“The New Psycho-Cybernetics” (personal notes)

Those are my personal notes on the book “The New Psycho-Cybernetics” by Maxwell Maltz and Dan S. Kennedy (insert Amazon affiliate link here)

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Self-image

• We all have an image about ourselves (our “self-image”).
  • The image we have about ourselves has been made up relatively arbitrarily, through experiences, upbringing and environment.
    • In particular, repetition, intense experiences and authority figures create your self-image.
  • It is however completely malleable and can be delibetately altered or its components removed, using the same mechanisms that brought them about in the first place.
    • You can replace one truth with another truth. Anything that you believe, is true.
    • If you change your self-image, your behaviour will naturally change to conform with it.
    • Experiences can reinforce your self-image, in a positive or a negative way, in a virtuous or vicious cycle.
    • Your physical appearance affects your self-image and how you view yourself.
    • Your relationship to your self-image also impacts how confident you feel.
  • Your self-image is what you hold to be true about yourself; yet it has no truth value by itself. In other words, your self-image is a collection of arbitrary statements that you have declared to be true, about yourself. We typically never question our self-image.
    • Our attitudes, emotions, and beliefs tend to become habitual.
  • Yet, all of our behaviour results from it — as well as our feelings and abilities. Our self-image is at once arbitrary and extremely consequential.
    • Our internal controlling mechanisms make sure that the way we behave or the results we reach be always consistent with our self-image.
      • “I can’t” beliefs are most often self-imposed limits, not actual limits.
    • “We “act like” the person we conceive ourselves to be. We act and perform, always, in accordance with what we believe to be true about ourselves and the environment.
    • Hypnosis is a prime example: as we change what we believe about ourselves or our environment, our behaviour changes radically. We behave in conformity with what we are led to believe, even when we consciously know that it does not make sense.
      • Through thinking differently, we also behave differently — and the results are also drastically different.
      • Hypnosis is our default state of being: “People are hypnotized by their own self-image.” “Clients visit me hoping that I will put them in a trance and fix their lives. In fact many of them live in a trance and need a dose of reality.”
    • Dreams are another example of behaving without questioning your beliefs. Life is analogous to a dream, with the difference that you can program it, you can program your beliefs.
  • Our behaviour in the world derives from how we view it. The brain’s reaction to the environment is the brain’s reaction to what it says the environment is; not to the environment itself, but to the brain’s interpretation of the environment, to the brain’s “made-up” environment. The brain tells us, declares on what the environment is; then that same brain reacts to it. You decide how you view and construe your environment, what you make it to be.
    • Your expectation model of reality illustrates this perfectly. When something happens that doesn’t match what you were expecting, you are being made aware that your mental model of reality differs from the actual reality, and that you were holding false beliefs — and with this all of the mental limitations it imposes.
      • You can identify beliefs about yourself and reveal your self-image with sentences such as “I am the kind of person who…”, “who doesn’t…”
      • People can point things out to you about yourself and in doing so make you more aware of yourself. You can become aware of aspects of your self-image that way and subsequently decide to alter them.
      • Incongruous experiences let you update your beliefs and mental model of reality. Take a chance and invite such experiences; lean in.
      • Indignation, anger and crises can act as liberators from false ideas.
    • You behave based on the images you yourself have of the people, things, and events; not the things themselves. You respond to the image, not the source. There is a layer between you and the world, and this layer is what you react to. You behave as though the images you have of people are the truth themselves. Instead, relate to people with what they stand for (not your projection, but what they represent, the source they point at.) (It could be yourself.)
      • Each person has their own interface to reality. Misunderstandings and conflicts happen because people have a different interface to reality, understanding and interpreting the situation differently.
      • Your capacity for love is the love you have for yourself, if your paradigm (“the layer”) is that people point at yourself, that they are images, projections of yourself.
    • “Men are disturbed not by the things that happen, but by their opinion on the things that happen.”. Reframe and take action.
    • There is an infinitude of realities happening at the same time, and you can switch channels at any moment. When reading a book, you become immersed in the reality and paradigm that it’s conveying. Your relationship to reality then changes to become that of the book’s paradigm.
      • (Then, it’s about staying in that paradigm after reading the book.)

Negative self-image and blocks

• What keeps pulling you back does not exist in the physical world, it is purely inside your own mind (self-image).

