The Growth Mindset Book Podcast: Mindset Mastery Chapter by Chapter

The Art of Positive Thought Replacement

• Michael Fox • Season 1 • Episode 7

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Imagine transforming crippling anxiety into a calm, focused mindset with the power of your thoughts. Join us as we uncover how you can conquer your inner fears and embrace a positive mental state through the art of auto-suggestion. We share the compelling journey of a woman who overcame anxiety during auditions by harnessing techniques like isolation, relaxation, and deep breathing. Discover the potential of intentional thought replacement to combat silent fears and reshape your mental landscape for better performance and well-being.

This episode also highlights the transformative power of consistent practice and belief in auto-suggestion to enhance skills and even restore abilities. Be inspired by the story of a 75-year-old woman who reversed signs of memory loss through persistent positive reinforcement, proving that age is no barrier to mental rejuvenation. We explore the concept of 'hetero suggestion'—the external influences shaping our thoughts—and provide insights into how self-awareness and reflection can empower personal growth. Join us in this thought-provoking conversation to learn how to harness your mind's potential and foster a healthier, more positive outlook on life.

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Speaker 1:

Welcome back everyone. We are on podcast eight and I want to give a quick shout out to John Wetzel. John is a supporter of the show. He bought us a cup of coffee and supports the show. Thank you, john. We appreciate your support. It allows us to invest into the show and bring more empowerment to you and all the other listeners. So thank you for your support.

Speaker 1:

Okay, so last week we were discussing a woman who wanted to try out for a show but she was really overwhelmed with fear and anxiety and we got into the concept of auto-suggestion. And again, just a quick reminder of what auto-suggestion is. And again, just a quick reminder of what auto-suggestion is. Auto-suggestion is when one of two things happens Either from the outside world, someone says something to us, it comes in through our senses and goes into our subconscious mind and it creates thoughts which ultimately create beliefs, or we use our own thinking inside, not from the outside world in our own inside world, inside of our conscious mind, where we think. We use that to create a thought pattern and ultimately, beliefs. So again, thoughts only come from two different places. One is from the outside world, in, and the other is from the inside, and then ultimately, it works its way out through our feelings and actions. That said, she was overwhelmed, feeling anxious, and she was overcome. So we're going to get back into the book. We're on page 31, at the top, where we're going to continue from where we left off. So it says here her subconscious mind accepted these negative auto suggestions as a request and proceeded to manifest them and bring them into her experience. So, to discuss this a bit, she said out loud I'm so nervous, what if I mess this up? And that's what her subconscious mind took in. She planted the seeds I'm nervous. And ultimately she had a very bad audition. So again, we're remembering that we have the power and we don't always use it. We allow stuff from the outside world to come in and program us, or we allow some of the negative thoughts that we have into our subconscious mind without changing them over to something more positive and that can create our outcome as well. Back to the book.

Speaker 1:

The cause was an involuntary auto-suggestion. Example silent fear, thoughts emotionalized and subjectified. Let's pause for a second. What does that mean? Involuntary auto-suggestion? It means when we're on autopilot. What do I mean by autopilot? You're sitting there, your mind is thinking all these thoughts and you're not really involved in the process. You ever notice that you're sitting and there's a discussion happening in your head. You're not really so focused on it, but it just is happening.

Speaker 1:

Let's give a good example of what a silent fear looks like. Have you ever had a headache? Or have you ever seen someone that has a headache? And they'll say something like, oh geez, I hope it's not a brain tumor. Or they have this pain in their stomach that they haven't had and they're thinking, oh gosh, I hope this isn't cancer. But they may not be saying that out loud, and sometimes they do say it out loud. But when you're not saying it out loud, that is a silent fear.

