Part One

Watch Out For That First Step

Part Two

You Have All The Answers

Part Three

Who Is That In The Mirror?

Part Four

Manifesting Your Goals

Part Five

Ignorance Is Not Bliss

Part Six

The Truth And Nothing But The Truth

Part Seven

Conclusion

Part One

The Power Of Listening

“Listening looks easy, but it’s not simple. Every head is a world.”

- Anonymous

You probably think that you know yourself pretty well. You might be partially right on assuming this. After all only you know exactly what it is going on in your head. You are aware what motivates you and what makes you tick, or do you only think you know? Sometimes it can be very difficult for us to see and hear ourselves as we really are.

Now stop for a second and think hard; are you really listening to your inner voice, your internal monologue? Each of us has an inner voice that guides us as we move forward in our lives. One of the main focus in my private practice is to bring attention to this internal voice. The voice you are hearing may be your own but in some cases it might be a recorded voice of someone else playing repeatedly, telling you how to act or how to feel. In many cases it might be the voice of someone that is close to your heart.

As you attach feelings and thoughts to this voice, it is crucial that you pay attention to what your inner voice is telling you. If you find that some of these messages that are playing inside your head are negative or counter productive you need to find out the source. Listen to the tonality, pitch, loudness, distance and even direction (left or right side of your head).

Remember that most us listen to authoritative figures, our parents, teachers or even friends. Unfortunately a lot of the times they impose on us some of their limiting beliefs. Their voices are recorded in our subconscious mind, even from early age; these recordings will play over and over again under different circumstances, eventually creating patterns and overtime these patterns will develop into habits or behaviours.

I want you to realize that your subconscious mind is the largest data recorder in the universe and it has been recording every sight, sound, smell, taste, and feeling since you were born; never erasing any recorded memory. Now imagine this recording device playing a limiting belief that was planted somewhere along your life time. Unfortunately without listening and paying attention to these sounds, sights, or feelings, any situation or experience can trigger a negative memory in less than a millisecond, all of a sudden you are experiencing all sort of unpleasant emotions, setting in motion a self defeating program.

Fortunately your unconscious mind has also stored all of your accomplishments, your resources and strengths that are far more vast than you think. The same way that you taught yourself to trigger certain negative feeling and emotions under certain conditions, you can also train your mind to reverse the process and actually achieve a positive emotion and outcome under the same circumstances, it only requires for you to start listening.

As you acquire a greater insight into the way you think, you are tapping into the source of the causes, no longer paying attention to the manifestation and the effect. This is where you take control of your life, by listening. As you start taking control of your own life, you will adopt a higher standard for yourself; you’ll set yourself free from any external influences. This way you will become empowered by being in charge of your own destiny.

Listening is the way one begins the process of self-awareness. It is very simple, all you need to do is give yourself the time, attention and commitment you deserve. This process will shift your point of view in life. You will function and deal with the causes that influence every decision and action you take. When you apply the power of listening in your life, you will rise above previous circumstances that have caused you stress, worries, frustration and even feelings of depression. You will see life in a new perspective; a life you deserve, where you no longer will be a pawn on a high stake chess game but a confident individual who has complete control of her/his life; this is self-empowerment.

To be empowered you need to make a commitment to succeed, to listen and take full responsibilities for your actions. You have to stop blaming others for your current state; don’t blame yourself ether. Search within and discover what decisions and actions you took that brought you to the circumstances you find yourself at this point in your life.

Commit to make listening a top priority. This means believing you deserve a successful and healthy life. By making the power of listening a priority you become more open-minded and willing to pay attention to your own intuition. In other words this is the first step into developing your intuition.

By listening to your intuition you will find the purpose of your life and your place in the world. Once you listen to your inner voice you open the door to your unconscious mind, your Higher Self. By having access to your unconscious mind you are obtaining knowledge that is not available to the analytical conscious mind. The positive effect of this process will allow your life to flow with feelings of confidence and awareness which will manifest in your life as love, happiness, creativity, motivation, forgiveness and other positive emotions and experiences.

You might be already aware of the fact that the lessons we learn in our daily life become deeply rooted in our mind and are remembered longer and more vividly than the lessons we learn in school. It is essential for you to be aware of this fact, by having this in mind, you will now be aware that the lessons you learn from experiences go deeper than the lessons you learn in any seminar, workshop or classroom. This is why is so important to follow your “heart” and keep your eyes (the mind) open.

Have you ever stopped and paid close attention to your own words when you are ready to make an important decision or any decision for that matter, do you tell yourself “I have to do this task,” “I must find the answer,” “I should finish my chores”? All these statements implies obligation, words and expressions such as “must, need, should, got to, have to, ought to” are associated with feelings of stress. So it is no surprise that whenever we begin a project where we use this type of expression, we either never finish it or we perform the task as a burden. From this point on, start switching all those obligation word for more empowering words, for example “I can, I want, I choose to, I desire, I love to.” The way you express yourself will be the feelings you will experience.

