By Brandon Cook

“Your mind is your instrument. Learn to be its master and not its slave. Meditation is the gateway, through which you arrive to the world of freedom.” - Remez Sasson

 “Meditation brings wisdom; lack of meditation leaves ignorance. Know well what leads you forward and what holds you back, and choose the path that leads to wisdom.” – Buddha

 In Part I of this series we began our exploration of the subconscious mind and took a brief look into what neuroscientists are learning about the ultimate potential of the human mind.

In Part II, we examined how our beliefs are impressed upon the subconscious and how they can affect who and what we ultimately become.

In this third installment, we are going to clarify how the subconscious mind can help us achieve our physique goals and learn how we can use meditation to access the gateway into the subconscious mind.

Why Should I Bother With the Whole Subconscious Mind Thing?

In the last part of this series I’ll reveal the techniques by which you may reprogram your subconscious mind for success and completely destroy any limiting beliefs you may have picked up over the years. Yet, before I tell you HOW I would like to briefly discuss WHY from a bodybuilding or physique transformation view point.

When you understand the WHY’s you’re more likely to take action on the HOW’s.

First of all, we just learned that the subconscious mind is largely responsible for all of your conditioned behaviors, habits, and personality.

It is also important to realize that transforming your body takes a great amount of:

• Discipline to commit to intense training and a healthy nutrition regimen

• Determination to achieve and to do what’s required to achieve your goals

• Persistence to continue this pursuit from day to day, week to week, and month to month

• Courage to face the challenges and pain of lifting heavy weights

• Faith or belief in yourself and your ability to make this dream a reality

• Sacrifice and your willingness to delay instant gratification for your long term fulfillment

• Desire and the intense passion to transform your body and your life for the better

• Motivation to do what needs to be done despite how you feel at the time

Now ask yourself the following questions:

1.Do you possess all of these qualities?

2.Are these qualities fully developed in you or could you use a little more discipline, a little more motivation, and a dash of courage?

3.How would your body and life be different if these qualities were fully developed in you?

4.Are there any negative qualities, habits, or beliefs that you possess that may interfere with your goal to transform your body and life?

5.If there was a technique that you could use to instill positive qualities into your mind and release the negative qualities from your mind… are YOU willing to incorporate this technique into your daily routine?

Seriously think about this for a moment and then move on to the next reason.

Secondly, and just as importantly, we also learned that the subconscious mind is responsible for handling all of the autonomic functions of the body; like breathing, heart beat, digestion, immune system. This also includes:

• Hormone secretion (think Testosterone, Growth Hormone, Cortisol and Insulin.)

• Cellular activity (think hypertrophy or growth of muscle cells and the shrinking of fat cells.)
   
Now ask yourself the following questions:

1.What if it was possible to slightly influence your subconscious mind to release more testosterone or growth hormone and to produce less cortisol (a muscle eating hormone)?

2.How could this help your body to achieve the goals you’ve set?

3.What if it was possible to use your mind to influence your body to increase hypertrophy and muscle growth or to burn fat or to recover quicker?

4.Are you beginning to see the possibilities here?

I know this may sound impossible or far fetched, but is it really? We’ve all heard of meditation, correct?

There have been more than 600 scientific studies, which have been published in over 100 leading scientific journals concerning the IMMENSE BENEFITS of Meditation.

Here are just a few interesting findings that relate to our discussion here:

• Brain scans show that meditation shifts activity in the prefrontal cortex (behind the forehead) from the right hemisphere to the left. People who have a negative disposition tend to be right-prefrontal oriented; left-prefrontals have more enthusiasm, more interests, relax more, and tend to be happier.

• Promotes Deep rest- as measured by decreased metabolic rate, lower heart rate, and reduced work load of the heart.

• Lowered levels of cortisol and lactate- two chemicals associated with stress and thus muscle tissue breakdown.

• Reduction of free radicals- unstable oxygen molecules that can cause tissue damage.

• Meditation increases circulation in beginning meditators by 30% and in experienced meditators by as much as 65% and therefore improving nutrient flow to the muscles.

“The mind leads the body. Where the mind leads, the body will follow.”

 
Now, I’m not suggesting that all of a sudden you’ll see steroid-like gains if you start meditating.

What I’m suggesting is that if you could stimulate your body even in the slightest to keep testosterone and growth hormone levels high, cortisol levels low, and hypertrophy and healing happening within the muscle cells… then baby… you’re doing something amazing!

