Mind Over Fear: How To Squash Your Fears, Overcome Anxiety, and Boost Your Self-Esteem In Just 30 Days (3 page)

Have you ever been in a situation where you thought you knew something with one hundred percent certainty, only to later find out that you were dead wrong? Of course you have. I don’t think there is a single human being out there who had never experienced something like this. Maybe you can’t recall specific details at the moment, but let’s be honest; you know exactly what I’m talking about.
 

If you can actually recall a specific situation, try to remember what it felt like when you found out that you were wrong. Did you feel upset? Did you feel good because you learned something new? Did you feel embarrassed? But most importantly, did this event cause any significant changes in your life?
 

Well, no matter what emotions you experienced at the time, and no matter how big of a turning point it was, what you will learn in the next couple of chapters will probably have a much stronger impact on your life.
 

Image what it would feel like to find out that almost everything you’ve been taught about life wasn’t entirely true. In fact, this reminds me of a scene from the movie “Men In Black 2.” This is the scene where “agent K” played by Tommy Lee Jones and “agent J” played by Will Smith were searching for clues inside agent K’s locker, which was inhabited by little alien creatures. In the final scene of the movie, agent K moved the creatures into agent J’s locker without him knowing about it. When agent J opened his locker and saw the little creatures, this was the exchange of dialogue between the two characters:

Agent J: Why did you put them rats in my locker, man?
 

Agent K: I thought it would put things in perspective for you.
 

Agent J: No, K, it's actually kind of sad, really. We need to let them out of there. I mean, they need to know that the world is bigger than that.
 

Agent K: Still a rookie.
 

Agent K kicks a regular door as we get an exterior shot of both agents standing inside a locker, located in the middle of a sea of other lockers just like it. This scene basically implies that we know very little about our universe.

So, why did I bring this up? Well, I guess it’s because I just wanted to put things in respective for you. I hope that by reminding you of this scene it will help the next chapter seem a little more believable. Even though we won’t be talking about aliens or anything like that, you might have trouble wrapping your head around it. This is why in this chapter we will cover something that will not only help you prepare for what’s coming, but it will also make it a lot easier to understand the following chapter.
 

I know you might be tempted to skip ahead and find out what it is that I’m talking about, but I strongly suggest that you don’t do it. It’s crucially important that you fully understand the information in this chapter first.

So far we looked at how the subconscious mind can be your greatest ally and your worst enemy at the same time. However, there is one thing that we haven’t covered. How it affects the way you view life and the world you live in. What I am specifically referring to is your subconscious beliefs.

Whenever I ask someone to explain what a belief is, usually I either get a really vague answer, or a really long answer that ends up confusing everyone, including the person explaining it. Personally, the simplest and the most accurate definition I’ve found is: “A belief is a thought or an idea which was backed up by plenty of evidence.” In other words, in order for a new thought on an idea to become a belief, it has to be supported and validated by things that you already believe to be true. To put it another way, it just has to make sense to you based on what you already know.

Most people have no idea how much their beliefs are affecting the way they live their lives. Every single decision you ever made was based on your beliefs. Every piece of information that enters your mind gets subconsciously filtered through your current beliefs. In fact, depending on your current beliefs, you are deciding whether what I am saying to you right now is true or false. Even if you already doubt the validity of what I said up to this point, don’t worry. Just keep reading and do your best to keep an open mind. I promise, things will make a lot more sense soon.

The first thing you really need to understand is that your beliefs are like filters through which you see the world. To make it easier to follow, let’s just use a metaphor. Pretend your beliefs are like glasses that you can’t take off simply because ninety nine percent of the time you are not even aware of the fact that you are wearing them.
 

Let’s also pretend you currently believe that most people are mean, loud, and obnoxious. In addition to that, your beliefs about yourself state that you are quiet, incompetent when it comes to talking to people, your voice sounds weird, you aren’t good looking, things never go your way, so on and so forth. Now imagine that your glasses are designed to make sure you only see and experience the world through those beliefs that I just mentioned.

Considering all of your disempowering subconscious beliefs, if you had no choice but to attend a party, what kind of experience do you think you would have? You would probably end up having a terrible time at the party because you wouldn’t be able to see anything good that was actually happening there. Instead, you would only see things that would validate your beliefs. You would probably see people being loud, mean, obnoxious, and it would seem to you like everything is going terribly wrong for you.

Let’s be honest. Even though some people probably were loud, mean, and obnoxious. Maybe there were even a bunch of other bad things about this party, but I can tell you with total certainty that if you entered that same party with completely different subconscious beliefs, your experience would be totally different. If you entered that same party with empowering subconscious beliefs, you would actually see a lot of people laughing, having a great time, and undoubtedly you would have a great time also.

Although this was just a hypothetical example, I hope you can see the basic picture behind how your subconscious beliefs are shaping the quality of your life.

At this point you are probably wondering, “How does one go about changing his or her disempowering subconscious beliefs?” Although I could give you an answer to this question right now, once again, I believe that I would be doing you great disservice if I did. There are a few more things that I need to explain in order for everything to make sense. Actually, if you keep reading you will know exactly why that is.

Another thing that must become clear to you is that your beliefs are not only helping you filter out a lot of “unnecessary” information, but they are also making the things you currently believe a lot more personal.

When I say that what you already believe becomes very personal to you, I mean that your thoughts, ideas, and understanding of how the world functions become almost like a physical part of your body. So much so that it would actually feel like changing these beliefs is almost as painful as chopping off one of your limbs. This is why we can often get offended if someone would try to persuade us to believe otherwise. I’m going to give you a silly example so that you could see exactly what I’m talking about.
 

