Three Secrets to Happiness

We all know that money can't buy happiness - but many times we act as if we'd be happier with a bit more money. We are conditioned to want to be rich (when we know the rich aren't happy either); we are trained to want the latest gadget or style that television tells us to want; we want to earn more money because then we'll have the good life. But none of that will bring us happiness.

No matter how much we earn, no matter how much we have in the bank, no matter how nice our clothing or cars or toys, none of it will make us happier. And the sad thing is that it could take us decades of pursuing wealth and luxury items before we realize this. So what will bring us happiness? Luckily, it's three things that don't cost a thing. These three things have been prove by research - surveys of hundreds of thousands of people about what they have, what their lives are like, and how happy they are.

Here they are, the Three Secrets to Happiness:

Good relationships.

We have a human need to be close, to be intimate, with other human beings. Having good, supportive friendships, a strong marriage or close and loving relationships with our family members will make us much more likely to be happy. Action steps: Take time, today, to spend time with your loved ones, to tell them what they mean to you, to listen to them, and develop your relationship with them.

Positive thinking

I'm obviously a big proponent of positive thinking as the best way to achieve your goals, but it turns out that it can lead to happiness too. Optimism and self-esteem are some of the best indicators of people who lead happy lives. Happy people feel empowered, in control of their lives, and have a positive outlook on life. Action steps: Make positive thinking a habit. In fact, this should be one of the first habits you develop. Get into the habit of squashing all negative thoughts and replacing them with positive ones. Instead of "I can't"� think "I can"�. It may sound corny, but it has worked for me, every time.

Flow

This is a popular concept on the Internet these days - the state we enter when we are completely focused on the work or task before us. We are so immersed in our task that we lose track of time. Having work and leisure that gets you in this state of flow will almost undoubtedly lead to happiness. People find greatest enjoyment not when they're passively mindless, but when they're absorbed in a mindful challenge. Action steps: Find work that you're passionate about. Seriously - this is an extremely important step. Find hobbies that you're passionate about. Turn off the TV - this is the opposite of flow - and get outside and do something that truly engages you. You've been given the Three Secrets to Happiness. Don't waste them!

How to Build Confidence And Peace Of Mind

There are few of
us who escape feelings of fear and self-doubt as we go about our
life. Not to worry! We can all learn how to create within us a
wonderful sense of confidence and peace of mind as we face all
situations in our lives. Here is a taste of just a few of these
tools...

1. Build your sense of trust in yourself.

Your first task is to build the trust that whatever happens in your life, you
can handle it all. Right now, think of something about any area of
your life that is bothering you and repeat to yourself ten times the
important words, "Whatever happens, Ill handle it." I suspect
you will immediately begin to feel a sense of peace within your
being. These are important words to have when the "what ifs"
come up. "What if I lose my job? I’ll handle it." "What if I get
sick? Ill handles it." "What if something happens to my marriage?
I’ll handle it." And what does "Ill handle it" mean? It
means, "I’ll learn from it. I’ll grow from it. Ill make
it a triumph!"

2. Do your very best, then let go of the outcome.

To help you let go, develop the trust that "It’s all happening
perfectly." This calming affirmation is a shortened version of:
"I’ve done my best, but even if things don’t go the way I
want them to go, I will simply find a way to be enriched by whatever life brings me.
I will learn and grow from it all. Therefore, it
truly is all happening perfectly." Repetition over and over again of
this wonderful affirmation will definitely quiet the negative chatter
of the mind and help you let go of the outcome. Peace at last!

3. Stop complaining.

Complaining is a big clue that you are not taking
responsibility for your experience of life. Instead of seeing
life’s obstacles as problems, see them as opportunities, opening
the door to growth. When you can control your reactions to whatever
life hands you, you have the upper hand. You now have a choice: You
can create your own misery...or you can create your own sense of
growth and wellbeing. That’s power! Every time you have the
opportunity to stretch your capacity to handle the world around you,
the more powerful and confident you will feel.

