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I got my first laptop computer around 1984.  It was a 25-pound laptop like the one pictured above, and I carried that thing around with me like people carry their five-pound laptops today.  It had a superpower that saved me hours each day as a CPA–the DELETE key.  Prior to the delete key, if you typed the wrong letter on a typewriter, you had to get out the white out correction fluid or your typewriter eraser; and if you had more than one copy (since copies were made using carbon paper), you had to erase each copy.  Your mistake was forever recorded because no matter how good you were with that white-out stuff or the eraser, there was a mark that remained on the paper for eternity.

The DELETE key allowed me to make an error and then correct it.  No one else even knew that I made a mistake.  Suddenly making errors felt a whole lot less personal and serious.  As long as I corrected them, I was free of them forever.

Like documents from the typewriter, our minds have been trained to hold on to our errors for eternity.  The documents with the poorly-corrected errors get filed in our mental file cabinet.  We don’t look at them very often; but if we pull out that memory from the drawer, the error is still there.  I noticed long ago, that technology is a mirror of our mind.  The day I got my giant laptop and my DELETE key, an idea started to form in my head.  What if the same button exists in my mind?  What if I can bring up a memory, hit the DELETE key, and then rewrite it?  What if I can erase a program from my mental hard drive just as easy as I erase a program from my computer hard drive?  What if I didn’t have to live with my mistakes forever?

Years later, I became a hypnotherapist.  I began to experiment with my idea of the mental DELETE key during hypnosis sessions, and it worked perfectly.  Clients had miracles occurring in their life with this computer-rewriting process.  And they did it all themselves.  I would merely guide them through the process.  They brought up the old memory, they found the part that didn’t work (which was easy because it felt terrible); and they hit the DELETE button.  Then they replayed the image without the error.  With that change of mind in place, their life changed as well.

This was very cool.  But it was expensive for the client.  For people to rewrite all the crap in their mind, they would have to buy me for life.  I wanted to find a way to make the DELETE key available to them all the time just like my laptop.  I set out to find that key.  It took another twelve years after my hypnosis experiments to perfect it.  But now my life is all about sharing that DELETE key.  And while it requires some practice and some out-of-the-box thinking, it is possible to rewrite our entire lives expanding our potential, rerouting our life direction, and cleaning up our unwanted data.

The first key to success in clearing our mind is to become the observer of the memory that we want to delete.  This can take practice; and it is easily done in hypnosis.  Let’s use my laptop computer as a metaphor to get in that state of mind.  Imagine that you are a program in your computer.  Notice that you now have no control over the keys; you are stuck inside the laptop.  This is actually how most people live life.  They are completely stuck inside of their mental computer.  And in that state, they have no control over the keyboard.  Someone outside of them is typing away creating their destiny according to their rules and beliefs.  Their life feels out of control; they often say that they feel powerless.

Now return to being the owner of the computer.  You can see what is coming up on the screen, and you have the ability to hit the DELETE key.  Just like the computer, our mind is filled with programs that we call beliefs.  Those beliefs were programmed into our mental computer by the authority figures in our life when we were young.  Just like a computer, each program (or belief) limits your life experience to the outer ranges of the program.  Once a program is put in place; it runs without effort.  Think about driving.  You pay close attention to your mind while you are learning to drive; but after awhile, your mind seems to drive without your conscious attention.  This ability is helpful for driving; but it is not so helpful when it creates events and experiences we don’t want repeated.

We are taught since childhood that we must obey our parents, our teachers, our bosses, our clergy, our policemen, our government, and even all the different forms of god.  They gave us rules, laws, guidance, and beliefs.  They put the programs in our mind.  They start the program running; and they shut down our system if we don’t obey.  And they told us we could not take over the keyboard; but they were lying.

We take back the keyboard by moving into the state of the watcher or observer.  We step out of our mind and witness our thoughts like we are watching a movie or computer screen.  Imagine your body-mind as an avatar in a game or a character in a movie and ask yourself, who has power over this avatar?  Who can beat it?  Who can kill it?  Who can tell it what to do?  Who can punish it?  Who can reward it?  In short, who is typing on the keyboard of your computer?  If you don’t know, take a thought that often comes into your mind and ask yourself who taught you that?  The answer to those questions tells you who is controlling your mental computer.

