Can find an address in Chicago by looking at a map of Detroit?
Of course you can’t. What you are looking for isn’t on the map.
Do you believe you can get clear and live a happy life if your map says you are a miserable loser and nobody likes you because of your acne?
Confusing?
Then join me for this fascinating journey into your head, and on the way you just might discover why all these years you’ve struggled in vain to get clear.
You have what I like to call an internal map of reality in your mind. Similar a real map your internal map of reality described the way you see the world. It’s the sum total of all your experienced to date. Your map tells you what’s real and what’s not real, what you can and cannot do, how to do things and how to react in different situations. Some people call these maps ’subconscious programming’.
You probably know that you have a mental image of yourself. This self-image explains what you think of yourself; the way you see yourself. Your self-image is a part of your internal map of reality.
Stephen Covey in his bestseller The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People explains the mental maps like this.
Each of us has many, many maps in our head, which can be divided into two main categories: maps of the way things are, or realities, and maps of the way things should be, or values. We interpret everything we experience through these mental maps. We seldom question their accuracy; we’re usually even unaware that we have them. We simply assume that the way we see things is the way they really are or the way they should be.
And our attitudes and behaviors grow out of those assumptions. The way we see things is the source of the way we think and the way we act.
Stephen R. Covey
The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, p. 24
As Stephen wrote we often aren’t aware of these maps. We simply assume that’s the way life is.
These maps are a bit like lenses. Say you wear glasses with green lenses. As you look at the world through those lenses everything you see is tinted green.
Let’s say you believe you are a miserable loser and nobody likes you because of acne. Because of that belief everything in your life is ‘tinted’ with that ‘miserable loser’ color. Say you are out and some stranger looks at you a bit longer than is normal. You just know they are looking at your acne and thinking how horrible it is. Next you feel like a miserable loser and the rest of the day is ruined.
Bet that has happened to you more than few times.
Let’s step back and see what really happened there. Do you really know that the stranger was looking at your acne and thinking you look horrible? Did you go and ask them? Or did you just assume it?
Why did you assume that? It’s possible they looked at you a bit longer because they thought you looked attractive. I’m sure that would have made you feel better. So why did you assume the worst case?
Because of you wear those ‘miserable loser’ glasses (or whatever you happen to believe of yourself). They tint everything so it looks like you are a miserable loser.
The only fact in the situation was that some stranger looked at you a bit longer than is normal. Everything else is fiction. In a fraction of a second your mind heaped all that mental garbage on it. And that mental garbage influences how you experienced the situation.
This is an example of how these maps create the way you experience life. But their effect goes far beyond this simple example. These affect the thoughts you have, emotions you feel and the actions you take. These maps create your life. Some people say your external life is only a reflection of what goes on in your head.
Change your maps; change your life
Because most people are not aware of these maps they struggle in life. They struggle to make the changes they want to make and feel stuck.
They try all kinds of tricks and techniques to change their life without ever considering the maps that create their life. That’s like trying to change your reflection by pounding the mirror.
Let’s go back to Chicago. You are standing on the street and looking at a map. Unfortunately there’s a misprint on the map and it actually a map of Detroit instead of Chicago.
Will you ever find the place you are looking for just by looking at that map? Do you think becoming more skilled at map reading helps? Do you think trying harder helps? Do you believe you can get there if you just think positively?
Of course not. No matter how good you are at reading maps, you are still reading a wrong map.
To try to change outward attitudes and behaviors does very little good in the long run if we fail to examine the basic paradigms from which those attitudes and behaviors flow.
Stephen R. Covey
The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, p. 28
Change your maps; change your skin
Your maps, or subconscious programs, also affect your health and your skin.
At this point I invite you to watch this snippet of an interview with Dr. Bruce Lipton.
As Dr. Lipton explains 90 to 95% of your thoughts flow from your subconscious programs. That’s why positive thinking rarely works. You are pitting 5% against 95%. That’s why positive thinking often leads to frustration and ends up reinforcing your subconscious programs.
Your maps affect your skin and health through your thoughts and actions.
At some point you probably believed diet has nothing to do with acne. At that point you would have said I’m a crackpot for suggesting that the McDonald’s burger your just ate has anything to do with your skin.
It doesn’t matter if I’m right or wrong, you still wouldn’t listen to me because my message goes against your established beliefs. As long as you believe diet has nothing to do with acne you only take action on solutions that have nothing to do with diet and dismiss everything else as wrong and irrelevant.
Similarly if your map says you are a miserable loser you only take action that allows you to experience yourself as a miserable loser. Anything else is dismissed as wrong and irrelevant - and that probably includes this blog post.
For an example of how your expectations influence what you see take this quick and revealing test. Demo: Perception: Two Women. You only see what you expect and your expectations are shaped by your mental maps.
What happened when you started accepting that diet may have something to do with your skin? Did you start paying attention to what you ate? Did you start avoiding certain foods and eating more healthy foods? Did you feel like you opened your eyes?