4. Yes, "Feel the fear and do it anyway.

Often we think, "Ill do it when I am
not so afraid." But in reality, it works the other way round. The
"doing it" comes before the fear goes away. The only way to get rid
of the fear of doing something is to go out and do it. Action is the
key. Once you have done something you have feared a number of times,
guess what happens...the fear of that particular situation goes away.
And it’s then time to further expand the comfort zone and move on
to the next situation you fear. That’s what growth is all about.
And as your confidence builds, it will become easier and easier to
"feel the fear and do it anyway!"

5. When making decisions, adopt the "no-lose" philosophy.

The "no-lose" philosophy tells us that "I
can’t lose - regardless of the outcome of the decision I make. I
look forward to the opportunities for learning and for growing that
either choice gives me." Remember, if you learn through your
"mistakes," there are no mistakes! In this way, the "no-lose"
approach to decision-making guarantees that all your decisions will
be the right decisions.

6. Know that you count.

Know that your presence makes a difference. If you don’t understand this very
important fact, act as if you do make a difference! Just keep asking
yourself the "act-as-if" question in all areas of your life: "What
would I be doing if I were really important here?" Make a list and
then take action. Soon you will "live into" the realization that you
really are important.

7. Commit 100% to all areas of your life.

That means when you are at work or with your family and friends,
Or meeting new people, or volunteering in the community... or
whatever...give it all you’ve got, holding nothing back. When
you commit to giving 100%, your sense of focus, excitement,
participation, enjoyment, fulfilment, and happiness come alive.
What a glorious feeling that is!

8. Say "thank you" a lot.

Saying "thank you" is a wonderful way to make important connections in all
areas of your life. The words "thank you" can also help you
appreciate and focus on all the good that is around you, thus
helping you release any feelings of anger and resentment you may be
holding. You can see why the words "thank you" are two of the most
powerful words ever spoken. If you, step by step, begin
incorporating into your life these tips, your sense of confidence
and peace of mind will grow and grow. Remember: there is plenty of
time...but now is definitely the time to begin!

Why does Love hurt so much..?

Love hurts so much because we allow it to hurt. It's human nature.
Getting hurt is a part of life. It's how you handle the hurt or how you allow it to affect you. When two people are in a relationship there are good times and bad times being in a relationship is a great feeling.

Knowing that you have a person that loves you is such a wonderful thing.
But sometimes people put to much faith in other people and then when that person doesn't live up to the other person's expectations then there are a huge amount of disappointment and hurt.
Why do we allow other people to control our emotions?

A broken heart really is one of the worst feelings in the world.
When you find out somebody that you love, somebody that you gave such a huge part of yourself to betrayed you, is indescribable.
You feel this pain in the middle of your chest and it literally just aches.
It hurts oh so bad! And then the tears and crying set in.
opinion you do need to allow yourself to grieve.

You need to accept everything that has happened and then you just need to look inside yourself to find the courage and strength needed to move on.
This is so much easier said than done. It is a part of life.
One thing we have to learn is when one door closes three more usually open.

10 Deadly Sins of Negative Thinking

Life could be so much better for many people, if they would just spot their negative thinking habits and replace them with positive ones.
Negative thinking, in all its many-splendored forms, has a way of creeping into conversations and our thinking without our noticing them. The key to success, in my humble opinion, is learning to spot these thoughts and squash them like little bugs. Then replace them with positive ones. Youll notice a huge difference in everything you do.
Lets take a look at 10 common ways that negative thinking emerges” get good at spotting these patterns, and practice replacing them with positive thinking patterns. It has made all the difference in the world for me.

1. I will be happy once I have _____ (or once I earn X).

Problem: If you think you can be happy until you reach a certain point, or until you reach a certain income, or have a certain type of house or car or computer setup, youll never be happy. That elusive goal is always just out of reach. Once we reach those goals, we are not satisfied” we want more.

