Joel Goldsmith, a highly successful spiritual healer who practised up until his death in 1964, wrote many books explaining the process of spiritual healing. In reality he could have left it at just one book because his explanation was quite simple. What I'm now reading of current research from quantum physics, Goldsmith's method was in alignment with these new scientific principles being discovered.
Being a Christian, Joel Goldsmith sought wisdom and understanding through the scriptures. Throughout all his writings he refers back to one scriptural passage - "the stone was cut out of the mountain without hands." What he realized was the power of simply focusing on the truth of who a person is (inseparable from God and therefore already complete and whole), is the healing dynamic.
In quantum physics a healer would say to focus on the quantum field of all possibilities (in Christian terms this field equates with God). So the healer would focus on the completeness, wholeness and pure state of the quantum field, untainted by our mental concepts of disease and disharmony. So the stone (disease, disharmony, lack, etc) is cut out simply through the attention, or focusing, on the truth that a person's reality is completeness and wholeness - or the quantum field, where there is no concept of disease, disharmony, lack.
Goldsmith often referred to the universal hypnotism that we've all come under. He asserted that universally we've all bought into a belief in sickness, lack, disharmony and the myriad other woes of the world. So when we look at the scripture "the stone was cut out of the mountain without hands" Golsmith realised that the healer's job was to focus not on the condition which seemed to appear as real. Instead it was the healer's job to focus on the perfection and wholeness that is the truth, and at the basis of, everything in creation.
In "The Art of Spiritual Healing", Joel Goldsmith says... "The principle behind this process is that, insamuch as the activity of the human mind is the substance and the activity of hypnotism (belief in disease, disharmony, lack, etc), when the human mind is stopped - the hypnotism is gone." We stop the human mind when we focus on the quantum field, still our mind to just ponder on this place of all wholeness and completeness. It's akin to meditation where our mind becomes still and quiet as we just let it rest in this peaceful place of wholeness.
Goldsmith says to remember that you are not doing this process to change anything. You are bringing yourself back to the awareness of the truth. The truth is that at the essence of you and of everything else in creation, there is this field of perfect wholeness and abundance. If you were to go into this process trying to change something (perhaps a disease or money problem), your attention is on the problem. This method requires that you only ever focus on the truth that in behind of all of creation there is this infinite field of perfection, peace, abundance, wholeness.
In Deepak Chopra's book "Creating Affluence" he refers to principles now understood by quantum physicists. Here's an excerpt from this book which aligns with Goldsmith's spiritual teachings on the topic of healing.
"Physicists tell us that as we go beyond the realm of subatomic particles into the cloud of subatomic particles which makes up the atom, that when we try to examine and understand these particles - these particles are so small that we can never measure them. In fact, they are so small that we can only think about them.
There is another very interesting fact about these particles: they have never been seen. We know they exist by the evidence of the trails they leave behind in particle accelerators. But there is another very interesting facet to these particles, and that is that they come into existence only when we observe them.
So, if we are looking at a quantum field, every time we look at it these particles blink into existence. And every time we turn our attention away from them they disappear into a void. They blink on and off like little lights in a dark room. The dark room you can imagine as infinite, unbounded space, and the particles that blink into existence do so by the mere act of putting attention on the field. When you put your attention on the field, then they come into existence. When you're not putting your attention on the field, then they are just a probability amplitude in the field of all possibilities.
It is attention that takes that probability amplitude and brings it into material existence just by the mere act of observation, and the mere act of observation is, of course, putting our attention on it. So, a particle (physical existence) is literally created by you and me through the act of observation. It is the quality of our attention that is bringing a certain probability amplitude in the field of infinite possibilities into material existence. If our attention is on wholeness, we are wholeness."
So, here we can see the alignment between the practice of spiritual healing as performed by Joel Goldsmith and others like him; and the principles of quantum physics. Science confirming spirituality!
To cut the stone (disease, disharmony, lack, problems) out of the mountain (our life), we only need to put our attention on wholeness, perfection, harmony, peace, etc. We, as conscious beings, have focused our attention on an idea of disease, disharmony, lack, problems, etc. However, with what we're learning from quantum physics and also the successful demonstrations of healers like Joel Goldsmith, we can change our life experience by bringing our attention back to the awareness that in behind all these appearances there is an infinite intelligence, perfection, wholeness, abundance.
Joel Goldsmith successfully healed thousands of people worldwide using this simple principle, and taught many others to use it successfully.
Our challenge then is to practice this principle in our daily lives - not focusing on the things we don't want or that we're unhappy with. We need to rein in our conscious mind and discipline it to focus our attention on the truth of who we are - inseparable from the quantum field of all possibilities where everything is whole and complete. When we focus on the fact that everything in our life is already whole, complete, perfect; then we naturally expect or anticipate that life is working FOR US - not against us. We stop resisting life and are now open to its subtle prompts to go here or there, connect with this person or that, do a particular activity in the moment. We magically start to receive information we need that can change our life circumstances. In this mind state we soon experience more and more synchronicity and life seems to become more effortless, peaceful, fulfilled, healthy, harmonious.
For anyone who is wanting ongoing support to change your life with personal coaching, we offer a 3 month coaching program, a 6 month coaching program, a 2 Day Change Your Life Program (with 1 month follow up coaching) and weekly group webinars .
Saturday, 9 November 2013
Friday, 20 September 2013
How To Find Inner Peace?
Have you ever got to a place in your life where you have all the trappings of success, wealth, power, etc - but on the inside you feel so disconnected from everyone and everything in your life that it all seems empty and meaningless? Maybe it feels like there's this big hole in your heart that you just can't seem to fill with any of the 'things' you've achieved? How to find inner peace can be more challenging and evasive than any other goal you've set your sights on.
Today, I started working with a very simple process while I was out walking and was amazed at how quickly it transformed my mental and emotional state and awoke a vibrant sense of connection with everything around me. The process works by repeating to your self a very old biblical statement - I Am That I Am - which was purported to be the name of God. By repeating this statement we bring ourselves back into the realization of our oneness with everything and everyone in creation. There's just one slight twist with the use of this statement and that is the addition of a semi colon - I Am That; I AM!
So, here's how to work with the power of these 5 words...As you go about your daily life, each thing you look at, whether it's a person, a chair, a car, a tree, a sign, whatever you see or even perceive in another (an angry persona for example), as you say I Am That, you breathe in and think of this thing/person/trait you're seeing or say its/their name. For example, while I was out walking I looked at each thing along my way and said "I Am That" on my inward breath. On my outward breath I said "I AM" while holding the awareness that I AM that thing. After doing this with a number of objects a curious thing started to happen. I felt this aliveness emerging where I was feeling the immense creativity that I AM always connected with. I was experiencing that I live in a world that is alive with creativity and abundance. At one point I felt laughter bubbling up as I looked at a curbside sign and said "I Am That", "I AM". There was a real sense of joyfulness and awareness of how incredibly creative and unlimited our world really is - how many 'ideas' are out there and that continue to manifest in physical form!
[One very important part of this process is the conscious breathing aspect of the process. Conscious breathing immediately takes you out of subconscious rote routine existence and brings you into the Now. You become 100% present with where you are whilst you're practising conscious breathing. The more often we can be consciously present in our lives, the less power our subconscious programs will have over our lives. Subconscious programs can work for your benefit, but they can also sabotage your highest ideals and goals. So, the more often we can operate in full present moment consciousness, the more we can choose the thoughts we consciously entertain. Thoughts become things. Before any thing becomes tangible physically, it was a thought first. When we're not consciously present our subconscious programmed thoughts are running our lives. The problem is that most people are totally unaware of the full extent of their subconscious thoughts and programs. For now, we just need to be aware that being fully present in the now is a much more empowering state to be in than an absent minded rote routine state.]
At another point I looked at one leaf on a tree and said "I Am That", "I AM" and became aware that there were thousands more leaves like this on just that tree alone, and this was just one of many, many trees I was walking amongst in this moment. I realized how easily we fall into seeing lack and limitation in our world. We're like sleep walkers totally oblivious of the immense abundance we're surrounded by.
This process can be used to bring a greater connection, compassion and love with the people in your life as well. For example, you may have someone in your workplace who you really detest. Take some time to bring this person into your awareness and start saying "I Am That" on your in breath, saying "I AM" (person's name) or just saying "I Am That" as you hold them in your mind's eye. Then on your outward breath once again hold them in your mind's eye and say "I AM". Connect with the traits that you detest and affirm in your mind "I Am That;" "I AM". As you do this process you will start to feel the emergence of compassion within you. You may start to see what fears are driving the detestable behavior in this person and then compassion for them can emerge. As you experience the oneness between you and the manifesting behavior you're observing, you'll start to feel compassion and real unconditional love emerging. Stick with the process until you feel the shift of perception. You may need to practise it over a number of days perhaps.
A third way to use this process is to draw something to you that you desire. Make sure it's something worthwhile, not simply a self indulgent thing. For example, if you're wanting a larger home, connect with the feeling of sharing that new home with more family and friends and feel how much joy and connection with others will be generated in that new home. As you say on your inward breath "I Am That" connect with this thing you're wanting to manifest. Feel the oneness of you and that thing. On the outward breath affirm "I AM", once again connecting inwardly with this thing and knowing your oneness with it.
You may want to do this process to attain a trait that you admire in another person. On your inward breath, saying "I Am That", feel that you already have this desirable trait. See yourself already living that persona. Then on your outward breath affirm "I Am" whilst holding the feeling of already living that trait.
For anyone who is wanting ongoing support to change your life with personal coaching, we offer a 6 month coaching program, a 2 Day Change Your Life Program (with 1 month follow up coaching) and weekly group webinars .
Today, I started working with a very simple process while I was out walking and was amazed at how quickly it transformed my mental and emotional state and awoke a vibrant sense of connection with everything around me. The process works by repeating to your self a very old biblical statement - I Am That I Am - which was purported to be the name of God. By repeating this statement we bring ourselves back into the realization of our oneness with everything and everyone in creation. There's just one slight twist with the use of this statement and that is the addition of a semi colon - I Am That; I AM!
So, here's how to work with the power of these 5 words...As you go about your daily life, each thing you look at, whether it's a person, a chair, a car, a tree, a sign, whatever you see or even perceive in another (an angry persona for example), as you say I Am That, you breathe in and think of this thing/person/trait you're seeing or say its/their name. For example, while I was out walking I looked at each thing along my way and said "I Am That" on my inward breath. On my outward breath I said "I AM" while holding the awareness that I AM that thing. After doing this with a number of objects a curious thing started to happen. I felt this aliveness emerging where I was feeling the immense creativity that I AM always connected with. I was experiencing that I live in a world that is alive with creativity and abundance. At one point I felt laughter bubbling up as I looked at a curbside sign and said "I Am That", "I AM". There was a real sense of joyfulness and awareness of how incredibly creative and unlimited our world really is - how many 'ideas' are out there and that continue to manifest in physical form!
