Mind Over Money

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We said it time and time again... Your mind is your most powerful tool. Many of my observations are on this very topic, and here is one more... The power of the mind over money, and many other things.

Any one have arthritis, bad knee, that sort of thing? Any one know how much the knee surgery, irrigation, removal of some bad cartiledge, that sort of thing? A lot. Right.

Any one heard of the placebo effect? Right. If you believe it's medicine, then the sugar pill is almost as effective as real medicine? Right.

But did you know placebo effect applies to surgery as well?

In "Biology of the Mind" by Dr. Bruce Lipton, he discussed a study. Three groups of patients needing knee surgery were selected. One group got the full treatment, one group got the minimal treatment, and the third group got PLACEBO treatment (complete with water slushing sound to simulate irrigating the knee). To everybody's surprise, the placebo treatment did nearly as well as the other two groups. In other words, the surgery itself is NOT a factor. At least one patient, who had to use crutches before the "surgery", was able to play basketball after rehab. And to prevent skewing the results, the placebo group were not told they actually received NO treatment until two years later.

In other words, it really is like psychic surgery.  Except, this is real.  This is the power of the mind over body.

In "Body Senses", a BBC 2003 series, they discussed pain. If you believe something will hurt more, it will. If you believe something will hurt a lot less, it will hurt a lot less. They did an experiment on some volunteers... small electrical shocks to the wrist. Then half are given pills and told that the pills will reduce their pain, and half are given a different pill and told that the pills will ENHANCE their pain. Then they were subjected to the shocks again... (except it's the exact same level of shock they experienced the first time... same voltage). Folks who thought they got pain-killers had little effect. Folks who thought they got pain enhancers... reacted much stronger to the same shocks. As you can guess, both pills are placebo (sugar pills).

Imagine this power, but applied to money. No, you won't sudden discover there's more money in your wallet. :D  We're talking about belief in something which will make it real. And NOT believing in something that makes it unreal.

Shakespeare wrote, "I think, therefore I am."  Rich Dad's version... If you think rich, you will be rich.

So what exactly consists of thinking rich? There are many aspects of it, but it mainly comes down to positive thought vs. negative thought.

In other words, if you think not-rich thoughts, you will never be rich. or put it another way: CHANGE the way you look at things, and create a new reality.

The simplest example is the half-filled cup. Is it half-full? Or half-empty?

If you think "I never have enough money", then you won't. Why? Because that is a statement. Your mind is treating it as if it is a FACT, and will not think about it any more.

If you instead, think "I have plenty of money, I am just not spending or earning wisely", then you get room to adjust your lifestyle to change. Perhaps you go out to dinner too often? Perhaps you buy too much ready-made stuff instead of learning to cook a bit for yourself? From the introspection, one can open oneself to self-improvement.

Or you can think of this as a paradigm shift... Question what you believe in, and make sure the belief is actually worth keeping. and modified as needed.

We are all taught that money is to be treasured... But have we ever considered WHY? Money sitting there won't do any good. Money invested just appear as a number somewhere that gets larger over time. Money buys the good things in life... Okay, but do we really NEED the good things in life? Well... no, but they are nice to have, aren't they? But are they ESSENTIAL to life? Hardly. You can not eat money, drink money, breath money. It is merely a CONCEPT of society.

So why is money treasured? Because it is often used as a measure for one's status in society. We value millionaires and billionaires. They are "better" than us. We wish to be like them. Thus, money becomes a representation of the ego, as does various other things. Big house, fancy car, beautiful women... beautiful lawn... cosmetic surgery... all that.

There is some truth to the saying... "money is the root of all evil". People will often do a lot of bad things for money.

So the the idea that "money is to be treasured".... Keep, modify, or discard?

Keep is out. Money by itself means nothing, and it is NOT a good measure of self-worth.

Discard... is out. There are some portion of this statement worth keeping.

Modify is the way to go. Money is to be accumulated so one can achieve financial freedom. It is the freedom that is important, not money itself. As we've mentioned before, money cannot buy you happiness, but it can buy you time (with conveniences such as maid service) and thus giving you more time to do the things you enjoy, thus increasing your happiness indirectly.

You need to examine your thoughts and double-check your automatic reply. Once you've deprogramed yourself of those automatic NEGATIVE replies, you've mastered your mind. Add some skills and use those skills, and riches will follow.