Remember, as an ectomorph your genetics are not stacked in your favor.

1.Your body doesn’t synthesize protein as well as it could.

2.Your body doesn’t produce as much testosterone as it should.

3.Your body doesn’t release as much growth hormone as you need.

4.Your body doesn’t have the greatest neuromuscular communication.

5.Your body doesn’t recover as quickly as other body types.

In other words, you need to be doing everything you “naturally” can just to bring your scrawny butt up to a level playing field with the big boys. Capiche?

If meditating can help make you relax, which can lower your cortisol levels (a muscle eating hormone), reduce free radicals, and improve blood circulation to your muscles and thus supplying more vital nutrients in helping them to grow… why wouldn’t you incorporate that into your training?

We’re not even talking about ALL the other scientific benefits of meditation here… or even the mental or spiritual benefits!

If you haven’t been practicing meditation, then consider this your wake up call! 

The subconscious mind plays a powerful role in the functionality and sustainability of your body. The experiences that have been impressed upon your subconscious mind have shaped your life, beliefs, behavior, and your personality… these experiences have made you who you are.

This is how your past can have an influential effect on your present and hence your future as well.

The more you understand about life, consciousness, and the mind/body/spirit connection, the more you can learn how to harness their power for your own gain, growth, success and personal development. This includes your quest to transform your physique!

Since I started talking about meditation, I might as well continue discussing it here. Let’s look at how we can use meditation to help relax and heal the body (from stress, training, and everday life.)

It’s a great way to clear the mind from unnecessary thought, and open the gateway into the subconscious mind.

Using Meditation to Access the Subconscious

I have harped on the fact that our thoughts create our reality and directly influence our experience of life many times now.  I do so mainly because it is such an important insight to grasp for body and life transformation.

Yet, in many cases we may understand the concept intellectually but fail to truly seize the wisdom and application of the notion.

Likewise, one may fully understand the concepts of how to gain muscle mass, but if we fail to apply what we know, then there will be no biological change.

Thus, knowing that your thoughts create your reality is of little use to you, unless you take full control of your mind and think the thoughts that will lead you to action and therefore your desires.

When what you KNOW and what you DO become congruent with each other, then you will have more than knowledge… you will have WISDOM!

It has been estimated that the average person thinks over 60,000 thoughts in a day and a lot of those thoughts are old, repetitive thoughts that they have been thinking for quite some time.

How many people do you believe are truly conscious of all of these thoughts that they are thinking?

How many people do you believe have consciously chosen the majority of thoughts that enter their mind?

Many people have expressed a problem with not being able to stop thinking. They have problems concentrating and staying focused. They lie awake at night, thoughts pouring through their heads… worries, fears, tasks needing done, anticipation of things to come, you get the idea.

They have lost control of their mind. Their mind is now controlling them. So, many people turn to the latest drug they see on television and search for the solution in a pill.

“The biggest disease of the mind is over-thinking… Thinking too much is like eating too much. The heaviness makes it impossible to remain light and flexible.” 

Are you in control of your mind? Remember, the mind is nothing but a tool for us to use. We should be the ones in control of it, harnessing its power for realizing our intended purposes. 

Yet a large portion of humanity has become slaves to their mind. The mind uses them, wears them down, wears them out.

In fact, the sad reality is that most people are so enslaved by their minds that they think the mind is who they are. They are completely identified with it, with their thoughts and their beliefs.

They have become like sleepwalkers, lost in the illusion of the dream.

Yet this is the natural process of our evolution. You must first be asleep… in order to awaken! When we’re born into this body we were born into an illusion and many of us have not reached the level of consciousness where we see this illusion for what it is.

You are not your thoughts and beliefs! They are simply passing forms of energy like the weather or the clouds.

Likewise you are not your mind or brain. These too are passing forms of energy. Even your body will break down and one day dissolve back into the earth from which it came.

You are the essence of which is beyond all forms. What you are is the consciousness in which these things may exist. You are the field of awareness in which these thoughts may transpire, but you are not the thoughts.

Thoughts are simply recycled information and likewise your body is recycled earth. Thoughts, like your brain and mind, are simply tools of creation.

This is where meditation can be employed. You can use meditation to take back control of your mind, to clear the mind of uncontrollable thoughts and still the water, so to speak.

Meditation can also be used to access the subconscious and tap into the deeper wisdom that lies beyond the realm of our conscious mind.

