Pulling the Weeds Out of Your Mind

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There are beautiful rosebushes in front of my house, and when they bloom, we get a lot of compliments about the purple, red, orange, white and yellow roses. I try to make sure they get watered, trimmed and fertilized regularly.

However, the weeds get watered regularly as well.Since I’m too cheap to hire someone to pull them, I’m out there regularly with gloves, hand trowel and ipod trying to control them. It is amazing how quickly they can overtake the roses if I let the weeding go for just a few weeks. Then I have to start all over again.  We don’t get compliments when the weeds are as high as the roses. In fact, the roses don’t do as well when they are crowded by weeds.

In the same way, the mind is a garden, and we can plant whatever we want in there, depending on what we want to have, be or do.  However, the weeds will always threaten to overtake our careful planting, and there are weed seeds floating around everywhere.

When we are not paying attention to our mental gardening, some negative thought or idea can come floating along on the airwaves or in a conversation and settle into our minds, to take root and wreak havoc. We can find our desires strangled by thoughts, ideas and obsessions that divert our energy and focus away from creating something magnificent in our life. That’s why we need to do mental weeding on a regular basis.

For some, there can be the unfortunate situation of having a mind that has never been planted with intention or care. It’s always open to whatever nasty seed is out there floating around.  Consequently, their minds are always a tangle of thorny thistles; worries, fears, anger, resentment, regret and guilt. Instead of producing something worthy of admiration, what grows there are complaints, negativity, pessimism and cynicism. The very air around them is filled with negativity looking for another untended mind to infect. That is why we must always be planting with intention and clarity about what we want to harvest.

Of course, this is easier said than done. Planting and weeding can be back breaking work. I don’t know anyone who is not in a constant struggle with some particular type of noxious weed. As amazing as it sounds, what could be a much more fertile and productive mind overgrown and choked by weeds can become the norm, or “the way it is.” (example: “What do you mean I’m negative? It’s a fact that people will try to rip you off!”)

This metaphor of comparing the mind to a garden is age-old but bears repeating. Mind control done by ourselves on ourselves is simply being a conscientious gardener. We can tend to our own minds, as well as to our souls, providing each with the proper combination of what ever is needed to grow them into our highest vision of who we want to be. Of course, planting is more fun than weeding, but there’s no point planting in a garden filled with weeds. So if we are going to produce something different we must weed first.

You may be at the point in your life where you are wondering  why you are getting what you are getting. Here are some ways to start the weeding and reseeding process of your mind.

  • Develop an awareness of your language. If you listen to your patterns of language, you may get a glimpse of what’s growing up there. Language patterns such as “I always (fill in the negative blank)” or sweeping generalizations such as “If something can go wrong it will” indicate hidden beliefs that may be shaping your worldview. Grab ’em with both hands and yank them out.
  • What are you letting into your mind?I was speaking to someone recently about the current political situation and they started getting so angry I thought they were going to explode. “Wow,” I said, “this really affects you. I can see lots of veins popping out of your head.” “Well” they replied, “I was listening to (a popular talk show radio host know for his rants) and I was just getting angrier and angrier!” The thought occurred to me to tell him that if he didn’t like getting angry he shouldn’t listen to that show but I thought he might beat me up so I didn’t. (No room for roses there or even some cherry tomatoes.) Listen to things that are motivational and inspiring.
  • What were the messages from your earliest influencers? Do you really believe them or were they planted long ago and it’s all you have because you haven’t planted anything else? It takes a lot of guts to realize “I really don’t subscribe to that negative viewpoint anymore” and to consider alternative viewpoints.
  • Decide who you want be and how you want to live your life.If you want to be peaceful, plant and nurture peaceful beliefs. If you want to see yourself as strong, then look for evidence that that is true to fertilize your strength. If you want to be successful, yank out all the reasons why you can’t be and replace with reasons why you can. Decide what you want, then plant accordingly.
  • Realize, as Ringo Starr once sang “It don’t come easy.” You may need to get down on hands and knees and wade into that mess. There’s nothing quite like immersing yourself in your own briar patch, and you may find a lot of people you know in there that want you to stay in there. Your mind likes the way it’s alway been as well and will sabotage your efforts to change. Persist.

