Choices and Illusions (7 page)

and rolled their eyes, and yet when the woman opened her mouth

and began to sing, the most mellifluous of sounds came forth. Stop

and ask yourself, why is it we think a singer should look a certain way? What is this belief, and how does it betray us?

Our life beliefs can dictate everything from our relative suc-

cesses to the way in which we interact with the physical world. I

remember well the Sir Roger Bannister story. Bannister declared

that he was going to break the unbreakable four-minute mile.

He was told by all the experts, including physiologists, that his

goal was not only unreachable but physically impossible. Indeed,

there are stories of how the Greeks chased runners with wild ani-

mals in their attempt to run a mile in a faster time, and all to no avail. not possible—and yet, “On May 6, 1954, he was a 6-foot-1,

25-year-old medical student at Oxford, running on the university’s

track at Iffley Road before a meager crowd of 1,000, most of them

students.” By the end of the day, the four-minute-mile barrier

had been smashed. The newly broken psychological barrier led to

numerous runners breaking the same record in the next couple of

years. Indeed, John landy ran the mile 46 days later in Finland,

setting a new record with a time of 3:57.9.5

Beliefs Dictate Reality

The bottom line is this: If you think you’ll fail, you will. If you think you know it all, then you are incapable of learning. If you

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think that 40 or 50 is old, then when you reach that age, your belief will predispose your reality. When I think of this, I am reminded of what a friend told me once. I believe he was in his 30s at the time, doing some moonlighting as a disc jockey at parties. One evening he prepared music for a school reunion—a 50th high school reunion.

Without thinking much about those who would attend, he did as

he usually did and found music from the era of their senior year.

Everything was cued and ready to go; the attendees began to arrive; and then my friend realized that they were for the most part limp-ing, hobbling, and dragging along in slow motion as though it hurt

to move. The thought flashed through his head,
How many hip or

knee replacements are there out there—what kind of music do you play
them?
His music had all been planned for dancing!

At this juncture, there was nothing else for him to do but

proceed with his playlist. He told me, “Eldon, they limped in and

danced out!” The memory of our younger days is often enough to

vitalize a hidden energy, and the next thing we know, we are feeling and acting younger in every way. Our beliefs—our thoughts about

aging—have been suspended in favor of our memories attached to

music (we will cover this in more depth later). For now, when you

think of your life beliefs, don’t take them too lightly. They may

well hold your future in more ways than one.

Before closing this chapter, there’s something else that should

be said. I recently attended a continuing-education course spon-

sored by the Institute for Brain Potential, and there were two take away points emphasized in concluding remarks by the presenter,

dr. Kateri McRae. Those two points are worth repeating over and

over again. The first, you absolutely can change. It turns out that you can change your personality, your IQ, your habits, and even

physical aspects of your brain. You can increase gray matter and

more. Second, and of utmost importance, you can only change

what you
believe
you can change! let me say that again: neuroscience, not some mumbo-jumbo lingo, but hard science based on

actual observation, says that
you can change only what you believe
you can change!
Remember that the next time you tell yourself something is impossible.

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CreaTing self

“Flatter me, and I may not believe you.

Criticize me, and I may not like you.

Ignore me, and I may not forgive you.

Encourage me, and I may not forget you.”

— W i l l i A m A r t h u r W A r d

Most of us have been enculturated during maturation to accept

and believe certain things that may, and likely do, limit our real

potential. like chickens in the chicken yard, we have all been

imprinted—just as with nina (see Chapter 1).

Estimations by many suggest that for every unit (bit) of posi-

tive, affirming information one processes, 90 bits or more of nega-

tive information are received. In other words, for every time we are praised or reassured, 90 times we are fed the opposite information.

As a result, most of us find ourselves trapped in self-limiting beliefs about our abilities, our intelligence, our worth—even our health

and happiness. One study showed that belief predicted not only

vocation but also cause of death. That study, conducted by dr.

david Phillips at the University of California, San diego, evalu-

ated the Asian belief in birth signs. In Asia, persons born under a particular sign, such as the dog, know from that sign what they

are good at, and therefore probably what they will do vocationally.

The sign also indicates the cause of death—say, cardiac disease. The research showed clearly a positive correlation between belief and

events, no matter the lifestyle of the individual. In other words,

clean living and self-denial did not keep away cancer if the birth

sign suggested that as the cause of death.1

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CHOICES AND ILLUSIONS

Cancer and Beliefs

In the spring of 1991, I conducted a survey among physicians

who had consented to permit their patients to use a special experi-

mental subliminal InnerTalk program that I had created for cancer

remission. (I will cover this technology in depth later.) The aim of the study was to look at life expectancy in comparison with the

actual mortality rates of cancer patients who used the InnerTalk

program. The questionnaire went to physicians whose patients had

received the program two to four years earlier. The 12 questions

were on a scale of 1 to 5:

1. Strongly disagree

2. disagree

3. neutral

4. Agree

5. Strongly agree

The 12 questions consisted of four general categories:

1. The patient’s attitude toward the disease before the

patient used the program.

