By Schristia

These are the techniques I use to take charge of my mind and redirect it into helping me with my life.

1)  Retrain the brain–

Our subconscious mind is estimated to be 90% of our total brain power. Yet many of us don’t know how to get our subconscious mind involved in getting our dreams changed to reality.

The subconscious can only create what we each create in our mind. Oftentimes, we express what we want in a wish and not as a command. By learning how to use the power of our subconscious mind, we can help make our dreams come true.

If you are allowing your mind or brain to run your life, you are using 10% of your resources. The conscious mind can best be used as the executor of your subconscious mind—the other 90% of your resources.

The group therapy techniques that I have found to be the most effective for learning how to retrain your brain is cognitive (thoughts)-behavioral (actions)–cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT). The first main learning I had was in what is called cognitive restructuring. Simply put, I had to relearn how to think. I learned how to be what I call my observer self.

I never realized that my way of thinking everything was a major disaster was contributing to my life’s disasters. In other words, I was creating the drama and not just reacting to it. So I learned that if I created the drama, I could uncreate it. The simple technique I used was to shout “Stop!” at my obsessive thinking. Scream it loud enough and you tend to get your own attention.

I learned that my mind was out to get me–or, at the very least, my mind was out to control me. I think that I was addicted to feeling bad. The main reward from negative thinking is low expectations of ourselves. If you think you’re not worth much, you don’t have to do much.

2)  Flipping the switch–

Flipping the switch is what I call shifting your point of view. The two points of view that I am currently choosing between are scarcity thinking and prosperity thinking—the old glass half-empty or half full. The mind creates whatever thoughts we focus on. If I focus on what I don’t have instead of what I do have, I am in scarcity mode.

One of my favorite teachers for the prosperity thinking is Catherine Ponder. She was a Unity Church minister who wrote in 1958 a great book, The Dynamic Laws of Prosperity. The book was written via a series of sermons during a recession. She established her belief in prosperity being available to everyone by teaching that the Bible teaching of “not serving God and Mammon” was right. This teaching meant not worshiping wealth but to always recognize who the Giver is.

She was the first I knew who recognized that the brain works by the mental images we produce. She also believed in projected positive images to others so that they can prosper also. With prosperity thinking, you focus on what is and what can be added to the wealth you already possess. I think of it as pyramid. At the base of the pyramid, I have the love of the God of my understanding, my health, my husband, my dog, my loved ones, my business, my home, my computers, the Internet, my spiritual program, my experiences, my plants, the canals, etc.

She also taught one of the spiritual laws I believe—giving away surplus to make room for new. When my cup is full, I have to empty it to get more. So it is with possessions, love, experiences, etc. I have to make room for the new.

3)  Healing our inner critic–

Our self-image is formed by allowing ourselves to be influenced by various authority figures. As we mature and accept the responsibility of defining ourselves, these internalized voices of authority must each be examined and evaluated. It is only when we take back our own power to define ourselves that we are truly free.

Our conscious mind is where thoughts are formed. Our subconscious mind is where our creative mind takes root. As we learn to harness the vast power and energy of the subconscious mind, we are tapping into our real source.

Transactional analysis therapists estimate that we each have 25,000 hours of internalized negative self-talk. We are generally taught what is wrong with us by our authority figures at home, school, church, etc. In an effort to understand who we are, we accept these self-limiting labels as who we are. However, we each individually are the only one who can truly “know” who we are, or, at least, we are in the best position to make the best educated guess. Learn to challenge the “voices” (one of friends called them “the committee”) or negative self-talk you carry around in your head. Listen to what you tell yourself about you.

In learning to monitor your inner critic, learn to first determine if the criticism is helpful. If you find the suggestion to be helpful, next check to see if the inner critic is kind, gentle, and polite to you. If it is in a condemning voice, ask you inner critic to speak kinder to you.

The techniques you may use to change your inner critic from enemy to friend are: speed up the volume, mimic a falsetto voice, etc. My favorite ploy when I was learning this was to scream “Stop”. It is better to practice these techniques while alone. As someone has suggested—learn to join the airwaves until you own the station.

Self-esteem comes from how we evaluate and accept or reject input as well as the foundation we’ve created from the successes we’ve experienced. By learning to focus on our strengths rather than on our weaknesses, we have each take charge of our own destiny.

After learning how to utilize our inner critic, we next need to take charge of our thoughts. What we choose to focus our thinking on determines what we will think and feel about ourselves. You are what you think you are. By substituting positive self-talk for negative self-talk, we are re-programming ourselves for positive action.

Stsava Serbian Orthodox by newagecrap

Mindfulness added to daily meditation helps build a reservoir of positive thoughts that help keep us rooted in the present. In learning to use the mind as an instrument to help promote peace, we will be strengthened to remember the prayer of St. Francis of Assisi:

“Lord, make me an instrument of your peace.
Where there is hatred, let me sow love;
where there is injury,pardon;
where there is doubt, faith;
where there is despair, hope;
where there is darkness, light;
and where there is sadness, joy.”

Additional links for the prayer:

indianchild.com–St. Francis’s prayer

Mindfulness with meditation is easy to incorporate. Shimona Kee whose blog is Happiness is A Choice recommends adding them by:

“When, in meditation, you start to block off all the senses one by one, you are selectively paying attention.
Next, keep talking to yourself, telling yourself to focus on the sound of your breath.
As your breathing gets longer, deeper, louder, and more rhythmic, you might find your mind wandering. Each time it does so, just acknowledge that it did, push the thought away, and continue to focus on the breath.
Patience.
Patience and lots of practice.”

