Meditation and some forms of hypnotherapy are great ways to self-discoveries and self-improvement. One of the reasons why meditation and hypnotherapy are so effective is because you now have direct access to your subconscious mind and are moved to a higher vibration known as the Alpha state. The subconscious mind is the storehouse of everything in your life.
As a part of our series about “How To Learn To Finally Love Yourself” we had the pleasure to interview Keith Reginald Thompson.
Keith Thompson is a clinical hypnotherapist who received his certification in 1981. He has researched, studied effective thinking processes, emotions’ roles in our lives, and how our beliefs affect our physical realities. Mr. Thompson seeks to help others solve their challenges and discover their purpose.
Thank you so much for joining us! I’d love to begin by asking you to give us the backstory as to what brought you to this specific career path.
The mindfulness path started after I graduated from high school. I found a book in our garage, my mom purchased it and read a few pages, to start her new way of thinking. Well, I ended up with the book and read it three times. The book’s name is The Power of the Subconscious Mind by Dr. Joseph Murphy. I started reading a book every week to learn about the power of thoughts, the conscious, the subconscious, and the higher mind (superconscious) relationships.
I started taking meditation courses and martial arts. I studied Edgar Cayce’s materials and started taking clinical hypnotherapy through the Washington School of Professional Hypnosis. My path was different from all my friends in high school. I was getting a feel for the spiritual side of who I am.
I ran a private practice out of my home for three years for clinical hypnotherapy. I started helping clients get to the beginning and the root causes of illness. In the trance state, we were often sent to other live realms (past life) to find those answers. This led to some very interesting insights and healing for the clients.
In 2007, I started to get involved with talk show radio. I developed a radio show, Designing Your Mind, with Keith Thompson. I mainly spoke about the power of the different levels of mind, conscious, subconscious, higher mind, and its characteristics. During the talk shows, I found my voice for understanding love values and other essential concepts within the value systems.
I developed a course called Designing Your Mind for Health to help people lose weight. The system was met with success. Students lost five to ten pounds within twenty-eight days by changing their thinking and removing their power from family members.
I had been fortunate enough to study under some very talented people after 2010. One person in particular, Mark Victor Hanson, taught us there’s a book in every one of us. I started searching within my heart, mind, and spirit to discover what that would be. I decided if I wrote a book, it would be about all the primary value systems and teach people how to find out what they value in life.
In 2020, I released a book titled A Journey into Value Systems — Cracking the Genius Code. The book has a course format so everyone can learn and teach from this book. I have many students who have incorporated the value systems, and they are discovering their values, having a richer life, and cracking their genius code.
Are you working on any exciting new projects now? How do you hope that they might help people along their path to self-understanding or a better sense of well-being in their relationships?
I am working on a new and exciting project! “I am” concepts have been around for a long time, including biblical times. I am currently teaching “I Am,” the Thirty-Three Discourses from Saint Germain. One of the cool things about “I am” is that it works very well with the value systems as affirmations and building your personal genius code. One of the exercises in A Journey into Value Systems — Cracking the Genius Code is defining our ten geniuses in each value system. For example, “I am love, love I am” would be a genius value for all the value systems. There are eight value systems. The value systems are career/personal development, emotional/mental, family, financial, health, physical, social, and spiritual.
One of the exercises the students undergo is identifying their genius and ego emotions. This is a crucial step to know when the students are using their genius mind or their ego mind. An emotion (feeling) identified as an ego would be the opposite of love, and that is hatred.
The emotions indicate whether you live in the past or present. For example, joy, happiness, and love would put you in the present moment most of the time. The emotions of anger, stress-related fears, and hatred will move you to past conditions.
One of the keys to well-being is being in the present moment!
Do you have a personal story that you can share with our readers about your struggles or successes along your journey of self-understanding and self-love? Was there ever a tipping point that triggered a change regarding your feelings of self acceptance?
I started working for the Boeing Company the same year I read The Power of Your Subconscious Mind. It was a good opportunity for me to start as a mechanic in a big company. Big difference from working at Dick’s Drive-in flipping hamburgers. It’s a whole different world working for a big corporation. As a young man, I saw many opportunities working for a company at Boeing.
