Hello,

I am thinking right now you guys must be fed up with me posting constantly? If I have run up my limit let me know. I do believe sometimes we can overdo things.

I have been reading in personal development books saying that our thoughts create our reality. I was wondering if all of you agree. I am not sure I really do totally agree. I know the people that i have encountered in the past if they thought they could not do something, than they want attempt to try it. I am thinking maybe internal anger could cause arthritis and I am open to that. Also stress can cause some diseases like heart disease and aneurysm and other conditions. I am thinking I do believe in this self fullfilling prophesy to a certain degree like if you think the worst is going to happen than it will. But I also believe that Randy Moss would be a great NFL receiver despite his thoughts and the same with Michael Vick. I am not sure you can make any hard working and ambitious athlete top notch with mental training.

Some of these books like Catherine Ponder's and Lynn Grabhorn's book Excuse Me Your Life is Waiting, I feel the views are hard to believe. Like for example, they say if you get into an accident or if you got cancer it is all the results of your thoughts and thinking. Like getting a handicapped child
is the result of your thinking. I mean I have seen a girl get crippled and I dont I was more perfect than her and I did not have this life debilitating condition. They say that if you get a cold or fever, they say it is the result of your thoughts. I am not sure I can really believe that. If it is true than all I got to be to be super healthy is just become an expert in meditation. Like getting a mate who turns out to be bad for you or becomes bad out of the blue is a result of your own thinking.

I am thinking the people who became famous, rock stars, top athletes in the big leagues,big name actors, and billionaires did it as a result of their own thoughts. Like they did not harbor any internal anger, jealously, vengefullness, doubt, fear, nervousnes and bitterness?

The other analogy I was going to say is that they would say if you get like laid off it is the vibration of your energy or your thinking?

sjaykum1

Very few people in Hiroshima woke up that day wanting to die. Very few people in Auschwitz where there because they felt they somehow deserved to be there. Bad things happen to us that we clearly do not wish, and good things happen to us that we do not expect. It is a perversion of sorcery to say that our thoughts determine our reality. Keep in mind most of the earth's human population live in the basest of poverties.

Would you say that a child born anecephalic is the fault of a mother who didn't listen to the "Good Birthing" subliminal tape? Would you say that the population of Nagasaki should have added "Bomb free is the way to be" to their daily affirmations?

Beliving in the posibility of your desired outcome has great power. Cutting out the belief that there could be any other outcome is also powerful. Indeed, our beliefs become the filters by which we judge our reality, including possible futures. However, cause and effect do exist, and believing that gravity is a suggestion, and not a universal force, will not give you the power to fly like superman.

Kaiden, you make some interesting points and I wanted to add some (of what I hope is) food for thought. You said that the Japanese did not think their way into Hiroshima or Nagasaki. I respectfully disagree with you on this. IF the Japanese people had THOUGHT differently (and strongly enough) about their own leaders
early on, perhaps they wouldn't have started war in the first place in China, against us and all through the orient. Perhaps they might have had DIFFERENT leaders than the ones that they had OR the leaders might have had a DIFFERENT view of things in light of what their people overwhelmingly thought.
Same thing with Germany and Auscwitz. The German people OK'd Hitler and HIS perverted thinking. That OK (putting him in power) had horrible ramnifications.
At one time in this country, the law allowed for the ownership of slaves----the result of some very distorted thinking to be sure. Today, one can get in trouble for saying certain words out loud in public----words that would have been tolerated if not outright accepted just 30-40 years ago.
In these cases, things happened because of COLLECTIVE thinking which produced COLLECTIVE behaviors.
What people believe determines what they do and beliefs can be shaped and forged by different thoughts mixed with feelings and emotions.

The people at Hiroshema and Auschwitz did not have control, it was controlled by other people. But, a person can control their own self. I read about a guy in Auschwitz who used to be a professor at a college in Berlin before the Nazis came to power. While in the camp, he lost his wife and children, but he never gave up hope that the camp would be liberated and he would resume his teaching at the same university. He never gave up hope. When the allies liberated the camp, he took up teaching at the university again. You CAN change your outlook which will change your life but you can not change what others do to you (e.g. Auswitz, Hiroshima, Nagasaki.) but you can choose how you will react to it.

What I was trying to say is that the people of Japan and Germany did NOT take the control they DID have early on. They abdicated their power and allowed leadership to come in that ultimately caused their destruction! There WAS a cause and effect relationship going on! Had we not been attacked at Pearl Harbor, chances are we would have continued to stay out of the war and had that happened, we likely as not would have NOT dropped the bombs.

Hi sjaykum1,

You post a very interesting question - one that I've been trying to wrap my head around for a while now, and I think I'm getting a handle on it. I'll give you a distillation of a couple of years' thinking on the subject.

NLP tells us that we don't interact with reality - we interact with our map of reality. In other words, we react to and act upon the information we've recieved and processed through our senses.