[One very important part of this process is the conscious breathing aspect of the process. Conscious breathing immediately takes you out of subconscious rote routine existence and brings you into the Now. You become 100% present with where you are whilst you're practising conscious breathing. The more often we can be consciously present in our lives, the less power our subconscious programs will have over our lives. Subconscious programs can work for your benefit, but they can also sabotage your highest ideals and goals. So, the more often we can operate in full present moment consciousness, the more we can choose the thoughts we consciously entertain. Thoughts become things. Before any thing becomes tangible physically, it was a thought first. When we're not consciously present our subconscious programmed thoughts are running our lives. The problem is that most people are totally unaware of the full extent of their subconscious thoughts and programs. For now, we just need to be aware that being fully present in the now is a much more empowering state to be in than an absent minded rote routine state.]
At another point I looked at one leaf on a tree and said "I Am That", "I AM" and became aware that there were thousands more leaves like this on just that tree alone, and this was just one of many, many trees I was walking amongst in this moment. I realized how easily we fall into seeing lack and limitation in our world. We're like sleep walkers totally oblivious of the immense abundance we're surrounded by.
This process can be used to bring a greater connection, compassion and love with the people in your life as well. For example, you may have someone in your workplace who you really detest. Take some time to bring this person into your awareness and start saying "I Am That" on your in breath, saying "I AM" (person's name) or just saying "I Am That" as you hold them in your mind's eye. Then on your outward breath once again hold them in your mind's eye and say "I AM". Connect with the traits that you detest and affirm in your mind "I Am That;" "I AM". As you do this process you will start to feel the emergence of compassion within you. You may start to see what fears are driving the detestable behavior in this person and then compassion for them can emerge. As you experience the oneness between you and the manifesting behavior you're observing, you'll start to feel compassion and real unconditional love emerging. Stick with the process until you feel the shift of perception. You may need to practise it over a number of days perhaps.
A third way to use this process is to draw something to you that you desire. Make sure it's something worthwhile, not simply a self indulgent thing. For example, if you're wanting a larger home, connect with the feeling of sharing that new home with more family and friends and feel how much joy and connection with others will be generated in that new home. As you say on your inward breath "I Am That" connect with this thing you're wanting to manifest. Feel the oneness of you and that thing. On the outward breath affirm "I AM", once again connecting inwardly with this thing and knowing your oneness with it.
You may want to do this process to attain a trait that you admire in another person. On your inward breath, saying "I Am That", feel that you already have this desirable trait. See yourself already living that persona. Then on your outward breath affirm "I Am" whilst holding the feeling of already living that trait.
For anyone who is wanting ongoing support to change your life with personal coaching, we offer a 6 month coaching program, a 2 Day Change Your Life Program (with 1 month follow up coaching) and weekly group webinars .
Tuesday, 10 September 2013
Goal Setting Nightmares
I recently experienced first hand the incredible power of goal setting. What I wasn't prepared for was the speed of change that can occur when you write a new vision for your life.
The vision I wrote for myself was to move 100% into working in my passion - to help others free themselves to also work in their passion and to find peace within the busy-ness of careers, family, friends and interests. I see the stress on people's faces everywhere I go and know that people can be freed from being the 'mouse on a wheel' in a never ending loop of work, sleep, work, sleep, endlessly chasing the dollars to pay the debts for 'stuff' they thought would make them feel better, only to find that these things enslaved them more!
I began this walk 37 years ago, studied, practised and read everything I could from the masters - meditation teachers, motivators, the various spiritual texts, life coaches, trained in multiple mindset change modalities, etc. Ultimately I have found that living a 'normal' life is the greatest teacher. It is where you will get your greatest challenges and your greatest learning. Being a parent, partner, employee, employer, child, sister, brother, grandparent....
My vision was to work with a high degree of authenticity. I wanted to 'walk my talk'. My life vision was to be living in a state of being that could meet any event that life could present to me, in peace. If I wasn't able to 'live' this, how could I walk anyone else through to it?
Well, talk about opening up the hornet's nest!!!! Within a matter of weeks of writing this life vision, our existing internet business (web development, mobile apps, marketing, etc) started slowing down hugely. Our contractors started going slower and slower. We couldn't get clients to give us information to complete their jobs. New clients who had said they wanted to proceed with new work and asked for the deposit invoice to be sent to them, all put the brakes on. They all started delaying new project startups for a couple of months. I'd ring them back on the agreed date and still they needed another couple of months before starting the new projects.
As you can imagine, by this time our cash flow was seriously challenged and all I was seeing was the wall. I just couldn't figure out what was happening. Many sleepless nights and pushing clients for information, payments, commitment and so on, until I WOKE UP! I ASKED FOR THIS!
The only suffering that occurred in this transition time was my resistance to change. The change was happening so fast that I really wasn't ready for it, nor did I have brain cells to truly comprehend what living in this new state was going to be like! I did put out the intent to authentically walk my talk in this new career. What's that old saying - 'no gain without pain?' Does it really have to be that way? Or could we just stop resisting, stop judging the changes that occur in our lives, and stand back far enough from the coal face of our lives to see the magnificent miracle that's unfolding before our eyes?
Part of the personal growth I wanted was to be a living example of freedom from the ego and the separateness it creates between people, to be transparent and to be acted and spoken through by a higher wisdom. (Some may call it God, universal intelligence, inspiration, intuition, etc). Little did I know that I would have to face the black abyss of nothingness to live this state authentically.
I have always filled my life with busy-ness. I hadn't realized how much of my identity was enmeshed with my busy-ness. To face day after day of doing nothing, being nobody to no-one was a fearful place to be in. The experience I was met with was the ultimate demise of my personal identity. Who would I be without this identity that I'd defined myself by for so many years and without material things to support 'me' also? My partner and I practise a process of questioning our thoughts and turning them around to the opposite to gain greater insights about contentious issues. It was this process that has helped me find peace in all of these changes and to now be firmly on my new life path.
In hindsight, my goal of wanting to be transparent and free of ego separateness required that my own sense of personal identity had to die in the process. I had to 'let go' of that long enough to experience who I am beyond this. In behind the nothingness of no identity I found a place of absolute peace and a sense of being full to overflowing, lacking nothing and BEING everything. Nothing could ever be added to this experience as it was so filled in every moment with a sense of wholeness and completeness.
Interestingly, the second client who came to us after this epiphany, was facing death of another kind with a prognosis of terminal cancer. I pondered how perfect life is - that I was so thoroughly equipped to walk this person through the intense fear of losing physical identity, to find peace, wholeness and completion with whatever life (or death) brought to her. What a blessing for us to meet and work together - and such perfect timing!
As the image attached to this blog says - at some stage of our lives we must let go of the known and venture into the unknown places of our minds and hearts if we're ever going to live our authentic life!
For those of you who live in Australia we are now offering a full weekend one-to-one intensive with just one person or a couple to help them move from life crises into a new way of being. Or if you're outside Australia why not treat yourself to the most liberating holiday of your life?
For more information .... http://3dmindsettransformation.com/2day-change-your-life-course/
I began this walk 37 years ago, studied, practised and read everything I could from the masters - meditation teachers, motivators, the various spiritual texts, life coaches, trained in multiple mindset change modalities, etc. Ultimately I have found that living a 'normal' life is the greatest teacher. It is where you will get your greatest challenges and your greatest learning. Being a parent, partner, employee, employer, child, sister, brother, grandparent....
My vision was to work with a high degree of authenticity. I wanted to 'walk my talk'. My life vision was to be living in a state of being that could meet any event that life could present to me, in peace. If I wasn't able to 'live' this, how could I walk anyone else through to it?
Well, talk about opening up the hornet's nest!!!! Within a matter of weeks of writing this life vision, our existing internet business (web development, mobile apps, marketing, etc) started slowing down hugely. Our contractors started going slower and slower. We couldn't get clients to give us information to complete their jobs. New clients who had said they wanted to proceed with new work and asked for the deposit invoice to be sent to them, all put the brakes on. They all started delaying new project startups for a couple of months. I'd ring them back on the agreed date and still they needed another couple of months before starting the new projects.
As you can imagine, by this time our cash flow was seriously challenged and all I was seeing was the wall. I just couldn't figure out what was happening. Many sleepless nights and pushing clients for information, payments, commitment and so on, until I WOKE UP! I ASKED FOR THIS!
The only suffering that occurred in this transition time was my resistance to change. The change was happening so fast that I really wasn't ready for it, nor did I have brain cells to truly comprehend what living in this new state was going to be like! I did put out the intent to authentically walk my talk in this new career. What's that old saying - 'no gain without pain?' Does it really have to be that way? Or could we just stop resisting, stop judging the changes that occur in our lives, and stand back far enough from the coal face of our lives to see the magnificent miracle that's unfolding before our eyes?
Part of the personal growth I wanted was to be a living example of freedom from the ego and the separateness it creates between people, to be transparent and to be acted and spoken through by a higher wisdom. (Some may call it God, universal intelligence, inspiration, intuition, etc). Little did I know that I would have to face the black abyss of nothingness to live this state authentically.
I have always filled my life with busy-ness. I hadn't realized how much of my identity was enmeshed with my busy-ness. To face day after day of doing nothing, being nobody to no-one was a fearful place to be in. The experience I was met with was the ultimate demise of my personal identity. Who would I be without this identity that I'd defined myself by for so many years and without material things to support 'me' also? My partner and I practise a process of questioning our thoughts and turning them around to the opposite to gain greater insights about contentious issues. It was this process that has helped me find peace in all of these changes and to now be firmly on my new life path.
In hindsight, my goal of wanting to be transparent and free of ego separateness required that my own sense of personal identity had to die in the process. I had to 'let go' of that long enough to experience who I am beyond this. In behind the nothingness of no identity I found a place of absolute peace and a sense of being full to overflowing, lacking nothing and BEING everything. Nothing could ever be added to this experience as it was so filled in every moment with a sense of wholeness and completeness.
Interestingly, the second client who came to us after this epiphany, was facing death of another kind with a prognosis of terminal cancer. I pondered how perfect life is - that I was so thoroughly equipped to walk this person through the intense fear of losing physical identity, to find peace, wholeness and completion with whatever life (or death) brought to her. What a blessing for us to meet and work together - and such perfect timing!
As the image attached to this blog says - at some stage of our lives we must let go of the known and venture into the unknown places of our minds and hearts if we're ever going to live our authentic life!