A couple of years have passed, and I have worked for several organizations within the company.
I finally ended up in a machine shop. I started working as a Machine Parts Finisher, sanding and deburring parts. It was a dirty job. However, I saw opportunities in the other sections of the Machine Shop. They have many types of machinery: milling, grinding, lathes, drill presses, and numerical control machines. It was a complete machine shop.
The machine shop inspired me enough to start asking about how to get a machinist job. The manager suggested I begin taking machine courses. So, that is what I did.
I hired Boeing when they were hiring many people, and people inside the company were moving up to new positions. This included the Machine Parts Finisher area, where people were being upgraded into the machine shop. I immediately applied for a position to be a drill press operator. Drill presses were easy to run. I had been going to a vocational school to get machine shop training. I felt I was getting qualified.
Well, days, weeks, and months had passed, and I heard nothing about my transfer to the machine shop. Several people had transferred from part finisher group to different positions in the machine shop during this time. These were all upgraded positions. I started to inquire about my transfer to my manager. He said, “HR had no record of my transfer request.” I showed him a copy of the transfer request for a new position on the drill presses. I went into HR and made another request and received paper copies of that request.
A couple of months later, I received a notice to come into the manager’s office and talk with the person who was the group’s general manager. He invited me into his office and asked me to sit down. He told me he liked me in my position and wanted to keep me there. I was surprised at his comment! I told him I wanted to grow with the company and no longer had an interest in being on the burr bench finishing parts!
About two weeks later, I received a notice of transfer to move to be a drill press operator. I had been on the burr bench for three years. Many people would last there a year and then transfer to the machine shop. This was my first glimpse of favoritism in the workplace.
I continued with my machine shop education. I learned to run the more giant machines, mills, and lathes. After a few years on the drill presses, I applied for other machining positions. This time, it was the numerical control (NC) machines. The more considerable money per hour was here. It wasn’t the top pay grade, but it was getting close. I met the same kind of stall techniques from the managers. But new people were always showing up on the numerical control machines.
I had another talk with the manager, but this time, I told him I would contact the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) and report their behavior towards certain employees in the group.
A week later, I was asked by a manager if I was interested in going to the second shift, to work on the radial drill press machines while the operator was on medical leave. It would be an upgrade, and the position would last for a month or two. I agreed to the opportunity. I went to the second shift and my new job the following week.
A paycheck had passed, and there was no pay increase. I called this to my manager’s attention. He said he would check into it. On the next paycheck, there was still no pay increase. By then, I was frustrated. I called the manager over and had him look at my pay stub. With my new pay level, the machine shop was over a month behind in back pay. He said, “Here’s what we will do.” “We will say you are running the Electrical Discharge Machine (EDM) to make up the pay difference that you are missing.” The EDM had an even higher pay grade.
Well, another paycheck had passed with no pay increase. I told the manager I was going to report this. He told me I would not get my pay if I said this. That following Monday, I filed a complaint with EEOC and registered the company with discrimination. By this time, I had been attending school for over a year. I had paperwork that showed I applied for various jobs, and now I had phony paperwork saying I was running a particular machine (EDM) that I never ran.
The poop hit the fan and went everywhere.
I remember being told by a senior manager I didn’t have a leg to stand on. There was an extensive investigation! The investigation found that this machine shop was entirely out of compliance with Washington State’s racial and gender requirements. The racial codes embraced all races and women. This machine shop at Boeing was way below the state requirements. State requirements went by the percentage of the population with race and women. This was in 1976.
In 1976, NC Machines were gaining popularity because of their complexity in machining. When the investigation came to me, they found six men on NC machines that I was more skilled than they. One man had been on the machines for six months, so they used him as the reference point for back pay and reference for new grade placement.
One of the newer managers suggested that I settle with the company and move on. That is what I did. Part of that settlement included hiring women and other ethnic groups into the machining field. I was thrilled to see more diverse people in our group. Two managers left the group, and we do not know what happened to them. All we know is that they were transferred out.
