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... comment, and some wish to learn from me about Mind Power. I think I’ve given away almost thirty copies of Mind Power into the 21st Century in the past year. I have a question: Why do I feel self-conscious about my strength? I am creating a belief that, “I always have heaps of money.” Yet when I, looking very well dressed, walk past a beggar, I feel bad about this belief because of how it makes the beggar aware of his situation. I am creating a belief that “I am very attractive to women,” yet I feel bad about holding this belief when it makes a woman want me who is disappointed if I’m not interested. Yet I am comfortable with someone being much wealthier than I, or a woman I am interested in not feeling the same. I even feel a little big-headed sharing my success above. I can’t seem to intuit an answer to this one. It’s strange because I feel so happy and confident now most of the time, and I see that, on the whole, my strength contributes much more to others than my weakness ever did. A: Thanks for your sharing. Many readers will be inspired to follow your example, which brings me to your question. Never be ashamed of your success. I have a saying that it’s very important to understand: “My success helps many people; my failure helps no one.” Don’t be selfish, be successful; it helps so many people. While there will undoubtedly be occasions where, in spite of your best intentions, your success will offend some, it is a small price to pay for all those who will benefit. Keep up the good work. Q: Since the subconscious controls everything (a person and his environment), and words control the subconscious, do daily affirmations then manifest themselves without the individual being conscious of it or forcing the manifestation? A: Absolutely. That is the beauty and wonder of the system. You also raise a good point in your question. Never “force” it. When you try too hard, too desperately, in trying to manifest your goals, you often hinder your progress. Just do the exercises as taught and relax. The desired results will manifest for you quite naturally. Q: What are the differences between values and beliefs? If you value something and someone else doesn’t, and you develop a belief that their view is not as “good” as yours, isn’t that being judgemental, and therefore “bad?” Isn’t this being intolerant of others who are just being themselves, with their own view of the world? A: This reminds me of a quote I recently heard: “Every story has three sides. Yours, mine, and the truth. And no one is lying.” This saying contains more wisdom and is more profound than appears on the surface, and is essentially true. Understanding this allows us to be more accepting of others’ views and perspectives because we understand that they too have their value. This being the case, it is unwise to hold a belief that your views are better or more accurate. Of course we all think that, or why would we believe what we do. But understanding this quote gives us more tolerance. Q: Does Christianity fit into any of the thinking behind mind power? I have a girlfriend who won’t read your book for fear that it does not. A: I have sometimes had Christians tell me that Mind Power is un-Christian, and therefore to be avoided. I don’t know where they get that idea. My students come from all walks of life and a lot of different religions. Many of them are Christians. Following is a quote from the Bible. Notice the change of tense in the sentence. Jesus is speaking to his disciples. “Whatsoever things ye pray for and ask for, believing ye have received it, ye will receive it.” First you believe you have it, and then you receive it. That sounds like visualization to me. Tell your girlfriend the Bible is filled with examples of mind power. Q: In regards to relationships and trying to find that special someone to share our lives with, I notice you always tell people NOT to visualize a specific person or put a face on that significant other, but to let the universe handle the details. I understand that we can’t force anyone to love us, but what if we do have a specific person in mind? Would visualizing a specific person limit us as to other potential mates? Also, what if that person lives in another state? I would think that with the mind anything is possible if you truly believe. What are your thoughts on this? A: The reason I advise not visualizing a specific face is to open up as many possibilities as you can, to not limit yourself in any way. Having said that, if you do a have a person very clear in your mind and are absolutely certain this is the person you want to be with, then by all means use your exercises to focus on that person. Q: Hello John, and thanks for all your excellent material, books and CDs. I have read your books for a few months now and like them dearly. I also practice mind power on a regular basis now. My question regards affirmations. I’m Swedish and my mother tongue is Swedish. I’m fluent in English and since I live in Indonesia I speak English every day to my wife (who is Indonesian) and my work colleagues (unless I try to practise my Bahasa Indonesia.). I also write my diary in English. I basically speak, listen and think English all day and night, but still wonder, since English is my second language, and I still, after all, have a better command of Swedish, would affirmations work better for me in Swedish, rather than English? In other words, what language is actually my subconscious mind speaking? Is it bilingual? Please comment and let me know whether I should continue my affirmation practise in English, or translate my affirmations and say them to myself in Swedish. A: Your subconscious will pick up your intent and feeling as well as your words. Use whatever language you’re most comfortable with. If you’re comfortable with more than one, use the one that you usually dream in. Q: How does one keep up with his daily affirmations even when one has to travel overseas to different time zones? How do you keep up with your daily exercises when you have to travel overseas to different time zones? A: It’s actually easier in many ways. Here’s why. When you’re travelling through different time zones you’re often tired and want to sleep when you should be awake. And you’re awake when you should be asleep. Your sleep patterns are all mixed up. You