Recognizing that you have given your power away is the first step to taking it back.  You can also ask your mind why you gave them your power?  And as you review the answers that you get to these questions, you can decide whether to keep the belief that comes up or let it go.  Once you no longer believe a thought or see it as true, it is as good as gone.  To imagine a metaphor for how easy it really is, just see the thought on your mental computer screen.  Now hit the delete key erasing the thought.  Each time you do that, you are sending your mind the message that this thought is not true and doesn’t belong in your mind.

What gets in the way of letting go is the belief that we can’t do it.  We think the memory is cast in stone.  We say things like “We can’t change the past.”  We believe those common sayings, and so they appear to be true.  But each of those beliefs can be deleted.  Few people look to their mind when they get sick.  They look for an answer outside.  Few people attempt to solve problems from the inside out.  It doesn’t even occur to most, and that is because we have been conditioned to think that we can’t change our mind.  But we can not only change it; we can permanently delete thoughts that are not in our best interest.

We were designed to let go of antiquated beliefs straight out of the box.  Once you leave first grade, you don’t go into the first-grade class anymore.  You easily go into the second grade classroom.  You know that first-grade door is no longer for you.  You ignore it.  But the people who gave us our beliefs often shared them as the truth.  They told us we would be first-graders forever.  Thus we don’t let go effortlessly because we were convinced that we can’t.  Consequently, we hold on to jobs for too long.  We stay in relationships that are complete.  We hold on to religions that make us miserable.  We forget that we can let go.

Hypnosis makes letting go easy because it moves people into the watcher state.  The false self moves out of the way; and the true Self takes over in the hypnotic state.  The true Self knows the perfect plan of our life.  So it exposes the error, deletes it, and corrects it.  Most people think that hypnosis is a sort of sleep.  But in truth, hypnosis is actually a state of greater awareness and control.  Meditation can produce the same state.  But, you can also learn to watch your mind all the time in normal waking consciousness.  And you can move through life accepting or rejecting the thoughts that appear in your mind as they appear.  When you do, you become the creator of your life.  No one else has control over your keyboard anymore.

People fear that they will let go of someone or something that they need.  What if I delete my perfect job?  What if I get rid of my wife?  You can’t get rid of anything that is really yours.  You can only get rid of things that never belonged in your life anyway.  That is why this works so well.  And it is why dramatic changes often follow.

I’ll be honest.  It takes practice to live this way.  It is not just a switch that we flip on and off.  We were trained to hold on to our memories forever.  We were trained that guilt and shame are real and indications of something bad that we must heal with punishment.  We were told that you can forgive but not forget.  My experience has proven again and again that those were lies invented by people who wanted power over others thousands of years ago.  They have been passed on innocently by people who just wanted to be good and thought that obedience was the ultimate good.  But authentic people don’t ask for obedience.  The true Self doesn’t have rules or laws.  Real people don’t type on your keyboard.  But false people do; and there are still plenty of them left in our world who will take over your keyboard if you let them.

After sharing this process at a workshop, a woman came up to me and said, “I totally get this.  You are doing the judgment day while still alive.”  She was smiling from ear-to-ear as she said she always felt it would be incredible to get that done while alive.  I never saw it that way, but she was right.  If you examine your life and clear out all of the beliefs, you will see your errors and correct them while you are alive.  Then you can enjoy the freedom and joy that comes from living with a clear mind.

In summary, you can take back the keyboard of your mind.  Whenever you have a thought that doesn’t feel good or you wish was not there, hit the DELETE key.  Tell the thought that you know it doesn’t belong.  You just might be surprised to see how much power you’ve always had.  You’ll wonder, as I did, why you never knew you had this potential.  And you just might find that as your mind becomes clearer and clearer, you rather like hanging out there.  A clear mind is a creative mind.  But don’t climb back into the computer even if it looks very attractive.  Stay on the keyboard; become the master of your life and the pilot of your destiny.

PS:  You can also use your emotions to assist you in letting go more effectively.  But that is a much larger topic.  If you would like to learn more about using your emotions as they were designed, check out my free ebook and course at www.nolabelsnolies.com.  It is completely free–nothing is held back–you don’t even need to enter your email address to get it.  It is my gift to the world.  Enjoy it!