The Thing I Greatly Feared…
December 7, 2007 | Leave a Comment
In the Old Testament is a story of a man called Job. In this story, his thinking – which had in the past brought him great prosperity – turned negative; and as a result, he lost a great deal of what he had accumulated. His friends came and cheered him up, telling him that he knew better than to think negatively; “That’s the kind of thinking which causes these kinds of things in the first place,” they reminded him. Job realized that it was those things which he greatly feared which had come upon him. One can not greatly fear a thing if they do not greatly think of that thing.
Much later, a man called Jesus would come along telling people to “Fear not,” in order to help themselves and others heal; and that “As a man thinketh, so it is done unto him.” Many people believe this was a teaching of Jesus, but Job’s friends knew of this teaching years before Jesus came along; this same teaching is in the book of Proverbs, and can be found in every religion on this planet. It seems people who take time to think for themselves always come to the same conclusions.
Later still, a man named Albert Einstein stated how matter and energy were one and the same – differentiated only by the speed at which their constituent parts vibrated. In other words, everything we are and everything we aren’t is the same at a certain level. Einstein also said that, “Imagination is more important than knowledge.” Knowledge is simply an archive of past occurrences; it is our imagination (the new things we think about) which creates the lives we live – and the world we live in.
Today, Quantum Physicists building on the work of Einstein, and others, have found many links between consciousness and physical reality. Basically, as the philosopher Ernest Holmes wrote, “Thoughts are things;” or they become things through a process which is now easily observed by science and medicine. E=mc² is simply one more way of saying that thoughts are things; thoughts can now be measured as forms of energy which stimulate, or create, denser forms of energy when the thought energy arrives in the brain. The denser energies include meridian and nervous system energy, which in turn stimulate the production and release of chemical energy – all of which changes our physical structure and our feelings, moods, activity or appearance. Thought energy gives rise to all we see and all we are.
With this new awareness, which is really old awareness spoken in a new language, why would people flock to fill their heads with images of natural disasters, tragedies, terror, and other horrible sights and experiences they really do not want in their lives? “If you build it, they will come.” If you build images in your head; they will come into your existence in one way or another. This is the law; and history is testament to this truth. Live and learn; or die and learn. The choice is yours. This is free will. Discipline is a mental skill. Remember: It’s the thought that counts. What are you thinking about?
More thinking about THINKING
December 7, 2007 | Leave a Comment
I wonder what happens when you think about something specific. I mean, what if I spend 10-minutes each day thinking about being healthy and happy? Do you think that would have an impact on my life? What if I wake up every morning and spend a few minutes thinking about how I want my day to unfold? That’s certainly what success coaches would recommend you do; and it sounds an awful lot like a recipe for a daily prayer routine. But why do it?
Imagine taking a few minutes before you went to bed to think about something you want – maybe you have a job interview in the morning and you’d really like to get the job. Some people would say this is called praying; but what is praying, anyway? What’s the difference between going to bed thinking about how you’d like the interview to go, and praying about how you’d want the interview to go? Most people are too busy worrying (thinking) about “life” to spend time thinking about THINKING, but maybe they should. The government, advertising agencies, pharmaceutical companies, and other groups certainly spend an awful lot of time and money to influence your behaviors and expenditures by influencing your thinking.
What if “As a man thinketh, so is he…” really means that what you think determines who and what you are? And, what if “As you believe in your heart, so it is done unto you…” means that what you believe is going to happen will really happen? What if Albert Einstein was right when he said, “Imagination is more important than knowledge;” basically restating the same ancient wisdom? And is it possible that Henry Ford, when he said, “If you think you can or think you can’t, you’re right!” was essentially saying the same thing? Ernest Holmes put this same principle in these words: “Thoughts are things.”
So, if what we think about is really done unto us, why would anyone spend time worrying about anything? Because they were taught to, that’s why. If what you think about is what you get, I wonder what proliferating nuclear weapons might create… maybe a threat of some terrorist group getting their hands on one of the hundreds of thousands available. I wonder what thinking about terrorism, hurricanes, bad weather, or crime, all day long will bring into my life. I mean, if spending a couple minutes on Sunday morning thinking, hoping, or praying that a certain person – in another place – gets over an illness, then what might spending my day spun-up over politics or religion, crime, violence, and illness, do for me? Besides creating illness, by creating stress, what do these thoughts do?
