Time to Retreat

March 
2014 Workshop from ann on Vimeo.

The beginning of the Mini Form Joan leading.






March Workshop Sticking to Energy from ann on Vimeo.





Listening and sticking to energy.

What a privilege it is to spend time  looking into our true nature , using our body in a soft way to enquire, to feel.
How blessed are we to have the opportunity to retreat from the 'world' and look inside.
This time spent looking inward and coming to know our true nature nourishes us in so many ways.
 We come to understand the transient nature of thoughts and emotions and this affords us much more clarity in responding to the 'world' .

Blackrock Today

As This day of T'ai Chi Open Focus and Releasing ended

 We did a final Mini form to conclude.

It was a great day of deep practice, looking deeply into our true nature.

We explored our bodies , our minds, our emotions, how we hold on to our feelings and how we can let go and release feeling that hold us back from living our best life.

Thank You so much for being there , for sharing so freely and for making this day such a success.

Calming the Mental Formations

 Here is a gentle meditation exercise from Thich Nhat Hanh


Breathing in, I feel calm                                       Calm
                                                                         
Breathing out, I smile                                           Smile




Breathing in, I dwell                                            Present Moment
 in the present moment  

                                   
Breathing out, it is the                                          Wonderful
most wonderful moment                                       Moment




Just a few mindful minutes can renew one's energy.

Welcome to new beginners

Here are the first few postures of the Mini form .

Take your time as you begin exploring your own body through these postures.

There is no hurry, as you learn to listen to your body it will open and reveal its secrets to you.

You will learn to recognise ways you hold tension in your body and once you see how you are holding the tension it will become easier for you to let it go.

Letting go of tension will free your body, you will have more energy, be more flexible and more relaxed.

So welcome to T'ai Chi, give yourself the gift of time each day to practice and enjoy the benefits T'ai Chi brings to your life.




Mini Form to brush left knee and push for the Monday Morning Class from ann on Vimeo.

Who Am I

Who Am I ? Who Am I beyond name and form ?

This to me is the most important question in life.
One of the reasons I love the Lester Levenson's inquiry is that his method leads to an knowing , knowing of who I am beyond words and thoughts. The method leads to a deep inner recognition of Self.
The method is simple,  don't be fooled by the simplicity it is simple but not easy.
Letting go of our beliefs , of our identity is simple but not easy.
It is not easy because our mind does not want to relinquish it's power.
 We are so identified with this 'body-mind ' that letting go even for an instant can be difficult.
 However once we begin to feel the freedom that results from letting go we become encouraged to keep up the practice and go deeper and deeper into our true nature.
You can try this exercise for yourself . Take a few minutes and focus inside. Allow your body to relax.
Ready ?
Ask yourself , Who Am I, notice your answer  ( maybe you said I'm Peter or Mary etc ) .
Ask again this time say  And if I am more than that who am I ?
 Wait for the answer and again ask .
 And if I am even more than that , who am I ?
 Just keep going past all the identities and the truth of you will begin to reveal itself.

This exercise can be even nicer when done in pairs so see if you can get a friend to ask the questions some time and experience it in that way too.

With Love Ann

Meet Chris and some videos from Monday night's class

Here is Chris Gaughan. Chris joined the Blackrock T'ai chi Class last year and is a great supporter of our work.
He has set up a facebook  page for our group called  Tai Chi Cork. I'm working to get my head around posting on it. My internet connection was 'broken ' since last Friday and is just back today,  no  more excuses now!  I'm trying to upload a video we made at last nights class on facebook but it keeps aborting.
Anyway this is a great way to grow new connections in my brain so I'll keep at it until I break through my blocks.
On the subject of blocks I am really looking forward to sharing some releasing techniques at next Saturday's Workshop and it looks like lots of you are interested too.  It's going to be a Full House.
I'm so Grateful and Thankful to all of you who like me want to live your best life.

Here is the Yielding exercise and the Mini Form we worked on last night.

So GREAT to be back on line . YES YES YES




Yielding Figure 8 style from ann on Vimeo.







