This book explain how your own subconscious thoughts shape your life and your surroundings.
If you want to be successful at something then just start doing it. You will reach to your goals at some point as long as you keep the right mindset and learn the tasks.
Dr Murphy explains each and everything with real life examples making it simple for the reader to relate and develop. This book offers some really great skills to learn with numerous examples. You can read some of the stories below.
I would recommend this book to anyone.
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Chapter 19: How to Use, Your Subconscious Mind to Remove Fear
Do The Thing Your Fear
Ralph Waldo Emerson, the great nineteenth-century philosopher and poet, said, “Do the thing you are afraid to do, and the death of fear is certain.”
There was a time when I was filled with unutterable fear at the thought of standing before an audience and speaking. If I had given way to this fear, terrible as it was, I am sure you would not now be reading this book. I would never have been able to share with others what I have learned about the workings of the subconscious mind.
The way I overcame this fear was to follow Emerson’s advice. Quaking inside, I went before audiences and spoke. Gradually I became less fearful, until at last I was comfortable enough to enjoy what I was doing. I even grew to look forward to speaking engagements. I did the thing I was afraid to do, and the death of fear was certain.
Fear of Failure
I often get visits from students at a nearby university. One complaint many of them share is what we can call suggestive amnesia during examinations. They all tell me the same thing: “I know the material cold before the exam, and I remember all the answers after the exam. But when I’m in the classroom staring down at a blank exam booklet, my mind goes totally blank!”
A great many of us have had similar experiences. The explanation lies in one of the major laws of the subconscious mind. The idea that realizes itself is the one to which we give the most concentrated attention. In talking with these students, I find that they are most attentive to the idea of failure. As a result, it is failure that the subconscious mind brings into reality. The fear of failure itself creates the experience of failure, by way of a temporary amnesia.
A medical student named Sheila A. was one of the most brilliant students in her class. Yet when she faced a written or oral examination, she found herself going blank at even simple questions. I explained the reason to her. She had been worrying and brooding over the chances of failure for several days before the exam. These negative thoughts became charged with fear.
Thoughts enveloped in the powerful emotion of fear are realized in the subconscious mind. In other words, this young student was requesting her subconscious mind to see to it that she failed, and that is exactly what it did. On the day of the examination she found herself stricken with suggestive amnesia.
How She Overcame Here Fear
As Sheila studied the working of her subconscious mind, she learned that it is the storehouse of memory. It had a perfect record of everything she had heard and read during her medical training. Moreover, she learned that the subconscious mind is responsive and reciprocal. The way to be in deep rapport with it is to be relaxed, peaceful, and confident.
Every night and morning, she began to imagine her parents congratulating her on her wonderful record. She would hold an imaginary letter from them in her hand. As she began to contemplate this happy result, she called forth a corresponding or reciprocal response or reaction in herself.
Under this consistent stimulation, the all-wise and omnipotent power of the subconscious took over. It dictated and directed her conscious mind accordingly. She imagined the end, thereby willing the means to the realization of the end. After following this procedure, she had no trouble passing her subsequent exams. The subjective wisdom of her subconscious mind took over and compelled her to give an excellent account of herself.
Fear of Water
When I was about ten years old, I accidentally fell into a swimming pool. I had never learned to swim. I flailed my arms, but it did no good. I felt myself sinking. I can still remember the terror as the dark water surrounded me. I tried to gasp for air, but my mouth filled with water. At the last moment, another boy noticed my plight. He jumped in and pulled me out. This experience sank into my subconscious mind. The result was that for years I feared the water. Then one day I mentioned this irrational fear of mine to a wise elderly psychologist.
“Go down to the swimming pool,” he told me. “Look at the water. It is simply a chemical compound, made up of two atoms of hydrogen and one of oxygen. It has no will, no awareness. But you have both.”
I nodded, wondering where this was leading.
“Once you understand that the water is essentially passive,” he continued, “say out loud in a strong voice, ‘I am going to master you. By the powers of mind, I will dominate you.’ Then go into the water. Take swimming lessons. Use your inner powers to overcome the water.”
I did as I was told. Once I assumed a new attitude of mind, the omnipotent power of the subconscious responded, giving me strength, faith, and confidence. It enabled me to overcome my fear, and I mastered the water. Today I swim every morning for both health and pleasure. Do not permit water to master you. Remember, you are the master of the water.
He Blessed The Elevator
Jonathan M. is an executive with a large corporation. For many years he was terrified to ride in an elevator. He would walk up seven flights of stairs to his office every morning to avoid the elevator ride. When he had to meet with people from other companies whose offices were on high floors, he always found some excuse to meet them at his own office or at a restaurant. Business trips out of town were torture for him. He had to call ahead, to make sure his hotel room was on a low floor and that he would be able to use the stairs.
This fear was the product of his subconscious mind, perhaps in response to some experience that he had long since forgotten on a conscious level. Once he learned this, he set about to change it. He began to bless the elevator every night and several times a day. In a calm, confident mood, he repeated to himself:
The elevator in our building is a wonderful idea. It came out of the universal mind. It is a boon and a blessing to all our employees. It gives wonderful service. It operates in divine order. I ride in it in peace and joy. I remain silent now while the currents of life, love, and understanding flow through the patterns of my thought.
