Introduction: Redesign Your Mind by Eric Maisel
Are you looking to take control of your life and create real cognitive change? If so, Redesign Your Mind: The Breakthrough Program for Real Cognitive Change by Eric Maisel is the perfect read for you.
In Redesign Your Mind: The Breakthrough Program for Real Cognitive Change by Eric Maisel, readers are given a comprehensive guide to help them experience real cognitive change by using Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy (CBT). Through this program, readers can explore the power of metaphor, gain mental fitness, and learn how to use visualization exercises for cognitive change.
Maisel provides readers with an easy-to-follow program that offers a complete mental fitness and cognitive change experience. With this book, readers can learn how to redesign their minds and experience real cognitive change.
In the Silva Method foundation course, I learned how to create a lab in my mind. It’s the same idea here. However, Eric Maisel calls it a mindroom. There are many of the tools in books I find useful and have used. It’s a great reminder not to magnify your difficulties. Have a non-magnifying glass beside your easy chair. Use it to look at difficulties as they are.
Summary of Redesign Your Mind by Eric Maisel
The book, Redesign Your Mind by Eric Maisel has a lot of techniques to try. You get to upgrade your mind. I created a lab when I took the Silva Method basic course. I had a lot of fun adding things to my lab. After I finished reading the book, I drew the layout of my lab (mindroom). In this summary, I’ve included some exercises from the book.
Let a Breeze In
You’re redesigning the room in your mind to serve you better. You’re going to install windows, so you can open them to air out your mind. Choose any windows you like.
“We are focusing on one beautiful idea: the room that is your mind can be redesigned to serve you better… You’ve been living in your mindroom forever, thinking the same thoughts, repeating the same opinions, remembering the same hurts. It’s time to throw open the windows and let a cleansing breeze blow through. That breeze will clear the air of worry and despair and clear your mind of all those thoughts that aren’t serving you.”
When you open the windows in your mind, you let go of anxiety, fear, sadness, and all the negative feelings that hold you back. You relax. Picture your regrets and disappointments leaving, so you have inner peace. Think of one persistent negative thought. Open the window in your mindroom, allowing the thought to leave.
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Add an Easy Chair
If there’s any angst about opening the window in your mindroom, sit with it for a minute. Then open the window to let it float away. You may have a bed of nails in the middle of your mindroom. The nail may have appeared every time you felt like you failed yourself. Haul them away, even if you have to use virtual haulers.
Shop for and buy a comfy, easy chair. Remember, comfort over style. Decide where to place your comfy chair. By getting rid of the bed of nails and replacing it with your easy chair, you’re living more easily inside. You can say a mantra, such as, “I am worthy.”
Put Up Wallpaper
The walls in your mind may be drab and dull. Wallpaper the walls in your mind, so it’s cheery. I don’t like wallpaper, so I painted my walls white and a pale yellow. I added some wallpaper accents. That works for me. Find what works for you. It’s your mindroom. When doing this process, see yourself choosing the wallpaper, prepping the walls, then installing the wallpaper. This action improves the landscape of your mind. The end game is to have a healthy mind.
Install a Safety Valve
This is one tool in the book I really like. Everyone experiences pressure. The safety valve in your mind releases the pressure. You can repeat a mantra such as, “I’m releasing the pressure now.” In my mind’s eye, I see myself using my hand to turn the valve so I can release the pressure. I really go into the exercises in Redesign Your Mind.
Calmness Switch
When you enter your mind, make it a habit to turn on the light. The light switch doubles as a calmness switch. You achieve calmness by simply flipping the switch. You can say:
“I’m practicing calmness. Let me flip that calmness switch and deal with this calmly.”
When you feel a trigger before you overeat, fight with your spouse, or whatever, flip the calmness switch.
Painting of Apricots
Life is filled with the good and the back. The painting has a bowl of apricots. In the bowl, you have some ripe, juicy apricots, and others at various stages of decay. All the work you produce won’t be excellent and well-received by others. The painting is there to remind you that’s okay. The good must be taken with the bad in a calm and graceful manner.
Other Tools
Have a dresser with lots of draws. Make talismans to remind yourself that you are precious. Have a hat drawer because you wear many hats in life. Your hats are there to put a smile on your face. Your mindroom should be a calm and peaceful place. If it’s not, you need something to quiet the noise. Have an object representing calm. That could be a snow globe.
In one of your dresser drawers, have power bars. Use them when you feel you cannot do a task and need to build your confidence. Have a selection table in your mindroom that holds the choices of projects to work on. Choose one and act on it. This prevents you from getting overwhelmed.
Use a crystal ball to visualize future improvements and successes. Have a hope chest in your mindroom as a reminder to keep hope alive. Even when the situation seems hopeless. Ask, “What is in here can I still hope for?”
Have you given up on love, your startup, or whatever? What can you do to keep hope alive?
Have a devotional altar that supports your intention to stay devoted to your work. Your altar is not spiritual. Where will you place your altar? The first thing that popped into my mind is to have it in the grandeur corner. What objects will be on your altar?
See yourself in front of the altar feeling connected to your work. Install a fireplace to keep your passion and purpose alive.
Have a rebound corner to develop your resilience. When you’ve been rejected or criticized, instead of letting it immobilize you, go to your rebound corner. Reject the notion that anything important happened. After the pain eases, sit in your easy chair and evaluate what happened. Forgive your critic, forgive yourself.
Add an appointment calendar in your mindroom to help you maintain contact with others. Affirm who you are in your mindroom. This is your identity pledge. Practice your focus, using a pair of eyeglasses with corrective lenses. When you need to focus, put on your imaginary glasses. Bring back your project(s) into focus. Name your project, so you’ll remember it.
Add a boldness corner. It’s a place where you speak your mind and ask for what you need. Be bold. And throw a party in your mind. Who will you invite? It’s in your mind, so no one will decline. Have fun and lighten up. Don’t spend all your time in your mindroom. You need sleep. Say goodnight to everything in your mindroom, then go to sleep.
If you have a lot of uncompleted projects, have a completed checklist. This will be invaluable to you. This is something you do in your mind. See yourself holding a notebook with a list of things to complete. What does it feel like to intend to complete a current project?
Live a life of purpose to create meaning in your life. Have a place in your mindroom to have difficult conversations, such as when you’re evaluating your life. Do so positively. Your easy chair may not be the right place for these kinds of conversations. You could have these conversations while walking.
When facing resistance in doing your work, the author suggests cracking the ice cube. Think about the ice cube trays where you twist it to release the ice cubes. You know that cracking sound? Have a small fridge in your mindroom for when you’re feeling stuck and unmotivated.
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