*What follows is a “freestyle” inspired by the Sun. Literally*
To have the impetus yet not the means, is powerlessness, in its’ most debilitating form. You have ALL power. But do you have ALL control over yourself? Specifically, do you have it over your mind?
Regarding fitness and building and maintaining the best version of ourselves, I always hear about a new supplement or new exercise program or a newer more efficient way of working out that’s targeted to build more strength or burn more fat and etc. But what I never hear about is the mental aspect of it all. Thousands of studies have been dedicated to the nutrition of the body and its’ importance in terms of seeing results but what of the mind?
What are YOU feeding your mind?
The body follows the mind. We invest all the time and energy and money into food and supplements and gym memberships and educating ourselves on the best forms of exercise, yet we completely ignore the nutrition of the mind. When it comes to how you really want your body to look and feel, the mind is the master and the body the follower. I do not have all the answers for everyone in terms of their desired goals for their body. But I can share what has worked for me and this is what I want to share with you: Programming.
As a “husky” teen, all the time I spent on the couch watching television is when and how I stumbled across this. For more afternoons than I can recall, I would come home after school and like clockwork preheat the oven so I could have my almost daily after school meal consisting of anything from a pizza to nuggets & fries. Not only was my dirty eating habitual–it was programmed. These habits become engrained in me because they were embedded in the very fibers of my mind.
One day, this saying or expression that I heard an innumerable number of times in my life for some reason stood out to me and resonated for the first time. I remember hearing the phrase “television program” and a light came on inside my mind. I mean, isn’t that what a TV does? Does it not “program” you? Does a TV not train you to relax and wallow in idleness whilst filling your stomach with your favorite snacks? What if you could program your mind to commit itself to training your body the same way a television programs it to be indolent.
I asked myself a series of questions that followed this vein. As I have said previously, if you ask your mind a question, it will give you an answer. It will point you in a direction and it will guide you with the efficiency that only an all-powerful force could endow you with. I propose that you get inside your own head. Take something like a TV–a device that is not attached to you whatsoever–and think about how easily it programs you. Influences you. Dare I say, controls you.
During my favorite programs, I’ve had family members tell me that I looked like I was hypnotized–and I was. That is something that happens to all of us when we’re watching a favorite tv show or movie. We have given up control of our mind so that we may be able to enjoy those blissful pursuits such an entertainment. It is natural that we follow up our times of hard stressful work with times of leisure. Serving as one of the primary pressure release valves of the mind, television plays a massive role in shaping your life at large. How is that the case? Well… it is because we allow this to be the moment we give up voluntary control and active monitoring over our mind.
This is what happens when you remove the locks from the doors and send your gatekeeper home for the day.
Television gives us pleasure, thereby depriving us of pain, for it serves as a most expedient distraction from whatever is challenging us at the moment. It is so easy to come home after work and sit on the couch and perform that daily repeatable habit of turning it on and leaving it on until turning it off is absolutely necessary. The more I pondered this the more I realized I was trained to act in this manner and I all but endorsed my own mind to allow this to take place.
If something that is outside of you an do that good a job of taking hold of your mind, what would happen if you took control of it and used it to your advantage? Heretofore I related this paper expressly to health & fitness, but this is so much larger than that. You can assign your power to program your mind into any endeavor you deem worthy of pursuing.
I’ve spent years pondering many circumstances that went down in my life that seemed to be beyond my control. A great deal of thinking was invested in my own physical health and breaking down what went wrong, how it happened, and when. I took a close look at the choices I made and the results acquired. When I mess up or when I’m not getting what I’m looking for, I rewind the tape and playback what I did. What was the critical error? What made me make the choice I made? What led down “that” path? These questions and techniques were pioneered in the years after my dad’s departure. It has occurred to me that the mind is the conductor behind the curtain of the world we cannot see. The mind is the wizard. It is the answer.
I’ve been able to see my Abs everyday now for over the last decade. So I’ve asked myself, how is that possible? How have I been able to stay so consistent? How come there has been no breakdown in the process? And, how was I able to “automate” it? The answer to all these questions goes back to programming.
