Breaking the Habit of Being Yourself
Page 25
Remember that you’re not ready to start your Week Two meditations yet. In this section, you’ve recognized an unwanted emotion and its corresponding state of mind that you want to unmemorize, then you admitted it inwardly and declared it outwardly. There’s one more step to read, after which you can put all four together in your Week Two meditation….
STEP 4: SURRENDERING
Surrendering: Yield to a Greater Power and
Allow It to Resolve Your Limitations or Blocks
Surrendering is the final step in this section, in which you are pruning away the habit of being yourself.
Most of us struggle with the idea of letting go, of allowing someone or something else to have control. Keeping in mind whom you are surrendering to—the Source, Infinite Wisdom—should make this process go much easier.
Einstein said that no problem could be solved from the same level of consciousness that created it. The limited state of mind of your personality is responsible for creating your limitations, and the answer has not come to you … so why not go to a grander, more resourceful consciousness to help you overcome this facet of yourself? Since all potentials exist in this infinite sea of possibilities, you are humbly asking it to take your limitations from you in a different way than the mode in which you have been trying to resolve this issue. Since the best way to transform yourself has not occurred to you and what you have been doing up to this point to overcome the problems in your life has not worked out yet, it’s time to contact a greater resource.
The consciousness of the ego could never see the solution. It is steeped in the emotional energy of the dilemma; and therefore it only thinks, acts, and feels equal to that mind. It only creates more of the same.
Your change will be executed in a way that is unlimited from the objective mind’s perspective. It sees you from the perspective of not being you. It perceives potentials that you have not even thought of because you were too busy being lost in the dream by responding to life in predictable ways.
However, if you say that you have surrendered to the objective consciousness’s assistance yet still try to do things your own way, can you see that it is impossible for it to assist you in changing anything in your life? By your own free will, you would thwart its efforts.
Most of us obstruct this mind because we go back to trying to resolve our problems by living within the same unconscious, habitual lifestyle. We get in our own way. In fact, most of us wait until the ego is driven into the ground to the point that we can no longer continue “business as usual.” This is when we usually surrender and receive some type of aid.
You can’t both surrender and try to control the outcome. Surrender requires that you give up what you think you know from your limited mind, especially your belief about how this problem in your life should be taken care of. To truly surrender is to let go of the ego’s control; trust in an outcome that you haven’t thought of yet; and allow this all-knowing, loving intelligence to take over and provide the best solution for you. You must come to the understanding that this invisible power is real, is fully conscious of you, and can completely take care of any aspect of the personality. When you do, it will organize your life in a way that is just right for you.
When you ask for help by simply releasing to a greater mind the emotion you have admitted and declared, you won’t have to:
Bargain
Beg
Make deals or promises
Commit halfway
Manipulate
Weasel
Ask for forgiveness
Feel guilty or shameful
Live with regrets
Suffer from fear
Provide excuses
Moreover, you won’t have to give your higher mind conditions like “You should …” and “It would be better if …” You can’t tell this unlimited grand essence how to go about anything. If you do, you are back to trying to do things your way, and naturally it will stop helping you so as to allow you your free will. Instead, can your free will be “Thy will be done”?
Just surrender in …
Sincerity
Humility
Honesty
Certainty
Clarity
Passion
Trust
… and then get out of the way.
Joyously give up the emotion you want to let go of to a more expanded mind, and know that it will do this for you. When your will matches its will, when your mind matches its mind, and when your love of self matches its love for you … it answers the call.
The side effects of surrendering include:
Inspiration
Joy
Love
Freedom
Awe
Gratitude
Exuberance
When you feel joy or live in a state of joy, you have already accepted the future outcome that you want as a reality. When you live as if your prayers have already been answered, this greater mind can do what it does best by organizing your life in new and unusual ways.
What if you knew that some issue facing you had been completely taken care of? What if you were certain that something exciting or great was about to happen to you? If you knew it without a doubt, there would be no worry, no sadness, no fear, and no stress. You would be lifted. You would be looking forward to your future.
If I told you that I was taking you to Hawaii in a week and you knew that I was serious, wouldn’t you start to get happy in anticipation? Your body would begin to physiologically respond ahead of the actual experience. Well, the quantum mind is like a big mirror—it reflects back to you what you accept and believe as true. So your outer world is a reflection of your inner reality. The most important synaptic connection you can make when it comes to this mind is to know that it is real.
