By Hakeem Alexander

(Exercising Your Mind) Blueberries or Belladonna? Food or poison? If you were a farmer and you had a plot of good, fertile land, you could of course plant whatever seeds you wanted to in the soil of that land. It is interesting that the soil will not tell you “no!” if you wanted to plant poison instead of an edible food. Soil is indifferent. It will take the information contained in the seed’s genetic code and faithfully reproduce the instruction contained in the code and make whatever it says.

A good working model of the subconscious mind of a human being would be the analogy that it operates much like fertile soil. Our subconscious mind will reproduce in vast abundance whatever thoughts are planted within it by our farmer, the conscious mind, or by default, whatever good or bad happens to fall upon it by our lack of attention to what we allow to enter.

Constructive potential is our ability to progressively create and attract the experiences that we desire into our lives through goal-oriented action. Belladonna is a deadly poison. As far as the subconscious mind goes, poison would be the equivalent of allowing ideas or beliefs that puts a limit on our constructive potential somehow. On the other hand, a blueberry, or nutritious food would be the equivalent of allowing or intentionally planting ideas or beliefs that enhance or empower our constructive potential.

The way that ideas and thoughts are planted into our subconscious is by means of suggestion. Suggestions are the seeds of the blueberry or belladonna. A suggestion is an idea that is delivered to the consciousness of a person in a way that it is understood to be possible and probable. If it were not understood to be possible and probable, then it usually tends to be rejected from being planted in the subconscious mind. In fact, according to this theory, if you accept the idea that the mind works like soil, then this idea is a seed or suggestion successfully planted into your mind.

However, the subconscious mind is not the part of the mind that determines whether or not an idea is probable or possible. Just like soil does not make a decision to accept or reject whether or not it will grow food or poison, it always accepts whatever is planted. The accepting or rejecting of ideas is the job of the conscious part of the mind. The subconscious believes or stores the idea no matter how improbable it may be. This is the reason why it is most advisable to practice the cultivation of constructive and empowering thoughts.

To cultivate means not only to grow something but also to improve it through labor and care. This labor and care as applied to our mental growth or garden of suggestion requires focused attention. Focused attention is made much more powerful by decision. One of the best decisions to make is that of a specific, predetermined goal. Just as a seed has a genetic code, your specific, predetermined goal acts as the code or instructions contained within the suggestions you consciously allow to enter the fertile soil of your subconscious mind.

The other part of cultivation is to remove anything that will limit the growth of your predetermined goal or goals. It is important to remove poisonous ideas before they take root. Poisonous ideas require energy. Attention is energy. One of the simplest ways to starve an unwanted idea is to focus your attention or energy only on the seeds that you want to grow. By focusing attention only on the nutritious food in your mental garden, you accomplish both the improvement of your goals and at the same time the removal of distractions.

Blueberries or Belladonna? Food or poison? If you were a farmer and you
had a plot of good, fertile land, you could of course plant whatever
seeds you wanted to in the soil of that land. It is clear that you are totally responsible and the choice is all yours.