Category Archives: subconscious

introspection, life lessons, mentor, self improvement, subconscious

A Mentor For The Hopelessly Introverted

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You are only moments away from discovering the most intuitive teacher you will ever have access to…

A mentor can be a valuable resource for when you need to adjust your attitude, view your life from a different perspective or reflect on surprising new insights. Turning to a person that you respect and that has the wisdom to help you grow is a vital component to your continued success. If you are an introvert like me, however, you may have found that it’s quite difficult to find valuable mentors in your life, if only because you don’t meet many people.

Fortunately, your most effective mentor may not even be a person!

A number of years ago, I picked up an intriguing technique from Peter McWilliams’s book, “Life 101.” The only prerequisite is that you need to be comfortable with meditation. Once you have reached a state of relaxed concentration, then the fun begins!

Every student needs a school, so your first task is to visualize a place where you can go to relax and to learn. One of the best techniques is to imagine you are walking down a long hallway, and you come to a door. As you put your hand to the doorknob, you realize that you will soon open the door to your perfect place for mental relaxation and refreshment — a personal sanctuary. Then, open the door and let your mental sanctuary appear.

This is a matter of discovery rather than construction, so it shouldn’t feel forced. What you find should come as no surprise, for it is such a natural and obvious reflection of yourself. It is not an “aha” moment so much as it is an “oh…of course” moment.

Your classroom/sanctuary need not be indoors. While some people might imagine a cozy study in an old Victorian home, others might imagine an isolated spot on the beach. Some people might imagine a combination of interior and exterior locations. My perfect place is a clearing in a birch forest with a babbling brook trickling through it. There is a simple wooden bridge over the brook that leads to a modest cabin. The cabin itself is a single room, barren of all furniture and decoration. It is bright, clean, and quiet. Ah, I feel relaxed just thinking about it.

Now that you’ve found your classroom, you need a teacher. That is an easy process, for you find your teacher the same way you found your classroom. When you are ready to meet your new mentor, imagine a doorway across the room from you. If your classroom is an exterior location, you can still imagine a door a few feet in front of you…after all, we’re working in the realm of imagination. You see the doorknob turn, and are struck by the realization that your perfect mentor is about to come into the room. Then, watch the door open and allow your mentor to appear.

As with your classroom, this is a discovery instead of a creation. It will again be anti-climatic because it suits you so perfectly and obviously. But, even though you may not be surprised by your mentor, your mentor may very well be surprising. Your mentor may be somebody you know, or your mentor might not even be a person at all! It’s quite possible for an owl to fly through the door, if that’s what represents your perfect mentor.

And now, with your mentor at hand, you can begin your learning. What should you ask your mentor? He (or she, or it) is open to any question you have, but is such an amazing resource that you’ll find you don’t want to waste petty questions on him. You will find that, in a state of relaxed awareness, the right questions come easily. As always, it is best not to “sweat the small stuff.” How you work with your mentor will grow and adjust just as you will.

Your greatest challenge may be adjusting to your mentor’s style of responses. Mine rarely gives me direct answers, but instead asks thought-provoking questions that get to the heart of the matter. Or, in especially obscure moments, my mentor directs me somewhere else for answers. In response to the question how can I become more successful, my mentor replied, consider the leaves of the trees, or the water in the stream. Upon considering the water, I realized that if a river stops moving, it becomes stagnant and putrefied. I was getting lazy when a healthy, vibrant life is one of action. Considering the leaves reminded me that actions alone are insignificant. A leaf by itself withers and blows away, but it is full of life when connected to the tree. Any action is more effective when it is part of something larger. Having active goals, then, helps maximize the value of all of your actions.

Earth-shaking? Hardly. These insights are not special. Obviously, success is the result of action. Of course goals help you to achieve more. But the value of this exercise is that it reminds you of the exact things you need to be reminded of right when you need to be reminded of them.

In retrospect, my mentor has always provided the best possible responses to all of my questions. After all, great mentors don’t teach you new things. Great mentors challenge you to apply what you already know.

creativity, einstein factor, image streaming, subconscious, symbolism

Image Streaming: Here Goes!

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The Other Voice In Your Head

You are familiar with the language of the left brain. That’s the voice in the back of your head saying you can do it or you’ll never win, and it never seems to shut up. The right brain, however, is more cryptic. It chooses to speak in pictures. Much like the left brain, the right brain is always “on”, and it is always “talking” to you.

The Right Brain Speaks In Pictures

This is important, for it is through the right brain that you have direct access to your subconscious (the logical left brain actively ignores the subconscious). And it is often the subconscious that is credited with breakthroughs in science and thought! By tapping into the stream of images offered by your right brain, you tap into a deep reservoir of remarkable intelligence and intuition. This is called “image streaming”.

Image streaming is a major focus of the book “The Einstein Factor” by Win Wenger. By closing your eyes and allowing yourself to see the images that are already there, you begin to see a world of strange and new possibilities. But perhaps the most difficult part of image streaming is interpreting the images in the first place. It’s like learning a new langage: right-brainese. Rarely are the images literal. They are usually symbolic, and with a symbolism that is unique to you. Spiders, for instance, might represent abject terror to one person, while they might represent an ancient wisdom to another.

Yes, Even You Can Visualize

And if you claim to be somebody who “can’t visualize”, don’t worry. You’ve been visualizing for years and just aren’t aware of it. If you were a child, there was almost certainly a time when you daydreamed. That’s visualization. Still don’t believe me? Try this exercise:

  1. Read this sentence: Sally ran home crying because she spilled her ice cream cone on the sidewalk.
  2. Now, look away from the screen.
  3. Without looking at the screen, try to recall what you have read.
  4. Congratulations, you just completed a visualization!

When you recalled what you read, you were not trying to recall the words on the screen but the images they describe. In fact, even if you were only able to recall the words, you were visualizing — because you weren’t seeing them with your eyes, but with your mind. In fact, any memory that you have is a visualization.

A Look At My Own Image Stream

To satisfy my own curiosity and for the benefit of those of you who may read this, I thought I would try it out:

I’m standing in a field, the grass is waving back and forth in the wind. I hear the shriek of an eagle, and look up to see that it is swooping down on me as though to catch me in its talons. I duck, covering my head for protection, and the eagle circles back up into the sky. As I look down, I see a field mouse in the grass. It wasn’t me that the eagle was attacking after all, it was this mouse. I feel indignant, because this mouse is utterly helpless and the eagle is frighteningly powerful. I take it upon myself to defend this mouse, and I stand firm as the eagle circles around for a new attack. I have no way to defend myself or the mouse. I look down at my hand, see that my hand is flat, rigid like a knife. As the eagle swoops down, I stab my hand at the center of the eagle’s chest and it drops out of the sky. I am relieved for the mouse, but saddened for the eagle.

But What Does It Mean?

Strange, huh? I’d tell you what I think it means, but why don’t you give it a try? Or try doing a visualization of your own. For best results, write down your image streams or record them into a voice recorder. That way, you will have a record of what they actually were, as opposed to what you remember them to be.