I am what I decide to be!

How I use the power of imagination to design my future truths...

(Photo credit: My talented mama! One of our many fun photoshoots with the boys)

Imagination is the preview of life's coming attractions

- Albert Einstein

I was inspired by the amazing Debra Searle (professional adventurer, entrepreneur, mom, wife, speaker & super awesome human) to start a journal last year. I've done journaling sporadically for years, with journal pages especially on fire around episodes of deep lows....times when I physically could not make the words leave my lips, but needed them out lest sink to the darkest depths...writing allowed me to come closer to the surface, close enough to see the watery light filtering through. It has always been a form of therapy for me.

This journal created by Debra is special. She calls it the Choose Your Attitude Journal. She encourages journaling everyday and when we are drawing a blank on what to write, she provides an outline or guide for your thoughts. The guide includes some of these main ideas:

• Write the specific attitude you have chosen for the day
• Next jot down some benefits of your attitude choice
• Then list three things you are grateful for
• Write about your future truths
• Be cathartic - write what you're feeling
• Jot down the actions needed to accomplish future truths

Future Truth Journaling

Around the same time I started my special attitude journal, I was reading the book 'Psycho-Cybernetics' by Maxwell Maltz. Both resources support the same scientific evidence on the power of our subconscious mind! Future Truth Journaling is done by using your imagination to create desired 'truths' about your future. So, you write scenarios in the future tense like it has already happened, using as many details as possible...how you will feel, what you will see, where you will be, what you will have, who you will be, etc.! In my search for this post's theme, I decided to flip through my attitude journal for inspiration...goosebumps erupted and an undeniable knowing of what I needed to share was immediate! My future truth entries from several months last year have actually happened! And guess what, it's not magic (although I think it would be fun to be a wand wielding sorceress:)...it's actually the really amazing way our super subconscious mind works!

You're gonna need your lab coat for this - Pycho-Cybernetics!

This is the concept of Phycho-Cybernetics in a nutshell...it sounds really intimidating, but the concept is simple and literally mind altering....it certainly blew my mind when I first learned of it last year, and even though I've not consciously thought about it for some time, the foundational work I've done are producing amazing results today!

So here goes...

There are three fundamental truths about this concept I believe you must grasp in order to practice and reap the benefits. (The book is packed full of gold and I encourage anyone who is not satisfied with their current results, to read and give it a go!)

1) The Self Image:

"Your self image is a permise, a base, or a foundation upon which your entire personality, your bahavior, and even your circumstances are built." Your self image is a concept you hold of what you believe about yourself...your self worth...your self esteem, your belief of what you can and cannot achieve...it's literally a filter through which you see and operate in the world. Your self image is cooked up with a host of experience factors like influences of other people, family, your environment, culture, traditions, expectations of yourself and your perception of what others expect of you. Your self image is made up of your belief systems and is embedded in your subconscious mind! According to the book "you will 'act like' the sort of person you conceive yourself to be, and literally cannot act otherwise, in spite of all your conscious efforts or willpower." So a person who lacks confidence and believe that they will never amount to anything will continue to invite experiences/circumstances that support this belief. A child who believes they will never understand or be good in math, will continue to act and create results accordingly.

The Good News - You can change your self image no matter how old you are!

Within you right now is the power to do the thing that you never thought possible - this power becomes available to you just as soon as you change your belief! - Maxwell Maltz

2) Subconscious mind = Servo-Mechanism = Success Mechanism

The word 'cybernetics' come from the Greek word meaning 'steersman.' The science of cybernetics have found convincing proof that our subconscious mind is a "goal-striving servo-mechanism controlling the brain and nervous system." This creative servo-mechanism is much more complex and powerful than any computer or 'guided missile' created by mankind! Once given a goal, it will act automatically and impersonally to achieve it. This means that if we present it with positive success driven goals, it will function as a 'success mechanism' and equally, if we present it with negative/pessimistic goals, it will operate just as effectively as a 'failure mechanism'. The key to making this science work for you is to provide your subconscious mind (your very own goal reaching machine) with a clear vivid image of your target/goal/end result. Science confirms that once your servo-mechanism is given the target, it immediately and 'effortlessly' begins to work on providing you with a way forward. The key here is to remain calm and relaxed in your knowledge that the answers will arrive. Getting flustered, anxious and forceful of the ideas to come, will only be counterproductive.

