Time for a little update on my sleep suggestion experiments that I wrote about in my last post. The last few days have yieled some interesting findings in terms of the potential and the downsides of sleep suggestion. When I say downsides what I really mean is the accidental misuse of our pre-sleep time that leads to negative emotions and beliefs into the next day. Most people are suffering from this kind of negative influence at some point in their lives.
We’ve all had the experience of waking up in the morning and just feeling sort of down without knowing why. Maybe later on when your doing the laundry or some other random chore a dream pops into your head that you remember from the night before and your mood upon waking makes perfect sense. What about the dreams and unconscious emotions that occur during sleep which we don’t consciously remember the next day? That’s why its so important to understand this intermediate state and consciously direct it.
Friday night I went to sleep at the usual time for me and neglected to practice my positive sleep affirmations before dozing off. Instead my mind was reeling over what had happened that day at work and constantly replaying some of the negative feelings I was left with that afternoon. I eventually managed to fall asleep and loe and behold what sort of dreams did I have? dreams about my negative encounters at work.
So I learned a valuable lesson when it comes to the moment before sleep. We either use it, or we let it use us. There is no neutral pattern here. A person can learn to consciously clear their mind out of all thoughts but for those of us who don’t live in a monastery its important to make this white noise less nonsense and more useful.
The moments before sleep at night are ripe with potential to either change our preset beliefs in ourselves or to re-enforce them, which is what I’m afraid most people do.
How many people who complain of sleeplessness at night are thinking about all the awful parts of their day as they fade into the hypnagogic state at night? How many people who wake up unrested in the morning, even after seven or eight hours of sleep are just suffering from the after effects of bad dreams and a restless mind?
In short I’ve learned in the last few days that not using this crucial moment will lead to random negativity building up.
The experiments continue and I will definetely be updating more as I learn more about this process myself. There have already been some interesting stories and comments from everyone about their own experiences with auto suggestion and sleep which I will be getting around to putting online soon. A major hope for the blog here is that it will become something of an information hub where the comments can help spread your ideas to others. So thanks and look forward to part 3 here shortly.
-Chris
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A man is what he thinks about all day long. – Ralph Waldo Emerson
I’m a bit of a self help junkie. I enjoy reading about change psychology and what it takes to go from being the good person you are, to the great person you want to be. To be honest I don’t think I’ve even had a day of real depression in my life. Not that I haven’t had bad days…. who hasn’t, but I can’t remember ever looking at my self in the mirror and saying ‘I’m depressed’.
How we label emotions is essential to how we manage those emotions. Lets take a second to think about exactly what an emotion is.
Most of us talk about our feelings all the time but if you stop and think about it… what is it that makes love feel differently than hate? When you see your significant other walking through door, and a sense of adoration comes over you, where do you actually feel that in the body?
Emotions are just physical reactions to thoughts, and those physical manifestations are rooted in your body and anchored to your self talk.
Lets say you’re about to give a big presentation and your waiting while everyone files in and takes a seat. You realize that this is a really big opportunity to impress your co-workers and possibly earn that promotion you’ve been trying for.
As more and more people file in to take a seat you realize that this is a really big crowd of people, a lot more than you originally thought. You start to feel that familiar sensation in your stomach, the light queasiness, an internal perception that you recognize as stage-fright from the days of your high school speech class.
Now I have a secret for you… nearly everyone feels stage fright. Or to be more specific, everyone feels that little bit of nervousness at first before they jump up in front of a crowd. The difference here is how you label and work with that emotion.
The same feeling that you identify to yourself as anxiety of stage fright in the mind of a peak performer is ‘excitement’ or ‘the rush’.
Take that feeling into yourself and really give it presence. Become mindful of the actual physical sensation and start telling yourself clearly and confidently:
‘This is just the feeling of my body getting excited about what I’m doing’
or perhaps ‘ There’s that rush, I LOVE public speaking… it makes me feel totally alive.’
With practice and a serious effort you can change the habits and content of your mind to experience the excitement of conquering challenges, where it would have once recoiled in fear.
Most of the negativity and pain you felt on a daily basis would run its course if you gave them the totality of your awareness. By labeling our emotions with negative self-defeating titles like ‘pathetic, lazy, dumb’ we only perpetuate those negative thought loops and push us further away from the happiness that is our base level sense of being. Listen to your inner voice and decide whether or not you could relabel some of those emotions that are blocking you and use them to propel you into your most successful life.
When we consciously and deliberately develop new and better habits, our self image tends to outgrow the old habits and grow into the new pattern. – Maxwell Maltz
“Every day in every way, I am getting better and better”
This is the mantra of late nineteenth century doctor and creator of his own brand of autosuggestion Emile Coue.
Every night before he went to bed and every morning when he just woke up he would repeat this to himself, gradually instilling new optimism in his unconcious mind.
The way we talk to ourselves internally is often treated as second importance to building will power and doing what we ought to be doing anyway. Its not uncommon to hear someone say something to the effect of:
‘Just put one foot in front of the other and learn to do it even when you don’t want to.’
While this is good advice in some sense, it doesn’t take into account the fact that most people aren’t ever going to do it. They simply won’t. When you have a meeting to go to and your fellow co-workers are all there waiting, you have a certain negative social leverage to motivate you to get dressed and show up. I.E. if you don’t they will all be very very upset with you tomorrow.
However, if your goal is to do something for yourself, such as hitting the gym more regularly or starting to write that novel you’ve been thinking about in your spare time… then the outside motivation of other people holding you accountable isn’t there. You’re going to need something more than just pure willpower.
In this instance having the right self talk is critical.
Heres a few easy ways to get started with Auto-Suggestion:
-Set a timer on your watch to go off at various intervals during the day. Take this moment to become aware of your thoughts and internal voice taking careful note of the tone, volume, and attitude you normally speak to yourself with.
-Repeat the same ritual that Coue performed every morning and every night. Laying in bed repeat to yourself ‘I am getting better and better every day’ or a mantra specific to your goals. The key here is to say it like you really believe it. Smile to yourself and don’t be cynical, let the idea creep in little by little that you really are getting better.
-Place written positive affirmations/mantras all over your house or apartment and repeat the statement three times every time you see it. This is a very effective method I highly recommend to everyone who struggles with self-motivation.
-Check out the theory of Autogenic Training, a type of auto-suggestion created by a German psychiatrist named Johannes Schultz.
Hopefully with these starting points you’ll be able to get a feel for the power of autosuggestion and the difference it can make when it comes to self mastery. Start to talk to yourself like you would a friend, like someone you care about. Who knows… before you know it… you may start believing the things you tell yourself.
To love oneself is the beginning of a life-long romance.-Oscar Wilde
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