William James said “The greatest discovery of my generation is that human beings can alter thier lives by altering their attitudes of mind.” That’s just another way of saying weeding and reseeding, baby. If you need help, give me a call, I’ve got my gardening gloves on.

If you liked this post, please leave a comment and/or share it with your social networks.

Your companion on the journey to transformation,

TMan

Ted A. Moreno
Personal/Small Business Coach
Certified Hypnotherapist
www.TedMoreno.com

FEEL FREE TO — USE THIS ARTICLE IN YOUR EZINE, WEB SITE OR BLOG. Just let me know that you are, and include the following with it:

Ted A. Moreno is a Certified Hypnotherapist and Success Performance Coach. Ted empowers his clients to transform their lives by helping them reach their goals of success, abundance, personal development, health and happiness. To learn more, visit www.TedMoreno.com/blog

Cure for Procrastination: Hire the Gorilla

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I first experienced the wrath of the Gorilla  in 1982. I was an hour late turning in a final paper for a college English class. “Sorry” the instructor told me “You’ve just flunked and will have to repeat the class.” “No way!” I exclaimed. “Way” he said.

At that very moment, a Gorilla in a suit and tie Read more

How to Mentally Rehearse for Any Challenge

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Do you have a challenge coming up that you feel unsure about? An upcoming test, speech, presentation, performance, game, or interview? Here’s my experience of how I succeeded using a little impromptu mental rehearsal.

Every year my brothers, brother in law and I go on our annual Dude’s River Trip. Read more

Feelings versus Commitment: Which Liberates, Which Imprisons?

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A woman chewed me out once because I asked her (very nicely) not to park her car behind mine while Pep Boys repaired a tire on it. In a hurry, I didn’t want to be slowed down while they got her to move her car so I could leave. I got so angry, I thought about giving her the finger on my way out of the parking lot. I felt that she deserved it for being such a Read more

Season of Darkness, Season of Light

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Something happened on December 21st at 3:38 pm, PST. The sun was at it’s lowest point on the horizon, the point in the year where the the night is longest and the day is the shortest in the Northern Hemisphere. This is known as the Read more

Are You A DIY? Attend my Self Hypnosis Class Starting 10/23 at PCC

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If you are a DIY (Do It Yourselfer) then you might be interested in taking my Self Hypnosis for Success Class at PCC starting October 23rd and continuing for the next three Saturdays: October 30th and November 6th from 9 am to 10:30 am. Click here to register!

All hypnosis is self hypnosis, so in this class you’ll learn to use this valuable tool to address a variety of concerns including: overcoming bad habits such as procrastination, gaining confidence, increasing motivation, releasing limiting beliefs and business success. We’ll cover what hypnosis is and isn’t, how to do a hypnotic induction on yourself, crafting suggestions and how to put it all together to reprogram your subconsious mind for success in just a few minutes a day.

You’ll receive a course syllabus as well as my Guide to Self Hypnosis and my Self Hypnosis Conditioning CD, which also includes my studio produced “Peaceful Place” relaxation track as an added bonus.

This will be the third time I’m offering this class, and so far I’ve recieved great response. Here are some comments from the course evaluations I received from the  class held in January 2010:

  • Ted is very knowledgable and enthusiastic about his field. It really helped me a lot.”
  • “It actually works!”
  • “Professional, organized and informative. The instructor was engaging and knew his subject well. I’m glad I took the course!”
  • “Clear and easy guidelines to follow. Instructor is knowledgable and well experienced.”
  • “Ted is dynamic and makes an effort to engage the students. The content was well delivered.”

Remember, you’re being hypnotized daily, through advertising, the media, and the people you spend time with. In addition, you’ve been hypnotized throughout your life to believe things about yourself and the world that may or may not work for you anymore. The good news is, you can take control of your own positive programming. If you have habits of thinking and behaving that are holding you back from the success and happiness that you want, then you can learn to use the power of your own mind to change. Click here to register!

If you’re not interested in learning self-hypnosis but believe that hypnosis can be of help to you, give me a call and I’ll give you a free half hour consultation to discuss how you can benefit from working with me as your hypnotherapist or personal/small business coach. Call (626) 826-0612, email [email protected] or click here.