Speaker 1:

It's the thoughts that are running in your head, spinning and spinning and if you don't stop it, this silent fear is planting seeds into your subconscious mind. So we have this silent fear oh, I hope I don't have cancer, I hope it's not a brain tumor and those thoughts that start spinning over and over. They get emotionalized and subjectified, right, you start getting fearful, you start getting anxious and it leads to you being hypersensitive and hyper worried and hyper concerned about your health and well-being. That's what it means by the silent fear and thoughts emotionalized and subjectified. So we really want to pay attention to what's going on in our mind and start to at least be aware of it. What's going on in our mind, and start to at least be aware of it, and eventually, what we're going to do is start to focus on what can I do to help silence that voice and perhaps replace the silent fear with something more positive. For example oh, it's just a stomach ache I've had these before or it's just a headache. It's nothing serious. I didn't drink a lot of water, and now I'm going to drink some water, I'm going to get hydrated, I'm going to feel better. It's just replacing the nonsense that goes on with something else. Give your mind something good to think about, something different, to think about. It doesn't have to run on autopilot. And when it runs on autopilot, that's what they're talking about involuntary auto suggestion. It's involuntary because it's happening automatically.

Speaker 1:

Let's go back to the book. So they're going to talk about right now how does she overcome this anxiety and this fear of her auditions? And this is something we can all put into practice. This is this how she did it. She overcame it by by doing the following technique three times a day, she isolated herself in a room. She sat down comfortably in an arm chair, relaxed her body and closed her eyes. She quieted her mind and body as best as she could. Physical inertia favors mental passivity and renders the mind more receptive to suggestion. Okay, let's pause here and go back. So she got herself in a room, she got quiet and she was relaxing her body with her eyes closed. It says she stilled her mind and body as best as she could.

Speaker 1:

We want to quiet the mind. What's a real easy way to quiet the mind and take ourself away from those thoughts that are running nuts in our mind? It's really simple. We take really deep breaths A lot of times when we're feeling anxious and we're feeling worried. We're not breathing and by breathing it's going, and focusing on the breathing it's going to take us away from our thought. So if you literally take a deep breath in and you count one, two, three in right and then one, two, three out, and you're focused on counting in and out and taking 10 deep breaths, by the time you get to 10 breaths, by the time you get to three breaths, you're going to feel way better because first, you're getting more oxygen into your body and you're feeding yourselves and second, you're taking your mind away from those negative thoughts. Back to the book.

Speaker 1:

Physical inertia favors mental passivity and renders the mind more receptive to suggestion.

Speaker 1:

Let's comment on this.

Speaker 1:

What does that mean? Physical inertia favors mental passivity. What essentially is it saying is, the more we can quiet our mind, the more still we are, the more receptive our subconscious mind is to any suggestion we're about to plant in our mind. So again, if I'm nice and calm and peaceful and I'm telling myself I am prepared, I am strong, I can do this, I've got this, the more I say that, the more relaxed I am, the easier it's going to go into my subconscious mind. If I'm feeling worried, if I'm feeling nervous and there's mental activity happening, then my subconscious mind won't pick up the messages as easily. Does that make sense? Okay, good, let's go back to the book. She countered the fear suggestion by saying to herself I sing beautifully, I am poised, serene, confident and calm. She repeated this statement slowly, quietly and with feeling, from five to ten times at each sitting. She had three such sittings every day and one immediately prior to sleep. I want to pause there. I want to pause there.

Speaker 1:

Why do you think that making these auto-suggestions right before sleep would be so important? Well, the reason is our mind right before we go to bed, right when we're about to fall asleep, is wide open. Our subconscious mind opens completely in preparation for the sleep. So any suggestion that we're making is going in easily and effortlessly, and it's also the last thing that we're going to think about before we actually go to sleep. So practicing saying some of those positive things right before you go to sleep is really effective and really impactful. All right, let's go back to the book. At the end of the week she was completely poised and confident. When the invitation to audition came, she gave a remarkable and wonderful audition Pause for a second. Now, does everyone who sits for three times a week and makes these suggestions to themselves have immediate results? The answer is no, not always. But what we know for sure is that we practice this and we quiet our mind and we make these auto suggestions of these positive thoughts and we suggest it over and over again. In time it will absolutely make a change. Let me give you a great example of this my mentor.

Speaker 1:

When I was learning, I was very indecisive back in the day. I couldn't make a decision. One way or the other, I would always have to talk to other people. I would always have to get other people's opinion before I could actually make a decision. Even if I felt like I had the right decision that I was going to make, I would still go and ask for other people's opinions and a lot of times it would potentially sway me away from what I really wanted to do. So what he did is he said I want you to read this article every single day for the next 90 days.