Reprogramming, visualisation

• You don’t have to psycho-analyze yourself to fix your problems. You can modify your self-image without going through an examination of your past. Understanding the origins of your current self-image is not necessary to alter it. You can instead be result-focussed, action-focussed, proactive instead of overly introspective.
• Imagination is what lets you create goals. Have visions. Set yourself a goal, modify your self-image as necessary, and let your subconscious do the rest. You’re harnessing the same internal goal-reaching mechanism used for innate goals such as survival and procreation; except you’re using it to reach other goals you’ve decided on.
  • “Imagination sets the goal picture that our automatic mechanism works on.”
    • Think in terms of and visualise your end result; start from there, and the means will take care of themselves..
      • You do not have to micromanage your automatic success mechanism. Set your mind on a goal, adjust your self-image accordingly and your behaviour will take care of itself.
  • Imagination is an exploratory force, letting you know what is possible.
  • Imagination is a creative force, letting you define what you wish to create and call into this world.
• By rehearsing in your mind, reality will just be about re-enacting, and letting things unfold the way you have already seen them in your mind. By creating and viewing the storyline in your mind, reality will just be a re-watch, a realization, a déjà-vu.
  • Your mind is a safe space for rehearsing situations and practicing how you will want to behave, respond, act in them.
    • Your brain and nervous system cannot tell the difference between an imagined situation and real life. For all intents and purposes, visualised rehearsal is tantamount to real-life rehearsal — with the advantage of being constantly available, letting you practice however much, however often you like.
      • Hence also the effectiveness of role-play, also in professional settings. Role-playing is total practicing without the consequences.
      • Most good public speakers have done large amounts of “shadow boxing” (mental rehearsing), for example practicing giving their speech in front of tree stumps.
    • Visualisation builds memories (e.g. of success) and encodes data into your nervous system.
    • For the visualisation to be effective, it has to be as detailed and immersive as possible, ideally encompassing all senses.
  • Visualise your end goal and practice how you want to behave. Your self-image will change accordingly.
• The visualisation must be in line with your self-image; when they are in conflict, the visualisation won’t work.
• For dramatic results, you want to use concentrated imagination, just like sunrays can concentrate on a single point through a magnifying glass.
• Follow visualisation with action. Convert the try. Bring it to real life.
• Symbolic rituals are a way to communicate with your subconscious and change your beliefs. For example, writing down beliefs you want to get rid of on a piece of paper and then burning it, seeing it burn down to ashes.
• You can hypnotize yourself in the moment, imagining that you are speaking to a single person instead of an entire audience, that you are having food at your parents’ instead of a fancy luncheon, or that you are already friends with your conversation partner.
• You can pause and visualise right before an event as well. For example, just before doing an interview, clearing your mind then visualising having a great time there, the audience laughing, and everyone in the team congratulating each other for another great show at the end.
• You want to let your subconscious do its automatic job and consciously intervene only when course-correcting from time to time. You do not adjust when things are going well, you only adjust when things are headed the wrong way. (Negative feedback — the same way guided missiles work.)
• Identify the problems that you are not actively working on solving because you have assumed that they cannot be solved. Reconsider them and take action.
  • Be willing to see the truth. Be objective about the state of things, and then be willing to acknowledge it and do something about it. When we cannot see and accept the truth, we cannot fix it.
  • “Only by moving aggressively toward reality, ­which means uncovering hiden truths about yourself, ­can you truly have peace of mind.”
    • ENGAGE!
  • “All problems become smaller when you don’t dodge them, but confront them.”
    • Difficulties or challenges bring up strength when reacted to aggressively rather than passively.
    • Respond to the negative immediately with positivity, aggressiveness, constructiveness, such that the negative becomes a trigger for the positive, and eventually ends up not even coming up in the first place. (Short-circuiting.)
  • Your mistakes or shortcomings are not personal. You are not them.
• To be resentful is to deny responsibility and proactiveness. Resentment is martyrdom, an “attempt to make our own failure palatable by explaining it in terms of unfair treatment, injustice”, trying to prove this unfairness to the “court of life” and expecting the damage to be paid back if we manage to make our point. (Etymologically, to ‘resent’ is to “feel again”, to rehash.) Resentment is living in the past; it is resistance and non-acceptance of something that has happened. Instead, you want to acknowledge it, take the matter into your own hands and take action.
• “Acting out new action patterns is no more difficult than “deciding”, then following through.”
  • Untangle facts from beliefs. Then get proactive.
    • Insanity is doing the same thing but expecting different results. If it’s not yielding results, change it.
  • Make decisions, then stop worrying about them.
    • “You can always correct a poor decision, but if you do nothing, you can never get the time back.”
      • If you are standing still, you cannot correct your course, you cannot gather feedback.
      • “Uncertainty is a way of avoiding mistakes and responsibility.”
• Remember the success, not the failures. When failures happen, use them as a means to an end, learn what there is to learn from them, take action and forget them. Failures have served their purpose once you have learned from them; then they should be forgotten.
  • The brain has a memory of success patterns, and it’s just about re-initiating them, finding the entry point. The rest takes care of itself.
  • Confidence comes from experiencing success.
    • Self-confidence is “positive worrying”; already rejoicing and being excited at what’s about to happen.
• Catch yourself early on when on unproductive tracks and reprogram yourself. When you get into the habit of interrupting unhelpful patterns of thought or behaviour early on, over time your subconscious will not bother dredging them up anymore as it will know the patterns will be interrupted.
  • Don’t concentrate on the negatives when they arrive; instead, replace them with something positive, wholesome, constructive. Don’t let the house be vacant (sweeping your mind clean of a demon will let seven new ones in; instead, overcome and replace the evil with good.)
• Have a mental resting place (conjured up visually or aurally, for example with music) that you can go to, when your nervous system needs a rest or a reset. If necessary, use this reset before starting a new program.
• Having a mental realignment routine or ritual prior to a certain activity lets you show up to it with consistency and intention.
• Mental states are the soil in which thoughts and ideas grow.