By making use of meditation and integrating it into our daily routine we can effectively reduce the number of thoughts we are thinking each day by stilling the mind.

This then opens us up to a whole new world that is free from the often negative and repetitive thoughts that before cluttered our consciousness and muddled our perception of reality.

By eliminating these unnecessary and excessive thought patterns we also improve the efficacy of the other techniques we will utilize for influencing and harnessing the power our subconscious mind.

When one is thinking considerably less random, and monotonous thoughts, the thoughts that they have consciously chosen to think will have more of an impact on transforming their reality.

Meditation is a simple practice. However, just because it is simple does not mean it is easy.

Your mind will try everything in its power to distract you, to convince you that this is a waste of time, to lure you back into the unconscious thought patterns that are keeping you trapped and enslaved by it.

It will yell, scream, and plead with you to abandon this stupid meditation practice:

“Why waste your time just sitting here, when you could be doing something?” it will rationalize.

In most people’s cases it will win, but for the few that continue to push onward… their lives will never be the same.

At first, you may not notice much difference, but after some time and dedication to the discipline (not as long as you think) you will notice a new quality to your consciousness.

You will have greater focus, clarity, peacefulness, and insightfulness arising within your everyday experience.

This ability to become fully present is what is referred to as mindfulness in Zen and you will begin to have a deeper understanding of your true nature. You will begin seeing things, not as you think they are, but as they really are- beyond the filter of your thoughts, beliefs, personal opinions and biases.

In a world that was once dead to you, there will be breathed a fresh breath of life. In this moment, you will awaken and you will never be a sleepwalker again.

Does that sound crazy? If so don’t worry… it will all make sense one day!

The Purest Form of Meditation

We will be using meditation to prepare, relax, and heal the body and the mind from our physical training, as well as, to further develop the proper mindset. Meditation is also being included to prime our subconscious mind for the use and application of our other subconscious reprogramming techniques.
 
Meditation works well in unison with the other techniques like creative visualization and affirmations. It also helps to put you in the proper brain wave frequency (alpha state) that is most conducive to these subconscious programming methods.

It is important to note though, that meditation is quite effective on its own for body and life transformation. When used with the other techniques we will cover in this series I believe that they have a synergistic effect on each other.

There are many different techniques on how to meditate and many are effective, however I prefer to use the ancient Zen Buddhist form of meditation.

I believe this is the purest form of meditation and is in alignment with the whole point of meditation to begin with, which is to clear the mind of thought while becoming highly alert and aware.

Most of the other meditation techniques are simply devices used to help one get to the point of pure meditation.

The practice is rather simple. Find a comfortably place to sit, kneel, or lie down (I prefer kneeling in Seiza, a Japanese sitting posture where your butt rests on your calves/ankles.) You may close your eyes or leave them open.

Maintain an erect and upright posture, if sitting or kneeling.

   

Then simply breathe, focusing on your breath. Breathe in through your nose and out through your mouth. Breathe deeply into your abdomen and observe or notice the rise and fall of your belly. Breathe deeply, but naturally.

Clear your mind and just focus on being there fully. Concentrate on your breathing. Listen intently. No need to label what you hear, just notice it. You may look with your eyes, but again do not label anything. Just be an observer. Be still. Be silent. Just be.

Embracing this stillness and clearing the mind of all thought will help develop a calm, relaxed presence that will benefit you in all aspects of your life.

This mindfulness is the power to be intensely present at whatever it is you are doing or whatever situation may arise. To be one with the moment… this is Zen, or in other words to be fully conscious.

If a thought arises, and they will, do not grasp or cling to them. Just let them go. If you suddenly notice that you’re thinking, immediately stop and return to focusing on your breathing.

Continue meditating in this way for as long as wish. Start with 5 minutes twice a day. Raise it to 10, 15, or even 30+ minutes twice a day. The choice is yours really. I have found it beneficial with as little as 5 minutes a couple times a day. Start wherever you can.

Eventually the goal is to remain in this heightened mind state as you go throughout your day.

Give this practice some time and let me know if you have any questions or concerns.

Meditation can really benefit your life and your training if taken seriously. Whenever I have practiced the martial arts, meditation was always a part of the training and definitely helps you to get in the zone. Your workouts will become more effective.

Many times I will meditate after a good workout, the sweat pouring out of my body as I sit in silent meditation, resting in the moment and triggering the healing process to begin.