Hundreds of thousands of words and tens of thousands of fit body images later, I have set to task feeding my mind all the assembly language and imagery required to create the conditions necessary to make myself look and feel how I want to look. As a teenager, feeling leveled down in depression, my mind was not at all in its’ optimum form, because I wasn’t nurturing it. It was being fed a diet of depression and sadness and disappointment so there is no wonder why my natural powers drowned in ineptitude. Whole blocks of code were corrupted inside of me along with endless numbers of files corrupted or destroyed by a rage of pain that ravaged my tortured mind.
Your body does not have to do as mind did, and reflect how terrible you feel on the inside. You can quickly embody and reflect exactly what you want it to. Whatever your own perception of the ideal image is, you can grasp hold of it and absorb it in your mind until you manifest it in your flesh. What really determines how slowly or quickly this process takes place is how well you take to feeding your mind exactly what it needs before you consciously realize it. The diet we feed our minds is the most important determining factor of whether or not we achieve the success we strive for. The mind can make you rich or poor. The mind can make you healthy or unhealthy. The mind can bring you joy or sadness. It serves as the doorway for all possibilities.
You have to decide which way you’re going to go and then be prepared to pay the price necessary to arrive where you want to be. If you seek more pleasure out of life than pain, this requires paying relentless attention to what you feed your brain. What it puts out, and what you receive in return, is in direct proportion to what you feed it. When it comes to something you want, monitor every single word that composes every single thought regarding your desire.
Through all the challenges you endure in life, you are honing your skills for greatness, which further prepare you for everything you’ve asked for. If you want your life to be easy, it’s simple–don’t have any standards. But for those of you who have high standards, life isn’t as easy as flopping down on a couch channel flipping. For all questions that must be answered and challenges that must be surmounted, these are opportunities that arise so that you can be leveled up.
Imagine how you would feel, if you truly knew–truly believed, that you are absolutely in control over every aspect of your life, and everything that happens in it. How would you act in life, starting right now this second, if you knew you ARE the star? This life is your movie. What would your movie be like, if you absolutely knew, you couldn’t fail? How many happy endings would you star in? I would wager, that for the most of us, the conclusion would be a world apart from what we’re currently starring in. You can program a new direction for yourself anytime you want. You set the map. You determine the coordinates. And, despite what other’s may tell you, you even determine how soon you will arrive. Even if someone else is “directing” your movie, you are making a choice to allow them to do so–you’re directing them to direct your movie. This is something that we have all engaged in. There’s nothing wrong with that either. Every decision you make serves a purpose. You broaden and expand and enlighten yourself with each passing day.
But to live out your own definition of a happy ending, eventually, you are required to call upon your God given capacity to do what only you can do for yourself and that is be the director. As the director, you have as much control over how your story plays out as the screenwriter does the script. Get in the habit of managing the words on the conveyor belt of your mind.
I will go with an example that hits close to home. Say you want to lose weight. As you sit right now, if you are for example 30 pounds overweight, or even 100, have you not dared to think about what life would be like if you shed some pounds? If like me, you have thought about it many times, it probably feels good, yet daunting. Daunting, because the work involved can seem overwhelming–at first. I compare it to shining a light into day. I say “day” because I do not subscribe to “darkness” anymore. Even on my worst days it is day. Never dark. Should you be going through some things that leave you feeling defeated, I want you to start shining light into day.
The first step is to imagine your ideal. Form your idea of the perfect picture. See your life as it would be if the problem(s) no longer existed. How would you and your life look and feel? How happy would you be? How empowered would you feel? You can even bring in close friends or loved ones. See them too–get them involved in the movie. This, is a program. Tune in to yourself. Make no mistake–Given the circumstances swirling around you, I understand how much this is to ask of you. But this is something that I must ask of you to “kickstart” the problem solving genie known as your mind. Life can leave you feeling as if you have no time for yourself to “dream.” I assure you, this is more than a dream. This is about you living your best life. You owe it not only to yourself, but to your loved ones and to society. The happier you are, the more empowered you are, and the more likely you can pay it forward. Before we can give back, we must invest in ourselves first.
Whenever I imagine something good, I do all I can to make it stand out until it is GREAT! I shine light into day.