Hmmm… what else in your life could change if you’d change your maps?
Don’t think yourself into another breakout
In the interview Dr. Lipton talked about the ‘nocebo’ effect. Placebo effect refers due to spontaneous healing because the patient believes into the treatment.
Nocebo effect is just the opposite. Person gets worse because they expect to get worse.
Ten years ago, researchers stumbled onto a striking finding: Women who believed that they were prone to heart disease were nearly four times as likely to die as women with similar risk factors who didn’t hold such fatalistic views.
The higher risk of death, in other words, had nothing to with the usual heart disease culprits — age, blood pressure, cholesterol, weight. Instead, it tracked closely with belief. Think sick, be sick.
Brian Reid
The Washington Post, Tuesday, April 30, 2002
The Nocebo Effect: Placebo’s Evil Twin
Research shows stress can make acne worse. The same can probably be said also of other negative emotions.
What do you believe about getting clear? Do you believe there’s no way you can get over acne?
Nocebo is one reason I ask you not to worry about Candida and other ‘health problems’.
I’m not saying Candida isn’t real, but it has become sort of a boogie man in the natural health field. It has become the ‘catch all’ disease that’s said to be behind each and every symptom.
I believe that Candida infection is illusion for most people. They never get it diagnosed. Instead they read symptom lists (that are so vague and general they could describe many diseases) on obscure websites. Are they feeling tired and lethargic because their bodies are fighting the effect of chronic sleep deprivation and years of eating junk; or is it because of Candida? Most people assume it’s Candida.
What do you think happens when you believe you have Candida infection and it takes years of hard work and expensive supplements to get over it? What do you think happens when you believe this hard-to-get-rid-of Candida infection causes your acne?
If the mind can make you 4 times more likely to die from a heart attack, can you be sure that your belief into incurable acne and Candida infection doesn’t prevent you from getting clear?
What about more global beliefs? Can you be so sure that poor self-image has nothing to do with your skin?
From working with acne victims I know acne often ‘justifies’ certain beliefs. For example, if you believe you don’t deserve love, it’s easy to point your finger at your skin and say how anyone could love a person with my skin.
Keep in mind that your self-image was formed before you even knew about acne. What you think of yourself is mostly based on the first 6 to 7 years of your life. If you want to learn more about this please read They F*** You Up: How to Survive Family Life by clinical psychologist Oliver James.
This may be hard to believe, but acne is not the real problem. What you really need to look at is your mental maps and subconscious programming. Once you get clear inside of your mind it’s much easier to get clear on the outside also.
How to get rid of negative subconscious programs
Hopefully by now you understand how much your mental maps shape your life. So let’s look at how to get rid of wrong maps that may prevent you from getting clear.
By far the most difficult part is to become aware of your maps. Most of the time people aren’t really aware of what they think; much less that they can do something about the garbage that flows through their minds.
As Dr. Lipton mentioned in the interview if you just stop and listen to your thoughts you’d be shocked at what you ‘hear’. Those thoughts reveal what you really think of yourself.
Unfortunately most people aren’t conscious enough to pay attention to their thoughts. Instead thoughts just flood over them and they find themselves getting angry, depressed or feeling bad.
Meditation is a good way to become more conscious of your thoughts, that’s why Clear for Life now comes with easy to use meditation tracks. Meditation is not the only way and in Clear for Life I describe a systematic way to identify mental ghosts and other dysfunctional subconscious programs.
When you become aware of your thoughts you can stop and decide that such thoughts don’t serve you. Then you can use various techniques to clear the negative beliefs and emotions. This is actually very simple and quick, but the trick is in identifying the real issues.
Two techniques I frequently use are Emotional Freedom Technique, or EFT, and Sedona Method.
I recommend you start playing with EFT; simply because it’s so easy to use, effective and free to learn. Simply go to the EFT website and download the Free EFT Manual: Introduction to EFT.
The free manual teaches you more about EFT and how to use it. You’ll get everything you need to know about EFT from the free manual. Also please read the free tutorials on the EFT website, especially the ones that talk about finding the core issues and importance of being specific. Your success with EFT (and other similar methods) comes down to nailing the core issues and beliefs.
What happens when you get rid of negative subconscious programs? Remember that your external life reflects your mental maps and subconscious programs. When you change them you change what’s reflected back in the mirror of your life.
How exactly that happens depends how your maps create your life. You may find old issues that used to bother you have no effect anymore; so you become happier and more peaceful. Perhaps your eyes open up to new information that can help you to get clear. When you change your subconscious program you also change your thoughts and actions. And with new thoughts and actions come new results.
No matter what happens it’s an interesting and rewarding journey and one that I invite you to start on.
If you have any questions about this, feel free to post them as comments below.
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Clear for Life - The lifestyle for health, happiness and clear skin
August 21st, 2009 at 3:26 pm
EFT is certainly wonderful.
August 21st, 2009 at 11:36 pm
I love reading your articles, they are truly amazing. Please keep up the good work!