Do you know the difference when you tell yourself or to others “I think, I can…” Versus “I feel, I can…”?. The difference is quite clear, “I think” is coming from the analytical conscious mind, “I feel” is coming from your unconscious mind, your Higher Self. Now you cannot have one without the other but it is very important that from now on you start paying close attention. By paying close attention you will start to make better decisions. For example you don’t want to make a decision about love by focusing only on what you are thinking. You need to pay more attention to your feelings, to the heart. On the other hand you don’t want to make a financial decision based only on your feelings. You need to think it over, the analytical conscious mind.

A lot of people have a distorted idea of what constitutes a good or bad decision because they don’t listen to their inner-voice. By taking action without applying the power of listening it will be very hard improving the quality of your lifestyle. You must learn to hear yourself clearly, not through the voices of others but through your own voice. This is a task truly valuable, tap into this great resource and take control of your life.

Step 1.

If you are feeling bad, down or depressed, there are certain things you are doing internally. You will be either internally hearing negative suggestions, or seeing negative images, or physically feeling negative sensations or maybe even experiencing all three at the same time. Implement the Power of Listening and take notice of everything that is going on in your mind and body.

Step 2.

With your eyes closed or open, take a moment and mentally screen out any distractions. Listen to your thoughts and feelings to understand your emotional state. The important thing is to be attentive. If your thoughts start to wander, immediately concentrate and refocus.

Step 3.

Allow your mind to create a mental movie, a picture, or an arrangement of abstract symbols of the information being communicated that is making you feel bad.

Step 4.

Take this movie, picture or symbols and make it smaller, much smaller. To the size you can hardly see it, feel it or hear it. Imagine that it becomes so small that it turns into dust, powder, filth.

Step 5.

Now with your breath, blow from your mouth and visualize, imagine and feel that you blow the dust far away and the wind takes it all away, far away.

Step 6.

Next, call to mind a time in your life when you felt wonderful and inspired. Connect with all the feelings and emotions of that memory. See it clearly, hear it loudly, feel it intensely, just like you were there now. Once again implement the Power of Listening to strengthen those great feelings.

Step 7.

Visualize and imagine yourself experiencing all those great feelings tomorrow, next week and next month.

You Are What You Believe

“The sky is falling, The sky is falling.”

- Chicken Licken

As far as we know we are the only species on this planet that have the ability to believe. We can establish a believe just about anything. We believe in faith, justice, reason, politics, even in reality. Every person in the world is a belief generating machine. Unfortunately sometimes we take someone else’s beliefs and adopt them as ours, some negative, some positive.

Did you know that your unconscious mind cannot recognize between negative and positive? It’s true, just like the genie in the bottle, it only follows commands based on your programming (beliefs). It is very simple: if you shift your thinking, your life will shift; I can tell you without a single drop of a doubt that you can attract all the success you want in your personal life and in your professional life; keep in mind that every event, situation, fortune or misfortune that happens in your life is due to your own beliefs. It is not the outside world that is causing your failures or accomplishments; it is all the beliefs within you. You cannot blame anyone else, so you have to take responsibility for your own life.

When you get what you want or you don’t get what you want, is your belief that generated that experience. For example: if you don’t get that raise that you wanted or you get rejected by that person you wanted to date, it is your belief system that prevented you from achieving this goal. To make things worst, once a negative event like this happens you reenforce all those limiting beliefs by telling yourself phrases such as “This always happens to me,” “This happened because I am too old,” “I will never get this raise,” “He/she is too good for me”, “I am a failure.” If you believe that you are a failure or that you don’t deserve to achieve your goals, then you definitely will fail at attaining them.

Most people like to take credit for their accomplishment but prefer to blame someone else for their failures; don’t delude yourself. You are making all this happen, whether in a positive or negative matter. For example: if you wish and believe that you are going to get promoted; when it does happen, you tell your friends and family “You see, I knew I was going to get it.” It is very easy to give yourself credit. But, most people blame others when something negative happens; let’s say you think and believe you cannot get promoted because your boss doesn’t like you; when your boss announces that one of your coworkers got the promotion, you tell your family and friends “You see, I told you my boss didn’t like me.”

It is time for you to stop creating and feeding these limiting believes. Realize that consciously or unconsciously you are drawing everything that you don’t want in your life. Take the first step and question yourself regarding these beliefs, for example: “Does this really happen to me all the time?” Probably not, I bet you can think of numerous times when you got what you wanted; “Do I really believe I will never get that raise?” I am pretty sure you know you can get that raise down the road, “Do I really believe that I am a failure?” You don’t, just think of the many achievements in your life. Just like in a courtroom, answering the questions will show that these limiting beliefs are false, guilty of perjury.

