I often talk about the need to free yourself from the prison of your mind in order that you can live more fully from your heart.  In reality what I am really talking about is freeing yourself from the limiting beliefs of your mind.  The truth is our mind when it contains the right thoughts is one of our greatest assets in creating the life we want.

As a Spiritual Hypnotherapist I am always on the lookout for limiting beliefs and unsupportive thoughts both within myself and the clients I work with.  Once they have been identified, I seek to transcend and dissolve those limiting beliefs within myself, or empower others to do the same to theirs.

There are many ways one could choose to transcend these limiting beliefs and unsupportive thoughts.  I am going to give you three that you can start to use immediately.

1.  Affirmations.  Affirmations are a powerful tool in causing the mind to release unsupportive thoughts and accept new more positive thoughts.

Let’s say for example that you identified a limiting belief that “You have to work hard to make money”.  You would then come up with one or more affirmations that state the opposite of this limiting belief, such as:

“Money and abundance flows to me effortlessly”.  or  “I am always easily and effortlessly attracting money and abundance to me”.

The 1/2 hour before you go to bed is the most powerful time to work with affirmations.  I would suggest speaking and writing your affirmations during this time.  Also anytime during the day that you become aware of your mind having that unsupportive thought, say to yourself “cancel, cancel, that is not true for me”., then repeat your affirmation(s) several times.

2.  Visualization.  This is another very powerful tool in causing the subconscious mind to release limiting beliefs and accepting more positive ones.  If we use our example from above and we have identified the limiting belief “You have to work hard to make money”.  You would visualize yourself experiencing the opposite.

For example you might visualize yourself walking down a street and hundred dollar bills are being showered upon you from the sky, and every person you see is joyfully giving you handfuls of hundred dollar bills.  I would also make this visualization very bright and colorful with some of my favorite “feel good” music in the background.  Allow yourself to really feel and experience it as if it were happening in the present moment.

Write a Declaration Statement.  This is to be written and not printed because when you write, you have a direct connection to your subconscious mind.  Your declaration statement could be thought of as a series of affirmations in which you are declaring the truth of who you are and your experience.

Continuing with our example where we have identified the limiting belief that “You have to work hard to make money”, you might write something like:

“I am worthy of living a life of perfect abundance, and I naturally and easily attract abundance to me everyday.  I am always open to receiving all of the abundance of the Universe, and I share and circulate this abundance as easily as I receive it…”

I would would suggest writing your declaration statement before going to bed each night.  I can promise you that if you put these three keys into practice everyday for the next 30 days, you’re going to experience some wonderful changes in your life.

Many people believe change has to take a long time, and depending on the the tools and techniques used it can and often does take longer than necessary.  However it doesn’t have to be that way.  Change can happen very rapidly when we use tools designed to do just that.

The subconscious mind learns incredibly fast, and when we give the subconscious mind the information for learning in a way that it can use efficiently, change can happen in minutes instead of months or years.

One techinique for achieving rapid change is the NLP Phobia cure.  I have outlined the steps of this cure below, for you to try for yourself.  Set aside set aside 30 minutes of time to give yourself the opportunity to learn the process and thoroughly go through each step.

While this is a very effective technique for intense fears, the first time you try this, and are learning the process  I would recommend you choose a situation that is moderately fearful, such as calling a stranger on the phone, making a presentation at work etc.

Before trying the steps below, I recommend you read through them at least once to familiarize yourself with the process.  Also, just a side note, you can do no harm with this process, and it is not possible to permanently increase your fear by trying this technique.  So just do it!

THE SIX STEPS OF THE FAST PHOBIA TECHNIQUE

1.   Fearful Situation.  Take a moment to think of a situation that makes you feel moderately fearful.  Allow yourself to think about it just enough to begin to get the feeling of that fear.  Take as much time as you need until you begin to feel the fear in your body.

2.  Movie Theater.  Take a moment now to visualize or imagine yourself sitting in a large movie theater.  As you are sitting there look up at the screen, and on the screen see a still picture of yourself just before you experienced this fearful situation for the first time, or the time that it was most intense.

3.  Leave Your Body.  Now take a moment to visualize or imagine yourself floating out of your body and up to the projection booth.  And from there you are able to see yourself in the movie theater watching yourself on the screen. 

Remain in the projection booth and continue to observe yourself in the theater watching yourself on the screen until you are instructed to leave.

4.  Watch A Movie.  Now visualize or imagine yourself watching yourself on the screen.  Begin to see a black & white movie of exactly what happened in this fearful situation and how you expereinced it.

Continue to watch this black & white movie from the projection booth until the movie comes to the point where the situation & the trauma has ended.  The point in the movie when you begin to feel safe again.  When you reach this point in the movie where you feel safe, stop the movie and make it a still picture of yourself.

5. Run The Movie Backward.  Now visualize or imagine floating from the projection booth and going inside the still picture on the screen.   And now allow yourself to go through the experience backward in color.  See this color movie playing backward as if if time were being reversed.  Feel yourself being pulled very rapidly back though time as if you were be sucked back through time by a huge vacuum cleaner.

Be sure to do this very rapidly in about 1 1/2-2 seconds.  If you feel it would be helpful, take the time to run this movie backward several more times.  When you have finished, physically get up and shake out your body, your hands, arms and legs. Take a deep breathe and exhale.

6.  Checking.  Take a moment now to think of the expereince again, and notice your response.  As you notice your response rate your fear on a scale of 1-10, with ten being worst.  If you rate your fear now to be more than two, then take the time now to repeat the process and thoroughly go through the steps again.

After completing the process you want want to proceed with caution (which is different than fear).  Your fear of the situation you just worked with has likely prevented you from having much experience in those situations.  as a result you simply want to be cautious and gentle with yourself as you adapt to expereincing this situation without fear.

Some situations that we are fearful of do have inherent danger in them, so it is important that we approach them with caution.

Once you become comfortable using this process for situations that you have been moderately fearful about, you can begin using this process for more intense fears.  It is these fears whether mild or intense that prevent you from doing the one thing you must do if you are to positively change your situation, and that is to take new action.

Even if you have experienced the fear for years or even decades, this process can make that fear a part of your past in a matter of minutes.  If you recognize a fear that has held you back in your life for sometime now, I encourage you to try this technique for yourself, or seek out someone that can guid you through it.

If you have a tool, technique or process that you would like to suggest for a future Empowerment Monday Article, please email it to mitchell@TheChampionsHeart.com  if your suggestion is sued you will receive credit and a link to your website if you have one.