often have time on your hands and don’t know what to do. This is a perfect time to do your affirmations. Often when travelling you find you have more time and opportunities to do your exercises than you ordinarily do. "No I wasn't talking shit about my sister because I TOLD HER EVERYTHING I POSTED ON THE TELEPHONE before I even posted it and SHE KNOWS the link to my blog.. I really don't care who hears what I say. It's never talking shit until you are saying it behind their backs. If you came to my blog to start trouble stay gone or I ll have to block your IP Okay :)" I failed to mention my sister knew good and well how I felt I told her ass.. I told her how she didn't care about anyone but herself and I how I thought she was selfish. She put her 12 year old daughter on the phone to relay her argument because She was "busy" bullmotherfuckenshit! I told my 12 year old niece there was no need for her to hear any of this so I would call when her mom was no longer busy. So next time before you post a comment check your fucken shit faced facts! You fucken shit talking bitch! I don't care if you are offended by this TOO MOTHER FUCKEN BAD! I tell everyone how I feel to their bitch ass faces now if you can't handle it scoot the fuck on .. You are one of those ignorant ass bitches hiding behind a computer screen to get your daily dose of jollies off trying to start trouble .. Now if anyone else other than the person this is about is offended well my opinion would be stay out of it because It isn't about you. So maybe I got a little too upset here but Like I said on #9 of my 100 things I HATE when people talk shit! especially about something they KNOW NOTHING about. I have ZERO tolerance for it. So for everyone this isn't about have a great day in blogland and hope you enjoy your visit here. Mr. Inglis … Call me “Dick” … Dick, what can you possibly say that is new or especially useful about the subject of failure? Wouldn’t you just be repackaging ideas that have been around for a long time? For example, everyone knows that you are supposed to learn from your failures and then move on and not spend a lot of time moaning about them. There are techniques that are used by therapists and written about in books that tell how to do this. We know that it is best for people to accept themselves, no matter what, and that the Christian God will do this so long as you sincerely confess, repent and atone when appropriate. We know that depressed people overreact to failure and tend to discount their successes. What do you have to add to this? Well, I won’t be talking much about how to deal with failure. I will be picking it apart in order to identify some of the causes – which lots of people do, I know. I will be trying to highlight some things that others don’t emphasize, and I have put these along with the “usual suspects” into a questionnaire that a person can use to either predict or look back on their failure in life. I also hope that going through what I have written, especially the questionnaire, will have some cathartic value for those who might be looking back at their lives. The person will say, “Well, that’s how it was, and that’s that” and move on without a load of painful emotional baggage. That’s tough to do because there are always a lot of “If only’s”. So, Dick, what is failure? How do you define it? Some people’s lives really are a failure, according to one or more of a variety of standards (moral, material, or interpersonal; or, as judged by yourself, your family, or society, and so on). There are also several perspectives from which assessments of success/ failure can come: society (your country or community), your social group, your family, and from yourself. Each will have different values and ways of rewarding or punishing success/failure. I would say: The more difficult it is to find a standard by which a person can be judged as a success, the more certain it is that the person is a failure. The less valuable the areas in which a person is successful or the more damaging the effects of their failures, the more appropriate and useful it is for the person to judged a failure. This doesn't mean that you condemn him, but that he is appropriately judged to be relatively useless in those areas that he has failed. In other words, you can list a person’s successes and failures in separate columns, weight each one according to the good or damage it does according to the value system or the group involved (community, family, etc.), then total each column and add up the totals. Let’s call this a measure of real failure (RF). Regardless of where they fall on measures of RF, some people perceive themselves as failures (PFs). RF’s and PFs are more or less depressed or otherwise emotionally upset when perceiving themselves as failures: RF/PF + Emotional Upset. These painful feelings can include shame, guilt, regret, low self esteem, and alienation. RFs and PFs spend more or less time paying attention to and being pained by their RF or PF (PF+ Emotional Upset x Time). There you have some repackaging -old wine in new skins--, just as you said. (You also have an example of how wordy I can be and how analytical I try to be.) But these terms do focus our attention on some things that make up the experience of life failure and suggests that in order to find out what a person is going through, you need to ask him about how he perceives his successes and failures, how upset he is over his perceptions, and how much time he spends in painful ruminations over his failures. Another way to assess success/failure would be to evaluate a person’s successes and failures in the light of the opportunities he has been given. This assumes that there is something called “character” that exists apart from any physiological or other causal chain. … more about this later. So, you think or believe that some people – I mean besides criminals -- really are failures in life by virtue of doing more harm than good and that everyone should acknowledge this. Yes, I do, with the possible exception of when a person is reviewing his life when the end is near. At those times, a bit of positive rationalization is does more good than harm. One reason is that there are some significant consequences of being a failure in life, even if you accept your failures philosophically and learn what you can from them. It goes without saying when