Speaker 1:

And that article was on decision and the repetition of reading a message about decision which essentially said that when you make a decision, you make it quickly, and when you make it, you change it very slowly. And the other thing that it said about decision was don't ask for other people's opinions unless they have specialized knowledge. What does specialized knowledge mean? It means that if I'm going to want to make a decision about my relationship, I better go and talk to someone who's a specialist in relationships if I'm going to seek advice. But a lot of times we know intuitively what the right thing is to do. But if we don't know how to make a decision because we haven't practiced it, then we're not going to do it. But through the auto-suggestion, the reading of the article every single day for 90 days what ended up happening was my decision-making skills got way better and I was able to make decisions on my own. In fact, now very rarely will I ask anyone for their opinion about what I should do or what I shouldn't do. I just make the decision, and if it's a decision that doesn't go the way that I want it to, I learn from it, I grow and it makes me more wise, and then the next time I make decision, that new wisdom is there as well and I can tap into that wisdom. So again, that's an example of how this auto-suggestion works.

Speaker 1:

It's the repetition. Over and over, it gets in, but we have to practice it. Now, if I had only read that article on decision-making for three days, do you think I would be as good at decision-making as I may be now? The answer is, of course, no. So it's the repetition, and everyone's repetition is different. Maybe it takes me 90 days, maybe it takes you 30 days, maybe it takes another person six months, because everyone's subconscious mind receives it at a slightly different pace. It's not good, it's not bad, it just is. But we know the one thing that we do have control over is auto suggesting. So we're going to keep saying these things to ourselves over and over and over again.

Speaker 1:

I just had a call not too long ago with a client. The client he said Mike, I was sitting down and I just started thinking to myself how much I've actually changed since we started doing this work. And he says when you first told me that the repetition of this information, if I just keep doing that over and over, initially I thought there's no way like how will that work? He said but I stuck to it and I did it and it actually works. And I said of course it works. I said that's great, you're proving it to yourself, because now, as you move forward, the belief that your auto-suggestion works is going to go in much faster and you're going to be way more powerful because of that.

Speaker 1:

So again, there's a level of belief that we need to get with this auto-suggestion. We have to start to believe that this actually works. And belief comes through auto-suggestion, through repetition, through practice. You'll start to believe it when you start to see results. But here's what I tell you don't stop doing it until you start seeing results. I promise you, having met with a lot of people that if you keep doing it you will absolutely get results. The people that don't get results, it's one reason only. They quit and they stop and they say this stuff doesn't work and they just auto-suggested a belief that they already believe that this doesn't work. And when we, when we auto-suggest that to ourself, it works because our life becomes nothing works. For me, this doesn't work, forget it, I can't do. Oh, I tried that once. That doesn't work, got it Makes sense. All right, let's continue on how she restored her memory. So we're going to talk about how this woman usedgestion to restore her memory, which actually started to have signs of dementia.

Speaker 1:

A woman age 75 was in the habit of saying to herself I'm losing my memory. She reversed the procedure and practiced induced auto-suggestion several times a day as follows this is what she said to herself my memory, from today on, is improving in every department. I shall always remember whatever I need to know, at every moment of time and point of space. The impressions received will be clearer and more definite. I shall retain them automatically and with ease. Whatever I wish to recall will immediately present itself in the correct form in my mind. I am improving rapidly, every day, and very soon my memory will be better than it's ever been before. At the end of three weeks, her memory was back to normal and she was delighted.

Speaker 1:

Let's think about this out loud for a moment. If someone says to themselves over and over I'm losing my memory, I've been having trouble remembering things, I don't know what's going on with my mind. It seems to be having trouble. I'm aging, things are happening. I hope I'm not losing my mind. It seems like I'm losing my mind. It seems like I'm losing my memory. If we say that enough times, what do you think our subconscious mind will do? Well, what we learned was it accepts everything as is. So if I keep suggesting that to myself over and over, I'm going to start losing my memory. Period the end.

