From Wimpy to Elite: Techniques for Strengthening Your Mind Muscle

The happiest people in the world, the most successful people in the world, the most genius people, and the wealthiest people all share at least this one common trait... and it is possible for anyone to develop if it isn't already naturally a part of your makeup ... in today's blog article.

The purpose of this article, is not to discuss anything related to your physical prowess, strength or the lack thereof as is evident in the reference to wimpiness in the title! Rather, we are about to explore a muscle that is likely the most under-utilized muscle in our entire system and possibly the most important to your functioning at a high level… the muscle of your mind.

You see your mental strength, mental endurance, and mental flexibility are what will make the difference between you being able to make it through a boring movie to being present and collision-free when driving; from being clear minded, free of rampant emotions, to being able to visualize and summon your desires by working with the law of attraction; from ‘losing it’ with a close friend or family member and being able to handle any major world cataclysm that may occur from a state of peace.

If there is one thing that most people do not do and should, that would be to increase their mental strength, mental flexibility, and mental endurance!

In this article we are going to explore exactly how to do this with some exercises you can practice, as well as share with your friends, family and other loved ones.

Consider me your Mental Coach for the duration of this article!

What most people fail to recognize is that nearly all sports are much more mental than they are physical! In tennis, if you hit a bad shot, that one shot can stay with you until you finally lose the match because you were so upset about it. And the same goes for every sport!

If you are not present when lifting a weight in competition or if an Olympian is not present when speed skating they won’t even come close to placing and in many cases injuries ensue!

If you are exercising and not present mentally, it is easy to pull a muscle, or experiencing something worse!

I am sure you would agree that strengthening the mind is something that should be taught from grade 1 and continued on for life and without question, the greatest geniuses and masters of our time are those who are masters of their minds.

Those masters of the mind are either very strong mentally in endurance and can therefore outlast others (such as neurosurgeons who need to be able to maintain focus for long periods of time), or they are mentally flexible, such as scientists and artists who can think outside of the box and come up with cures or masterpieces.

Lastly, they may be simply very strong mentally in that they can process many pieces of information at once, or, one piece of information that requires a deeper level of understanding and awareness, such as lawyers who have come to learn legal jargon, and philosophers who have developed their depth of understanding into the complexities of the foundation of existence itself.

The truth is, it is absolutely possible for anyone to develop mental strength, endurance, and flexibility. Below you will find a few techniques that I have come across that you can practice to turn your mind into a well sculpted thinking and creative machine that you can use at will.

1. Taught to me by my mentor and teach Sue Maes-Thyret:

Grab three strings of yarn. At one end tie them together to a door knob. Next, start braiding them. This is not the difficult part. The next step is as you are braiding them notice if your mind wanders from the act of braiding. Whenever your mind strays from the act you must untie the strings and start over. Give this a go and share your results below at the end of the blog.

2. Sue gave a variation on the above for which you don’t need any yarn or tools. Simply count out loud and when you notice your mind wandering, start over. You will likely be surprised at how far you can get… or rather at how far you don’t get!

3. For flexibility, and this is one of the most powerful techniques that I know for manifesting what you desire… choose an area of life you are experiencing a challenge in and take 3 minutes to come up with benefits for that challenge - saying them out loud.

Here is how it might sound: The challenge may be that you might not have the amount of money you want. A benefit of not having enough money is that it allows you to become creative with creating money. It allows you to use our points that you have accumulated through miles. It allows you to put less focus on material objects and the collection of material objects and instead to focus on other non-material items that do matter.

The key with this exercise is to do it for 3 minutes at a time. During that time, as you do, you will be stretching your mind creatively and therefore increasing your ability to think outside of the box of the mind.

4. Meditate. A strong mind does not just mean being able to think A LOT! It also means being able to turn it off at will when you want it to be off or when you don’t need it. The best mental exercise for this, bar none, is meditation. This is different from thinking creatively, or being able to focus for long periods of time. This actually involves letting go of the mind so that it is in a state of rest and ready for when you do need it.

The most effective form of meditation that I teach involves lying or sitting down on a comfortable bed, chair, or on the floor. You then set your timer/watch/iphone for 15 a minute countdown, then close your eyes, and finally simply allow your mind to do whatever it is doing. If it is silent, great. If it is wandering, great. If it is thinking, that is fine. Allow it to do whatever it is doing.

After practicing this for a period of time, you may notice something wonderful, that your mind may actually be relaxing more and more each time you do it; perhaps your mind becomes silent for a shor time or possible for long periods of time.