society is looking for people with a history of success to reward or to hold up as an example, failures will be left out. When society is looking for people with a high potential for success to whom to assign important tasks, failures will at the bottom of the list. Here are a few other likely consequences: Less power Less status Less material wealth Less of the satisfaction that comes from accomplishment Less of the kind of pleasure that comes from power, status, and wealth Less of the general contentment that comes from accomplishment and pleasure Having to spend more energy forgiving yourself or releasing yourself from guilt and shame So, at the personal level, failure increases suffering, and the first step in the usual way to deal with this or any problem is to acknowledge that it exists. I might mention that at the level of society, having a certain number of failures may be adaptive. It is possible that if everyone in a society were a roaring success, the conflicts caused by the dominance and aggressiveness that can accompany success may cause the society to implode. What are some of your failures, and how damaging was each failure? Most my failure is in the category of underachievement. I suppose my biggest failure was my choice of vocation. I chose psychology because I couldn’t imagine anything more interesting than human behavior. I also believed I could obtain power (the beneficent kind), status and the grateful admiration that comes from successfully treated patients. I would have done better with something more structured, analytical, and possibly impersonal. The biggest and most costly failure was my inability to get tenure at the university where I first worked. I did not have the energy or enthusiasm to become involved in the field in any useful way. With a few exceptions I did the minimum required. I was intensely involved in my counseling with students, but I could not tell whether I was doing any good. I didn’t have the wisdom, energy or guidance to learn from this failure and to move ahead in some different direction. Instead, I thought the best thing would be to retreat to a commune where I and my family would be secure. I thought I might do better by writing, but both a newsletter and a long book (called, “Out from under: strategies against depression”) did not go. There was also a computer program called the "Stress-Mood Diary". An equally important failure was my inability to be a good parent. I actually spent a good deal of time and energy in this area, but it was very draining and I got very little satisfaction from it. There are many other examples of failure, all stemming from the same characteristic, lack of energy or the ability to recharge and the resulting poor performance: Here are two examples where I was surprised and felt that the rug was pulled out from under me. Experiences like this reinforced the feeling that I would always fail: In my college honors program, I was told I would get the minimum honors grade because my project lacked some features that I didn’t realize should be included. In graduate school, I was told I couldn’t intern as I had hoped because I needed to grow personally first. I believe one of the reasons was that I adopted an unfortunate courtroom style in a training encounter group. By the time we moved to the Northwest, I was too burned out to consider a job that would require me to keep a schedule. So I did some teaching, worked at the local mental health center, and tried the newsletter and the book, and was househusband for our adopted kids. I also spent several years as a hospice patient volunteer, and did some database work for a couple of non-profits. At no time since being let go at the university where I worked have I supported myself. I have spent money and used resources far beyond my ability to repay. And all my attempts to contribute something -- to become a dues-paying member of society-- have failed. So I have missed a chance for the feelings of accomplishment, satisfaction and contentment that can come from contributing or being self-sufficient. I would add that I was not a happy-go-lucky ne-er do well. My free time was not filled with pleasure. I was frustrated as well be my limitations in music and sports. I have spent far too much time in self-indulgent exercise -- that is, exercise beyond that which is needed for good physical health (mental health is another matter) -- and far too much time doing music -- an activity that was not going to bring in any money and that didn't do the community as much good, as, say spending the time on hospice work. What you are reading is an example of a well-meant but ineffective project. So are my other web sites. I would like them to do someone some good, but I don't believe they will. I have spent (there's that word again) too much money -- money that I didn't earn except by being a house-husband. I failed to take advantage of the opportunity to participate in the military service. I might have liked the life (I liked going to a military-school camp in the summer), but I lacked the energy. Overall, my inclinations were good; I was just very ineffectual. What effects has this had on your family and other people? Because I have been down so much of the time – this is both a cause and a result of my failures – I have been very difficult to live with – very much of an emotional drag. Second, I have contributed very little money or anything that requires much energy to the family. How do you feel about being a failure, about having achieved so little? When I am in a vulnerable mood it really hurts, especially when I am around successful people, and that means almost anyone. The lowliest laborer or service person is better than I because they can get go through the day doing what they should do or need to do. It has seems that all the ways I have tried to contribute have come to nothing. I have sent things out into the world and they simply vanish. I feel as though I have never paid my dues by contributing something important to my family or to society. Therefore, I always feel alienated, in the out group, different in a bad way, as though I don’t belong. I feel like a street urchin with his nose pressed against the restaurant window, wishing he could be inside partaking and enjoying like everyone else. There has never been a time after high school that I respected myself. Much