Some time ago three sommeliers were asked to participate in an unusual experiment. They were placed in an fMRI scanner where they were served three different wines, and then they were asked to evaluate them.  You’d imagine this to be a fairly simple task for people who taste wine for a living. Not so.

They were all in agreement on the first bottle of cheap red – they would not be recommending this to anyone. Their brains were all in sync. The scans matched their opinions – this was not a wine to be recommended. The second bottle, a medium-priced wine, was served. Again, the sommeliers were in agreement. They judged it to be fairly ordinary, but definitely drinkable. And again, their scans supported their evaluation. A similar story emerged with the very expensive third bottle. The sommeliers thought it simply superb.

Then there was a surprise announcement. The sommeliers were told that there was in fact no difference between the wines. The price tag was a hoax. The only real distinction was in the way the wine was served.

The brain scans revealed an unusual activity. While the sommeliers were busy tasting, the centre of the brain associated with taste seemed convinced there was a distinct difference in quality. But within moments of being told it was not so, they could no longer distinguish the difference. They were not lying. Rather their taste preferences in the brain had adjusted to the information and showed a clear change of mind.

As I describe in my new book Brandwashed, we’re all controlled by perception. In fact 85 percent of everything we do in a day occurs in our subconscious. Little things, like when we select the second magazine from the top of the pile in the newsstand. Or the fact that women tend to use the second or third stall in a public toilet, even though the first stall by far is the cleanest.

It seems the more rational we think we are, the more irrational we tend to become. Perhaps this explains why we purchase 7 percent more if we navigate a supermarket in a counter-clockwise direction, buy 37 percent more when we wheel a larger shopping cart, or eat 29 percent more if the rhythm of the music in a restaurant is less than 20 beats per second. Ironically, the truth is our rational mind fully believes it was in control from the very beginning.

So, before you select a bottle of wine, pick a magazine, visit the supermarket, or have a meal at your local restaurant, be aware of the fact that even though you believe you’re in control, you might very well be perfectly positioned for a brandwashing.

Martin Lindstrom’s new book, Brandwashed: Tricks Companies Use to Manipulate Our Minds and Persuade Us to Buy is now available.  His work, Buyology: Truth and Lies About Why We Buy was a New York Times Bestseller.

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‘There are two driving forces in your life: love and fear.

Love is your higher self.

It is the place of pure intention and hope.

When your higher self drives your life you are on purpose and empowered. Life surges through you; you thrive and society thrives because of it.

Fear, of course, is its opposite and is your lower self.

It is, unfortunately, the place from where the majority of us exist. When fear drives your life you stagnate and die. You don’t live your true purpose and you become dark and heavy and the world suffers as a result.

Who is the driver of your life?

Who are you allowing it to be? How do you know?

Most of the time you don’t, as you are totally unaware of what is controlling you and your victim circumstances.

Ask yourself.

Are you living your true passion and purpose? Does life course through your body allowing it to feel light and powerful?

If the answer is no, then you are allowing your lower self  to control your life. It is a bitter pill to swallow but the truth is fear drives your life.

“But fear is a good thing,” you say, “it protects me and keeps me safe.”

Fear does serve a very important purpose; to warn you when you are in physical danger and this is when we should heed its call. At any other time, fear suffocates you and prevents you from knowing for yourself how beautiful you are and all you are capable of.

When Fear Drives Your Life

Fear once was the dominant driver in my life and I was dying inside because of it. Deep down I knew I was capable of more but my lower self was in control and I could just never allow myself to be.

I had gone through my life dreaming of becoming a writer. Writing was always my silent passion. It was the form I took as a child to express myself. It was where I felt most safe and most recognized. I could express my thoughts, opinions and ideas without it being criticized or ignored.

My lower self, though was always the driver of my life. This was the part of me that believed I was worthless and had no ability whatsoever. It was never shy to tell me so either. I would write from my heart and it would say,

“That is crap Caroline! You cannot write. No-one will ever read your words or be inspired by them. Don’t be so ridiculous to think you can do this.”

And so it went and I would put down my pen and give up on my dream. My lower self had me believe that it was just a far out wish; much similar to my one of being a rock star. That it would just never happen, and so I would forget about it.

The Struggle for the Higher Self to Win

My higher self was always there struggling to come out and be the driver. It was holding onto my dream for me and was trying to make it a reality- but it had so many obstacles to overcome first.

For years my lower self dominated and nothing I tried could make it take a lessor role. I was dying inside and living such an incomplete and unfulfilled life because of it. It was not living my life on purpose.

My higher self kept trying to surface and eventually, through much introspection and self-improvement work, allowed my lower self to finally recognize what my higher self always knew.

That I was powerful beyond measure, that I was worth sharing with the world and that I could be, do and have anything I wanted. I could make a difference.

My higher self now drives my life. It knocked my lower self to the ground and asked the fear to remain their only as a warning to me in those moments of danger when I truly needed it.

When your Higher Self Drives Your Life

I no longer just write my thoughts in the privacy of my journal. I am now regularly published across the net. I write two popular blogs that both have newsletters and podcasts; I have written a few ebooks and have almost finished my book on my experiences travelling the world inspiring others to do the same, and have just hosted my first teleconference on travel blogging.