5. Keep these keys in mind:

a. Just like exercise, don’t overdo it! Do not do these exercises to the point of exhaustion. Instead do them until you have reached no more than about 95% of your capacity!

b. Do not do anything else while you are practicing these techniques. For example, driving and trying to count with your focus on the numbers is NOT a wise idea!

c. If you cannot last for 3 minutes, work your way up to 3 minutes over time, and, feel free to switch up the topic each day!

d. Consistency is key. It will be far easier to make this a habit than doing it on day 1, skipping a few days, and then having to restart the process. Like a train, more energy is typically needed to get it going than to keep it going!

e. Switch up the exercise and create a routine. Day 1. could be counting aloud. Day 2. could be braiding. Day 3. could be the benefits exercise.

f. Take breaks! It is better to do these exercises with breaks than to do them to the point of exhaustion.

g. You want to be able to handle two types of states of mind… a heavy mind and a no mind state. The no mind state involves 1 set of practicing meditation for 15 minutes every day. The heavy mind involves high repetitions with a lot of heavy emotional weight. This way ideally you will be able to handle both high mental weight along with no weight resulting in a lean mind that is at peace.

You now have some exercises to practice firming up, strengthening, toning, and beefing up your mind muscle!

Now get to it!

Your Mind Coach,
Joshua

What Are Dreams?

A dream is one of the most fascinating, bizarre, frightful, whimsical, and wondrous experiences that a human can have.

Likely the most common question that I hear in the work that I do is, “What are dreams?”

Although dreams themselves are often quite complex and appear to go completely outside of what we deem as real and normal, dreams are actually quite simple to explain.

Dreams are typically one or a combination of the following four possibilities:

1. An Astral Experience

When we fall asleep a layer of our consciousness essentially leaves our bodies and travels in what is called the Astral state. Akin to our bodies having energy fields emanating from them, all things have energy fields.  

This means, when your sleeping, a layer of your consciousness leaves your body, moves around, travels, meets with other beings, and essentially has an adventure of its own – EVERY NIGHT! – whether you recall it or not. 

In some instances, people remember walking through their own house or seeing themselves sleeping, travelling through walls and as outlandish as this may sound even to other worlds. Believe it or not, this is something that occurs for everyone AND if you wish to, you could actually train yourself to do this consciously.  

Let’s say, for example, that tonight you would like to travel to Peru when you come out of your body. If you have mastered the art of falling asleep, but staying awake (also called Astral Travel), then you could do exactly that.  

I remember years ago, when I had first found an on-line course for learning Astral Travel, the first night as I was falling asleep, I was able to stay conscious even though I was falling asleep.  

As I did that, I recall rolling out of my body and then seeing my own body sleeping. It was a very bizarre experience, one that I have found many of the enlightened masters and teachers from around the planet have also experienced. 

While I was awake, yet sleeping, I was curious and had the thought of whether I could fly. Within what felt like an instant I began to rise off the floor and my head literally went through the ceiling and I could see between the floors.  

If that last sentence didn’t cause you to close out this page and unsubscribe from this e-zine, then I am glad you are still with me. 

I realize this may sound out of this world – IT IS! You can actually find thousands of websites and books that explain it and if you go to countries where their culture’s histories dates back thousands of years you will find that they all know about this. It is common place in ancient lands and for native indigenous tribes. 

Everything that exists in our physical reality also exists on the Astral plane. There are, however, other beings, objects, and energies that also exist in the Astral plane that do not exist on our waking conscious plain. Spirits who are deceased amongst other interesting and unusual elements exist in the Astral realm and are available for us to connect with if needed.  

This means, that some mornings, when you awake and recall dreaming about flying through the air, or travelling to another place, or meeting with a deceased love one, it is possible that you were simply slightly awake while on the Astral plane and as such really communicating and interacting with it/him/her.

2. Your subconscious working through a challenge, resistance, blockage, or issue.

While sleeping, because your mind is in a greater state of peace and rest than when you are awake, your mind is more open, less critical, and therefore more able to work out and sort out problems and issues that you have had either that day, that month, that year, or even from early on in this lifetime.  

These types of dreams are the mind’s way of releasing and can take the form of images, objects, places, thoughts and sensations which can manifest as what we call dreams. In some cases, the mind will create virtual worlds that allow it to release and problem solve. In the morning, upon awaking, you may remember lessons learned, quotes, images, special experiences that can actually help you during the day. 

In high school, I remember a close friend’s father who was an engineer and when he was challenged by an equation in the daytime, he would sleep on it and while sleeping, by morning, the solution would pop up! 

