Emile Coué was a celebrated French psychologist whose lectures gained him many admires and followers in the United States. One of his important insights was this:
When your desires and imagination are in conflict, your imagination invariably gains the day. He referred to this as the law of reverse effort. Suppose you were asked to walk a narrow plank that was resting on the floor. You would do it easily, without question. But now suppose the same plank is twenty feet up, stretching between two walls. Would you walk it? Could you? Probably not. Your desire to walk the length of the plank would come into conflict with your imagination. You would imagine yourself toppling off the plank and falling a long way to the ground. You might very much want to walk across the plank, but your fear of falling would keep you from being able to do it. The more effort you put into conquering your imagination or suppressing it, the greater strength is given to the dominant idea of falling.
The thought "I will use my willpower to overcome my failure."reinforces the thought of failure. Mental efforts often leads to self defeat, creating the opposite of what is desired.
To focus on the need to exert willpower is to emphasize the condition of powerlessness. It is like deciding that you will do all you can not to think of a green hippopotamus. The decision makes the idea of a green hippo dominate the mind, and the subconscious always responds more to the dominant idea. Your subconscious will accept the stronger of two contradictory propositions.
Maybe you find yourself thinking;
- I want a healing; why can't I get it?
- I try so hard, why don't i get results?
- I must force myself to pray harder.
- I must use all the willpower I have.
You must realize where your error lies. You are trying too hard! Never try to compel the subconscious mind to accept your idea by exercising willpower. Such attempts are doomed to failure. All too often, you end getting the opposite of what you prayed for. The effortless way is better.
Have you ever had something like this happen to you? You have to take of examination of some kind. You have put in a lot of time studying and reviewing the material. You feel as if you know it well. But when you face a blank exam page, you find that your mind is even more blank. All your knowledge of the subject has suddenly deserted you. you can't recall a single relevant thought. You grit your teeth and summon all the powers of your will, but the harder you try, the farther the knowledge seem to flee.
Frustrated, you leave the examination room. The mental pressure eases. Suddenly the answers you were hunting for so desperately a few minutes ago flow tantalizingly back into your mind. You told yourself you knew the material, and sure enough, you did...... but not when you needed to. The mistake you made was to try to force yourself to remember. By the law of reversed effort, this led not to success, but to failure. What you got was the opposite of what you asked or prayed for.........................❣❣❣❣
You must be logged in to post a comment.