A subconscious mind is a terrible thing to waste! Put it to work for you with self hypnosis. Click here to register.

How To Use Your Dreams to Let Go of Blocks

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One time many years ago I awoke from a most interesting dream. The dream involved a romantic relationship that had ended several months earlier. In the dream, I was on a trip with this person. We were having a wonderful time. In the dream, it felt very natural to be with the person, when in fact, in reality, I had never felt completely comfortable.

When I awoke, I felt that the dream was a sign that I should contact this person again. I called her, but the number was disconnected. (I knew she had been thinking about moving.) Instead of feeling disappointed, I was relieved. I realized that in spite of my dream, I really had no desire to ever speak to this person again.

Years later, while in training to be a hypnotherapist, I realized that this dream had been what is called a “venting dream”. These types of dreams happen in the early mornings which is why it’s easy to remember them. In these dreams, the mind releases what is no longer relevant to your life. In my dream, I was letting go of the attachment I had to this relationship; my mind was ready to move forward.

Think of the mind like a clam that is tightly closed, not allowing anything in or out. When a person is in hypnosis, this clam opens slightly which allows a hypnotherapist to give the client suggestions that are able to get into the mind.  Since these suggestions will be in line with what the client wants, they might be at odds with what is already in the client’s mind. They will be irritants to the “clam”.

For example, take the suggestion “You are confident and feel good about your ability to communicate with people”. If this suggestion is given to a client that does not feel confident and doubts their ability to communicate with people, then there will be a conflict between what is suggested and what has been the client’s experience. However,  suppose the client  comes back for more sessions and gets the same suggestion again. Or listens everyday to the recording of the hypnosis part of the session. (I give my clients a recording of the hypnosis part of each session.) Soon, the new suggestion becomes more comfortable to the “clam” and the old way of being now becomes the irritant. In the venting dreams, the “clam” will open up and release the old belief that involves lack of confidence and doubts about the ability to communicate. In with the good, out with the bad.

At the end of most  hypnotherapy sessions  that I have with clients, I give them a suggestion that they will vent out in their early morning dreams what is holding them back from what they want. I’ll have them write their dreams down and this way we can see how they are responding to the suggestions given in hypnotherapy.

How can you use this to let go of whatever is blocking you or holding you back from success? Try this:

  • Identify a problem in your life that is keeping you from what you want to have, do or be. For example, let’s say you are a salesperson and you are afraid to make phone calls to prospects to make appointments.
  • The problem is fear. So before you go to bed, handwrite out two sentences. One which is an affirmation of what you want to do, and the other, a suggestion that you will vent out or release what is holding you back. For example: “I am easily making many phone calls each day that result in appointments with prospects that will increase my sales.” Say this out loud a couple of times. Then write this: “Tonight in my dreams I will vent out and release the fear of calling prospects.”
  • Keep some paper or a journal next to your bed. If you persist with the exercise described above, you should start to remember more of your dreams. Write them down as soon as you wake up.

You may have a dream that goes something like this: you call a prospect on the phone and the prospect yells at you and tells you not to call anymore. You call and call and everyone tells you the same thing. You  end up losing your sales job.

This dream would suggest that you are letting go of the fear of making the calls. You will begin to find that calling prospects becomes less and less scary.

This is a simple tool that you can use that can be really effective. However, for best results, make sure you are taking other actions as well to move forward in the area that your are working on.

Sweet Dreams!

If you liked this post, please leave a comment and/or share it with your social networks.

Tman

 Ted A. Moreno
Personal/Small Business Coach
Certified Hypnotherapist
Specializing in Your Success
www.TedMoreno.com                                                                       
 (626) 826-0612

Check Out This Video by Bob Proctor

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I spent all weekend at a workshop and I’m ready to call it a day. So instead of writing something I thought you might enjoy this video by Bob Proctor. You may know Bob  from the hit movie “The Secret”.