August 22nd, 2009 at 4:42 am
Cesar, glad that you like them.
Kurt, indeed. It’s amazing how something so simple could be so effective.
August 23rd, 2009 at 5:33 pm
Seppo, this all does make sense and i always thought the same way about diet that acne is formed from what you are putting into your body. I am on a dairy/gluten free diet now and notice a big improvement. I am going to invest in a blender for green smoothies as well. I am struggling though on gaining weight, i can maintain it but i still need to gain weight. My question is, In your book “Clear for Life” will the things you mention in it be GF/dairy free and will it help me gain weight healthly?
August 23rd, 2009 at 9:50 pm
Seppo is the best when it come to advise about acne. Everything he says I found to be true. Keep reading his email …the answer to your problem is in there somewhere.
August 24th, 2009 at 8:21 am
James,
CFL doesn’t put you on a specific diet. Instead I help you to build a diet that fits your situation. I explain the pros and cons of different food groups and do advice to avoid dairy and gluten as much as possible. But not all acne victims have to strictly avoid gluten and dairy so it’s up to the individual to make that decision.
In the long run your weight comes down to how much you eat and exercise. Eating healthy doesn’t as such make it anymore difficult to gain weight.
Though one thing often happens. Your body uses fat and water to dilute and store toxins. Eating healthy give your body to dump the toxins and release the fat and water. Some of this fat and water is packed in and around muscle, making the muscles look bigger. Once this empty padding is gone it may look like your muscles are smaller, but your muscles are the same size and you haven’t lost any strength. In fact it’s likely you are stronger and perform better athletically once the fat surrounding the muscles is gone.
If you want to gain weight in a healthy way you have to gain muscle. Gaining fat is hardly ever healthy. There’s nothing mysterious about gaining muscle. Eat sufficient calories and hit the gym or do bodyweight exercises.
August 24th, 2009 at 10:37 pm
Well i just bought your book as of yesterday and am still reading it, and it is all very interesting. My diet has been to the T as far as gluten/dairy free and not eating any processed foods for about 3 weeks now and i have a nodule now forming on my chin as well as another whitehead. I really dont get acne anywhere else besides my chin and lower lip area over and over. I was always told this was food allergies if it occurs in same areas. Hopefully by reading clear for life it will help cure this reoccuring problem i have had in this area for over a year finally.
August 25th, 2009 at 9:49 am
James,
OK, so you’ve managed to avoid the most aggravating foods. That’s a good start. The next important step would be to make sure you’ll meet your nutritional needs. That’s where greens and other nutrients packed foods come it.
I’ve heard talk that acne around the mouth would be related to hormonal imbalance. Honestly speaking can’t say which is true - if either. And it doesn’t even matter that much because it still comes down to eating and living a healthy life.
If your acne is due to hormonal imbalance (mainly testosterone and estrogen) then it could take some month to clear out. Anyway try to be patient and not to worry too much over what your skin looks like over the next few months. In the long run it’ll be fine.
August 28th, 2009 at 1:08 pm
“Let’s say you believe you are a miserable loser and nobody likes you because of acne…. Say you are out and some stranger looks at you a bit longer than is normal. You just know they are looking at your acne and thinking how horrible it is. Next you feel like a miserable loser and the rest of the day is ruined.”
I think the same way, how much I tried I still couldnt oevrcome from this thinking pattern. However I like to raise a question like this how if a stranger or a friend or even a family member SAYS “how horrible your acne are !” an d ask “Dont you take any medicines etc…” in this type of a situation how can you calm yourself? You cannot prevent youself becoming frustrated and feel like to suicide. My situation such that I really cannot look directly at someone and talk, I want to hide my face. I feel really miserable and suffer alone…..
August 28th, 2009 at 4:08 pm
Melissa,
Please understand that you can’t overcome this kind of thinking pattern by trying harder. It’s not a matter of resisting it or trying to control your mind. It’s a matter of clearing out the beliefs and painful memories that cause you to subconsciously focus on the negative. EFT is one good tool for doing just that. So if you haven’t succeeded it doesn’t mean that you couldn’t do it. It just means that you haven’t found the right tools for the job.
I understand that it may be a bit more difficult to keep your calm when someone says something outright on your face. But it’s really the same case. You still control how you respond to such comments and the meaning you place on them. You could just think that each person is entitled to their own opinion and if they have an issue with my skin then it’s their problem.
What happens inside of your head is always under your control - though I admit it doesn’t feel like it if you haven’t meditated or observed what you do with your mind. For most people their minds run on autopilot and what they focus on depends on their subconscious programming. I suspect that’s the case with you also; since you say you can’t control your mind in those situations. You can but you have to practice it before you get a good grip of your mind.
March 24th, 2010 at 10:52 pm
thanks for this post! it opens eyes
after this whole mind-power-informations i’m afraid i am believing that our mind have the greatest power in every aspects in our life, that even food that we eat or medicine we take or not, it’s not important. The most important is our thinking.