How and Why You Lost Your Genius

Mary Morrissey recently shared in a seminar about a profound study at Harvard University where they revealed that over 99% of babies operate at a genius level; they call it the genius mind.

Morrissey shares that the genius mind, “Operates on all modalities, takes in information kinesthetically, intuitively, intellectually, physically, and then synthesizes or makes use of that information. And a baby freely does that.”

Stunningly by the time someone is five years old only 20% still operate at this level. And even more extraordinary is that the research revealed that by the time someone reaches twenty years old only 2% still operate at the genius level.

The question is what happens? The researchers found that the reason people stop operating at this level is “the learned voice of internal judgment.” Many are raised in a shame based household where praise was based on performance and where disappointment and rejection were common.

Children then move onto schools where reward and punishment are meted out in large portions by both peers and adults and acceptance is too often based upon towing the line. The internal voice then becomes conditioned to believe that conforming is necessary for one to receive love.

The self perpetuating internal dialogue, what Buddhists call the monkey mind, banters about devaluing one’s self worth and leading to feelings of guilt and unworthiness until many people lay aside their dreams and give up on their goals believing they don’t deserve success.

Almost 100 years ago French pharmacist Emile Coue came up with a popular affirmation that produced amazing results during the Depression. According to Burt Goldman, hundreds of thousands of people shared that changing their thinking with Coue’s affirmation had an incredible impact on their lives and their health, reversing this negative dialogue.

Coue’s affirmation is just one way to overcome the internal voice of shame and recover the genius mind. His suggestion is simply to repeat twenty times a day, “”Every day, in every way, I’m getting better and better.” Anthony Robbins also suggests the simple phrase when used in conjunction with belief and strong emotion directed towards a positive change.

While a deep explanation as to why this works is beyond the scope of this article, the important thing to remember is that there is a vast difference between consciously choosing one’s thoughts and simply having one’s internal dialogue randomly sending messages.

Want to recover your genius mind? Simply start by radically changing and directing your thinking so that you choose your thoughts. Just like the old computer analogy, garbage in, garbage out. The opposite is true too. Perhaps it is time for a clean up.