Solution: Learn to be happy with what you have, where you are, and who you are, right at this moment. Happiness doesn have to be some state that we want to get to eventually” it can be found right now. Learn to count your blessings, and see the positive in your situation. This might sound simplistic, but it works.

2. I wish I were as ____ as (a celebrity, friend, co-worker).

Problem: Well never be as pretty, as talented, as rich, as sculpted, as cool, as everyone else. There will always be someone better, if you look hard enough. Therefore, if we compare ourselves to others like this, we will always pale, and will always fail, and will always feel bad about ourselves. This is no way to be happy.

Solution: Stop comparing yourself to others, and look instead at yourself” what are your strengths, your accomplishments, your successes, however small? What do you love about yourself? Learn to love who you are, right now, not who you want to become. There is good in each of us, love in each of us, and a wonderful human spirit in every one of us.

3. Seeing others becoming successful makes me jealous and resentful.

Problem: First, this assumes that only a small number of people can be successful. In truth, many, many people can be successful” in different ways.

Solution: Learn to admire the success of others, and learn from it, and be happy for them, by empathizing with them and understanding what it must be like to be them. And then turn away from them, and look at yourself” you can be successful too, in whatever you choose to do. And even more, you already are successful. Look not at those above you in the social ladder, but those below you” there are always millions of people worse off than you, people who couldn even read this article or afford a computer. In that light, you are a huge success.

4. I am a miserable failure” I can seem to do anything right.

Problem: Everyone is a failure, if you look at it in certain ways. Everyone has failed, many times, at different things. I have certainly failed so many times I cannot count them” and I continue to fail, daily. However, looking at your failures as failures only makes you feel bad about yourself. By thinking in this way, we will have a negative self-image and never move on from here.

Solution: See your successes and ignore your failures. Look back on your life, in the last month, or year, or 5 years. And try to remember your successes. If you have trouble with this, start documenting them” keep a success journal, either in a notebook or online. Document your success each day, or each week. When you look back at what youve accomplished, over a year, you will be amazed. Its an incredibly positive feeling.

5. Im going to beat so-and-so no matter what” Im better than him. And theres no way Ill help him succeed” he might beat me.


Problem: Competitiveness assumes that there is a small amount of gold to be had, and I need to get it before he does. It makes us into greedy, back-stabbing, hurtful people. We try to claw our way over people to get to success, because of our competitive feelings. For example, if a blogger wants to have more subscribers than another blogger, he may never link to or mention that other blogger. However, who is to say that my subscribers can also be yours? People can read and subscribe to more than one blog.

Solution: Learn to see success as something that can be shared, and learn that if we help each other out, we can each have a better chance to be successful. Two people working towards a common goal are better than two people trying to beat each other up to get to that goal. There is more than enough success to go around. Learn to think in terms of abundance rather than scarcity.

6. Dammit! Why do these bad things always happen to me?

Problem: Bad things happen to everybody. If we dwell on them, they will frustrate us and bring us down.

Solution: See bad things as a part of the ebb and flow of life. Suffering is a part of the human condition” but it passes. All pain goes away, eventually. Meanwhile, don let it hold you back. Don dwell on bad things, but look forward towards something good in your future. And learn to take the bad things in stride, and learn from them. Bad things are actually opportunities to grow and learn and get stronger, in disguise.

7. You can do anything right.! Why can you be like ____ ?

Problem: This can be said to your child or your subordinate or your sibling. The problem? Comparing two people, first of all, is always a fallacy. People are different, with different ways of doing things, different strengths and weaknesses, different human characteristics. If we were all the same, wed be robots. Second, saying negative things like this to another person never helps the situation. It might make you feel better, and more powerful, but in truth, it hurts your relationship, it will actually make you feel negative, and it will certainly make the other person feel negative and more likely to continue negative behavior. Everyone loses.

Solution: Take the mistakes or bad behavior of others as an opportunity to teach. Show them how to do something. Second, praise them for their positive behavior, and encourage their success. Last, and most important, love them for who they are, and celebrate their differences.

