As a hypnotherapist, I’ve seen how a person’s fundamental model of reality shapes their whole life—for better or for worse. Einstein is right, the most important decision a person can make is whether or not they live in a friendly universe. 

If you’re already fighting this idea because of the universe vocabulary, you can change it to whatever fits your personal model of reality: God, Source, Cosmic Consciousness, Destiny, the Flying Spaghetti Monster, etc. Whatever your organizational cosmology, if you think it supports you and your choices, and is generally benevolent and  friendly, it creates a foundation where you are allowed to explore and experiment with your life, where you can be more relaxed and live without having to conform to strict internalized rules around reward and judgment—cosmic or earthly.

If your organizational cosmology is based in an unfriendly universe a judgmental force, rigid ideas about what  (and who) is right and wrong, etc., then the foundation of your model of reality is generally unsupportive, and may require you to conform to certain, often competing, standards, to survive. It’s a pretty harsh foundation.

Of course, this none of this happens on the surface. Our delicate surface psyche, cheers us on as the star of our own show, the center of all the action, the ultimate good in a comic or tragic stage play. 

The foundational orientation to a friendly or unfriendly universe—or however you massage the vocabulary for you—shows up in the deep layers of your root system, well beneath the topsoil of your surface perceptions. 

It shows up when you’ve have burned through your coping mechanisms, when challenges have turned existential, have depleted your topsoil and churned up the muck beneath. When you are desperate enough, in other words, to turn to something as maligned (and effective) as hypnotherapy, where we get to explore and re-make models of reality like the core belief in either a  friendly/unfriendly universe.

When & How You Decided You Lived In A Friendly Universe (or Not)

Being an HSP (highly sensitive person) and having a contemplative and self-probing nature—a Scorpio stellium, a 3/5 in Human Design, an INFJ with a fickle J, and four different Enneagram numbers depending on the test and my mood, for those who find comfort in subjective personality data—I was basically born to explore this core question.  

In, well, decades of excavation through layers of learned limitation and bracing against what I thought were  cosmic specters of alternating indifference, scorning and wrath that squeezed me into a box of my own making what I realized is that at the foundation of it all, I was much more oriented o a friendly universe than an unfriendly one. In fact, I realized that I was able to do the deep excavation and walk with the specters that haunted my psyche because of that core model of a friendly universe. One that allowed me to walk through fire, knowing there was balm and water and a soft place to land on the other side. 

I taught myself how to bring this core model from the caboose of my train to the engine that powers my life—and I’ll share how I did this in a moment. Yes, I still dance with the inner demons at times, but that dance now has the air of a community shindig rather than the mud-wrestling struggle for existential survival that it had before.

I became a hypnotherapist in large part to help people dig through the muck between the challenges of their surface life and the core seed of the belief in a friendly universe. I figured if I had that, so did everyone, way deep down. 

I was wrong. 

This isn’t a “bad seed” sort of judgment that some people are inherently bad or evil. I don’t buy into that. But what I discovered is that, in some people, the seed that sustains a core orientation toward a friendly universe, where life feels livable even in the face of profound challenges and existential crises, is sometimes refused or denied, or so withered and sucked dry of life-force that is has, or has nearly, died.  

I choose to believe that even a dead seed can find its way back to life—and I have a way you can do that, if this feels like you. We’ll get to that in a moment, too.

How Healthy Is Your Friendly Universe Seed?   

With the world the way it is, and the challenge of daily life seeming to increase, it’s easy to think that you have a dead or dying seed, even if you don’t. You can get a sense of the health of your friendly universe seed by getting really honest  with the following  two questions—and not honest in the mental massage way, but gut honestly, heart honestly, the visceral honest truth that your body tells you when you have the courage to listen.

1) When you look out at a world in crisis—climate pandemic, poverty, war, greed and so on, do you truly feel hopeless or fatalistic, about humanity and our fate in general, or do you feel even a little hope and possibility?

2) When the crisis and conflict “out there” comes to you, when it  digs it’s claws into your safety, your family, your money, your health, your life, and won’t let go,, do you feel hopeless, disconnection or desolation, or do you feel even a little hope and the possibility that things can get better?

If your gut, heart and/or body has even a glimmer of hope, then your friendly universe seed is alive and it’s a matter of growing that seed into a conscious and subconscious model and habit (yes, we’re getting there, I promise!)

If you landed in the hopeless camp,, it’s not really hopeless. The visualization in the next section can help you plant a new seed, and once that takes hold, then you can use the three step process I talk about in the section that follows that. 

In fact, even if you landed in the more friendly and hopeful camp, this visualization can boost the strength of your friendly universe seed and make the three step process for growing that seed even more successful. 