If you are unhappy with your image, all that means is you have something inside of you telling you that you deserve better. There’s a certain standard that you see yourself living by that is already embedded inside of you, and without even realizing it, your mind is feeding you messages and impulses to flag you down and get your attention. This is a consequence of your mindfeed. I think of this as your senses seeking out the council of your mind. Your mind wants to hold a meeting with you, but instead of skipping it, this is a meeting that you actually want to have. This meeting is all about you and making yourself a better, happier, more vibrant you. A software update of the soul. Our brain is subject to the council of our soul. Whatever you do, do not make a habit of ignoring your own call. I ran away from mine the last ten years. That’s how much time I spent choosing to be “lost.” Part of me was afraid. I was unsure. I didn’t think I had what it took. It’s not that I was late to the meeting. It never even started. Don’t do what I did. I was a misguided coward, because it was easier for me to undersell myself than to believe in myself. We pray and ask for greatness. Then when it comes, we find that we are ill-prepared. Don’t be like me. Start getting yourself ready NOW.
Do not be afraid to go there. See yourself as who you are currently and place that image next to how you want to be. This is hard work. You have to think. When I started my weight loss journey, I did this until my brain hurt. Daily. But these temporary glimmers of pain will save you a lifetime of disappointment if you stick with it. Through years of practice, I have manifested the results I desire. There is no better way for you to set a new standard for yourself than to start off by formulating it in your mind first. This is where the conception takes place, and with that, the birth. You are the first to see whatever it is you see. Therefore, the words you choose to feed your mind are vitally important. You are giving life to something inside of you as only you can. This program also keeps you accountable and in line with your purpose. We all have a purpose. A reason to serve. Something to provide. A way, to improve the lives’ of those around us. If there is something that you know you should be doing because it would provide a greater good, but it scares you, maybe even strikes fear into you, you should probably do it. When you’re scared, that’s how you know you’re being called.
Set aside some quiet time every single day. For me, ten minutes is ideal. If you cannot spare ten, start with just 5. That’s just 300 seconds out of your day. There are 86,400 seconds in a day. If you don’t think you’re worth 300 seconds out of a day, I have a lot more work to do. At this point, I am going to walk you through exactly how I perform this in my mind.
There are many ways to do this. I have experimented with this process thousands of times in varying ways. I say this to say that we are all different. If this does not work for you, by the time you are done seeing how I like to do it, I am confident that you will make an even better way for yourself. I would love nothing more than for you to have a superior method to mine. We’re all in this to help one another.
When imagining where I am and where I see myself being, I like to use a mental split-screen. I have no doubt that the ways and means of visualizing oneself vary from person to person but the intent to improve upon ourselves is all the same. There is no right or wrong approach. Being that you have direct control over your mind at this point, you can draw up any size, or style, screen you want inside your head. Again, I will take a clean white sheet of paper and draw up whatever I need it to be until just what is needed is truly realized. Daily, for years, I printed white paper and posted them up on story boards. These stretch out as far as I can see hugging endless miles of my mental roadways. I imagine myself walking along this floating highway with a continuous billboard of my life alongside me where a guardrail would normally be. This straight and level highway is naturally quiet because there is no traffic. After all, why would I ever want to “see” myself being flattened by an 18-wheeler? Should I mess up, or change my mind, or my goals–whatever the case, more paper is printed and the story board is expanded to make room. There is no cap on how many sheets are printed when it comes to continuous self-improvement. I devote 600 seconds of my life everyday to this practice. During this time of quiet solace reflection, everything is looked over and analyzed and when improvements can be instituted, they most assuredly are.
Stopping on the highway, turning and facing a story board head on, I see two pictures. On the left sheet of paper, the Daniel I am currently. On the right side, the new and improved Daniel. The contrasts are always startling. Color is a big difference between the two. The image on the left, the Daniel I am currently, is always fuzzy. The colors are there but they’re faded as if they’ve been drowned out in a Clorox bleach sun. The image on the right, the Daniel I aspire to being is always in vivid high-definition color. The left side image remains blurry if not pixelated but the one on the right keeps getting bigger and brighter until the “current” Daniel is overtaken by the superior one. Sometimes the images are still. Other times they are moving. The visual effect that is chosen is determined by my mind with the intent of choosing the form of playback that produces the most impact.