Mini form with Monday Night's Class from ann on Vimeo.

Letting Go

One of the greatest benefits of learning the Release technique is the gaining the ability to Let Go.

One of the areas I find it particularly helpful is in letting go of figuring things out.

Let me explain.

When we have a problem and spend time going over and over the problem becoming more and more frustrated , and  forgetting that even according to Einstein  “  A solution is never found at the same level as the problem . “

When we remember to let go we open ourselves consciously and subconsciously to new possibilities.

Can you recall times when you had tried everything and eventually you just gave up ( let go ) and suddenly you were inspired, maybe you picked up a book that gave you a new perspective, or met someone who threw light on the situation and you found a solution.

We all have such memories, so why not use our experience and let go?

Most of us have developed the habit of trying to figuring things out in our heads, we mull over issues forgetting that it is a waste of time. As Larry Crane (Release Method teacher) says, “Stop looking for the answer in the place where there isn’t an answer. “There is no point looking in the filling cabinet for a file that isn’t in there. “He says, “You don’t have to figure out how to drive your car or wash your teeth, you have already learned the answers to those ‘problems’. So the next time you have a problem ask your mind if it knows the answer, ask it if it knows what to do? If it knows the answer it will tell you.

If it says no believe it and Let Go.  You will be amazed at how freeing this is. You will then become free to be present with what needs to be done right now instead of ruminating.

Try it I bet you will like it.

With Love , Ann

Must Watch It May Make Your Day

Because I'm Happy

Remembering The Heart

"Recent studies of conception have shown that the first brain to develop is indeed the heart, and that the tiny heart seems to begin beating in direct interaction with the heartbeat of the mother.
 A powerful entrainment happens so that there is scientifically observable pulsative harmony between the mother and the fetal heart.
 Indeed, a controversy presently exists concerning the possibility that the fetal heart begins beating not from orders from its own brain (hardly present at this time at the top of the nervous system ) but from an energetic entrainment with the electromagnetic force field of the mother's heart.

Scientific instrument have demonstrated that the heart produces a three-phase electromagnetic force field that radiates at least 15  feet beyond the body.  ( Your heart is radiating it's field out around you now .)
Our heart is a powerful broadcast transmitter, influencing the fetal heart and surely interacting with the electromagnetic force field of other peoples' hearts.
 This is actually energy being broadcast and is a full 40 times greater than the total magnitude of the brain's energy.

Considering what a powerful transmitting organ the heart is I feel its well worth while spending some time
tuning into our hearts and enjoying the benefits of it's healing energy. This heart coherence exercise from Heartmath is beautiful and so energising well worth spending a few minutes practising it.


Heart Coherence Exercise


Step 1: Heart Focus

Gently focus your attention on your in the area of your heart.It may help to place your hand over your heart. If your mind wanders just keep bringing your attention back to the area of your heart.

Step 2:

Heart Breathing

As you focus on the area of your heart , pretend your breath is flowing in and out through that area. This helps your mind and energy to stay focused and your respiration and hearth rhythms to synchronise. Breath slowly and gently, until your breathing feels smooth and balanced.

Step 3:

Heart Feeling

As you continue to breathe, recall a positive feeling, a time when you ' felt good inside.' Now try
to re experience the feeling. This could be a feeling of appreciation or care toward a special person, a pet, a place you enjoy, or an activity that was fun. Allow yourself to really' feel ' this good feeling of appreciation or care. If you can't feel anything, it's okay, just try to find a sincere attitude of appreciation or care. Once you have found a positive feeling or attitude, you can sustain it by continuing your heart focus, heart breathing, and heart feeling.

With Love from Ann





Posted by Ann

March 29'th Workshops in Blackrock Cork

102 1982 from ann on Vimeo.



The next Workshops will be on Saturday  March 29'th.
10.30 - 1.30pm  T'ai Chi and Open Focus

In this Workshop we will investigate our relationship to T'ai Chi postures going deeply into our bodies to experience the postures fully and allow the postures to teach us. We will also investigate how this relationship between us and our postures responds in partner work.
We will use Open Focus Exercises to enhance our awareness and relaxation so we can stay open and and learn effortlessly.