One you get the hang of it, try adding moving meditation. I like to walk my dogs, clear my mind and become fully present. I focus on all of my senses, looking deeply into the trees, the clouds, sky, and grass.

I open my ears to any sounds, the birds, insects, wind, footsteps, distant cars on the highway, a train passing, and dogs barking.

I don’t listen and go “oh there’s a dog barking”, rather I just listen… I just hear the bark. The idea is simply to experience the moment fully without judging it, labeling it, or otherwise interpreting it in anyway.

Meditation is the first technique to harnessing the power of your subconscious mind and priming it for the other techniques to follow.  Put it into practice immediately and you will find that the transformation has begun.

Next I will cover six characteristics of the subconscious mind that will allow us to communicate successfully with our subconscious and impress our desires, goals, and intentions upon it more effectively.

Knowing the ways in which the subconscious operates will improve the efficacy of the programming methods I will reveal in the final part of this series.

…to be continued!

Brandon Cook

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About the Author:

Brandon Cook is creator of The Awakened Warrior Blog, and co-creator of HardgainerMuscleBuilding.com, a website specifically designed to teach people with the ectomorph body type the laws and scientific principles for building a classic, muscular and functional physique.

HargainerMuscleBuilding.com features a free email class covering the basic principles of training naturally, eating a nutritious, muscle-building diet, and understanding the truth about supplements. The website is filled with free articles, videos, and the programs you need to create your ideal body.
Please visit us at http://hardgainermusclebuilding.com

© 2009 Hardgainer Muscle Building. All rights in all media reserved.

By Brandon Cook

“If you accept a limiting belief, then it will become a truth for you.”  – Louise L. Hay

“People are anxious to improve their circumstances but unwilling to improve themselves, they therefore remain bound.” - James Allen

In Part I of this series we began our exploration of the subconscous mind and took a brief look into what neuroscientists are learning about the ultimate potential of the human mind. In this second installment, we are going to examine how beliefs are impressed upon the subconscious and how they can effect who and what you become.

The Vulnerability of the Subconscious Mind

The subconscious mind plays a powerful part in the development of our perception of reality. Yet it is extremely vulnerable to outside influence. This is specifically true when we are young.

You may have heard before that the first five to six years of a child’s life are the most influential in the development of his or her personality, but have you stopped to question why?

The reason is because it’s at this time that the subconscious mind is highly susceptible and influenced by all that it encounters. It has no base of reasoning to distinguish among truth from illusion, fact from fiction, right from wrong, empowering beliefs from disempowering beliefs.

Since the subconscious lacks the ability to distinguish between a truth and a lie at such a young, impressionable age, it must accept everything that it is told as real and valid.

>>> If you’re told you’re stupid… the subconscious internalizes that.

>>> If you’re told that Santa Claus is real…. You believe that (hope I didn’t spoil it for you!)

>>> If you’re told that there are monsters in you’re closet… I bet you’ll be pretty scared at night!

At least until the subconscious gathers enough evidence to realize these are false or inaccurate beliefs.

Because of its great suggestibility during these early years, your values and beliefs are essentially shaped by your parents or those who are around you the most. In fact, in these early years you become almost a fusion or crossbreed of your mom and dad’s beliefs, attitudes, and values… scary, huh?

The subconscious mind is also extremely impressionable to repetition. The more times it experiences a situation or is told something, the more it accepts it to be true.

For example, if a child is repeatedly told “no, you can’t do that” or “you’re so bad” or anything along those lines, he or she may grow up with low confidence or lack of self-esteem.

Why? Because confidence is one’s internal belief in oneself and one’s powers and abilities, while self-esteem is the belief that you are a good person and deserving of success, happiness, and fulfillment.

The repeated negative statements to the child become their deep-seated core beliefs about themselves. They become ingrained below the level of conscious awareness, hence the term subconscious or unconscious beliefs.

Are you starting to realize how your subconscious mind can have a huge impact on your ability to live a happy and fulfilling life?

Let me give you an example from my own life, and most likely from any ectomorph or hardgainer’s life as well. This example can illustrate further how repetition can impact your unconscious beliefs.

Negative and Limiting Subconscious Beliefs

The subconscious mind’s development is not limited to those first few years. It’s constantly recording everything that you encounter, think, believe, hear, feel, learn, experience and are subjected to throughout your entire life. EVERYTHING!