For those of you who live in Australia we are now offering a full weekend one-to-one intensive with just one person or a couple to help them move from life crises into a new way of being. Or if you're outside Australia why not treat yourself to the most liberating holiday of your life?
For more information .... http://3dmindsettransformation.com/2day-change-your-life-course/
Saturday, 27 July 2013
Ever Wondered Why You Fall Short of Your Goals?
Have you ever wondered why your New Year's resolutions rarely succeed? Maybe you've tried to lose weight using every fail proof method you could find? Perhaps you've bought course after course on wealth creation and somehow never complete them or make them work? Well, there's a reason for this and it all happens on auto pilot within your own brain.
We all have an internal mechanism whose function is to maintain our comfort zone and subconscious self image. Whenever we put out a new goal, it is immediately compared with this internal self image. If the new goal is not within that self image, the amygdala in your brain will go straight into action to bring you back into "balance" - your comfort zone.
Enough said! This series of 3 videos will enlighten you to why all your failed goals really never had a chance of succeeding!
For anyone who is wanting ongoing support to change your life with personal coaching, we offer a 6 month coaching program, a 2 Day Change Your Life Program (with 1 month follow up coaching) and weekly group webinars.hy not treat yourself to the most liberating holiday of your life?
Tuesday, 23 July 2013
The Power of a Thank You to Dissolve Criticism
There is a very simple process which can disarm your critic within minutes! Before you place yourself in a situation like this again however, you may want to read a former blog I wrote - Finding Balance in Your Life. In this blog you'll learn a process of owning and being at peace with any negative trait another person could accuse you of.
With that process done, the next time you find yourself being attacked verbally by someone who is accusing you of all sorts of wrongdoings, simply say "Thank You". When you say the Thank You, contemplate inwardly that we all have, and own every human trait - negative and positive - in varying degrees. From my former blog's recommended exercise, you will realize and have found how you do actually demonstrate somewhere in your life all negative traits you could possibly bring to mind.
Empowered with this inner experience of being okay with negative traits, as your attacker hurls abusive judgments at you, your response becomes a simple "Thank You, Thank You, Thank You." The truth is that nothing can be showing up in your life that doesn't exist in your own thoughts. Quantum physics is proving this.
Physicists tell us that everything we could possibly imagine exists in what some refer to as The Field - the quantum field of all possibilities. They tell us that everything exists as a wave - spread out over space and time - a probability amplitude. This means everything exists merely as a possibility UNTIL we put our attention on The Field. Then the wave becomes a particle (takes on a form). It is the quality of our attention that is bringing a certain probability in the field of all possibilities into material existence.
The implications for us in this knowledge is that whatever is materializing in 'our world' is simply showing us the quality of our own thoughts or inner attention. Somewhere within us, we are holding our attention on that particular state which is manifesting before our eyes. By thanking our aggressor, we are thanking him/her for showing us what thoughts are still active within us. Since we have already made peace with this aspect of ourselves, there is no 'fight' to be had. We can totally agree with the person and thank them for showing us what we still hold within ourselves.
An interesting dynamic happens within the aggressor when you practice saying Thank You to him/her for enlightening you to your inner thoughts. Within minutes, as their onslaught receives none of the expected response from you, they are left with their own anguish, hatred, lack of peace. There is nothing for them to do but BE with themselves. You are not feeding their need to share/spread the burden of their unhappiness with you. They must experience it fully themselves.
I have seen this dynamic work amazingly well time and again with the end result being that the aggressor simply goes quiet as they see for the first time in their life that they are the creators of their own experience. They may resist your behavior for a little while trying desperately to make you feel as unhappy as they are. However, very quickly they will go quiet as they realize there is nowhere to go but within themselves to find resolution with this troublesome state of mind.
For anyone who is wanting ongoing support to change your life with personal coaching, we offer a 6 month coaching program, a 2 Day Change Your Life Program (with 1 month follow up coaching) and weekly group webinars .
Monday, 22 July 2013
There's No Mistakes in Life!
This is something I've wrestled with for years, having made a decision not to follow a certain career path that I was strongly drawn to at the age of 21. At the time the career I was considering was way 'outside the box' for my family's expectations. When I thought about following this path, very quickly the family voice would kick in telling me "you'll never make a living out of that", "there's no way that you could make decent money working in that career" and so on. Needless to say I didn't follow the path I was drawn to and instead stayed in the job that would safely provide a regular and predictable income. It was not that I didn't enjoy my work. The problem for me was battling with my family programming which ultimately drowned out my inner promptings. Over the years I had held a silent grudge towards my parents for my perceived pressure to 'stay in the box.'
Recently I decided to do The Work on this judgment I was carrying about my 'mistaken' choice. The Work is a process of questioning the truth of your thoughts about life and requires that you turn around your thought to the self, to the other, and to the opposite. You also need to ask whether the belief you're holding is true - can you absolutely know that it's true?
So, if you had a belief something like "I failed to follow my true intuitive guidance for my life," you would turn the statement around to "I chose not to follow my true intuitive guidance for my life" and you would then find 3 ways that this was true.
Then you would turn the statement around to something like "I don't let others follow their inner guidance." Once again you need to find 3 examples of how this is true. This is an important step if you're holding a grudge against someone regarding this belief you're holding. When you can see how you do the very same thing to others, you'll realize why someone may have done this to you. You gain empathy and understanding of the other through this question.
Finally you would turn the original statement around to the opposite. So, for this statement I was working on, it would turn around to "I have always followed my true intuitive guidance for my life."
Again, you would find 3 examples of how this turnaround is true.
This questioning of your thoughts is a very powerful process which will bring you many deep insights and 'aha' moments that will liberate you from your previous painful memory of the event. Another very dynamic part of this Work process is to ask yourself "Who would I be without this thought?" For me, this was the part which delivered the greatest awareness and release from the tyranny of my previous judgments about this turning point in my life at age 21.
It's good to close your eyes when posing this question of yourself "Who would I be without this thought?" You need to observe and contemplate who or what you are without the thought. For me, the light bulb moment came when I felt this very deep connection inwardly with this place of infinite wisdom which I realized had always been directing my life. Beyond all the childhood programming, this powerful presence had orchestrated my life experiences perfectly for a greater life plan. I realized that the career path I had chosen perfectly balanced this other aspect of my life which I'd thought had been lost through my decision at age 21.
If you think there have been any 'mistaken' life choices you've made, think again! Run your judgement of this life choice through the questioning process above and you'll likely find that in behind it all there has been an inner wisdom guiding you to a full and balanced life view.
For anyone who is wanting ongoing support to change your life with personal coaching, we offer a 6 month coaching program, a 2 Day Change Your Life Program (with 1 month follow up coaching) and weekly group webinars .
Wednesday, 10 July 2013
Are You Really SEEING the People in Your LIfe?
I watched a video of Dustin Hoffman this morning talking about the awareness he received as a result of his involvement in the movie Tootsie. The movie required Hoffman to dress as a woman. Before the project started he went through the process of being made up and trialling whether he could walk down the main street of New York and not be singled out as a cross dresser.
When he was made up by the makeup artist for the first time, he looked in the mirror and then asked the artist if he could then make him look like a 'beautiful woman'. He said "If I'm going to be a woman, then I want to be a beautiful woman". Sadly the makeup artist said that was about as good as it was going to get.
In this very moment, Hoffman realized what he and most men do when entering a room full of new people. He saw how he had always bypassed the plain women and only spoken to the beautiful women. He realized how much of life and people he had missed out on because of this 'beautiful' filter he was running.
I don't think for a moment that this behavior is limited to men, by the way, as women can be equally visually driven.
If we're to live a more happy and fulfilling life, then maybe it's time we stop and question the filters that we may be using to navigate our world and the people around us. Keep in mind that this filtering process is actually a basic survival mechanism humanity has adopted. We have such a huge volume of stimuli to process through our conscious mind, that about 95% of it gets automatically delegated to the subconscious mind for processing.
The sad part of this however is that most of us are rarely PRESENT in any of our daily interactions. We greet our coworkers with a grunt or a quick glance, then quickly get back to the work we were attending to. Or we march our children through the morning routine as quickly as we can, never stopping to actually look into their eyes and SEE them. That beautiful beaming individual you brought into the world has become just another part of the morning shuffle.
Even on our drive home we can often arrive without even knowing how we got there. Our conscious mind was somewhere else completely while our subconscious mind faithfully manoeuvred our way through the traffic.
Perhaps you might like to get back in touch with the world you live in and the people you share it with by consciously stopping to really look at the person you're speaking to or really hear what they're saying. So many times we have conversations with familiar people and immediately we start to zone out, thinking that we pretty much know what they're going to say.
I had a good wake up call with this recently when a friend rang for a chat. This lady would constantly lament about the same problem situation in her life. I immediately noticed myself zoning out from listening to her, but this time something made me stop and REALLY listen to her. I put every other thing out of my mind and just listened. Within about 5 minutes, the feedback I was able to provide her from listening properly gave her the greatest breakthrough she had been seeking for years.
How much of your life are you missing? Perhaps you've asked "What's missing in my life?" If you make a habit of stopping to really SEE and really HEAR, really TASTE, really SMELL, really TOUCH - imagine how abundant and fulfilling your life would be! Suddenly you would see how many things you have to be grateful for already!
Life is what happens to you while you're busy making other plans.
John Lennon
Here is the link to Dustin Hoffman's video...
http://www.upworthy.com/dustin-hoffman-breaks-down-crying-explaining-something-that-every-woman-sadly-already-experienced-3
For anyone who is wanting ongoing support to change your life with personal coaching, we offer a 6 month coaching program, a 2 Day Change Your Life Program (with 1 month follow up coaching) and weekly group webinars .
When he was made up by the makeup artist for the first time, he looked in the mirror and then asked the artist if he could then make him look like a 'beautiful woman'. He said "If I'm going to be a woman, then I want to be a beautiful woman". Sadly the makeup artist said that was about as good as it was going to get.
In this very moment, Hoffman realized what he and most men do when entering a room full of new people. He saw how he had always bypassed the plain women and only spoken to the beautiful women. He realized how much of life and people he had missed out on because of this 'beautiful' filter he was running.
I don't think for a moment that this behavior is limited to men, by the way, as women can be equally visually driven.
If we're to live a more happy and fulfilling life, then maybe it's time we stop and question the filters that we may be using to navigate our world and the people around us. Keep in mind that this filtering process is actually a basic survival mechanism humanity has adopted. We have such a huge volume of stimuli to process through our conscious mind, that about 95% of it gets automatically delegated to the subconscious mind for processing.
