A man is but the product of his thoughts.  What he thinks, he becomes.

-Mahatma Gandhi

Getting the physical body in order is of the utmost importance and the magnitude of that importance only grows more and more as we age.  You really deserve a pat on the back for coming to terms with the realities of basic nutrition, clearing unwanted material from the body, and making physical activity a priority.  It’s not that what it takes is a complex and difficult process, it just takes the right information and will power.  The key to a balanced life both physically and mentally is discipline.  Discipline that creates the type of life that promotes personal and spiritual growth.  We are going to discuss how changing the way we look at how we breathe can give us the KEY to taking conscious control of how we think.

Here I will cover some fundamentals that have helped me tremendously in my own journey.

These three steps in understanding build on top of each other.  Just like we previously learned, getting ahead of yourself and not laying the proper foundations results in loads of unnecessary frustration.  Once you incorporate them into your life at the “being” level, you can develop your own tools that allow you to come up with your own unique bag of tricks.  Consider my suggested point of view and I guarantee the results will completely change the way you look at life and how you fit into it.

1. Calming the Body
2. The Subconscious & Chatter
3. Setting a Conscious Intention

We are going to draw our conscious focus away from the five senses and put the spotlight on our thoughts and feelings.  Getting past the “chatter” that so many of us deal with when things get quiet can be discouraging.  DON’T BE DISCOURAGED!  It just takes a little know-how that people in our culture aren’t keen on.  This state of mind fertile soil for “programming” new thought patterns into your subconscious mind.  These programs that you “install” will run in the background of your daily life adding quality peace of mind.  I’m going to tell you how to “install” a couple of good habits into your thought process while identifying and working toward removing bad ones.  Don’t worry there isn’t anything remotely difficult to do here.  It’s simply a matter of DOING IT and PRACTICING IT.

Don’t wait. The time will never be just right.

-Napoleon Hill

Our goal is to achieve the constant state of mind where we are the “observer” of the data coming into our senses.  We want to also be the “observer” of our thoughts and become aware of our own mental habits, good and bad.  We want to be the “observer” of our emotional responses as they are triggered by these thoughts and physical sensory data.  This way we ALLOW even the strongest emotional energies flow unhindered through our bodies.

We need not “block” our thoughts and emotions to achieve stillness.  We need only to acknowledge each thought and feeling as it flows through our consciousness.  They come in like waves, they may echo and reverberate, but then they subside if we ALLOW them to and don’t add any further energy.  I take the stance that we can never hope to control what sort of crazy sh** we will be exposed to throughout our lives here on Earth, but what we can take complete control of is how we respond to it.  How we respond to the craziness of life is what determines the quality of our character and the quality of our consciousness.

When we are no longer able to change a situation, we are challenged to change ourselves.

– Viktor Frankl, survivor of 4 concentration camps

Phase 1: Calming the Physical Body

I know we’re supposed to be talking about calming down the mind here, but before we do that we need to quiet down all of the noise being generated by the body.  The communication between the body and mind is a two way street and one ALWAYS affects the other.  When you go through this process of “manually powering down the body” so to speak, you are actually killing two birds with one stone and really helping to calm the mind.  The mind likes to pull you into the past and into the probable futures, but giving it a mundane process to focus on (such as calming different parts of the body) you focus it in on the current present moment.  This is what we need.  This is where we want to be.

*All Changes Take Place in the Present Moment*

Our culture has us running on high RPMs just about CONSTANTLY!  There always seems to be an unlimited supply of unfinished business to worry about.  Distractions are absolutely everywhere ALL THE TIME. Whether they be advertisements, text messages, phone calls, other electronics, other people… the list goes on and on and you can bet your a** that there will continue to be more and more as we progress down this timeline.  It is more important than ever to MAKE YOURSELF set aside time EVERY DAY to run some sort of manual “calming of the being.”Getting into a state of relaxation ” quickly and on purpose” is something that a poor percentage of people actually know how to do, and this is infinitely sad.  The fact is that there are shockingly simple techniques that if we were only raised to incorporate into our daily lives our culture would be set to take a major leap in creativity. What I am going to share is a technique I learned about twelve years ago that I know to absolutely calm the body down.  It really only takes 15 minutes or so to get yourself into a genuinely relaxed state.

****I Sincerely Promise, It Takes Less Than 15 Minutes****

Don’t let the fear of the time it will take to accomplish something stand in the way of your doing it. The time will pass anyway; we might just as well put that passing time to the best possible use.