The first five years are the most influential on the development of your core beliefs and your overall personality.

However, all of your childhood and teenage years also have a considerable impact on your values and beliefs about life, about yourself, your abilities, and your sense of self-deservedness. It is these years that shape your beliefs and determine who you will ultimately become.

Yet, it is wonderful to know that with the right attitude, tools, experience and mindset you can reprogram your subconscious mind and even change or take-on a new more desirable personality.

And that’s a beautiful thing, because some of you peeps are really wacked out!  

 
“The Skinny Me”

Okay, back to my example. Now to most people in America this wouldn’t sound like a problem or negative belief at all! A “lucky bastard” is what most people would probably call you. “Stop whining, you’re so lucky! You get to eat whatever you want.”  True, but that doesn’t mean that you should!

Yet in spite of all that, many ectomorphic men and women do find their racing fast metabolism and hardgainer genetics to be just that… a problem. A fat man’s dream is a skinny man’s nightmare. It’s all a matter of perspective.

If you happen to be a skinny guy or gal, think back to when you were growing up. How many times has someone called you skinny or implied that you were? Did you internalize this as a positive or negative thing? Did it make you feel good or bad about yourself? As a young man, I didn’t take it as a good thing.

When I was growing up I was never really involved in school sports or athletics. I was more of the “starving artist” type!

Since I am an ectomorph, I had a naturally high metabolism (like many of you.) On top of that, like most of the people in North America, my nutrition wasn’t optimal. So, yeah I was skinny.

People and peers at school began calling me skinny; telling me I was skinny; claiming that I needed to eat more because I was so thin. Bag of bones…You’ve may have heard this all before, so I won’t go into the excruciating details.  So anyway… naturally I had to kick their @$$!!! No, I’m just kidding (fighting is bad kids!)

Needless, to say these repetitive comments influenced my subconscious mind and reinforced the limiting belief that I was a skinny person. So, I became even more self-conscious of being skinny.

I would wear long-sleeved shirts, and pants to hide the fact I was skinny, mainly to avoid people pointing it out. It became a part of my identity, the skinny me. I think this had a negative effect on my level of confidence as well.

Now the reality was that I WAS skinny, but since so many people repetitively pointed that out to me it became deeply engrained in my subconscious mind. Being skinny became a part of my self-image.

So much so, that even at the age of 18, after I began eating tons of food, lifting weights, and doing everything I could to become a bigger, more muscular person… that subconscious belief was still there. 

So, even after I gained thirty pounds of muscle I still felt skinny and still thought of myself as skinny. 

In reality I had went from skinny to a normal or average weight and wasn’t skinny anymore, but that same “skinny me” belief would stick around to haunt me throughout my twenties… even sabotaging my efforts to go from an average weight to a champion’s physique.

At times it felt impossible to gain any more muscle even though I was training, eating, and believing that I was doing everything I could. I wasn’t. There were certain fundamental principles of life and training that I was missing. When I looked in the mirror I would notice how skinny I still was and believed that it was my genetics that was holding me back.

“Waaaa… I’m a hardgainer!”, as Jason Ferruggia would say.

Instead of looking in the mirror and saying, “Wow, I am becoming stronger and more muscular every single day”, I saw the poor skinny me who could never gain weight no matter what I did. And since that is what I saw and believed… that is what I continued to get.

The Shift in Mindset

Knowing what I know now, I have been working very effectively at removing those old, disempowering beliefs and replacing them with more empowering ones that will allow me to take my body to the next level.

In other words, I have created a new self-image of myself as muscular in my mind and replaced the old “skinny me” version of myself.

In keeping with our hardware/software analogy from Part I, I have reformatted my computer/brain by deleting the old software programs and installing a new and enhanced version…
Brandon 2.0, if you will! 

Your mind is a computer after all, and in fact is the most powerful supercomputer on Earth, up to this point. An actual computer or robot may beat you out within the next few decades, but we’ll have to wait and see.

Simply by changing my self-talk, imagining and visualizing the body I desire every day (in the correct manner), I am reprogramming my subconscious mind to accept the new self-image as my new reality.

Since my subconscious mind controls my automatic behavior and impulses, this will cause me to act and think in a way that will eventually lead me to a more muscular body in the real world. Instead of repeating my past mistakes for the next 50 years, I’ll achieve my goals a lot faster.

