(This is the fourth in the series on applying Napoleon Hill’s principles for financial success to how we can shape our bisexuality into creating a life that we would truly love to live.)

According to Napoleon Hill, auto-suggestion is “the agency of communication between the part of the mind where conscious thought takes place, and that which serves as the seat of action for the subconscious mind (higher self).” [1]

Most of us live continuously within our conscious mind. Biologically, it is the constant process of sensing, turning senses into perceptions, and then processing the new information in the orbitofrontal cortex (OFC). The OFC does this by referring to past mind sets involving memories and emotion. It then sets plans of action and carries them out. Once we have completed the task, the new information is connected through creating neural pathways to past mind sets. Thus we continue to experience and grow. But is that all there is?

Hill suggests that there is another part of us that functions apart from the conscious mind. He refers to it as the subconscious. However, we now know that the subconscious is merely mind sets, or neural pathways, involving implicit and explicit memories attached to strong emotions. Frequently these emotions are based on negative experiences and fears that serve as guides or blocks to taking actions into the unknown. However, we do not grow unless we are willing to take some risks. This leads to my thesis that we have a higher power that drives us on to become better and better human beings. It operates in the realm of imagination and by taking steps into the unknown. It wants to experience and grow.

We can perceive life then as a battle between our conscious mind with its subconscious fears and our higher self with its desire to grow. According to Hill, the way to move from the conscious mind to the higher self is through the power of Auto-Suggestion.  Hill states that we do this by forming a plan under the intuitive guidance of the higher self and developing a procedure to bypass the fears of the conscious mind. He suggests that we put this plan into writing, and repeat it over and over again until a clear picture of the plan is formed in our conscious mind, thereby removing the fear of the unknown. This includes the pleasure feeling of what it would be like to obtain our desires. Instead of fear of failure or the unknown, the conscious mind now has a desire and an expectation for the hoped for outcome. But we still have to battle against the old paragigms of the subconscious mind.

Hill suggests that our ability to use the principle of auto-suggestion will depend upon our ability to concentrate upon a given desire until that desire becomes a burning obsession. Once that obsession is in place we can expect the higher self to connect with the Infinite Intelligence to intuitively provide the conscious mind with a step by step plan. The law of Attraction will then come into effect whereby The Universe will provide everything that is necessary to bring our desires into material reality.

According to Hill we employ the following three-step process for auto-suggestion:

1. Make a plan including the goal, time limit, and what you will give in return
2. Create a written copy and post it where you can see it and read it just before retiring and upon arising, until it is memorized.
3. Repeat this plan vocally day and night until you can see in your imagination the money (desire) you intend to accumulate.

For example, here is the plan on which I am now working:

By June 30, 2019, I will have sold 1000 copies of my latest book, The Room, which is about the emotions and feelings associated with depression. In return I will give readings, book launches, and whatever service needed to market my book. I will then submit my book for provincial and national contests and receive the Governor General’s Award and the twenty-five thousand dollars that goes with it. 

Here are my five suggestions for bisexuals:

1. We call up our higher self by getting into a state of mindfulness and dreaming up what it would be like to live the life of our dreams. We stay in a state of mindfulness allowing our higher self to formulate a step by step plan  to achieve our dream.
2. We write and post that plan where we can see it and recite it day and night until it is memorized.
3. We continue reciting this plan until we can feel what it is like to have the desires fulfilled.
4. We will begin to receive hunches on what we have to do to achieve our desires, and we immediately act upon them.
5. We follow these intuitive suggestions step by step until our desires and dreams become a reality.

[1] Hill, Napoleon. Think and Grow Rich. Dover Publications Inc..2015. (page 57)