Workbook Part I:
Autosuggestion
To read the accompanying explanation for these exercises, go to chapter one: Autosuggestion. Click here.
Your Autobiography
Autosuggestion refers to the stories you tell yourself. To begin to explore your stories, the first workbook exercise asks you a series of questions about how your life story. This workbook will give you some space to answer questions, but you may want to use a notebook or keyboard to write out your full answers. Some of the exercises specifically ask you to draw pictures or use collage, but you can use words, pictures, or collage to answer any of the questions. Begin by writing about your own history.
List the most important aspects of your childhood:
Describe the most pivotal events of your life up to age eighteen:
Name the people who influenced you the most in childhood:
Name the people who influenced you most during your school years:
Explain how you see your life as an adult:
Summarize your role in life in a couple of paragraphs:
Where do you see your life heading from here?
What is the greatest experience of your life so far?
If you could change one decision you made in your life, what would it be?
Short of changing the past, how could you see your decision in another way that might make it more acceptable to you now?
Write a summary of your life story:
What is the main theme of your life?
Are you satisfied with your life?
Name a few essential elements that make your life worthwhile:
Watch Your Language
When you talk about your problems, do you say things like:
"I'll never get this done."
"Something's bound to go wrong."
"Nobody will listen."
"This situation is hopeless."
Or worse! You call in illness or misfortune:
"This is killing me."
"My heart is broken."
Using negative language is a symptom of negative thinking. The words you speak reinforce your attitudes and tell others what to think about you. If you repeat something enough, you will start to believe it. Phrases that start out as a harmless, off the cuff remarks may become a credo, and finally an engrained belief. If you are a chronic complainer, try to speak in positive terms for an hour, a day, or a week. You can still discuss your problems, but do it as an intellectual task, not an exercise in negativity.
Imagine how great you would feel if your mind automatically came up with reinforcing thoughts like:
"This will go fine if we concentrate."
"We'll get this done by working together."
"It will be worth all the effort."
"We will find a solution if we put our minds to it."
Write down a negative statement you find yourself repeating, such as "that breaks my heart" or "that is killing me":
Why do you use these particular words to describe the situation?
Write down another way to say the same thing in positive language:
Say the new phrase aloud. Does it change the way you feel about the problem?
Negative thinking comes through in the way you talk about yourself, too. Write down a couple of negative things you say about yourself, such as "I can't remember things" or "Nobody is as dumb as me":
You may have the bad habit of degrading yourself because you think it will make other people feel more comfortable around you. You may have learned to criticize yourself because you think it will make you change faster. Explain why you use negative words to put yourself down:
What are you really trying to say?
How can you state the same thing in more direct terms?
How to Practice Autosuggestion
You can practice autosuggestion on your feet in everyday life if you simply fill your mind with good feelings and inspiring thoughts. However, the results are even greater if you set aside time to practice autosuggestion in a peaceful place, sitting comfortably in meditation. The most basic type of meditation practice is to empty your mind. Thoughts will come, but just let them break like waves on the shore and wash away. If you practice, you will see that clearing your thoughts is difficult. It is a process that will teach you to be patient with yourself.
Formal Zen meditation requires giving up all physical distractions like swallowing, scratching, coughing, loud breathing, and so on. Thus, Zen practitioners sit in total silence, causing minimal disturbance for others in the room. There are many details like how to sit (legs crossed, back straight), how to hold your tongue (touching the roof of your mouth), and so on. Autosuggestion is less formal, so just sit on a comfortable chair, or recline on a couch. Emile Coué directed his patients to meditate in bed before falling asleep; Napoleon Hill gave similar instructions. It is your choice, so do whatever's best for you.
Breath is an important component of meditation because it sweeps your mind, clearing, calming, and refreshing it. Inhale deeply and exhale fully. If you know any deep breathing techniques, do them for a few minutes at the beginning of your session. Simply count your in-breaths and out-breaths, taking the same time for each so that breathing becomes a steady rhythm. Practice holding your breath in for a few counts, then once you have exhaled, hold it out for a few counts. Breathing like this automatically relaxes you.