During the investigation, my every move was being watched. I made sure I went to the bathroom only during breaks and lunches. I ensured I was on time, arriving at work and leaving on time when the shift ended. I would say hello, talk with the managers, and smile pleasantly. At that time, I knew what I did was bigger than me, which would help many people. Some people thought I could not pull it off. I knew people who stayed in the same position for many years. I continued my growth.
Being in a much higher pay group, a cleaner environment, and a job with high visibility, was great for my lifestyle change and self-esteem. I worked for Boeing for twenty-eight years and held many positions within the company.
According to a recent study cited in Cosmopolitan, in the US, only about 28 percent of men and 26 percent of women are “very satisfied with their appearance.” Could you talk about what some of the causes might be, as well as the consequences?
Twenty-eight and twenty-six percent are very low percentages for people satisfied with their appearances and weight. Something is wrong with how people view themselves if the ratios are that low! In our social and physical values, one’s appearance is highly judged by society. What sets the stage for appearance judgments? Television and social media magazines set the standards mainly through clothes, cosmetics, and entertainment advertisements. Who does the judging? First and foremost, we judge ourselves because we want to compare ourselves with others! Then, we risk the chance of placing ourselves above or below the people we are comparing with. The other seventy percent of the dissatisfied with their appearances are placing themselves below the others they are judging. This can cause low self-esteem.
Some people are born with the gift of being beautiful at birth and throughout adulthood. That’s just the way things are at times. I love beautiful-looking women and women who have taken the time to work on their appearances from head to toe. A certain confidence is developed in bringing beauty to the forefront of their mind and body.
I like the guys who work on their physical appearance by developing their muscles and have a pleasing personality. Because I was into martial arts and training almost daily, I developed a nice physical body and created a sense of humility. I love to dress in nice clothes, too! At times, I would play that GQ role. I felt good about myself. Men and women also develop confidence when active with their physical bodies and playing a mental role in their appearances.
Those who do not find themselves physically attractive could miss out on some beautiful things they could tell themselves. From these statistics from Cosmopolitan magazine, the people interviewed were primarily concerned with outward appearances. The inward beauty wasn’t asked in the interview.
Taking charge of your beauty from within and then creating a physical activity to bring beauty on the outside is a good approach.
I remember teaching a kickboxing class at a community center. I noticed none of the girls and women would not look at themselves in the mirror. There were about twelve people in the class, all of them female gender. I asked all of them if they could say, “I love you,” while looking into the mirror, making connections with their eyes. All of them said, no! This broke my heart because some of these girls were young teenagers. I did finally get some of them to say. I like myself in the mirror.
“Dissatisfied people had higher Neuroticism, more preoccupied and fearful attachment styles, and spent more hours watching television,” the study’s abstract reads. “In contrast, satisfied people had higher Openness, Conscientious, and Extraversion, were more secure in attachment style, and had higher self-esteem and life satisfaction.” — Cosmopolitan
This makes sense. For those who are viewing themselves poorly, stop it! Turn off the television (tell-a-vision) set. Americans watch too much of it! Start telling your mind how beautiful you are with the tell-a-vision set-off. You are a member of creation. Create your beauty from the inside using your mind. Bring the beauty to the outside by creating the beauty you want to experience with your body. That could include buying something new to wear, getting a haircut, or walking in a wealthy neighborhood to exercise.
The rest of the percent of the people who don’t like their appearances, just forgot they could love themselves, and throw out the ego’s misinterpretation of the body.
Exercise: Create your beauty, I am beautiful; beautiful I am! Guys, I am handsome, handsome I am! Start there. Then, do something incredibly wonderful for yourself.
To some, the concept of learning to truly understand and “love yourself,” may seem like a cheesy or trite concept. But it is not. Can you share with our readers a few reasons why learning to love yourself it’s genuinely so important?
Some of us forgot our true meaning of creation and the fact we were created from love. Love is our true nature. Mothers and fathers see this frequently when they give birth to a newborn. What is the reason why we forget our true nature? Because we gave too much attention to the body and forgot our spirit. The body became the ruler. Our spirit serves a much higher order when recognized with love intentions. This higher order is love! Through the spirit of love, all problems can be solved.