I want to emphasize that this is FACT… not fiction. Athletes and Olympians have been successfully using visualization to increase their athletic performances for over a few decades now with quite impressive results. Don’t take my word on it, do some investigative research of your own.

Change Your Mind, Change Your Body

This “skinny me” story is just one, simplistic example of a limiting subconscious belief and how to overcome them. It is not just one event or situation that creates and defines your beliefs and values. It’s everything combined.

There may be more than one limiting belief that’s holding you back in some way. It could be your level of confidence, it could be your degree of self-deservedness or self-worth, it could be your identity as a skinny person… or heck it may just be because you don’t know the proper way to train to build muscle naturally!

Most likely, it’s a combination of things.

Yet, this is why I am giving “developing the proper mindset” so much attention at first.

Without the right mindset you can end up wasting years of your time (if you last that long) trying to transform your body and your life, but getting no where fast. Most people just give up when they don’t see any results. I don’t want that to happen to you.
 
That being said; the most important point of this section is this:

Despite all of your hard work and effort, if you still harbor negative and limiting subconscious beliefs about yourself, you will have a hard time transforming your body and life. You will have a tendency to revert to your old way of thinking and doing things.

You may meet with some success at first, but despite all of your conscious efforts you may find yourself unable to break past a certain barrier or plateau.

You may also experience self-sabotage in the form of engaging in negative habits that limit your success (such as smoking, excessive drinking, skipping workouts, eating like crap, etc.) or other circumstances such as pushing yourself to the point of injury, slacking off, or something similar.

Now most people that already have the proper mindset may still make similar mistakes with their training. However, they quickly learn from them and make the appropriate lifestyle changes.

Once they make these changes they go on to achieve success. The key is that they already had the proper mindset for success. Therefore, they understood exactly what to do to correct their mistakes. It’s that awareness that makes all the difference!

On the other hand, if you have limiting and negative subconscious beliefs like I did, this self-sabotage may become a repetitive, downward cycle that you just can’t seem to break despite all of your hard work and efforts.

This may continue indefinitely, UNTIL you have taken the proper steps to eliminate and/or replace the negative and limiting beliefs that are deeply entrenched within your subconscious mind.

When you lack the proper mindset it can be very challenging to achieve success at anything in life. Luckily for us all, we can always change our minds by reprogramming our subconscious with the proper techniques! 

That’s exactly what we’re going to discuss in Part III of Harnessing the Power of Your Subconscious Mind.

….to be continued!

 
Brandon Cook

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About the Author:

Brandon Cook is creator of The Awakened Warrior Blog, and co-creator of HardgainerMuscleBuilding.com, a website specifically designed to teach the hardgainer the laws and scientific principles for building a classic, muscular and functional physique.

HargainerMuscleBuilding.com features a free email class covering the basic principles of training naturally, eating a nutritious, muscle-building diet, and understanding the truth about supplements. The website is filled with free articles, videos, and the programs you need to create your ideal body.
Please visit us at http://hardgainermusclebuilding.com

© 2009, Hardgainer Muscle Building. All rights in all media reserved.

By Brandon Cook

“Whatever we plant in our subconscious mind and nourish with repetition and emotion will one day become a reality.”
           – Earl Nightingale

“The world is a great mirror. It reflects back to you what you are.”
         -Thomas Dreier
  
 
The whole point of the First Pillar of Rapid Body Transformation is to develop the proper mindset (from the beginning) that will lead to success quickly and naturally. That way you can learn from other people’s mistakes and realize your goals that much faster.

Now, like many people (even myself in the past,) you may be tempted to skip over all of this mindset nonsense and get straight to the heavy lifting. “It’s all bull$#!! I tell you, hogwash, blah, blah, blah!” 

Well I’ve got to tell you that it’s sad that many “average”, everyday people disregard or discredit the true power of the mind and the creative role it plays in the development of one’s life and reality.

I find it disappointing that so many people are closed-minded to the new discoveries that science is yielding in regards to the mind and brain. With the help of new advancements in technology and equipment, neuroscientists have been able to study and research the human brain like never before.

In fact, most of what scientists know about the brain and its potential is the result of new research studies conducted over the past fifteen years. We’ve only just begun to unlock the potential of the human mind.

Arnold Schwarzenegger, like many other successful people, realized the true power and potential of the mind years ago and no one can argue with what he’s achieved in his lifetime. Arnold said:

“The mind is the limit. As long as the mind can envision the fact that you can do something, you can do it, as long as you really believe 100 percent.”