Here's an example: How does the sole of your left foot feel right now? Now, think back to before I asked that question...were you aware of your left foot? Probably not. Was it still there? Probably, however, your mind had processed that information and stuck it in the "below conscious awareness" bin of your mind...in other words, before I asked that question your foot existed outside your conscious awareness. Your reality simply did not include those sensations.

OK, let's try another one. Picture this, a 15 year old boy is laying on the couch watching TV on a sunny Saturday afternoon. His dad comes in and sees him there. His dad's reality could be, "Lazy kid...its a beautiful day - he should be outside mowing the lawn...". His mom sees him there. Her reality might be, "Poor boy...he must be coming down with a cold...". His reality might be, "I shouldn't have stayed out so late last night - I'm beat." Three different people, three different maps of reality. Learning how to read other people's maps and interact with them is one of the most important things we leran in NLP.

You ask about physical conditions...colds, cancer, etc. I think the mind has a huge amount of influence on our health. Personally, I suffer from muscle spasms in my back when I get stressed out. Somethimes they get so bad I can't draw a deep breath. Using NLP techniques I've been able to "negotiate" with my unconscious mind to stop giving me the spasms in return for taking time off from work when the task at hand is over. I've read about people who were able to change their beliefs about cancer and had it go into remission.

As Kaiden pointed out, there is a larger reality and sometimes there is nothing we can do about it except control our own actions/reactions to what is going on. You may get laid off from work, and your actions may or may not have been influential in that decision but taking for granted that it has already happened, you can choose how you want to deal with the event. Will it be an excuse for you to lay around in a drunken stupor for a month? Will it be a chance for you to go back to school and get more training for a better job? Will it be a chance for you to write that book you've always wanted to write? Your choice, and they way you react to the event will create your future circumstances.

Mike B:

This therapy or treatment of changing beliefs is new to me. I have never known anyone personally who has succeeded with it. It probably really works. But I have not exposed to this type of rememdy or treatment by changing your beliefs.

I remember reading in the book Autobiography of a Yogi where Yogananda's guru said your mind creates what it intensely believes. I remember Yogananda's guru helped him gain 50 pounds quickly with maybe chaning his thoughts. I think I read he could not gain weight or get well before.

So, I am a believer in this mind power. But I am thinking we can only access through high powers of concentration.

sjaykum1

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Originally posted by sjaykum1:
Mike B:
So, I am a believer in this mind power. But I am thinking we can only access through high powers of concentration.sjaykum1

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I notice your "belief".

Ironcally ones belief can change in an instant. Out of sheer frustration we move toward anger and often express a belief that 'it can't be done' and due to the emotion attached to that belief it does indeed become a a fact in that persons life. The belief that one is being mistreated moves some people into the role of a victim others become fighters. Some beliefs limit us others empower us. The problem is most of our beliefs act out in our life without our noticing them. If we notice them we can change them in an instant.

You only need to look though your own past history to notice how much your own beliefs have changed. As children our parents were always right, as teenagers our parents are totally wrong and as adults we learn it's all ad lib (we make it up as we go).

Many of our beliefs change without our noticing and there are some we notice that limit us. The often conflict with other beliefs we hold. Noicing this we can choose to deliberately change our belief. Using paraliminals, tools taught in books self exploration and even in talking it over with others. Our everyday interaction changes our beliefs without our noticing the change.

A belief is just something we hold true, see as a fact and there are times when we see that our belief may not be 100% correct - that is often when we first notice our belief on a certain subject. Then we can choose to explore or ignore; change, modify or keep our belief.

Every day that we seek to learn and explore our world we are seeking to change some of our limiting beliefs about ourselves and our world. We know that some of things we believe is simply due the lack of information and have even suspended out belief until we find out what we consider true. Seekers of knowledge are always looking for a "better belief" to serve them.

In order to changes ones belief one must 'know' what they believe in the first place.

Alex

[This message has been edited by AlexK (edited December 29, 2002).]

There is a book on changing beliefs through NLP which I believe is called "Changing Beliefs through NLP." The author mentions the most basic beliefs are those of the environment. These beliefs are usually not chosen consciously, and are axiomatic. These beliefs are the toughest to touch, because we see them as facts, rather than as beliefs subject to reinterpretation.

I've used the Belief paraliminal today to improve my health by removing my belief that I literally fall appart in the winter. It was difficult, because this belief (while ultimately about myself) is about the environment I live in - too cold, too dry, too hostile for Kaidenian survival. Replacing it with the belief that I have the power to control my own health was somewhat difficult, but I combined the spoken instructions with the techniques I learned from New History Generator and Instant Personal Magnetism, along with a story I heard about Milton Erikson inserting himself into a client's memories. Basically, I watched the events happen that supported the new belief, and then I explained to the self it happened to the meaning of these events.

For a metaphorical exploration of the subject of beliefs creating reality, and our experiences creating our beliefs, I would strongly recommend seeing [/I]Dark City[I]. This movie also uses the Eriksonian technique of injecting a guide and teacher into past memories.

Our thoughts create our experiences within reality. We can control the experiences, by integrating reality. No one can create reality. Reality just is. Yes, we can create new modes within reality. We can create so many other things. But, reality, no possible way.