Pretend that you were on your way to work, wearing a green shirt. When you arrived, one of your colleagues says: “I like the red shirt.” In response, you say: “thanks” and also point out that the shirt is indeed green, not red. But what if your colleague keeps insisting that the shirt is actually red and that you are colorblind. What would you think, and how would you react? Well, probably after calling each other colorblind back and forth, you would end up turning to someone else for help. But what if that person also insists that your shirt is red and not green? So you keep going from person to person only to get the exact same response. After a while, you would most likely still be skeptical and come to a conclusion that they were just conspiring to play a trick on you.
 

Later that day, just to be sure, you would probably go to someone you trust, or maybe even a stranger and ask him or her what color they think your shirt is. But what if this person also told you that your shirt is red? Now you would begin to worry while still having some disbelief about what you are hearing. Of course to be one hundred percent sure you would eventually consult with your optometrist.

The moral of this example clearly shows how difficult it can be to convince us of the fact that something we already perceive to be true is actually false, and the other way around. In other words, oftentimes we actually feel like someone is insulting our intelligence when he or she tries to challenge our well-established beliefs. Please keep this in mind as you go deeper into this book and as the information begins to get a little bit more difficult to accept.

I believe this is one of the most controversial chapters, and at the same time one of the most important chapters in the book. While reading, you may start thinking that it has nothing to do with fear and anxiety, but it actually does. It’s kind of like those famous crop circles. If you stand on the ground all you see is a large patch of flattened crops, yet if you go up in the air you will see the whole picture.

Looking back at what we’ve covered so far, we know that the quality of our lives strongly depend on our subconscious beliefs. If too many disempowering beliefs govern your mind, the quality of your life suffers greatly. Also, let’s not forget that your beliefs can keep you in a state of doubt regarding new information, even if what you are being told is true.

Now let me ask you a question, which by the way, I believe is potentially the most important question that you can ask yourself at this point. What if today you found out that almost everything you know about life, everything you were taught since you were little, and everything that you currently find important was nothing but a big lie? In fact, I’ll be even more direct. Considering the powerful nature of the human mind, what if most of the thoughts and beliefs you currently consider to be your own were intentionally planted into your subconscious mind without you even realizing it; thus, molding you into someone you are not?

At this point it’s easy to say: “wait a minute, that’s not possible because my parents and everyone who loves me wouldn’t even think of doing something like that.” Well, in that case I would like you to take a moment to ponder on the following. What if your parents and everyone who surrounded you when you were a child was exposed to the same type of disempowering beliefs when they were young? As a matter of fact, let’s dig even deeper. What if this kind of subconscious conditioning has been going on for generations, thus casing a viral effect where false beliefs are passed on from generation to generation?

The point is that you can track this information down thousands of years, when a few individuals ruled large empires. This is no secret since most of this information is freely available to the public. However, you can’t help but ask, “How did they do it? How could a few people rule huge lands and have everyone obey them?”

The basic answer to this question is fear. Fear can make a person do unimaginable things, while at the same time fear can make a person not do anything at all. As long as one can make the herds believe they are in danger and that he can protect them, they will listen and obey his every word. We don’t even need to go very far in history to see the permanent footprint of fear that was left on our planet. Just think about the kamikaze pilots used by the Japanese during World War II, and what about all the suicide bombing going on today?
 

Of course, these are all extreme examples of controlling people through fear, but it paints a clear picture of what’s possible if people put all their faith into one individual, or a group of individuals in order to feel safe. It is happening right in front of our eyes every single day. Average individuals argue over which politician will come to the rescue and make everything better. The only problem is that because of their beliefs, they are incapable of seeing the big picture where politicians are nothing but pawns in the world of the global elite.

It’s no secret; the thirst for power and leadership is in our nature as human beings. Before money ever existed, those who were considered leaders had to be physically strong and they had to be excellent hunters. Back in those days people looked up to and obeyed individuals who could provide food, shelter, and security for everyone. The hierarchy of power was more or less distributed by natural selection.

When money was invented, everything changed. No longer do you have to be physically strong in order to have all the power. Now you can just buy food, shelter, security, and consequentially leadership. Just the fact that money causes ninety percent of the crime in the world proves how significant it is to our basic survival needs. But the real question is, “If there are more than 7 billion people on the planet, how can a relatively small group of people be able to control most of the money and therefore also have all the power?” To give you an even better perspective, let me rephrase the question. How can one percent of the world’s population control approximately ninety percent of the wealth?

To answer this question we first need to recognize that the world’s population is divided into three known classes, the lower class, the middle class, and the upper class. The one percent who own most of the wealth in the world are not associated with any of these three classes. In fact, they are in a class of their own. In many cases these people are called “The Global Elite.”

When you break everyone up into different classes it becomes a lot easier to control them. On the other hand, it becomes a lot more difficult for everyone to see the truth. This is because each class is exposed to different information, which ultimately leads to different lifestyles.
 

Think about how rare it is to see people from different class groups to become friends and communicate on a daily basis. If you grew up in the middle class for example, you were raised to believe the same things everyone else in your class believes. The same applies to all the other classes, and it’s very rare for important information to travel from one class to another. In most cases, this is because the lower class can’t afford to hang out with the middle class, and the middle class can’t afford to hang out with the upper class. Besides, those with more money very rarely show initiative in associating with the lower classes. The movie “Titanic” does a pretty good job of showing how throughout history the upper class did everything possible to stick with their own class and avoid contact with the lower classes. I mean, when was the last time you stopped to have a chat with a homeless person on the street? By the way, there is nothing wrong if you do, I’m just trying to point out how unlikely it is. One of the things wealthy people know and teach their kids is that their bank accounts will always reflect the bank accounts of the people they associate with most, especially their 5 best friends.