Even on our drive home we can often arrive without even knowing how we got there. Our conscious mind was somewhere else completely while our subconscious mind faithfully manoeuvred our way through the traffic.
Perhaps you might like to get back in touch with the world you live in and the people you share it with by consciously stopping to really look at the person you're speaking to or really hear what they're saying. So many times we have conversations with familiar people and immediately we start to zone out, thinking that we pretty much know what they're going to say.
I had a good wake up call with this recently when a friend rang for a chat. This lady would constantly lament about the same problem situation in her life. I immediately noticed myself zoning out from listening to her, but this time something made me stop and REALLY listen to her. I put every other thing out of my mind and just listened. Within about 5 minutes, the feedback I was able to provide her from listening properly gave her the greatest breakthrough she had been seeking for years.
How much of your life are you missing? Perhaps you've asked "What's missing in my life?" If you make a habit of stopping to really SEE and really HEAR, really TASTE, really SMELL, really TOUCH - imagine how abundant and fulfilling your life would be! Suddenly you would see how many things you have to be grateful for already!
Life is what happens to you while you're busy making other plans.
John Lennon
Here is the link to Dustin Hoffman's video...
http://www.upworthy.com/dustin-hoffman-breaks-down-crying-explaining-something-that-every-woman-sadly-already-experienced-3
For anyone who is wanting ongoing support to change your life with personal coaching, we offer a 6 month coaching program, a 2 Day Change Your Life Program (with 1 month follow up coaching) and weekly group webinars .
Sunday, 7 July 2013
How to Use Your Innate Creativity to Effect Change
Most people who have achieved success in some area of their life have probably already drawn on the creative faculty of their mind to do so. Particularly in business it's vital to 'think outside the box' to truly connect with your Unique Selling Proposition. Perhaps you haven't realized that the same formula you used to achieve business success can also be used in every other part of your life. Too often people can become one dimensional (particularly in business as it requires such a focused investment of time) and lose sight of the fact that they know how to effect change for the better in all areas of their life.
However, just by being more aware of the mechanics of how you got to be successful in one area of your life, you'll start to see how your whole life can be an expression of success and fulfillment. This means you can expect to have successful and fulfilling relationships, change can be made without trauma or some incredibly painful effort, and your whole life can be an expression of creativity and peace.
Just this week I watched a great video by Brian Tracy where he talks about the power of our super conscious mind. Most of us know about the conscious and subconscious mind, but may not have heard of the super conscious mind. The advent of quantum physics is revealing the existence of a 'field' which contains all possibilities in our physical world. You might want to read more on this research in The Field by Lynne McTaggart. Unbeknown to most people you can create virtually any outcome you have the inspiration to achieve by tapping into 'your' super conscious mind. I have 'your' in parenthesis because in fact you don't really own this capacity of your mind. You open your mind to 'it'. "It" is the quantum field where everything that ever was, is, or will be, exists. The fact that you exist means you are inseparable from the quantum field and therefore can tap into or open yourself to the field for any information/inspiration you need to achieve your desired outcome.
I'll give you some diverse examples of how I've used this ability (we all have) to tap into the super conscious field and you'll start to see how you can make it work in any area of your life that you feel needs some positive change.
Here's just 3 samples of how you can tap into the super conscious mind - Finding Your Ideal Life Partner, Finding the Perfect Home when moving from one city to another without even trying, and Finding Creative Solutions in the Workplace without Effort.
1. Finding the Ideal Life Partner
Write a list of the values you'd like your partner to have, e.g. health, spiritual, financial, etc. Get really clear in your conscious mind what the qualities are in your ideal life partner. You may refer back to this written list from time to time to remind yourself who not to spend time with (don't entertain second best options). You want to leave all your time and energy open only to people and events that are compatible with your stated life values. The next step is to act on inspiration that comes to you. In my case I was inspired to work on a health stand promoting a process which I had pretty much moved on from, nevertheless I felt drawn to work on this stand and followed the inspiration. It turned out that was the first time I met my now life partner and best friend of 7 years. We went on to have two more 'chance' meetings and after the third time we have been pretty much inseparable ever since.
What I understand from this experience is the importance of staying aligned with the vision, following the inspirations you receive, acting on them, and then the answer will appear, seemingly without effort, and when you least expect it!
2. Finding the Perfect Home Without Even Trying
Some years ago I sold my home and business in one part of the country as I had bought a business in another city. I needed to find a home pretty soon and started to think about where I would like to rent in this new city while I got clear about where to ultimately buy. I decided that I wanted to be right by the beach in a modern two bedroom, two bathroom residence and I wanted to pay a certain price. I started checking the real estate sites in that area and found a unit directly across the road from the beach. The location was superb, however it was pretty old and didn't have a second bathroom but the price was right. So I went ahead and put my name on the list of prospective tenants.
After 3 calls to the letting agent who was still unable to give me an answer as to who they would let the property to, I decided to call back and asked to be removed from the list. By this stage I had to get busy with finishing the handover of my old business and the new one, and packing my personal possessions at home. A week or so later I attended an options trading seminar and just by chance I got talking to a lady as we walked out of the meeting room. I mentioned I was close to moving to this new city and needing to find a place to live near the beach. She said she was, at that very time, looking for someone to rent her unit in a complex on the beach in this area. After a little probing I discovered that her unit perfectly matched my list of requirements. In fact it was better than I'd written, yet the price was exactly what I wanted to pay. I went on to spend probably the best time of my life in that unit as the beach location provided an incredible healing space for that part of my life.
The key factors in what I did in this example were - being very clear about what I wanted, not taking second best, sticking to the vision, and acting upon inspiration (attending the options trading course even though my life was being turned upside down at the time).
3. Finding Creative Solutions in the Workplace without Effort.
I had a screenprinting business and was always pushing the boundaries of what 'could be done' whether that meant delivery deadlines or new innovations. Whenever I was presented with a new challenge I would immediately define exactly what needed to be achieved and the time frame for its completion. This might be an extraordinary volume of work had to be completed by a certain time. It may have been a type of printing I had not done before, so I needed some special technical assistance to complete the task.
In each situation after I got very clear about what I had to achieve, I then simply 'put out' the thought of what help I needed and asked the question "Where/who is the person that can help me with what I need?" I would then let the thought go and just get on with life and business with a complete conviction that the answer would be delivered to me very soon. In every case the answer came to me within a couple of days, usually when I was walking around doing some physical task at home or at work. When doing something physical you stop laboring on finding the answer - that gets let go whilst you're physically engaged. This allows you to be open to the super conscious mind's promptings. The only other thing you have to do is act upon the inspiration!
Here's Brian Tracy's inspiring video about how to use the super conscious mind and effect change for the better in your life...
For anyone who is wanting ongoing support to change your life with personal coaching, we offer a 6 month coaching program, a 2 Day Change Your Life Program (with 1 month follow up coaching) and weekly group webinars .
However, just by being more aware of the mechanics of how you got to be successful in one area of your life, you'll start to see how your whole life can be an expression of success and fulfillment. This means you can expect to have successful and fulfilling relationships, change can be made without trauma or some incredibly painful effort, and your whole life can be an expression of creativity and peace.
Just this week I watched a great video by Brian Tracy where he talks about the power of our super conscious mind. Most of us know about the conscious and subconscious mind, but may not have heard of the super conscious mind. The advent of quantum physics is revealing the existence of a 'field' which contains all possibilities in our physical world. You might want to read more on this research in The Field by Lynne McTaggart. Unbeknown to most people you can create virtually any outcome you have the inspiration to achieve by tapping into 'your' super conscious mind. I have 'your' in parenthesis because in fact you don't really own this capacity of your mind. You open your mind to 'it'. "It" is the quantum field where everything that ever was, is, or will be, exists. The fact that you exist means you are inseparable from the quantum field and therefore can tap into or open yourself to the field for any information/inspiration you need to achieve your desired outcome.
I'll give you some diverse examples of how I've used this ability (we all have) to tap into the super conscious field and you'll start to see how you can make it work in any area of your life that you feel needs some positive change.
Here's just 3 samples of how you can tap into the super conscious mind - Finding Your Ideal Life Partner, Finding the Perfect Home when moving from one city to another without even trying, and Finding Creative Solutions in the Workplace without Effort.
1. Finding the Ideal Life Partner
Write a list of the values you'd like your partner to have, e.g. health, spiritual, financial, etc. Get really clear in your conscious mind what the qualities are in your ideal life partner. You may refer back to this written list from time to time to remind yourself who not to spend time with (don't entertain second best options). You want to leave all your time and energy open only to people and events that are compatible with your stated life values. The next step is to act on inspiration that comes to you. In my case I was inspired to work on a health stand promoting a process which I had pretty much moved on from, nevertheless I felt drawn to work on this stand and followed the inspiration. It turned out that was the first time I met my now life partner and best friend of 7 years. We went on to have two more 'chance' meetings and after the third time we have been pretty much inseparable ever since.
What I understand from this experience is the importance of staying aligned with the vision, following the inspirations you receive, acting on them, and then the answer will appear, seemingly without effort, and when you least expect it!
2. Finding the Perfect Home Without Even Trying
Some years ago I sold my home and business in one part of the country as I had bought a business in another city. I needed to find a home pretty soon and started to think about where I would like to rent in this new city while I got clear about where to ultimately buy. I decided that I wanted to be right by the beach in a modern two bedroom, two bathroom residence and I wanted to pay a certain price. I started checking the real estate sites in that area and found a unit directly across the road from the beach. The location was superb, however it was pretty old and didn't have a second bathroom but the price was right. So I went ahead and put my name on the list of prospective tenants.
After 3 calls to the letting agent who was still unable to give me an answer as to who they would let the property to, I decided to call back and asked to be removed from the list. By this stage I had to get busy with finishing the handover of my old business and the new one, and packing my personal possessions at home. A week or so later I attended an options trading seminar and just by chance I got talking to a lady as we walked out of the meeting room. I mentioned I was close to moving to this new city and needing to find a place to live near the beach. She said she was, at that very time, looking for someone to rent her unit in a complex on the beach in this area. After a little probing I discovered that her unit perfectly matched my list of requirements. In fact it was better than I'd written, yet the price was exactly what I wanted to pay. I went on to spend probably the best time of my life in that unit as the beach location provided an incredible healing space for that part of my life.
The key factors in what I did in this example were - being very clear about what I wanted, not taking second best, sticking to the vision, and acting upon inspiration (attending the options trading course even though my life was being turned upside down at the time).
3. Finding Creative Solutions in the Workplace without Effort.
I had a screenprinting business and was always pushing the boundaries of what 'could be done' whether that meant delivery deadlines or new innovations. Whenever I was presented with a new challenge I would immediately define exactly what needed to be achieved and the time frame for its completion. This might be an extraordinary volume of work had to be completed by a certain time. It may have been a type of printing I had not done before, so I needed some special technical assistance to complete the task.