8. Your work sucks. Its super lame. You are a moron and I hope you never reproduce.

Problem: Ive actually gotten this comment before. It feels wonderful. However, lets look at it not from the perspective of the person receiving this kind of comment but from the perspective of the person giving it. How does saying something negative like this help you? I guess it might feel good to vent if you feel like your time has been wasted. But really, how much of your time has been wasted? A few minutes? And whose fault is that? The bloggers or yours? In truth, making negative comments just keeps you in a negative mindset. Its also not a good way to make friends.

Solution: Learn to offer constructive solutions, first of all. Instead of telling someone their blog sucks, or that a post is lame, offer some specific suggestions for improvement. Help them get better. If you are going to take the time to make a comment, make it worth your time. Second, learn to interact with people in a more positive way” it makes others feel good and it makes you feel better about yourself. And you can make some great friends this way. Thats a good thing.

9. Insulting People Back


Problem: If someone insults you or angers you in some way, insulting them back and continuing your anger only transfers their problem to you. This person was probably having a bad day (or a bad year) and took it out on you for some reason. If you reciprocate, you are now having a bad day too. His problem has become yours. Not only that, but the cycle of insults can get worse and worse until it results in violence or other negative consequences” for both of you.

Solution: Let the insults or negative comments of others slide off you like Teflon. Don let their problem become yours. In fact, try to understand their problem more” why would someone say something like that? What problems are they going through? Having a little empathy for someone not only makes you understand that their comment is not about you, but it can make you feel and act in a positive manner towards them” and make you feel better about yourself in the process.

10. I don think I can do this” I don have enough discipline. Maybe some other time.

Problem: If you don think you can do something, you probably won. Especially for the big stuff. Discipline has nothing to do with it” motivation and focus has everything to do with it. And if you put stuff off forœsome other time, youll never get it done. Negative thinking like this inhibits us from accomplishing anything.

Solution: Turn your thinking around: you can do this! You don need discipline. Find ways to make yourself a success at your goal. If you fail, learn from your mistakes, and try again. Instead of putting a goal off for later, start now. And focus on one goal at a time, putting all of your energy into it, and getting as much help from others as you can. You can really move mountains if you start with positive thinking.

The Psychology Of Emotions, Feelings and Thoughts

Some things in life cause people to feel, these are called emotional reactions. Some things in life cause people to think, these are sometimes called logical or intellectual reactions. Thus life is divided between things that make you feel and things that make you think. The question is, if someone is feeling, does that mean that they are thinking less? It probably does. If part of your brain is being occupied by feeling, then it makes sense that you have less capacity for thought. That is obvious if you take emotional extremes, such as crying, where people can barely think at all. This does not mean that emotional people are not intelligent; it just means that they might be dumber during the times in which they are emotional. Emotion goes on and off for everyone, sometimes people cry, and sometimes they are completely serious.

Some things in life can identifiably cause more emotion than other things.

1. Color causes more emotion than black and white. So anything with more color in it is going to be more emotional to look at, whether it is the difference between a gold or silver sword, or a gold or silver computer. In both cases the gold is going to be more emotional.

2. Things that are personal are emotional, personal things that people like and that they feel are “close” to them. Things like home or anything someone likes actually. That is a definition of emotion after all, something that causes feeling. So if you like it, it is probably going to cause more feeling. Other things aside from liking something could cause emotions from it, such as curiosity, but usually like is one of the stronger emotions. You could say that the two are directly proportional, the more you like something, the more it is going to cause feeling.

