Rules of the Mind

Marisa Peer, creator of Rapid Transformational Therapy (RTT) defines some of the keys to achieving a life transformation as having a clear understanding of the ‘Rules of the Mind’.

She defines these as:

“What is expected tends to be realised

Imagination is more powerful than knowledge

Imagination is more powerful than logic

Your mind always does what it thinks you want it to do

Your mind works to move you from pain to pleasure

Your mind responds to the pictures you create and the words you say to yourself

Your mind learns by repetition

Your mind loves what is familiar and rejects the unfamiliar

Your mind cannot resolve or understand conflict

We make our beliefs and our beliefs make us”

To begin to understand this we need to be clear that there are three parts to the brain.

The ‘lower brain, or ‘reptile brain’ is the part that deals with all the mechanics of the body – the part that keeps you breathing and deals with the ‘fight or flight’ response when you are presented with some form of ‘danger’.

It also deals with bodily responses such as pain or hormonal changes and keeps you functioning properly or warns you when something is ‘wrong’.

The mid brain or limbic brain is where your ‘sub-conscious’ resides.

It is where everything you have ever done, thought, said, heard, felt, tasted or smelt is stored – and I do mean everything although you and I don’t have access to it most of the time.

The subconscious is where our ideas come from, where our intuition resides and is the source of our imagination.

The subconscious is the home of our feelings and it’s connected to other nerve centres like the solar plexus which is where those ‘gut feelings’ we get from time to time come from and the heart centre that gives rise to feelings of ‘heartache’ and other emotions.

The subconscious mind hosts the parts of us that prevent us from doing things, saying things or behaving in certain ways – sometimes for good reasons, but most often for bad, or redundant reasons. It’s role here is to keep us safe.

The upper, or forebrain is our ‘conscious mind’.

It’s where all the ‘thinking’ occurs, where information and experience are turned into knowledge and where we apply ‘logic’ usually based on that knowledge.

The conscious mind often questions our intuition, dismisses our ‘gut feelings’ and sometimes ridicules our imagination.

It is also positive, in that it’s where our ‘plan’ lives. Our plan for what we want to do with our lives and how we will live it.

It’s the part where intentions, expectations and goals are set, and it’s the part of us that commands and controls how and when we put all those things into practice.

So how do these ‘rules’ work?

And how do you and I put them into practice?

The second and third rules state that imagination is more powerful than knowledge and logic. Or in other words your subconscious is more powerful than your conscious mind.

That doesn’t mean though that it is in control because if you give it a clear command from your conscious mind it does what it is told – or at least what it ‘thinks’ you are telling it.

Because – if there is a conflict between different things you are asking for, it cannot decide which thing to do as one counteracts the other – so you end up doing nothing.

You and I have been there. We want to have a ‘day off’ and relax, but we also want to get some important ‘job’ done – result – stalemate – we end up doing neither and getting frustrated.

Because – if what you are asking is something ‘unfamiliar’ then it may reject or modify that command in favour of what is familiar.

We’ve been there too. Every time we start doing something ‘new’ there is always an element of fear of the unknown – the ‘unfamiliar’. And sometimes, because of this we just don’t go through with it.

The remaining rules all work together.

We create pictures in our mind and ‘talk to ourselves’ continuously. We visualise all the time (even if we think we can’t) – if I say ‘zebra with red and green stripes’, you’ll see one – guaranteed.

You and I create scenarios in our mind all the time.

All the ‘what if?’ questions we ask – all the pictures we paint and words we say to ourselves build up, and the more we repeat these things the more strongly they fashion our beliefs, making us into who we are.

Our attitudes, our take on things, our prejudices, our opinions, our ‘way’ – and so on.

We repeat stuff to ourselves, we make our beliefs, and these become or influence our expectations.

We become what we believe, and our expectations turn into realities.

So why don’t you and I always get what we want?

Why don’t you and I always achieve our goals?

Why don’t you and I always realise our expectations?

When we want, where we want, how we want, with whom we want and so on?

The rules of the mind hold the answer.

There are three keys.

Repetition, Conflict, Clarity.

We must be absolutely clear about what we want.

We must be certain that the things we want do not conflict with one another.

We must repeat, repeat, repeat, everything in our conscious mind until we ‘train’ our subconscious to accept it, because in the end, remember that the subconscious is more powerful than the conscious.

That’s why we use vision boards, affirmations, mind movies, gratitude journals and so on to reinforce what we really, really, want to be, do, have and give.

And that’s why sometimes we need to dialogue with our subconscious to find out those things that we’ve forgotten about but which it is really holding on to as fundamental beliefs created usually when we were very young.

Because those deep hidden beliefs are so strong that they can simply stop us in our tracks when we decide to do something in conflict with them.

Adults don’t need to behave like children, but often those childhood beliefs and conditioning prevent us from doing those things we need to do as adults that were not available to us as a child.

And if something was unavailable to us as children than our subconscious minds, unless they are ‘cleared’ will continue to make it unavailable at any age.

There are many ways to clear unwanted beliefs and conditioning but that’s another story.

At this stage what you and I need to know is what actually is holding us back.

What are your underlying negative beliefs?

Everyone has them.

Write them down – now.