-Earl Nightingale

The FIRST thing you need to do is ALLOW yourself to “unplug” from outside distractions for a minimum of 10 to 15 minutes.

Especially when you’re first starting out with this, you need to give yourself this 15 minutes to MARINATE in the feeling of “calmness” in the body before diving back into the busy busy business of the day.  Go somewhere where nobody will bother you for your devoted block of time.  It can be a quiet room in your house, close the door to your office, outdoors, sitting in your car, or sitting down in a chair in a closet for all I care.  JUST PICK A PLACE!  Make sure you silence or UNPLUG your phone(s) other electronics that may beep and distract you and promise not to look at them.  In the very least, practice it bed before going to sleep (ESPECIALLY IF YOU’VE BEEN ON A COMPUTER OR TV) so you can become raise awareness of the body’s “going to sleep” process.

In a moment of decision, the best thing you can do is the right thing to do. The worst thing you can do is nothing.

-Theodore Roosevelt

My favorite is to set my alarm a good 20 minutes before I need to get out of bed.  There are usually very few interruptions at that time and it is a excellent opportunity to set your positive and calm tone for the day.

I assure you that the world will be just fine without contact with you for this short time no matter how UNIMAGINABLY LONG it may seem.  Sometimes I put my phone in airplane mode and set a 15-20 minute timer if I’ve got things to do.  Some people like to light some incense, play calming music (with no vocals as they distract away from our exorcise), or any other ritual they develop to build their concept of a calming atmosphere. None of this extra stuff is important, but all a matter of personal taste, ALL YOU NEED IS TIME AND NO DISTRACTIONS. After you become more aware of how your own body works you’ll use your own techniques and be able to get into a calm state instantly if you want to.

Focus on BELLY BREATHING while we quiet down the body.

You can be sitting or laying down, as long as you are comfortable.  You want to begin using this technique by slowly blowing out every bit of air you have in your lungs until you can’t exhale any more.  Fold your hands and rest them right above your belly button so you can feel your diaphragm  expand and contract as you breathe.  Inhale slowly and deeply through your nose as you feel your hands forced upwards by your rising belly.  Notice how placing your hands on your belly causes you to draw breath down past your chest and into your belly.  You don’t want to be taking deep deep breaths until you are completely full of air, you only need to breathe deep enough to fully raise the belly.

I like to count down from ten breaths I start my relaxation exercise.  Starting with the first exhale we talked about above, blowing aaaaaall of my air out slowly counting out “10 out” in my head.  Breathing air in and down past my chest to fill up my lungs from the bottom counting “10 in” out in my head.  This is followed by “9 out” and “9 in” and so on, until we get down to “one in.”  Out your mouth like your calmly blowing out a birthday candle until your lungs are empty.  Back in through your nose and stopping when you begin to feel the weight of your chest.  If you get distracted in the process and lose count, START OVER FROM TEN! Simply taking these 10 deep breaths down into our belly and bypassing the chest works absolutely flawlessly to completely calm your state no matter how worked up you were. This simple intro breathing technique can dramatically lower the anxiety level of the most frantic mind and it even lowers the heart rate and blood pressure.

Now We Involve the Rest of the Body and Release All Tension

After spending a couple of minutes getting into the breathing and settling into a comfortable position it’s time to focus on releasing any tense muscles so you won’t be bothered by it later on in your mental exercise.  It might take you a few tries to count all the way down from ten breaths in the first part depending on how well you hold your focus.  When I first started I used to go a full 15 minutes getting distracted by random thoughts and noises and never even make it all the way through the counting.  Even if that is your case too, you still sat and did the breathing which still has so many benefits.  If you are having trouble with your focus, that’s a red flag that you need to be working on it anyways!

During the next five breaths we are going to get rid of any restlessness.  When you’re ready for breath 1 pick an inhale to start on and completely clench your feet and calves.  At the same time make both hands into fists as well, really feeling it in your forearms.  Make your fingers and toes into fists and really engage the calf muscle for the duration of your slow and steady inhale.  On your exhale completely release all tension from your hands and feet allowing them to sink back into place softly.

