The Inner Guide is a Special Mental Pathway
This post is part of a series that will enable you to create your own Inner Guide. In Part 1, I described how I discovered my own Inner Guide, and in Part 2, I described the many ways that an Inner Guide can help you. In this post, I will begin the explanation of what an Inner Guide actually is by describing how our mental pathways work. You need to know that in order to create your own Inner Guide.
Our Mental Pathways
The way our minds work is that when we perceive something, our minds break up that perception into different mental pathways. For instance, if I were to see a large, black dog, its blackness would enter a mental pathway of blackness, its largeness would enter a pathway of largeness and the fact that it's a dog would enter the pathway of dogs. If something then reminded me of the dog, its characteristics would come together again in my mind and I'd have the thought, and perhaps the image, of the large black dog.
These Pathways Include Feeling States
Because how we feel about something is part of our perception of it, that feeling enters its corresponding pathway. If I'm afraid of the large black dog the feeling of fear goes into a fear pathway. If the dog is my pet and I love it, that feeling of love goes into a love pathway. And another aspect of our perception is our own sense of identity. "It is I who is seeing this dog" so that sense of identity is another element of this perception.
Comfort is Also a Feeling
From the time we're born we have experiences of discomfort that then get resolved. A baby is hungry and his parent feeds him; comfort is restored. A child is bored and her parent gives her a game to play; comfort is restored. These experiences of feeling comfort cause a pathway of comfort to develop, just as all the other pathways do.
Wishing for Something Creates a New Mental Pathway
If you wish for something within your mind, it'll come into existence as a new mental pathway. You can wish, for example, to feel peaceful and calm, and that wish creates a mental pathway that'll be dedicated to causing that to happen. You can wish for a new mental pathway that'll be dedicated to enabling you to lose weight, or stop smoking, or stop procrastinating. But what you can’t do is wish for something outside the mind, like winning the lottery, and have that come true, because the lottery is not something within your mind.
A New Pathway Needs "Trance" Time to Do its Work
These new mental pathways that have been created by wishing for them have the potential to fulfill the wish that you made when you created them. However, they can only work on your behalf while you are doing self-hypnosis, while you are in what we call a "trance state." So, it's necessary to establish a regular routine for doing self-hypnosis, to give the new mental pathway "trance" time to do its work. This is how people use self-hypnosis to succeed in ending an unwanted habit, like smoking. They have made the wish to feel free from smoking and they practice self-hypnosis regularly to make that happen. (It's necessary to formulate the wish in a positive way; not "I wish to stop smoking," but "I wish to feel free from smoking.")
The Inner Guide Pathway
An Inner Guide is a very special mental pathway that you can create in your mind that can be helpful to you in all the ways I've previously described, and more. If you understand the definition of an Inner Guide, you can create your own in just a few minutes. In the next post, I will give you that definition.
The Emotional Comfort® Tool
If you haven't already, you can learn how to do self-hypnosis with the Tool and begin to establish a routine for doing it regularly. And if you'd like, you could make a wish for a change you would like in your life. Overeating? Overspending? Procrastinating? What might you like to change? Usually, a change happens gradually, over time. But while you're waiting for that change to happen, each time you do self-hypnosis, you will enjoy a period of peacefulness and calm.
If you don't already have it, you can get the Emotional Comfort® Tool at:
https://lp.constantcontactpages.com/cu/MLZ8Shq/EmotionalComfortTool
