Positive Brainwashing

Everyone comes into this world with a clear mind, and knowledge that everything is possible. All is positive and well. Remember as a child, you could do and become everything, without any limitations!

However as we aged, we picked up beliefs, fears and limitations from surroundings and peers, which eventually formed the person, as we are today. Many of these beliefs, unfortunately, are negative and as our lives built, they limited our actions and being. Very often they contribute to unhappiness or feeling unfulfilled.

It can be the smallest, seemingly harmless, remark from a mother like “just let me handle that, you are no good at that”, which can convince you that you are not good at a certain task. Or, a teacher who calls a pupil “the clumsy one” can do more harm with this remark than he realizes when repeated often enough. With every remark, the belief is implanted further in the child that it indeed is clumsy. Even though a remark is said with a smile or with the intent to be funny, it can be implanted in the belief system. Most core beliefs are implanted, before the age of seven!

The good news is: we can “reprogram” our mind and replace our negative, limiting beliefs for positive contributing ones. This can be done by the use of affirmations, or positive brainwashing. An affirmation is a positive self talk statement, stated in the present tense, first person singular, which states a goal you want to achieve and that replaces negative beliefs, which are working against you.

An example is “I am an excellent negotiator”. By stating this positive affirmation regularly and repeatedly, during your day, you will achieve the goal you have set for yourself easier. This positive self talk helps your mind to overcome beliefs, which you have about yourself, and which limit your success and actions. Compare your mind with a computer: when you change the input, the output will change accordingly.

Imagine standing by a big river, with a heavy flow. You want to cross it, but you do not think you can do it. Your belief is keeping you from crossing, although you physically should be able to do it, easily. It simply looks too difficult! Then someone else comes up from behind you, and without thinking starts crossing the river and gets to the other side. His belief was positive, and he knew he could do it. The interesting thing is that this will probably influence your belief: “if he can do it, I can do it, too” and you will then cross the river without any problem.

At one point, I led workshops in fire walking. At first a large group of people will say that there is no way they will walk on fire. Until…other people with higher beliefs go first, then all of a sudden almost everyone rushes over to do it, as well. The only group of people , whom I could not get to walk across the fire was a company of firemen!

Any questions??