So if you want to continue to be “average”, then by all means pay no attention to this mind-stuff. This information is not for the average person. Not that there is anything wrong with being average, if that’s your thing… or should I say mindset.

Yet, for those of us who want to live “above the mean”, who want to experience the best that life has to offer… well then… understanding the subconscious mind and how it works is of the utmost importance… especially if you desire to transform your physique.  

Why be average and live a mediocre life when you can simply shift your mindset and achieve something great? I mean why settle for something that you DON’T really want, when you could have exactly what you DO want?

Here’s a better question; Do you even know what you really want? Have you ever created an image in your mind of the ideal you… with your ideal body… living your ideal life experience?

 Did you know that if you were only to hold on to that image or visualization in your mind, then you could dramatically increase the likelihood of it becoming your reality? It’s true!

If you simply ran through that scenario in your mind twice each day you would be programming your subconscious mind to achieve that vision in reality.

Honestly, I don’t see why some people find this so hard to believe. Do you think Arnold sat around complaining that life isn’t fair. “Aaaahhhh, lifting da veights is just too haaarrrddd! I giv up!”

Or is it more likely that he imagined himself becoming the top bodybuilder and winning the Mr. Olympia contest long before he stepped onto that stage and won it for the first time in 1970?

He was programming his subconscious mind to win because he knew all along that “the mind is the limit.” He knew that if he believed in himself strongly enough then nothing could stop him from achieving his goals. You can do this too! If… you understand how to harness the power of your subconscious mind.

So, by now I’m sure you’ve guessed it… In this three part series of articles we are going to explore the subconscious mind. What is it? How does it work? And most importantly how can we tap into it and harness its power to effectively transform our bodies and our lives?

Dawn of the Subconscious Mind

When we’re born into this world our mind is empty. It has no experiences, no knowledge, no beliefs, no values, and no understanding of the physical reality in which it has manifested.

It is a clear slate and like a dry sponge it immediately begins to absorb all of the liquid in which it is submerged. As babies we can’t even think… we don’t yet have a conscious mind. That develops later. All we can do is experience the world around us.

Think of the subconscious mind (or unconscious mind as it is also referred) as a video recorder or computer that records everything that your senses perceive. The sights, sounds, touch, smells, and tastes of the world. Everything is recorded, even the stuff your conscious mind  doesn’t pick up on.

All of this is recorded within the database of the subconscious mind and used as a reference or interface for living and surviving in the world. In other words, the subconscious mind is the storehouse for everything that you’ve experienced in life and what’s stored in there influences your personality, beliefs, and behavior.

Think of your brain as the hardware that allows your subconscious mind to operate. Your subconscious mind acts as the software or program that your brain is using as an operating system.

As you continue to develop and gain more worldy experience, your subconscious mind is forming a program that ultimately becomes you. This program becomes your unique personality, beliefs, and perception of reality. Which is also known as your ego.

By the way, be careful… there’s lots of people running around out there with a faulty operating system.  Just try to be nice to them and give them a break here and there.

It’s important to note that this is a self-evolving program. It changes over time… as you learn, grow, and gather more life experiences.

From this gathering of information and experience your brain is able to put together more complex patterns, develop more neural connections and form a deeper understanding of life and reality.

On the other hand if you fail to keep providing your mind with new stimuli and learning experiences your mind will stay at the same level of operation or even begin to decline.

In other words once you stop growing… you’re dying!

Biology of the Subconscious Mind

From a biological perspective, you also have to understand that trillions of things are happing within your body’s cells and organs each and every day… from your breathing, to your heart beat, to your cell replication, to hormone secretion, to the hypertrophy of new muscle cells, to the digestion of food, and on and on and on.

Biologists have understood for some time that trillions of chemical reactions are happening within your cells every day… just so you can be alive on this planet and do whatever it is you love to do.

Now you aren’t consciously controlling these things… they happen automatically and unconsciously. Some thing or some consciousness is making them happen and it isn’t you… thank God, or you’d probably be dead by now!

 Could it be that the subconscious mind is controlling these processes? The answer is YES!

Now you smart guys and gals out there may argue that these things are controlled by the Autonomic Nervous System (ANS) and you’d be correct. However, the subconscious mind is believed to be the part of the brain that directly influences the ANS.

