Originally published August 9 2008
Could Your Thoughts Be Preventing You From Curing Your Acne?
by Seppo Puusa
(NaturalNews) When it comes to curing acne, which is more important: what you do or what you think? If you said what you do, you are wrong. The key to curing acne is in your mind. Not in your hands. Thinking about getting clear is much more important than what you actually do. Holding wrong ideas about curing acne can keep you stuck with it.
Start by asking yourself a few simple questions:
* Why do you still have acne?
* What prevents you from getting clear?
* Do you think it's possible to cure acne?
Please take a moment to jot down a few answers. You don't have to write a detailed thesis on the subject. Just get an idea of your answers.
Really, take the time to do this. This article will make much more sense, and you'll get more out of it.
Here comes the important part:
Your beliefs and the way you think create the results, experiences and circumstances of your life. Regardless of what you believe, you will find a way to create consistency between your life and your beliefs. Therefore, beliefs, for the believer, are always true.
Beliefs and recurring thinking patterns are like self-fulfilling prophesies.
Let's say you believe curing acne is difficult, if not impossible. Because of this belief, you find yourself in circumstances and situations that match this. You create a life in which curing acne is difficult -- if not impossible. Further, this belief makes you practically blind to anything that would make curing acne easy.
You only see what you believe.
If this is the first time you're hearing this, it may be hard to swallow. And you may resist this. I'm not suggesting that you consciously create your struggles with acne. Or that you even want them. For most people this happens out of their conscious awareness.
Let me explain how this happens.
Your brain is a powerful goal-seeking mechanism. It will make whatever you believe come true in your life, or at least seem like truth. And as far as your actual experience is concerned, both have the same effect: you get to be right about your beliefs.
As humans we have a powerful need for consistency between what we believe in and what happens to us. You will arrange to be right about your beliefs by creating the circumstances that confirm them.
We do this in three ways:
* Method 1
We attract and are attracted to people who confirm our beliefs. We naturally gravitate towards people who think like we do. Other ways to put this are -- like attracts like, and birds of a feather flock together.
Let's continue with our example belief that it's hard or impossible to get clear skin. You find that you connect best with people who share this belief. These people 'understand your pain' and you feel comfortable with them. You may tend to distrust people who say acne can be cured. You may even be annoyed by them because 'they just don't get it'.
* Method 2
We find ways to distort what we perceive and what happens to us in a way that makes our belief systems seem true, even if they're not. While believing acne can't be cured, you interpret your and other people's experiences in a way that confirms that acne can't be cured.
Let's say a friend of yours is making good progress in curing his acne. But something happens in his life, maybe he went through a stressful period, and his acne flares up again. You go: "Aha, see, acne can't be cured". Even if he was making good progress and this is just a temporary setback.
As long as you hold this belief, you'll be suspicious of people who claim acne can be cured. Maybe you doubt their motives (are they out to sell me something). Or maybe you think they just got lucky and grew out of their acne. Or the mother of all lies -- "maybe it works for them, but it certainly won't work for me".
There can be a thousand explanations as to why something happens, but you will pick the one that confirms your belief.
* Method 3
We act in such a way that confirms our beliefs. We unconsciously sabotage our efforts to get clear skin. We cheat on our diet. We skip exercise. We distrust and disbelieve any evidence that directly contradicts our beliefs.
As we keep doing this we find that our experiences confirm our beliefs.
With all these three methods, you get to be right about what you believe in. If you'd rather be right than happy with clear skin, this is a great strategy. But if you'd like to have clear skin and be happy, this is a losing proposition.
This is simply how the human mind works. The mind is a tool. You can use it to hurt yourself; or, as you are about to read, it can be a powerful ally in obtaining clear skin.
If we keep doing more or less the same things (sold under different brands) over and over, it's no surprise we keep getting the same results. To get different results we need to do something else. But this is not easy since our existing beliefs blind us to other options.
This principle is important to both clear skin and happiness. Most people with acne have this upside-down in their heads. When they look for new answers to their acne, they look for different things to do. The correct way is to first change your beliefs about acne. New solutions automatically follow new beliefs.
