Are you ready to attack anxiety? Once you have your list of new thoughts, you're ready to begin instilling them in your consciousness, and there are various ways to do this:
1] The first method is to simply repeat your thoughts out loud to yourself. Try to do this in a private and comfortable environment, where you can work without distraction. For maximum impact, speak each thought with the belief that it is true already. This is what gives thought power. Try to ignore the intellect which likes to argue with anything that does not conform to your belief system. You'll recognize the intellect -- it's that voice in your head saying "no you're not" every time you think a new thought about yourself. By concentrating your full awareness on the replacement thought with full belief behind it, you will not leave any room for the intellect to interfere. In this way, you are bypassing the analytical intellect, and speaking directly to your subconscious mind. So speak your new thoughts with complete belief and deep emotion. Feel the words being spoken by every cell of your being. Project and sense the joy or whatever emotion you would expect to have if the condition where already attained. Know that the change is true for you already.
Take some time everyday to read your new thoughts to yourself in this manner, and the effects will accumulate. The intellect will become more accepting, and eventually the new thoughts and beliefs will replace the old ones.
2] A second and extremely powerful method of instilling new thought patterns is to speak your thoughts inwardly to your self in the 2nd person. For example, instead of saying "I am a confident person", you'd say, "{your name}, you are a confident person". In effect, it's like you're speaking from the center of your consciousness into your mind, body, and all the energies that make up your being. In this manner, it's as if an objective third party is making the statements about you. Often an outside and objective statement is the one that our subconscious finds most believable, and speaking inwardly to yourself is an excellent way to simulate this effect. Simply modify your thought phrases by replacing the word "I" in each with the words "{your name], you are...". Close your eyes, direct your awareness toward your inner being, and speak to yourself with absolute sincerity. Say "{your name}, you are a confident person now", or whatever your thought phrase may be. Speaking to yourself in this manner is really the best way to directly target the subconscious mind because the focus on your inner being leaves so little room for intellectual distraction. Also, it was outside influences that inspired many of your subconscious perceptions in the first place. This method of speaking to yourself is essentially replacing uncontrollable outside voices with your own more enlightened one.
Combining these first two self-speaking techniques and making a daily practice of reading your affirmations is the best way to begin incorporating new beliefs into your life, and to attack anxiety.
Ultimately your goal is to be producing more constructive and "possibilities oriented" thoughts all the time. Not just when you're sitting down with your list, but at every moment during the day. So whenever you notice anxiety or negative emotions arising take a moment to identify the underlying thought causing it and put energy into producing the opposite.
The reversal to positive thinking may be difficult at first. Negative thinking and expectation is a habitual behavior, and as with any habit, it may take some time to reverse. You may frequently fall into your old ways - that's OK. When you notice this happening, just re-focus, and realize that as you put more and more energy into producing positive thoughts, the practice will eventually become second nature.
Be aware that one major reason people disregard the power of positive thinking is because of the slight delay between the thought reversal and feeling reversal. Just as you don’t start having negative emotions the instant negativity enters your mind, it also takes some time for thought reversal to have an impact on your emotional energies. So just because you don't instantaneously feel better the moment you produce one positive thought, don't abandon your efforts!
And also don’t forget about your listening skills from the audio program. Using positive thinking to avoid emotions that you've already created, or emotions that are normal for the situation, is VERY difficult (often counterproductive) because it adds a negative fear or avoidance energy to the positive thought, which pretty much negates the effort. Remember, rule #1 is not to fear feelings.
3] A third method of incorporating new thoughts and beliefs is through visualization. As we learned in an earlier lesson, the subconscious mind often cannot distinguish between real life and mental imagery. By visualizing yourself behaving in a certain way or experiencing a certain condition, you can cause your mind to redefine the way you see yourself. For example, if you visualize yourself behaving confidently, making eye contact, speaking with composure, you are creating a mental imprint on your subconscious that, with repeated exposure, results in the belief that "I am a confident person", and the imagery will form a mold that your future behaviors will eventually be congruent with. Many professional athletes use the visualization technique to improve performance, but you can also apply it to just about any behavior or activity, and use it to attack anxiety. By seeing yourself as a person that performs well in the situations you worry about, you'll be less like to fear them, and more mentally prepared to deal with them.
As with the previous exercises, best results are achieved by combining visualization with the strong belief that what you're seeing in your mind is the way that you really are now.
4] A fourth major method of absorbing new thought patterns is "acting", meaning behaving in the manner congruent with your ideals, even if such behavior feels artificial or unnatural at first. While this appears to be more of a physical activity than a mental one, by acting the role of the person you want to be, you are creating an extremely powerful impression on your subconscious mind that can quickly become the basis of your thoughts about yourself. For example, even if you're not feeling all that confident, simply ACT like you ARE confident. Stand tall, speak in a calm voice, make eye contact, be controlled in your movements, etc. You will be amazed at the results. By simply acting confident, even if you don't feel it initially, you are cultivating an energy and image within you that changes your image of yourself. Not feeling social? ACT social. Not feeling energetic? ACT energetic. Not feeling competent? ACT competent. YOU WILL BECOME IT. Acting is not the same as being phony. Phoniness involves insincerity. What I'm talking about is acting as though you are already the person that you really want to be. It's an amazingly powerful method of redefining yourself. And it doesn't take long for the new improved behaviors to become second nature.
Again, if you have access to the MC2 Method, please apply those concepts to the following lessons. Otherwise, the above approaches will be a good start for attacking anxiety for now.