For 40 years, Bob Proctor has focused his entire agenda around helping people create lush lives of prosperity, rewarding relationships and spiritual awareness. In 1960, he was a high-school dropout with a resume of dead-end jobs and a future clouded in debt. One book was placed in his hands – Napoleon Hill’s Think and Grow Rich – which planted the seed of hope in Bob’s mind. In just months, and with further support from the works of Earl Nightingale, Bob’s life literally spun on a dime. In a year, he was making more than $100,000 and soon topped the $1 million mark.

Here’s the link to another really great video by Bob.

http://www.bobproctor-training.net/

Let me know what you thought about the videos!

If you liked this post, please leave a comment and/or share it with your social networks.  

Tman

 Ted A. Moreno
Personal/Small Business Coach
Certified Hypnotherapist
Specializing in Your Success
www.TedMoreno.com                                                                       
 (626) 826-0612

Go Ahead and Ask. I Dare You.

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 A Job, A Yacht, and a Very Expensive Car

In 1987 I had a sales job that involved going into people’s homes and trying to sell them stuff. It was a very tough gig. It was the kind of deal where the managers of the business wore flashy jewelry, drove flashier cars and yelled a lot.

I decided that I wanted a Porsche. Now, at this point in my life I was barely able to make my $250 rent, and this sales job was not helping. But I had read some books about goal achievement, so I cut out a picture of a Porsche and hung it on my wall. I even knew enough to write it down, and it went something like this: “I’m driving a Porsche down I-10 listening to a Dire Straits cassette” (One of my favorite bands at the time). Now, please keep in mind that I was in my 20’s, single, naïve, and a bit of a knucklehead.

Somehow, a few months later, I managed to win a sales contest during a period of “feast” in my sales (as opposed to famine). The prize was that the winners would get flown from Phoenix, Arizona, where I lived,  to Huntington Beach, where the owner of the company lived. We would sail with him on his yacht to Catalina Island where we would have a nice dinner then spend the night in a motel. Which we did. The next day, on the yacht while sailing back to the mainland,  the owner of the company and I were talking. “So Ted,” he asked me “What kind of car do you see yourself driving?”
I have no idea why he asked me that question as opposed to “What are your goals?” or “What do you want out of life?”, but I definitely had an answer. “I would like to drive a Porsche!”

So we made a deal. If I agreed to open a franchise in Tucson in the next few months, he would put me in a Porsche today. “Sure!” I replied, of course. He got on his boat phone and made a short call. “What color?” he asked. “Red” I said.

When we arrived at Huntington Harbor, there, sitting on the dock, was a  brand new, 1987 Porsche 930. Seventy five thousand dollars worth of the world’s finest driving machinery, red as the blood that flows through my veins.

The owner of the company handed me the keys, I got in, and immediately drove to my parents house in LA to show off. I asked my dad if he had any music for me to listen to, and he gave me a Dire Straits cassette. I drove back to Phoenix on I-10.

This is a true story. Looking back, what I find  interesting is that I wasn’t  amazed that someone had given me the keys to a Porsche 930 to drive as my own.  It didn’t occur to me that I had manifested what I wanted through the use of visualization. All I did was ask and I got what I asked for.  When I hung the picture of the Porsche on the wall, I wasn’t feeling anxious, or wondering how I was going to get it, or worried that I wouldn’t. I just hung it there, thinking that it was a cool thing to do, visualizing myself driving this car and having fun doing it.

There’s  more to the story. The car was not given to me. The owner (a multi-millionaire) leased it and gave it to me to drive. It was my responsiblity to come up with $1100 each month which included the insurance and the lease payment. That wasn’t easy.

Be Careful of What You Ask For

A few months later, in the parking lot of a pool hall where I was hanging out (a place few respectable Porsche owners would want to go), someone mangled the rear window wiper and kicked off the driver’s motorized side view mirror. I didn’t have the $350 deductible to replace them.

I was living in an apartment complex where I was parking a $75,000 car in the parking lot. One day someone smashed the side window in a failed attempt to steal the car stereo.   About a month later,  I got a flat tire, but I couldn’t afford to replace it so I drove around on the spare donut tire until I finally turned the car back in to the owner, a mere six months after I got it. It was in bad shape and I was glad to be done with it.

