CHAPTER VIII
PARTICULAR SUGGESTIONS
The use of particular suggestions outlined in this chapter is of minor importance compared with that of the general formula—"Day by day, in every way, I'm getting better and better." The more deeply Coué pursues his investigations, the more fully he becomes convinced that all else is secondary to this. It is not difficult to make a guess as to why this should be. In the general formula the attention is fully absorbed by the idea of betterment. The mind is directed away from all that hinders and impedes and fixed on a positive goal. In formulating particular suggestions, however, we are always skating on the thin ice round our faults and ailments, always touching on subjects which have the most painful associations. So that our ideas have not the same creative positiveness. However that may be, it is a matter of experience that the general formula is the basis of the whole method, and that all else is merely an adjuvant, an auxiliary—useful, but inessential to the main object.
We have seen that a partial outcropping of the Unconscious takes place whenever we relax our mental and physical control, and let the mind wander; in popular language, when we fall into a "brown study" or a "day-dream." This outcropping should be sought before the special suggestions are formulated.
But again we must beware of making simple things seem hard. Baudouin would have us perform a number of elaborate preparatives, which, however valuable to the student of psychology, serve with the layman only to distract the mind, and by fixing the attention on the mechanism impair the power of the creative idea. Moreover, they cause the subject to exert efforts to attain a state the very essence of which is effortlessness, like the victim of insomnia who "tries his hardest" to fall asleep.
In order to formulate particular suggestions, go to a room where you will be free from interruption, sit down in a comfortable chair, close your eyes, and let your muscles relax. In other words, act precisely as if you were going to take a siesta. In doing so you allow the Unconscious tide to rise to a sufficient height to make your particular suggestions effective. Now call up the desired ideas through the medium of speech. Tell yourself that such and such ameliorations are going to occur.
But here we must give a few hints as to the form these suggestions should take.
We should never set our faith a greater task than it can accomplish. A patient suffering from deafness would be ill-advised to make the suggestion: "I can hear perfectly." In the partial state of outcropping association is not entirely cut off, and such an idea would certainly call up its contrary. Thus we should initiate a suggestion antagonistic to the one we desired. In this way we only court disappointment and by losing faith in our instrument rob it of its efficacy.
Further, we should avoid as far as possible all mention of the ailment or difficulty against which the suggestion is aimed. Indeed, our own attention should be directed not so much to getting rid of wrong conditions as to cultivating the opposite right ones in their place. If you are inclined to be neurasthenic your mind is frequently occupied with fear. This fear haunts you because some thwarted element in your personality, surviving in the Unconscious, gains through it a perverse satisfaction. In other words, your Unconscious enjoys the morbid emotional condition which fear brings with it. Should you succeed in banishing your fears you would probably feel dissatisfied, life would seem empty. The old ideas would beckon you with promises, not of happiness truly, but of emotion and excitement. But if your suggestions take a positive form, if you fill your mind with thoughts of self-confidence, courage, outward activity, and interest in the glowing and vital things of life, the morbid ideas will be turned out of doors and there will be no vacant spot to which they can return.
Whatever the disorder may be, we should refer to it as little as possible, letting the whole attention go out to the contrary state of health. We must dwell on the "Yes-idea," affirming with faith the realisation of our hopes, seeing ourselves endowed with the triumphant qualities we lack. For a similar reason we should never employ a form of words which connotes doubt. The phrases, "I should like to," "I am going to try," if realised by the Unconscious, can only produce a state of longing or desire, very different from the actual physical and mental modifications we are seeking.