What does driving by a sign everyday that reads, “BE AFRAID!” or “Threat Level Yellow,” do to me? Well, besides stressing you out, it drives your unconscious thought patterns just like every other billboard you pass by. Why do you think people pay so much money for billboards and television commercials – just to spend a few second exposing you to a few carefully chosen words? They do it because the most successful people in the world have always known the Law of Attraction: “As a man thinketh, so it is done to him.” Your thoughts bring your experience of life to you one frame at a time. And without training, most people think only about what they see and hear; which is why tomorrow will look a lot like yesterday for most people, and why they will most likely buy the products they see advertised whether they need them or not. As long as they “think” they need a thing, Americans will spend money they don’t have in order to get it.
The next time you watch a television commercial for a pharmaceutical product, see if you remember the part about how this drug is going to kill a certain percentage (hopefully a small percentage, or they might have to put a warning on the label…) of the people who will take it, or if the wildflowers, smiling faces, and the small chance that your rash might disappear, made a bigger impression on you. Think about thinking; if you do not understand how your mind operates your body, then you are not really in control of your life. Someone else is.
The Power of a Thought
December 7, 2007 | Leave a Comment
Did you know that science and medicine are finally in agreement with religion on many points? I am not saying that science, or medicine, support any particular set of beliefs, or dogma; I am saying that we can express the words and deeds of the great healers and teachers – men like Jesus, for instance – in scientific terms which support some of the oldest wisdom teachings on the planet, such as: “As a man thinketh,” and “Judge not…” That’s pretty cool, because those teachings were intended to make our lives better and happier – to give us use of our natural abilities to create and even to heal ourselves.
Thanks to science and medicine, we can better understand the mechanism and pathway through which our thoughts create our bodies, health, and lives. And based on these findings, we can observe a sort of “Belief Formula” which can be reliably applied to help us create more of what we want and less of what we don’t want. When we get sick, something causes it; when we get better, something causes that, too. Until now, we have been told that a germ makes you sick; and pills make you better. Well, that’s not what Jesus was saying, nor was it what Hippocrates, the father of medicine, said; and it isn’t what the latest scientific and medical research tells us, either.
The newest medicine on the planet agrees with the oldest medicine on the planet – and it uses the principles of Quantum Physics to do it. Jesus said, “As a man thinketh, so it is done unto him…” He was quoting some of the richest, most successful people on the planet – people who wrote those words thousands of years earlier. Albert Einstein, one of the fathers of Quantum Physics, said that “imagination is more important than knowledge,” indicating that he was aware creation did not emerge from text books, nor did E=mc²; it came from the mind – from the imagination. New things come from thinking about new things. The things you believe in happen “according to your beliefs,” as Jesus put it, or “according to the laws of physics,” as Einstein would have put it.
But they were both saying the same thing. Physics has shown us that our reality is generated from waves of possibilities that only come into existence when we observe them and think about them. That may sound pretty strange; but think about it in the terms of your health for a moment. The American Psychological Association (APA) has estimated that stress is a causative factor in about 90% of all medical problems; they have also said that perhaps 90% of all doctor’s office visits are due to stress-related complaints. Here’s how that works: Medical problems are caused by stress; and stress is caused when you think about your life in a certain way.
It goes like this: You have a set of beliefs about how people should act and be; and then you go to work with someone, or are married to someone, who does many things you would rather they not do. In other words, they aren’t the way they should be. According to the way you were taught (programmed) to think about other people, this person is not acting right. Perhaps they are being rude, mean, careless, or any of a number of ways that might irritate you. They irritate you because you think they should be another way. If this person were acting the way you wanted them to, that wouldn’t be irritating. Any time we want things to be a way they aren’t, we experience stress.
Your thoughts about the way that person should be, and the way you are observing that person to be, are not congruent with each other, and it is causing you stress. When you have made such a judgment, a part of your brain called the Amygdala initiates a series of events called the “stress response.” Signals are sent via the nervous system to the endocrine glands, which release stress hormones like adrenaline and cortisol. These hormones, as well as other “molecules of emotion,” act on the cells of your body causing various physical changes that wouldn’t be happening if you were laughing with this same person who has just “pushed your buttons.” It is your judgment of the person and situation that triggers the release of chemicals that you literally feel as discomfort.