Thoughts may carry you far away, but when you notice what's
happening, simply clear your mind and go back to your breath. Everything that appears in the mind is just thought, so with practice you learn that it is okay to put a nagging problem out of your mind for a while. As you become stronger, you develop the power to clear unwanted moods and beliefs, as well. People use TV, work, or busy-ness to avoid spending time alone with the mind. However, learning to stop unwanted thoughts establishes a comfortable internal environment. It is the difference between sitting with an unruly, noisy child and a polite peer.
Practice sitting for ten minutes and note down what it was like:
Create a Peaceful Place Inside
When you are sitting in a relaxed state with a tranquil mind, there are a number of places to go. A good way to begin is to build a room inside your mind. Decide exactly how the entry and front door will look, then decide how the whole outside will look. You can choose anything: a beach house, a Victorian mansion, a simple cave, or a castle. You can use a place you have seen or you can make something up.
Next, create a pleasing interior with comfortable furniture. Picture what you are sitting on and how it feels to be there. Now face forward toward a big window and picture what you want to see. If you have always wanted a waterfront view, or a view of a specific landmark, give it to yourself now. Choose something inspiring. If you do not visualize in perfect Technicolor, imagine how you would feel sitting in a comfortable room with a great view. The feeling is the most important thing. Try to hold onto the feeling of perfect contentment that such a setting would inspire.
When you meditate in your inner retreat, you still have to control any thoughts that arise. A fleeting worry about a problem from your daily life may break up your pleasant feelings of comfort and stop your meditation. If you find yourself struggling with negative thoughts, it is best if you can resolve them without breaking your meditation. However, if they will not go away, open your eyes and light a candle, get a drink of water, stretch, read a few lines of poetry or prose, or do something else that will calm you down. Treat the worry like it was a bad dream. Once it's over, go back to your inner meditation room, sit down, and focus on the view.
Each time you practice this, write down what your inner meditation space was like and what you saw there. It will change slightly every time you go there, so keep track of what it looks like and the kinds of experiences you have while you are there.
If you meditate on feeling comfortable and happy, you will build a cognitive structure in your mind that will provide strength between meditations. Your imaginary meditation room literally becomes a warm and comforting place in your gray matter.
Build a Psychic Barrier Reef
Every day, much useless information passes through your consciousness. It cannot hurt anything, but you may be tempted to accept it as reality. For example, someone might tell you that the field you are trying to break into has become too competitive. You could choose to accept this information as fact or you may question it. If you develop good boundaries, you will be able to apply rational thinking to any information and avoid confusion. This exercise will help you start to work on good boundaries.
While you are sitting in your peaceful inner retreat, imagine that you have a view of the ocean. This can be the same place from the previous exercise, or a different place. Look out at the ocean and appreciate its beauty. Now imagine there is a coral reef just under the surface that protects the shoreline from violent waves. If you have ever gone scuba diving or snorkeling, try to remember what the coral looked like. If you have only seen pictures of living coral reefs, imagine that there is a similar ecosystem just under the water in your view.
Think about the colors, the variety of sea life, and the way the currents interact with the spongy surfaces. Imagine that you can create a similar system in your own psyche to create a boundary between you and the outside world. Surrounding yourself with color and abundant life is the rational filter you need to block out irrational information. The next several exercises explain what goes into creating a psychic coral reef: positive feelings, images, scenes, and stories.
Positive Feelings Library
You have a library of positive feelings stored in your subconscious mind. The object of positive visualization is to learn how to access the feelings and bring them up to conscious awareness. Napoleon Hill said that you could build a door to your good emotions. If it closes, open it again. If you learn how to do his, you get out of bad moods instantly. Just remember a good feeling and bring it up into your mind.
You can practice doing this when you are sitting in your peaceful inner place. Here is a list of inspiring emotions to learn how to access:
Success - You have thousands of memories of what it feels like to succeed. Recall these experiences and memorize the feeling. If you feel successful, your subconscious hunts for more situations to replicate feelings of success.
