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Up Close And Personal
That Mental Picture
We know all too well how the lack of exercise and proper diet affects our physical bodies. We know, too, if we are disciplined, we benefit from making right choices in this area. However, few people are conscious of how our attitudes, thoughts and and particularly our mental pictures affect our health.
Most people are aware that the left side and right side of our brain perform different functions. It is the right side of the brain that produces pictures. If I say orange, you immediately have a mental picture of an orange. If I say Brad Pitt, you immediately have an image of him. Unless by some disease or accident, we all have the capacity to see mental pictures, creative ones, mundane ones or frightening ones.
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Did you know there is incredible evidence that the right side of the brain can be a source of life changing inspiration. Raymond Lemke, says in his book, Yes, You Can! : "If you listen to highly creative people talk today about how ideas come to them, pretty soon you will start hearing about the pictures or scenes that trigger their thinking. They go on to represent these images in stories or paintings, or they work their 'visions' out as scientific formulas or mathematical equations. The Nobel Prize laureate J. D. Watson has said that he worked out just such a mental picture in the process of his discovery of the structure of DNA."
This brings us to a question. What kind of mental pictures do we house in our brain? It truly makes a difference. Author Lemke says, "Your mental life is your real life! It is the place where outcomes are established, where success is determined. The mental pictures and the running commentary we have in our minds is the most important thing that goes on in our lives."
This may mean we need to clean up our thoughts and mental images.
It is important to stress that negative life styles and negative attitudes are poison to our lives. The above information is not new. This has been studied for many, many years and is still being studied. The Christian Bible sums up all the studies on this subject in the words, *"Be tranformed by the renewing of your mind." Would you agree that settles it?
We should never think what our mind dwells on is unimportant. Does murder scene after murder scene on t.v. matter? Does books we read matter? Does hostility from family or friends matter. Does what we think about ourself matter. Do you think that it is important to drug companies to get the word out on their products that we will feel better if we try their product? This is smart advertising. We mute those advertisments because we know if told often enough, we will picture ourself as restless and unable to sleep, unhappy with our sex life, or have a mental image of some product we just can't live without!
As for our children, it's important that we guide those mental images toward positive thoughts. If your children feel they can do anything, they will usually succeed. Picasso said of his mother, "When I was a child, my mother said to me, 'If you become a soldier you'll be a general. If you become a monk you'll end up as the pope.' Instead I became a painter and wound up as Picasso." I believe a mental image of greatness in Picasso's mind led him to believe he could do anything!
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Lastly, Lemke says, "You are a package with a label on it...how do you label yourself?" Let's work at it and don't quit until we like the answer!
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*Romans 12:2
Mr. Lemke says we are a prisoner of our mental images and we are held in bondage if they are negative. Negative images produce negative people If you can see yourself as a happy, productive person, you will see yourself talking the part, dressing the part and eventually becoming that image.
This truth applies also to our physical health. There have been many stories of people that say things like, "Every year at this time, I get sick." or "I just can't seem to get ahead in life." These words produce struggling people, trying to cope with no hope in site unless their mental image is changed.
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