The Power of Your Subconscious Mind

In 'The Power of Your Subconscious Mind,' Joseph Murphy explores the profound influence of the subconscious mind on our lives. Drawing from his extensive background in psychology and religious science, Murphy presents a compelling case for the power of positive thinking, visualization, and affirmations in shaping our reality. He argues that by understanding and harnessing the subconscious mind, individuals can achieve personal and professional success, improve their health, and foster harmonious relationships. The book offers practical techniques and real-life examples to illustrate how the subconscious mind can be a powerful ally in overcoming obstacles and achieving one's goals. Readers will benefit from a deeper understanding of their mental processes and learn actionable strategies to reprogram their subconscious for a more fulfilling life.

Key Ideas:

1. Happiness is a Habit: Happiness is not something that happens by chance, but rather a state of mind that can be cultivated through habitual thoughts and actions. Joseph Murphy illustrates this with the example of a farmer in Connemarra who consciously chose happiness every day. By habitually blessing his family, crops, and cattle, and thanking God for the harvest, he entrenched happiness into his daily routine. 'As you know, thoughts repeated regularly and systematically sink into the subconscious mind and become habitual. He discovered that happiness is a habit.'

2. The Subconscious Mind Accepts Your Blueprint: Your mental patterns and beliefs shape the reality of your life. Joseph Murphy emphasizes that your subconscious mind functions like a blueprint where the thoughts, ideas, and images you hold become the reality you experience. When you nurture thoughts of fear, worry, and lack, your reality reflects these negative patterns. Conversely, by focusing on peace, harmony, joy, and abundance, your subconscious mind brings these positives into your life. 'By dwelling upon these things, and claiming them, your subconscious mind will accept your blueprint and bring all these things to pass.'

3. Forgiveness Leads to Healing: Forgiveness, both toward oneself and others, is central to achieving harmony and peace. Murphy underscores the importance of forgiveness, narrating stories of individuals plagued by guilt and how their path to healing began with self-forgiveness. One profound example is a man with high blood pressure who healed by releasing his self-punishment and aligning his thoughts with divine harmony. 'Forgiveness is getting your thoughts in line with the divine law of harmony. Self-condemnation is called hell (bondage and restriction); forgiveness is called heaven (harmony and peace).' This highlights the transformative power of forgiveness in achieving mental and physical well-being.

4. The Power of Autosuggestion: Autosuggestion involves intentionally directing specific beliefs or statements to oneself. Joseph Murphy illustrates this with various stories, including a young singer who overcame her fear of failure by constantly telling herself, 'I sing beautifully, I am poised, serene, confident and calm.' This positive reinforcement altered her subconscious mind's negative programming, leading to a confident and successful audition. Murphy emphasizes that autosuggestion can dramatically shift one's experiences by reprogramming subconscious beliefs and fears. 'Whatever the conscious, reasoning mind of man believes; the subconscious mind will accept and act upon.'

5. The Subconscious Mind as a Healing Agent: The subconscious mind has immense potential to influence physical health based on the beliefs held in one’s mind. Dr. Joseph Murphy illustrates this through the story of Madame Bire, who believed in the healing power of a shrine, but it was ultimately her subconscious mind that facilitated her recovery. 'The healing principle within her subconscious mind responded to the nature of her thought.' This highlights the immense potential of the subconscious mind to influence physical health based on the beliefs held in one’s mind.

6. Faith and the Subconscious Mind: Faith is a critical factor in tapping into the power of the subconscious mind for healing and achieving one's desires. Jesus' method of healing, as described in biblical stories, involved invoking the subconscious faith of the individuals seeking cures. 'According to your faith be it unto you.' This demonstrates that the blind men's belief and inner conviction were needed for Jesus’ healing powers to manifest. This idea is echoed universally across different religions and cultures, where faith and belief play a pivotal role in miraculous healings.

Practical Tips:

1. Practice Positive Autosuggestion Regularly: Make a habit of sitting in a quiet place, relaxing your body, and repeating positive statements to yourself, much like the young singer who said, 'I sing beautifully, I am poised, serene, confident and calm.' This practice helps counteract negative thoughts and reinforces positive beliefs in your subconscious mind.

2. Use Mental Imagery for Healing: Regularly visualize yourself engaging in activities that you want to be able to do. Make the images vivid and detailed to impress them upon your subconscious mind, like imagining yourself walking around your office and performing daily tasks if you are trying to recover from functional paralysis.

3. Engage in Daily Forgiveness Practice: At the end of each day, practice self-forgiveness and forgive others as well. This can unload emotional burdens and help cultivate harmony within yourself.

4. Start Your Day with Positive Affirmations: When you wake up, affirm to yourself, 'Today is a new and wonderful day. I am guided and inspired in all my actions today.' This sets a positive tone for the day and primes your subconscious mind for success.

5. Visualize Your Success: Create a detailed mental image of your goals and visualize them daily. As Murphy suggests, picturing 'a medical diploma on a wall with his name on it' helped one young man achieve his dream. Develop a clear and detailed vision of your desired outcome to enhance motivation and focus.

Key Quotes:

• The subconscious mind will always answer you if you trust it.

• Your subconscious mind is always working. It is active night and day, whether you act upon it or not.

• Whatever you impress upon your subconscious mind, the latter will move heaven and earth to bring it to pass.

• Your subconscious mind is the seat of your emotions and is the creative mind. If you think good, good will follow; if you think evil, evil will follow.

• Your subconscious mind accepts what is impressed upon it or what you consciously believe.

• The suggestions of others in themselves have absolutely no power whatever over you except the power that you give them through your own thoughts.

• You must make certain to give your subconscious only suggestions which heal, bless, elevate and inspire you in all ways.

• The infinite intelligence within your subconscious mind can reveal to you everything you need to know at every moment of time and point of space provided you are open-minded and receptive.

• Your subconscious mind does not argue with you. It accepts what your conscious mind decrees.

• Your subconscious will bring to pass any picture held in the mind backed by faith.

• The highest degree of outcropping of the subconscious occurs prior to sleep and just after we awaken.

• The thankful heart is always close to the creative forces of the universe, causing countless blessings to flow toward it by the law of reciprocal relationship.

• To affirm is to state that it is so, and as you maintain this attitude of mind as true, regardless of all evidence to the contrary, you will receive an answer to your prayer.

• Man is what he thinks all day long.

• The faith required in mental healings is a purely subjective faith, and is attainable upon the cessation of active opposition on the part of the objective or conscious mind.

• The power is within you, and when your thoughts are focused on that which is good, then God's power is with your thoughts of good.

• Age is not the flight of years, but the dawn of wisdom.

• You grow old when you lose interest in life, when you cease to dream, to hunger after new truths and to search for new worlds to conquer.

• You form habit patterns in your subconscious mind by repeating a thought and act over and over again.

• Do the thing you are afraid to do, and the death of fear is certain.