Another thing must be understood about these all-important tendencies. A true tendency is a product of your whole being. Since every part of your life must work in harmony with the other parts, a tendency cannot be created without the cooperation of your thoughts and your feelings. While more is actually required, it is essential that you first understand that mind and emotions must come to an agreement in the endeavor to create a new tendency. If the thought nature is saying, “How silly. How superstitious!” or “How worthless!” while the emotional nature is striving to move toward a clearly important fulfillment, no new tendency will be formed and there will be inner conflict. Indeed, a personal civil war can only result. Yet there will be times when the mind wants to enter activities or accomplish goals which are in direct conflict with the desires of the heart. These cross-purposes lead to deep problems — even mental illness — if the civil war is particularly severe.
Sometimes, your mind may wish to engross itself in a project — perhaps a design or invention. However, if your emotions have another agenda, if they “prefer” to indulge in grief, jealousy, or some form of numbness, no successful tendency will be formed. The civil war will resume on a new front and the mind will not generally have enough thrust, enough power, to develop the new project. And, your health may be affected as well. Weakness, nerve, or digestive problems, for example, may occur.
So, for a new tendency and a victory over the past, you must consider your new goal mentally and emotionally. You have to be sure that the two can work together on each important goal. When your mind is convinced that “The New Tendency Project” is worthwhile, it will not sabotage the project but will pitch in and help, bringing to the forefront its resources of ideas and concepts. Your mind will help create new images which will be extremely beneficial — indeed, essential — for the new tendency and its fulfillment. Your emotions will contribute inspiration, excitement, comfort, encouragement, and a dogged endurance.
Whenever you seek to be more successful in any way, stop and have a huddle within yourself. Dialogue. Introspect. Marshal your reason. Examine your feelings, clarify them. Then mentally and emotionally conceive the ideal thoughts and feelings for your new endeavor. Whenever the two powerful forces of thoughts and feelings work together as a unity, you will form an extremely strong, new tendency. When they work together they will not be denied. You will succeed through the help of your cooperative allies.
Your Life Force
Thoughts and feelings aren’t the whole story, however. As your thoughts and feelings combine, they must also have the cooperation and assistance of your life force and your physical body. By life force we mean the energy within you that enables your heart to beat, your breath to move in and out, peristalsis to occur in your abdomen, the energy that makes your blood circulate. No, we’re not implying that this energy has a mind of its own, but without question it has a momentum of its own. After all, life force is sustained by a most brilliant higher consciousness. Your life force regularly carries out exploits of life support which baffle the understanding of your regular mind, doesn’t it? When you are changing your life, especially when you are creating a new tendency, you want your life force to move in this new direction, too. You want it to move cooperatively along the lines that your mind and emotions have agreed upon. It’s important to spend quiet time with your mind and emotions interplaying with the new tendency while encouraging your life force, your physical energy, to move in this new way also. Your life force readily responds to the direction of your thoughts and feelings.
Metaphysicians and mystics have often demonstrated that what you think and feel can affect your vitality level or improve the functioning of your breathing or your heartbeat. While the relationship of thoughts and feelings with vital energy is a vague field of science at this point, or perhaps is considered scarcely scientific at all, you can, through conceiving mentally/emotionally of the new goal, enable your life force to become more readily supportive of the new tendency. Simply, make slow, long exhalations as you mentally picture your goal and emotionally direct your feelings toward the goal as well.
While direction of life force may seem a difficult area to understand, you will know that your life force is cooperating in the formation of a new tendency when you experience extra energy — in fact, vitality to spare — as you work toward the new reality that you have determined to bring about.
As you can see, it’s very important to be sure you wish to create the new tendency before you marshal your thought processes, your emotional nature, and even your life force toward the new tendency and goal!
Your Physical Body
Lastly, the physical body itself has to cooperate. If it’s prone to laziness or inactivity, or if by habit it has behaved in a most contrary fashion to the assistance you now wish, then your physical habits have to be turned around too. If your physical body doesn’t cooperate, you will suffer the frustrations of civil war once again. It’s extremely helpful to train your body to serve you in each new tendency you choose. When you have mentally and emotionally focused on formation of a new tendency, conceive also the ideal behavior you expect of your body. Then, patiently develop the physical skills and habits. Too often the body’s role in success is not considered.
Suppose you want to accomplish something which greatly involves your mental nature. If your body won’t sit still or is continually resisting the intensity of mental work, it can easily keep you from success. On the other hand, if you have chosen to accomplish something through vigorous activity, your body can’t have a habit of being lethargic. In this case your body may have to be toned up and strengthened through exercise in order not to let you down.
Frankly, there is one more factor in forming a new tendency but you’ll have to work on it in subsequent lessons. You have to be nearly superconscious in order to deal with this one remaining potential ally (or potential foe). It is the ego, or sense of self. If your ego is determined to grow and change and sacrifice itself to a new way of living, it will be a great ally. However, many people have an ego sense which is very self-destructive and balky. Their sense of self ignores enriching possibilities while sabotaging worthwhile projects presented to it by the mental and emotional nature.
So, at present, your ego can most significantly help you if you maintain an attitude of willingness to grow — a readiness to become a finer person. With this initial cooperation of your sense of self, you will enable a tremendous force to help establish each new tendency. Believe it or not, large numbers of people have an ego which seeks failure and suffering rather than prosperity and well being.
True Tendencies Win!
Summing up, life-enriching new tendencies — as they are forged consciously and with your whole being— can be established fairly quickly. True tendencies win! They have momentum. They carry you through. Well-formed tendencies enable you to succeed when the going gets tough. They enable you to prevail despite outward circumstances. In many ways, your greatest treasures are your constructive tendencies. They are more powerful than thoughts, feelings, and negative habits of doing things. If you will take the time and patiently combine all your energies in the formation of tendencies that you would really like to have, you will be one of those few people who ultimately succeeds whenever you set out toward a new and important goal. You will be among the less than ten percent who understand the process of success. In forming powerful, constructive tendencies, you will also be accomplishing the consolidation you need in order to know your higher consciousness.
A Life-Affirming Affirmation
You may wish to say this affirmation with deep, clear thought each morning. It will help you develop new tendencies.
My constructive tendencies enable me to prevail despite outward circumstances. I recognize my positive tendencies and attitudes are among my most precious assets. They enable me to establish greater personal health, prosperity, emotional well being and mental efficiency today and every day. With intensity and repetition I have created the habits which bring success and higher consciousness.