Love was created by God and not by man and womankind. Love is an energy man, and women can use it anytime. Love views the body as the temple. Love is there for us anytime we want to heal our bodies or care about another person. “You are greater than you think you are.” That is because we were created out of love.
The ego mind always attacks the body. Love and the ego will never agree on anything. Never! The ego was never created by God. Attacking the body was created by the misuse of god’s energy from the individual. The abuse of energy (power) is part of the separation from love. To hate or dislike the body in any way is a form of attack against your temple.
Exercise: Look in the mirror or use meditation, make the connection; say it, “I am love, love I am,” feel the love coming from your spirit into your body, be the love you feel and take action to do something extraordinary for your body.
Why do you think people stay in mediocre relationships? What advice would you give to our readers regarding this?
Start with loving who you are from the inside out! Be in your relationship because you love who the other person is, and you feel their love for you from the inside out.
People in mediocre relationships. look for love from being in a relationship. In other words, these people look for love on the outside of themselves instead of on the inside first. It becomes the other person’s responsibility to love them. In relationships, we mirror each other. If we do not like ourselves, we indeed will find things wrong in the other person within that relationship!
Many times, in mediocre relationships, the attraction is based on the physical body and material things. If the interest in the relationship is physical and material, emotions will enter the picture and become the controlling factors of the relationship. If the emotional feelings are not love-based, the relationship becomes mediocre. Realizing the spiritual connection between the two parties gives the relationship a chance. By acknowledging the spiritual connection, the two parties will have a much easier time defining what they want from the relationship.
Understanding what your values are in relationships can be valuable when going into a new relationship. You can quickly tell if someone will meet specific criteria important to you.
When I talk about self-love and understanding I don’t necessarily mean blindly loving and accepting ourselves the way we are. Many times self-understanding requires us to reflect and ask ourselves the tough questions, to realize perhaps where we need to make changes in ourselves to be better not only for ourselves but our relationships. What are some of those tough questions that will cut through the safe space of comfort we like to maintain, that our readers might want to ask themselves? Can you share an example of a time that you had to reflect and realize how you needed to make changes?
Always ask this question if you want to stay in the love vibration and be true to yourself and others. What is my intent and purpose for going into this situation? Sometimes, it asks the right questions to help us decide if we are heading in the right direction. In this case, staying in love frequently. Asking this question, you will know immediately if it is love or ego direction.
Another question is: Does this situation match my highest values in life? When we understand our value systems, we better understand how to organize our lives. In this process, we manage eight value systems: career / personal development, emotional/mental, family, financial / wealth, health, physical, social, and spiritual. Knowing your values will give you great insight into who you are and a good understanding of your potential partner.
When I was a young man and more into the physical body, sex, and appearances, I wasn’t paying attention to how I thought, how the other person may have felt, or the consequences that may come about. After a few heartaches with some relationships, I started to wise up. I began to care about my feelings and how I made others think and feel. When I began to care about my feelings and love myself, I started to reflect outwardly toward other people. The changes become apparent when you decide to love who you are.
So many don’t know how to be alone, or are afraid of it. How important is it for us to have, and practice, that capacity to truly be with ourselves and be alone (literally or metaphorically)?
A great place to start is simple: turn off the tell-a-vision set. One of the reasons why people are afraid to be alone is because of fearful thoughts that have been programmed in the subconscious mind by tell-a-vision. Many people living alone will use tell-a-vision to keep themselves company and entertained. Unfortunately, many programs being watched on tell-a-vision are violent and create fearful emotions in the subconscious mind. One of the most significant fear-based programs on telling-a-vision is the News.
It is the thoughts that are in the subconscious mind that are creating fear of being alone consciously! Be aware of those thoughts so you can begin the healing process. The funny thing is you are all there is. Everything on the outside reflects you! In essence, people who are afraid of being alone are fearing themselves.