Self-confidence - Recall times when you felt self-assurance and transfer that feeling to your present desires. Imagine that what you want is already accomplished. Imagine yourself enjoying the good results of your work.
Worthiness - Mix your desires with a firm belief that you are worthy of the best that life has to offer. Assemble memories of times when you felt worthy and memorize that feeling.
Clarity - Invoke the feeling of clear understanding. Recall times when you felt complete resolution. Bring that feeling into the present and meditate on it. That will cue your subconscious mind to create situations to match the feeling.
Friendship - Remember times when you were surrounded by friends, grateful for the friendships you have. When you dwell on feelings of love, you will bring more of the same into your life.
Beauty - Appreciation of beauty in nature or in an artistŐs work is a positive feeling. Invoking the feeling of artistic appreciation will inspire your subconscious mind.
Desire - This is a powerful emotion; the only one on the list that you can have too much of or do in the wrong way. Be honest about your motives to make sure they are beneficial for everyone involved.
The object of your meditation practice is to learn to keep positive feelings in the forefront of your mind.
Meditating on good feelings helps you:
Inspire your subconscious to work on your desires
Clean away negative thought patterns and attitudes
Improve your self-image
Create corresponding patterns in your outer life
Increase your level of happiness
Choose one emotion to contemplate while sitting quietly for about ten minutes.
Afterward, note down how easy or difficult it was to invoke the emotion:
Plant a Request in the Subconscious Mind
The subconscious reacts to whatever you hold in your conscious mind. The process is even more concentrated if you take the time to sit down in meditation and think about what you want. Use this exercise to plant an idea in the field of your subconscious mind.
Think of something you want or a decision you have to make. Write it down:
Write down the history of this situation:
What do you want to happen:
Describe how you would like to eventually feel when you look back on this situation:
Think of one sentence to describe what you are looking for. Write it as a short statement:
Now, sit quietly for ten minutes and imagine the feelings of worthiness, accomplishment, clarity, and satisfaction, as you think about your statement. Be sure to wrap your statement in positive emotions so that your subconscious mind will understand exactly what you mean.
After you are finished meditating, write down any ideas that may have come to you:
If you have any thoughts about this subject later in the day or week, write them down here.
Images of Value
Along with positive feelings, practice filling your mind with beautiful visual images. Pictures you like will invoke positive emotions. They will communicate positive desires to your subconscious mind because they contain symbols. Search through books and photo boxes for pictures to gaze at or think about in meditation. Nature is another form of art, so think of nature, meditate in nature, and consciously draw upon the beauty and inspiration nature provides. Also search your memory for inspiring visual images and meditate on them.
Another way to tap into the power of pictures is to create new visual images that hold meaning for you. Artists create images for themselves that they find healing. Their creative images go out to heal many others the world. Look at the artwork of Michelangelo or any great artist. Meditate on a work of art you like, or create your own.
Although there are beautiful images all around, they may have faded from your conscious awareness. One goal of positive thinking is to notice beauty and make it a more important part of your daily life. The following exercise will help you identify what you like and give you material to contemplate when you practice autosuggestion.
What is your favorite kind of artwork? Describe it here:
What is your favorite style of architecture?
Describe a specific building or home you find inspiring:
Recall some of the scenic places you have visited and list them here:
Describe your favorite kind of setting:
List a couple of views you wish you could see from your window:
If you take pictures, write down some of the most inspiring subjects you have photographed:
Name several places in nature where you feel most alive:
Describe specific visual images in nature that you consider the most beautiful:
Think about where you live. Do you have art books, artwork, photographs, or objects that inspire you? If so, explain what they are and see if you can visualize them in your mind:
Choose an interesting image from your list and contemplate it for ten minutes.
Write about your meditation:
Favorite Scenes Worksheet
Like still pictures, scenes speak to your subconscious mind because they contain symbols. The mind is programmed to process story fragments because life is acted out in short unrelated scenes.
For example:
Boarding a train
Walking down a hallway
Watching a boat dock
Climbing a flight of stairs
Answering the telephone
None of these add up to a story, but scenes are the building blocks of daily experience. Just as your subconscious attributes deeper meaning to individual images, so it attributes meaning to short scenes. In fact, the dream language is made up of scenes. Often, a fragment is the most you can remember of a dream.
