subject: Mental Training for Happiness and Success [print this page] Mental Training for Happiness and Success
Copyright (c) 2010 Willie HortonThe normal mind ' and we're all burdened with normality ' is simply not fit to run life's great race. And lack of mental fitness just about sums the normal person up. For all of your adult life, you've been mindlessly slouching on a couch, like a slob, watching re-runs of old movies ' the movies of your formative years that your subconscious mind thrives on. Research shows that this is where our subconscious mind lives ' in the past. It uses the past to try to make sense of the present and, in the process, makes a complete nonsense of it. As things stand, you're not even fit enough to take a light mental jog!However, life is not a light jog - life's more like a cross-country race! And, if you haven't properly trained yourself, you won't be able to run it like you should. The amazing things is, though, if you do bother to take even a little mental exercise, you will suddenly realize that life is not, in fact, a marathon at all - it's only our unfit normal crazy mind that makes it so. In the right state of mind, life is a gentle, enjoyable and effortless stroll in the park. Have you ever experienced the peace and calm of that stroll? Have you ever experienced the effortlessness of carefree living? No? Well then it's your own stupidity for continuing to be a mental slob.How do you change all that? Does it require massive effort or discipline? Not at all - all that is required is just a little commitment on your part. Believe it or not, it only takes a few minutes each morning to get your head in the right place - perhaps a little longer for a start if you want to give yourself the solid foundation from which you can springboard to effortless living. And ten minutes each morning will change the other twenty three hours and fifty minutes - you simply won't recognise your life.What exercise am I talking about? You simply need to re-train yourself to pay attention to reality. At present, as I've already said, your subconscious mind is stuck in a rut. Your subconscious mind is obsessed with a long-gone past. It uses that out-of-date perspective - theh stuff that you learned during your childhood (when you were young and impressionable) to make sense of the here and now. The results? Turn on the TV and you'll discover just how badly normal people behave - from global conflict and terrorism to husbands beating wives, from the high-finance greed that has brought world economies to their knees to shop-lifting. Look at your own life. Your subconscious mind's efforts to make sense of today lead to anxiety, stress, worry, ill-health, dissatisfaction - the list, in fact, is endless. Letting your subconscious mind run on auto-pilot is making nonsense of your life - you've got to come to your senses.Research strongly suggests that our ability to be happy, focused, effective and successful is correlated to our ability to pay attention to the here and now. If we leave the running of our lives to our subconscious mind, we end up paying no attention to the here and now and the results are, at best, not-too-bad, at worst, disastrous. I've already said it but bears repeating - you've got to re-train yourself in the simple but powerful art of paying attention. I say 're-train' because, as children, we were experts at it.What do you need to pay attention to? Not your goals, not the outcomes that you want to achieve - you simply must pay attention to the reality of the present moment. Nothing else. Life is only lived in the reality of the here and now. Today's actions create tomorrow's 'reality'. What you do today determines whether you succeed or fail. And, at present, your normal mind is pretty much doing nothing other than going through the motions of living. Rather than reacting automatically to what your subconscious mind thinks is going on, you need to take real action in your life. You've got to start taking action for yourself - nobody else will do it for you.How can you re-learn your innate ability to pay attention? Meditate. Meditation brings discipline to a mind that is normally undisciplined. Meditation enables you pay attention to what your five senses are telling you. Meditation breaks the link between reality and what your subconscious mind makes up in place of reality. Only meditation can fully clear your mind - and armed with a clear mind you can and will change your life effortlessly. Meditation is the prerequisite to effortless, happy and successful living.