2. The patient’s attitude toward the disease after the

patient used the program.

3. The patient’s survival and quality of life.

4. How the physician felt about his/her patients

believing their health could be affected by the

patient’s mind.

This survey yielded many interesting findings, including sig-

nificant remission rates, for 38 percent of the so-called terminal

patients were in remission at the conclusion of the study.

Another overwhelming result might surprise you. Of the four

categories, which do you think would be the most consistent factor

affecting the life expectancy, or remission rate, in the patient? Most people believe that it is the patient’s attitude, even though many of 22

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Creating Self

those same people would say that a terminal disease such as cancer

could not be affected just by changing the patient’s attitude. It

wasn’t the patient’s attitude, however, but the physician’s attitude that was the most important factor in determining whether the

patient lived or died.

If the physician did not believe that the patient’s involvement

with the InnerTalk program or attitude could affect the cancer, the patient died, regardless of which treatment procedure was used—

radiation, chemotherapy, and so on. The person died regardless of

his or her own attitude toward the disease or its ultimate outcome.

The one determining factor present in virtually every case was the

physician’s attitude.

Taking into account only those patients whose physicians

agreed, to some degree, that the mind played a role in the patient’s health, then the survival/remission rate increased to 46 percent. If we look at those physicians who strongly agreed that the mind or

attitude of the patient is important to health and/or health care,

the survival/remission rate increased to 60 percent. narrowing the

field down even more, where both the patient and the physician

tended to believe strongly that the mind played a role in wellness, the rate of survival/remission increased to 100 percent.

now, this was a very small pilot study; however, to me, it

showed clearly that not only is the mind capable of healing the

body, but what individuals
believed they were capable of
directly influenced the outcome. This power of “self-belief” was also demonstrated in a landmark research project carried out by dr. Ellen

langer, in which certain characteristics of aging were reversed.

Belief and Aging

dr. langer of Harvard University took “old people” into the

countryside, where they were isolated for one week. The partici-

pants were exposed to “photographs, newspapers, radio (music and

advertising) and discussions that were strictly limited to topics current twenty years earlier. At the end of the week, the members of

the group became younger-looking by three years, gained weight,

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CHOICES AND ILLUSIONS

behaved more independently, and could actually hear better.”

When the “old people” stopped believing they were old and were

reimmersed in a younger time frame, then aging was reversed.2

Flash back to the last chapter and remember, “They limped in and

danced out!”

Hopeless and Helpless

Another revealing study that speaks directly to the power of

self-belief is one carried out by dr. Martin Seligman. Although I

hate to see animals used in this way, it does reveal some interest-

ing information. In this study, dogs were placed on an electric

grid. To begin with, the dog could get up and move to a part of

the floor without a grid in order to avoid electric shock. After the grid was expanded to include the entire floor—when there was no

escape from the shock—the dogs just gave up. They lay helpless

and whimpering, regardless of whether or not an electric current

was applied. Their immune and encodocrine systems almost shut

down. There appeared to be no hope, so they seemingly gave up

wanting to live. One supposition might be that there was no reason

to live, no escape, so their mind-set communicated to the body,

and the body responded accordingly.3

Power of the Media

Every day the media inundates its audience with messages

of disease. These messages typically seek to sell some cure or

antidote— but to sell the cure, they must first announce or sell the disease. These commercials create belief and expectation. When

you tell someone, “don’t touch—the paint is wet,” the person usu-

ally touches it. When members of the media tell you day after day

what will sicken and even kill you, how much death and disease

are they creating? I believe that it is actually criminal, or it should be, that disease is sold this way. (I cover this subject in more detail in my book
Self-Hypnosis and Subliminal Technology.
)

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Creating Self

The media also provides images of success, ways to dress, what

beauty is, and so on. These sell such goods as sports cars, cosmetics, and the like—good for the economy, maybe, but if the image is not

exactly aligned with how the viewer sees him- or herself, then the

image suggests a lack on the part of the viewer. There is one big

subliminal message in advertising: you’re deficient in some way,

and therefore you need this product.

Movies such as
First Blood
romanticize getting even. Heroes and heroines build images of courage and strength through violent acts

against “bad guys.” Children copy what they see. Promoters sell

it not just through the movies but also through such add-ons as

toys. What child has seen
Star Wars
and not wanted a lightsaber like those of the Jedi masters?

Peers, parents, teachers, and others tend to be insensitive. Their

words, looks, gestures, and even jokes often make us feel inferior.

We all long to be included, wanted, important. All in all, the negative so far outweighs the positive that it is no wonder many people feel as though their real self is trapped in some empty shell while life speeds by, especially since, according to the national Science Foundation, our minds produce as many as 50,000 thoughts each

day. Unfortunately, it’s easy to become so accustomed to this state of affairs that we celebrate it with bumper stickers and sayings such as “I don’t get even—I get evener!” and “TGIF” (this last saying suggests that work is miserable and sets a frame around what we do

five days a week, therefore conditioning us to find work distasteful whether it is or it isn’t).