Typical dream fragments might include:
"I was on a boat with a seasick captain."
"I visited a friend and we went for a ride in her old car."
"I was back in school but couldn't find my schedule."
Each fragment is like a message in a foreign language. Instead of using words to explain a concept, the subconscious uses a metaphor. It is difficult to consciously understand what the fragments mean, but the subconscious mind knows. A scene can express a complex idea in a concise format.
Nature is a resource for inspiring scenes. For example:
A hawk gliding on the wind, hunting
Ocean waves breaking on the beach
Wind gently tossing tree branches
The ancient sounds of creaking in a redwood grove
The following questions will help you identify scenes to contemplate:
What is your favorite part of the day and what do you usually do then?
If you practice traditions and rituals, note down the parts that inspire you:
If you practice an art, hobby, or sport, note down your favorite parts of the process:
In your travels, what are the most interesting things you have seen?
Write about your most inspiring contacts with animals and nature:
What sorts of live performances do you enjoy? Recall some peak experiences while watching a live performance:
Think about your favorite movies or shows and list the most inspiring scenes:
What do these scene mean to you?
What are your favorite activities when it comes to socializing with family and friends?
Recall the times when you felt most alive, most loved, and most accomplished:
Write down several essential incidents that shaped your life for the better:
Note moments of serendipity that made you see life in a different way:
Recall a time when you felt forgiven:
Choose your favorite scene from the list above and immerse yourself in it for ten minutes. Try to recall every detail, including how it made you feel. Write down what it was like to contemplate this scene:
Identify Your Favorite Stories
To streamline the autosuggestion process, meditate on a good story. Contemplating stories is an excellent form of autosuggestion because stories are full of symbols that speak to the subconscious mind in its native tongue. Unlike story fragments, a story has a beginning, middle, and end. The ending is most important because it puts everything else into perspective and explains why the characters had to go through what they did.
You probably already subconsciously relate to stories from these sources:
Key episodes from your country's history
Your country's literature
Folk stories and folk music
Grimm Brothers (and other) fairy tales
Greek myths
The plays of William Shakespeare
Modern poetry, novels, and movies
Stories from your religion
Stories from your family, friends, and ancestors
The more you are in contact with your favorite stories, the more comfortable you will feel with the process of life. The following questions will help you identify the stories that influence your life.
List your favorite movies of all times:
What is your favorite new movie?
What do these movies mean to you?
List your favorite TV sitcoms and dramatic series. Explain what you like about them:
Describe your favorite kind of fiction:
Name a couple of specific novels you like:
If you have studied the stories of a particular culture or religion, list the ones that move you:
What do you get out of these stories?
Write down the names of your favorite role models (people you personally know, know of, or even fictional characters):
Explain what you admire about these people:
Describe something you experienced in real life that could make a good book or movie:
Look over the stories you listed above. How often do you think about them?
Does it help you to think about stories, and if so, how?
Which stories have made the deepest impression on you?
Do you see any parallels between your life and the stories you have listed above? If so, which story speaks to you the most about your life?
Choose one story from your list and contemplate it for ten minutes. Afterward, note down what you think is the most important aspect of the story:
Visualize Success
In this exercise, you will use the power of autosuggestion to prepare for a future situation. First, choose a future event to work on. This could be any situation where you need to sharpen your skills. For example, you could choose a musical recital or sporting event. Or, it could be a business meeting, a court date, or any situation where you could use a rehearsal. Write it down:
Next, close your eyes and relax. Picture yourself in the situation. If it uses a motor skill like sports or music, picture yourself going through the moves. Use your mind to remember each step and how it feels. At the end, picture how good you will feel when you do everything right.
If you want to picture a future event like a meeting, visualize yourself calm and relaxed as you talk to the other person (or people). If you are standing in front of an audience imagine how you will talk to them and how confident you will feel. See yourself up there feeling complete mastery and self-control.