If you make a judgment, you are thinking thoughts that are stressful and harmful to the body in a very real way. Consider how specific these messages are: Worry releases hormones that make our stomach feel fluttery (we call it butterflies); fear can make knees weak, or pants wet; but anger doesn’t do the same thing; neither does laughter. We innately know that our nerves carry these signals from the brain; when we feel an excessive, or chaotic, energy in our nervous system, we actually tell people, “It’s my nerves,” or “I’m nervous.” When someone allows fear to override their desire to do something, they are said to have “lost their nerve.”
The nerves, however, are simply the middle man. What Jesus, Einstein, and all the rest are trying to clue us in on is that the signals trashing our nerves, bodies, and health, are being generated in the brain in response to THOUGHTS. If you think positively about your health, you will be able to immediately improve your health. This is a big subject, but the mind-body connection is not something to take lightly; your body is a direct reflection of your mind. If you can learn to understand this relationship, you can control your health, happiness, and life, with a great degree of satisfaction.
All medical symptoms are created by the stress response and the immune system as they respond to your thoughts and attempt to protect you and maintain balance at the same time. These systems respond whenever they believe they need to in order to protect you from a threat, or a foreign invader. Most medical interventions involve removing the part of the body that “appears” to be malfunctioning, using chemicals to replace natural processes, or using chemicals to halt natural processes – such as immune responses (coughing, vomiting, sneezing, etc…) which are designed to rid your body of toxins. We have been led to believe that a cough is bad; but a cough is nature’s way of clearing your airways of potentially harmful debris or pathogens. Suppressing a cough is a misguided attempt to seek comfort at the expense of your lungs and health.
There are many ways our beliefs have been used against us in the past; medicine is simply one which has a profound and direct effect on our lives. But let’s move forward; medical research, in an effort to sell drugs, has shed light on the power of belief to cure all diseases – just like Hippocrates (the Father of medicine) and Jesus would tell you if they were here today. Consider miracle cures and the placebo response. These terms are simply ways of masking your body’s natural ability to heal – distracting us from the truth. Everyone’s heard of “miracle cures,” and “miraculous healings;” but what are placebos, and what’s the difference between healing one way or another?
A placebo is simply a remedy which has no known healing properties – like a sugar pill. Now, this is a medical perspective; but the truth is placebos have the same healing properties as anything else. Placebos have always been used by physicians; in fact, until the past century, most medicine was placebo. People had been taught that they needed something from outside of themselves in order to heal; so physicians gave them what they wanted in the form of bread pills and drops of colored water. The definition of placebo is simply, “I shall please.”
And please they did. People have always benefited from taking placebos, and they still do today – much to the chagrin of the pharmaceutical companies! Today, since “everyone knows sugar can’t cure you…,” pharmaceutical companies use placebos as a control to compare their new drugs to. One test group takes the new drug; while the other takes sugar pills, or something that resembles the “real” drug or procedure. Ideally, for the pharmaceutical companies, the real drug should outperform the sugar pills; but they rarely do! And even in the few cases where they do, the fact sugar pills always work in some percentage of the population clearly demonstrates that it isn’t what’s inside the pill that matters; the curative property of all pills is in the reason for taking the pill and the act of taking the pill.
The placebo response is what the medical community calls it when you get better from taking a fake drug. But better is better; there’s nothing fake about that. And, since every placebo study has produced positive results in the placebo group – no matter what the disease process – it is inaccurate to continue to define placebos as having no “known” curative properties. It is well documented that if you take a placebo, there is a really good chance – by medical standards – that you will get better. This has been shown to be true even when the people taking sugar pills were told they were being given placebo. So, do placebos have “known healing properties?” They sure do; in fact, the only thing pharmaceuticals have that placebos don’t is dangerous chemicals that act in unpredictable ways. The “active” ingredient in a placebo, as with a drug – is you.
