Transforming Your Life

Freeing Your Future

When I was 18 years old, these words spoke to me as if they were written for me personally:

“…be being transformed by the renewing of your mind.”

The words were written nearly 2000 years ago, but they seemed made for me, relevant to me, personal to me – and they became my Life’s mission.

The full phrase is longer.  It says,

“Don’t be conformed to the patterns of this age but be being transformed by the renewing of your mind.”

This world and age have many patterns that they programme into people’s minds through the media.  Many of these patterns keep people in poverty, lack, failure, and despair.

Clearly both the transforming and renewing are meant to be ongoing processes – a work in progress.

Modern science has shed new light into how this happens.  We can rewire our brains and thus transform our thinking.  When we change our patterns of thought, we also change our actions, our habits, and the results we get.

It would be equally true to assert,

“…be being transformed by the rewiring of your brain.”

Two Missing Pieces

This recipe for success came alive for me when I was 18 years old.  I am now 60, and my Life is nowhere near as transformed as I would like it to be.  Does this mean that the phrase is not the truth?  No, it doesn’t mean the phrase isn’t the truth.  From Neuroscience we know enough already to prove the concept that new patterns of thinking produce different results in life.

For me then, something wasn’t working well enough.  Over this last weekend, I’ve begun to see the next steps – even a couple of missing pieces from the puzzle.

Associated Visualisation

The first piece is what I’m going to call “Associated Visualisation”.

It’s no stretch of credibility to believe that there are at least five systems influencing the electro-chemical mix that is consciousness and the processing that goes on below the threshold of consciousness.

These five systems are seeing, hearing, feeling (as in the sense of touch), tasting, and smelling.  Emotions are so important that I’d suggest they were a sixth sense and system.

I’m going to state that the three most important systems for rewiring the brain are vision, hearing, and emotion.

For years, I’ve been rewiring my brain using well-constructed verbal affirmations.  Whilst verbal processing goes on throughout both sides of the upper brain – our Cerebral Hemispheres – we know for certain that there is a language centre in the Left Hemisphere.  This has led some to assert that language is “Left-Brain”.  It’s an over-simplification but helpful to make an important point.  If we simplify the model of the brain, we could suggest that the Left-Hemisphere or Left-Brain has a preference for words and logic and linguistic reasoning.  The Right-Hemisphere could be said to have a preference for imagination and visual imagery.  The application is that we perform better when we use as much of our brain’s resources as we can to focus on the transformation we desire.  The more systems we harness, the more success we’ll experience.

In practice, this means upping the amount of focus we give to imagery - to visualisation.  More than this, it’s not just any old visualisation.  Many people create Vision Boards so that they can ‘see’ what they desire to have, be, or do.

This is a great and necessary first step.  Our vision for the future begins with visuals of the future – like a Movie starts with a Storyboard.  The Movie never gets finished, however, until the static images on the Storyboard get acted out, captured, and edited.

The Vision Board, the Storyboard, is passive.  We need to move from passive consumption of visuals to active participation in those visuals.  

In The Picture

To achieve active participation, we need to imagine being, living, breathing, engaging in the vision of the future we desire.

Let’s imagine you’ve been hoping for years that you could one day live in your dream home.  You’ve got really specific, collecting images of the type of house you’d like to live in.  You may even have chosen a location and got pictures of this too.  Fixtures?  Furniture?  All this is good.

To move from good to great, you need two more steps.  Firstly, you need to step into the picture… become an active part of the story.

For example, you’d imagine driving up the drive, or walking up the path to the house.  Entering your dream home, you’d imagine looking around each room.  You’d touch the furnishings.  You’d take a shower or enjoy a long soak in the bath.

In other words, you’d “Live the Dream.”  Doesn’t this add a new dimension to the phrase, “Living the Dream,”?

Secondly, you need to practice this active “Associated Visualisation” when your verbal brain is quiet.  Let’s suggest that your Visual Brain and your Verbal Brain are two different brains – two different engines that can pull you to your desired destination.  Your Verbal Brain gets plenty of attention, and thus is well-developed.  On the other hand, many people think relaxing and visualising are a waste of time when there’s ‘stuff’ that needs doing!

If your Verbal Brain was your right arm (and, interestingly, the left side of the brain controls the right arm), your right arm has had plenty of opportunity to develop muscle strength and articulation skills.

If your Visual Brain was your left arm, most of us have done the equivalent of letting our left arm hang down by our side, unused for decades.  What would happen to your left arm if you left it unused for twenty or thirty years?  The muscles would waste away.  To get it working well again would take a lot of physiotherapy and diligence.