The image I see on the right, moving or not, I bring it in until it I feel it washing over me. When this happens, I become what I’m seeing. This is when the changeover takes place. An ascension has been performed and when that occurs, you have leveled yourself up. The feeling I experience fills me with the same number of endorphins as that of a man experiencing death one moment and rebirth the next. The more of this leveling up you do, the more you actively engage in preparing yourself for the life you have always asked and prayed for. You have it in you to level yourself up daily. I cannot stress enough the magnificence of this point.
Your problems give way to opportunities as soon as you program a solution. Open the eyes of your mind and see it for what it truly is. Your mind, finding its way, and if that way does not exist, it will create one. The scandalous levels of discouragement you feel from time to time is not a sign that you are doomed to disappointment. It is your life experience telling you that you are attempting to ascend new heights, and that the larger picture of your life is being constructed piece by piece with a connect-the-dots like precision. Life really is your story. There is drama of all flavors along the spectrum from the lowest of lows, to the highest of highs.
You absolutely must purge your mind of self-induced discouragement. That is the deadliest form of fear because it is authored from within. Think of a software designer building a program and installing a virus inside of it. Would you expect the software to run without any issues? Of course not! Same thing with your mind. You cannot have that negative voice talking in the ear of (YOU) the director yet expect to move toward your own happy ending. I’ve tried. All cross-talk will do is confuse the director to the point where they won’t know left from right. You will only burn through a lot of film if you don’t lose control of the plot altogether.
Remember that this life is your program and you have first rights as to what you feed your mind. You are the producer. The screenwriter. The star attraction of your life. And all of those around you–they are your audience. You cannot get any of them to buy into you and your vision if you are filled with doubts. Not every moment of everyday is sunny. Storm clouds do roll in and downpours will commence.
When that happens, I want you to back up and think about all that you have been given. Grab your umbrella and use the current of your thoughts to move that storm system along until you are showered by sunbeams again. Keep planting seeds of light so that they blossom the second your storm blows over. Fill yourself with as much positivity as possible and do it as long as it takes. Practice this every single day. I do not miss a day. Think about all this power you have at your disposal.
You are above mediocrity. You are beyond powerlessness. These debilitating emotions that remove power from you will cease their god like control over you life the moment you realize you are the one that enables them to do so. You are the one giving them power. The essence of Mindfeed is for you to recognize this. Stop feeding these negative impulses. Stop believing in their lies. You are being deceived by a campaign of misinformation that you yourself are printing in the mass media of your own mind. Don’t believe the LIES.
Not nearly enough do we pay attention to what we have been blessed with. It is all too easy to turn our focus on all the reasons why our lives’ are not what they should be, and as a result, disappointment is the overriding theme we expect for ourselves, if not outright failure. All that does, is provide aid and comfort to fulfilling your own self-doubts, which is the last thing you want to do. When you engage in this behavior, you are literally investing in your own self-induced failure. No matter where you are and where you sit in life right now, you are absolutely qualified to have more and do more for other’s. Start with yourself. Do what is right by you and get yourself under order first. Condition yourself to make that happen. If you don’t know how to work on yourself, practice working on yourself daily. This life is your masterpiece. The WORLD wants to see you. You are wanted. You are and will be appreciated further. You are not just needed. You are required.
In school, I never felt like I was “valued.” We are all important. We all bring value into this life. When I was coming of age, I felt worthless. My self-image was never lower. I believed that I had nothing of value to bring to the table of man. Hopefully, we all hear from our parent’s about how great we are and how much potential for achievement we have. I know I did. When I imagine all those people out there who didn’t have a mother as amazing as mine, I actually feel ashamed of myself. I know there’s something more I need to be doing than feeling sorry for myself. I deeply want to do for other’s what my mother did for me.
You have access to grand powers. Armed with the ability to tap into your well of ability, you can achieve greatness. You are a never ending value. I want to drill that into you. I don’t care how lowly a hole you find yourself in currently–you can absolutely climb your way out. Even your darkest days hold value, because they too can be redeemed in exchange for something great. I like to think of a bad memory as a medium of exchange, in that it can be turned in and exchange d for something totally different. Best of all, that something can be whatever you want it to be.
We all have the ability to take advantage of repackaging. You know how whenever you give a surprise gift to someone, before you give it to them, you wrap it? (Or in my case, you have someone else wrap it because you are terrible in arts & crafts.) Being the gift giver, you know what’s inside, but the person receiving it has no idea what it is. Yet, they automatically anticipate it will be something good! They’re happy and full of instant joy and excitement! No matter what kind of day they were having, everything has been interrupted by the spontaneous build-up by this surprise gift.