On breath 2 you’re going to engage your butt and thighs.  Really squeezing with everything you’ve got while not adjusting your overall sitting or laying position.  On the exhale imagine you feel ten pounds lighter as you let go of the tension.  Breath 3 is doing the same with your upper arms, shoulders, and chest.  Straining on the inhale, and relaxing and becoming lighter and lighter with each exhale.  On breath 4 you are completely fill up your lungs with air.  When entirely fully engage your stomach and back muscles as you slowly allow the air to escape little by little.  For our 5th breath you’re going to start again by clenching the hands and feet, but as you inhale keep adding tension to more parts of the body until you are totally rigid.  Hold yourself that way for a good five seconds, and then exhale leaving the whole body limp and tension free.

You can actually continue this process of engaging and releasing different muscle groups for as long as you want.  This activity in itself is worth any amount of time you spend practicing.  Feel free to stretch out the process hitting each and every part of the body one by one if you want.  I have spent hours targeting different areas of the body and giving special attention to any specific areas of tenderness, soreness, cramps, or built-up tension from the stress of the day.  A good deal of stress gets deposited and held in the physical body.

Take the first step in faith. You don’t have to see the whole staircase, just take the first step.

-Martin Luther King, Jr.

 Phase 2: The Subconscious & Chatter

Now we have successfully and thoroughly relaxed the body.  With all of this focus power freed up from five sense duty you can count on a flood of thoughts and feelings coming to the forefront of your awareness. This can be unsettling for some people who have more on their minds than others.  Many, many of our brothers and sisters are troubled by racing thoughts and anxieties but this is nothing that can’t be overcome with nothing more than effort in the right direction.  Everybody has to overcome his or her own flavor of chatter that is unique to their environment.  We all have our own monkey mind to tame.

Did you ever have a friend who appreciated you trying to reform him… Do you like to have a friend come around trying to reform you? No. No you don’t, nobody does. But there are certain things you can do for a friend by example. That’s the mighty effective way to do it.

-Napoleon Hill

First we need to understand a little bit about where this “noise” comes from and a little bit about how the subconscious mind operates from my experience.  The chatter going on in your head is a nice stew of:

• Obligations looming in the future
• Events from earlier in the day
• Something that caught your eye on the freeway
• A song that might be stuck in your head
• Something embarrassing from 4th grade
• Messages from the stomach (I’m hungry or I’m full)
• Thoughts related to sexual arousal
• Advertisements echoing in your head

This list could go on and on and on.  The important thing to realize here is that the subconscious mind is made up of everything that YOU FEED IT.  You literally TRAIN the subconscious mind how YOU WANT IT TO OPERATE by the environment you expose yourself to, the behaviors you engage in, and the thoughts you think.  Your lifestyle and mental habits have a certain trajectory and the subconscious mind is simply following the plotted course.  When you don’t plot a course you just get shepherded along with the rest of the flock or worse, you are taken advantage of.  When we stop filling our minds with garbage a new level of clarity is free to move in.

While getting garbage out of your food supply and better nutrition into it is awesome for the body, we need to have a GUARDIAN at ALL of the GATES.  Information coming in from every portal has an affect on our mental and spiritual experiences.  We need to be paying close attention to information coming into our consciousness from all channels and not exposing ourselves to anything with undesirable effects when we can help it.

Watch what you allow into your body through your mouth, nose, and skin.

Watch what you allow into your ears.  Chose what you listen to wisely.  Be careful of music with a distasteful message or speakers with distasteful views.

Pay close attention to what you let into your mind through your eyes:  What pictures you view, what you watch on TV or on the internet, and what you choose to READ.

Last but certainly not least, watch what you think.

A man is what he thinks about all day long.

-Ralph Waldo Emerson

It’s easy to fall into the habit of letting your thoughts bring stress into your life.  Habit is the key word.  The subconscious mind is a function of habits learned by repetition.

As you read these words who’s voice do you hear in your head?

I assume that most people hear a voice that sounds more or less like they think they sound out loud.  I say the word “hear” but the ears aren’t really involved.  This voice exists 100% in the non-physical where your imagination runs the show.  I remember being a young child and noticing that I could make this voice sound like anything I wanted.  I would lay awake at night imagining all sorts of noises and other magical things, but that’s a discussion for another time.

The reason I mention this voice is because this is the voice that you are going to use to take control of your whole thought process and subsequently steer your life into any trajectory you can imagine.  As one of the great motivators Napoleon Hill’s quotes said, “Whatever the mind can conceive, and believe, the mind can achieve.”  I pay special attention to the fact that he didn’t say “… the mind WILL achieve.”  You have to put in the required effort in order to see the results.  The mental plane is just like the physical in that way, you just have to know how to train it.  YOU are your only guarantee!

