The Undisputed Power of Your Memory

I am not remembering right now that they say very much about your memories in the movie or the book The Secret. Yet they spend a good part of the movie talking about Gratitude and Visualization as powerful processes. I am hoping in this post to make a connection for you that perhaps has not been made yet, and my intent is that this will clear a mental block for you and free you to create something even bigger.

When you try to create something that you have not created before, or something bigger which you have tried before in a smaller version, your mind seeks natually a precendent for what you are trying to do, and it will look for that precedent in your memories.

And since there are really no neutral memories, when it finds that memory (and it will) it is going to find a good memory or a bad memory.

If it finds a bad memory, then your power to accomplish what you are trying to do will be all but zapped. After all, if the activity led to a bad memory last time, why would we want to do that again? We will find ourselves (our words are powerful) saying something like: "Oh I knew this would happen. This always happens to me. "

If it finds a good memory, something perhaps that we enjoyed in the past, then our power to accomplish has just increased by about 1000 percent. The mind, finding such a pleasant thing, will do everything possible to bring it back again. In this scenario, our mind will say something like "I knew I could do that!"

So if we have bad memories around previous events in our life that are in the direction that we want to go, does this now mean that we are doomed to not succeed in that direction?

Pretty much.

Until you do something about it.

And here's what you do . . . .

Make better memories to replace the bad ones.

Yes, I can hear your question. I thought you just said that trying to DO better based on those past memories was doomed to failure?

I did, and I am glad to see you are listening.

But I said nothing at all about DO.

Because you can THINK yourself a new memory.

Surely you jest!

I jest not; and don't call me Shirley.

"But it (a replacement memory) would be a LIE!"

Well, I understand that mentality, because up until very recently it was mine. If it is a lie, then who are we lying to? Ourselves of course, unless we are sharing our modified memory with others because speaking it gives it more power. But to me, this seems to be a letter versus the spirit of the law argument. What is the ultimate purpose of doing this? So that we can be of greater service to those around us. Our increased success will naturaly come on the heels of providing increased value to others. So I would say that the ends justify the means, but I understand that this idea of it being a lie could be the biggest stumbling block that some of us face.

If we continue in the idea that our new modified memories are a lie, then we will zap their power to help us. We have to find a way to get around that. Perhaps we should contact a new "disease" called bad memory-itis. We just cannot seem to retain any bad memories, they just fall right out of our head!

I will use public speaking as an example, because when someone moves towards the magic of life the chance to do public speaking seems to increase.

If you tried it once and had a bad experience then you will be afraid of it. We know that men attract that which they love, and that which they fear (now you know why your life is so interesting!). That bad memory will return your fear and it will be very unlikely that you improve on it much while the fear is present. You will leave unsatisfied and convinced that you did not reach anyone.

Of course, if it is something that you already enjoy doing (like me), then you have great memories about it, and it matters not if you find yourself before a bigger audience than ever before, because your history says you are good at it. I personally believe that I reach about 90% of the people that I speak to. If I put some mental effort into memory modification then I could get this number to 100%; but I have not done that because I generally felt that 90% was GOOD ENOUGH. Shame on me?

But take the case of someone who puts mental effort into memory modification.

Through visualization, this person can play a movie in their mind of them speaking before a large group and being well received. In the movie they are confident and speak without fear. They are funny and they obviously reach 100% of those they are speaking with. The more they play this movie in their mind, the stronger a memory it becomes. WHY?

Because the mind does NOT make the distinction as to whether it really happened, or you just visualized it. So as far as the mind is concerned, if you visualized it, you did it!

And so it is NOT a lie.

Yes I know that the bad memory is still there somewhere and it's kind of pesky. You look at that memory with feelings of gratitude. You were granted an opportunity to speak before and as such you will be offered the opportunity again. You are grateful for that. You may have learned that there is something that you should not do when public speaking, and you are grateful for that as well. Swallow up any remaining bad memory in gratitude, and it will go where it belongs.

And then let me know where you will be speaking, because once you do all of this you will be a master speaker, and if there is a possible way I would love to come and hear you speak!

Let me know!

Joseph