Paul McKenna reveals how YOU can banish stress and boost your health in just SEVEN days...
HARNESSING the power of your mind can boost health and turbo-charge you to success in every area of your life.
I told Sun readers yesterday how to become happier and richer in every sense.
Today, on day two of the serialisation of my book, Change Your Life In 7 Days, I’ll reveal the proven techniques to ramp up your immunity, reduce stress and anxiety, boost positivity and set goals to create a richer future beyond your wildest dreams.
Re-program your self-image
SO many people these days suffer from impostor syndrome, lack of confidence and self belief. It all comes back to what psychologists call self-image. This blueprint is often learned early in childhood. When you change it, you become way more successful.
Take a few moments to relax and breathe deeply. As your muscles relax, it becomes easier and easier to unleash your imagination.
Now, imagine another you standing in front of you. This is the most magnificent you that you can imagine – your authentic self.
Take a moment to feel totally happy with your authentic self. Look at the way that the authentic you stands, breathes, smiles, walks and talks, how it handles problems and goes for goals.
Now, “step into” your authentic self. See and feel how good it is to live life as your authentic self.
Finish your programming session by taking a minute to daydream about how your life will be different as you live more and more as your authentic self. You can imagine yourself living authentically in any number of real situations from your past, present and future.
Setting your goals
GOAL setters make more money and success runs through their lives. Yet most people take more time making a list for the supermarket than they do the next five years.
Take five minutes now to ask yourself these questions to create a happy, healthy and wealthy future:
What would you do if the world was going to end one week from today?
Think about your core values, then make a list of everything you want now or have wanted in the past.
What do you feel passionate about?
What did you want to do when you were a child?
What would you choose to do if you had unlimited time and resources?
This next process will help visualise your goals further and give your unconscious mind a message that’s where you want to be.
Stop for a moment and vividly imagine what your life will look like as you are living your dream. What will you see? What will you hear? What will people say to you? What will you say to yourself? As you do this, really imagine living your dream.
Next, we will take everything you have learned about what you want, what really matters to you and what your biggest dream is, and design them all into your ideal week.
How does your week begin? Imagine the kind of people you have around you, the places you go, the things you have.
How good do you feel? Where do you go each day? What do you do? Who do you see? What are some of the things that let you know how successful you are?
- Continue to go through your ideal week until you can imagine every detail vividly. This should be an enjoyable process – if it feels like work, take a break and come back to it when you can relax completely and indulge your imagination.
As soon as you have done your ideal week, then do your ideal month, then ideal year. You are focusing upon what you want to happen in order to bring it about.
The stress buster
ONE of the biggest causes of ill health is stress. This process is a reset. “Association” is when you are inside a memory or picture in your mind of something you think is going to happen.
“Dissociation” is when you are outside of it. Association has emotional intensity. Dissociation takes away the power.
The simple rule is: Step into the good times, step out of the bad times.
Think of a mildly stressful or uncomfortable memory.
As you notice what image or images come to mind, step out of yourself so you can see the back of your head. Pull back from that image and mentally move as far away from the image as you can. Step all the way out of the picture so you can see yourself way over there, still in it. This process of dissociating reduces the intensity of the feelings the image was creating.
Now, let’s do it the other way round and step into a positive picture. This is called “association”.
Think of a time in your life when you felt great, and once again allow an image to come to mind.
This time, step into that image so you’re seeing through your own eyes, hearing through your ears and feeling great in your body.
Make the image bigger, the sounds louder and the feelings stronger. It’s easy – to reduce the intensity, step out and move back. To increase the intensity, step in and make it bigger.
Immune system booster
THE evidence is overwhelming. You can affect the power of your immune system through visualisation.
It’s now a dedicated area of science called psychoneuroimmunology. This is not intended as a substitute for medical treatment, although it may be used in conjunction with treatments prescribed by your doctor.
Close your eyes and imagine your immune system in a way that appeals to you. My personal preference is to think of it as lots of light-coloured, jellyfish-type creatures, which is similar to how the protective cells actually look. Make sure there are plenty of them and see them as strong and purposeful.
Next, imagine travelling inside your body to the area that needs healing and notice how you imagine the problem manifesting. You might see the infection of diseased cells as lots of tiny, black jelly globules.
In your mind, see the big light-coloured jellyfish encapsulating and devouring the little black globules.
When the little black globules are gone, it’s very important to then imagine the light jellyfish happily swimming and patrolling your bloodstream. This is to ensure that you do not overstimulate your immune system.
Now, imagine a healthier you standing or sitting in front of you. See how healthy you look, breathe, smile etc.
Finally, step into the healthier you, see through the eyes of the healthier you, hear through the ears and feel how much better you feel!
The success mindset
THER’S a saying that the person who invented the aeroplane was an optimist, while the person who invented the parachute was a pessimist. In life you need both, but the problem is, if you are too much of a pessimist, you prove yourself right as you get more of what you focus on. This technique guides you to success.
Stop for a moment and imagine that in front of you is another “you”. A “you” that already holds that belief you would like to make your own.
Now, imagine what already having that belief enables the other “you” to achieve. Is that other “you” motivated? Confident? Strong? Successful?
Imagine that other “you” demonstrating those things effortlessly. How do they behave? How does that other “you” talk to themself? What kind of voice tone do they use? How do they carry themself? How do they move?
If it isn’t quite how you want it, make the adjustments that make you feel better. Allow your intuition to be your guide.
When you’re satisfied with the other “you”, step into them. Take the new perspective and behaviours into you.
Now, think of a situation that you would like to view from your new perspective. Think through what it’s like to have that new perspective and what it will help you to achieve. How are things going to be so much better now?
RECOMMENDED STORIES
- For the next few weeks, act as if your new belief is true. Even if it feels like you’re “making it up”, this will teach your brain to run the new software of this positive perspective to help guide you to success for life.
- Change Your Life In 7 Days by Paul McKenna is published by Bantam, £16.99.