In each situation after I got very clear about what I had to achieve, I then simply 'put out' the thought of what help I needed and asked the question "Where/who is the person that can help me with what I need?" I would then let the thought go and just get on with life and business with a complete conviction that the answer would be delivered to me very soon. In every case the answer came to me within a couple of days, usually when I was walking around doing some physical task at home or at work. When doing something physical you stop laboring on finding the answer - that gets let go whilst you're physically engaged. This allows you to be open to the super conscious mind's promptings. The only other thing you have to do is act upon the inspiration!
Here's Brian Tracy's inspiring video about how to use the super conscious mind and effect change for the better in your life...
For anyone who is wanting ongoing support to change your life with personal coaching, we offer a 6 month coaching program, a 2 Day Change Your Life Program (with 1 month follow up coaching) and weekly group webinars .
Thursday, 4 July 2013
Finding Balance in Life
When we are willing to embrace both the light and dark sides of our selves, we can begin to heal both our selves and our relationships. When we can realize that everything that exists somewhere in the world also exists in us, we begin our journey to finding balance in life.
There's a wonderful Sufi story that illustrates how the world will always show up what we are on the inside.
A man entered a village and went to see the Sufi master, the wise old man of the village. The visitor said, "I'm deciding whether I should move here or not. I'm wondering what kind of a neighborhood this is. Can you tell me about the people here?" The Sufi master said, "Tell me what kind of people lived where you came from." The visitor said, "Oh, they were highway robbers, cheats and liars." The old Sufi master said, "You know, those are exactly the same kinds of people who live here." The visitor left the village and never came back.
Half an hour later, another man entered the village. He sought out the Sufi master and said, "I'm thinking of moving here. Can you tell me what kind of people live here?" Again the Sufi master said, "Tell me what kind of people lived where you came from." The visitor said, "Oh, they were the kindest, gentlest, most compassionate, loving people. I shall miss them terribly." The Sufi master said, "Those are exactly the kinds of people who live here too."
The story reminds us that the traits we see most clearly in others exist most strongly in our selves. When we see that our relationships are but a mirror of our selves, then we can start to find balance in our lives. To do this, we need to be comfortable with our own ambiguity, to embrace all aspects of our selves. At a deep level we need to realize that we are not flawed simply because we have negative traits. No one has only positive traits. Recognizing that we have negative traits simply means that we are complete.
There is a simple process we can do to find balance with both aspects of our selves - the negative and positive. Sometimes we idolize another person which can put us out of balance in life. This process will get you to a place where you are completely at peace with all the good and all the bad aspects of humanity that you can imagine.
So, you need to divide a blank page into 3 columns. The first column heading will be called Person You Admire or Dislike, the middle column will be called Specific trait, action or inaction you admire or dislike. The third column will be called People who have seen this trait in you.
Now, you can start to think of someone you really admire or really dislike. Write their name in the first column, then in the second column write the trait you most admire or dislike in them. Then in the third column, write the names of at least 10 people who have seen that same trait in you.
Stick with this process. Find the people who have seen these traits in you, and you'll find a greater sense of balance and peace entering your mind. You will start to be at peace with all aspects of your self, be okay with all of it!!! If you do this process on as many human traits that you can think of, you'll find yourself in a state of mind where someone could accuse you of some negative behavior or trait and you will be perfectly at peace with it because you have already embraced this trait within yourself. It will be like "water off a duck's back" as someone fires some kind of criticism at you because you have already found peace with, and owned, that aspect of yourself.
Likewise as you work through the traits in people you admire, you will find yourself no longer subordinating yourself to others. An increased sense of personal power will enter your life.
For anyone who is wanting ongoing support to change your life with personal coaching, we offer a 6 month coaching program, a 2 Day Change Your Life Program (with 1 month follow up coaching) and weekly group webinars .
Reference: SynchroDestiny by Deepak Chopra
There's a wonderful Sufi story that illustrates how the world will always show up what we are on the inside.
A man entered a village and went to see the Sufi master, the wise old man of the village. The visitor said, "I'm deciding whether I should move here or not. I'm wondering what kind of a neighborhood this is. Can you tell me about the people here?" The Sufi master said, "Tell me what kind of people lived where you came from." The visitor said, "Oh, they were highway robbers, cheats and liars." The old Sufi master said, "You know, those are exactly the same kinds of people who live here." The visitor left the village and never came back.
Half an hour later, another man entered the village. He sought out the Sufi master and said, "I'm thinking of moving here. Can you tell me what kind of people live here?" Again the Sufi master said, "Tell me what kind of people lived where you came from." The visitor said, "Oh, they were the kindest, gentlest, most compassionate, loving people. I shall miss them terribly." The Sufi master said, "Those are exactly the kinds of people who live here too."
There is a simple process we can do to find balance with both aspects of our selves - the negative and positive. Sometimes we idolize another person which can put us out of balance in life. This process will get you to a place where you are completely at peace with all the good and all the bad aspects of humanity that you can imagine.
So, you need to divide a blank page into 3 columns. The first column heading will be called Person You Admire or Dislike, the middle column will be called Specific trait, action or inaction you admire or dislike. The third column will be called People who have seen this trait in you.
Now, you can start to think of someone you really admire or really dislike. Write their name in the first column, then in the second column write the trait you most admire or dislike in them. Then in the third column, write the names of at least 10 people who have seen that same trait in you.
Stick with this process. Find the people who have seen these traits in you, and you'll find a greater sense of balance and peace entering your mind. You will start to be at peace with all aspects of your self, be okay with all of it!!! If you do this process on as many human traits that you can think of, you'll find yourself in a state of mind where someone could accuse you of some negative behavior or trait and you will be perfectly at peace with it because you have already embraced this trait within yourself. It will be like "water off a duck's back" as someone fires some kind of criticism at you because you have already found peace with, and owned, that aspect of yourself.
Likewise as you work through the traits in people you admire, you will find yourself no longer subordinating yourself to others. An increased sense of personal power will enter your life.
For anyone who is wanting ongoing support to change your life with personal coaching, we offer a 6 month coaching program, a 2 Day Change Your Life Program (with 1 month follow up coaching) and weekly group webinars .
Reference: SynchroDestiny by Deepak Chopra
Wednesday, 3 July 2013
Who Am I?
Last week we attended a Visionary Leadership program where the speakers were inviting the audience to allow themselves to envision a life for themselves where they followed their passion and connected with their purpose, to live an inspired life! I'll talk more about this program in a later blog, but today I want to share with you a simple process you can do each morning and night to reconnect with your inspired life!
1. Every morning, before you do anything else, take fifteen minutes to contemplate what you are really living for. What is truly important to you? What is of ultimate significance for you? Pause for a little while to get in touch with the answers to these questions. Then ask "What do I need to do to align with that - to be an expression of that in the world?" When doing this process adopt a gentle, listening approach. Stay open to inspiration flowing in to you. Be like an empty vessel that is open to being filled with the inspiration that is ready to pour in to it.
2. Every evening do the same process as above, but this time add in these questions "How did I live my day? Did I do everything I could to live in accord with the deepest truth I know, to align with my higher purpose. Could I have given more?" Contemplate these questions and allow yourself to be filled with the inspiration and guidance that is opening up for you.
3. Ask yourself "What would I need to give up or let go of to be able to align with this highest impulse and guidance within myself and be a vessel for a greater intelligence and power to operate within me?
What is in the way of me stepping into full surrender to and partnership with this creative force that is revealing itself to me? When will I be ready to leave behind those things/thoughts that hold me back from living my authentic self?"
If you take the time to do this contemplation / meditation process each morning and night you'll find in a very short space of time a new peace emerging within you and a sense of connectedness with your inner reason for being. The next step is to act on this guidance. If you feel inspired to connect with someone who may need some help, do it! Whatever subtle guidance or inspiration is given to you - act upon it! Share your gifts spontaneously and with an open heart. More fulfilment is sure to follow!
For anyone who is wanting ongoing support to change your life with personal coaching, we offer a 6 month coaching program, a 2 Day Change Your Life Program (with 1 month follow up coaching) and weekly group webinars .
Tuesday, 2 July 2013
The Power of Validation
I'm sharing an inspiring little video called Validation. The film follows part of the life of a car park attendant whose job it is to validate parking tickets. This man has an incredible ability to see beauty and the specialness in every person who comes to his desk for validation. He gives these people much more than they expected to receive on presentation of their ticket. Each one of them hears how they are special or unique in some way. The end result is the car park is full to overflowing with people wanting to connect with the car park attendant.
It's great food for thought for anyone who is leading a team of people to see the power of small acts of noticing how each individual has something very special and unique to bring to the team. People 'light up', become more present instead of being in subconscious mind tick-tocking their way through the day, and start to be more of who they really are. We all know how mind numbing our daily routines can be. This little video is a great reminder to start noticing the small things in the people around you and in your world that really are beautiful and unique.
For anyone who is wanting ongoing support to change your life with personal coaching, we offer a 6 month coaching program, a 2 Day Change Your Life Program (with 1 month follow up coaching) and weekly group webinars .
It's great food for thought for anyone who is leading a team of people to see the power of small acts of noticing how each individual has something very special and unique to bring to the team. People 'light up', become more present instead of being in subconscious mind tick-tocking their way through the day, and start to be more of who they really are. We all know how mind numbing our daily routines can be. This little video is a great reminder to start noticing the small things in the people around you and in your world that really are beautiful and unique.
For anyone who is wanting ongoing support to change your life with personal coaching, we offer a 6 month coaching program, a 2 Day Change Your Life Program (with 1 month follow up coaching) and weekly group webinars .
Tuesday, 18 June 2013
The Art of Fulfilment - Why We Do What We Do
The 6 Needs that drive our success in life.
1. Certainty that we can avoid pain and at the very least be comfortable.
2. Uncertainty - we need variety, we need surprises. The surprises we don't want we call problems - but we need them.
3. Significance - we all need to feel important, special, unique.
4. Connection and Love
5. We need to Grow
6. To contribute beyond ourselves.
Which one of these is your primary need? We are all different and have one particular need above all the rest.
The second thing we need to understand is what our map is. How are we going to achieve our primary need? Some people may achieve significance through dying. For example a fire department officer may be willing to give his life to save another and find significance. A different person may want to kill to find his significance. 9/11 is an example of this.
The third thing we need to get in touch with is our emotions. If you put a group of people into a room to experience the same event, guilty people would get guilty, sad people would get sad, angry people would get angry. We all have a primary emotional focus in our life.
