WE all wonder at how the GPS or global positioning system has revolutionized the way we?re able to get directions and locate practically any part of the world within 15 meters. When we drive a car with a GPS, you just enter the address of the place you want to reach and it literally leads you to that place, guiding you with every turn you need to make.

Not many realize that we also have an internal GPS which guides us to whatever we set our mind on. It can lead us to achieve our goals and dreams, but it can also drag us down to one failure after another. It all depends on what information we feed it.

Positive thoughts

We can imprint on it positive thoughts like success, happiness, good health and financial abundance and we?re likely to attain them. But many constantly feed it with negative thoughts such as failure, bad luck, failing health, relationship problems and anticipate all the bad things that can possibly happen. You can guess what?s going to happen to these people. Their mental GPS is going to lead them to these ?destinations.?

This built-in GPS in our mind is the reticular activation system or RAS. When we plan to buy a new car of a particular model, it would seem that we start seeing cars just like it on the road. It?s not that these cars were not there before and by coincidence just started appearing on the road. It?s simply because we?ve activated our RAS, which alerts us to their presence and how possibly we can own one.

The RAS is a group of cells at the base of our brain stem no bigger than our ring finger. It is responsible for maintaining consciousness. It is also vital in controlling breathing, cardiac rhythms and other essential functions. Many scientists call it the link between our conscious mind and subconscious mind. The conscious mind gives the instructions and the RAS is the messenger which ensures prompt execution of the instructions by the subconscious mind.

Control center

Although it?s a relatively small part of our brain, the RAS has probably more capability than the most ultrasophisticated GPS or computer. It serves as a control center that sorts and evaluates all incoming data. It filters in all data that can lead one to whatever one is constantly thinking of. Talk of self-fulfilling prophecy, and the RAS is believed to be the one responsible for it. Think happy thoughts and it will lead you to whatever will make you happy. Think of misery and pain, and it will lead you to situations and conditions that will give you exactly what you?ve been thinking of.

Sometime ago, we wrote about malingerers who eventually get sick of whatever illness they feigned they have. That?s also the RAS at work. Instead of making it work against us, we should harness it to work for us.

Our RAS is our automatic goal-seeking internal GPS. When we write down our goals and dreams and read them regularly, especially at night before we sleep, our RAS will work night and day 24/7 to search and sort out everything in the environment to bring us what we?re aiming for.

It will bring to our attention everything related to our goal. Many of these things we start to notice were there all the time, it?s just that we didn?t pay attention to them before we?ve activated our RAS.

Can be programmed

Just like a computer, our RAS can be programmed in the manner we would like it to direct itself. We can do this by ensuring we only feed it with positive thoughts and emotions, and willfully abort whatever negative thoughts that constantly creep into our mind. Before we sleep at night, we should try to sanitize our minds with whatever negative images we focused on during the day.

They say that specialist doctors get stricken by what they constantly treat in their patients because all day long their minds are focused on these illnesses. So neurologists develop strokes, cardiologists suffer from heart ailments because they?ve been unwittingly attracting these ailments by mentally focusing on them all day long.

Experts on the subconscious mind suggest that medical specialists replace thoughts and images of the patients they see every day with positive thoughts every night before they sleep. Sick patients should also not focus on their aches and pains but think of themselves as healthy and well. This is the reason depressed patients develop all sorts of complicated illnesses while patients with a happy disposition appear to get well much sooner than other patients.

Our RAS and subconscious mind cannot distinguish between ?real events? and ?synthetic? or just ?thought-of? reality. It believes whatever message we give it. And it converts these thoughts to reality.

So we must always be conscious of what we think because that?s exactly what we?ll get sooner or later.