I think, therefore I am.  I am what I think.  What do you think about all day?

Are you one of those people for whom diets don’t work?  Have you tried to make changes in your life to reduce stress or be happier but nothing seems to work for you?  Do you catch every cold and flu bug that goes around?

You experiment with all kinds of diets, tricks and techniques to make things better for yourself. Some work a little but don’t last. Some don’t work at all.

Instead of blaming the tricks and techniques for not working, how about blaming your core beliefs about yourself?

“If you don’t change your beliefs, your life will be like this forever.  Is that good news?” ~William Somerset Maugham

Who Really Runs the Show?

Your subconscious mind has incredible power over your life.  It leads you to take actions that sabotage the best intentions of your conscious mind.  It creates buttons that you allow others to press, seemingly against your will.

Your subconscious also tells all the cells in your body how to live, breathe, grow, reproduce and die.  Whatever you’re thinking, consciously or subconsciously, is transmitted through your neural network to the rest of your body.  You’re sending the cells in your body messages all the time, and your cells promptly obey.

And what drives your subconscious?  Your beliefs.

Some people don’t like how their bodies are but they believe that “That’s just the way it is.”   They’ve tried so hard to change their bodies.  Unfortunately, that trying is simply trying to do things that other people have told them they should do.  There’s no core belief that these actions will work.

They don’t have a core belief that they are the person they’re trying to become.  They don’t have a strong belief that the new vision can be permanent.  The vision fades and they go back to the person they’ve defined themselves to be.

If you believe, in your core, that you’re a happy, healthy person, you’ll do everything in your power to make sure that you’re healthy and happy.  It becomes a very high priority.  If, for some reason, your health or happiness are threatened, you’ll do everything you can to bring yourself back to the person you believe that you are.

If you think you’re fat and frumpy, then diets will never work for you.  You may lose a few pounds and do a little exercise or, more likely, find excuses not to.  But being thin doesn’t align with who you think you are.  As soon as you quit the diet, you resume your old habits to reinforce the message from your subconscious that you’re fat and frumpy.

Your Beliefs Determine Your Health

If you’re sick and you truly believe that you’re going to be well, your cells will listen to that.  Add some actions in the right direction and you’ll get better.  If you just tell yourself and you don’t believe it, the healing is much less likely to happen.

Some people decide, after a doctor tells them that they only have a certain amount of time to live, that they want more time.  Having a strong belief that’s different from their doctors, they live as long as they decide to.  And there are those who believe their doctors and die when their doctors tell them they will (this is known as medical hexing).

The western medicine theory that thoughts and beliefs (the mind) have nothing to do with physical health (the body) has been disproven for decades.  The placebo effect is an example of this.

People take pills and have surgeries thinking that they’ll get better.  There have been many studies that prove that the rates of improvement are about the same for people receiving placebos as those receiving drugs and real surgeries.  However, the placebo recipients don’t experience all the negative side effects.

As these studies have been analyzed, the key ingredient in the improvement is the person’s and their doctor’s belief that they would get better.

You can make yourself sick or you can make yourself well.  It simply depends on what you believe.

The science behind the link between beliefs and their effects on the body is called Epigenetics.  It basically says that we’re not a victim of our genes.  We have much more power over our physical body by controlling our beliefs and environment.

Does This Really Work?

This concept also works with life-threatening diseases like cancer.

Louise Hay, a noted personal development author and speaker, cured herself of cancer after dealing with buried emotions she carried throughout her life from childhood sexual abuse.  Once she cleared some deep-seated resentments that she didn’t realize she had, her cancer disappeared.

She discusses this process in the introduction of her book, Heal Your Body A to Z.  I personally refer to this book every time I have any kind of pain or ailment.  The book is an alphabetical listing of physical ailments with the corresponding emotional trigger.

I have countless examples of cases where I’ve had an intense or nagging pain somewhere in my body or can’t seem to get over an illness quickly enough.  Rather than reaching for medications or seeing a doctor, I find the issue in this book and meditate on the emotional trigger.

In every cas,e I’ve identified the emotional trigger in my life and cleared it.  Within a few hours of clearing the emotion, the physical issue “magically” disappears.

