Your subconscious mind works in the present tense. It knows no other way to think. We create a past for ourselves in our memories and the emotions attached to them. We build a future for ourselves with our hopes and desires, or fears and sorrows. But our subconscious mind lives in the now. This means that any negative thoughts about your past that you carry with you at this moment create your present. You are perpetuating your past. You know how this works. If you recall a very sad situation, even from many years ago, it can make you cry. Your mind is interpreting this memory as happening now, and creates an appropriate response. It cannot differentiate between what happened ten years ago and what happened ten seconds ago; it can only react to what is in your mind right now.
The upshot for your positive affirmations is that they must be phrased so that the mind can act upon them at this moment in time, therefore you must use the present tense.
Let’s take the obvious example, and assume you want to be rich. You have three options as to how this is phrased
The past tense – In this case you might say: “I always wanted to be rich.” Your mind takes this to mean that you did want to be rich but not any more, therefore it does not take the required actions to bring it about.
The future tense – In this case, you might say: “I will be a rich person.” This might seem the obvious choice because you are planning for your future, but this is also the wrong way to phrase your affirmations. Your mind interprets this as meaning that you will be rich in the future, but not now, so fails to take any action.
The present tense – In this scenario, you might say: “I am a rich person.” Don’t worry, your mind is not going to take issue with you on this because you may not actually have very much money; rather it will respond by attempting to create the circumstances to match the affirmation. You have, in effect, given your mind an order that must be acted upon now.
If this smacks of a little self-delusion, this is just something you have to cope with. You are programming your mind in the way it must be programmed. Clearly, you have to exercise a little caution here. Telling your mind you are rich does not instantly put money in the bank. If you see a Ferrari drive by, you can say: “That Ferrari is my car”, but that does not mean you should run to your bank and withdraw all your funds to put down a deposit at your local Ferrari dealership. Such behavior will obviously provoke immense panic on your part once you realize you now can’t buy a tin of beans for dinner, and thus it will work against your positive attitude.
Talking in the present tense is not about deluding yourself or ignoring your current reality; it is about giving your mind orders in the language it best understands.
No comments:
Post a Comment