One of my favorite resources for mindfulness is Jim Hopper. He reminds us:

Our lives may be divided into five major categories: mental. physical, social, emotional, and spiritual. We are responsible for the quality of our lives and no one else can provide this quality for us. Others can add to the quality just as they can add to our happiness, but they can’t do it for us. We are each given the wonderful opportunity to be whomever we choose to be.

Let’s assign some activities to the five categories:

1. Mental—reading/studying/hobbies/activities that expand mental abilities.
2. Social—intimate and casual relationships/having a support system that includes 3-5 people/sexuality
3. Physical—rest/nutrition/daily exercise/play/recreation
4. Emotional—experiences wide range of feelings/has frequent feelings of peace, calm, joy/creativity is a daily experience.
5. Spiritual—sense of well-being and being centered/sense of purpose and direction

For each of the above categories, assign a percentage of your life that you spend on each category. You may prefer to divide into the eight stages of life from The Life Coach Trainer. These sections include physical environment, career, money, health, family/friends, significant other, personal growth/contribution and fun/recreation. Assign the percentages of each to see where you need to rebalance your life.

Feed Me Light by kevindooley

Having grownup in a home controlled by alcoholism, I was able to see my addiction very early into the disease. Thanksgiving,  1976, I told my family that I thought I was an alcoholic. I fully expected everyone to disagree with me because I had not had any outward signs. But, my mother said that she had been afraid of that. So I was stuck with the admission and being the “perfect daughter”, I never drank again and went to AA.

My third month into recovery, I had a radical conversion as described by William James in his The Varieties of Religious Experience. It was instant and I call it ‘”the moment that changed my life.” So I have been trying since 1977 to hear what God’s will is for my life. Many days I have followed my will and called it His. But there has been progress, too.

In June, 2009, my husband left me for another woman and they live down the street together. Without God and His followers, I could not have been able to pick up my life and move on. But I now have a need to support myself as my Social Security isn’t enough.

I have been writing on blogs for five years mainly about my spiritual journey which I call recovery. My original blog became so large that I have 6 blogs which each have a single main topic. I have about 30 blogs as I did several to help others learn how to do blogs. I have put all my online work on a separate blog which also has my resume. That blog is My Online Work and Resume.

I always believed that I would make money with my writing. But that hasn’t happened. There are 20,000,000 blogs now. The writing field online is glutted with other writers due to so many looking for any kind of work. There also is so much competition from other countries with writers who work for $1-$2 per article. Each article takes about 1-1 1/2 hours to write.

The main reason that I love helping others is because we are each born with a core of goodness from birth. I also believe that contains our creativity which is the source of our joy. I also believe that helping anyone find this creativity is the answer to awakening others to the beauty of himself/herself. Finally, I believe maturity is returning to the joyful, playful child that God created.

Solitude by Imapix

Many excellent posts exist that help us to organize the ways we can improve our lives. As someone who has been through a lot of personal and professional change, I always remember that the only rule for changing my life is to get into and stay in action. It usually doesn’t make any difference what I do as long as I do something.

One of my favorite bloggers, Leo Babauta of Zen Habits, has written his Handbook for Life: 52 Tips for Happiness and Productivity. His suggestions for using these 52 tips are: (1) pick and choose the tips that are most helpful to you, (2) don’t do them all at once, (3) experiment, (4) none are guaranteed, and (5) these are not in any order.

From Nerds Do It Better, 100 simple ways to change your life for the better. This article is divided among the these categories:

1. Health—Good health is the foundation of a good life, so make these improvements, and they’ll resonate out to the rest of your life.

2. Social—Take these steps to change your social life for the better.

3. Emotional—Improve your emotional life with these simple strategies.

4. Financial—Make these changes to improve your life’s financial outlook.

5. Mental—Improve your mind by taking these simple steps.

6.Habits—Make these changes in your daily life to improve upon yourself.

7. Work—You spend so much time at work, but probably don’t often consider how you can improve upon this important facet of your life.

8. Community—Getting involved in your community is a great way to improve upon your life.

9. Environment—An excellent way to improve upon yourself is to reduce the negative impact you have on the world.

Some other quick links to improve your life:

My Top 10 Productivity Blogs for 2009 from organizeit.co.uk

GTD Refresh, Part 5: Building the Weekly Review Habit from lifehack.org

Singletasking: The Next Trend in Web Working?

How to Find Balance…in 13 Minutes

It Isn’t How Much You Do

Why You Do What You Do (And Why It Should Scare You)

Three Birds by lancer-evolution

Part of a healthy outlook for our life here is to learn to blend all aspects of living together. Most people believe that his/her life is out of balance because of time constraints. Everyone has the same amount of time. So the trick to living a balanced life is to redo what we do with our time.

In “Six Ways to Stay Positive During a Difficult Job Search“, Lindsay Olson suggests:

1)  Take responsibility for your happiness.

2)  Reward yourself for the small successes along the way. (Love this one!)

3)  Find a job search partner and surround yourself with positive people.

4)  Set goals. Get up and get out.

5)  Find time to do things you enjoy.

6)  Consider exploring a cause you are passionate about through part-time volunteer work.

Pam Belluck writes about balancing your life when “recession anxiety seeps into everyday lives“. Several people dealing with sleeplessness and panic attacks due to stress about our economy are turning to using meditation to gain control of panic. Others are returning or trying therapy as  well as stress management techniques.

Current links to help you:

The Importance of Taking a Time Out

Is Yoga the New Church? Spiritual Americans Seep Experience Over Belief