I regularly receive comments from my readers as to how my words uplift and inspire them. I am beginning to live my dream and my purpose. I tell you this to impress upon you the absolute power there is in taking the time to work on yourself. You can move mountains and you can free your soul.

You came here for a purpose and for most of us fear holds us back from being who we truly are. We don’t even notice this so habitual are our limiting thoughts, beliefs and actions.

We need help to move aside those lower forces of fear and allow love to guide us into our purposeful future.

Now in my life when I reach a moment of decision or courage, I recognize so clearly the voice of fear telling me what I should do to become less. I did not know this voice before, it acted with me being so totally unaware of it. At times now the voice can get strong enough to almost make me follow it, but the driver in my life has changed.

I have moved beyond freedom into living a life on purpose. The fear is still there but I know how to control it. I know when to listen to it and when to use it.

I know who to allow to be the driver of my life.

Start Choosing the Driver of Your Life

What is possible for you? What is your higher self asking you to do? What is your lower self squashing that it shouldn’t be?

It will always remain squashed until you find a way to remove that fear and let love for yourself and all things be the greater power.

Fear does not want you to take control because then fear will no longer have any strength or power.

You need to know for yourself just how worthy and capable you are of living your true purpose. My mission is to help people become aware of their higher self and allow this to be the dominant driver in their life.

The choice is yours as to whether you will allow fear or love to drive your life.

Love is our higher being.

With love all things are possible. With love we thrive.

Imagine the world if we were all driven by love and not fear?

Bio: Caz Makepeace has been living and traveling around the world since 1997. She is co-founder of the popular  “y Travel Blog” where she shares tips, stories and inspirations on world travel. She also shares mindset and success tips for putting the mojo back into your life at her blog “Mojito Mother

Everyone knows sex sells. Greed sells too, and again, this is something we all know. But little did we know that the really big, best seller of all is FEAR and it’s companion, dread.

Here are some current ‘epidemic’, ‘impending’ ‘catastrophe-in-the-making’, brilliantly-marketed FEARS: Fear of recession, depression, terrorists, war, disease, food, air, climate change, computer crashes, natural disasters, breast size, impotency, break-ins, drug czars and addicts, immigrants and aging.

Here I focus on an area closest to my own experience as a physician-psychiatrist: the fear of illness and dying. As you read about overcoming and transcending this fear, think of it as an effective metaphor for the other fears listed above. When you come to the end reread the piece substituting each fear.

Start with this fact: To fear our body is a powerful way to create disease. Why is this? Because fear is about being attacked and when you think you are going to be attacked you are both hard-wired and soft-wired for flight or fight. This, in simple terms, is bad for your physical health when carried on continuously or repetitively on an intermittent basis. Your body is not set up to be constantly on the alert for danger or shocked repeatedly by the unexpected. It is not necessary to go into the physiology of why this might lead to high blood pressure, heart attack, stroke and even cancer. Here is the rub: If fear can be created it leads to disease thereby proving that the fear was warranted. This is every politician, salesman and businessman’s dream: to create a need for snake oil.

In the external world we no longer buy a car or a house just for comfort and to raise a family, former symbols of success and stability that they were. We now buy an alarm system surrounding a car or house to protect us from an attack that is inevitably coming.

Similarly in our internal world, in the case of fear of illness, we are taught to wait to be attacked from within by scary pathogens of all types, prions, viruses, bacteria, fungi, worms or ravaging cancerous cells. We are then inundated with words and images encouraging us to attack back with drugs and vaccines. Television sets, both advertisement and news, are now literally more like warning systems for an impending attack, even if it is a sneak attack like impotence. Get them, (it), before they, (it), get us. This simply doesn’t work to ease fear; it creates fear. In the process a lot of drugs are sold in pharmacies and in the streets, for when you are talked into fear and then become an attacker you solidify the idea that attack must be coming and complete a circle of dread. If I need one drug, then I must need another. If I attack anything I inevitably will be more afraid as I wait for retaliation.

The facts are that, as I point out in the book, your body is a perfect part of the perfect whole always healing itself. It is an error to think your body is defective or that you have a basic fault, or that you are split and separate from a perfect whole. The words you use to overcome fears are central to your sense of peace of mind and joyful living.

Focus the words you choose on wholeness and unity and thereby stop ‘buying into’ fears such as the fear of illness and the enticement to attack and demonize your body. As you see you are part of larger wholeness your immune system is strengthened so your body can naturally do what it does best, serve as an amazing communication device.

Put your attention on remembering yourself. Make it your intention to do the following simple exercise daily. With your eyes closed take a deep breath in and repeat these three phrases ten times, morning and night as you breath out: 1) I Won’t indulge in fear and I Won’t identify with my body 2) I Will love the world and I Will forgive myself and others, and 3) I Am whole and healed. I AM LOVE.

As you work these Three Words, Won’t, Will and Am, you will begin to experience recovery from their healing power.

Dr. Clark Falconer is a Guest Blogger for PickTheBrain. He is a practicing Psychiatrist from Vancouver, Canada and the author of the new, critically acclaimed book The Three Word Truth About Love And Being Well. To receive daily tips on the power of words follow Clark on Twitter.

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