Do this now and write about your experience:
You can also use this technique to prepare for situations that drive you crazy. For example, if you hate traffic, picture yourself stuck in a traffic jam. Instead of letting anger take over, imagine you are listening to an interesting lecture or soothing music. Breathe in and out and feel relaxed as you imagine yourself sitting behind the wheel.
Write a Self-Hypnosis Script
Hypnotherapy is another form of autosuggestion. Since you go into a deep trance state, it can reach deep into your subconscious. Hypnosis can replace old negative patterns just as you might record over old material on a magnetic tape or disk. If you go to a professional hypnotherapist, you typically spend the first session discussing your problems. The therapist then writes a script that will produce the desired changes and reads it to you in your next session. Some hypnotherapists tape the session so you can use the tape in between appointments. Using a tape on your own is called self-hypnosis.
You can also write your own self-hypnosis script, then record it and listen to it like an ordinary hypnotherapy tape. Alternatively, you can read the script aloud to yourself like an affirmation. This section will teach you how to write your own affirmation script.
The things you put into your script may not be true yet, but stating your desires in the present tense reinforces them. "I attain prosperity" is more immediate than "I will attain prosperity" or "I hope to one day in the future attain prosperity." "I project friendliness and charisma" is much more effective than "I will learn how to project friendliness and charisma." You might affirm, "I'm happy, peaceful, and content. I love where I live," and this will start a chain of events that leads to outward fulfillment.
When you write your script, use positive words. Suppose you want to break the bad habit of getting angry with yourself. It would be wrong to affirm, "I will stop getting angry at myself," because the double negative just drives home the words "stop" and "angry." Use positive words. Tell yourself, "I love and appreciate myself."
When you write your script, avoid all negative words like fail, lose, forget, hate, quit, stop, no, not, and so on. This includes words that contain a negative prefix or suffix, such as dis, un, non, or n't.
For example:
Double negative affirmation: "I quit making bad decisions."
Positive affirmation: "I make good decisions."
Double negative affirmation: "I don't fight with my boss."
Positive affirmation: "I get along well with my boss."
Double negative affirmation: "I prevent all unwanted interruptions."
Positive affirmation: "Everything goes according to schedule."
Start your script with an induction. Tell yourself to breathe in and out and relax completely. A common method is to relax one part of the body at a time. Remind yourself to relax your feet, legs, hips, abdomen, and so on. Another common guided relaxation is to count down from ten to one, becoming more relaxed with each number. Write your induction:
Write your goals and affirmative statements in straightforward language:
Repeat them over eight to ten times to let them sink in.
Take some time to visualize positive emotions, symbols, and scenes of how you want things to be Leave a few minutes of blank tape or an interlude of soothing music so you can let your imagination work. Write down instructions on what to think about during the interlude:
Repeat your goals again several more times:
To conclude the session, instruct yourself to awaken feeling rested and ready to start on your plans. Write out your instructions:
Count from one to ten and say "wide awake."
If you want to address more than one major issue in your life make a tape for each subject. Use your script and report on your results here:
Interpret a Dream Worksheet
The subconscious mind may try to communicate with you through your dreams. The dream language consists of language of symbols, story, and emotion. Many symbols have universal meanings, but they also have personal meanings. Everyone uses his or her own unique dialect of the subconscious language. Suppose you have a dream about a dog. It might be about a problem that is "dogging" you. On the other hand, the dog might represent loyalty, a common characteristic of dogs. The dream might refer to a specific dog and what that dog meant to you. Listen to the feelings that accompany the dog in the dream. If you feel love and affection, then that is what the subconscious is talking about. If the dog is mean, then it has an entirely different meaning. Also, there is usually a story, or at least a fragment of a story surrounding a dream symbol. For example, you might take the dog for a walk in a beautiful neighborhood. The story is symbolic of something in your waking life.
Here are some steps you can take to understand your dreams.
As soon as you wake up, write down whatever you remember about your dreams:
If you had long dreams, pick up the main story line and summarize it in a couple of sentences:
Identify the emotions from the dream and write them down:
Pick out the symbols from steps one and two and list them here:
Translate the symbols so they make sense to you. You can use a dream symbol dictionary (book or web site), then add your personal meanings. List the important symbols and their definitions here:
Now put all the symbols together. Does the dream remind you of anything in your waking life? If so, what?