In my imagination I am now in the elevator, and I step out into my office. The elevator is full of our employees. I talk to them, and they are friendly, joyous, and free. It is a wonderful experience of freedom, faith, and confidence. I give thanks.
He continued this prayer for ten days. On the eleventh day, he walked into the elevator with other members of his company and felt completely free.
He Landed in The Jungle
A former U.S. Army chaplain named John N. told me that during World War II, the plane he was in was hit and damaged by antiaircraft fire. He had to bail out over the jungle clad mountains of New Guinea. Of course he was frightened, but he knew that fear came in two varieties, normal and abnormal. The abnormal kind, which was trying to take control of him, was a close relative of panic.
He decided to do something about his fear immediately. He began to talk to himself, saying, “John, you can’t surrender to your fear. Your fear is a desire for safety and security, and a way out.”
He stood in the center of a small clearing and calmed his breathing. He pushed away the first symptoms of panic. As soon as he felt more relaxed, he began to claim, “Infinite intelligence, which guides the planets in their courses, is now leading and guiding me out of this jungle to safety.” He kept saying this out loud to himself for ten minutes or more.
“Suddenly,” John told me, “I felt something start to stir inside me. It was a mood of confidence and faith. I was drawn to one side of the clearing. There I found the faint trace of a path, and I began to walk. Two days later, I miraculously came upon a small village where the people were friendly. They fed me, then took me to the edge of the jungle, where a rescue plane picked me up.”
John’s changed mental attitude saved him. His confidence and trust in the subjective wisdom and power within him gave him the solution to his problem.
He added, “If I had started to bemoan my fate and indulge my fears, the monster fear would have conquered me. I probably would have died of fear and starvation.”
He Dismissed Himself
Rafael S. was an executive in a major foundation. He admitted to me that for three years he had been terrified he would lose his position. He was always imagining failure. He kept expecting his subordinates to be promoted over his head. The thing he feared did not exist, save as a morbid anxious thought in his own mind. His vivid imagination dramatized the loss of his job until he became increasingly nervous and inefficient. Finally he was asked to resign.
In reality, Rafael dismissed himself His constant negative imagery, the flood of fear suggestions he sent to his subconscious mind, caused the subconscious mind to respond and react accordingly. It led him to make mistakes and foolish decisions. These in turn created his failure. He might never have been fired if he had immediately moved to the opposite in his mind.
They Plotted Against Him
During a world lecture tour, I had a two-hour conversation with a prominent government official in one of the countries I visited. I found that this man had a deep sense of inner peace and serenity. He said that although he is constantly showered with abuse by newspapers that support the opposition party, he never allows it to disturb him. His practice is to sit still for fifteen minutes in the morning and realize that in the center of himself is a deep, still ocean of peace. Meditating in this way, he generates tremendous power, which overcomes all manner of difficulties and fears.
A few months earlier, he had received a midnight call from a panicky colleague. According to his coworker, a group of people were plotting against him. They intended to overthrow his administration by force, with help from dissident elements of the country’s armed forces.
In reply, the official told his colleague, “I am going to sleep now in perfect peace. We can discuss this tomorrow at 10:00 A.M.”
As he explained to me, “I know that no negative thought can ever manifest itself unless I emotionalize the thought and accept it mentally. I refuse to entertain their suggestion of fear. Therefore, no harm can come to me unless I allow it.” Notice how calm he was, how cool, how serene! He did not get overwrought and start tearing his hair or wringing his hands. At his center he found the still water, an inner peace, and there was a great calm.
lessons
Do the thing you are afraid to do, and the death of fear is certain. If you say to yourself with perfect confidence and faith, “I am going to master this fear,” you will.
Fear is a negative thought in your mind. Supplant it with a constructive thought. Fear has killed millions. Confidence is greater than fear. Nothing is more powerful than faith in God and the good.
Fear is person’s greatest enemy. It is behind failure, sickness, and bad human relations. Love casts out fear. Love is an emotional attachment to the good things of life. Fall in love with honesty, integrity, justice, goodwill, and success. Live in the joyous expectancy of the best, and invariably the best will come to you.
You were born with only two fears, the fear of falling and the fear of noise. All your other fears were acquired. Get rid of them.
Normal fear is good. Abnormal fear is very bad and destructive. To constantly indulge in fear thoughts results in abnormal fear, obsessions, and complexes. To fear something persistently causes a sense of panic and terror.
You can overcome abnormal fear when you know the power of your subconscious mind can change conditions and bring to pass the cherished desires of your heart. Give your immediate attention and devotion to your desire, which is the opposite of your fear. This is the love that casts out fear.
If you are afraid of failure, give attention to success. If you are afraid of sickness, dwell on perfect health. If you are afraid of an accident, dwell on the guidance and protection of God. If you are afraid of death, dwell on eternal life. God is life, and that is your life now.
The things you fear do not really exist except as thoughts in your mind. Thoughts are creative. This is why Job said, The thing I feared has come upon me. Think good and good follows.