This is the Belief Formula in action. My cure (A) is the result of (=) my action, or prayer (P) as powered, or multiplied by my belief (B) in the possibility that action will generate the desired response, or answer to my prayer. A=PxB. “If I take this pill, I will get better…” Gulp… “I can feel it working already!” With computers, this is called “If/Then” programming: IF this happens, THEN this other thing will result. In the Universe, we call it “Cause and Effect;” and it is one of the Laws taught by all the great teachers and healers throughout history. Of course, they taught us to focus and rely more on the faith, or belief (B) part of the equation, than on the prop, technique, or action we contracted to perform as our part of the process – like taking pills and having surgery.
With enough faith, you don’t need much of a physical intervention. Of course, faith of this magnitude is so rare that when we encounter it, we immediately point our finger and scream, “It’s a miracle!” Everyone knows that many of the people, who stand before televangelists and receive a “healing” by being slapped on the head, are part of the show; but not every miraculous healing is a sham. Even some of those you see on television are real. The fact is that people have always experienced miraculous healings; and in an almost infinite variety of ways – healing spring waters, prayer, blessings from a statue, viewing a corpse, and many other ways that sound kind of strange. The common factor in all healings, besides disease, is a desire to heal and faith that this action could produce healing. In fact, this is true whether you are talking about placebos, holy fountains, religious relics, prescription drugs, surgery, prayer, or any of the ways people have used to restore health and wellness to their diseased bodies, minds, and lives.
Consider that not everyone who takes medicine gets better; and not everyone who gets better did it with medicine. Medicine is not the curative variable in the equation of wellness. The same applies with any of the methods listed above – including prayer. Even if you use faith as your vehicle for healing, you still must believe that it is possible, or you do not have the critical factor in your healing equation, or Belief Formula. Remember, Jesus told people, “It is your faith that has healed you…” He did not tell them that it was His hands, or “this pill,” or to take two aspirins and pray to Him in the morning. Throughout what we have been told are the teachings of Jesus, He is consistently unambiguous: The way you think and believe is what causes your life for better or worse, so don’t make idle judgments – they will come upon you. Think about what you want; and do this always.
Let’s look at an example of how this same principle affects your life in a broader way. You stay at that job that stresses you out because you “thinketh” you have to stay. This is simply a lack of courage or creativity. You were looking for that job when you found it, weren’t you? And what about that time someone told you that you couldn’t do something, and you BELIEVED them? When you believe something that simply means you have accepted a thought into your basic operating system. If you don’t think you can do something, you probably won’t try; on the other hand, people who are very good at certain things must have tried them at some point – probably because they were THINKING about that thing.
I have seen, and used, the power of a thought to change lives. My advice to anyone in this Universe is to consider the life you are now living as an experiment in thought. Start keeping up with your thoughts and see what you think about most of the time. We get to think of things and then live the physical reality of our thoughts. Your life will unfold for you “As you thinketh…” If all you think about is how miserable your life is, you’ll probably be getting more of the same. They say, “You can’t afford the luxury of a negative thought;” and the Chinese have said, for thousands of years, “Be careful what you wish for, you will probably get it.” Is this any different than saying, “The thing I greatly feared has come upon me,” or “As a man thinketh, so it is done unto him.”? Henry Ford said, “If you think you can, or think you can’t – you’re right!” There’s nothing religious about this; it is simply the way it works in this Universe.
We all live in this Universe; we all have access to the mind; and we all think. We also experience the results of our thoughts as physical realities. The laws apply to all of us, whether we are good or bad (“God sends his rain upon the good and evil alike…”), and regardless of what language we speak. The only things you will ever experience in this physical world are the results of someone’s thoughts; and you’ll have a hard time denying that it was your thoughts that lead you to that experience. Good and bad are simply judgments, if you must make them; just remember that you can’t call another person or thing “bad” without thinking about “bad.” If you are thinking about bad, this is what you can expect in your future. It might be kind of scary at first to think that you are in control of all that you are experiencing, but fear not; have fun and keep your thoughts on those things that are good – those things you want more of in your life.
