Rules of the Mind

 

Rule 1: Every Thought or Idea Causes a Physical Reaction

Your thoughts affect every function of the body.

–    Worry thoughts trigger changes in the stomach

–    Anger thoughts stimulate the adrenal glands, and the increased adrenaline changes a great deal in the body

–    Anxiety and fear thoughts affect your pulse rate

Ideas with strong emotional content almost always reach the subconscious mind, because it is the feeling mind. Once accepted, they produce the same bodily reaction over and over again.

To change a chronic negative bodily reaction, you have to reach the subconscious mind and change the idea responsible for it.

WHAT THIS MEANS FOR YOU Your subconscious mind is reached through emotion, not through argument.

 

Rule 2: What Is Expected Tends to Be Realised

The brain and the nervous system respond to mental images. It does not matter whether the image comes from outside or whether you create it yourself. The mental image becomes the blueprint, and your subconscious mind uses every means at its disposal to carry out the plan.

Worrying is a form of programming a picture of what you do not want.

What looks like luck in some people is in reality positive mental expectancy. And the reverse holds too: someone who expects to stay unwell makes it harder for the body.

This is where self hypnosis comes in. It replaces a hopeless expectancy with a hopeful one.

 

Rule 3: Imagination Is More Powerful Than Knowledge

Reason is easily overruled by imagination.

This is why arguing against a fear achieves almost nothing. You can hand someone with a fear of flying the complete accident statistics. They will agree with you. And their pulse will still climb at the gate.

Any idea accompanied by a strong emotion usually cannot be modified through the use of reason.

The real heart of this rule, though, is an uncomfortable sentence: we are often blind to our own superstitions, our own prejudices and unreasonable beliefs. In others we see it immediately. In ourselves we do not.

 

Rule 4: Opposing Ideas Cannot Be Held at the Same Time

Someone who believes in honesty, expects it of their children, and cuts a corner every day themselves does not escape the conflict. And that conflict costs the nervous system something.

For working with intentions this is the most practical rule of all: what you give your system that you do not actually believe creates conflict instead of effect.

 

Rule 5: Once an Idea Is Accepted, It Remains Until Another Replaces It

And the companion rule: the longer the idea has been there, the greater the resistance to replacing it.

First comes the thought, then the action. Always in that order. It follows that if you want to change your actions, you have to start with your thoughts.

And the sentence that should stay with you: no matter how fixed an idea is or how long it has been there, it can be changed.

 

Rule 6: An Emotionally Induced Symptom Tends to Cause Organic Change

We are a mind and a body, and the two cannot be separated. If you continue to fear ill health and talk constantly about your nervous stomach, in time something changes physically as well.

And now the part I consider particularly important: this does not mean that everyone with symptoms is emotionally ill. There are illnesses caused by germs, viruses and other things. There is genetics, there are accidents.

VERY IMPORTANT This rule is not an accusation. Nobody is to blame for their own illness. It only says this: what you think and feel over the long run is one factor among many. And it is the only one you can work on directly with self hypnosis.

 

Rule 7: Each Suggestion Acted Upon Creates Less Opposition to the Next

Success builds on success. Once your subconscious mind has accepted something, it becomes easier for it to accept the next thing.

So start small. Not because you should expect little of yourself, but because small successes clear the path for large ones.

This rule is also why your training plan in Chapter 16 is built the way it is.

 

Rule 8: The Greater the Conscious Effort, the Less the Subconscious Response

This is the reversal rule, and it explains why willpower as a concept does not work.

If you suffer from insomnia you know it well: the harder you try to fall asleep, the more wide awake you become.

So the rule is: when dealing with the subconscious mind, take it easy.

You learn to let it happen rather than trying to force it to happen. And that is precisely the bridge into Part 2, because the entire Simpson Protocol rests on this one principle.

 

How the Eight Rules Fit Together

They are not a loose bundle. They are a chain in three blocks.

Why thoughts work: Rules 1, 2 and 6. A thought becomes a bodily reaction, the expected image becomes the blueprint, and over time the functional becomes structural.

Why arguments do not work: Rules 3 and 4. Imagination beats reason, so trying to argue against a feeling only creates conflict.

How change actually happens: Rules 5, 7 and 8. Replace rather than delete, start small, do not push.