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I would like you to picture these 3 scenarios if you will:

The first involves several students who were taken to a bar and served. And the bar was typical of any real bar. All the bottles, glasses, smells, and customers drinking alcohol were real. In fact everything about the bar was real - except one thing, the alcohol. The group was served fake alcohol. The bottles from which their drinks were poured contained only tonic water. However the drinks were mixed, poured and served by the barmen in exactly the same way they did for alcoholic drinks.

Now what do you think happened? Yes something astounding - the students became intoxicated! They behaved in the same way intoxicated people do. But even more surprising was the fact that their brains and bodies also experienced the same biochemical changes as that of intoxicated people. And on being told that they only drank tonic water the students were quite surprised because they of course had actually felt drunk.

Now picture this next scenario. A group of maids who clean hotel rooms are told that the work they do qualifies as good exercise. And amazingly over the next 30 days the changes in the bodies of these women were significant compared to a group of their peers who were not given the same information. These changes included an average loss of 2 pounds of weight, a decrease in their blood pressures by almost 10%, displayed drops in body-fat percentage, body mass index and waist-to-hip ratio.

And finally let us go back to the year 1953 and see two gentlemen by the names of Edmund Hilary and Tensing Norgay reaching the top of Mount Everest. They were of course the first human beings to achieve this feat. No one before them had been able to summit the highest mountain in the world. But even more amazingly, after they achieved this goal many others managed to do the same!

Now the question is how is it possible for tonic water to cause a group of students to become intoxicated as shown in the scientific experiment by psychologists Assefi and Garry, for the hotel maids to acquire the health benefits they did as shown in another experiment by psychologists Crum and Langer or for Hilary and Tensing to reach the top of Mount Everest?

The answer lies in the subconscious mind - and specifically subconscious beliefs.

So today I am going to talk about subconscious beliefs - what they are, how they control our lives and how they can be changed.

But before we talk about subconscious beliefs, it is important that I explain to you what the Subconscious Mind is.

The Subconscious Mind generally incorporates all involuntary processes & functions including thoughts, beliefs, emotions, memories, skills and behaviors that are generated by and occur in the living brain and body and which we are unaware of.

Please note that I have said both the brain and body because the subconscious mind resides in the body also - and not only the brain.

So what are subconscious beliefs then? Subconscious beliefs are instructions which are coded and stored in the cells of the nervous system and body. Similar to a software programmer who writes instructions into a computer program on how the computer should run or operate, so beliefs are instructions as to how we should feel, act or behave or how our lives should run or operate.

Before discussing beliefs further it is important to deal with the matter of perception simply because beliefs and perceptions go hand in hand. They cannot be separated from each other since they are inextricably intertwined, the one exerting a significant influence over the other.

So what is a perception then? A perception is simply an awareness of the environment via feelings and sensations. Perceptions are our sensory experiences. So if your eyes are closed and someone creeps up on you and sticks a pin in your arm, you will immediately become aware that something in your environment has caused you to feel a sudden stab of pain. Our lives then are really about responding to our environment (both internal and external). If there were no signals or stimuli from the environment (such as the pin prick) then we would not respond since there would be no need to respond. There would be nothing to respond to!

But the interesting thing is that not every one responds in the same way to environmental signals even if these signals are exactly the same. An example would be two men witnessing someone being beaten up. The one feels fear and runs away while the other feels anger and jumps in to try and help the victim. These are two very different behavioral responses to the same environmental occurrence or signal no doubt.

The question is why does this happen? And the answer is because of the difference in their perceptions. How we respond to the environment depends on how we perceive it.

So, at the end of the day it is our perceptions that create our experience of the world around us.

But why do perceptions differ?

Because they are influenced by our beliefs. And so it is our beliefs which control our behaviour through influencing our perceptions.

Our beliefs thus act as filters for our perceptions.

How does this happen? As we have said beliefs are instructions which are coded into the cells and tissues of the nervous system and rest of the body. When signals reach the cells via the conducting systems of the body, beliefs impact on them, thereby influencing their effect on the feelings or perceptions of the cells and tissues and the selection and expression of their DNA. In other words beliefs control the perception or feelings of the tissues and how their DNA is selected and expressed. We become aware of these feelings when information from the cells reaches our conscious awareness.

Now, as we have seen, beliefs determine gene selection, expression & behavior of the organism i.e. our beliefs determine which genes we select and how those genes are expressed. This control of genes by factors outside of the genes themselves is called Epigenetics. 'Epi' means 'above'. For decades it was thought that genes select and express themselves without any outside factors influencing them to do so. But this, as we now know, is incorrect, thanks to the great scientific work done by renown cell biologist, Professor Bruce Lipton, who made this profound discovery of the control of our genes by external factors such as our thoughts and beliefs.

So then, if you hold certain beliefs about food for example you may develop a craving (intense feeling) for it which would cause you to eat a lot of it (your behavior) and you could end up being dangerously overweight.

The same applies to religious beliefs and all other beliefs such as the beliefs of the students that they were drinking alcohol, the hotel maids beliefs about their work and Hilary and Tensing's beliefs that they could reach the top of Everest.

It is our subconscious beliefs which instruct us to feel and behave the way we do.

Beliefs are very powerful indeed!

But here's the rub. Many people fail to solve their problems or achieve the goals they set for themselves because of the limiting beliefs they hold. What are limiting beliefs? These are dis-empowering, self-destructive or self- sabotaging beliefs. They cause you to feel and behave in a way which prevents you from realizing your consciously stated objectives or cause you to continue to experience a problem or problems which you have been trying to resolve.

Common limiting beliefs include beliefs of hopelessness, powerlessness and worthlessness. The latter is particularly common with many people believing that they are not worthy of achieving whatever they want to achieve such as getting over an illness or resolving a problem for example. Hopelessness on the other hand is a feeling stemming from a belief that neither you nor anybody else has the ability to solve a problem. The situation is utterly hopeless. And finally a feeling of powerlessness or helplessness stems from a limiting belief that you do not have the power nor the ability to solve a problem although others may be able to.

Recognizing the power of beliefs in controlling our lives and determining our successes and failures a famous person once said: "Whether you believe you can or you believe you can't either way you're right!"

Who was he?

So now the question you may ask is 'If we are holding limiting beliefs how can we change them?'

And the answer is 'Through a process of Intentional Subconscious Mind Reprogramming'. By programming-in the correct and appropriate beliefs it is possible to do or achieve anything one intends to in any area of life such as health, wealth, relationships etc. And there are many technologies, techniques and practices which can be used to intentionally reprogram the subconscious mind although a full discussion on them is beyond the scope of this article. However 3 specific technologies are described in some detail in my 40 - page report on the subconscious mind entitled "The Subconscious Mind - What it is and How to Reprogram it Using Advanced Technologies".You can get the full report here