The Secret of Self-Transformation: How to Change Our Behavior One Step at a Time.

Have you ever tried to change a behavior or habit, only to find yourself disappointed and dissatisfied when you weren’t successful?

Do not worry, you are not alone—I was one of you; I had undisciplined eating habits. Fortunately, I was able to change these habits when I learned the secrets to making positive change.

I want to share these secrets with you, so you can apply these transformation techniques to some of the habits you might want to change, such as smoking, dieting, even negative thought patterns and any other undesirable behaviors.

Most of the time, changing a habit (self-transformation) is not a quick fix. It requires reprogramming of the mind, which takes place at the subconscious part of the mind.  Therefore, it is important to understand the function and process of the mind, especially the subconscious mind.

Human mind has three parts: conscious mind, subconscious mind and Super Conscious mind.

The conscious mind is responsible for logic, reasoning and all the voluntary action with awareness—such as reading, listening, writing, speaking, etc.

Anything we learn for the first time is also an action of the conscious mind.

The information we receive from reading, listening and learning will be recorded in our subconscious mind, the second part of the mind.

Therefore, we must be very careful about our actions, which will program our subconscious mind and also determine our attitude and the quality of our life. It is like a chain reaction or domino effect. If we always think negative things will happen, this will cloud our judgment, and everything that happens will seem negative. People get into the habit of thinking, “Why does this always happen to me? Why do I deserve this?” However, it is the way our conscious mind perceives the situation that creates the negativity, and it keeps us in a cycle of negative thinking and missed opportunities.

Conscious mind is the gateway to subconscious mind.

The subconscious mind is the mind of the imagination. It is a storehouse of our learned behavior, beliefs, feelings and memories.

It is like a disc with our old data/information—sanskaras. It is responsible for all of our involuntary actions, heartbeat, breathing rate, etc.

Based upon the information saved by previous actions, we automatically respond and do things without thinking about them (auto responses).

For example, when we first learned to drive a car, we had to consciously think where to put each foot and how to use each new control. As we develop our driving skills our subconscious mind takes over and we become so proficient that we can drive, navigate, listen to music and also talk on the phone at the same time!

The language of the subconscious mind is feelings (pain, pleasure, hot, cold), emotions (anger, frustration, happiness, sorrow) and images.

Our subconscious mind cannot distinguish between thoughts that are created by physical events or imaginary events. It doesn’t have the power to reason and analyze. It interprets our thoughts literally.

Subconscious mind is the gateway to Super Conscious mind.

Superconscious mind is the third part of the mind.

It is the spiritual part of the mind. It is also called Supreme Power/Energy, God, Almighty, Higher Mind, Higher Self, Higher Intelligence, Universal Intelligence, Universal Mind, Universal Consciousness, Supreme Consciousness, Brahman and more… The scientific community refers to it as “The Unified Field” or “Infinite Field of potential within.”

It does not matter what label it is given; what really matters is that this is the only force that both science and spirituality have acknowledged as the mastermind for all the creations in the universe.

It holds the power to create any conceivable outcome.

It has no boundaries or limitations in its power to create, from the infinitely large to the infinitely small, from the microscopic to the greatest of the universe. It is described following way:

• It consists of all things in the past, present and future.
• It is omniscient and omnipresent.
• It encompasses all things, both the seen as well as the unseen.
• From the emotional perspective, the super conscious mind contains all feeing and emotion such as love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control as well as fear, sadness, turmoil, anger, greed and resentment. It consists of all individual consciousness.

Both parts of the mind, conscious and subconscious work together to establish the connection with the super-conscious mind, which is the ultimate source of unlimited power.

When conscious and subconscious mind have any conflict, then the super-conscious mind resolves the conflict, brings the harmony and takes care of all good things in our life that we aim for.

Once we understand the function of the subconscious mind, we can also understand why we behave differently. We cannot change because we are stuck in old ways, and our subconscious mind doesn’t know how to change.

Process of change:

The process requires all the three parts of the mind. Therefore,

• Take action with awareness and conscious efforts. This is the function of conscious mind.

• Take action at subconscious mind with positive feelings: The change has to take place at the subconscious level with respect to one’s behavior or habits, unwanted emotions or feelings. It can be changed only through subconscious programming, through meditation, sending auto-suggestions and creative visualization to the subconscious mind. This must be done in a very relaxed state of mind.

Seven steps to make a change:

1. Know the change you want to make or habit you want to change (ask yourself what behavior, emotions and feelings I want to change or what I wish to do differently-Make a list). Make the commitment to change. For example, I became aware of my unhealthy eating habits and made the conscious decision to change them.

2. Put conscious efforts to change and support it with action and practice it during the day. Replace a negative activity or thought with a positive one. This will also change your “auto-response.” When I decided to change my eating habits, I made a conscious effort to change by creating a meal schedule and list of the foods that I could eat each day.

3. Relax your body (Yoga, Pranayama-Breathing exercises).

4. Relax your mind and Meditate. Meditate when you don’t know what else to do. I used meditation techniques when I had a craving for certain foods.

5. Give messages or affirmations to your subconscious mind for the change you want to make within yourself. Affirmations must be in positive terms rather than negative. For example: I will eat healthy food vs. I will not eat junk food; I will get up early in the morning vs. I will not sleep late; I will do yoga and meditation every morning, etc.

6. Pray to Supreme Power and thank Him for His guidance and help, and let go…

7. Self-introspection, self-evaluation and practice

Continue to practice until you have accomplished the change you want to make (A 30 days daily spiritual planner to help you with this process and keep you on track is available to download.

Performing actions with awareness at a conscious level will bring some slow and temporary change, however, combined with relaxation, meditation, affirmation (positive and motivational messages), and prayers will bring faster and everlasting change.

Here both parts of the mind, conscious and subconscious are the part of the body (science-matter) and Super-Consciousness is Supreme Energy (Spiritual Mind).

Change starts at Conscious mind→ Subconscious mind → Super-Conscious mind (Spiritual mind)

Finally, have patience because transformation of habit is not a quick fix but a slow, steady and gradual process.

As Lord Krishna says in the Bhagavad Gita,

“One attains peace and tranquility of mind little by little through practice.”

 

Satya Kalra is a self- empowerment, self-transformational and happiness coach, spiritual guide, international speaker and bestseller author. She has published six spiritual books such as My Questions and God’s Answers-Bhagavad Gita, 108 Mantra to Awaken Your Soul and four of Path to Anandam book series. Following a divine call, Satya left the helm as a CEO in the biotech industry after serving for 35 years and founded a Non-Profit organization-Path to Anandam. She is popularly known for Anandam Lifestyle (Blissful Living). Follow Satya on Twitter and Facebook.

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• Assistant Ed: Terri Tremblett
• Ed: Brianna Bemel