Understand that your body and mind work like a computer and its software. While you are growing up, you are absorbing programming continuously. When you reach the age of about 14, you begin to use that information to fit yourself into your world – the world as you have been taught to see it. If you program your computer to play rock music through its speakers, it isn’t a Rock Star; it is still just a computer doing what it was programmed to do. Any moment you aren’t consciously choosing what you are thinking and doing, your subconscious mind is randomly – or not so randomly – executing programs that were loaded into you by who knows who, who knows when.
Not many people can stay conscious all the time; when we encounter one of those individuals who can, we call them a Master, or something reflecting the same respect, awe, or admiration. Anyone, however, can spend time paying attention to their thoughts and installing more creative, more productive, kinder, wiser, thoughts with the intention that when you do go on “autopilot,” your subconscious mind has a higher quality of software from which to choose – as it creates your future for you by guiding your words and actions. This is where prayer, affirmations, self-hypnosis, and hypnosis come into the picture as options for programming yourself to think more effectively, and to think more positively when your attention and focus shift to “idle.”
The secret to staying happy and healthy is to keep your mind on happy and healthy things. You might not think that this is much of a secret; but what on Earth could be more important than being happy and healthy? Having a respectable job? Having the right car? Making the right amount of money doing something you hate, or something you know is bad for people and the environment? Your life’s purpose isn’t filling the shoes others have made for you, or convinced you to wear; your purpose is being happy – to keep trying things until you find that which makes you happiest of all. Your health and your life are your only indicators of how well you are listening to your heart’s desires; so listen up! Your life is talking to you.
Thinking about Thinking
December 7, 2007 | Leave a Comment
The Belief Formula, in a word, is about THINKING. More specifically, it is about Thinking about THINKING. According to all reliable sources, you have an infinitely powerful tool at your disposal; and most people hardly use theirs at all.
Actually, that’s not completely accurate; we all use this tool (or weapon, as the case may be…) all the time. We just don’t use it consciously or wisely all the time. This tool is our free-will to put our thoughts on anything we choose — to any degree we desire. Our thoughts affect our lives whether we consciously choose them or not; but if we consciously choose the thought, we can consciously choose the effect.
Think about it; you tend to talk about, learn about, and do those things you think about. These things, and the things you think about, make up your life experience. The quality of your life depends on the quality of your thoughts. Whether your hands are folded or not, “It’s the thought that counts.”
Blog Preview
December 7, 2007 | Leave a Comment
My intention is to use this blog as a kind of group coaching site for anyone interested in creating change in their life. I will be addressing some of the more common problems and questions, as well as explaining and expanding on The Belief Formula.
Some of the more common problems people pray for relief from are:
- Health problems
- Weight Issues
- Marital and Relationship problems
- Financial Issues
- Unhappiness / Depression / Anxiety / Stress / Emotional difficulties
I will be doing an ongoing series on Weight and Body Image Issues. The series will be called, “The Mind-Booty Connection,” and addresses the mental and emotional aspects of weight gain, as well as teaching you how to think differently in order to lose weight. “It’s not what you’re eating; it’s what’s eating you that’s causing the unwanted pounds.”
I will be doing another series on Enlightened Relationships, as well. Basically, I plan on adding posts in each of these categories, as well as on other subjects, from time-to-time when something comes up. The relationship series will teach the keys to happy, healthy relationships at home and at work — as well as giving you some useful and practical tools to help you in these areas.
Other articles will deal with the effects of prayer and other mental activities on the physical health of your body; and how to reframe your thinking to create better health and a happier life.
I’d like to say this blog might contain some random thoughts; but I seldom have those anymore, so perhaps I can explain how the process of organizing my thoughts and quieting the mental chatter goes, as well.
The truth is, there’s no telling what might turn up here, so stay tuned.
Pete
Welcome to The Belief Formula blog
December 7, 2007 | Leave a Comment
Thank you for visiting The Belief Formula.com! This blog will be a place where people can post comments, feedback, questions, testimonials, and success stories, and where I can post helpful information and articles, as well as answers to questions and suggestions for making The Belief Formula work in your life.
Check back often to see what’s been added. The next entry will be a preview of some subjects for future entries. If you have specific questions, or would like to know how people have applied The Belief Formula in a particular situation, you can email us at Questions@TheBeliefFormula.com and we will answer you as soon as possible — and address the topic here, if appropriate.
Thanks again for visiting!
Pete