References to this type of dream can be found through the work of well known psychologists Dr. Sigmund Freud and Dr. Carl Jung and the advent of Dream Interpretation and Dream Analysis beginning in the 1800s. 

In today’s world, we find virtual dictionaries attempting to define what a butterfly or water might represent in a dream. As such it can actually be useful to keep a log of your dreams and begin to create your own Dictionary for dreams.

3. Past life memories.

One of the more mysterious of possibilities for dreams includes the likelihood of past life memories. Although most people do not recall past lives and some religions do not believe that past lives exist, there is a wealth of knowledge around the planet that past lives are a reality of sorts.  

None-the-less, this is becoming more common and some objective research has been done to corroborate the reality of past lives and the possibility that when dreaming, we might be recalling one.

4. Prophetic visions of the future.

One of the most overwhelming of all the possibilities is that dreams sometimes are visions of the future. If you have ever had a dream about an event or experience and then it occurred, this shows you that it is possible to forecast our future, or, in some way create what we saw or experienced in our dreaming state. 

From what I have heard from many is that typically these types of dreams are not usually optimistic and it is possible that the dreams are serving as a tool to help one to come to peace with whatever was seen or felt in the vision.

Over the many years of exploring consciousness and dreams, I have come to understand there is strong reasoning to why we typically only remember the types of dreams represented by option #2. This is because most people are not quite ready to handle or remember who they have been in previously lives, nor are we prepared to foresee what is to come either good or not. 

The one thing I do suggest is to use the dream, no matter which possibility it is, to explore and release our feelings about what we saw and experienced. 

The more inner work, one does, the more dreams tend to open up and we tend to recall more. Because of the accessing of more inner power, by doing the inner work and self exploration, we become stronger and become more able to handle all that dreams have to offer. 

Although this means we may see things that are unpleasant, it also means we may experience and see wondrous richness and can be truly touched in profound ways. 

Sweet dreams…

Everything I Ever Needed to Learn I Learned from Superhero Comic Book Movies

Superhero and comic book movies these days, are not typically for the faint of heart… However, superhero abilities, at least that we see in the world of fiction, are truly inspirational!

Characters such as Superman, Batman, The Green Lantern, Wonder Woman, Iron Man (Tony Stark), Thor, The Flash, the Hulk, Spiderman, Elektra, and the many others you have likely heard of or seen are causing us to reconsider what is possible.

Although highly unlikely and improbable, falling into a vat of toxic waste and developing super human powers to fly, be invincible, hear other people’s thoughts, and move metal through telekinesis, would be a dream come true!

For now, none-the-less, these movies inspire us to move beyond our mental limits and dream about possibility.

Of course, looks don’t hurt! We more easily remember how the characters looked in their uniform than recall who wrote the script! Who wouldn’t when remembering Halle Barry’s Cat Woman character in black leather or Chris Evans in his greatest buff form in the more recent Captain American.

 

When you think of the original Superman movies with Christopher Reeves from the 1970s, we don’t even think about Christopher Reeves himself, nor do most people know who created the character or the writers of the script that he spoke from.

We simply remember Christopher Reeves running through the street opening his shirt, where we saw the Superman symbol and felt exhilaration, knowing something truly remarkable was about to occur.

Most of us have no idea who created the scripts and lines that serve as the backbone for the incredible dialogue and inspiration that comes from our favourite characters.

To an even greater degree, the assumption is that if it is a fictional comic book or superhero movie, it will be all special effects and no substance.

 

The truth of the matter is that most superhero and comic book films contain incredible wisdom developed by the writers of the script and then delivered by the actors who play the characters. And the inspiration that comes can truly affect our lives in significant and positive ways.

 

Below you will find the top 5 truly inspirational messages society could learn from the many superhero blockbusters and writers who channelled the lines that captured our attention.

 

As you move along, see if can guess where they come from… the answers will follow at the end.

 

Top 5:

1. Likely the most well known quote from all of the superhero movies:

 

“With great power, comes great responsibility.”

The teaching:

It is not so important or significant that you have power, but rather what you do with it that matters. And we can choose to use that power to either help OR hurt people.

 

If the individual who said this were still alive today, what would he say about the state of world affairs? What would he say to the world leaders of our today? What would he say to the high school presidents, to the strong and to the weak?

 

If you saw this movie, you likely felt the compassion, wisdom and care that this person had and how that can inspire us to strive for more to really help those who need our help and most importantly to use our inner power wisely, without ego and instead from an inner calling for the greater good of all.

 
(Regardless of how cheesy any of this may sound, that is also another subtler lesson that these movies offer… be cheesy and corny sometimes!)