2-4.30 pm  Releasing Workshop.

                                                         Lester Levenson
Releasing is about letting go of negative thoughts feelings and beliefs. When you learn to release at deep levels your life can change in amazing ways. This is what Lester Levenson discovered in 1952 when he healed  himself. “All your misery comes from your need to be loved.” All our problems can be distilled down to these 3 wants (the want for control, security and approval). When you release these,  life gets better.

In this Workshop I will teach the basics of Lester Levenson's Releasing Technique
How to release through out the day so you can remain open and relaxed.
How to use the Releasing method to work on specific areas where you feel ' stuck' or blocked.
These techniques can be used to resolve issues in any aspect of your life.

If you would like to know more or book your place email me and I will be glad to answer any questions you might have. The space at this venue is limited and there are already 12 people booked in so be sure to book soon if you are interested in attending.

An Amazing Story Of Our Brain's Plasticity

                                         Jodi Miller with her parents




I know that I am  a bit obsessed with our brain's plasticity but it a great recent discovery.  Until around the 1970s, an accepted idea across neuroscience was that the nervous system was essentially fixed throughout adulthood, both in terms of brain functions, as well as the idea that it was impossible for new neurons to develop after birth.
However as early as 1793, Italian anatomist Michele Vicenzo Malacarne described experiments in which he paired animals, trained one of the pair extensively for years, and then dissected both. He discovered that the cerebellums of the trained animals were substantially larger. But, these findings were eventually forgotten. The idea that the brain and its functions are not fixed throughout adulthood was proposed in 1890 by William James in The Principles of Psychology, his  ideas too were largely neglected.
Now we have lots of proof that our brains are indeed plastic or teachable.
I am in AWE of the Italian Vicenzo Malacarne and William James who were so far ahead of their time. Their thinking was so far ahead that most people could not even allow it's potential power in to their consciousness.
It saddens me that in this time  of  libraries television and  Internet, this time of wide spread education, that so many are still unaware of the brains potential.
This video on Youtube  Jody's Story is such an amazing story of just how plastic and teachable our brains are.  It has blown open my mind to new levels of possibility and hope .
What a truly wonderful time we live in . What amazing pioneers of medicine , doctors who see far ahead of their time and open us up to move ahead with them.
So incerdibly  Grateful to  Youtube for the video and to all those people who push out our understanding,  those whose work write and teach to inspire us too,  to reach beyond where we are now to live and  evolve to a fuller potential.

Visualisation another tool to develop your abilities

Michael and Ann fight set from ann on Vimeo.



We are still working on the fight set a good challenge for mind and body .



Australian Psychologist Alan Richardson made a little experiment. He took a group of basketball players, divided them in 3 groups and tested each player’s ability to make free throws.

The first group would practice 20 minutes every day.
The second would only visualize themselves making free throws, but no real practice was allowed.
The third one would not practice or visualize.
The results were astounding. There was significant improvement on the group that only visualized; they were almost as good as they guys who actually practiced.

So how does visualisation work ? Here below is a little visualisation exercise for you to feel it yourself.

The Lemon exercise .

Make yourself comfortable. Close your eyes and visualise a real lemon. Take the lemon in your hand and feel it's wax like surface. Scrape the skin with your finger nails. See the spray as you penetrate the skin and smell the wonderful aroma as the juice pours out. Now place the lemon on the table get a knife and cut the lemon in two. Pick up one half of the lemon and continue to peel back the skin with your fingers.
Break of a segment and put it in your mouth bite into it and taste how sour the juice as it swirls around on your tongue. Notice what happens.

This exercise never fails to delight and amaze me. My mouth fills with saliva as soon as I feel ans smell the lemon.  Wow what an great natural ability we all possess.
If you are like me you too don't use this ability half as much as you could.
So lets begin to really investigate our natural abilities and develop our brains our bodies and our lives.

More on visualisation soon.




