Mike Dooley from The Secret reminds us in this week's video - that Thoughts Become Things.
If you've seen The Secret, Mike was the guy teaching us to visualize ourselves wrapping our hands around the steering wheel of our brand new car.
Yes, step 2 to this entire process is visualizing.
In fact, there is a bible verse that says:
"Therefore I tell you, whatever you ask for in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours." (Mark 11:23-24)
And the easiest way to believe that we have received something, is to visualize ourselves already with it. See yourself counting your money, driving your new car, walking from room to room of your new house. Already have a dream car in mind? Is it on your list? Go take it for a test drive, and have a friend or spouse take a picture with you in the driver's seat. Walk through an open house and take some video with your smartphone. So whatever you have to do, to SEE yourself with your wish. Picture yourself healthy, or thinner, or stronger.
Believe it or not studies have been done with athletes, and the group who just visualized lifting weights actually gained as much muscle mass as the group who actually pumped the iron. Crazy isn't it?
But do I really have to close my eyes and visualize? This sounds so ....... new agey, fluffy, woo woo. As Mike states in the Secret, "How desperate are you for change?"
And if you still think there's something hokey about visualizing - I invite you to read the following story. I have asked the original author for permission to use it here - and have not heard back. Meaning - if he does respond and ask me to take it down - I will. So it may not be up for long. But on the other hand - there's really no reason he would ask. This is truly an amazing example of not only visualizing - but belief itself. And I have to tell you - this one pushed my limits. But considering the source of this material, and other articles this gentleman has written, I have no reason to doubt that the following story actually happened.
As they say - Believe it, or not.
And if you do believe, as I do, it will show just how important, and powerful, the visualization process can be.
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Some years ago my parents got a phone call from the police, apparently my brother was in a bad car wreck. My brother and I were really close. I remember my father leading my mother out to the car, and she was crying.
I thought that if I could "visualize" my brother being OK - that he never really got into the car wreck - before my parents got to the scene...
As they left I was in something of a state of shock at the news.
And before he left, my father had said that from what they said on the phone - it was really bad and that he thought my brother was probably dead. I just stood there in the driveway "visualizing" until they got back... Visualizing that it never happened, that my brother was OK, the car was OK, and even that the pole he hit was OK, because it never happened.
My father told me later that when they arrived at the scene - my brother and the car were not there. He said that the police and ambulance and everybody else was there - but my brother and the car were gone.
I asked: " What, did he drive away before anyone got there ?"
He said: "That's what I asked the police... they said no"
"Well where did he go?"
"They said that - He just disappeared".
He said that it was like everybody was going crazy and that nothing anyone said made any sense. He thought it must have been somebody's idea of a practical joke.
At that I was thinking - - I did all that intense visualizing for nothing - - it was all just a joke ?
My brother didn't come home that night and nobody could find him anywhere. The next day I woke up early in the morning before anyone else, and the car my brother was driving was in the driveway. I remember looking it over for damages (but there wasn't any), and then - all of a sudden - my brother was there next to the car. He seemed to appear out of nowhere.
I asked him what happened. I said that the way my father had described it, from what he saw at the scene, the whole front of the car must have been smashed. But I couldn't find any damage at all. I told my brother that our dad said he was playing a practical joke.
"What happened to the dent that was in the trunk - did you take the car to a body shop or something ?"
My brother told me to get into the car, that he wanted to show me something. That nobody else would believe him. We drove to the scene of the accident and he showed me the tire tracks that went right into a telephone pole. It looked like the tracks went right THROUGH the pole. The tire tracks were actually straddling the pole. But the pole was still there, and the car was fine, and my brother was OK.
My brother said that he went into a skid and went off the road and he was heading down the bank right for the telephone pole and then the next thing he knew he was sitting in the car on the side of the road.
He said that then he got out of the car and looked at the tire tracks and saw what I saw. The tracks went down the bank and right into the pole - but there were no tracks coming back out.
There was a house across the street and I asked my brother if that was where he called from - he said he never made any phone call. He kept saying that he thought it was a miracle - but nobody would believe him and he thought that I would be the only one who might believe him.
He said: "Do you believe me?"
I looked at the tire tracks... I thought about the phone call... what my father said.....and I told him Yes, I believed him - and at that we drove home.
I kind of just dismissed the whole incident from my mind, but I emailed my brother some time ago to verify that this really happened and he emailed me back:
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I remember it all very well. The road was covered with snow and the car was skidding and it went into a ditch on the side of the road and was heading for a telephone pole. At the last second, literally the car jumped out of the ditch and back into the road. When the car stopped I looked at the tire tracks in the snow and they just stopped suddenly right in front of the pole.There were no tracks leading out of the snow. Either it was a miracle or the car hit a bump or something that made the car jump suddenly and dramatical. I don't know really, it seemed quite miraculous at the time but I don't know. A lot of amazing things have happened to me over the years. What is a miracle? Essentially its something beyond your understanding or ability or experience. Some people dismiss any ability that they don't understand. Sooo.... ...I don't know what happened with me and the car...
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At the time he told me that he thought maybe the car ran up the pole and somehow flipped over and back onto the road or something. I also remember him telling me that he was heading straight for the pole and then just found himself sitting on the side of the road rather than the car jumping out of the ditch somehow. (It was actually more like a bank that just went down off the side of the road rather than a "ditch"...)
He didn't know anything about the phone call or the police and ambulance and everybody at the scene saying that he and the car just "disappeared".
And by the way, before the accident the car had had a big dent in the back where someone had backed into a tree... even that old dent was gone!
Beliefs
) or it would still take us forever to travel abroad.