Speaker 1:

So she did something different. What she realized after understanding this material is that she was going to auto suggest something that would make potentially her mind better, and she started saying this over and over to herself. My memory, from Taylor on, is improving in every department. I shall always remember whatever I need to know, every moment of time and point of space. I mean imagine saying this over and over and over to yourself and your subconscious mind, which is a part of God, a higher power, the divine, which operates your entire body automatically. So if you're giving it instructions, it might very well be able to listen to those instructions and act on them. If it can control your heartbeat and can make you breathe, it certainly can do this as well, and that's the belief we're gonna start to form as we start to realize that this works.

Speaker 1:

I believe in it so much again because of the clients that I've worked with. They get the results because they're doing the things and the things work. So if you need to borrow my belief on this, initially borrow it from me. Borrow it from the clients that I've worked with, or from all these other people that are in this book that have gotten the results with, or from all these other people that are in this book that have gotten the results. We specialize in this information.

Speaker 1:

I am a specialist. I've spent at least 10 years studying this information, but way more than 10 years. I'm 53 years old and I've been going at it since I'm 11 years old, so I've been studying this information for a very long time, and that makes me a specialist, because I'm studying this information and I'm practicing it and I'm putting it into work. So remember before how we were saying we only go to people with specialized knowledge. There's specialized knowledge here because I've not only studied it, but I practiced it. I put it in my own life, I've seen it work in my life and I've seen it work in others' lives.

Speaker 1:

So, that said, do you think it might make sense to borrow the belief if you don't have it yet, and say I believe in the power of my subconscious mind. I believe that what I tell myself over and over again I will get. I believe that I have this incredible power inside of me. If we repeat that over and over, what do you think is going to start to happen? We're going to get confident, we're going to get strong, we're going to believe in ourselves, we're going to believe in this power and we're going to see results. I promise you it works if you practice and do what we're talking about here.

Speaker 1:

Okay, let's go back to the book how to overcome a nasty temper. Many men who complained of irritability and bad temper prove to be very susceptible to auto-suggestion. So let's think about this for a second. Many men and I'll put women too men and women who complained of irritability and bad temper, prove to be susceptible to autosuggestion and obtained marvelous results by using the following statements three or four times a day morning, noon and night prior to sleep. Remember what we said about sleep prior to sleep for about a month? This is what they said. Henceforth, I shall grow more good humored. Joy, happiness and cheerfulness are now becoming my normal state of mind. Every day, I am becoming more and more lovable and understanding. I now becoming the center of cheer and goodwill to all those about me, infecting them with good humor. This happy, joyous and cheerful mood is now becoming my normal state of mind. I am grateful let's talk about this for a second.

Speaker 1:

If you don't say something like that, take an irritated or frustrated or angry person on a consistent basis. That's who they are, that's kind of how they are, on a consistent basis. What would your guess be to what they repeat to themselves every single day? It might sound like this this world sucks. Look at this world. The news, everything I hear is bad People are killing other people. I can't get the job that I like. I work nine to five doing something I hate and they're saying this kind of stuff on autopilot to themselves. Their subconscious mind is taking it in and they're getting more of the same. They're getting miserableness, they're getting angry, they're getting resentment, they're getting these negative feelings.

Speaker 1:

Well, this prescription. I imagine you go to the doctor and the doctor says here's what I want you to do. I want you to say this to yourself three to four times a day, every day, for the next 90 days, and you have to say, I shall grow more good humor. Joy, happiness and cheerfulness are now becoming my normal state of mind. If you did that for 90 days, and also if, maybe, when you started having those negative thoughts, you had an index card with this written on it and you, instead of going down that negative path, you took out the index card and you read this what do you think would happen to you over time if you did this on a consistent basis? You already know the answer. So it's just a matter of practice. It's not good, it's not bad that you're not doing this or you are doing it. It's not good or bad. It's like here's something that works, let's doing this, or you are doing it. It's not good or bad, it's like here's something that works, let's practice it. Let me get better at it. When I first started driving, I was not a good driver. Now I'm a good driver because I practice, and we're going to do the same thing here. We're just going to keep practicing so we can get better and better and better.

Speaker 1:

I want to share with you a great story. It's a personal story. I was there, this happened and it was really powerful. I was doing a personal development seminar years ago and when we're in the room, there was one gentleman in particular that every time someone would get up to share, he would grunt, he would groan, he would say things. In fact, one time he got the microphone and then he started saying all this kind of negative stuff and everyone could feel his negative energy. It was like it was infectious. You just had to be somewhat close to him and you would start to feel that negativity coming right off of him.