3) Imagination Is Key

Maltz teaches that "a human being always acts and feels and performs in accordance with what he imagines to be true about himself and his environment. Your nervous system reacts appropriately to what you think or imagine to be true." This means that we can create a new self image, a new belief system by using our creative faculty of imagination (that every single human is blessed with) to vividly design a new you! By simply trying to 'think positive' about your circumstances and future will never work if you have 'negative' beliefs about You - your self image...about the very person responsible for achieving those coveted positive results.

For most of my life I believed that I was not smart enough to have a valid opinion, I was not smart enough to hold a conversation with persons I perceived to be intellectual people, I was not smart enough to help my husband in our business...these beliefs formed my self image and held me back in every effort I made to improve.

Maxwell Maltz teaches that we can create new experiences in our imagination and guess what:

The mind cannot tell the difference between what is real and what is vividly imagined!

This statement is backed by pages of scientific experiments proving its validity. Really fascinating things that leave you with hope that there is a way that we can all change our results and creative imagination is critical!

CREATIVE IMAGINATION

Creative thought is one of the highest functions humans are capable of. A lot of people believe that they are 'not creative' and this again is not the truth, but simply a perceived belief about themselves...a belief that can be changed with awareness and effort.

Thomas Edison said that 'Genius is 1% inspiration and 99% perspiration!' I can attest to this...personal growth, stepping outside your comfort zone, changing belief systems is hard work! Using this incredible servo-mechanism we all have resting on our shoulders requires very intentional effort!

Similar to future truth journaling, Maltz encourages us to run 'mini movies' in our minds. So instead of writing down all the details, we are actively producing the images of them in our mind and running the entire scenario in movie quality technicolor! This requires us to imagine as many details as possible...smells, sounds, sights, tastes...combine stimulation from all our senses with emotion and we have Oscar worthy movies of our future. This is the kind of clarity our servo-mechanism needs to begin tracking its course to achieving it. The book describes countless real life examples of the use of these mini movies in successfully accomplishing goals in people from all walks of life!

This is exactly what I have been practicing through my future truth journaling and ten minutes of quiet time after yoga practices...

I dreamed up a future me that was confident in her voice, confident in her opinions and confident in her ability to achieve whatever she set her mind to!

I was intentional in feeling and expressing every detail of my future self in my journaling and mini movie mediations....and although it did not happen immediately, I held on to the infallible belief that I would evolve into the person I've always dreamed of being. I can confidently say today that I do not recognize the woman I was last year...I have changed so much!

Again it requires intentional, persistent effort. So many of us are not even aware of this automatic servo mechanism in our mind...I was not aware until I began this journey. My favorite mentor teaches that most people believe life just happens To us...but you know what...life actually happens Through us.

Science has now confirmed what philosophers, mystics and other intuitive people have long declared: Every human being has been literally "engineered for success" by his Creator. Every human being has access to a power greater than himself...this means YOU! - Maxwell Maltz

We have infinite potential within ourselves to create the life we want. We have the potential to use our imagination to create...most of us spend way too much energy on using destructive imagination, conjuring future truths of every possible scenario that can go wrong! (Until recently, I was one of these people!) Guess what, thinking negatively takes the same amount of effort and energy as thinking positively! And that powerful servo-mechanism on top of your shoulders is as loyal and efficient as them come...it will deliver the future truth you feed it!

Choose to live your life by design...I live in gratitude everyday for my future truths on the way!

xoxo