But there are things that people like that cause thought. You could like something and it causes you to think, and we previously defined emotion as feeling, not thought. That thoughts are separate from emotions because thought is a period of thinking. What exactly is thinking then? You can think about emotions, “how did I feel then?” etc. So is thought just a period of increased attention? Or is it a sharp spike in attention focused on one particular thing that is clear? It is hard to focus that much if you are feeling a lot, however. This makes me conclude that there is an overlap of feeling and thought, like a Venn diagram. But there are still parts of thought that don’t have feeling or emotion in them, and parts of emotion that don’t have thought in them. That means that thought requires more concentration than feeling does, since we defined thought as a period of increased attention. You can be emotional and have more attention, but usually if you are emotional you are going to be less attentive than you would be if you were thinking more. Then again, if you are emotional you are being attentive to your emotions, whatever they may be, and if your emotions are on something like the sun, then when you see the sun you are going to be attentive to it, but not be thinking about it. So you can pay attention to something and not be thinking about it at the same time. But you aren’t going to be paying attention to anything else. It seems that thought is more attention than emotion, however. If you try to “feel” your computer you still don’t give it as much attention as if you were thinking about your computer. Then again, it depends what you are thinking about your computer, if you are thinking that your computer sucks, you are going to give it less attention than thinking that it is great. It also depends what your feelings are about that computer. If you feel that the computer is good, then you are going to give it more attention than if you feel that it is bad (possibly). The thoughts and the feelings correspond, however. That is, if you are thinking it is bad, then you are going to feel that it is bad. Thus thought and feeling are really one and the same. But thoughts are really clearer than feelings. Thought and feeling may result in the same amount of attention to something, but thought is more precise. It is more precise for you to think that the computer is good, then to feel that the computer is good. Who knows why you feel the computer is good, but if you were thinking the computer is good then you would know why you thought that. Emotions and feelings are more obscure.

So, the more you like something (or hate something, or have any strong emotional reaction to anything), the more emotional it is, but that doesn’t mean that it might not also cause you to think about it. One can’t label everything in life as either emotion or thought however. Life isn’t a scale with emotion on one end and thought on the other. There are other factors involved, things like adrenaline and physical action, which might also cause increased attention that isn’t either emotional or thoughtful. When you’re running you have a lot of attention on the fact that you are running, and you’re not thinking about it or being emotional about it. This means that just because you like something, doesn’t mean that it is emotional. You might like running, but it doesn’t cause emotions in you. What does emotion mean then? Emotions must be thoughts that you can’t identify, when you feel something, it must be that you are thinking about something unconsciously. You just have no idea what it is, usually. Emotions and feelings are thoughts then. By that I mean that they can be broken down into parts and figured out what those parts are. And thoughts are just really parts that you can identify. So the difference between emotions, feelings and thoughts is that you know what thoughts are about, but you don’t have as good an idea of what emotions and feelings are, as they are more obscure and harder to identify.

Thus once you find out what is causing the emotion, it is no longer an emotion, but it is a thought (that is, you now call the emotion a thought, so the thought is still probably generating emotion. In your mind then there is still an emotion, but this emotion is now “part” of a thought, it becomes part of the thought associated with it because you created this link, and hence you would call the emotion/thought just a thought because while thoughts can generate emotions, emotions cannot generate thoughts (by themselves), unless you realize what the emotion is (then you are generating the thought, not the emotion generating it), but you are realizing it is a thought, not an emotion: so this realization takes over and now the emotion is part of that realization (because you consider the emotion a part of you, and you generated the realization), instead of the realization being a part of the emotion (and since it seems like the emotion belongs to the realization (you), instead of vice versa, you call it a thought instead of an emotion, because you generated the thought (and hence it also seems that you are now consciously also generating the emotion (the emotion coming from the thought))). So that would mean that all emotions have route in real things, and these real things can be explained with thoughts, so all emotions then are really thoughts that you haven’t realized; an emotion would just be a thought that you haven’t identified yet, so the term “emotion” goes away when you realize it is a thought (because that is what it really was all along, a thought) (though this thought might still be generating a feeling). So, since you perceive the emotion as belonging to you, and you generate thoughts consciously, you consider the emotion to be part of a thought, not vice versa (and hence call identified emotions “thoughts”). So when you identify an emotion, it is a thought because thoughts can generate emotions, so if the emotion is still there after you identified it you would say it falls under the category “thought”, because the thought is making it. You might be lazy however and not want to spend time thinking, which are what emotions are for. “Ah that gold sword is pretty” might be the emotion, but to your conscious mind you would have no idea that you like the sword because it is pretty, you might just know that you like the sword and it is making you emotional about it. Therefore, emotional things are really any feelings that cause unconscious or conscious thought. Feeling is also another word for unconscious thought. That then leads to the conclusion that thought can be emotional (because thoughts are going to be about things that can cause emotion). I think that emotions can be more emotional than thought, however, because emotions can contain more than one thought (while thoughts are very slow consciously), therefore causing it to cause more feeling, or be more emotional. While you can only express a few thoughts a minute, your emotions can contain endless numbers of thoughts per minute – they are not as exact and hence don’t make as much sense as thoughts do.