Explore your web (within your mind) - the needs, your map, the beliefs, the emotions that are controlling you. You need to do this for two reasons - so there's more of you to give and secondly so you can appreciate what's driving other people. How can you combine all of these aspects to achieve what you need?
Check out this inspiring TED talk by Tony Robbins...
For anyone who is wanting ongoing support to change your life with personal coaching, we offer a 6 month coaching program, a 2 Day Change Your Life Program (with 1 month follow up coaching) and weekly group webinars .
1. Certainty that we can avoid pain and at the very least be comfortable.
2. Uncertainty - we need variety, we need surprises. The surprises we don't want we call problems - but we need them.
3. Significance - we all need to feel important, special, unique.
4. Connection and Love
5. We need to Grow
6. To contribute beyond ourselves.
Which one of these is your primary need? We are all different and have one particular need above all the rest.
The second thing we need to understand is what our map is. How are we going to achieve our primary need? Some people may achieve significance through dying. For example a fire department officer may be willing to give his life to save another and find significance. A different person may want to kill to find his significance. 9/11 is an example of this.
The third thing we need to get in touch with is our emotions. If you put a group of people into a room to experience the same event, guilty people would get guilty, sad people would get sad, angry people would get angry. We all have a primary emotional focus in our life.
Explore your web (within your mind) - the needs, your map, the beliefs, the emotions that are controlling you. You need to do this for two reasons - so there's more of you to give and secondly so you can appreciate what's driving other people. How can you combine all of these aspects to achieve what you need?
Check out this inspiring TED talk by Tony Robbins...
For anyone who is wanting ongoing support to change your life with personal coaching, we offer a 6 month coaching program, a 2 Day Change Your Life Program (with 1 month follow up coaching) and weekly group webinars .
The Secret Law of Attraction
The Secret Law of Attraction
“I hope everybody could get rich and famous and will have everything they ever dreamed of, so they will know that it's not the answer.”Jim Carrey
In my last blog I shared a video of Jim Carrey sharing his Awakening back in 2009, where he experienced how 'thought' was probably the main cause of suffering, or THE cause of suffering in our world. In the video I'm sharing today, he talks to Oprah about how he 'manifested' his success in Hollywood through visualization. He said he used to drive up to Mulholland Drive and visualize having Hollywood directors interested in him, telling him they liked his work, and he'd visualize things that he wanted coming to him. At the time he wrote himself a cheque for $10,000,000 dated Thanksgiving 1995. He kept the cheque in his wallet over the years. Then just before Thanksgiving 1995 he was told he would be making $10,000,000 from his first film - Dumb and Dumber.
What I find interesting is that, yes, Jim Carrey successfully used visualization/ the Law of Attraction as promoted in the movie The Secret to manifest exactly what he wanted. However, as the first line of this blog recounts, it didn't bring him peace. He found it wasn't the answer he was really seeking. It certainly didn't bring him peace within. This is not to say that having lots of money is wrong in any way. It's just posing the question whether our visualization can be one degree off course - leading us to another destination we hadn't factored in.
An amazing metaphysical teacher/consultant who wrote books on this topic back in the 1920's Florence Scovel Shinn used to remind her clients not to be totally specific when visualizing what they wanted. She always reminded people to allow for infinite intelligence to express the divine plan for their life. Here's an example of one of her affirmations she would encourage her clients to use...
"Infinite Intelligence, give me the right property, equally as beautiful as (property address that you admire), the property which is mine by divine right."
Her reasoning was that our 'small mind' - the mind that can only comprehend a very small portion of the world in which it lives - could not possibly know the perfect plan for not only the person desiring a changed circumstance for themselves, but for everyone connected to that person. Our small ego with its limited vision has no comprehension of the huge chain of events that occur to bring you what you have each day, and the infinite intelligence that is guiding all of this.
Scovel Shinn instructed her clients that they were in fact inseparable from that infinite Mind guiding the whole of creation and as such only needed to have an intent for a certain thing, but to ask for the right thing/circumstance for them.
The other aspect of creating infinite wealth has to be asking inwardly each day - how can I serve in my unique way today. How can I add/give my gifts to the world, how can I serve? Then wait for the inspiring action to be self evident. It may be as simple as helping an elderly person cross the street, taking them by the arm to ensure they have a safe passage across a busy road.
As Jim Carrey is now finding after his Awakening, perhaps the real gift he would deliver to the movie moguls was how to find inner peace within the apparent wealth and affluence of Hollywood.
For anyone who is wanting ongoing support to change your life with personal coaching, we offer a 6 month coaching program, a 2 Day Change Your Life Program (with 1 month follow up coaching) and weekly group webinars .
Friday, 14 June 2013
Jim Carrey's Spiritual Awakening
I found this inspiring video of Jim Carrey, sharing his Awakening. He realized how thought is just an illusory thing and how thought is responsible for most, if not all, of the suffering we experience.
For anyone who is wanting ongoing support to change your life with personal coaching, we offer a 6 month coaching program, a 2 Day Change Your Life Program (with 1 month follow up coaching) and weekly group webinars .
For anyone who is wanting ongoing support to change your life with personal coaching, we offer a 6 month coaching program, a 2 Day Change Your Life Program (with 1 month follow up coaching) and weekly group webinars .
Tuesday, 11 June 2013
Who Am I?
Who Am I? Over 100,000,000 people seek an answer to this question each month. This would indicate there's a widespread lack of connection with the Self in our world. How does this happen you might ask?
If we look at our lives from birth onwards we will most likely find some answers to the question of how we became so disconnected from ourselves. From birth we are constantly told how to live, what to wear, how to behave, how to think. Our main stream schooling system promotes conformity to what's considered 'normal' behavior, thinking, clothing,etc. By the end of our time at school we're popped out like mass produced 'entities' totally unable to connect with our own inner knowing or guidance. We desperately seek our answers on the outside, looking for reassurance through what we own, our clothing style, our job and so on.
Is it any wonder that so many tertiary college degree courses are never used by the people who have completed them? How many people have left school, taken up a course that looked 'acceptable', 'profitable', a 'good idea', but when they discover what it's like to live inside that career they realize they have no interest in it at all.
If you want a quick way of accessing who you really are, there is a very simple process that takes about 5 minutes to complete. You'll need a friend to do the process with you. Maybe you can do a swap - one of you has the opportunity to do the process, then the other.
So, here's what you do... You and your friend will sit face to face about 30cm (1 foot) away from each other. One person will close their eyes and the other person will softly and quietly start to ask the question "Who Are You" over and over. The questioner asks "Who Are You?" and waits for the other person to reply. Then again the questioner asks "Who Are You?" This process is repeated throughout a 5 minute period of time.
The important key to the answering process is to answer with the very first thing that comes to your mind. Don't labor over your answer trying to find some acceptable or 'normal' answer. Be as childlike and spontaneous as you possibly can.
In my first experience of this process, I started out answering things like - bus, chair, room, car, house. In a very short space of time my answers started to change and I experienced increasing peace. Very quickly I started to experience myself as this vast energy being. The truth of me was not bound to my physical body. I experienced myself as everything - everywhere at once, unbounded by the body, limitless, vast, all possibilities!
The reason why the answerer needs to be totally spontaneous in answering the question "Who Are You?" is because the mind needs to be totally free from efforting or concentration. The mind has to be allowed to rest, float freely and just be observed as it darts here and there. By spontaneously saying the first thing that the answerer observes, the mind lets go of controlling the moment and enters a space of peaceful observation.
In this free floating space of simply observing the mind moving, we start to experience our self as pure energy/presence. You will begin to experience yourself as being one with everything you thought you were separate from previously. You will see that everything you see, touch, experience 'out there' is actually 'the same stuff' as yourself. For perhaps the first time in your life you will experience yourself as pure energy - unlimited by boundaries. You will experience that in behind everything in your life there is this peaceful, eternal, present observer. This process will lead you to a direct experience of your true nature quickly and easily.
After 30 or so years of daily meditation, I was amazed at how quickly this little process could bring a person to direct self realization. This direct experience of inner peace that I'd labored to find through daily meditation appeared so effortlessly in 5 minutes! I have done this process with people who have done no "inner work" and watched as these people were transported into a state of absolute peace and expansion and a consequent elation about their life. It has been life changing for these people to have this first hand experience of their true nature as their former limited and restricted view of life opened up to greater possibilities and more peace.
Here's a video from Gangaji on this topic...
For anyone who is wanting ongoing support to change your life with personal coaching, we offer a 6 month coaching program, a 2 Day Change Your Life Program (with 1 month follow up coaching) and weekly group webinars .
If we look at our lives from birth onwards we will most likely find some answers to the question of how we became so disconnected from ourselves. From birth we are constantly told how to live, what to wear, how to behave, how to think. Our main stream schooling system promotes conformity to what's considered 'normal' behavior, thinking, clothing,etc. By the end of our time at school we're popped out like mass produced 'entities' totally unable to connect with our own inner knowing or guidance. We desperately seek our answers on the outside, looking for reassurance through what we own, our clothing style, our job and so on.
Is it any wonder that so many tertiary college degree courses are never used by the people who have completed them? How many people have left school, taken up a course that looked 'acceptable', 'profitable', a 'good idea', but when they discover what it's like to live inside that career they realize they have no interest in it at all.
If you want a quick way of accessing who you really are, there is a very simple process that takes about 5 minutes to complete. You'll need a friend to do the process with you. Maybe you can do a swap - one of you has the opportunity to do the process, then the other.
So, here's what you do... You and your friend will sit face to face about 30cm (1 foot) away from each other. One person will close their eyes and the other person will softly and quietly start to ask the question "Who Are You" over and over. The questioner asks "Who Are You?" and waits for the other person to reply. Then again the questioner asks "Who Are You?" This process is repeated throughout a 5 minute period of time.
The important key to the answering process is to answer with the very first thing that comes to your mind. Don't labor over your answer trying to find some acceptable or 'normal' answer. Be as childlike and spontaneous as you possibly can.
In my first experience of this process, I started out answering things like - bus, chair, room, car, house. In a very short space of time my answers started to change and I experienced increasing peace. Very quickly I started to experience myself as this vast energy being. The truth of me was not bound to my physical body. I experienced myself as everything - everywhere at once, unbounded by the body, limitless, vast, all possibilities!
The reason why the answerer needs to be totally spontaneous in answering the question "Who Are You?" is because the mind needs to be totally free from efforting or concentration. The mind has to be allowed to rest, float freely and just be observed as it darts here and there. By spontaneously saying the first thing that the answerer observes, the mind lets go of controlling the moment and enters a space of peaceful observation.