This order is important, because you can't find new solutions to acne before changing your beliefs about it. As this article shows.
I can't tell you how many emails I've received that more or less say the same thing, "I never knew these things were connected to acne". These people's existing beliefs blinded them to solutions that can really be of help. If you've been struggling with acne, I can bet it's because of your beliefs about acne and getting clear.
Did you write down your beliefs at the beginning of this article?
If you did, take a look at what you wrote down. Now think back on your experiences about trying to cure acne. How well do they match?
Most acne victims shoot themselves in the foot with this. Just look at the beliefs they hold:
* Acne can't be cured
* Diet has nothing to do with acne
* Acne is caused by bacteria and excessive sebum and can be cured with topical treatments and antibiotics
* Curing acne is difficult
* I'm a victim of this acne monster (notice how victim implies being powerless)
* Nothing that I do helps
With such limiting beliefs, is it any wonder most acne victims remain clueless and hopeless about acne?
Getting clear starts by changing your beliefs
First realize that any change begins from the inside.
You are already a world champion expert at creating what you believe in. The problem is that many people have never consciously examined and chosen their beliefs.
As long as you continue to hold the same beliefs, you will continue to get the same results. There is no way to continue to hold the same beliefs and get different results. To get different results, you must be willing to adopt a different belief system.
Please take this message to heart.
Changing your beliefs is not difficult. You've done it many times before. But most likely it happened more by accident than by conscious design. Beliefs are simply statements you've accepted as being true. And as you just learned, what is 'reality' is highly subjective. If your beliefs are simply something you've accepted as true, why not choose beliefs that help you create the results you want?
Think of the kind of life you would like to have and write simple statements about it. These will be your new, empowering beliefs.
Here's what I believe about acne and getting clear. I've found these to be very helpful in getting rid of acne:
* I can cure my acne
* I have total control over my skin
* Acne, or clear skin, is no accident
* Curing acne is simple and easy
* As I keep improving my health, my skin gets better and better
How to adopt new beliefs
To adopt a new belief you need to constantly feed it to your mind. Focus on it as often as possible and in every way you can think of. At the same time, you have to keep your focus away from your old beliefs.
The old saying, 'repeat a lie long enough and people will believe it', is true here.
The only reason your old beliefs seem true is you have focused on them for so long and assumed they are true. Just do the same thing with new beliefs and they too become true for you.
Repeat them over and over in your mind. Think about them while meditating. Write them down every day. Think about how your life would be when those beliefs are true. Visualize the beliefs and how they would affect your life. Talk about them with your friends and like-minded people.
Whatever you do keep these new beliefs on top of your mind. This takes a bit of mental discipline, but it's well worth the effort.
As you do this, your whole focus starts to shift. You start noticing evidence that supports your new beliefs. You gravitate towards people and things that support the new beliefs. Maybe you notice books that support these ideas and show you how to make them happen. You get inspired to take action. But, instead of doing the same things you've always done, you feel attracted to activities that get you closer to your beliefs and goals (clear skin).
Adopt a belief that you can cure acne, and you will find that life gently guides you towards the things and people that make curing acne possible. Pretty soon you'll find that events and circumstances in your life confirm your new belief. Just like they did for the old belief.
As Henry Ford put it: "If you think you can do a thing or think you can't do a thing, you're right."
About the author
Seppo Puusa is the author of the best-selling acne book Clear for Life: Lifestyle for Health, Happiness and Clear Skin. The book gives a whole new perspective on acne, so it will finally make sense.
Clear for Life shows how the small, everyday choices you make today affect the way your skin looks tomorrow. By consistently making the right choices you engage the body's self-healing powers that can reverse the conditions behind acne. And overtime, acne just fades away.
Clear for Life is not a quick fix, or even a 30-day miracle, but for people who are willing to take responsibility for their own future it offers a simple, clear and makes-sense-in-your-gut solution to permanently clear skin.
To learn more about Clear for Life, please visit: http://www.clear-for-life.com.
Seppo also has other websites, such as Proactiv Solution Info Center with hype free reviews and information about Proactiv, and Exposed Acne Treatment site at ExposedAcneTreatmentInfo.com.
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