Joan and Steven from ann on Vimeo.





102 2294 from ann on Vimeo.

Our Plastic Brains

Because our brains are plastic we have the power to change.
When we  think thought often enough it becomes a belief and
true ( for us ).
This like everything else in life has a plus and minus to it.  If we practice the thought that we are bright and intelligent that thought becomes true for us ,  there is a lot of evidence now of people who have trained themselves to be good at maths,  art, tai chi, music etc  in spite of previously believing they had no talent in those fields. The down side is that  if we think  thoughts of not having ability to learn a skill we will come to believe those thoughts and lock ourselves in failure.  It is all up to us and to how we train our brains.
We have 100 billion neurons in our brains when we think a thought they fire together ( watch  them firing  it's magical Neurons Firing ) .
When you develop your level of consciousness to be aware of your thoughts you begin to have power in your life . By becoming  aware of your negative or limiting beliefs you gain an opportunity to Stop and consciously change your thoughts.  This is Simple But not Easy especially in the beginning because of long standing habits that have made  millions of connections in your brain. Even knowing that this process works can be a huge help in the difficult process of change.  The success of groups like Alcoholics Anonymous
shows how being with like minded people can help, the support of a group who have managed to change their thinking empowers others.
When you learn an art like T'ai Chi daily training changes your body and your brain, each new posture that you learn rewires your brain and opens new possibilities in your life.
No matter how you choose to spend your time know that you are wiring your brain and your life.
Choose well and your life can become a magical reflection of your thoughts.

One of John Kell's Figure 8 exercises for Larry

Figure 8 Practice from ann on Vimeo.


Here is a figure 8 exercise developed by John Kells. A great exercise to
improve your coordination and fluidity of movement. It's a wonderfully
healing exercise I always feel my body loves to practice these 8's.
 I also love to watch others practice them as even when I watch
 people making 8's I can feel them circulate inside my body too.

Shifting Paradigms

Think of a Paradigm Shift as a change from one way of thinking to another. It's a revolution, a transformation, a sort of metamorphosis. It just does not happen, but rather it is driven by agents of change.
Agents of change helped create a paradigm-shift moving scientific theory from the Plolemaic system (the earth at the centre of the universe) to the Copernican system (the sun at the center of the universe).
Most of us are aware of some of the ' fallout ' from this paradigm shift. Recall stories of the Galileo ( you can watch a short bio by clicking his name )  who was accused of heresy by the catholic church for proving the Copernican system.
Just as global paradigm shifts cause  upheaval, unrest, confusion, and resistance so do our own internal paradigm shifts.
It is not an easy matter to change our long held beliefs we will guard them consciously and unconsciously.
When we want to change or need to change ( maybe due to health issues or a desire for better financial , social, emotional experiences).  We will face similar problems in our bodies to those felt in society when the view of how our solar system operates shifted.
We need tools to help us keep on track, to help us recognise the upheaval for what it is and ride the storm so we can experience the benefits of our paradigm shift.
This is what I will be sharing at my next Workshop in Blackrock.
I will teach methods which have transformed my life , which enable me to grow new beliefs and shift my paradigm regularly to an increasingly more productive and rewarding  life.

Jo Dispenza gives an interesting short interview here on how our brain can change here . Joe Dispenza

Book Your Space on March 29'th and you can learn how to shift your life to a new level of expanded enriched experience.

Wonder is the beginning of wisdom. --Socrate

I'm in celebratory mood my Connection is Back. If you have been a
week without your internet connection you will resonate with my
feelings of Relief Gratitude and Wonder at the marvel of this form of
communication. So I'm sharing this post from Daily Good as it to
resonates with my mood.
Hoping you too have a wonderful day today.

Wonder: When & Why The World Appears Radiant
--by Paul Fleischman,


I am looking at a grill-work of icicles that hang down in front of my office windows on a cold winter morning. The ice sparkles so brightly that direct gazing at the daggers is blinding...