In this free floating space of simply observing the mind moving, we start to experience our self as pure energy/presence. You will begin to experience yourself as being one with everything you thought you were separate from previously. You will see that everything you see, touch, experience 'out there' is actually 'the same stuff' as yourself. For perhaps the first time in your life you will experience yourself as pure energy - unlimited by boundaries. You will experience that in behind everything in your life there is this peaceful, eternal, present observer. This process will lead you to a direct experience of your true nature quickly and easily.
After 30 or so years of daily meditation, I was amazed at how quickly this little process could bring a person to direct self realization. This direct experience of inner peace that I'd labored to find through daily meditation appeared so effortlessly in 5 minutes! I have done this process with people who have done no "inner work" and watched as these people were transported into a state of absolute peace and expansion and a consequent elation about their life. It has been life changing for these people to have this first hand experience of their true nature as their former limited and restricted view of life opened up to greater possibilities and more peace.
Here's a video from Gangaji on this topic...
For anyone who is wanting ongoing support to change your life with personal coaching, we offer a 6 month coaching program, a 2 Day Change Your Life Program (with 1 month follow up coaching) and weekly group webinars .
Sunday, 9 June 2013
How Can I Find Peace?
How Can I Find Peace?, you may ask - particularly when you turn on your television and all you can see is war here and there, murders on the streets, robberies, rape, home invasions, bank foreclosures, divorce, etc, etc.
In this blog I am looking into The Work process by Byron Katie which she says will bring constant peace of mind whatever might turn up in your life. The process is a very simple questioning of the thoughts that cause you distress and suffering.
My partner and I have been practising this method now for a couple of years intermittently. More recently we have been doing the process daily. Every thought that arises in our mind which causes us distress, anxiety or suffering in some way, we make sure we sit down before the day ends and start the questioning procedure in the "Judge Your Neighbor" work sheet, then we move on to the "One Belief at a Time" work sheet.
After numerous Work processes I am finding a gradual shift happening in my life to what Byron Katie calls the "Don't Know Mind". I had read of a mind state like this in the biographies of spiritual masters and other people like Eckhart Tolle who had life changing shifts in their perception of the world.
I can only describe the state as feeling very light, not bogged down with the need to 'make things happen' or 'plan'. For the first time ever in my life I am having glimpses of living life in a completely different way. It feels like an absolute certainty that everything is already handled - there is no need for me to know how it is - just a knowingness that this still, peaceful mind within me is guiding and directing everything in my life. There's a real sense of spaciousness and not needing anything to come to me from the outside.
Let's have a look at what happens in The Work process and why it can help you to find more peace in your life.
The "Judge Your Neighbor" worksheet requires a total emptying out of all your bitter judgments about others. It encourages you to be as mean spirited, childish and judgmental as possible. My partner and I have done this worksheet on aspects of our relationship that have caused us suffering in the past.
To be able to finally express all the things that you may have swept under the carpet previously, is a total release. Finally you can be real with another person about how their behavior has impacted on you. It's a very cleansing part of the process. The process itself acts like a mediator. The judgments are not expressed as "you did this or that", but, for example "Joe did/does this or that". By talking about the person as a third party entity, it is less personal and the effect is such that you start to see all your judgments are really just your stories about the person.
After this emptying out you then move onto the One Belief at a Time worksheet where you question your thoughts.
Is it true?
Can you absolutely know that it's true?
Who/what would you be without your thoughts?
Finally you then have to turn around your thoughts - firstly back to your self. So, if you have made a judgement about someone else, you need to find how you do this same thing to yourself. For example, your original statement might be "my partner is unloving towards me". In the first turnaround you would say "I am unloving towards myself". Then you must find 3 different ways that this is true. From this step you may get in touch with how you don't honor yourself in some way or you don't treat yourself lovingly and with care. Perhaps you drive yourself in workaholic ways or don't listen to your body's need to rest?
The second turnaround is to the other. Using our statement above you would turn it around to "I am unloving towards my partner" and then you need to find 3 ways that this is also true.
The final turnaround is to the opposite.Still using the original statement above this turnaround would be something like "my partner is loving towards me" and you would then need to find 3 ways that this is also true.
In every case, with some thought, you will be able to find that all possibilities do actually exist in this person. This process causes quite a shift in your thinking process as you start to see where you previously thought something or someone was 'set in concrete' or could only be viewed in one way, you are now able to see that this 'other' encompasses all possibilities and all opposites - all dependent on the thoughts you choose to entertain in the moment. You start to understand that there is no out there. It's all happening in your mind.
After doing a Work process you'll most likely experience a real sense of peace and a more loving feeling towards not only the person you previously judged, but the world as a whole. The "Don't Know" mind starts to creep in. You realize that nothing IS THIS or THAT. There's a simple acceptance of what is appearing in the moment and no judgment of it - just an ability to simply BE with what shows up and delight in that.
Katie says the tyranny of suffering arises out of being at war with reality. We experience suffering when we want 'what is' to be different in some way. After we do The Work process the mind naturally becomes open, flexible and allowing. Actually the mind as you once thought of it seems to step out of the way and an opening of the heart glides in.
If you think you would like some help to do this process you can email me to arrange a telephone or Skype appointment. If you haven't done a lot of inner work on yourself previously, it could be helpful to have some assistance, particularly if you're experiencing ongoing relationship problems. The raw honesty required in The Work could be very challenging if you attempted to do the process with the person you're having the issues with if neither of you have any prior experience with self inquiry.
For anyone who is wanting ongoing support to change your life with personal coaching, we offer a 6 month coaching program, a 2 Day Change Your Life Program (with 1 month follow up coaching) and weekly group webinars .
In this blog I am looking into The Work process by Byron Katie which she says will bring constant peace of mind whatever might turn up in your life. The process is a very simple questioning of the thoughts that cause you distress and suffering.
My partner and I have been practising this method now for a couple of years intermittently. More recently we have been doing the process daily. Every thought that arises in our mind which causes us distress, anxiety or suffering in some way, we make sure we sit down before the day ends and start the questioning procedure in the "Judge Your Neighbor" work sheet, then we move on to the "One Belief at a Time" work sheet.
After numerous Work processes I am finding a gradual shift happening in my life to what Byron Katie calls the "Don't Know Mind". I had read of a mind state like this in the biographies of spiritual masters and other people like Eckhart Tolle who had life changing shifts in their perception of the world.
I can only describe the state as feeling very light, not bogged down with the need to 'make things happen' or 'plan'. For the first time ever in my life I am having glimpses of living life in a completely different way. It feels like an absolute certainty that everything is already handled - there is no need for me to know how it is - just a knowingness that this still, peaceful mind within me is guiding and directing everything in my life. There's a real sense of spaciousness and not needing anything to come to me from the outside.
Let's have a look at what happens in The Work process and why it can help you to find more peace in your life.
The "Judge Your Neighbor" worksheet requires a total emptying out of all your bitter judgments about others. It encourages you to be as mean spirited, childish and judgmental as possible. My partner and I have done this worksheet on aspects of our relationship that have caused us suffering in the past.
To be able to finally express all the things that you may have swept under the carpet previously, is a total release. Finally you can be real with another person about how their behavior has impacted on you. It's a very cleansing part of the process. The process itself acts like a mediator. The judgments are not expressed as "you did this or that", but, for example "Joe did/does this or that". By talking about the person as a third party entity, it is less personal and the effect is such that you start to see all your judgments are really just your stories about the person.
After this emptying out you then move onto the One Belief at a Time worksheet where you question your thoughts.
Is it true?
Can you absolutely know that it's true?
Who/what would you be without your thoughts?
Finally you then have to turn around your thoughts - firstly back to your self. So, if you have made a judgement about someone else, you need to find how you do this same thing to yourself. For example, your original statement might be "my partner is unloving towards me". In the first turnaround you would say "I am unloving towards myself". Then you must find 3 different ways that this is true. From this step you may get in touch with how you don't honor yourself in some way or you don't treat yourself lovingly and with care. Perhaps you drive yourself in workaholic ways or don't listen to your body's need to rest?
The second turnaround is to the other. Using our statement above you would turn it around to "I am unloving towards my partner" and then you need to find 3 ways that this is also true.
The final turnaround is to the opposite.Still using the original statement above this turnaround would be something like "my partner is loving towards me" and you would then need to find 3 ways that this is also true.
In every case, with some thought, you will be able to find that all possibilities do actually exist in this person. This process causes quite a shift in your thinking process as you start to see where you previously thought something or someone was 'set in concrete' or could only be viewed in one way, you are now able to see that this 'other' encompasses all possibilities and all opposites - all dependent on the thoughts you choose to entertain in the moment. You start to understand that there is no out there. It's all happening in your mind.
After doing a Work process you'll most likely experience a real sense of peace and a more loving feeling towards not only the person you previously judged, but the world as a whole. The "Don't Know" mind starts to creep in. You realize that nothing IS THIS or THAT. There's a simple acceptance of what is appearing in the moment and no judgment of it - just an ability to simply BE with what shows up and delight in that.
Katie says the tyranny of suffering arises out of being at war with reality. We experience suffering when we want 'what is' to be different in some way. After we do The Work process the mind naturally becomes open, flexible and allowing. Actually the mind as you once thought of it seems to step out of the way and an opening of the heart glides in.
If you think you would like some help to do this process you can email me to arrange a telephone or Skype appointment. If you haven't done a lot of inner work on yourself previously, it could be helpful to have some assistance, particularly if you're experiencing ongoing relationship problems. The raw honesty required in The Work could be very challenging if you attempted to do the process with the person you're having the issues with if neither of you have any prior experience with self inquiry.
For anyone who is wanting ongoing support to change your life with personal coaching, we offer a 6 month coaching program, a 2 Day Change Your Life Program (with 1 month follow up coaching) and weekly group webinars .
Tuesday, 4 June 2013
How Do I Find Peace?
I can't say enough about the power of doing The Work, a very simple system put together by Byron Katie when she had a revelation in consciousness one day after suffering depression for several years.
Whenever you are feeling pain, suffering, anxiety, confusion or any other stressful state in your life you will certainly find more peace from doing the process found on this page of Katie's website.
The process opens up all the hidden thoughts you've had that have been causing you pain and suffering in life. Once you realize that it's all just thought which is creating your perception of the world and its events, then you have the power to change that perception, firstly by being present with what it is you are actually thinking, then asking the 4 questions The Work poses...
1. Is it true?
2. Can you absolutely know that it's true?
3. How do you react when you believe that thought?
4. Who would you be without the thought?
Katie advises to start with the Judge Your Neighbor worksheets found on this page of her website. My experience of this process is it really brings out into the open all the toxic, hateful, mean thoughts you have been holding under the surface.