This is the state of our engine of visualisation.  For most of us, it’s been left unused and allowed to atrophy.

Now, you KNOW that if you use both your left and right arms, everything becomes easier and more ‘successful’, don’t you?

The same is so for beginning to use more of your Visual Brain.  At first, you need to retrain and strengthen the power of visualisation.  Build it up like a muscle.

Many think they cannot visualise.  That’s not a helpful programme to run in your biocomputer – your mind!  Everyone can visualise.  If you couldn’t visualise, you couldn’t cross the road safely.  To cross the road safely, you need to predict – i.e., visualise – where the moving elements will go next.

Let’s begin with the beach.  Imagine a favourite beach that you’ve enjoyed exploring in the past.  Use as many senses as possible to ‘visualise’.  I know that doesn’t linguistically make sense – after all, visualisation is visual-isation!  But you know what I mean.  Feel the sand between your toes, then the waves gently washing the sand away.  Hear the Sea. You may remember the sounds of seabirds too.  People may be laughing as they enjoy recreation at the seaside.  Feel the breeze and the sun warming your skin.

If you’ve having trouble with this, there another key step.  This is timing.  If your Verbal Brain is too busy, it will interfere with the quality of your visualisation.  To visualise effectively you need to quieten your Verbal Brain.  Relaxation is essential.  This means that many people benefit from performing a progressive relaxation technique before attempting Associative Visualisation.

WARNING!  The major reason you and I can fail to achieve our dreams is that our affirmations do not match the videos we play in our mind’s eye.  Here’s the powerful truth I have learned this weekend:

If the words we affirm and the visualisation we play are not in agreement, the visuals will ‘win’ every time.

Let’s use our imagination to demonstrate this.

Imagine I had a twenty-foot-long solid oak plank.  The plank was one-foot wide, and eight-inches deep.  Solid!  Reliable!  Safe!

If I urged you to, “Walk the Plank!” while it was lying on the ground, you’d have no trouble.  The scenario-planning part of your brain would ‘see’ yourself successfully achieving your goal to walk safely to the other end - perfectly balanced.  Verbal and Visual programmes would be in agreement.

Next, I take that same plank that you’ve already had success walking across – yes, you’ve got a memory of success already in mind – and I put the plank up four-feet in the air.  I’m going to support it with solid stone pillars – like a well-made bridge.  The plank won’t move or bounce, it will be solidly supported.  Nevertheless, if you fell off you could hurt yourself.

What would happen to your Verbal Brain?  What would change in your behaviours?

I can guarantee that your hands would play a far more active role in aiding your sense of balance.  Usually, this means stretching the arms out.  For most of us, our Verbal Brains wouldn’t be saying, “Hey, you’ve done this before.  The plank is solid.  The support is firm.  You’ve got this!”  Instead, our inner voice would be likely to be warning us to be careful and to watch out in case we fall and hurt ourselves.

If our Verbal Brain fills us with fear, and our Visual Brain supports our belief by showing us imagined images of falling off the plank and hurting ourselves, the two brains would be in agreement.  In all likelihood, we’ll fall.

Golfers know this well with water hazards.  If they have a habit of hitting the ball into the lake, they’ll have rehearsed the video of that happening, and may even have inner dialogue saying, “Don’t hit the ball into the lake like you usually do!”  Guess what?  Splosh!

Same plank, now supported twelve feet up in the air.  If you fall, you will hurt yourself – this is ‘truth’.  You may start affirming, “I’ve done this successfully twice before – once on the ground, once four feet higher.  I can do this!”  If your Visual Brain is running videos of you falling and hurting yourself, your words of affirmation will fail.  You will fall.

Living the Dream

Thus, the first BIG breakthrough of the weekend was to learn that I need to shift the balance of my attention to ‘living my dreams’ through visualisation.  This is not to let go of affirmations, no way!  My affirmations reprogramme my Verbal Brain, and that work is ongoing.  What it does mean is that I need to spend more time visualising videos that are in agreement with my Verbal Brain’s affirmations.  And I need to do this when the Verbal Brain is quiet – when I’m in a relaxed yet energised state.

Let’s pick up that last phrase, “relaxed yet energised state.”  Your biocomputer is run on chemicals and electricity.  It needs energy.  If you’re tired, you’re most likely to fall asleep when you close your eyes and begin visualising.  For this reason, you need to visualise when you are both relaxed AND energised.