Don’t think for a moment that you are holding limiting beliefs all by yourself, everyone in the world has limiting beliefs. No matter how successful the life of someone else might seem, they too are wrestling with their own negative beliefs. If you want to get ahead in life, then your job is to identify and get rid of the most damaging and destructive beliefs. The only way to achieve this, is by replacing an old out of date belief with a new more useful and constructive belief. Our belief system is like the operating system in a computer. You cannot simply remove the operating system without replacing it with another updated version. Without an operating system the computer doesn’t work. This new updated belief always has to be in the present tense, you have to believe that it’s already a reality, it’s a fact, something that you can see, hear and feel. If you believe that you will achieve a certain goal in six months or a year from today, then this belief has to be as true in your mind as you are sure that the sun will come up tomorrow morning. If you have any doubts or fears, you might not achieve it because you are taking all the energy away from it and placing it somewhere in an uncertain future.

Is always good to remember that wealth and happiness is not a thing, something concrete, or something you hold with your hand. Wealth and happiness is a belief. How do we know this? Is very simple; we know very well that if you take two individuals. One a successful millionaire, the other an honest individual that makes $25,000.00 a year. You take away all their possessions from them and place them in a foreign country without contacting anyone they know. If you look at their lives after a year, you will find that the millionaire is making more money than before and the individual that made $25,000.00 a year is working on a job that brings in about the same income as before. You might ask yourself, why? Very simple, deep inside the millionaire believes that he is worth over a million dollars, on the other hand the other individual believes he is worth $25,000.00. I recommend that you start believing that you are very valuable.

You can make some amazing achievements in you life as long as you are willing to believe you can. If you want to achieve better health, you have to believe that you are entitled to it. Learn how to use this powerful ability that you possess to enrich your life and the life of those near you. Never let anyone or anything break your belief system. Always have the persistence to keep believing. Whatever you do don’t take any shortcuts and most important, don’t fall in the trap of instant gratification. If you believe something is worth while, don’t settle for something less. For instance, if you believe you can lose thirty pounds; don’t be lured by claims and advertising that offers immediate results by taking a pill or by having an unnecessary surgery. Let me repeat myself, don’t take any shortcuts and don’t fall in the trap of instant gratification; if you do, most of the time you will regret it. For the example presented here, the proper way of achieving your goal of controlling your weight would be by eating healthy and exercising.

Believe in yourself as you move forward in life. Allow this knowledge to help you develop and advance your growth emotionally, mentally, physically, and spiritually. Open your mind and let your beliefs remove any obstacles in your path to success. You have all the resources you need to achieve what you want; the outcome of every action you take lies on the reality you choose to believe.

When you decide to make a shift in your belief system always make sure you see it and feel it, starting from the present moment and in action for the rest of your life. Follow the steps on the following exercise, to implement the changes you want to achieve in your life.

Step 1.

Select a spot where you will not be disturbed for about ten minutes. With your palms facing upward place your hands loosely on your lap. Take three deep breaths and allow yourself to relax.

Step 2.

Determine a limiting belief that you want to get rid of. Elicit all the negative feelings, sensations and emotions from that belief. Picture any moment in your past where this limiting belief prevented you from achieving your goal.

Step 3.

Imagine you can hold this picture in one of your hands. Notice all the details in the picture. See it, hear it, feel it.

Step 4.

Now, think of a useful belief you want to have in your life. Elicit all the positive feelings, sensations and emotions from this belief. Imagine a time in the future where this new positive belief allowed you to achieve your goal.

Step 5.

Imagine you can hold this picture of yourself in the future in the opposite hand. Notice all the details in the picture. See it, hear it, feel it.

Step 6.

Look back at your hand where you are holding the picture with the limiting belief. As you look at it, the picture is becoming dull looking, notice how the picture becomes blurry and white out, slowly shrinking down, smaller and smaller to the point that you can no longer see it, hear it or feel it.

Step 7.

Go back to the opposite hand where you are holding the new useful and positive belief you want in your life. Look closely; allow the picture to become larger and larger, with brighter and sharper tones. Imagine the picture becoming so large that it takes up all the space in front of you. You actually need both hands to hold it. See it, hear it, feel it and believe it. Repeat this exercise three to four times and increase the effect.

Take Action

“We live in a universe of action.”

- Santiago Aranegui

I am going to make a bold statement “The most important element in our life is action”. Planning, imagining, and visualization are essential but action is without a doubt the most important element of the equation. It is true that the universe is constantly supporting every single thought and request we send to it but nothing would materialize without the crucial step of taking action “set the wheels in motion”.