How The Unconscious Works - Understanding Our Etheric Bodies
by Janet Richmond
CHAPTER FOUR
Higher Selves Quote:
The Thought Form Body is an invisible body that contains realities that have been created through every thought generated by any individual at any point in time. Within this envelope [energy field] dwells many different ‘yous.’ There is the “you,” for example, who lives in this altered reality as an actual energy identity who is poor, who has no money. This altered reality has been created by you based on every thought you’ve projected dealing with a state of financial lack.
This altered reality that is the “you” in a state of financial lack actually seeks to reinforce and empower itself, the altered reality that it has become. This then, quite outside of your conscious thought process, allows that altered reality to continue to grow and manifest its power and its authority over you in the physical form in the physical reality.
Imagine what it would be like to hold on to every thought you have ever had from the first moment you were born. Imagine that each thought was actual energy that did not disappear but hung out in some energy field surrounding you. And imagine that this thought energy had some magnetic qualities so that every type of thought you’d had over the years drew all other similar thoughts to it, like magnets with the same polarity. Then imagine that all these thoughts, or energy identities, have created actual altered realities in the space around yourself. And as you grew up, these energy identities, and the altered realities they created, became larger and larger with each thought.
To illustrate the different concepts throughout the book, I will offer many examples in order to make them easier to understand. To do that, it will be necessary in the early stages to oversimplify somewhat. However, as each chapter unfolds, revealing additional information, more complexity is woven into the picture. By the end of the book, you will see the whole of how our lives work, how each individual can take the reins of his/her life, and how to achieve true change. In looking back, however, you will notice how the picture had to be broken out into various pieces before it could then become whole. Let’s begin with an example of how thoughts create energy identities and how these, in turn, create altered realities.
Perhaps you’re someone who has focused on your weight throughout your life. Maybe as a small child you went through a chubby stage, and sometimes people around you would suggest that you refrain from a second helping. At first you paid it no mind, but then your consciousness took it in. You began to think that you were bigger than your cousins and friends the same age. You started thinking thoughts of needing to eat less candy and desserts. You found yourself rating how some friends or family members looked based on their weight. The issue built slowly for you as you went through being teased in school.
As an adult, you’ve struggled with your weight, trying diet after diet with limited success. And all this time, you’ve been harboring thoughts about being overweight. These similar thoughts are magnetically attracted to each other, building thought forms such as “I’m too fat,” “I eat too much,” “I’m a failure at losing weight,” and/or “I’m unlovable because I’m fat.” All these thought forms tirelessly develop an altered reality of your struggling with your weight.
Thought Form Body
Thoughts of every type have created thought forms in each of us. They come in all sizes—some tiny and some huge, with many in between, depending on the degree of thought put into them. As the Higher Selves stated in the above quote, the invisible envelope (energy field) around us, the place where these positive and negative energy identities call home, is the Thought Form Body. It isn’t actually a physical body but is instead held in an etheric energy field everyone carries with them. It contains all the thoughts of joy, fear, love, hate, hurt, illness, wealth, poverty, and ideas of the self, others, relationships, work, play, and on and on. All thoughts are held here, magnetically attracting similar thoughts from many sources, thereby building and strengthening all of our thought forms. They create all the altered realities that live with us in our Thought Form Body.
Suspending disbelief for a minute, let’s take this a few steps further by looking at how our mind works. Do we tend to think more positively or negatively as we go throughout our day? Most of you know the answer to this already.
For example, if we wake up feeling good, having had a good night’s sleep, we might think, “Oh, I feel great today! I have so much energy; I’m sure this will be a good day.” And then we go on our way and may never think of it again. Despite feeling really good, we actually tend to spend little time thinking about it. Feeling good helps us focus on the things we have to accomplish that day, resulting in thoughts geared toward those activities other than the state of feeling good.
But what happens if we sleep poorly and wake up with a backache, headache, or stiff neck? Don’t we often express a litany of complaints about it to friends or co-workers? And if a repairman or deliveryman comes by and politely asks, “How are you,” what do we say? If we feel good, we most likely just say, “Fine, and you?” But if our neck still hurts, we say, “Well, since you asked, I am having a bad day, starting with . . .”
The tendency to dwell on the negative outweighs our tendency to think positively, and every day we do so we strengthen those misery magnets. This means that when we look at the balance or the ratio of negative energy identities to positive ones, the scale weighs heavily on the negative side. This serves none of us well.
Drive to Manifestation
Thought forms are soulless and mindless. They lack consciousness. However, they carry the power of magnetic attraction. This magnetic energy is working 24/7. In fact, it does not just attract our own thoughts but all similar thoughts from many sources, including other people. This is not a conscious act any more than an actual magnet consciously attracts. What is the result of all this attraction?
The result of magnetic attraction is that the energy identities (and the altered realities they create) continue to build in strength. At the point that they’re strong enough, they manifest into our physical reality. In fact, their sole purpose is to manifest. The manifestation process from all of our energy identities is what forms our outer expression or, in other words, our lives.
