by Marcia on April 5, 2009
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On a personal level, I’ve been interested in how the brain works for many years. Ever since high school, I’ve been reading books and articles about the brain and mind. Although I won’t tell you exactly how many years that’s been, I will admit that it’s quite a few. During my training to become a certified Silva Method instructor, one of the areas we studied was how various brainwave states have a powerful impact on our everyday lives.
Your brainwave patterns have a huge influence on your creativity, mood, state of consciousness, intuition and psychic abilities. It’s a well-documented fact that during the cold war our government trained people in remote viewing with the objective of locating Russian missile silos. The way they did this was to teach people to enter an altered state of 
consciousness by slowing down their brainwave patterns to an alpha or theta level of awareness. This altered state increased their psychic awareness and they were able to describe the locations of missile silos with a surprising degree of accuracy.
Learning to use your psychic ability is a little like learning to play the piano. Each of us has the ability to do it, but some of us are born with a natural inclination for it and will therefore learn quicker and probably be better at it. The rest of us can still learn to play the piano but we’ll have to practice more and it might take us longer.
One method of learning to tap into your subconscious mind and have easier access to your creativity, intuition and insight is to slow down your brainwaves to enter an alpha brainwave state. For most of us, merely shutting your eyes to reduce the stimulation to your brain will auomatically increase alpha waves. Alpha is present during visualization and daydreaming. It is also associated with relaxation and is the bridge between the conscious and subconscious mind. When alpha is missing, the link to the subconscious mind is broken. Alpha is the predominate brainwave state we are in just before we fall asleep each night and just after we wake up in the morning.
You might be wondering why I’m going on about the alpha brainwave state and what it has to do with becoming a successful internet marketer. Well, research shows that during alpha, our subconscious mind is more open to suggestions from our conscious mind. What this means is that as you are lying in bed drifting off to sleep you are able to program your subconscious mind with positive self-talk. Here are some things you might want to say to yourself.
- I am a successful and prosperous internet marketer
- I easily attract joint venture partners
- I wake up each morning happy and anxious to work on my business
- I have a large and responsive email list
- New marketing ideas come to me daily
- I am focused on completing money-generating tasks
- I use my time wisely
- I provide value and excellent service to my customers
- I am organized and efficient
Repeating the above statements to yourself right before going to sleep and immedicately upon waking up will help anchor them in your subconscious and will make them become true for you.
You can also use the alpha state to tap into your creativity. Thomas Edison, who was one of the most prolific inventors ever, was aware of the increased creativity of alpha. He used to take frequent naps. In fact, one of his assistants remarked that he didn’t know how Edison ever accomplished anything because he was always napping. What Edison would do, however, is take a nap with several ball bearings in his clenched hand. Underneath his hand he placed a metal pan. As he drifted off to sleep his hand would relax and the ball bearings would drop onto the metal pan, waking him up. It was during this process of suddenly waking up from this deeply relaxed state that he frequently had his best ideas. You can use ths same technique or even a variation of it. Always keep a pen and notebook beside your bed. When an idea comes to you just before you go to sleep be sure to write it down. If you don’t, you may not remember it in the morning.
by Marcia on March 29, 2009
Your success as an internet marketer will depend, to a large extent, on your belief system. What we believe to be true about ourselves and our world has a powerful impact on what we are experiencing in our lives today. A few years ago, I attended a seminar about self-limiting beliefs. At one point, the presenter said “Tell me what your life is like and I’ll tell you what your core beliefs are; or, tell me what your core beliefs are, and I’ll tell you what your life is like”. That’s a powerful and true statement about how our beliefs affect our everyday lives.
We get many of our core beliefs from our parents. There is both a psychological and a physiological reason for this. As infants we needed to depend on our parents for survival. With that dependence comes strong psychological ties. So we have a natural tendency to believe what our parents say. Also, and probably more significant, is how our brains function. Our brains pulse per second sending out electrical waves similar to the way our hearts beat per minute sending out blood to our bodies. The rate at which our brain pulses is the “frequency” and is measured in Hz. Neuroscientists have identified five general frequency ranges:
Brainwave states
- Gamma-Frequencies of 40 Hz or higher-The gamma frequency is the fastest brainwave state. Research shows this to be the premominate brainwave state when we are in a high level of mental processing. We might even have a “sudden insight”.
- Beta-Frequencies of 12-40 Hz- This is the predominate state where we spend much of our waking hours. During this state, we might be involved with things like conversation, playing sports, working on a project, etc.
- Alpha-Frequencies of 7-12 Hz-The alpha brainwave state is associated with mental relaxation. This is the state associated with meditation, visualization and creativity. It is also a gateway to the subconscious mind
- Theta- Frequencies of 4-7 Hz-The theta state provides an even deeper state of relaxation. This is the predominate state a Buddhist monk might be in while meditating or the state we are in during REM sleep. It is a another gateway to the subconscious mind and is associated with self-healing.
- Delta- Frequencies of .5-4 Hz-The delta frequency is the slowest state and is associated with deep, dreamless sleep.
What’s notable about these brainwave states is that scientists have discovered that they roughly correlate to our age until we reach the beta state which is our “normal” waking state. Newborn infants spend a lot of time in the delta state. That’s why they sleep so much and so deeply. As we grow we progress through the brainwaves states, young children spend much of the time in the alpha and theta states until about the age of 12. Because these states give easier access to the subconscious mind what we’re told as young children is very likely to get deeply rooted in our subconscious mind where we may not even be aware of those beliefs.
This is great if your parents have been mostly positive and encouraging, but can be devastating if they were more inclined to be negative and belittling. If you grew up with parents who often said things like “You’ll never amount to anything”, “Money doesn’t grow on trees”, “You have to work hard for your money” “Life isn’t a bowl of cherries”, “Do you think I’m made of money?” “Life’s a bitch and then you die”, you probably have those attitudes about life and money buried deep in your subconscious mind. If this is the case, what’s likely to happen when you set a goal is that your subsconscious mind will usually overpower you conscious mind and you’ll be doing things to sabotage your success.
If you’re working on building an internet business and find yourself often thinking thoughts like: “I’m not smart enough”, “I don’t have enough experience”, “I’m not an expert in my niche”, “I don’t have enough time”, “My list isn’t big enough”, “I can’t get joint ventures”, I’m not Frank Kern or Mike Filsaime or John Reese or Jeff Walker, STOP! These are self-limiting beliefs and you need to change them, NOW. None of these successful internet marketers got to where they are by being filled with self-doubt. Heck, Frank Kern was even homeless at one point, Joe Vitale was homeless and had to steal to eat. Gary Halbert, one of the great copywriters was in prison, Steven Pierce was bankrupt.
If they can build a lucrative internet business so can you. You’d get there a lot faster if you worked on clearing yourself of subconscious limiting beliefs and changed your negative self-talk to positive self-talk.