Like a magnet, your attitudes, thoughts, expectations, and beliefs attract everything and
everyone that enters into our lives. It is our thinking that is behind it all, thus reviewing a bit of information that psychologists have learned about our brains is time well spent.

Science suggests that 5-15% of brain activity is conscious and that 85-95% is subconscious. The conscious mind is responsible for logic and reasoning. It controls the actions you do intentionally. It is the first interface to the outer world. It takes in information at a very rapid rate and filters out the necessary ones transferring them to the subconscious mind for later use.  

But that is just the tip of the iceberg. It's what's happening beneath the waterline that is most important when we talk about manifesting, the power of our thoughts and creating the life we want.

The subconscious mind handles all of our basic physical functions (heart, lungs, digestion, etc.) to keep us alive. The subconscious also stores and organizes memories and emotions. It stays alert and does it's best to keep us safe. It has been suggested that the subconscious has recorded our experiences, memories and emotions of childhood up through the age of seven, similar to an operating system that runs our computers. This subconscious programming designed to protect us however it doesn't always serve us well in our intentional efforts to create the life we want.

If, in our conscious world, we come across anything that looks like a past experience, our subconscious programming, or operating system, kicks in automatically and guides the actions we take consciously with the primary goal of keeping us safe. Unfortunately, this may not always be ideal because it may be operating based on patterns and beliefs created in childhood. This may explain emotional triggers; experiences in present moment that get interpreted by the subconscious as threatening and thus elicit fear in our conscious experience and drive reactive responses in our adult life.

Have you ever, or have you ever witnessed anyone, react to a situation that was over the top with respect to the reality of the situation? If so, an old subconscious program is likely the cause.

The truth is, we are born with only two fears: 1) the fear of falling and 2) the fear of loud noises. Clearly, as adults, we can admit that we have developed additional fears over the course of our lifetime. Herein lies our power. If we choose to dig a little deeper and reprogram our subconscious brain, we can break old patterns and affect our outcomes at the conscious level. To manifest a life full of positive experiences, we must change your thoughts by allowing subconscious patterns to emerge and addressing them in the conscious. It's hard work, it takes practice, and it takes patience! But nothing worth doing in life is easy.

Meditation is one way to do this. There are many different ways to meditate, and it's up to each of us to find the method that works best for your needs. However, I’ll provide you the basics of how meditation works and affects our minds.

Meditation is about creating some space in your daily routine to get quiet and train your mind to listen to itself without judgment. By observing your feelings, you’ll start understanding your thought patterns better to gain a healthy sense of perspective, which in turn will make you more able to be present and fully engaged in day to day life.

This can be a simple as taking a few minutes to allow yourself to focus on your breath and simply observe your thoughts as they pass through ... similar to being on a boat and watching the water slip by without following it. Or being present in nature. Or it can be as complicated as listening to a guided meditation, creating an intentional meditation space and ritual in your home or going to a meditation retreat.

For me, I have found that sitting up in bed for an extra 15 minutes focused on my breathing and feeling the purring of my cat curled up next to me is a wonderful way to meditate.

The alternative to being mindful is allowing small annoyances to pile up and collect, going unaddressed, in the back of your mind. When negative thoughts pile up, it’s easy to get distracted throughout the day thinking about them, and it’s also easy to lash out at others because you’re distracted by the negative thought loop.

The other thing to consider is something Abraham Hicks teaches and that is the concept of momentum. Momentum is simply movement in a direction. Abraham says that momentum can be created in as little as seventeen seconds. For me, the momentum I choose to create during my morning ritual makes a huge difference in my day. If I wake up to a blaring alarm, my heart beats faster and I feel a sense of anxiety as I quickly reach out to hit the snooze button. For me, that creates momentum in the direction of stress.

If I choose to wake up to peaceful music, that also creates momentum in a much calmer and more peaceful direction.

If I then choose to jump out of bed, look at my massive to do list and get right on with my day, that creates momentum in the direction of stress. But if I choose to enjoy my first cup of coffee in my favorite sitting spot noticing the wonders of nature with my cat purring next to me, that creates even more momentum in the direction of calm and peace, which continues to reinforce the direction of my day. 

So, in your journey toward manifesting a better future, think of meditation as a tool that you can
use as a thought processor. Dr. Deborah Sandella, founder of the RIM Institute, has created some  wonderful and free guided meditations that I encourage you to check out here.

​“All that we are is a result of what we have thought” - Buddha

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Even if you consider yourself a generally positive person, it’s likely that you still have many negative thoughts. We all do. It’s easier for the brain to remember the negative ideas, thoughts, and memories because they tend to affect us more emotionally. With a little bit of training, you can shift the way that your mind processes the world around you and change the trajectory of your future.

Your mind is more pliable than you think. Take a moment to think back to the last bad day you had. What caused it? Did a coworker say something negative? Did a partner not react to something the way you wanted them to? It all comes down to a single thought or action being replayed in your mind, creating a story in your head and leading to your bad day.

Now consider what would have happened if you had the ability to brush off your negative reaction and push aside the interaction to carry on with your day more positively. Once you flood your mind with a specific thought, you’ll begin naturally attracting things that align with that thought. So make it positive!

I invite you to pay pay attention to your thoughts and the words you speak out loud. 

For the first few days, simply track your negative statements with a simple hash mark on a piece of paper, a small notebook, or a sticky note on the refrigerator, or your phone. You might be surprised at the number of negative statements you make. Negative statements include blaming, complaining, judging, criticizing.

You may choose to engage the help of a partner, spouse or coworker in this activity with the goal of simply raising your awareness of how often you have negative thoughts.

Then, for the next few days balance your negative statements with positive statements. For every negative statement, you owe a positive statement. Or simply practice reframing the negative statement into a positive statement. 

If you choose to do it on your own, you can raise your awareness of negative statements by simply putting an elastic band on your wrist and switching hands each time you make a negative statement. This helps to bring unconscious negativity to the conscious. Once it's in the conscious, it's much easier to change and expand positivity, which is really important when manifesting the good things in life. 

Thoughts become things ... so think the good ones!

“You create your own universe as you go along.” -Winston Churchill