For example, if it is cold and rainy outside, we may think throughout the day that we have to keep warm and dry so we don’t get sick. We see ads on TV about various cold remedies, which remind us to check what we have on hand just in case. We remember the time last year when we got the worst cold ever and had to miss work. Flu season is here and we plan to get a flu shot. We believe that all schools are breeding grounds for illnesses and have no patience for parents who send their children to school with a cold. We also believe that we are susceptible to every germ with which we come in contact. In this way, we are empowering our illness thought form (one that we already have) over and over again. And what do you know? Despite all our efforts to prevent it, we come down with a massive cold two weeks later and blame it on the time we spent helping out at our daughter’s pre-school.
In fact, getting sick was a result of the altered reality of illness gaining enough strength to manifest itself in our physical reality as a cold. It attracted the opportunity when you were asked to volunteer to read to your child’s pre-school class. This then triggered and empowered your beliefs (based on your thoughts) that you were now exposed to the germs that you were convinced would make you sick. And they did.
Isn’t it just that colds are contagious? No. If that were the case, every teacher, parent, and student who came in contact with children would get sick. Each individual responds to each situation based on what thought forms he/she is creating for him/herself. That is why some children/teachers have perfect attendance and others are chronically sick or somewhere in between. Of course, this process is more complex than I have presented. But the basic principles are the same.
Other examples are: If you have a large victim thought form, it will magnetically attract conditions that will make you a victim once more. If you have a failure pattern, the thought forms will bring in situations that will again result in failure. If you bring in mates that make you crazy with their infidelity, the thought forms may keep you in a cycle of betrayal. The process of manifestation will be explained more fully in Chapter Six, but our thought forms are the primary source for the patterns we have in our lives.
Habit Body
In addition to the Thought Form Body, we also carry a Habit Body. The Habit Body is another invisible envelope of energy (field) surrounding us that contains imprints of every thought and every action. Thoughts create energy identities and habit imprints simultaneously. And as the imprints of similar thoughts get deeper and deeper, they become our most ingrained habits. As we smoke/worry/procrastinate/and so on, the imprints/ruts are reinforced again. In other words, the depth of a habit imprint in the Habit Body is relative to how often we have thought the thought and/or acted—the deeper the rut, the more automatic and intense the habit. There are no energy identities in the Habit Body, but the habit imprints empower the thoughts and vice versa.
Have you ever noticed that you wake up five mornings out of seven at the exact same time? Or that you get a cup of coffee without thinking before you start any project? Or that you put on your left shoe before your right one every morning? These are simple, repetitive habits that are easy to see and are relatively harmless in the scheme of things. Of course, we all have deeper and more complicated ones, so it is very important that we pay attention to all our habits. These habit imprints work with Thought Forms to reinforce our patterns. These two working together are in part what makes it so difficult to change things about ourselves with which we are unhappy. The more ingrained a habit, the more we act on it and think about it. The thought form gains power and then manifests again – and then again.
One of my habits for over ten years was to sleep only three or four hours a night. Once I’d wake up, I would never be able to go back to sleep, resulting in chronic exhaustion. Fortunately, by doing the exercises that the Higher Selves taught us, I was successful at changing this pattern, and those sleepless years are now a distant memory. Now I sleep at least five to six hours a night with few exceptions. I still wake up many nights, but the difference is I go back to sleep. Of course, five or six hours are not enough. Fortunately, I have continued to improve, sleeping seven plus hours a night at least three times every week. Habits can be changed, and you can do it too.
The Overall Picture
Remember that we live as humans in a Free Will Kingdom, that we choose how our lives unfold. If something happens that changes our thought patterns for a day or week, we will empower different energy identities and habit imprints and will, therefore, manifest differently than we did in prior weeks.
One example many can relate to is the unexpected death of a young friend or family member. The new vulnerability we now feel may make us realize that we have been complacent about life. As a result, we decide to focus more on preventing illness by eating healthy food and exercising. We also become more open to telling our family every day how much we love them and perhaps resolve to work harder to be a better person so that there are no regrets if we die young. Were we thinking this way before? No, but we are now. So our energy identities and habit imprints are changing as a reflection of the changes in our thought patterns.
What is more significant, however, is how often we are determined to change only to find our old habits return. How many of us with great intentions find ourselves back in the same place within days/weeks/months? How many times have we had to use the same New Year’s resolution because we didn’t accomplish it this year or the prior years? Why are there so many new diets on the market, multiple no-smoking aids, a myriad of solutions for depression, insomnia, etc? Why are there so many self-help books? Because for all our grand efforts and deep desire to change, we predictably find ourselves back in the same place, having made little lasting forward movement. This does not feel good. There are reasons why change is so hard, and this is why I wrote Choices. We need help to make the changes. There is much more to it than thinking positive thoughts. Let’s take a look at the Law of Attraction.