Each icicle follows the laws of physics by which, at temperatures below 32°F, water molecules abandon their aqueous phase-state and flip into a new self-organizing pattern. The icicles also follow the law of gravity, which draws the alternately freezing and sun-thawed drops down towards the center of the earth, so that a curtain of sparkling stilettos festoons my windows. These icicles are basking in glorious electromagnetic radiation sent by the sun from more than ninety million miles away. As the photons collide with ice, diamonds of light are refracted in rouge color across the curtain of cutlasses. Although this blazing gallery is a product of scientific law, the codes are lax. Each icicle is weird, jagged, unique. Each weapon is being remodeled in front of my eyes as the cold air and the photonic electromagnetism spar by freezing and thawing, while gravity like an umpire draws drops down.

When I look away from the icicles from time to time, I notice two red-tailed hawks perched on the upper limb of a Lombardy poplar on my neighbor’s property. The hawks sit like married statues on the battered, high limbs, where they are probably warming themselves in the photonic waves that turn to heat upon collision with the bird’s white abdominal feathers.

 Everything in this tableau of stillness is actually in motion. The icicles morph as I watch them, occasionally plummeting down into the snow. The big birds are not still but poised, and they are set to lift off in pursuit of their caloric necessity. My mind too is rippling in white wonder. Man, bird, and ice all contain in their water, hydrogen atoms from the dawn of time. The red-tails carry within them similar information in the same genetic code as the voles they eat, a code assembled three to four billion years ago and first consciously reflected in the human mind a mere fifty years or so ago yesterday. It was not until the 1960’s that teams of bioscientists, including Francis Crick, Marshall Nirenberg and many others, first mirrored in their consciousness the informatic sequences that form DNA “codons,” so that life at last became aware of itself as sequential information.

 Man, bird and ice are cosmic conglomerates, temporary residents, artworks in the same installation. In this small crucible of space, in this coincidental birthday party of making and melting, a universal artist plays...

 My speculation halts as the hawks fly off, the orchestration shifts, my own great ship of Earth sails on through elastic-black space-time, changing its angle to the sun. The icicles suddenly look dull grey.

 Inside the polymath potential of the universe are the capacities for men, birds and ice. The creation never stops nor is still. Flows form and un-form. Law and history guide them. There are so many things that have been created and in one golden moment I was struck by the wonder of it.

 In order for this moment of wonder to have occurred, here I sit in my office, as my planet rushes through space at about five hundred thousand miles per hour (there are many motions in this approximation: the Earth revolving around the Sun, the Sun moving in the Milky Way Galaxy, the galaxy sweeping forward with expanding space), through the caverns that are (at least) fourteen billion times six trillion light years wide, my planet having given birth to life some three to four thousand million (billion) years ago, and having created in that long interval about fifty billion species, and having covered itself with oxygenated plant-breath, and having ushered in oxygen breathers, and having elaborated in the play of life over the most recent hundreds of millions of years complicated mammals, who have increasingly complex minds, all of this swirling aloft in my one hundred trillion cells, one hundred trillion informatic DNA threads, septillions of ATP’s and thousands of other smart molecules, containing octillions of atoms whirring with coordination and precision and whizzing accurately among themselves across uncountable nano-gaps, while creation and destruction bring life and death to me with their roughhouse game.

One moment of icicles and birds pours out of the cosmic fountain. One moment of awareness of icicles and birds is more, and different, than everything. But there is no resting place and the scene moves on.
Republished with permission. Paul R. Fleischman M.D. trained in psychiatry at Yale University and has been honored by the American Psychiatric Association for his unique contributions to spirituality and religion in medicine. He is an accomplished author. The above excerpt was taken from his latest book Wonder: When & Why the World Appears Radiant.

Guru Nanuk John Demartini and Me

Guru Nanuk  was the founder of the Sikh religion. His life was dedicated to the study of religion. He went to Israel to study Judaism and Christianity. He visited Mecca to study the Muhammed's teachings. While there he went to the Kaaba a cubical building in the centre of Meccas big square.