Know thyself! How do you know thyself? Understand what is going on in your mind. How do you do that? Sit in a comfortable chair, be silent, and listen to your mind. See what’s in there. At first, your subconscious mind will play back to your current activities. Do not be surprised if fearful thoughts occur, especially if you watch many news, violent movies, and violent tell-a-vision programs. As you sit there and you see or hear fearful thoughts, say, I am love, love I am. You have just broken a chain of fearful thoughts. You have also taken a closer to knowing your most authentic self. What is a noble thing to do is to remove all the fear from your subconscious mind. The fear acronym is false evidence or false emotions appearing real. Our true nature is love.
How does achieving a certain level of self-understanding and self-love then affect your ability to connect with and deepen your relationships with others?
When we understand the love connection comes from within, we become more involved with what the spirit wants to experience instead of the body and material things. When we learn about love, we also know there’s a spiritual connection with everyone through love. Because everyone is God’s creation. Love is our true nature because we were all created out of love. We are all One, fits right here! We do not have to go looking for love on the outside. It is within us!
We will begin to see our relationships with others differently because we now know we are reflections of each other. This reflection goes well beyond the physical body and goes into the heart and soul of each person.
We will know intuitively if a person is good for our spirit. When we work on removing fears from our consciousness, more peace, joy, and gratitude comes into our life. It becomes easier to forgive all those trespassers.
In your experience, what should a) individuals and b) society, do to help people better understand themselves and accept themselves?
Have a purpose in your life. The vibration of love fits well when helping others and making a difference in their lives, especially our children. No child needs to be starving in our country or our world. There are many avenues to help people. We have a lot of work to do!
I want to discuss forgiveness here. Forgiveness is an avenue we can move into love. If we can forgive ourselves for not living that perfect life, we are well on our way to forgiving others for not living their ideal life. Our understanding of life lessons becomes more remarkable as we forgive others and learn to incorporate loving them in the process.
Here is the main question of our discussion. What are 5 strategies that you implement to maintain your connection with and love for yourself, that our readers might learn from? Could you please give a story or example for each?
- Meditation — meditation and some forms of hypnotherapy are great ways to self-discoveries and self-improvement. One of the reasons why meditation and hypnotherapy are so effective is because you now have direct access to your subconscious mind and are moved to a higher vibration known as the Alpha state. The subconscious mind is the storehouse of everything in your life.
There are many practical things to do in the alpha state of mind. Many times, in meditation, the subconscious mind will bring current events to the surface to be reviewed consciously.
There are many great tools you can use with meditation: forgiveness sequences of self and others, removing fears, reprogramming the subconscious mind to your highest excitements, and recharging the mind and body by being in silence and the alpha state.
- Understanding and developing my highest value systems — Understanding and knowing what my highest excitements are in the eight value systems are of great value. Using the value systems has been a great way to organize your life and set exciting goals. The primary value systems are career/personal development, emotional/mental, family, financial, health, physical, social, and spiritual.
Knowing what you value the most is a road map to follow during extraordinary times and during the most challenging times in your life.
- Learning how to crack your genius code — In the early 2000s, I joined a group called the Enlightened Millionaire Institute (EMI), and it was here I started hearing more about geniuses.
Once a month, I would travel to Los Angeles and meet with Robert Allen, Mark Victor Hansen, and other EMI members. To start the meetings, Mark and Robert would have everyone in the room announce they are geniuses. We would announce to the person sitting next to us, “Hi, my name is ……., and I am a genius.” I was talking and hearing about geniuses often. I started getting curious about this genius I was claiming.
Being in the field of clinical hypnotherapy, I was curious as to how one becomes a genius. I had learned up to that point, geniuses were only for a selected few. Well, I developed a way of knowing when you are in your genius mind or when you are in your ego mind.
It is through your emotions (energy in motion)! Grab a pen and paper. Using the whole sheet of paper, create a cross on the paper. On the left side of the middle line of the cross, put the word Genius, and on the right side, put the word, Ego.
Genius —– Ego
Love ——- Hatred
Happy —– Angry
Calm —— Stressed
Peaceful — Fearful
This exercise is simple. Make a list of as many positive genius emotions as you can. Then, make a list of as many negative ego emotions as you can. Follow the example! You now have your guideline of when you are using your genius mind and when you are using your ego mind.
