The Power of Visualization (Part Three): The Subconscious Mind

I Am the Captain of My Fate

Experiences Can Be Synthesized:

A lady, from Northeastern Nigeria, once asked me, 

“What if everything about me has been a pain all my life? Does that condemn me to failure?” 

Of course not. The clear answer is, No! No!! No!!! Your own experience does not have to be your limit unless you so choose. You hold the power in your hands. You hold the keys. You can read. You can listen. You can watch it. You can learn. You can grow. You can create. You can re-create. You can imagine. As Isaac Newton puts it, 

“If I have been able to see further, it was only because I stood on the shoulders of giants.”

You can assess other people’s experiences and victories. You can stand “on the shoulders of giants” who have gone ahead. You can use their experiences, as a base, to synthesize your own. You can make their experiences, along with the driving energy behind them, yours. You can even have a better result than they did, for you can synthesize experiences from more than one person on a particular issue. You can take all the strengths, and drop their weaknesses. 

“You have strength over your mind – not outside events. Realize this, and you will find strength.” (Marcus Aurelius)

You can develop a “Frankenstein” experience that meets your desired end game. 

“A powerful combination to ensure success is having the vision of an eagle and the heart of a lion.” (Robert G. Allen) 

All you need do is imagine yourself walking in their shoes. How will it have been, or will it be? By the time you meditate on this long enough and allow it to soak deep into your being, it becomes your own. You take ownership. Your subconscious mind accepts it as your own experience of life. It assumes it actually happened to you. And, provides you with the same adrenaline support and agility, someone who went through the real occurrence gets.

Subconscious Mind's Shortfall:

Herein is the beauty, strength, power, weakness, menace, and bane of the subconscious mind,

“It cannot distinguish between fiction and reality.”

Understood and harnessed appropriately, it will make you work wonders. You become practically unstoppable. Taken for granted and allowed to be used against you, and you might as well regret the very day you were born. Such is the power of the subconscious mind. It is the determinant of what our life turns out to be, and what it runs on - fear or faith. It is the storehouse of all our habits, both the apparent, obviously visible ones and the not too obvious, insidious ones.

“The key to success is to focus the conscious mind on the things we desire not on the things we fear.” (Usman Mahmood)

This helps in understanding the pandemic of mental illnesses in our world today. Our subconscious mind is simply giving back the harvest of all we have sowed and are sowing into it. Jim Rohn captures this so aptly. he said, 

“The greatest form of maturity is at harvest time. This is when we must learn how to reap without complaint if the amounts are small and how to reap without apology if the amounts are big.” 

We are reaping what we have sown and are sowing. The challenge is not our mind, but how we put it to proper use.

We Need to Recognise Our Weakness:

We think too highly of ourselves. We think we are rational beings who make clearly thought-out decisions and follow through with the same. How so full of it and ignorant we are. Unknown to us, we are helpless captives, who are simply following pre-established program codes, written in our subconsciousness.

“Greatness is the ability to recognize the power of your mind, embracing and using it.” (Napoleon Hill)

Ever wonder why one from a broken home is predisposed to having one? Why one from an abusive home is predisposed to marrying into one, or why it is difficult for him or her to cut the cord? There are powers pulling the strings. Such has been bewitched, hypnotized, under a spell.

Habits:

“Repetition of the same thought or physical action develops into a habit which, repeated frequently enough, becomes an automatic reflex.” (Norman Vincent Peale) 

In the spiritual palace, we would attribute this to "familiar spirits.” True or false, that is not our intent here. The clear fact is we all are drawn to things that feed something inside of us, irrespective of our awareness, or not of it. Something in our subconsciousness always seeks to draw us to “familiar” territories. In neurological terms, we would call these pre-established neurological pathways.

Faith is the Way:

As one gains an understanding of the potency of our subconsciousness, one begins to appreciate why the bible is so strong in telling us not to fear and not to be anxious. When we fear or are anxious something is acting on our subconscious mind to hold us captives. When we act in faith we are engaging our subconscious mind in lifting ourselves up to a higher level of life, being, and living. 

"Many of our thoughts are unconscious and by making them conscious we can decrease the power they have over both our emotions and our behaviors." - Dr. Gail Saltz, MD. 

"Until you make the unconscious conscious, it will direct your life and you will call it fate." - Carl Gustav Jung.

Visualization is one of the primary ways by which we do this.

© 2016 Akin Akinbodunse

Links to Study Series:

The Power of Visualization (Part Two): We Take Charge.

The Power of Visualization (Part Four): Harnessing the Subconscious Mind.

Links to Related Topic:

Your Dreams Are Possible

The Power of Dreams (Part Three)

Links to Resources (Books) for Further Study:

Buddha's Brain (Rick Hanson and Daniel J. Siegel)

Circuit Train Your Brain (Molly M. Cantrell-Kraig)

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