On the eastern side of the Kaaba is a sacred stone a mtteorite set into the wall. Guru Nanak lay down on his back with his heet towards the stone in order to meditate. 

The Muslims around were deeply offended because the stome is a symbol of Allah and the feet are considered unclean.

They cried our  " Blasphemy ! Blasphemy ! How dare you put your feet to the stone. " They pushed his feet away but he spun around and his feet were brought magically back to the stone.

They kicked him they dragged him around they did everything they could but he kept coming back with his feet at the stone. Eventuallly he asked them " Brothers why are you so upset ?" 

" Because the sacred stone represents God and you put your feet in the direction of God that is bad."

He said " If you can show me where God isnt I will gladly put my feet there. "

I came across this story in Dr John Demartini's book  The Breaktrough Experience and thought it  worth sharing. Thank God I had got the book as working my way through it is definitely helping me deal with being disconnected from the internet. In some strange way it almost seems as if life has set up this time for me to focus on some aspects of myself that need time and space to heal.

Going Within

My Internet is still down, and the inconvenience has brought up some interesting responses in me. To begiin with I felt indignant  " This should not be happening to Me !" was what I felt.  Next I decided to look for the opportunity it afforded for me . When it was still not back yesterday and they said " It is taking 8 to 10 days to deal with the backlog I becamc upset and furious. Then I decided to reflect on all I have learned and put it to good use. Lester Levenson thught that we have attachments and aversions to everything in life, every yin has a yang side too. 

 

According to Lester we have four principal 'wants'  these are wanting aproval ( love ), wantiing control, wanting security and wanting to be one  ( this last one is the most subtle as it is about our ultimate connection to source which is the sense of oneness or completion the resolution of which is our purpose and destiny ).

In Lester's releasing we investigate our blocks by investigating our wants. 

For example , to investigate my attachments and aversions to having an internet connection I divided  a sheet of paper in two. On top Of one colume I wrote likes about internet connection and on the other column I wrote dislikes about internet connection. 

Here is an example of one of my likes to explain how the releasing works.

" I like tha internet connection because it makes my feel connected. "

Now I look inside to see what want that arises from  ( in my case that came from wanting aproval or love). Now I release ( this is just a decision and can be done physically by opening my posture or mentaly by letting go).

Then I write a dislike and again release the underlying 'want '.

When I cannot think of any more likes or dislikes I repeat the process but this time I make my lists on advantages and disadvantages.  We do this because often new ' wants ' will reveal themselves when we ask the question in a new way.

At the end of a releasing session I will feel lighter and more present to myself and my true nature which is already whole and complete.

  I can let the internet connection be whatever way it is my state of mind is mo longer dependant on the outside. 

 This is a remarkable tool as it allows us to release all blocks to our true nature .

We all love to win, but how many people love to train ? - Mark Spitz

Here is Monday night's lesson for my advanced Short Form Class.

The quote from Mark Spitz is interesting, when we learn to love our training as much as we love the winning life becomes so much more interesting. We can't always win but we can train anytime any where.
Each problem we face can be an opportunity to train. When we begin to look at problems as challenges that life has sent us in order for us to grow, we can view them as great training opportunities.

My Internet connection is still down and I am using this ' problem ' as an opportunity to acquaint myself with all the places where free wifi is available in Mallow.  This is pushing me out of my comfort zone, making me change routines and find new ways of working.




Monday'sLessonhttp://vimeo.com/88290700">Monday'sLesson
> from annhttp://vimeo.com/user7419296">ann> on Vimeo.https://vimeo.com">Vimeo.>

Short Form ' Lifting Hands ' Lesson and the full Mini Form

Apologies To Monday night's advanced Short Form class I'm having problems with my internet connection at home so the lesson we worked on last Monday evening wont be up here until tomorrow morning.


Lifting hands and shoulder stroke to white crane spreads wings from ann on Vimeo.




Full Mini Form from ann on Vimeo.

Light Diet

Lets take a few minutes to connect with our inner light.

Read the exercise and then close your eyes and give it a go.

Make yourself comfortable allow your body to relax.

