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How
to Use Willpower for Perfect Health
By
Wallace D. Wattles
Excerpt from "The
Science of Being Well"
In the practice
of the Science of Being Well, the will is not used to compel yourself
to go when you are not really able to go or to do things when you are
not physically strong enough to do them. You do not direct your will upon
your physical body or try to compel the proper performance of internal
function by will power.
You direct the will upon the mind, and use it in determining what you
shall believe, what you shall think, and to what you shall give your attention.
The will should never be used upon any person or thing external to you,
and it should never be used upon your own body. The sole legitimate use
of the will is in determining to what you shall give your attention and
what you shall think about the things to which your attention is given.
All belief begins in the will to believe.
You cannot always and instantly believe what you will to believe; but
you can always will to believe what you want to believe. You want to believe
truth about health, and you can will to do so. The statements you have
been reading in this book are the truth about health, and you can will
to believe them.
This must be your first step toward getting well. These are the statements
you must will to believe: That there is a Thinking Substance from which
all things are made, and that a human being receives the Principle of
Health, which is his life, from this Substance.
That a human being himself is Thinking Substance - a mind-body permeating
a physical body, and that as a person's thoughts are, so will the functioning
of his physical body be.
That if a person will think only thoughts of perfect health, he must and
will cause the internal and involuntary functioning of his body to be
the functioning of health, provided that his external and voluntary functioning
and attitude are in accordance with his thoughts.
When you will to believe these statements, you must also begin to act
upon them. You cannot long retain a belief unless you act upon it, you
cannot increase a belief until it becomes faith unless you act upon it,
and you certainly cannot expect to reap benefits in any way from a belief
so long as you act as if the opposite were true.
You cannot long have faith in health if you continue to act like a sick
person. If you continue to act like a sick person, you cannot help continuing
to think of yourself as a sick person. And if you continue to think of
yourself as a sick person, you will continue to be a sick person.
The first step toward acting externally like a well person is to begin
to act internally like a well person. Form your conception of perfect
health, and get into the way of thinking about perfect health until it
begins to have a definite meaning to you. Picture yourself as doing the
things a strong and healthy person would do, and have faith that you can
and will do those things in that way. Continue this until you have a vivid
CONCEPTION of health, and what it means to you.
When I speak in this book of a conception of health, I mean a conception
that carries with it the idea of the way a healthy person looks and does
things.
Think of yourself in connection with health until you form a conception
of how you would live, appear, act, and do things as a perfectly healthy
person.
Think about yourself in connection with health until you conceive of yourself,
in imagination, as always doing everything in the manner of a well person
- until the thought of health conveys the idea of what health means to
you. As I have said in a former chapter, you may not be able to form a
clear mental image of yourself in perfect health, but you can form a conception
of yourself as acting like a healthy person.
Form this conception, and then think only thoughts of perfect health in
relation to yourself, and, so far as may be possible, in relation to others.
When a thought of sickness or disease is presented to you, reject it.
Do not let it get into your mind. Do not entertain or consider it at all.
Meet it by thinking health, by thinking that you are well, and by being
sincerely grateful for the health you are receiving.
Whenever suggestions of disease are coming thick and fast upon you, and
you are in a tight place, fall back upon the exercise of gratitude. Connect
yourself with the Supreme, give thanks to God for the perfect health God
gives you, and you will soon find yourself able to control your thoughts,
and to think what you want to think. In times of doubt, trial, and temptation,
the exercise of gratitude is always a sheet anchor which will prevent
you from being swept away.
Remember that the great essential thing is to SEVER ALL MENTAL RELATIONS
WITH DISEASE, AND TO ENTER INTO FULL MENTAL RELATIONSHIP WITH HEALTH.
This is the KEY to all mental healing; it is the whole thing.
Here we see the secret of the great success of Christian Science. More
than any other formulated system of practice, it insists that its converts
shall sever relations with disease, and relate themselves fully with health.
The healing power of Christian Science is not in its theological formulae
nor in its denial of matter, but in the fact that it induces the sick
to ignore disease as an unreal thing and accept health by faith as a reality.
Its failures are made because its practitioners, while thinking in the
Certain Way, do not eat, drink, breathe, and sleep in the same way.
While there is no healing power in the repetition of strings of words,
yet it is a very convenient thing to have the central thoughts so formulated
that you can repeat them readily, and so that you can use them as affirmations
whenever you are surrounded by an environment which gives you adverse
suggestions. When those around you begin to talk of sickness and death,
close your ears and mentally assert something like the following:
- There
is One Substance, and I am that Substance.
- That
Substance is eternal, and it is Life; I am that Substance, and I am
Eternal Life.
- That
Substance knows no disease; I am that Substance, and I am Health.
Exercise
your will power in choosing only those thoughts which are thoughts of
health, and arrange your environment so that it shall suggest thoughts
of health. Do not have about you books, pictures, or other things which
suggest death, disease, deformity, weakness, or age. Have only those which
convey the ideas of health, power, joy, vitality, and youth. When you
are confronted with a book, or anything else which suggests disease, do
not give it your attention.
Think of your conception of health, and your gratitude, and affirm as
above.
Use your will power to fix your attention upon thoughts of health. In
a future chapter I shall touch upon this point again. What I wish to make
plain here is that you must think only health, recognize only health,
and give your attention only to health, and that you must control thought,
recognition, and attention by the use of your will.
Do not try to use your will to compel the healthy performance of function
within you. The Principle of Health will attend to that if you give your
attention only to thoughts of health.
Do not try to exert your will upon the Formless to compel It to give you
more vitality or power. It is already placing all the power there is at
your service. You do not have to use your will to conquer adverse conditions,
or to subdue unfriendly forces. There are no unfriendly forces; there
is only One Force, and that force is friendly to you. It is a force which
makes for health.
Everything in the universe wants you to be well. You have absolutely nothing
to overcome but your own habit of thinking in a certain way about disease,
and you can do this only by forming a habit of thinking in another Certain
Way about health.
A person can cause all the internal functions of his body to be performed
in a perfectly healthy manner by continuously thinking in a Certain Way
and by performing the external functions in a certain way. He can think
in this Certain Way by controlling his attention, and he can control his
attention by the use of his will.
He can decide what things he will think about.
Wallace
Whattles is the author of "The Science of Getting Rich," "The
Science of Being Well", and "The Science of Being Great."
Learn more about all three of these classic books at www.mindpowernews.com/AbundantLife.htm
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