Think about how a placebo works. You know by now that we have three brains that allow us to evolve from thinking to doing to being. Often subjects with health issues who are given a sugar pill that they think is medicine accept the thought that they are going to get better, begin to act as if they are better, begin to feel better, and finally are being better. And as a result, the subconscious mind within them, which is connected to the universal mind all around them, begins to change their internal chemistry to mirror their new belief about their restored health. The same principle applies here. Believe that the quantum mind will answer your call and help you.
If you begin to doubt, become anxious, worry, get discouraged, or overanalyze how this assistance might happen, you have undone everything that you originally accomplished. You got in your own way. You blocked something greater from helping you. Your emotions demonstrated that you disbelieved in quantum possibilities, and therefore you lost your connection to the future that the divine mind was orchestrating for you.
This is when you have to go back and reinstate a more powerful frame of mind. Talk to the quantum mind as if it knows you very well and loves and cares for you … because it does.
Opportunity to Write
In anticipation of this conversation, write down some things you would like to say in your surrender statement.
Examples of surrender statements:
Universal mind within me, I forgive my worries, my anxieties, and my small-minded concerns, and I give them to you. I trust that you have the mind to resolve them much better than I could. Arrange the players in my world so that doors open for me.
Innate intelligence, I release my suffering and my self-pity to you. I have mismanaged my inner thoughts and actions for long enough. I allow you to intervene and provide a greater life in a way that is just right for me.
Prepare to surrender. Now close your eyes, and begin to become familiar with what you want to say to this greater mind. Review what you have written so that you can take your limitations to it. The more present you are, the more focused you can become. As you begin to inwardly recite your prayer, remember that this invisible consciousness is watchful and aware of you; it notices everything that you think, do, and feel.
What matters is your intention—that you feel connected to a very loving, universal consciousness, and that you begin to become free from your old self with its help. The more purposefully you are able to manage your thoughts and the more you can feel the joy of being free from this condition, the more you are matching a greater will, its mind, and its love.
Give thanks. Once you have completed your prayer, remember to give thanks ahead of the manifestation. When you do, you are sending a signal into the quantum field that your intention has already come to fruition. Thankfulness is the supreme state of receivership.
WEEK TWO
GUIDE TO MEDITATION
Now you’re ready to do your Week Two meditation. Here’s a suggested way to move through all the steps you’ve learned. If you feel that you already did any of these actions while you were reading and journaling, just go ahead and repeat them during your meditations. You may be surprised by the results.
Step 1: First, go through your induction technique and continue to become more and more used to this process to enter the subconscious mind.
Step 2: Next, by becoming aware of what you want to change about yourself in mind and body, “recognize” your own limitations. That is, define a specific emotion that you want to unmemorize and look at the associated attitude that is driven by that feeling.
Step 3: Continuing on, inwardly “admit” to a higher power within you who you have been, what you want to change about yourself, and what you have been hiding. Then, outwardly “declare” what emotion you are releasing so as to free the body from the mind and break the bonds to the elements in your environment.
Step 4: Finally, “surrender” this self-limiting state to a greater mind and ask that it be resolved in a way that is right for you.
Practice these individual steps regularly during your sessions, until they begin to become so familiar to you that they merge into one smooth step. Then you will be ready to proceed on.
Keep in mind that as you continue to add steps to your meditation process, you will always start by doing the series of four intentional actions you just learned.
CHAPTER TWELVE
DISMANTLE THE MEMORY OF THE OLD YOU
(Week Three)
Once again, you will read through and perform your writing on Steps 5 and 6 before you do your Week Three meditation sessions.
STEP 5: OBSERVING AND REMINDING
In this step, you observe the old self and remind yourself who you no longer want to be.
Just like our working definition of meditation in Part II of the book, to observe and remember is to become familiar with; to cultivate the “self”; and to make known what is, in some way, unknown. Here you will become completely conscious of (by observing) the specific unconscious or habitual thoughts and actions that make up that state of mind and body that you named earlier, in Step 2: Recognizing. Then you will remind yourself about (by remembering) all of the aspects of the old self that you no longer want to be. You will become familiar with yourself “being” the old personality—the precise thoughts you no longer want to give power to, and the exact behaviors you no longer want to engage in—so you never fall back into being the old self. This frees you from the past.
What you mentally rehearse and what you physically demonstrate is who you are on a neurological level. The “neurological you” is made up of the combination of your thinking and actions on a moment-to-moment basis.
This step is designed to create greater awareness and a better observation of who you have been (metacognition). As you reflect and review your old self, you will get clear on who you no longer want to be.
