The Groundhog Day Technique
I've found an interesting technique that is helping me improve
my life. Part of this technique, I gleaned from the book,
Awakened Imagination, by Neville Goddard.
He has a chapter on forgiving yourself and recreating your day,
the way you would have liked it to go, in your imagination. What
I've discovered over these past 16 years is that visualization
and imagination are very powerful. By closing my eyes and
viewing the day, the way I want it to be, I am, in a sense,
rewriting my reality. It's sort of like being in the movie
Groundhog Day.
In that movie, the main character, Bill Murray, constantly
relives Ground Hog Day. Every morning he wakes up at 6am to the
same music, and its Groundhog Day again. It is one of my
favorite movies. He goes through many different experiences. He
realizes he doesn't have to suffer any consequences because the
next day he gets to start all over again.
Therefore, he indulges himself with all sorts of food and
pastries. He finds out personal details about a woman so he can
convince her they went to the same high school in order to get
her to sleep with him. On later days, he starts breaking the law
and he ends up in jail, but in the morning, he wakes up in the
hotel and its Groundhog Day, all over again.
Later he tries to kill himself. He does it many times but the
next day he wakes up in the same bed. After hundreds of days of
the same day, he starts turning himself into a better man. He
starts saving people, taking piano lessons, starts learning the
names of all the people in the town. Eventually he is able to
get his girl, but only when he's given up on that goal, via
manipulation and instead is just doing good deeds, all day long.
She ends up liking him because of the man he became. Previously
he tried to seduce her by knowing all her interests but she
didn't fall for that.
It is a wonderful movie and even has a few funny moments in it.
I don't understand why people call it a comedy. It is actually a
drama and a deep spiritual story.
In essence, we have our own Groundhog Days every time we wake
up. We can choose to live our lives and get the most out of them
or be like Bill Murray was at first; very negative.
This has nothing to do with morals. We shouldn't do things just
because they are right, but because that would give us the most
enjoyment and fulfillment out of life. Try not to be enslaved by
false morals. Determine your own morals. Morals are a man-made
creation; sometimes they are right and other times all they do
is limit your freedom unnecessarily.
To learn more about this, read the awesome book, How I found
Freedom in an Unfree World by Harry Browne. I've given this book
out to many of my friends -- it is liberating. There are many
concepts in there that can totally change your life. I like to
reread it at least a once a year.
In other words, you are not improving yourself for some moral
reason, but because it would bring you greater happiness.
Sometimes we think we are happy by watching TV or doing other
things that have little consequence to our goals. However, you
may find that you would actually enjoy your time much more and
feel a tremendous sense of self-esteem if you get meaningful
things in your life accomplished.
Therefore, this is what the Groundhog Day Technique can help you
do, among other things. Just visualize your day the way you
would have liked it to go. Do you wish you didn't do or say
something? Do you wish you had worked on a project instead of
channel surfing the TV for 4 hours and having watched nothing
interesting? Just look at your whole day and see areas of your
day the way you wish they were. Make it a reality in your
imagination. Even if you got negative news, replay it in your
imagination in a positive light. This is no time to be realistic
because your reality is created first, in your imagination.
Even if events happen, you can take away the sting by
visualizing a positive outcome. Say you had an argument with
someone at work. You can visualize the experience, as having
gone on without any confrontation at all. The funny thing is
that your visualization will affect the other person on a
subconscious level. I've proven this in my own life repeatedly.
We are all interconnected spiritually. If you send out positive
vibrations, then only good things will come back to you. You
don't have to react to circumstances -- you can create them
instead.
If you visualize bad things, then bad things will come back to
you. Don't be quick to anger because it will come back to you.
Your thoughts are very powerful -- you must be careful with
them. Be careful in how you speak to yourself, in your inner
dialogue. What you say will manifest itself in some form in your
life. It may simply manifest in limited thinking and therefore
limited results.
Now to the second part of the technique: I start my day in the
morning by visualizing how I would like my day to go. You can
visualize things you expect to do. You can also visualize
meeting people or having a day of adventure. You'll certainly
have a better chance of attracting these things into your life
if you expect them to happen. You can even repeat to yourself
that you are going to have a wonderful day. Try it, it works.
I've been getting fantastic results. I've been getting much more
accomplished. Plus my day is now infused with the magic of
imagination. I'm living the life I've imagined and it is
extremely enjoyable. Visualization is equivalent to programming
a computer, except you are programming your own mind. It's a
great way to get you doing more of what you really want to do,
even if you have some initial resistance or bad habits.
I just do a short reading of a spiritually inspiring book and
then I do my visualization for 10 to 15 minutes. Then at night,
I do another visualization as I go to bed and relive my day the
way I would have liked it to go. But as I'm improving, I find
less need to revise the day because I am more and more happy
with the way my day is going.
You could shorten the technique even more by doing it at night
in bed as you are falling asleep. Then in the morning visualize
your day going the way you want it to go while you are still in
bed. Even if you just put in 5 minutes a day, morning and night
total, the technique is effective.
Another thing you can do is to revise past events that are still
bothering you. They could have been from years back. However, if
you have guilt or anger from a past event, this can hold your
progress back in your current life. You have to forgive to be
able to move on in life. Anger and feelings of guilt, attract
discord and negative results in your life. That is why it's not
good to be argumentative or to be pessimistic. You attract into
your life what you imagine and what you BELIEVE you are. Why not
be an optimist instead? You'll find that you have a much more
positive and magical life when you do this.