So thought is just a lot of attention on one little thing. And emotion is attention on lots of individual things, or possibly one thing. So things that are emotional are things that cause you to think, consciously or unconsciously. And therefore they would cause you to feel, consciously or unconsciously. So the more you like something you can’t consciously identify as to why you like it, the more emotional it is, and the more you like something where you can consciously identify what it is, the more conscious thought it is going to cause, and the more logical that thing is going to be. Emotion is just unconscious thought.

How This Chapter shows how Intelligence is intertwined with Emotion:

“Emotion goes on and off for everyone” – this statement shows how there are degrees to which someone can be focused on and feel thought, and degrees to which someone can be focused on and feel feeling. That then also explains the next statement in the chapter “some things in life can identifiably more emotion than other things”.
Since there are parts of emotion that don’t have thought (assuming that emotion and thought overlap – but that is a logical assumption because thoughts generate feelings and are therefore less independent) then emotion (especially emotion without any thought) is going to need less focus or concentration, because emotion is a more pleasurable experience, but thought is one where concentration is usually used.
Emotions can direct and control thoughts – if you are feeling that your computer is bad, then you might then give it less or more attention, and conscious attention is a function of thought because you need to think to start to focus on something. Or when you notice something you noticing it is a conscious experience because you “notice” it and thoughts are things which you are aware of which would then contribute to consciousness.
Next mentioned is how emotions and feelings are just harder to identify then thoughts, and that therefore emotions and feelings are really thoughts themselves, or vice versa. If all thought is really emotion, and all emotion really thought, then all intelligence could vary and be dependent on emotions. This is further evidenced by the statement “thus once you find out what is causing the emotion it is no longer an emotion, but it is a thought”. That shows how an emotion is a thought that you just aren’t identifying. It is just a matter of definition of the terms. Thought is concrete things which are real in the world, and emotion is something that you feel but can’t visualize. So therefore intelligence is just the ability to do things which are real, versus feeling something, which isn’t as “real” as thoughts are.

Harnessing the Power of Your Subconscious Mind

More and more people are becoming aware that they have two distinct minds–the conscious and the subconscious. We are generally more aware of the conscious mind, because we spend most of our waking hours there, while we spend our sleeping hours in the subconscious mind. The conscious mind is like the tip of the iceberg that you see above the water, while the subconscious is below the surface.

We think, reason, decide, compute, and reason with our conscious mind. That would make it seem indispensable and far superior to whatever the subconscious mind does. And until recently, the vast powers of the subconscious mind remained fairly untapped. As science continues to explore its depths, we continue to learn more about its capacity as the quiet dynamo behind the conscious mind.

Imagine that the subconscious mind as the puppeteer pulling the strings of the conscious mind. It’s like an enormous warehouse storing all the experiences, impressions, ideas, lessons, and beliefs you’ve ever had. It’s like your computer’s hard drive, that is, if you save your data! And back it up. So when the conscious mind needs to make a decision, for example, it pulls up data from its storehouse or hard drive to help make an informed choice. Now all this is pretty much done unconsciously.

That’s where you can start to harness the power of your subconscious mind. By using it consciously and deliberately, to guide and influence you to make the best choices. And you do that by communicating with it. You ask it questions, offer up problems for it to solve, set up goals for it to achieve–so it can get to work to mine its reservoir to create answers, solutions, and actions. When you have a specific outcome you want to achieve–such as finding the ideal home for your family, or overcoming a health challenge–what you need to do is to tell your subconscious mind exactly what you want in full detail.

