You’ve tried everything and those negative thoughts refuse to budge. You’ve visualized your desired outcome. You’ve said a million affirmations. You’ve thought it through and know all the logical reasons to change.
Yet, you don’t see the change you desire.
What do you do? Give up and believe that you can’t change? Or, do you try something different?
You have another option. You can release your negative emotions.
Changing thoughts
When you want to change, your thoughts seem like the obvious place to start. When you have a problem or an area of life you want to improve you become aware of your thoughts.
Some negative thoughts include:
- I’m not good enough
- I don’t deserve happiness
- I’m too stupid to learn this
- Nobody will ever love me
- I messed up again
- I always mess up
You beat yourself up even more when you try to change your thoughts and fail.
Another option
What would happen if you released the negative charge attached to your thoughts? The charge or the emotion gives the thought meaning. Meaning tells us whether we need to feel good or bad.
Changing the meaning can transform anything.
How your mind is organized
Knowing how you mind is organized can help you change. I am going to use a simplified description of the mind. We have two aspects: conscious and unconscious.
Your conscious mind is what you are aware of. These can be thoughts, your body, your environment, etc. We can be aware of only a few pieces of information at one time. A common estimate is 5 to 9 pieces of information. This is also know as Miller’s Law. When you work with your conscious thoughts you are limited by this number.
Your unconscious mind has access to huge amounts of information at one time. According to Bruce Lipton who wrote the Biology of Belief your unconscious mind (he uses the term subconscious) can process 20,000,000 bits of information per second. The conscious mind can process only 40 bits of information per second.
I like to think of the mind like an iceberg. Only a little bit is visible. The rest is hidden deep below the water. (Now the photo makes sense!)
Talking to your unconscious mind
You may be thinking: “My unconscious mind is a great resource, but how do I tap into it if it is unconscious?”
Your unconscious mind speaks a different language. It speaks to you every night when you dream. Your emotions speak the same language. This is the language of metaphors, stories and images. I like to think of this language as the poetry of emotion.
When you learn this language you can tap into this vast resource to solve problems, know yourself and discover your life purpose.
This may sound like a tall order but by releasing the past you can become the person you always wanted to be.
Curious?
(Image:Derek Keats @ Filckr http://www.flickr.com/photos/dkeats/3105177368/)