2. One of the more well known quotes from a comic book movie:

 

“Why do we fall? So we can learn to pick ourselves up.”

The teaching:

This is one of the most profound quotes I have heard from a comic book movie.

 
What does this say? Falling is a natural part of life. We fall, so that we can practice rising again.
 

As we become masters of falling or failing in life, and then getting right back up, we begin to develop belief in ourselves and realize that No thing can ever keep us down, that we can move through whatever challenges and obstacles present themselves in life, that we CAN pick ourselves right back up.

 

The contrary side of this is when we fall and then simply stay down sad and depressed that life isn’t how we want it to be and we essentially exist in an abyss of low energy miserable and feeling sorry for ourselves, others, and for the rest of the planet.

 
This lesson teaches us not to just stay sitting in the misery – Instead, pick ourselves up, dust ourselves off, let go and move onward!
 

3. If you are particularly visual or a feeling person, the following quote is especially significant for you:

  

“Sometimes you have to run before you walk.”

The teaching:

Many people who tend to be very visual also like to see things perfectly and as perfect. We want pictures straight on a wall, our rooms or offices perfectly decorated, perfectly conditioned, perfectly organized, and especially before we allow anyone to see whatever it is that we want perfect.

If you have ever been hesitant in people seeing you without makeup, hesitant to begin a business idea or put up a website because your inner perfectionist wanted it to be perfect first, then this quote is a quote for you start living by.

 

This superhero serves to remind us that sometimes we need to just dive in, throw caution into the wind, express ourselves as best we can, even if we haven’t come up with the perfect method or perfect words, even if that thing is only half completed. Sometimes, we need to run before we think we have perfected walking!

 

4. We all have emotion. If you are human or expressing humanness, then there is a 99.99% probability that you have emotion that you both suppress and express.

 
It is also likely that at some point you have felt what this character felt…
 

“Even now I can feel it, buried somewhere deep inside, watching me, waiting... But you know what scares me the most? When I can't fight it anymore, when it takes over, when I totally lose control... I like it.”

The teaching:

Dumdumdum… can you hear the ominous music… This movie helps us to see the dormant possibility that is waiting inside of us if we hold back our frustration and anger instead of release it or vent it out safely.

 
Frustration not expressed, becomes anger. Anger not expressed becomes rage. Rage is what becomes uncontrollable and either eats us up inside or causes us to do harm to ourselves, others around us and to our environment.
 

There is no need to go green like this character! Now is the time to begin learning methods and tools to release and vent. Be an example for your kids, especially for males teaching them how to let out frustration and vent thoughts in a healthy way.

 

Be a model for expressing anger if it has gone to that level in a healthy way so that your kids, when they are around other people who are in anger, know how to deal with it and do not become defensive OR offensive. This is one of the few emotional capabilities that our society has shunned that has actually served to work against us NOT for us.

5. Likely my personal favourite and most powerful quote that I have heard from a comic book superhero movie. This movie series consisted of 5 films and currently has a new one in production. This quote is the least known because it wasn’t actually shown in the movie theatre as far as I can recall. It was in a cut scene but viewable on a special edition DVD series:

 

“I wish you could just see the world as I see it. Because when you really look at it, it is just one world.”

The teaching:

From each of our own points of views and perspectives we can easily see the differences between us… Differences in borders, philosophies, beliefs, cultures, values, religions, genders, colour, and sexes. But at 400,000 feet up, from outer space, we are one planet.

 

…If only we all took the opportunity to look at life from the higher, broader field of view that this quote inspires, we would look at all life and realize

We are one.

 

Speaking about one, have you felt oneness with these quotes and recall what Superhero movies they are from? Here is the list:

  

1.  Spiderman: by Peter Parker’s Uncle Ben

--after Peter misused his power against a bully at school.

2.  Batman Begins: by Bruce Wayne’s father to Bruce

--after he has fallen down a well when he was a child.

3.  Iron Man: Tony Stark when speaking with mentor and father figure Obi

--referring to how Tony Stark acts without much thought… sometimes.

4.  The Hulk - 2003: Bruce Banner explaining what it feels like when he becomes the Hulk

5.  Superman IV (my least favourite of the Superman series, but my favourite quote from them all): Superman when flying with a young boy in his arms high up in the atmosphere where no borders to countries were visible.

Be sure to comment below and list your favourite superhero or comic book movie and a quote that moved and inspired you. Additionally or alternatively, vote for your favourite quote above and let's see which of these wins as the favourite in this blog!

 

Let’s complete with a brilliant quote from a truly cheesy comic book movie:

 

“Some lessons can’t be taught. They must be lived to be understood.”
-Elektra