The Moral of The Story

What I should have asked for was an income that allowed me to own a Porsche. Instead, I asked to drive one down I-10 listening to a Dire Straits cassette, which I did. I got what I asked for.

Fast forward to this past Monday, January 25th. I’m looking at my hypnotherapy  appointments for the week and things are looking  slow. I’m feeling just bit of anxiety, to be honest with you. I check my email and someone I haven’t talked to in a  long time sends me a link to a Tony Robbins video. ( Yes, I know I mention Robbins a lot, keep reading and you’ll see why.) It’s a really good video where Robbins talks about the use of “incantations”, which are affirmations with lots of emotion. I wrote down verbatim one that he uses, and it goes like this: “The abundance of God’s wealth is circulating in my life. It’s wealth flows to me in avalanches of abundance. All my needs and desires and goals  are met instantaneously  by Infinite Intelligence where I am one with God and God is everything. “

After writing this down and tweaking it a bit to match my personal belief system, I proclaimed my version of this affirmation with all the passion and energy I could muster. I also added, “My passion is helping people. People that I can help are calling me for hypnotherapy appointments.”

Within two hours two people called me to book appointments.  A coincidence? Perhaps, but it didn’t feel like it.

I wondered why are we so afraid to ask for what we want and what we need?

As children we ask incessantely for what we want. Then we grow up, learn how we think the world really works, and stop asking because of disappointment, resignation, cynicism, fear of rejection and dissapointment. We are taught, “If someone offers to give you something you should politely decline.”

What if eveyone started asking, or even demanding, what they wanted, including: an end to poverty and war, quality schools, a working health care system, health, wealth, happiness, love?

Maybe it’s all true: Ask and you will recieve. Knock and the door will be opened. Think and grow rich. What you focus on expands. When you visualize you materialize. The how’s are the domain of the universe. Energy goes where attention flows. You become what you think about.

I think I’m going  back to being naive. I’m going to start to consider the following, not as truths, yet, but as possiblities:

  • I can get what I want /need even though I might not deserve it.
  • I can ask over and over again for what I want / need because I might just get it.
  • I can get what I want / need even if I don’t have the money for it.
  • I might not have to work hard for what I want and need. Maybe I’ll get it just because I asked nicely for it.
  • I can take action to get what I want/need even if I don’t do it perfect.
  • The Universe, God, Infinite Intelligence, whatever you want to call it, wants to help me get what I want and need.
  • Maybe, just maybe, I am the Creative Power in the flesh. Maybe I do have the power to manifest whatever I want quickly, possibly instantaneously and I just don’t know it.
  • Maybe I don’t have to worry. Maybe I just need to ask and believe.  Maybe worry and anxiety is the problem when I perceive that I’m not getting what I want.

It’s not easy to train your mind to have faith in your ability to create what you want when it looks like it’s not going to happen for you. But I’m in training. I’ll let you know how it goes.

If you liked this post, please leave a comment and/or share it with your social networks.

P.S Want to hear a podcast of this post? Go to TedinYourHead.com

Ted A. Moreno
Certified Hypnotherapist
Goal Achievement Specialist
www.TedMoreno.com                                                                       

Who Do You Have To Be To Get What You Want?

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What makes the elephant charge his tusk in the misty mist, or the dusky dusk? What makes the muskrat guard his musk? Courage!

In last weeks post (Opening the Door to Success:GOALS) I discussed how to create goals. You take a desire, you turn it into a goal by writing it down using the SMART formula, and you make a plan. That’s what you do. However, there is a much more important part to getting what you want.

In 2003 when I signed on the dotted line to register for hypnotherapy school, a very familiar and habitual thought came into my mind. It went something like this: “Are you really going to do this? You’ve started a lot of things that you have never finished. Are you really going to use this education?”

I have to admit, that was a very scary voice. At that time in my life, I was desperate to find a meaningful and enjoyable career to which I could apply my passion, enthusiasm, time and energy. Becoming a hypnotherapist seemed like what I had been looking for. But the voice was right; I’d had many jobs, started many things that kind of petered out. The idea of going to school, investing time and money, and wasting it all by not following through, well, frankly, it horrified me.

