Don't Fall in Love with Me
How many times have you heard the story of somebody being told not to fall in love with somebody else? Have you ever heard somebody say to another person "Don't fall in love with me." and seen that exact thing happen, that you know will happen, which is that they do fall in love with the person. It happens all the time. It happens so often in real life that it even happens in the movies and on television. It seems the more you tell somebody not to do something, the more likely it is that it will happen. Sometimes we think it is just disobedience, a child testing their parent, when the parent says "Don't you do that.". There is an actual scientific reason for this, as we shall soon see.
Don't Smoke
Quitting smoking is surely a difficult thing, and yet the offerings of well meaning people saying "Don't Smoke." actually contributes to keeping that person puffing away on the cigarettes. Sometimes the person will say that these comments actually make them want to smoke more. Why is this? Why do we always do the thing we are told not to do.
Ah Ha! There in Lays the Problem
Our Subconscious brain cannot process negatives. We only hear things like "Fall in love with me." or "Smoke." the word "don't" leaves our subconscious and deep down we only think about the other part. This is one of the reasons children often do the opposite of what we told them not to do. True sometimes they are testing us, but often it is just that the subconscious and the conscious have not connected the dots. We have to train them correctly to fill in that blank.
Have you ever put your foot in your mouth and said something you KNEW would be stupid to say. Something you told your self over and over again not to say? This is again this is an other example of your subconscious not understanding the negative. Thus you blurt out the very thing you were trying so hard not to say. Or you know you are entering an awkward situation so you tell yourself over and over not to do a certain thing, and sure enough, you end up doing that thing. It is because deep down in your mind you were actually telling yourself to do it, and because of the awkwardness, you ended up doing it.
Your conscious can understand negatives, if somebody says "No" you know what they mean, however our subconscious mind is one based more on instinct and survival. Negatives do not exist on that level.
Most Self-Help Subliminal Programs Won't Work
There are oodles of self help books, self help Videos, DVDs, CDs and so forth, and often times people buy them with good intention, and often times they do not work. Most self help subliminal programs are designed to get you to stop an unwanted behavior, but unfortunately the programmers either don't know, or don't care, that the subconscious brain cannot process the negative words in these programs, as such if they tell you not to bite your nails, for example, all your subconscious mind is aware of, is the thought to bite your nails.
Most self help guides and subliminal programs have this problem. They tell you not to do something, and up front that is what you hear... but deep down the only message you get is "Smoke", "Eat" or "Drink". Any efforts to stop your negative behavior are defeated by the messages as absorbed into your deeper unconscious thoughts.
How to Get Around the Problem
If you want to get around this problem you must think of new ways to phrase things. Remove any negatives, change things into positive affirmations. Rather than saying "Don't Smoke" you can say "Be smoke free". Instead of saying to your child "Don't throw that rock" you should say "Put the rock down".
Instead of telling yourself what not to do in social situations, try focusing on what do to. It is very hard for most people to say things without saying a negative, for some reason we are taught to speak negatively unaware of how our subconscious perceives this information, but with some effort you can turn things around so you can accomplish your goals.
