Psycho-Cybernetics Part 8 of 30: Redirecting Your Servo-Mechanism
May 15, 2009 by dr. lam
Remember that the only thing that we can control is our conscious mind. Our unconscious mind (servo-mechanism) behaves automatically depending on the messages that we feed it. If our conscious mind says, “I’m fat. I’m stupid. I’m a failure,” our unconscious mind will react by the principle of the Automatic Failure Mechanism; and we will be bound to fail, a self-fulfilling prophecy. However, if we are programming our unconscious mind in favorable ways, then we can be programmed to succeed, our Automatic Success Mechanism.
How do we do that? I remember a psychologist told me that the exploration of finding one’s problems was like being in the grand canyon at night at the bottom of the chasm without a flashlight and that we needed to first find the flashlight to get out of the abyss. Maltz argues otherwise. We do not necessarily need to go back deeply into our childhood and find out our failure mechanisms. We do not need to know the why but we can reprogram the output by putting in new input that is favorable. Like a guided missile analogy, past failures should serve to redirect our path to the right direction and that is all. Once we put new input into this system, then we can have a new output, i.e., we can steer our subconscious the way that we want to.
I like the analogy that Maltz gave in his book in which he encouraged a close friend of his to eat green beans with bacon. His friend demurred and said that he simply hated green beans. Finally, one night he nibbled on a small bit and admitted it actually tasted good so he began to eat green beans. The analogy is that his friend did not need to go back and trace his childhood to find out what programmed him to dislike green beans but the simple act of reprogramming his unconscious mind that green beans were not bad was enough to make him start to like eating them. I remember when I was about twelve years old I was brought to a sushi restaurant. Of course, in my childhood mind I conjured up how nasty sushi would taste given my visits to fish markets and the smell of raw fish. I sort of closed my nose and took the plunge anyway. What I found instead was a delectably sweet, non-fishy tasting meal that I almost immediately loved. It did take about a minute or so to let my ego go from all my rants about how bad the fish would have tasted and ever since then I have had the intense pleasure of enjoying sushi and sashimi.
I really like this analogy because it gets to the idea that we can redirect our innate failure mechanisms by simply reprogramming them with new experiences, new thoughts, and new emotions. Next week we will investigate a good way to do that. Have a blissful weekend!
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3 Responses to “Psycho-Cybernetics Part 8 of 30: Redirecting Your Servo-Mechanism”
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Dr. Lam, these blogs are SO interesting!
I really really like Maltz’s idea of…instead of the typical approach of having to delve back into childhood to fix a psychological problem and usually getting nowhere, that it can be fixed by positive new experiences. Interestingly, I think that the reason why this method actually cures the problem without all the digging up of someone’s past is because the problem is not that something happened that created the negativity towards something, rather what didn’t happen, which was a lack of a positive experience in whatever area it was. (this may go without even being said..lol)
The “problem” may very well never have had a starting point, but more so, was there because all the conclusions that an individual experienced in his/her life left a negativity towards whatever it was, because of a lack of positive experience. JMO So it would make sense that to fix the problem, would be to show a positivity in that area and the individual then can make a positive conclusion about whatever it is.
Goes back to my theory that we are always constantly making conclusions that override all of our previous conclusions by gaining knowledge in a certain area or just by our daily observations….when we come across a conclusion about something that overrides another, we immediately discard our previous conclusions and replace them with new ones. This is all done subconsciously….well, sometimes it can be consciously. Our automatic failure mechanisms or our success mechanisms are really just positive or negative conclusions that we have made about things from our experiences in life. Just a theory here..lol
Anyhow, Dr. Lam, that was a great example with you and sushi!!! (actually a funny story too…I laughed..lol) My take is…all your previous experiences when you were a kid with fish and food caused you to possess a natural negative attitude towards sushi, until your new positive experience overrode all your previous conclusions and you then developed a conclusion that was positive. It wasn’t that there was one incident in your childhood that caused a negative attitude at all, although you may have experienced negativity with fish, but more so, all of your experiences and conclusions about fish and food created a natural negative conclusion about sushi until a positive conclusion came your way. This is the why. Again, just my theory here and probably goes without being said..lol
I have another theory though that in some cases delving back into the past to find the problem IS the thing to do, but I won’t go into that. Okay, now I sound like a psychologist or someone in need of psychiatric treatment…lol (not sure which is the case..lol) I’ll stop here.
Dr. Lam, remember, if my comments get too long or sound too weird (lol), feel totally free to delete them. I seriously won’t get offended in the slightest.
Dr. Lam, I LOVE your blogs!!! How fun!!!
You are SO FUN!!! 
Dr. Lam, it looks like I’m in need of psychiatric treatment for my blog commenting disorder..lol
good points, and yes, sometimes going back to our past can help us. your blog comments are fine. the longer the better!