According to neuroscientists (aka brain scientists):

• •The Subconscious Mind is the most powerful part of your brain and controls over 80% of your brains functions. So in other words, our conscious mind is only using 1/6th of our brains power.
• •Your Subconscious Mind is responsible for controlling all of the autonomic processes that take place within your body such as breathing, the beating of your heart, hormone secretion, and all other cellular activity.
• •Your subconscious mind is also responsible for your automatic behaviors, impulses, and thought processes. It is these conditioned behaviors that impact your natural reaction to people, situations, your environment and how you interact within it.

If that doesn’t have you intrigued to learn more about it… nothing will. Except if you just happen to realize that maybe this could be the key to your success or failure in anything you choose to do in life! Your mind is either working for you or against you! Ultimately you decide which it will be. Choose wisely.

Using the Conscious to Program the Unconscious

At this point you may be thinking: “Yeah, that’s great and all, but how do you get your mind working for you? So, what if I do have some negative or limiting beliefs, can I get rid of them? Is there a way to directly influence our subconscious minds so that we can develop the proper mindset that leads to success?”

To that I would say, man you sure ask a lot of questions! On the other hand though… asking questions is a very intelligent thing to do. The subconscious mind loves questions because one of its characteristics is of being an innate problem solver. When you ask a question with your conscious mind, the subconscious will reach deep within its reservoir of memories and experiences and even beyond to find the answer. Then typically when you least expect it the answer will pop into your consciousness.

Many scientists and successful inventors have reported this phenomenon when pondering on the answer to some important problem or question that would lead to a major breakthrough. The answers to these questions spontaneously came to them in a flash of sudden insight or sometimes even in a dream.

You may even have experienced it before yourself. Have you ever forgotten the name of a movie, or song and had trouble remembering the answer. Usually later after you’ve given up, the name will just come to you.

So, yes there are ways to access and influence the subconscious mind. Asking questions is one of those ways and yet there are several others which we will discuss as this series unfolds. The key to getting your mind on your side and working for you instead of against you lies in your beliefs.

My research has led me to believe that this is possible, but what I believe is of little importance to effectively alter your subconscious mind. What truly matters IS what you believe and IF you believe it is possible. Now I’m not asking you to believe on mere faith. If you want to, well that’s fine, but I would never ask such a thing.

I‘ve found that it is wise to keep an open mind about your beliefs. Yet I would strongly advise that before you believe anything anyone ever tells you that you always check it against your own internal understanding. If you feel your understanding may be incomplete then put in the time to do the necessary research to help you make more intelligent decisions.

You see, in order to change your reality (ie. transform your body and life), it is important to have an accurate and precise understanding of how your consciousness works. It is your beliefs and worldview that form your perception of reality and it is your subconscious mind that directly influences your perception. What you perceive directly influences your thoughts and feelings, which impacts the actions you take. Are you grasping this?

The ultimate question is whether your perception of reality is empowering or disempowering.  In other words, is your worldview allowing you to create the life you want to live or is it keeping you from doing so? I would say that if you are completely content and happy with your life at the deepest core of your being… then you’re probably on the right track. If not your perception may be holding you back in some way.

The amazing thing to become conscious of here is this:

There is not just one reality in the world.
There is only our perception of reality.

So, there are over six billion human perceptions of reality amongst us humans alone. It gets too confusing to include the animals so we’ll just leave their perception out of it.

Your subconscious mind is the operating system for your perception of reality. Your life experiences are responsible for its development. Once you become conscious of this fact, then you are responsible for making sure you get the necessary life experiences. In a way, you become the programmer of your own reality. Just make sure it’s an empowering one. This is how you use the conscious to program the unconscious.

  
Birth is the dawn of the subconscious mind.
Through your eyes a world is seen anew.
Through your ears, a soft voice is heard for the first time.

Out of your thoughts, beliefs, and experiences…
a unique perception of reality is formed.
Creating the brief moment in time…
that you’ve come to know as your life.

 

….to be continued!

Brandon Cook

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About the Author:

Brandon Cook is creator of The Awakened Warrior Blog, and co-creator of HardgainerMuscleBuilding.com, a website specifically designed to teach the ectomorph the laws and scientific principles for building a classic, muscular and functional physique.

HargainerMuscleBuilding.com features a free email class covering the basic principles of training naturally, eating a nutritious, muscle-building diet, and understanding the truth about supplements. The website is filled with free articles, videos, and the programs you need to create your ideal body.
Please visit us at http://hardgainermusclebuilding.com

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