The Law of Attraction Clarified
Higher Selves Quote:
Thought forms are what carry the impact of what you will outwardly manifest. This is not a process that will be reached through affirmations or through consciously speaking words. For the process of thought forms is one that goes very, very deep. Thought forms are carried from lifetime to lifetime so that the buildup of these “altered realities” is very intense and very powerful.
What exactly is the Law of Attraction? It seems to be the basis of many metaphysical self-help books (including The Secret) and even has its place in some religious teachings. Simply stated, it posits that thoughts are energy and are magnetic in nature. They attract to you situations and people that match your predominant thoughts, whether conscious or unconscious. The bottom line, therefore, is like attracts like. The more positively you think, the more positive your life will be. Every individual is responsible for what they bring into their lives. Is there more to it than this? Yes.
If you have understood the information in Choices up to now, there is a good chance you see that the Thought Form Body information seems similar to the Law of Attraction. Both involve magnetic attraction that brings situations, conditions and people into our lives based on our thoughts. However, you may also be beginning to see that there needs to be more than positive thought to create real change in your life. Of course, there are people who have changed their thoughts from the negative to positive, who have brought more good into their lives than before. But what does it mean for those of us who didn’t find success by thinking positively, yet worked as hard or harder than the others who did? What about those who achieved results but didn’t recognize that what they got was either the exact right result (even if unexpected) or that it was only the first step in a process that would lead them to the final goal? What about the patterns that keep recurring in life despite the efforts to change them? Or the emotional upheavals that make us behave in ways we’re not proud of?
What has been missing in the prior teachings on the Law of Attraction is the fact that it has not been fully understood. The Higher Selves didn’t change the Law. They explain how it works. And there are two misconceptions that need to be cleared up. One, a positive thought does not negate or replace a negative thought. It only empowers the positive energy identities while the negative ones remain to magnetically attract negative situations, conditions and people into our lives. Because we harbor so much more of the negative, the positives we empower through our thoughts are still extremely weak compared to the powerful negatives. In Part II, Choices will describe a more efficient and powerful way to empower your positive thought forms, growing them to where they are increased 1000-fold.
The section misconception is that even if you never think a negative thought ever again, it doesn’t mean that the negative energy identities go away. Once created, the thought energy exists forever. Leaving those negative altered realities in place is what makes it so difficult for us to change. Whether negative or positive, the energy remains in place in our etheric bodies as thought forms and habit imprints. When these are positive, we can rejoice. When they are negative, we are concerned with what we do about them. What we must do is to neutralize the negative energies to render them harmless and incapable of magnetically attracting anything that could hurt us. Neutralizing the negatives and using that energy to empower our light is the key to change and is fully explained in Part II. Again, the Higher Selves didn’t change the Law of Attraction but added details about how it functions. Choices will show you how you can properly utilize it to your advantage.
The Shift From Victim to Taking Charge
Once we accept that we are living in a Free Will Kingdom, and that we are making both conscious and unconscious choices that create our experiences, we can find our way to take responsibility for what happens to us. So the shift goes from blaming someone, something or some event for our problem/s to looking at ourselves and asking, “Why did I bring this into my life?” “How can I change this reality?” Or “How can I prevent it from happening again?”
There is no judgment here. We are not all screw-ups who just can’t get it right. Instead, we acknowledge that we are all experiencing the human condition. Everyone has challenges to face, joys to experience, moments of wonder and moments of despair. What will be explained is the way to be actively involved in how your life unfolds. There is no magic pill to take and presto . . .you have changed. If it took years and lifetimes to develop our patterns, undoing these patterns won’t be instantaneous. However, with consistent effort, we can change our patterns, find what was hidden and untapped, and definitely improve our lives significantly.
In a year from now we will all be one year older. We can still be in the same place, coping with the same issues. Or we can use the simple Higher Self techniques and make this year and every year a witness to us becoming much more of what we want to be. We understand our conscious choices. And now we understand how our own thought forms and habit imprints, through the process of magnetic attraction, work with our conscious choices to create the outer expression we call our lives. Someone else isn’t creating our lives. It isn’t Mother Nature, your jerky boss, or a vindictive god picking on you. We are busy making and playing out our patterns consciously and unconsciously, then, taking what life gives us and handling it as best we can. Now is the time to be in charge, and we can be. We are not doomed. We are not stuck. We are not powerless.
An author and personal coach, Janet Richmond’s book CHOICES-Neutralizing Your Negative Thoughts and Emotional Blueprints details a process which allows each individual to find they have the power and the ability to break the patterns that keeps so many people stuck in the same place year after year. Richmond successfully coaches (on a one-on-one basis) and also teaches (to groups) the life-changing technique of how to neutralize the negative thought forms everyone carries. You can purchase Janet’s book on her website at www.JanetRichmond.com. Printed courtesy of Janet Richmond, author.
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