It may be that the pain attacks you in the street or in a workshop; in some public place where the audible repetition of the phrase would attract attention. In that case it is best to close the eyes for a moment and formulate this particular suggestion: "I shall not add to this trouble by thinking about it; my mind will be occupied by other things; but on the first opportunity I shall make it pass away," Then as soon as you can conveniently do so make use of the phrase "It's going." When you have become expert in the use of this form of suggestion you will be able to exorcise the trouble by repeating the phrase mentally—at any rate if the words are outlined with the lips and tongue. But the beginner should rely for a time entirely on audible treatment. By dropping it too soon he will only court disappointment.
It sometimes happens that a patient is so prostrated by pain or misery that he has not the energy to undertake even the repetition of the word "going." The pain-thought so obsesses the mind that the state of painlessness seems too remote even to contemplate. Under these circumstances it seems best to employ this strategy. Lie down on a bed, sofa, or arm-chair and relax both mind and body. Cease from all effort—which can only make things worse—and let the pain-thought have its way. After a time your energies will begin to collect themselves, your mind to reassert its control. Now make a firm suggestion of success and apply the method. Get another person to help you, as Coué helps his patients, by performing the passes with the hand and repeating the phrase with you. By this means you can make quite sure of success. This seemingly contradictory proceeding is analogous to that of the angler "playing" a fish. He waits till it has run its course before bringing his positive resources into play.
Baudouin recommends an analogous proceeding as a weapon against insomnia. The patient, he says, should rapidly repeat the phrase, "I am going to sleep," letting his mind be swept away by a torrent of words. Once more the objection arises that the phrase "I am going to sleep" is not such as we can rapidly repeat. But even if we substitute for it some simple phrase which can be easily articulated it is doubtful whether it will succeed in more than a small percentage of cases. Success is more likely to attend us if we avail ourselves of the method of reflective repetition mentioned in the last chapter. We should take up the position most favourable to slumber and then repeat slowly and contemplatively the word "Sleep." The more impersonal our attitude towards the idea the more rapidly it will be realised in our own slumbers.
CHAPTER X
AUTOSUGGESTION AND THE CHILD
In treating children it should be remembered that autosuggestion is primarily not a remedy but a means of insuring healthy growth. It should not be reserved for times when the child is sick, but provided daily, with the same regularity as meals.
Children grow up weakly not from lack of energy, but because of a waste and misapplication of it. The inner conflict, necessitated by the continual process of adaptation which we call growth, is often of quite unnecessary violence, not only making a great temporary demand on the child's vital energy, but even locking it up in the Unconscious in the form of "complexes," so that its future life is deprived of a portion of its due vitality. A wise use of autosuggestion will preclude these disasters. Growth will be ordered and controlled. The necessary conflicts will be brought to a successful issue, the unnecessary ones avoided.
Autosuggestion may very well begin before the child is born. It is a matter of common knowledge that a mother must be shielded during pregnancy from any experience involving shock or fright, since these exert a harmful effect on the developing embryo, and may in extreme cases result in abortion, or in physical deformity or mental weakness in the child. Instances of this ill-effect are comparatively common, and the link between cause and effect is often unmistakable. There is no need to point out that these cases are nothing more than spontaneous autosuggestions operating in the maternal Unconscious; since during pregnancy the mother moulds her little one not only by the food she eats but also by the thoughts she thinks. The heightened emotionality characteristic of this state bespeaks an increased tendency to outcropping, and so an increased suggestibility. Thus spontaneous autosuggestions are far more potent than in the normal course of life. But, happily, induced autosuggestions are aided by the same conditions, so that the mother awake to her powers and duties can do as much good as the ignorant may do harm.
Without going into debatable questions, such as the possibility of predetermining the sex of the child to be born, one can find many helpful ways of aiding and benefiting the growing life by autosuggestive means. The mother should avoid with more than ordinary care all subjects, whether in reading or conversation, which bear on evil in any form, and she should seek whatever uplifts the mind and furnishes it with beautiful and joyous thought. But the technical methods of autosuggestion can also be brought into action.