Re-Planting Your Friendly Universe Seed

A caveat first…both self-help and support strategies like hypnotherapy are for generally mentally healthy and functional people. An existential crisis—a crisis of models like models of self, the world and organizational cosmology—is very different than a mental health crisis or a psychotic break or the inability to function in our shared reality. Mental health crises require a different kind of support, and if you are having one, or feel like you need more stability or support before messing around with your own models of reality, then please get that help. You deserve it, even if you don’t believe that you do. 

If you’re game to start working with your deep self, your own subconscious mind, then read on.

Caveat number two…if you think that visualizations are lame or overly simplistic, or that you should be able to control the Oz of your subconscious with the wizard of your conscious mind, know that visualization is one of the best ways to communicate your conscious desires to your subconscious mind and to unify their efforts in the change you want to make (find out more about the languages of the subconscious mind here).

Do this visualization when you can relax and close your eyes, ideally before a nap or falling asleep at night, as this gives your subconscious the time and space to work on the shift right away.

Imagine your life as a bush, maybe a rose bush or other kind of bush, with lots of branches, leaves, flowers, fruits, etc., that are withered and struggling, or at least not as healthy as it could be. Follow the deepest root of this bush deep into the ground to the seed it germinated from. See how this seed is also withered, too, maybe a little if you already have a good friendly universe orientation; a lot withered or even dead if you have little or none. 

Imagine an excavation crew coming and digging up the bush all the way to the seed, including the whole root system, leaving a hole in the ground. Imagine filling the hole with rich, fertile soil and planting a new golden seed—the seed of a very friendly and benevolent universe—in the new soil, covering it with more soil. Then water the seed and, in fast time, see the seed grow into a healthy bush with lots of leaves, flowers and/or berries or fruits. You don’t have to specify what the leaves and such represent, your subconscious knows. 

If you are using this to replace your current friendly universe seed, making your new seed bigger, shinier, more vibrant will signal to your subconscious that you want to experience an even more friendly universe.

Three Steps to Cultivating the Model of a Friendly Universe

Step One

What Evidence Does Your Mind Use to Prove the Universe is Unfriendly?

Take an honest look at how friendly or unfriendly you perceive the universe in different parts of your life. Often, your areas of biggest challenges correlate with an unfriendly universe and where life flows easily correlates with a friendly universe.

When I say honest here, I mean listen to your body and not your mind. The mind can (and does) massage thoughts and emotions into should/shouldn’t and not-enough/too-much to keep you fitting into your hidden models. Your body doesn’t lie. Listen to it.

Focusing on the unfriendly universe for now, look at your past, present and out in the world for the “evidence” that your mind uses to “prove” that your hidden model of an unfriendly is true. Do this until you can see and feel the pattern of how the mind selectively uses evidence to reinforce a hidden model—how it manufactures a selective version of reality. This is the subconscious reality-validation system at work—and your conscious mind goes right along with it. 

Notice where in your body is most activated when you ponder the model of an unfriendly universe, and all the beliefs, thoughts and evidence that support it. Then imagine this as an ice cube in your body that can be melted.

Step Two

Challenge the Unfriendly Universe Model with New Evidence

Your subconscious is amoral, meaning that judgments about what is right and wrong, good and bad are learned. The only opinions it has are those it has learned. It’s happy to contort itself into any model of reality you want, as long as you know how communicate your desire and train ir consistently.

In this step, you look for evidence that directly disproves that your model of an unfriendly universe is always true. If an aspect of your unfriendly universe model is that people ignore you, then look in your past, present and out in the world for times where people pay attention to you, and even enjoy your company. Keep finding evidence until you feel a shift in your body—this is your subconscious mind learning something new.

Then use your evidence and this feeling to melt the ice cube from step one. Imagine and feel it melting and the water flowing down a drain and away from your body. This tells your subconscious that you want to melt the old model.

Step Three

Cultivate a Model of a Friendly Universe

Choose a new thought like, “The universe really is a friendly place,” and look for evidence to support that from your past, present and out in the world. Feel good when you find it, and keep feeling good about it as you point out the evidence to your subconscious, as you would to a toddler, convincing it bit-by-bit in a new model of reality. Choose actions that support your new model, like greeting store clerks who might otherwise ignore you and asking them how their day is going. Choose emotions that support your new model, like appreciating it when people smile at, speak with or otherwise acknowledge you. 

Feel and imagine the idea and evidence that the universe is a friendly place melting any last little bit of the ice cube from steps one and two.. Then feel and imagine the space where the ice had once been filling completely with a thick golden liquid, like honey infused with sunlight. This tells your subconscious mind that you are replacing the cold, old model with the new, warm model.    

Keep working these steps until you subconscious mind makes the shift and actively seeks out evidence of a friendly universe and disregards evidence of an unfriendly one. This means that your core model of reality has shifted. 

Then enjoy it. It’s a lot more fun to live in a friendly universe than an unfriendly one.