Observing: Become Conscious of Your
Habitual States of Mind
In Step 2: Recognizing, you have already observed the emotion that drives you. Now I want you to become so familiar with your specific thoughts and actions derived from the old sensations that you can catch yourself while you live your life. With repeated practice, you can become so aware of the old patterns that you never allow them to manifest to fruition. The end result is that you stay ahead of the old self so that you have control over it. So when you start to notice the beginnings of the feeling that normally drives your unconscious thoughts and habits unfolding in your day, it has become so familiar to you that the slightest inkling is now brought to your awareness.
As an example, if you are overcoming a dependency on some substance such as sugar or tobacco, the more you are able to sense when the pangs and tugs of the body’s chemical addiction begin, the sooner you will be able to do battle against them. Everyone knows when the cravings start to occur. You begin to notice impulses, urges, and sometimes loud screams, which sound like, “Just do it! Submit! Give in! Go ahead—just this one time!” As you continuously forge onward and upward, in time you can notice when these cravings come up, and you will be better equipped to handle them.
The same is true with personal change, except the substance is not something that exists outside of you. In reality, it is you. Your feelings and thoughts are actually a part of you. Nevertheless, your real objective here is to be so aware of the self-limiting state of being that you would never let one thought or behavior go unnoticed by you.
Almost all of what we demonstrate starts with a thought. But just because you have a thought doesn’t necessarily mean it is true. Most thoughts are just old circuits in your brain that have become hardwired by your repetitive volition. Thus, you have to ask yourself, “Is this thought true, or is it just what I think and believe while I am feeling this way? If I act on this impulse, will it lead me to the same result in my life?” The truth is, these are echoes from your past that are connected to strong feelings, which activate old circuits in your brain and cause you to react in predictable ways.
Opportunity to Write
What automatic thoughts do you think when you feel that emotion you identified in Step 2? It is important to write them down and memorize the list. To help you recognize your own unique set of self-limiting thoughts, you may find the following examples helpful.
Examples of limiting automatic thoughts
(your daily, unconscious mental rehearsal):
I’ll never get a new job.
No one ever listens to me.
He always makes me feel angry.
Everyone uses me.
I want to call it quits.
Today is a bad day for me, so why bother trying to change it.
It’s her fault that my life is this way.
I’m really not that smart.
I honestly can’t change. Maybe it would be better to start another time.
I don’t feel like it.
My life sucks.
I hate my situation with ________.
I’ll never make a difference. I can’t.
________does not like me.
I have to work harder than most people.
It’s my genetics. I am just like my mother.
Just as with habitual thoughts, habitual actions also make up your own unique undesirable states of mind. You are influenced to behave in memorized ways by the very emotion that has conditioned your body to be your mind. This is who you are when you go unconscious. You start off with good intentions, and then you find yourself sitting on the couch eating potato chips with the remote control in one hand and a cigarette in the other. However, just a few hours before, you proclaimed that you were going to get in shape and stop all self-destructive behaviors.
Most unconscious actions are taken to emotionally reinforce the personality and fulfill an addiction, in order to feel more of the same way. For exam
ple, people who feel guilty on a daily basis will have to perform certain actions to fulfill their emotional destiny. Most certainly, they will get in trouble in life to feel more guilt. Many unconscious actions match and thus satisfy who we are emotionally.
On the other hand, many people exhibit certain habits in order to temporarily make the feeling they have memorized go away. They look for instant gratification from something outside of them to momentarily free them from their pain and emptiness. Being addicted to computer games, drugs, alcohol, food, gambling, or shopping is used to resolve one’s inner pain and emptiness.
Your addictions create your habits. Since nothing that exists outside of you could ever resolve your emptiness on a permanent basis, invariably you will have to do more of the same activity over again. After the thrill or the rush wears off a few hours later, you will have to return to the same addictive tendency once more, but do it longer. However, when you unmemorize the negative emotion of your personality, you eliminate the destructive unconscious behavior.
Opportunity to Write
Think about the unwanted emotion you identified. How do you habitually act when you are feeling this way? You may recognize your own patterns among the examples below, but be sure to add those behaviors that are specific to you. Now, write down the unique ways you behave when you feel that emotion.
Examples of limiting actions/behaviors
(your daily, unconscious physical rehearsal):
Sulking
Feeling sorry for yourself by sitting alone
Eating away depression
Calling someone to complain about how you feel
Playing obsessively on the computer
Picking a fight with someone you love
Drinking too much and making a fool out of yourself