Then, leave the how to your subconscious. For not only is it a storehouse of all your life experience, it is also connected to an unlimited, infinite source through its connection to the universal mind, just as your computer is connected to millions of computers through the Internet. Initially, you program your subconscious mind through the conscious mind much as we put data on our hard drive. We read books, take courses, experience certain events–and all this gets recorded onto our subconscious mind. However, and this is a big however, a lot of things get programmed into the subconscious accidentally. For example, experiences we didn’t plan on, and thoughts we didn’t choose to entertain, and beliefs we formed based on misperceptions.

So if you are not getting the kinds of results you want in your life, it’s often in the faulty programming of your subconscious mind. The good news is that since you programmed it, whether accidentally or on purpose, you can re-program it at any time, so you can get the results you want. Although scientists have not come up with a way to simply “delete” unwanted thoughts as easily as you can delete files from your computer, you can override unwanted programming with more desired thoughts, ideas, and beliefs.


How you do that is by putting your undivided attention on what you want to accomplish. Think about your goals, visualize your goals, imagine them already achieved. When you hear any background noise in your mind with the old programming, let your new thoughts get louder and louder, until the negative messages get quieter and quieter. Adopt the attitude that you will not fail, that you will succeed, that there is no other option. And if temporary setbacks crop up, keep moving forward to your goals. Setbacks are just the result of your residual old thoughts. As they get quieter and the supportive thoughts get stronger, you will start to see concrete evidence in your results. When you harness the power of your subconscious mind, you are using your mind’s capabilities wisely.

Mind Over Matter Tricks

The mind is the most powerful part of the human body, and is what sets us apart from other species...

The term mind over matter means that the mind, when given the proper stimulus, can override the normal limitations of the physical body, and cause the body to perform acts that it would not normally be able to do.

A prime example is the stories of mothers who free their trapped children from underneath automobiles weighing a few tons or heavy piles of rubble that they wouldn't normally be able to move.

Walking over hot coals in bare feet by people who are trained “fire walkers" is another example of mind over matter. There is a medical and scientific explanation for how this could be. Our bodies produce stress hormones called endorphins which act to give us super-human strength and endurance, including masking pain impulses, in times of extreme crisis.

There are also stories of Yuri Geller and others bending spoons with the sheer power of the mind. To develop the capability to perform such feats of mind over matter requires that you first train and discipline your mind to shut out any outside distractions and to totally concentrate on the objective to be accomplished.

An important aspect of mind over matter is the mastery of our fears. Fear has been described by some as an acronym for False Experience Appearing Real. Our minds are so powerful that they can actually cause our bodies to manifest sickness, as evidenced by students becoming ill shortly before taking an important exam.

Often there are stories of cancer patients or those with other terminal illnesses, who quickly succumb to their disease and die; while others, similarly afflicted, overcome their malady and defy medical science and get well. One major difference between the first group of terminally ill people and the second is the attitude and expectations of the patient.

While a fighting will doesn't always ensure a complete recovery from a life-threatening disease, it usually prolongs the time left to the patient, when compared to those who give up upon hearing the dreaded diagnosis and prepare to die.

One popular way of training your mind to perform feats of mind over matter is through the Change Your Mind, Change Your Life Course! This features guided visualization and affirmations. You decide the goal that you wish to accomplish and write it down, setting a specific date for your goal to be achieved.

It is best not to focus on too many things at a time. You visualize yourself achieving that goal, and enjoying the fruits of your achievement. For example, if you want a new car, you see yourself at the car lot picking out the make and model of your choice. You picture yourself in your mind driving around town in your new car.

The affirmations are said out loud several times a day - you write them out and customize them to fit what your goals are. This is programming your subconscious mind to achieve what your fears and doubts will tell you is impossible.