Know that when you are feeling, loving, happy, calm, and peaceful, you are in your genius mind. And when you think hateful, angered, stressed, and fearful thoughts, you are in your ego mind. It is that simple! You want to live in your genius mind and silence the ego mind as much as possible. This practice will change your life! Be aware of your emotions!
- Creating I Am affirmations — I am a student of affirmations. I have studied affirmations for many years. I have used many affirmations: I am, I will, I have, and I can. Hands down, I am affirmations are at the top of my list to use. There’s a different kind of energy when using I am, it’s more in harmony with the Universe if you understand the principles of, I am that I am.
- Creating passionate and exciting plans of action for life — When knowing your value systems, you will begin to know and understand your excitements in life. Knowing your visions and creating a plan of action are keys to having an enjoyable life.
What are your favorite books, podcasts, or resources for self-psychology, intimacy, or relationships? What do you love about each one and how does it resonate with you?
- A Journey into Value Systems; Cracking the Genius Code — Keith Reginald Thompson. I wrote the book A Journey into Value Systems. So, this is my first choice. Understanding what you value in life is so important. Knowing what you value (love) about your family, emotions, finances, and spiritual life will make a massive difference between your friendships, income, and spiritual life. There are eight value systems to develop and bring out your highest excitement. Knowing what you value will organize your life!
- A Course in Miracles — Helen Schucman — What I enjoyed most about the Course in Miracles is the ego-mind. Out of all the books and seminars that discussed the ego, the Course in Miracles explains it the best.
- A Return to Love — Marianne Williamson — Marianne covered a lot of bases in getting back to love, special relationships, finances, marriages, and much more. To get back to love, she uses the Course in Miracles as a foundation. This gives the reader a Christian flavor of the book.
- The I Am Discourse of Saint Germain (Unabridged Audiobook) — This discourse of Saint Germain is robust. Everyone I’m teaching this discourse takes several reviews to understand the information. According to the discourse, “I am,” is our direct connection to influencing the Omnipresence and the things we desire to experience.
You are a person of great influence. If you could inspire a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be? Maybe we’ll inspire our readers to start it…
A Journey into Your Value Systems
The Value Systems questions are:
- Career / Personal Development — What are my burning desires in life? On what level do I choose to provide my services?
- Emotional /Mental — How do I feel about and react to everything in my world?
- Family — Is my relationship with you one of love or hate? and, why do we have this belief system in our family anyway?
- Financial / Wealth — What emotions are involved in my financial values?
- Health — Do I love my body? and, do I love my mind?
- Physical — What do I choose to see and experience in my world?
- Social — What do I see in you? Ask this question about your friends.
- Spiritual — What do I want my spirit to experience?
Exercise 1 — Think about the questions for each value system. The questions are about you.
Exercise 2 — Listed above are eight value systems. Write down the eight value systems from most important to least important according to where you think you are currently. For example, Number 1 may be financial values, number two may be family values, and so on. List all eight value systems!
Updating your mind to incorporate your geniuses
Exercise 1 — Take your genius emotions list and create affirmations for each. Use the “I am” statement for each emotions for example: I am peace, peace I am; I am love, love I am; I am calm, calm I am, I am genius, genius I am.
Exercise 2 — Follow the exercise given in the question, what are 5 strategies that you implement to maintain your connection with love…?
Can you please give us your favorite “Life Lesson Quote” that you use to guide yourself by? Can you share how that was relevant to you in your life and how our readers might learn to live by it in theirs?
“I am that I am!” I say it every day. This affirmation is my reminder that I Am connected to God!
You are greater than you think you are! When I first heard this saying, I was at a Herbalife convention in Florida, listening to Mark Hughes, the founder of Herbalife. When he said, “You are greater than you think you are,” my mouth felt like it hit the floor. At that point, I began to wonder what my greatness was.
Thank you so much for your time and for your inspiring insights!
read more articles from Keith Reginald Thompson in Authority Magazine
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