Welcome :)

My name is David Salgado. I’m a clinical psychologist who lives in Perth, in Western Australia. I’ve spent years and decades of my life learning about science, as well as my own mind and other people’s, in my own personal life and during the professional work and studies in my field. Ever since I was a little kid I’ve been interested in the mind and life, and trying to find a way to make things better in myself, my life, and the world :) I felt lost in this task for a long time – hopeless even – but I never gave up. :) I kept experimenting around with things and trying and learning, and eventually I’ve found a way that I feel works which I’ve now started calling The Science of The Mind.

I’ve been sharing The Science of The Mind with the people who come to see me as their psychologist for a little while now and I thought I should probably start a blog so I could share it with more people than just the people who can come and meet me in person at my office. :) What is The Science of The Mind, you ask? Well, it’s the wording I’m using to describe some things I’ve learned from my years and decades of studies on the subject of the mind. And it’s really simple. Science is about finding the truth about how something works in reality. It involves studying and learning about something until we find out the truth about it. Some people might say the mind is just the brain. Other people might say it’s the brain and the nervous system. Even other people might say it’s the brain, the nervous system and the body. Still others might say it’s more than just the brain, the nervous system and the body.

Let me put it out there right now at the beginning of this blog that I’m not here to argue with anyone about ideas or opinions. I’m only here to share. So whatever your beliefs are, it doesn’t matter to me because the way I feel about you and towards you remains unchanged – I’m your friend. :)

I’m into openness, honesty, and inclusiveness. So the most inclusive way of thinking about the mind is the one that appeals to me. For the purposes of what I’m calling The Science of the Mind, I’m going to define the mind as a lot bigger than just our own brain, nervous system and body. The reason is because I feel the mind has power, and I’ve noticed that as my mind has been getting more power gradually over the years and decades (I mean more charge in it, like how we can plug a rechargeable battery in a laptop into a power outlet and charge it up with energy so it can go from no or low battery, hibernate mode, to higher charges all the way up to full charge) it has changed things much bigger than just me. It’s changed my relationships with my family, with my friends, with the people who come to see me for help, with other people - everyone. And even more, I feel it’s changed my whole world, my whole life – everything. And I mean everything. Not just everything inside me. But everything outside me as well. So in that sense I’m defining the mind as everything we ever experience in our whole lives, in the outside world external to us (outside of our own brain, body and nervous system) or in our inside world internal of us (inside of our own brain, body and nervous system – including thoughts, emotions, mental images etc.).

I should acknowledge at the outset of this blog also, on any subject there’s always many different ways of looking at it and seeing it, so whatever way of thinking you have about the mind, I respect you and your ideas :) And I should probably ask forgiveness of you all from the outset. If I say anything that upsets or offends anyone, I didn’t mean to, I’m only trying to do good things here and help people, so please give me the benefit of the doubt and go easy on me if I displease you at some point :) I’m only human too :) I’ve tried to express things as simply as I possibly could while still being natural in my own style of writing and talking, so please don’t think I’m being judgemental or critical when I use simple wording like ‘good’ and ‘bad’, I’m not like that at all and I have no interest in things that can hurt people like judgements and criticism. I’m just keeping it really simple so hopefully almost anyone of any age can read the blog, understand what it’s saying, and use The Science of The Mind to the maximum for their great benefit :)

Now I’ve got through the preliminaries, I want to get straight to the heart of The Science of the Mind so you understand exactly what I’m sharing with you. Through these decades of studying and learning about the mind, I’ve found three very simple and practical steps I believe anyone can use to build a better mind, and in that way, a better life :) And I really want to share this with everyone, because science is for everyone :) And everyone has a mind :) So, I feel it’s applicable to all people everywhere, every time :) So here it is in a nutshell :)

The Science of The Mind

1. Think good things

2. Speak good words

3. Do good things

The more you follow The Science of The Mind, the happier you will be and the less symptoms you will have. The less you follow The Science of The Mind, the less happy you will be and the more symptoms you will have. With any science we’re always checking out the cause-and-effect process. What cause leads to what effect? We start out with guesses about what causes will lead to what effects, and then we experiment to see if what we see happen in real life actually really shows that what we guessed would happen, does actually happen. :) So what I’m sharing with you as The Science of The Mind, for you at this stage might just be ideas. It might not seem scientific at all. I encourage you :) Try the experiment: see what happens over time, when you put these three simple steps into practise in your mind, in your life. If you’re having doubts about whether to give this a shot or not, let me ask you two questions that are now famous in my mind and my life, because a good friend asked them of me more than a decade ago now: Why not try the experiment? What have you got to lose? (Thank you, so much, Daniel) :)

And for anyone who wants more proof of my own credibility or of the scientific evidence that what I’m sharing with you in this blog is really true and truly works, check out this peer-reviewed scientific journal article (based on scientific research done on one hundred and three mental health professionals) I wrote myself that showed that attitude trainings like what I’m providing in this blog really work and can improve not only our own attitudes, but the thinking, speaking, and doing patterns in whole organisations (or even bigger cultures, like countries, and even the world) :) Here it is: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20441488 :) Interestingly, people improved regardless of how hopeful people were at the outset :) So even if you’re feeling cynical, hopeless or have anything other negative or blocking reactions at this stage, you will get better if you just read on through this blog anyway :) That feels like enough for now. :) So I’m going to sign off at this point for the inaugural post on this blog. But stay tuned because I’m planning to write a lot more posts on this blog to help support you in studying, learning and training with The Science of The Mind. :)

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