Nuts & Bolts Of Brainwashing Your Way To A Life You Love

Our mind is our most powerful tool for creating our world. Literally.

Our lives are little more than the manifestation of the thoughts we carry around on a daily basis. And though we sort of just innately know this, up to this point in our growth as a culture, little emphasis has been given to the HOW of managing these thoughts (much more on that in a moment).

Recently, books like “A New Earth” and “The Secret” have made their way to the mainstream, and with them has come the underpinnings of a thought revolution. We are beginning to see that managing our thought life isn’t reserved for the “positive thinking” self help, new age genre. We are now starting to understand that managing our thought life as the primary mechanism for creating the life we desire is exactly what Jesus, and many before him, have been teaching all along. Turns out managing our thought life isn’t just fru fru personal development crap, it’s actually the nuts and bolts of “faith”.

To begin to be the architect of your thought life you first need to remove the garbage. Jesus said “the eyes are the windows to the soul”. We know that what we watch has an affect on the thoughts we carry, and not just in the moment we are seeing and hearing this stuff, but long after. What we see and hear plants seeds in our mind that shape the way we see ourselves, others, and how we believe the world works.
So, we need to first remove the stuff that is disempowering, the stuff planting seeds of crap that we don’t want to grow. Fear, lack, disease, poverty, scarcity, loneliness..

Communications Audit

When I first started to become aware of how powerful my thought life was in creating my world, I did a bit of a communications audit on my life. I started to ask myself the question, “does what I am watching, reading, or listening to empower me? Or does it somehow propagate thoughts of lack, ego, greed, scarcity, or any other disempowering thoughts?”
As I started to pay more attention, I started to notice how much of what I was subjecting myself to, voluntarily, was planting seeds that I was not interested in growing into my life. As my awareness grew, I began to prune these sources of disempowering communications from my life. I let go of shows, I let go of songs, I let go of movies, I let go almost completely of mainstream news. I also let go of people that were disempowering. Doubters, cynics, complainers. I was no longer willing to allow these sources to have a place in my thought life. So, step 1-Remove those communications sources from your life that plant disempowering thoughts.

Step 2- Create A Space of No Thought

So our first step was to get the garbage out of our feedback loop. Next up, is getting still and getting present. I think Eckhard Tolle has done the best job recently through “The Power of Now” and “A New Earth” of explaining this concept of getting in touch with your true essence, or God, through quieting the mind; creating a space of no thought, just being. Much like meditation, this allows us to create a gap in the incessant stream of thoughts, which is often a negative feedback loop for most of us, and begin to just feel our connection to our source, the great source of all, calming and quiting the mind, and turning it inward.
Creating this space to me is kind of like the purpose of that ginger served with sushi. Its meant to clean the palette between different types of sushi, so you can create a space to fully experience the new type your eating next. Getting present is kind of like that to me. You get the garbage out, you get tuned into source, your inner essence, and now there is a space for creating new thoughts.

Step 3-Brainwashing Yourself

Jesus said “call things that are not as thought they were”. He said that same thing in many different ways, about faith and about using your mind to create a new reality that you might experience heaven on earth. And he is not alone. The ancient sages of every religious tradition said the same thing, in dozens of different ways. The thoughts that we carry literally create our lives. They are the most powerful tool we have in creating the lives we desire, and a “tool” is exactly what they are. The most appropriate use of our “will” is using it to manage our thoughts.
Think about it. When someone cuts us off in traffic and we either get angry or we send them peace and blessings and just choose to let it go. What is the difference here? It is a difference of our thoughts.
When someone at work tries to take credit for something we have largely done and we either become bitter and resentful, or we love them through it. What makes the difference between the two courses? It is our decision about the thoughts we choose to have about the situation.

So this business of managing our thought life is not just about sitting in a quiet room meditating, thinking thoughts of the big house, the big car, the stack of cash. That activity does have its place. But managing our thought life is also a moment to moment activity. We learn to be conscious of our thoughts throughout the day, not just in morning meditation or something. And throughout the day, we begin to consciously choose our thoughts.