For me, this is first thing in the morning after a good night’s sleep and before eating breakfast.  Posture can help too.  I have an ergonomic chair where I can sit supported with my hands and feet separate and my back in an upright and alert position.  Then, when I close my eyes, I can stay awake.

A reminder of the process.  Do your visualisation when you have some energy but have time also to relax your body and quieten your Verbal Brain.  After a progressive relaxation, begin visualising, and make sure you play an active role in the video.  Be in the movie!

This is what I mean by “Associated”.  When we watch a movie on a screen, we are passive observers… even if we are emotionally moved by the movie.  Technically, this is called, “Dissociated.”  When we star in the movie, it becomes personal.  You and I need to be in our movies, seeing through our eyes, feeling through our skin, hearing through our ears, even smelling and tasting.

There is also value in being in the movie but as a different actor.  You can run these movies as if you are ‘in’ the movie (i.e., associated) but watching yourself as the star.

The Second Missing Piece

When reprogramming or rewiring the Verbal Brain, the tense we use is central to our success or failure.

As soon as we say, “I will be…” we place the programming in the future.  It’s not today.  It’s in one of our tomorrows.  Hearing this, the brain takes a wonderful step to save itself a ton of energy – it procrastinates!  It’s as if it says, “I don’t need to worry about that today – I’ve got more than enough to think about.”

I Am

The best friends of transformation when it comes to the verbal elements of renewing the mind are the present and present continuous tenses.

This means, “I am…” and, “I am becoming…”

If financial freedom is important to you, “I will become financially free,” is a waste of words.  It’s future and therefore not worth your brain’s energy and attention.

“I am financially free,” may sound crazy and against all the evidence but it has far more impact in creating that new truth.

An intermediate step is, “I am becoming financially free,” but you can feel, if you say it, the power seeping away.  It’s more believable but it lacks the impact.  For this reason, the present continuous should be used with caution, and challenged if it becomes a mask for the future tense, “I will become…”

Thus, if you want your dream home, you say:

“I own and live in my dream home.”  

If it’s too high off the ground to believe you own your dream home, say something like this,

“I pay a 30% deposit down in cash for my dream home, and my income more than adequately covers the mortgage payments every month – in good times and bad.”

How often do you need to say this?  A million times!  Whilst it won’t be a million times, it will seem as if it is.  Why so often?  Simply because the evidence of your senses ‘tells’ you otherwise.  It is the easy way to let your words and your inner videos ‘agree’ with your circumstances.  This uses almost zero energy and thus is easy for your brain.  It also guarantees, pretty much, that you’ll stay in your current circumstances… or even under them.

To make dramatic transformational progress you must accept that, “Input Equals Output.”  If you feed your body junk, you’ll get junk results.  If you feed your mind fear, you’ll get results that agree with your fears.  If you feed your mind doubts, you will discover that ‘doubt’ is really ‘faith’ – faith in the worst outcome.  What you fear can then easily come upon you.

It is therefore essential that we change the inputs.

Do we need to relax to reprogramme the Verbal Brain?  No.  You can afford to make a recording of your affirmations and play them any time you can.  You will eventually learn them by heart and will be able to say them to yourself as often as possible.  In this way you can rewire your Verbal Brain, which is part of the overall strategy.

To succeed, however, you must put more relaxed-yet-energised time into developing the skill of visualising yourself living your dream life.  This is the most effective investment you can make in your future.  Maybe it’s time to stop reading the self-help blogs (like this one!) and start to close your eyes to envision your desired future as if you’re living it now.

What you programme into your mind today – what you give attention to – is what will produce a transformed tomorrow.  Let’s begin.

Oh, and in that same book that ‘spoke’ to me when I was 18 – that my life could be transformed by rewiring my brain – I learned that God is reckoned to do the very same things I’ve suggested in this blog.  He is the God who, “…calls the things that are not as though they are.”

You don’t need to have a faith to believe that, but if you do have a faith, I thought you’d be encouraged by that.

Happy transforming!

ACTION SUMMARY

·      Collect visuals that support your vision

·      Place these as a screensaver or vision board – your future storyboard

·      Review these until you can ‘see’ them with your eyes closed

·      As soon as you can visualise them, ‘enter’ into your vision and play an active role

·      Do this when you are in an energised yet relaxed state, when your Verbral Brain is quieter

·      Write out and then record your Verbal Brain’s affirmations in the present tense.

·      Listen to these recordings as often as you can to rewire your Verbal Brain.

·      As soon as you can remember these affirmations, add saying them out loud to your regular listening to the recordings

·      To the best of your ability, add emotion to your visualising and to your verbal affirmations.

Your future is as bright as you make it.