8. Thoughts of jealousy, fear, worry and anxiety tear down and destroy your nerves and glands bringing about mental and physical diseases of all kinds.
9. What you affirm consciously and feel as true will be made manifest in your mind, body and affairs. Affirm the good and enter into the joy of living.
Chapter Eight
How to Get the Results You Want
The principle reasons for failure are: Lack of confidence and too much effort. Many people block answers to their prayers by failing to fully comprehend the workings of the subconscious mind. When you know how your mind functions, you gain a measure of confidence. You must remember whenever your subconscious mind accepts an idea, it immediately begins to execute it. It uses all its mighty resources to that end and mobilizes all the mental and spiritual laws of your deeper mind. This law is true for good or bad ideas. Consequently, if you use it negatively, it brings trouble, failure and confusion. When you use it constructively, it brings guidance, freedom and peace of mind.
The right answer is inevitable when your thoughts are positive, constructive and loving. From this it is perfectly obvious that the only thing you have to do in order to overcome failure is to get your subconscious to accept your idea or request by feeling its reality now, and the law of your mind will do the rest. Turn over your request with faith and confidence and your subconscious will take over and answer for you.
You will always fail to get results by trying to use mental coercion – your subconscious mind does not respond to coercion, it responds to your faith or conscious mind acceptance.
Your failure to get results may also arise from such statements as, “Things are getting worse.” “I will never get an answer.” “I see no way out.” “It's hopeless.” “I don't know what to do.” “I'm all mixed up.” When you use such statements, you get no response or cooperation from your subconscious mind. Like a soldier marking time, you neither go forward nor backward; in other words, you don't get anywhere.
If you get into a taxi and give a half dozen different directions to the driver in five minutes, he would become hopelessly confused and probably refuse to take you anywhere. It is the same when working with your subconscious mind. There must be a clear-cut idea in your mind. You must arrive at the definite decision that there is a way out, a solution to the vexing problem in sickness. Only the Infinite Intelligence within your subconscious knows the answer. When you come to that clear-cut conclusion in your conscious mind, you mind is then made up, and according to your belief is it done unto you.
Easy Does It
A house owner once remonstrated with a furnace repairman for charging two hundred dollars for fixing the boiler. The mechanic said, “I charged five cents for the missing bolt and one hundred and ninety-nine dollars and ninety-five cents for knowing what was wrong.”
Similarly, your subconscious mind is the master mechanic, the all-wise one, who knows ways and means of healing any organ of your body, as well as your affairs. Decree health, and your subconscious will establish it, but relaxation is the key. “Easy does it.” Do not be concerned with details and means, but know the end result. Get the feel of the happy solution to your problem whether it is health, finances or employment. Remember how you felt after you had recovered from a severe state of illness. Bear in mind that your feeling is the touchstone of all subconscious demonstration. Your new idea must be felt subjectively in a finished state, not the future, but as coming about now.
Infer No Opponent, Use Imagination & Not Will Power
In using your subconscious mind you infer no opponent, you use no will power. You imagine the end and the freedom state. You will find your intellect trying to get in the way, but persist in maintaining a simple, child-like, miracle-making faith. Picture yourself with the ailment or problem. Imagine the emotional accompaniment of the freedom state you crave. Cut out all red tape from the process. The simple way is the best.
How Disciplined Imagination Works Wonders
A wonderful way to get a response from your subconscious mind is through disciplined or scientific imagination. As previously point out, your subconscious mind is the builder of the body and controls all its vital functions.
The Bible says, Whatsoever ye shall ask in prayer, believing, ye shall receive. To believe is to accept something as true, or to live in the state of being it. As you sustain this mood, you shall experience the joy of the answered prayer!
The three Steps To Success In Prayer
The usual procedure is as follows:
1. Take a look at the problem.
2. Turn to the solution or way out known only to the subconscious mind.
3. Rest in a sense of deep conviction that it is done.
Do not weaken your prayer by saying, “I wish I might be healed.” “I hope so.” Your feeling about the work to be done is “the boss.” Harmony is y ours. Know that health is yours. Become intelligent by becoming a vehicle for the infinite healing power of the subconscious mind. Pass on the idea of health to your subconscious mind to the point of conviction; then relax. Get yourself off your hands. Say to the condition, and circumstance, “This, too, shall pass.” Through relaxation you impress your subconscious mind enabling the kinetic energy behind the idea to take over and bring it into concrete realization.
The Law Of Reversed Effort & Why You Get The Opposite Of What You Pray For
Coue, the famous psychologist from France who visited America about forty years ago, defined the law of reversed effort as follows: “When your desires and imagination are in conflict, your imagination invariably gains the day.”
If, for example, you were asked to walk a plank on the floor, you would do so without question. Now suppose the same plank were placed twenty feet up in the air between two walls. Would you walk it? Your desire to walk it would be counteracted by your imagination or fear of falling. Your dominant idea which would be the picture of falling would conquer. Your desire, will, or effort to walk on the plank would be reversed, and the dominant idea of failure would be reinforced.
Mental effort is invariably self-defeated, eventuating always in the opposite of what is desired. The suggestions of powerlessness to overcome the condition dominate the ind; your subconscious is always controlled by the dominant idea. Your subconscious will accept the strongest of two contradictory propositions. The effortless way is better.
If you say, “I want a healing, but I can't get it,” “I try so hard,” “I force myself to pray,” “I use all of the will power I have,” you must realize that your error lies in your effort. Never try to compel the subconscious mind to accept your idea by exercising will power. Such attempts are doomed to failure and you get the opposite of what you prayed for.
The following is a rather common experience. Students, when taking examinations and reading through their papers, find that all their knowledge has suddenly deserted them. Their minds become appalling blanks and they are unable to recall one relevant thought. The more they grit their teeth and summon the powers of the will, the further the answers seem to flee. But, when they have left the examination room and the mental pressure relaxes, the answers they were seeking flow tantalizingly back into their minds. Trying to force themselves to remember was the cause of their failure. This is an example of the law of reversed effort whereby you get the opposite of what you asked or prayed for.
The Conflict Of Desire & Imagination Must Be Reconciled
To use mental force is to presuppose that there is opposition. When you mind is concentrated on the means to overcome a problem, it is no longer concerned with the obstacle. Matthew 18:19 says, If two of you shall agree