Those particularly painful memories that shattered me left my mind damaged beyond description. So one day, I printed a clean sheet of paper and thought of the days or times of the year I am at my absolute happiest. I looked for a pattern of bliss. Any sense of occasion where no matter what, I was always in a state of buoyancy despite any challenges plaguing me. There’s one time every year that consistently leaves a positive impact on me. Christmas is heads and shoulders above the rest. Second to that would be my birthday. The difference between these two is time.
The birthday lasts a single day but Christmas, or the “feeling” of it, in terms of anticipation and the event itself can last for weeks. I decided to go with Christmas and attach something that is a major component of the spirit of Christmas–gift giving. Specifically, gift wrapping. I would take some of the worst experiences of my life–those lifetime memories that suffocate a spirit slowly depriving it of its glow–and associate it with something that has always made me feel so good: gift giving. Nine times out of ten, before I give a gift, I wrap it first. This was perfect because the experience of giving a gift to a friend or a loved one is ten times more powerful than the draw down in power I experience when I’m feeling depressed. I finally had something that could overpower the evil negativity. In a nutshell, I took one aspect of a glorious tradition, and I magnified it, while coming up with a way to at the same time minimize those negative memories that constantly strove to suppress my joy. For every negative action perpetrated against you, there is an opposite reaction waiting for you to turn things around in your favor. In my case, all I had to do was take the spirit of Christmas and use it to blur those memories that left me that way in the past. Remember the power of your mind–you can do whatever it is you want to do when you have your fingertips in control of all the levers involved.
This all did not happen for me overnight. The effort was and is immense to this day. It has taken me years to arrive to where I am now and furthermore I have not stopped. Everything that has happened to you has benefitted you. It has strengthened you. It has honed you. These experiences that have “owned” you for far too long need to be turned around and resold to you as goods of value or “gifts.” Re-gift and repackage your bad memories. The very memories that you cannot stand and hurt like Hell are there to serve you. What the meaning and purpose is, well, that is for you to discover for yourself. And you will. But not without first re-wrapping the debilitating memories until they serve you. They carry your crown for you.
When I go through trauma, my mind immediately jumps into solution mode. I go through the pain and the sadness and the disappointment and may perhaps wade deep in the waters of depression. At least that’s how it used to work. Before I could get my hands on the levers inside my head, the circumstances had full control over my faculties. Access to a solution of any kind was denied. The negative experience took over. So I was at the mercy of the depression that was to follow. I don’t let that happen anymore.
Mindfeed teaches me that I can change the results of any outcome into whatever I want it to be. What if you could take a gift (experience), that you have already unwrapped (experienced), and rewrap it? Say it was something that you absolutely did not like. ( While you can rewrap a good experience into a great one, I won’t use that for the purpose of this example.) This gift needs to be taken back, but it can’t be, because it’s a gift. And you’ve opened it. And let’s say there’s no return policy because it is thoroughly embedded into your life. You might be temped to throw it away. You may try and ignore it. You can even do as I did and pray that it be taken away and removed. If it is really bad, you may even pray that you yourself be removed. I’ve been there. But then you would be wasting this gift, instead of using it. How about an alternative? Don’t do what I did for years. Don’t throw your life away. Why throw away something that lasts an entire lifetime in the blink of an eye? Go in the dressing room of your mind and try on a new day for size. Your new day can start right now this instant. You decide.