of the time I don't like myself, or would rather not be living in close proximity to the person that is me. It's like living with a roommate that you don't particularly care for. I do not blame myself -- that is a different feeling. I have this panicky feeling of suddenly waking up and realizing that life has passed me by; that the train has left the station and is pulling out of sight. My nightmare has always been that I would be mediocre or irrelevant, and that is just the way that things have turned out. I have earned very little of what I have been given; therefore I do not have the right to enjoy things that cost money such as vacations -- but I go on indulging myself. If I were living at the level I should, I would be a street person. I realize that I should put the past behind me except to learn from it but I can’t seem to do that. When I am not in a vulnerable mood, I make all the same judgments as to value and so on, I just don’t feel painfully bad about them. There have been enough pleasurable, peaceful or satisfying moments to keep me going, rather like the rare payoffs of the slot machine keeps the gambler pulling the handle. What causes failure? Let me pick out a few factors that stand out for me, and leave a more complete list for the questionnaire. Actually, a full answer to this would encompass just about all we know about human behavior. ..anything inherited that has to do with energy production, such as the ability to recharge with restful sleep, or anything that affects a person’s marketability in a particular society, such as appearance or potential for learning a manual or mental skill that is valued; ...learned content or skills, including a marketable content area and social skills such a the ability to empathize and to act effectively on what you sense, and, of course, the ability to respond constructively to failure; ...the effects of being born into a particular family or culture that provides opportunities to make use of inherited or learned potentials. Other factors affected by chance would include the teachers or mentors, the pool of potential life companions and the potential jobs that enter your life space. How about in your case? Have a look at my questionnaire responses. Have you achieved anything that you consider to be important? Have you felt like a success in any aspect of your life? Yes, of course. But they don’t add up to anywhere near what my life has cost, according to my value system. What would others say about you? For example, what do you imagine people might say at your funeral? I think most people are concerned with what I bring to them in our personal interactions, rather than how valuable a person I am in a larger sense. If pressed, I believe they would say the same as I do, “A very disappointing life”. People would also say, "It's a shame you didn't go to a different college, or have career counseling and choose a different vocation, or have a mentor, or try sleep- or energizing medication earlier, or learn how to deal with failure and stress more effectively.". Anyway, the things people say at funerals are sort of true but are often heavy with euphemism. Sometimes there are some very big elephants in the room. The things people say are like love poetry and should be considered as wonderful intentions and that do not really depict the person as he really was. You mentioned “character” previously. What does this have to do with this area or with you? I am thinking of free will, responsibility, choices, and what happens to these constructs when we have a complete list of the factors underlying behavior. Here, the question is: Is there something left when you are through assessing a person on all the things that affect his potential for failure? Is there such a thing as “character” that means that a person with the cards stacked against him may still succeed by dint hard work or some other effort of will? For example, I believe Winston Churchill said something like, "Most of the work of the world is done by people who are tired." And he certainly persisted in spite "the black dogs of depression". So, is there a “self” floating out there in space, detached from all the causal factors that we can possibly assess? Or is the self an idea that people discovered and then kept because it was useful at the time, something like religion, or the earth-centered view of the universe? I have wondered about this when I look around me a see people that seemed to have been able to do so much better than I with much less. I do feel that it is I myself who have failed and not some set of neurotransmitters or the like. … this in spite of the fact that science is whittling away the part of our behavior that is freely chosen, as in the discoveries of genetic factors underlying alcohol, addiction, obesity and violent behavior. It seems to me that the strength of character that we are talking about comes from a combination of the ability to delay gratification, the ability to discriminate and analyze alternatives, and the existence of a pool of energy that can be brought forth only by challenging circumstances perhaps in combination with motivational exhortations from others or yourself. All these are explainable in terms of a combination of genetic and learned factors, just like every other human characteristic. So, there is no reason to blame a person for being one way or another, even though by blaming him, we may get him to behave himself. There is also no reason for a person to feel proud or to be praised, except to direct or call forth more energy of the sort that has "earned" him praise. Why would a person say he was a failure when there is evidence that by some standards he wasn’t? With regard to putting yourself down in general: Children learn to punish themselves for bad behavior because this is the way parents control them. Some children will take this to extremes, either because they feel purified by the feeling or because they find that they can substitute the suffering of self-punishment for achievement in their own minds or in the minds of others. Exaggerated statements about failure elicit reassurances to the contrary. It is easy for a person to have impossibly high self expectations when we are surrounded by a media that defines success using certain criteria and is constantly showing us those few who can meet them. How can failure be ...