remember the little word games that come in puzzle magazines or newspapers. You start with one word and have to get to a different word in a number of steps by only changing one letter at a time. It's a bit like that!

This is something you can write down. You can write out all the steps up the hierarchy or just create them as you go along in life. Once you believe a statement you can carry on up the ladder to the next one. The statements are all yours, you create the statements the you believe and that work for you.

How to implement technique #2 - an example

This technique can work on any of your beliefs. This is one I am working on now and can serve as an example.

The negative belief - "I am incapable of being positively minded. I am not a positive person."

With this I identify what I DO want and create a statement of what I want to achieve/believe.

The positive belief - "I am capable of being positively minded. I am a positive person!"

As you understand, one cannot jump into that positive belief straight away so we start very humbly on the first step.

First step - "I am not as positive minded as I would like to be. I can find it difficult to be positive but I understand that I can learn. I can learn a new way to think. I can find ways and means to help me change. I was happy as a child and I believe I can be happy again. My negative mindedness has been caused by life circumstances and I wasn't aware of what I was doing to myself. I was ignorant and starting to think in negative ways and I was very unkind to myself. But I can learn and change the way I think using this technique and others. It might not always be easy, but I can make a start today and even being a little bit more positive is better than being so negative."

Although that was a big statement, it came from a place of truthfulness. It is something I believe, and in the early stages we should use anything that comes to mind to get the ball rolling! Remember we are having to change a LOT of negative momentum. But we have to make a start somewhere. And here is where we are. In time, all this will become easier.

You can then create step 2 now by writing it down or staying with step one until you really get to grips with it and feel it take hold in your system. Moving on from step 1, step 2 might sound something like this.

Step 2 - "I know that this might not always be easy, but I know that it IS possible to be a little more positive about certain things in my life. I can be grateful for the things I do have instead of thinking about the things I don't, no matter how small or seemingly insignificant. I'm glad I'm starting to feel more positive about things even though I still find many things challenging or difficult in my life."

Steps 3 and onward would continue to build on your previous statements until you reach your goal!!

The number of steps is entirely dependent on where you are, where you are going, and how deep that belief is. The really positive thing about all this is as you become more positive and make statements about what you do want, you start to notice more things in your life that compliment your belief, strengthen it, or are opportunities to further your way toward your goal.

As a further example I will create some hypothetical steps to give you a better idea of how to do it

Negative belief - "I can't stand in the shop queue because I might get anxious"

Ultimate Positive belief - "I enjoy standing in queues"

Step 1 - "I don't like standing in the shop queue because I might get anxious" ('can't' was changed to 'don't like')

Step 2 - "I know anxiety won't kill me even though it makes me feel horrible, I can learn to stand in queues even if I am anxious"

Step 3 - "I can do do little queues when it's not busy"

Step 4 - "I can do little queues even when it's busy. The feelings don't bother me as much as they used to"

Step 5 - "I can do big queues even when it's busy. I know I won't be here forever and that these feelings will pass."

Step 6 - "I can do any kind of queue, no problem. The feelings are just feelings"

Step 7 - "I can actually relax in queues. In fact sometimes I even chat to the person behind me!"

Step 8 - "I enjoy standing in queues. I remember when I used to get anxious and now I am so happy that I can be relaxed!"

Final thoughts

Remember that this is NOT a quick fix. It takes time to change those beliefs you have held for so long. But with small positive steps in the right direction, it can have a snowball effect!

You can use other positive thinkingtechniques to compliment these. These are just two that really help build a good foundation.

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