Your mind always has alternatives available when you constantly monitor what you’re feeding it. The more aware of yourself you become, the easier this will be for you. There are endless pathways to be explored in terms of how to achieve the desired outcome. You may even find that your way of doing it is superior to mine. Here’s how I like to go about it: Take all the contents of the gift out of the packaging. Do it RIGHT now. Scatter everything across the workbench table of your mind. Walk right up and do not be intimidated by what you see. Your mind is YOUR house. Look at everything on the table. Make sure the eyes of your mind confront them. Every single component of the “experience”–get a good look at it. You have to do this to give power back to yourself. In those darkest moments where you feel most uncertain, that is when you are at your strongest. These pieces on your workbench do NOT own you. They do not define you. You are ABOVE them and you have proved that by unwrapping them. Now, take all those pieces you scattered on the table, and carefully place them back inside the packaging. I emphasize “carefully” rather than doing it in a rush, because you need to be able to exercise control over these pieces. Grab them, and handle them with control. When you are in control, you do not have to rush, because you are the one in power. Feel yourself taking control and resting in your newfound ownership as one by one, each piece that was so damaging to you only moments prior is now under your dominion, and the energy, that each piece possesses, instead of throwing it away in the trash, you are taking that same energy, and using it to fuel your present. Emotional energy is very expensive–among the most potent we produce. Recuperate as much as possible. Once you have all the contents in the package, I want you to grab your favorite wrapping paper. Wrap it and wrap it just like it’s Christmas, because when it’s all said and one, it’s going to go under a tree like a Christmas tree, except with this tree, it is one that can be used all year. This tree, never comes down.
The overarching theme is everything that happens to you in life serves you.
Repeat that to yourself until it is automated in your consciousness. I never stop feeding that into my Mindfeed recipe. As counterintuitive as it sounds, the more painful the experience, the better it exists to serve you. I do not know all the answers but I do know the answer to it is within you. Now, getting back to the tree–I call this special tree the “lifetree.” This is a tree that doesn’t come with a date of expiration. The same way some people keep their Christmas decorations up year-round, I treat this tree similarly. I use this tree of re-wrapped gifts to remind me that all these “gifts” were overcome by me. When I need a reminder that no matter the odds stacked against me at the time, I still made it through the experience a better man than I was before, I go to this tree. Since it is always up, the “gifts” stay piling up on one another exactly where I placed them. The tree itself is powered by light. It resides in a normal room with plain white walls. There are no chairs or windows to be found. This space is all about the tree and the gifts that reside below. When I have a fear or a doubt, and I don’t think I can get through it, I go to this room I made and examine some past gifts. Each gift is a vast well of lessons and questions answered.
I do not believe in throwing away energy that can be used for other pursuits. Especially if the energy is “bad.” It is only bad until I am able to come up with a way it can suit my needs. Then, what was once a source of pain and sorrow can now be a great source of inspiration to live my best life. To get there, requires meticulous conditioning on the part of the thinker, and a good amount of bravery to venture out to that part of your mind and scatter the pieces across the table. That, is the scariest part. The re-visiting. It can be too much to overcome at once. I completely understand that. It has taken me years to break down these obstacles. Your mind is its’ own Universe. It is wholly and completely separate from us despite the fact we’re connected to it. What I have learned is that I have to “leap” after it. Sometimes, you have to be in pursuit of it, because it is so fast and too advanced to comprehend. It is always ahead of us. That’s how I know we are in possession of a divine power that’s bigger than any obstacle we encounter.
In order for it to be “your” universe, you have to take control of it. Instead of being a passive participant, subject to all the whims and impulses that come with other influences, you must be engaged. Look at it like a stock portfolio, but one where you not only choose what to invest in, but you also have control over the forces that inherently determine the value of the investments you’re invested in. You’re the investor, owner, and the head of the Fed. By having control over your mind, and therefore yourself, you have absolute control over the “impact” of everything you encounter in life. This is important to grasp.
Again, you can’t control what happens, but you can “set” the temperature of your room once you receive that negative action or force by controlling the impact. This “crash”–it can be a low speed incident where you decide little to no damage has been done, thereby allowing you to quickly move on. Or, you can “blow things up” in your mind, and perceive, that the incident is bigger than you’re capable of handling, and as a result, you can go from being a strong, responsive, get it done person, to won without any resources of use in an instant! Power or impotence?
You almost always have a choice.
Break this down further and you will see, that you go through this same process over and over, daily, throughout your lifetime. What if we could somehow slow that process down and control the “impacts?” How much closer would you be to the life you have always deserved just by making this small change? I will say, that it does not come naturally. I work at this daily and do all I can to slow myself down and put it into practice, especially when I am “pressed.” Instead of focusing on the problem, put that same energy and laser beam focus into a solution, or a way to turn the problem into an opportunity. For every disadvantage, brainstorm two advantages that come from it. This requires a lot of flexibility on your part, but I would rather see you make a way to maximize the amount of time you’re happy and in control instead of being in a state of disarray.
–Daniel Cousin
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