Speaker 1:

Then something really cool happened. The facilitator of the seminar said we're going to do a little activity now. What I'd like you to do is I'd like you to get up when I say so, and I want you to find someone in the room that you feel is maybe not being fully committed to being here, maybe showing negative energy and maybe just needs a little love and support. And then everyone got up and the entire room went to that gentleman and just surrounded him and everyone was looking at him. And then an incredible thing happened. He started to tear up and he took the microphone and the facilitator asked him to share what went on. When you saw everyone standing there offering love and support to you and essentially saying like we feel like you're not giving your all and maybe you're coming from a negative space, he said that was the first time in his lifetime that he ever had people support and show love towards him in such a way. People support and show love towards him in such a way. And an incredible thing happened.

Speaker 1:

That emotional driven event in his life caused him to start suggesting to himself very different things. Instead of him looking at how negative the world was, he started saying to himself how incredible things were. I'm grateful to have all these people around me, I'm grateful to have all this support, I'm grateful to have the opportunity to love and that gentleman from that time forward for the rest of the seminar and at the end he got up and he shared and it was like watching a transformed human being and the only difference between that man before and after was one thing. The thoughts that were going on through his mind those negative auto-suggestion initially, when he first came in, was probably something like this this seminar sucks. These people are so annoying. They're all complaining, they're all so positive. I'm so tired of these kind of people. And at the end of the seminar, what do you think he was thinking? I'm so grateful, I'm so happy, I'm so lucky that I had this transformation while I was here.

Speaker 1:

He was thinking in a very different way and you and I had that ability, just like he did. In an instant, he changed how he looked at the world and he changed how he looked at himself and he changed how he looked at others. And you and me and everyone else can do the exact same thing, no matter what. At any moment, we can decide that it's time to not allow this voice to run on autopilot, no longer going to let it run me. I'm taking control, I'm deciding what I'm going to plant into my subconscious mind. Let's learn from that experience. Let's learn from him, a guy that probably would have gone through life in a very negative way and instead he taught himself by the actions of others how to think very differently. And you can do the exact same thing. All right, let's go back to the book. Before we read the next paragraph, I just want to give a little bit of an overview about what we're going to discuss. We're talking about heterosuggestion.

Speaker 1:

Heterosuggestion means it's a suggestion that comes from another person. Let me tell it to you through an example. They did this marketing experiment and what they did was they had this energy drink and they had two glasses and they said one of the glasses was the energy drink, right, and the other one was a drink that would calm you down. It would make you feel calm and peaceful. Now, what? The person on the other end didn't know. The drink was exactly the same. So they had different groups of people go through this and the people that were drinking the energy drink reported feeling very energized. Now, since the drink was the same on the other side, but the people who were drinking it thought it was something that would make them more peaceful and relaxed. What do you think that they experienced? They experienced feeling more calm and relaxed and peaceful. The majority of people that drank that drink, which was actually an energy drink, felt that they were relaxed and peaceful, whereas it should have been causing them to feel really hype because the caffeine level was significantly higher. This is what heterosuggestion is higher. This is what heterosuggestion is. Heterosuggestion is. If we allow the outside world to dictate and tell us what we're going to experience, we will start to experience it just like those people drinking those drinks. So we're going to pause on this note, because we'll get into this next time.

Speaker 1:

I wanted to introduce the topic because all I want you to do is start paying attention to the messages that are coming at us the messages coming at us from the media, the messages coming from our bosses, the messages coming from our friends and family and ask yourself if I accept this hetero suggestion, the suggestion coming from someone else, is this going to support me or is this going to potentially hurt me? That's all I want you to do. You don't have to change anything. I just want you to be aware and start paying attention to all these suggestions that are coming at us from every single angle. I want you to have a wonderful week. I want you to have a wonderful week. I want you to practice this. I want you to remember how amazing you are and how powerful you are and just practice. Don't worry about how well someone else is doing it in comparison to you. All that matters is that you're doing it and you're making an effort to get better than you were last week. Have a wonderful week and I will see you next week.

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Michael Fox

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