Take an educated guess about what the dream could mean:
Deciphering Dis-Ease Symptoms
Along with dreams, the subconscious may try to communicate through psychosomatic disease symptoms. This exercise will help you explore the mind body connection. If this is your first time trying this, start with a minor problem that might come from stress. After you have some practice, you can work up to more serious health issues. If your symptoms persist, seek advice from a qualified health care professional.
Write down a physical symptom or health complaint that you would like to explore:
Write down all the words that you use to describe the condition:
Do any of these words remind you of something in your daily life? List the first few things that come to mind:
Do any of the words you use for the condition's name, symptoms, affected body parts, or disease processes make sense as word plays? Write down your first impressions:
Ask yourself, "What is this symptom like?" List any visual images that come to mind:
What do these symbols and words mean to you? Write down your fist impressions:
What do the symbols have to do with your health:
What are the corresponding emotions?
Has anything like this ever happened to you before? If so, please explain:
What practical steps can you take on the emotional level to heal this problem?
Write an affirmation to address these symptoms:
Mandala Exercise
This exercise will teach you how to use visual images and symbols to improve your life. Drawing mandalas to define inner states goes back to Carl Jung and before him to the ancient religions of the East. Mandalas are like windows to look inward.
Draw a circle on a large piece of paper and divide it into sections. Label each section according to what is important to you, for example: health, work, friends, education, hobbies, and family. Using collage or any medium, fill in the sections with pictures, shapes, and words that represent your desires in each area. If you are happy with how it came out, hang it somewhere you can look at it for inspiration.
Autosuggestion Quotes
Your final exam for each workbook chapter: choose one quote, write it on an index card, and post it temporarily where you will remember to read it several times a day. Extra credit: Look up something more about the author and context of the quote.
"The happiness of your life depends upon the quality of your thoughts." - Marcus Aurelius (Stoic philosopher and Roman Emperor, 121 - 180 AD)
"Thought is the sculptor who can create the person you want to be." - Henry David Thoreau (American Transcendentalist author, 1817 - 1862)
"We choose our joys and sorrows long before we experience them." - Kahlil Gibran (Lebanese poet, philosopher, and artist, 1883 - 1931)
"Thoughts of your mind have made you what you are, and thoughts of your mind will make you whatever you become from this day forward." - Catherine Ponder (Unity Church)
"Riches begin in the form of thought" - Napoleon Hill (attorney, journalist, and author of "Think and Grow Rich")
"Change your thoughts and you change your world." - Rev. Norman Vincent Peale (American minister, author, and publisher, 1898 - 1993)
"Our minds can shape the way a thing will be because we act according to our expectations." - Frederico Fellini (Italian filmmaker, 1920 - 1993)
"Mind is the creator of everything." - Paramahamsa Yogananda (representative of the Hindu religion to America, 1893 - 1952)
"Habits of thought are mental magnets that draw to you certain things, people, and conditions." - Paramahamsa Yogananda
"Great hearts send forth steadily the secret forces that incessantly draw great events." - Ralph Waldo Emerson (American Transcendentalist author, 1803-1882)
"A man is what he thinks about all day long." - Ralph Waldo Emerson
"Life is a mirror and will reflect back to the thinker what he thinks into it." - Ernest Holmes (founder of Science of Mind, 1887-1960)
"Recall your little victories and accomplishments. Go over the reasons why you are glad to be alive." - David J. Schwartz, Ph.D. (retired business professor, University of Georgia)
"Most people are about as happy as they make up their minds to be." - Abraham Lincoln (attorney and U.S. president, 1809 - 1865)
"There is nothing either good or bad, except that thinking makes it so." - William Shakespeare (playwright, 1564 - 1616)
"The mind is a place of it's own. It can make a heaven of hell, or a hell of heaven." - John Milton (author of "Paradise Lost," 1608 - 1674)