Experiencing dis-ease is one of the ways your body tells you what your thoughts and beliefs are, regardless of what your conscious mind thinks.  Your job is to listen to those messages and act on them.

Your body listens to your core beliefs – what you believe in your heart and soul.  If you don’t believe it, your body won’t manifest it.

This is why, many times, affirmations and positive thinking don’t work.  You have to believe it in your core.  For some people, affirmations work because they’ve repeated the positivity long enough for it to become a belief.  But simply saying positive things to yourself a few times isn’t going to cut it.

How Do I Change My Beliefs?

If your life is full of things you don’t want, know that you’re living out some unwanted and unproductive beliefs.  You need to identify these unwanted beliefs in order to change them. If you’re having trouble figuring out what your unwanted beliefs are, look at the results you’re producing in various aspects of your life.

For example, if you’re overweight, perhaps you have a belief that you must keep all the extra weight on to protect yourself from other people getting close to you because you’re not worthy of love because you were abused or abandoned at some point in your past.

Or you live with heightened levels of stress and worry because you feel that your stress and worry is preventing very bad things from happening because you grew up watching your mother do the same thing.

Or you’re chronically sick because this causes other people to feel sorry for you and spend more time with you and you mistake all this attention for love that you so desperately crave but can’t get because you’ve never learned to give it.

The next step is to feel the pain these beliefs have created in your life.  A belief about your body can affect your health, self-image, self-esteem, relationships, ability to achieve things and your finances.

Think about and feel the negative impact your unwanted beliefs have had on all the different areas of your life.

Now think about what your life will be like in five, ten and twenty five years if you don’t change anything.  How much worse with your situation and your health be?  Will you still be around?

Now that you’re feeling like absolute crap, shake it off and figure out what positive belief you want to embed in your subconscious instead.

Think about and feel how absolutely amazing your life will be when you make this one change in belief.  Consider how much better your health, relationships, finances and self-confidence will be.

Again, think about what your life will be like in five, ten and twenty five years after you’ve changed your belief and changed your life.  What will you have accomplished?  How will you feel about yourself?  How vibrant and energetic will you be?

Go through this exercise of feeling the pain around your old beliefs and the pleasure around your new beliefs every day.

Just like with affirmations, when you repeatedly feel the different feelings, your subconscious will begin to re-wire itself and your life will never be the same.

 

Check out my latest guest post!

Holistic Hot Sauce (video interview):  Mindfulness: Slowing Down To Speed Up

I had an awesome time speaking with Sarah O’Leary at Holistic Hot Sauce about all things mindfulness.  In this interview we covered:

  • How I found the courage to quit my corporate cubicle job to jump into the unknown and ultimately find my life purpose.
  • What is mindfulness really? How this ‘buzzword’ can make a huge difference in YOUR life.
  • What are some steps to moving to a more mindful lifestyle?
  • What is is mindful eating, and why is it important?
  • The paradox of slowing down to speed up. The counter-intuitive pathway to creative inspiration (and getting more done!)
  •  Why the practice of mindfulness can hold a special resonance for midlife women.
  • How to take the angst out of making choices and decisions.
  • How we can use mindfulness to cultivate the body we want to live in. (Hint – it’s not about just the diet and exercise.)

Watch or download and listen to our conversation by CLICKING HERE.  (P.S. My 3 year old daughter, Sophie, makes a cameo about halfway through.)

Did you find this helpful? Take a second to support Simple Mindfulness on Patreon!
Become a patron at Patreon!
 

Create the life you want: Combine the law of attraction with mindfulness

The law of attraction suggests that our positive or negative thoughts bring about positive or negative experiences.  My latest book, The Mindful Guide to Law of Attraction, pairs that belief with the powerful practices of mindfulness. Through intentional breathing, writing, and engaging, you’ll hone a method for manifesting health, wealth, and love―the elements of happiness.

Let the law of attraction work for you by adopting its basic steps of identifying and visualizing the things you desire. Then use 45 practical meditation techniques included in the book to achieve awareness. By concentrating your positive energy on obtaining your wants, you’ll give yourself permission to receive them.

To your happiness!  ~Paige

The Mindful Guide to the Law of Attraction  

You can find this book at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Books-A-Million, and Indigo.