Goal-striving

• Humans are a goal-striving species. “When humans are functioning as goal-strivers, they tend to feel fairly happy.”
  • When proactive, you also don’t mourn over things for an excessive time. You get back on your feet and figure out the next step instead.
• Once you’ve reached a goal, set the next goal.
• “Aggressiveness and emotional steam are very necessary in reaching a goal. We must go out after what we want in an aggressive rather than in a defensive or tentative manner. We must grapple with problems aggressively.”
  • Sublime, redirect “negative” feelings; let them serve a purpose, use them to advance and reach goals. “The answer to aggression is not to eradicate it but to understand it, and to provide proper and appropriate channels for its expression.” Channel anger, frustration and other “negative” emotions (yet having a lot of energy with them) into Light and towards something constructive. Use aggression the way it was intended to be used: to work towards some goal.
    • Aggression/frustration/anger is a natural response to not reaching a goal, to getting off course; and is a motor to correct course, to reach your goals.
    • “Anger is an important element of courage.”
• Excitement can be used in any way you choose; you can direct it and transmute it any way you choose. Excitement in itself is neutral: it’s not self-confidence, panic, fear or anything else. It’s just higher availability and a larger reserve of energy (just like anger or frustration comprise a reservoir of energy.)
• “Work remains one of the best therapies and one of the best tranquilizers for a troubled spirit.”
• Be a big potato: on your track, brushing off minor advertisities on your way, not dealing with things personally, not self-conscious. Just a big potato on its tracks. Low self-esteem makes you very susceptible to being offended and easily jealous.
  • Give yourself your own golden stars: acknowledge and appreciate your achievements, instead o showing your work (like you would to your parents) and wanting a positive reaction. Self-sufficiency.
• Consistently open up in spite of let-downs. Do not create overly thick scar tissues; practice keeping up opening up in spite of disappointments or unreliable people.
• When you set yourself goals, you are then infused with life force, which is the means for you to achieve them. Life provides you with life force and energy to the extent required by your goals. The more of Life you require, the more you get.
  • Creative people typically require more life force.

Creativity

• Every individual is unique and incomparable. Develop your own unique personality and accomplishments.
  • People are children of God: unique personalities, creative beings. See people as such.
  • Every person is a composite of strengths and weaknesses, knowledge and ignorance, experience and naiveté, accomplishment and unrealized potential.
  • “The penalty on the individual and on the society of an individual not believing in themself is catastrophic.” Help everyone realize their potential. Interact with people from that place.
    • “I believe that the essence of humans is that which animates this machine, that which inhabits the machine, directs and controls it, and uses it as a vehicle.”
  • “It is our duty to use the talents our Creator gave us.”
• Our creativity and the unique expresion of ourself can only happen when we get in touch with and nurture our real self.
  • In our life, we never fully exhaust the potential of our “Real Self”, only ever get closer to it — through our expressed self, our personality.
  • The real self, the personality, is magnetic and attractive.
• Creative performance is spontaneous and natural.
• One is not “inhibited”; rather, one has inhibited their creative mechanism. Self-consciousness of behaviour is inhibition. The opposite of immediateness.
  • If you tend to be inhibited: practicing disinhibition. “Yes, the world needs a certain amount of inhibition, but not you.” Know which precepts do not apply to you, or you will be like a hypothermic person refusing heating: “but surely, you do not want to overheat!” Deliberately ignore those precepts, make a clear point of it.
  • Make a habit of speaking more loudly (and more clearly) than usual as a way to practice expression (a better word for the converse of inhibition). This also lets you exert all of your strength and overcome blocks. Let people know when you like them. Inhibited people tend to be scared of being seen as sentimental or judged when expressing. Uninhibited people just energize through it. Get in the habit of complimenting people, of letting them know what you like. Be direct.
  • Enunciate clearly, loud, with intonation and pace.

Quotes

• “It is only fun if you make it. If someone else does it for you, it’s entertainment.”
• “More life, more vitality, the stuff that youth is made of.”