This is the fourth in a series of articles on Our True Mental Potential, and how and why we are not living it.  In today’s article, I will cover how avoidance of – and distraction from – our highest goals and intentions creates mental pollution that clogs our synapses, dampens our spirits, and reduces access to our own power.

Pollution means that there are things in places where they have no business being.  Bucky Fuller, in his highly-acclaimed book Critical Path, described pollution as being merely a displacement of useful substances into areas or systems where they inhibit those systems.

Take, for example the emission of sulpher from smokestacks.  Pollution, right?  Yes, to the air we breathe.  However this same element is extremely useful in making sulpher compounds, drugs, explosives, fungicides, and other very helpful materials. If there were a way to cost-effectively capture the sulphur from these same smokestacks, the idea of pollution there would disappear.

Like that, mental pollution is the manifestation of thoughts, feelings, and ideas in a person who cannot thrive with these same thoughts, etc, but for some reason created them as a subconscious or hidden intent. Most negative thoughts fall into this category.  “I can’t,”  “It’s impossible,” and “I’m stupid” are examples of the most blatant negative thought patterns, and you can probably think of thousands more.

But these thoughts are NOT the CAUSE of the mental pollution. There is a person’s unspoken INTENT that actually spurred the thoughts to appear, like smoke from a fire.   Let’s take the case of “I can’t.”

In the case of an abused child, the act of taking on a negative thought pattern is a way to survive the abuse – at least in the mind of the child.  “I can’t” in some cases might be literally translated as “I won’t, because if I do I’ll get severely punished again.” This abuse pattern is usually repeated over and over again, from generation to generation.

The fact that this pattern may have started with your great-great-great grandfather does not make it any less real for you.  These generational “memes” – or mind viruses – have a shelf-life bordering on forever!

Positive thinking and affirmations do not address these deeper issues, and may even cause harm to the mind of the person “trying to be positive.”  If you were abused and ignore the underlying cause of the “can’t,” you will only manifest a type of mental pollution that affects your peace of mind, self-esteem, and physical and mental health.

Through an act of mental detox, you can access your true intent, come face-to-face with the true underlying decision about the abuse and/or relationship between yourself and the abuser, change that decision, and very quickly discover a lasting peace of mind.

Without mental detox, however, thoughts remain that mask or disguise your subconscious intent, and therefore keep you lost in conscious limbo.  The fact is, because your conscious mind does not have access to the hidden cause of this pollution, you will remain unaware that there is even a solution!

But there is.