Very little is needed to make a happy life; it is all within yourself, in your way of thinking.

-Marcus Aurelius

Your entire experience of life is dependent upon what you THINK about it.  The circumstances are of little importance compared to how you think about them.  Choosing what we WANT to think about ALL THE TIME and purposely avoiding undesirable thought patterns is the key.  It’s so obviously simple!  It’s just a practice that you have to remind yourself to do.  This next section is going to give you an easy, common-sense based way to program your subconscious mind to work in your favor.

When ANYTHING happens in life, your point of view of that event is completely based upon the STORY you tell IN YOUR HEAD about it.

 

Phase 3: Program the Robot Mind with Reps & Sets

When it comes to the physical body everybody understands that the key to any sort of change for the better involves exercise.  You must repeat a certain behavior which targets a certain muscle group for the amount of time necessary to achieve the desired results.  We call this “training.”  For example, if we want to increase the strength in our chest and triceps we must “train” that muscle group UNTIL we notice the change.  For example, doing four sets of 25 push-ups each day for eight weeks will give you noticeable results GUARANTEED. This is a very intuitive process and the results speak for themselves.  It doesn’t take any convincing when the results are part of your ACTUAL EXPERIENCE.  Having the experience of actual results is extremely rewarding.

We understand the importance of exercise for the body.  It’s a matter of common sense.  Sadly we are not brought up with enough emphasis on the importance of exercising and training the mind to keep it in shape.  Your mind is a precious gift that far too many of us neglect and let atrophy.  Just like physical fitness, if you don’t use it you’ll lose it.  It is also a good analogy to think of your subconscious mind and how to cultivate it by thinking of it as a garden.  When keeping a garden you quickly notice the importance of three things.

1. Protecting the garden from weeds and critters
2. Deciding what seeds to plant
3. Nurturing the plants for long enough for them to produce fruit

This is the key to all success and failure.  WE BECOME WHAT WE THINK ABOUT.  Let me say that again.  YOU BECOME WHAT YOU THINK ABOUT!  Like the great teacher Earl Nightengale used to say, throughout all history the great wise men and teachers, philosophers, and prophets have disagreed with one another on many different things, but it’s only on this one point that they are in complete and unanimous agreement.  If you think in positive terms and take the appropriate action you achieve POSITIVE results.  When you think in negative terms you get negative results.  It stands to reason that a person thinking about a concrete and worthwhile goal IS going to reach it, because that is what he/she is thinking about; and we become what we think about.  Conversely a man or woman with no goal or direction and a mind that is filled with anxiety and fear and worry becomes what he or she thinks about as well.  One who thinks of nothing, will drift with wherever the wind takes them.

Now the mind doesn’t care “what” kind of thoughts you think.  It will take on any habit that you program into it the same way the fertile garden soil will grow whatever seeds you plant.  It will produce weeds and poisonous plants just as abundantly as it will produce rows of beautiful flowers.  This is why we need to be so careful what we plant in our gardens.  Any thoughts we allow ourselves to repeatedly entertain are nurturing those “seeds” until they bear fruit and manifest into our conscious experience.  Entertain any thought with enough repetition and it will become its own self-fulfilling prophecy.  The more emotion (positive or negative) you attach to any given thought the more fertilizer and nutrients you are providing and the faster it manifests into undeniable experience.

Getting the body and mind into a relaxed and receptive state is like preparing your garden for a new row of plants.

Being the “guardian at your gates” is like keeping unwanted weeds and critters out of the garden so your plants grow up without pesky interference.

Now let me give you a “seed” to plant and a plan for nurturing it until you experience positive results.

Every one of us is the sum total of his own thoughts.  Each of us must live off of the fruit of our thoughts in the future.  Our view of our life is completely dependent upon our interpretation of our different experiences through time.  Our thoughts “govern” our views on past events.  The emotional state we are in at any given moment completely depends on what we were thinking just prior to experiencing that emotion.  When these thoughts are repeated they build up an “emotional momentum” in their wake that can work either for or against your quality of life.  This is why it is so important to have a regular practice of mental training in your life.