For instance, throughout the day I am thinking thoughts of gratitude. I see beauty in a simple flower growing on the side of the road, and I say “thank you” with my thoughts in that moment. I see a child holding her mother’s hand, the two of them enjoying one another’s company and I say “thank you”.
I am thinking thoughts of love. I am served by a disgruntled employee at the check-out counter. Initially my thoughts go to “how dare they”, and I recognize that thought, andI discard it. I smile compassionately, I let love flow through my eyes, and I silently send them thoughts of love and compassion and I peacefully move on.

A person steps out into traffic. The signal is obviously in my favor. My first thought is “what an idiot”. My next thought is, “love”. I try to sense the invisible connection between us, and through that connection, I send thoughts of love and compassion.

I see a couple holding hands in the promenade and my first thought is “Poor me, I’d like to be kissing and holding hands with someone” and my next thought, with a smile on my face, is of my mate and us holding hands, kissing under the moonlight, how comfortable, affectionate, and grateful we are toward each other. And I say to myself, “thank you for her God”. And I send a silent blessing of love and gratitude toward the couple I witnessed and I walk along smiling.

I could go on all day. What I am describing is the, in the moment, nuts and bolts, difference between creating a life I love to live and being unhappy and unfulfilled. This is what it looks like. Its these choices of thought, in these moments, throughout our day that create a new earth for us, a life we love to live.

Lastly, I use tools to help me with carrying the thoughts of the life I desire.

1. I have mind movie I created with the tool at www.mindmovie.com. It’s a video I created that has my statements of faith and affirmation for what I stand to create in my life, followed by pictures accompanying each statement that portray the enjoying of what I am affirming for that statement. For example, I say “I am financially free” and I have a couple of pictures that remind me of financial freedom. The slides go by, a little motion with each, so that the slides start out a little further away then move toward me. All of this is set to a song about “this amazing day”. The end result is that I am watching a movie about the life I intend to create, am creating, but I speak in first person so that the tone is such that “thank you that I have this life today”. Speaking things that are not as though they were..

2. I also have an audio of myself speaking about the life that I desire. In both writing the affirmations for the mind movie and in the audio, its me talking about the life that I want to create for myself, in vivid detail, and in first person, as though its true right now. The tone is “thank you god for my amazing life. I have an amazing career. I create inspiring communications that help people create lives they love to live. I work for myself and I love it. I have an amazing house. It looks like this. It is in Santa Monica. It has an island in the kitchen and dual shower heads. Etc Etc. Specific, detailed, and as if I have them right now.

3. I have a background on my computer that reminds of something I desire for my life. Right now it’s a 2008 Range Rover.

4. On my cell phone background I rotate images from my mind movie.

5. My cell phone ring tone is the same song I use in my mind movie.

6. I put little sticky notes in my car near the instrument panel with little statements of faith about what I am creating in my life.

7. I am about to buy a digital picture frame and put it in the living room and have it rotate with pictures from my mind movie along with those of loved ones.

8. On the mirror in my bathroom for the past year has been a sticky note with the words “that which I desire, which is aligned with spirit, is on its way…no worries”. I see it several times a day. (  I drink a lot of water  : \  )

9. I primarily just watch movies and shows that educate and inspire me. (which did include Star Trek and Transformers 2 this summer No horror flicks. No stuff about murder, real or simulated. No brain dead stoner stuff.

10. I primarily listen to music with a good message. No, not just Christian rock (though some of that is pretty good). I mean just in general. Positive, upbeat stuff. And occasionally some Lil Wayne/LL Cool J type stuff when I’m workin out. Hey, its about moderation right?

These are just some examples. I’ll elaborate more on my stuff in future articles. But if you think about it, you can come up with other ways of brainwashing yourself, implanting empowering thoughts that help you maintain perspective and arm you with readily available thoughts to think throughout the day. Now, get to work. Write about the life you want (see this post I wrote for help on that http://www.followmypurpose.com/123/getting-what-you-want-your-perfect-day/ ) Then get to work writing some affirmations, creating a mind movie, and using some of these other means of becoming the architect of your thought life. I believe it’s the most important endeavor you can undertake in your life. Don’t wait. You already have enough information. Start now.

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