(Continued from Part 4)

• Be literal.

Be very careful in the wording of suggestions. You might end up getting what you literally asked for, and that can be a shock if you used words like "cool" to mean in command of yourself, "swift" or "cool" for something to be desired or admired, or "bitchin'" to mean, well, whatever it means to you consciously. "Bitchin'" and "awesome" are two words that never seem to have happy consequences when used in suggestions. See the material above on Clichés for more on this.

• Be positive.

Always try to use positive wording for your suggestions. This can be difficult, especially in those situations where you are trying to quit or get rid of something. If you have to use a negatively formulated suggestion, go ahead, but try for the positive approach first.

Here is an example of negative versus positive formulation for a case of nail-biting:

NEGATIVE: I no longer bite my nails.

POSITIVE: Every day my fingernails are becoming longer and healthier.

This suggestion might work just fine for one nail-biter but have no affect at all on another. One problem is the logical limitation of the subconscious mind. Since it reasons (if you could call it reasoning) only with deductive logic, the subconscious mind sees nothing contradictory about both chewing nails and having long, healthy ones. In other words, the subconscious might fail to make a connection between chewing and having normal nails.

You and I consciously know that these are two mutually exclusive events. This is intuitively obvious when both induction and deduction are available. But without the inductive side of logic, mutually exclusive events can exist side by side without apparent contradiction.

This is why there are times when, even though you have a perfectly logical and well-formulated suggestion, it can backfire or be ineffective. So you have to resort to autoquestioning to get to the root of the problem and change your suggestion accordingly.

This is a lot of work, but here is why it is worth it: If you can get the right suggestion formulation and apply it properly, you can be or do just about anything that relies upon your own efforts.

• Use "I," not "you."

In the formulation of your suggestions, address yourself as "I," not "you." Don't say "you are...," say "I am . . ."

• Avoid clichés.

Some people are so accustomed to speaking and thinking in clichés that they don't even know what they are. If you have trouble with this, look up the meaning in a dictionary to see what most people think a word means. If your choice is not even close, pick different words.

Here is an example of what might have been a good suggestion turned bad by the inclusion of a silly cliché:

"Any time I am in a negotiating situation I want to come across as a tough cookie."

See the Clichés section above for more information.

• Be visual..

Visualization can be a very important part of your suggestion application. There are some instances, perhaps most, in which a good, powerful visualization is more effective than the best worded suggestion.

Come up with an image of your desired state or whatever it is you want to achieve. The more vivid and dramatic the image, the more effective it will be. Here are a couple of examples:

WEIGHT CONTROL: Picture yourself as you want to be, doing the kinds of things you want to do when you look svelte and slender. See yourself looking in a mirror and admiring the way you look in new clothes. Or nude.

HEADACHES: Imagine your brain stem, especially in the area where it joins the midbrain (look in an anatomy book to get an accurate image if you like; otherwise, just make-up whatever you think it might look like). Imagine a calming, soothing, numbing coolness radiating up and throughout your head. Imagine the blood vessels in your head originally pulsing and throbbing but quickly settling down to their normal status as the coolness pervades your entire head.

Keep in mind that visualizations are suggestions, too, and as such should be cleared through autoquestioning (and modified if necessary).

This is the end of Suggestion Formulation and Application. Click here to return to Part 1.