Feel the chair supporting your body , feel your feet on the ground, allow your face to soften,  relax the muscles all around your eyes.
Take a few deep breaths and  ' watch ' your body Letting Go.

Now shift your attention to your thoughts ,  close your eyes and just spend a minute watching your thoughts as they pass through your mind.    .    .    .    .      .       .           .              .                     .                    .

Reflect for a moment on how that felt to you . Did you notice any space or gap between your thoughts ?
Maybe you sat for a moment waiting before a thought appeared.
These Gaps are really significant these Gaps are where the Light shines In. They do not have to be Big and Long , the Light that shines in is Infinite and reaches all places instantly.
Taking time to notice these Gaps invites Light into your body ,mind and life.

Why not include these Gaps in your day ?

 Go on a Gap Diet . You will get Lighter in every way.

In Love and Light Ann

Every Day In Every Way I'm Getting Better And Better - Émile Coué

Émile Coué  who died in  1926) was a French psychologist and pharmacist who introduced a popular method of psychotherapy and self-improvement based on optimistic autosuggestion.
The application of his mantra-like conscious autosuggestion, "Every day, in every way, I'm getting better and better" is called  Coué method.  The Coué method centered on a routine repetition of this particular expression according to a specified ritual -- preferably as much as twenty times a day, and especially at the beginning and at the end of each day. When asked whether or not he thought of himself as healer, Coué often stated that "I have never cured anyone in my life. All I do is show people how they can cure themselves."
Unlike a commonly held belief that a strong conscious will constitutes the best path to success, Coué maintained that curing some of our troubles requires a change in our unconscious thought, which can be achieved only by using our imagination.
Coué noticed that in certain cases he could improve the efficacy of a given medicine by praising its effectiveness to the patient. He realized that those patients to whom he praised the medicine had a noticeable improvement when compared to patients to whom he said nothing. This began Coué’s exploration of the use of hypnosis and the power of the imagination.

His initial method for treating patients relied on hypnosis. He discovered that subjects could not be hypnotized against their will and, more importantly, that the effects of hypnosis waned when the subjects regained consciousness.  He eventually turned to autosuggestion, which he describes as
... an instrument that we possess at birth, and with which we play unconsciously all our life, as a baby plays with its rattle. It is however a dangerous instrument; it can wound or even kill you if you handle it imprudently and unconsciously. It can on the contrary save your life when you know how to employ it consciously.

Coué believed in the effects of medication. But he also believed that our mental state is able to affect and even amplify the action of these medications. By consciously using autosuggestion, he observed that his patients could cure themselves more efficiently by replacing their "thought of illness" with a new "thought of cure". According to Coué, repeating words or images enough times causes the subconscious to absorb them. The cures were the result of using imagination or "positive autosuggestion" to the exclusion of one's own willpower.

Coué  developed a method which relied on the principle that any idea exclusively occupying the mind turns into reality, although only to the extent that the idea is within the realm of possibility. For instance, a person without hands will not be able to make them grow back. However, if a person firmly believes that his or her asthma is disappearing, then this may actually happen, as far as the body is actually able physically to overcome or control the illness. On the other hand, thinking negatively about the illness (ex. "I am not feeling well") will encourage both mind and body to accept this thought. Likewise, when someone cannot remember a name, they will probably not be able to recall it as long as they hold onto this idea (i.e. "I can't remember") in their mind. Coué realised that it is better to focus on and imagine the desired, positive results (i.e. "I feel healthy and energetic" and "I can remember clearly").

Coué's ideas have influenced many writers and even John Lennon  wrote  " Before you go yo sleep say this little prayer  Every day in every way it's getting better and better. "  in his song Beautiful Boy for his son Sean.   Beautiful Boy on Youtube

 

                                                      Ml Ward and WH Murray

    " The moment one commits oneself then Providence moves too.  All sorts of things occur to help one that would otherwise never have occurred. A whole stream of events issue from the decision  raising in one's favour all manner of incidents and meetings and material assistance which no man would have believed would have come his way. "
             W H Murray.