Now for a “seed” for you to plant that will have a noticeable and positive impact on your daily life.  Having a positive mental attitude is of the utmost importance for my quality of life I would like to share a practice with you that really changed the way I think about myself and the world around me.  I want to share a seed that, when tended in the garden, will produce a positive emotional state as the baseline for your day.  This has pulled me out of some horribly depressed states.  The best thing is how easy of a practice it really is. YOU JUST HAVE TO DO IT!

The art of meditation is a way of getting into touch with reality.
-Alan Watts

We are going to choose the desired outcome we want in the future and use the appropriate “reps and sets” UNTIL the results are noticeable.

The results I want you to experience in your life are:

1. Having a feeling of love and gratitude for your current situation (no matter what it may be)
2. Having the confidence that you are growing and becoming a better person every day

Here is my daily plan of recommended “reps and sets” to get you there:

Have your alarm set to wake you up 15 minutes earlier than you have to actually get up out of bed.  When you are woken up, just turn of the alarm and lay right back down with your eyes closed.

• Your body will already be fully relaxed
• Your mind will be mostly free of chatter that builds up throughout the day
• This will give you the opportunity to set your tone for the day

You certainly are not going to succeed until you understand this law of habit force and start building
habits that lead towards where you want to go.

Napoleon Hill

Here are the REPS that will make up one SET which we will repeat for our exercise:

1. Think of somebody that makes you laugh and imagine them in your mind’s eye really laughing their ass off.  I’m serious, imagine them with a huge smile engaged in one of those deep belly laughs.  I like to think of two or three people in a row until I’ve got a big silly smile.  Think about how lucky you are to have these people in your life.
2. Think about how lucky you are to have been born in this day where there is a greater abundance of wealth and information available to us than ever before in history and how lucky you are to be in a position to grow and learn so much.
3. Imagine what it would feel like to win $50,000 dollars cash in a raffle and legally not having to pay any taxes.  Imagine how it would feel as you walked over to claim your cash.  Imagine your excitement as you watch them count out your money in $100 bills.  Think of how you would feel calling that first person to tell them you won it.
4. While you’re charged up with the positive emotion say to yourself with your inner voice, “I am so happy that I am on this path of self improvement. I am so thankful that I am working to better myself every single day. I am so thankful that I am noticing my quality of life getting better each day.”
5. Say to yourself “It is my intention that I ride this wave of positive emotion for the remainder of the day.”

You could run through this whole SET in barely a few minutes and it really works to get you into a happy mood.  A happy mood is crucial if you want positive things to happen to you throughout the day.  After you finish setting your intention get out of bed and carry on with your normal routine.

After you have been up and engaged in your day for about 60 to 90 minutes take a five minute break to run through another SET.  Don’t worry about getting into your quiet or sacred space and go through the whole body relaxation.  Simply sit down and charge up another wave of positive emotion.  Sometimes getting into the daily grind in the morning can knock you out of the “ideal” mental/emotional state so it’s good to hit the reset button before you fully lose your momentum from the first SET when you woke up.

Do another set after lunch around midday and another after your last meal of the day.  The goal is to keep charging up the positive emotions “on purpose” throughout the day.  This way your positive intention and thought patterns will be working behind the scenes to keep bad thoughts away and keep a positive perspective on any experience that may come your way.  When you are in a “good mood” you tend to interpret anything you come across in a positive light and store it as a good memory.

Do this religiously for one full week and I promise even the people around you will notice without you saying a word.  When you’re in a good mood and you are cultivating positive thoughts and emotions on purpose you start rubbing off on people.  You literally become a sort of radio antenna broadcasting “good vibrations” into the environment around you.  These vibes are actually felt by people, animals, and the rest of our environment.

The best thing you can do to raise the quality of consciousness of the world is, raise your own quality of consciousness.  When you have a high quality of consciousness, people around you feel that and are affected by it.

-Tom Campbell

You know the feeling when somebody walks in the room with a pissed off face and a rude demeanor.  It changes the whole vibe of a room.  Even a room full of complete strangers could be put on edge without a word being said.  The same thing goes for when somebody walks in riding a wave of gratitude and enthusiasm.  Which do you choose to broadcast?  This practice of growing and evolving your being with conscious intention brings us to the doorway of spiritual understanding.  For we are spiritual beings, that possess an intellect, and have experiences in this physical dimension.

The path of actual spiritual growth has nothing to do with religion; but everything to do with improving the quality of our consciousness and helping those around us to do the same.

How wonderful it is that nobody need wait a single moment before starting to improve the world.

-Anne Frank