At one point the voice started up with “If this doesn’t work out, maybe you can try…” Suddenly,  in my mind I said “Stop! This is it. I will make it work out. I will not let this opportunity pass me by without giving it my best shot. I refuse to consider that this won’t work for me.”

What I had done was to make a declaration: I was no longer a person that started things and didn’t finish. To get what I wanted, I needed to become a person who followed through. The first thing I did was to book a hypnotherapy appointment for myself to make sure that I continued to become that person.

Maybe you’ve had an experience like that. Where who you were changed because of a decision you made. Let me suggest that it really is that simple. You must make the decision to be the person you need to be to get what you want. It may be uncomfortable, it may be unfamiliar, you may not know what it looks like, etc. But your personality will have to change. I have heard people say, “I’d like to have that (goal) but I’m not that kind of person that can do that, it’s not in my nature….” Bullpoop! You can change your nature. To go from where you are to where you want to be, you must.

Here are some qualities that I believe are essential for anyone that sets goals and intends to achieve them. These are in part taken from one of the best investments I have ever made in personal development, “Dynamics of Personal Goal Setting” by Paul J. Meyer.

  • You must be a person who is goal oriented. You must beleive that it’s important to have goals and to work to achieve them. If you are not willing to become one of these people then stop reading this right now, get yourself some Cheetos or Doritos and go watch television. You must be a person who desires to accomplish something. You must be a person who sets goals regularly. It all starts there.
  • You must be a person who is comfortable with being uncomfortable. What you are doing now is comfortable. If you are not getting what you want, you must do something different. Doing something different will feel uncomfortable. Be OK with that. Realize that there is no change without discomfort. Expect it, and step right into it.
  • You must become a person that learns to overcome inertia and takes action now. Inertia is the tendency for bodies to remain at rest. This can be applied to minds as well. It’s  hard to get off the sofa to go out and jog. But once you are jogging, it’s a lot easier to continue to put on foot in front of the other. That’s because once you start, you have momentum that carries you forward. Inertia affects us all. To get what you want, you must learn to overcome it and take action. Period.
  • You must be courageous. It can be scary to set a goal. It’s risky. You must have the courage to take risks. What if you fail? What if you don’t do it right? What if there are obstacles? Rest assured, there will be obstacles, you can count on it. Be courageous and start anyway and deal with the obstacles when they come.  You might be afraid to face your own weaknesses. You’re not good with people, money, sales, travelling, speaking in public, etc, etc, etc. You can learn.  Having courage doesn’t mean you are not afraid, it means that you move forward in spite of the fear. And everyone has fear. Even you. Yes, you.
  • You must be supremely confident. I almost typed “You must have confidence.” But confidence is not something you have, it’s something you are. You say you are not confident? You can become confident. You can learn. Taking the steps I outlined in the last post to create your goals will give you confidence. Confidence simply means you have developed the belief that you can and will accomplish your goals.
  • You must be determined. By determined I mean you refuse to be stopped, side tracked, or distracted. Have you heard the story of how Sylvester Stallone sold his script for the movie “Rocky”? It truly is one of the most inspiring stories I have ever heard and a testament to dogged determination. Click on this link to hear Tony Robbins tell the tale.
  • You must be a person who can generate energy and motivation. Somedays, you will not feel motivated. Sometimes you will not have the energy. If there is something you need to do, the absolute worst thing you can do is say is “I don’t really feel motivated” or “I don’t have the energy”. Say “Even though I don’t have the motivation or energy, I’m going to do it anyway.” Let’s face it folks, lack of motivation is one thing and one thing only: a bad habit. Lack of energy can be the same thing although there may be dietary or other physical issues that may need to be addressed. If you really want to achieve your goals, you will address them.

The good news is, you don’t have to do it all on your own. Take a self-development course or seminar. Call a therapist or hypnotherapist (preferably me). Read a book. The human mind is one of the most powerful forces on earth. What are you doing with it?

Here’s to looking at you (become who you need to be)!

Want to listen to a podcast of this post? Go to www.TedinYourHead.com

Ted A. Moreno, C.Ht., Goal Achievement Specialist
www.TedMoreno.com