After doing the Judge Your Neighbor worksheet, move on to the One Belief at a Time worksheet. This process will bring you to the place where you clearly see that the judgments you've made of other people are exactly the same things you have done to others throughout your life. Once you are able to be at peace with all of the aspects of yourself - the good and the bad - then peace enters the mind and nothing "out there" can harm you anymore. You realize that "out there" is only a reflection of your own thoughts - nothing to fight anymore.
If you've ever asked the question "How do I find peace?", then studying and practising Byron Katie's The Work will deliver valuable answers for you.
Here's a video of Byron Katie discussing The Enlightened Mind, ....
For anyone who is wanting ongoing support to change your life with personal coaching, we offer a 6 month coaching program, a 2 Day Change Your Life Program (with 1 month follow up coaching) and weekly group webinars .
Whenever you are feeling pain, suffering, anxiety, confusion or any other stressful state in your life you will certainly find more peace from doing the process found on this page of Katie's website.
The process opens up all the hidden thoughts you've had that have been causing you pain and suffering in life. Once you realize that it's all just thought which is creating your perception of the world and its events, then you have the power to change that perception, firstly by being present with what it is you are actually thinking, then asking the 4 questions The Work poses...
1. Is it true?
2. Can you absolutely know that it's true?
3. How do you react when you believe that thought?
4. Who would you be without the thought?
Katie advises to start with the Judge Your Neighbor worksheets found on this page of her website. My experience of this process is it really brings out into the open all the toxic, hateful, mean thoughts you have been holding under the surface.
After doing the Judge Your Neighbor worksheet, move on to the One Belief at a Time worksheet. This process will bring you to the place where you clearly see that the judgments you've made of other people are exactly the same things you have done to others throughout your life. Once you are able to be at peace with all of the aspects of yourself - the good and the bad - then peace enters the mind and nothing "out there" can harm you anymore. You realize that "out there" is only a reflection of your own thoughts - nothing to fight anymore.
If you've ever asked the question "How do I find peace?", then studying and practising Byron Katie's The Work will deliver valuable answers for you.
Here's a video of Byron Katie discussing The Enlightened Mind, ....
For anyone who is wanting ongoing support to change your life with personal coaching, we offer a 6 month coaching program, a 2 Day Change Your Life Program (with 1 month follow up coaching) and weekly group webinars .
Thursday, 30 May 2013
The Hidden Power of Your Mind
I found this interesting article from various university studies investigating how the human mind works. If we thought we were consciously in control of our behavior each day, then you may rethink that idea after you read this article...
Who’s Minding the Mind?
In a recent experiment, psychologists at Yale altered people’s judgments of a stranger by handing them a cup of coffee.
The study participants, college students, had no idea that their social instincts were being deliberately manipulated. On the way to the laboratory, they had bumped into a laboratory assistant, who was holding textbooks, a clipboard, papers and a cup of hot or iced coffee — and asked for a hand with the cup.
That was all it took: The students who held a cup of iced coffee rated a hypothetical person they later read about as being much colder, less social and more selfish than did their fellow students, who had momentarily held a cup of hot java.
Findings like this one, as improbable as they seem, have poured forth in psychological research over the last few years. New studies have found that people tidy up more thoroughly when there’s a faint tang of cleaning liquid in the air; they become more competitive if there’s a briefcase in sight, or more cooperative if they glimpse words like “dependable” and “support” — all without being aware of the change, or what prompted it.
Psychologists say that “priming” people in this way is not some form of hypnotism, or even subliminal seduction; rather, it’s a demonstration of how everyday sights, smells and sounds can selectively activate goals or motives that people already have.
More fundamentally, the new studies reveal a subconscious brain that is far more active, purposeful and independent than previously known. Goals, whether to eat, mate or devour an iced latte, are like neural software programs that can only be run one at a time, and the unconscious is perfectly capable of running the program it chooses.
The give and take between these unconscious choices and our rational, conscious aims can help explain some of the more mystifying realities of behavior, like how we can be generous one moment and petty the next, or act rudely at a dinner party when convinced we are emanating charm.
“When it comes to our behavior from moment to moment, the big question is, ‘What to do next?’ ” said John A. Bargh, a professor of psychology at Yale and a co-author, with Lawrence Williams, of the coffee study, which was presented at a recent psychology conference. “Well, we’re finding that we have these unconscious behavioral guidance systems that are continually furnishing suggestions through the day about what to do next, and the brain is considering and often acting on those, all before conscious awareness.”
Dr. Bargh added: “Sometimes those goals are in line with our conscious intentions and purposes, and sometimes they’re not.”
Priming the Unconscious
The idea of subliminal influence has a mixed reputation among scientists because of a history of advertising hype and apparent fraud. In 1957, an ad man named James Vicary claimed to have increased sales of Coca-Cola and popcorn at a movie theater in Fort Lee, N.J., by secretly flashing the words “Eat popcorn” and “Drink Coke” during the film, too quickly to be consciously noticed. But advertisers and regulators doubted his story from the beginning, and in a 1962 interview, Mr. Vicary acknowledged that he had trumped up the findings to gain attention for his business.
Later studies of products promising subliminal improvement, for things like memory and self-esteem, found no effect.
Some scientists also caution against overstating the implications of the latest research on priming unconscious goals. The new research “doesn’t prove that consciousness never does anything,” wrote Roy Baumeister, a professor of psychology at Florida State University, in an e-mail message. “It’s rather like showing you can hot-wire a car to start the ignition without keys. That’s important and potentially useful information, but it doesn’t prove that keys don’t exist or that keys are useless.”
Yet he and most in the field now agree that the evidence for psychological hot-wiring has become overwhelming. In one 2004 experiment, psychologists led by Aaron Kay, then at Stanford University and now at the University of Waterloo, had students take part in a one-on-one investment game with another, unseen player.
Half the students played while sitting at a large table, at the other end of which was a briefcase and a black leather portfolio. These students were far stingier with their money than the others, who played in an identical room, but with a backpack on the table instead.
The mere presence of the briefcase, noticed but not consciously registered, generated business-related associations and expectations, the authors argue, leading the brain to run the most appropriate goal program: compete. The students had no sense of whether they had acted selfishly or generously.
In another experiment, published in 2005, Dutch psychologists had undergraduates sit in a cubicle and fill out a questionnaire. Hidden in the room was a bucket of water with a splash of citrus-scented cleaning fluid, giving off a faint odor. After completing the questionnaire, the young men and women had a snack, a crumbly biscuit provided by laboratory staff members.
The researchers covertly filmed the snack time and found that these students cleared away crumbs three times more often than a comparison group, who had taken the same questionnaire in a room with no cleaning scent. “That is a very big effect, and they really had no idea they were doing it,” said Henk Aarts, a psychologist at Utrecht University and the senior author of the study.
The Same Brain Circuits
The real-world evidence for these unconscious effects is clear to anyone who has ever run out to the car to avoid the rain and ended up driving too fast, or rushed off to pick up dry cleaning and returned with wine and cigarettes — but no pressed slacks.
The brain appears to use the very same neural circuits to execute an unconscious act as it does a conscious one. In a study that appeared in the journal Science in May, a team of English and French neuroscientists performed brain imaging on 18 men and women who were playing a computer game for money. The players held a handgrip and were told that the tighter they squeezed when an image of money flashed on the screen, the more of the loot they could keep.
As expected, the players squeezed harder when the image of a British pound flashed by than when the image of a penny did — regardless of whether they consciously perceived the pictures, many of which flew by subliminally. But the circuits activated in their brains were similar as well: an area called the ventral pallidum was particularly active whenever the participants responded.
“This area is located in what used to be called the reptilian brain, well below the conscious areas of the brain,” said the study’s senior author, Chris Frith, a professor in neuropsychology at University College London who wrote the book “Making Up The Mind: How the Brain Creates our Mental World.”
The results suggest a “bottom-up” decision-making process, in which the ventral pallidum is part of a circuit that first weighs the reward and decides, then interacts with the higher-level, conscious regions later, if at all, Dr. Frith said.
Scientists have spent years trying to pinpoint the exact neural regions that support conscious awareness, so far in vain. But there’s little doubt it involves the prefrontal cortex, the thin outer layer of brain tissue behind the forehead, and experiments like this one show that it can be one of the last neural areas to know when a decision is made.
This bottom-up order makes sense from an evolutionary perspective. The subcortical areas of the brain evolved first and would have had to help individuals fight, flee and scavenge well before conscious, distinctly human layers were added later in evolutionary history. In this sense, Dr. Bargh argues, unconscious goals can be seen as open-ended, adaptive agents acting on behalf of the broad, genetically encoded aims — automatic survival systems.
In several studies, researchers have also shown that, once covertly activated, an unconscious goal persists with the same determination that is evident in our conscious pursuits. Study participants primed to be cooperative are assiduous in their teamwork, for instance, helping others and sharing resources in games that last 20 minutes or longer. Ditto for those set up to be aggressive.
This may help explain how someone can show up at a party in good spirits and then for some unknown reason — the host’s loafers? the family portrait on the wall? some political comment? — turn a little sour, without realizing the change until later, when a friend remarks on it. “I was rude? Really? When?”
Mark Schaller, a psychologist at the University of British Columbia, in Vancouver, has done research showing that when self-protective instincts are primed — simply by turning down the lights in a room, for instance — white people who are normally tolerant become unconsciously more likely to detect hostility in the faces of black men with neutral expressions.
“Sometimes nonconscious effects can be bigger in sheer magnitude than conscious ones,” Dr. Schaller said, “because we can’t moderate stuff we don’t have conscious access to, and the goal stays active.”
Until it is satisfied, that is, when the program is subsequently suppressed, research suggests. In one 2006 study, for instance, researchers had Northwestern University undergraduates recall an unethical deed from their past, like betraying a friend, or a virtuous one, like returning lost property. Afterward, the students had their choice of a gift, an antiseptic wipe or a pencil; and those who had recalled bad behavior were twice as likely as the others to take the wipe. They had been primed to psychologically “cleanse” their consciences.
Once their hands were wiped, the students became less likely to agree to volunteer their time to help with a graduate school project. Their hands were clean: the unconscious goal had been satisfied and now was being suppressed, the findings suggest.
What You Don’t Know
Using subtle cues for self-improvement is something like trying to tickle yourself, Dr. Bargh said: priming doesn’t work if you’re aware of it. Manipulating others, while possible, is dicey. “We know that as soon as people feel they’re being manipulated, they do the opposite; it backfires,” he said.
And researchers do not yet know how or when, exactly, unconscious drives may suddenly become conscious; or under which circumstances people are able to override hidden urges by force of will. Millions have quit smoking, for instance, and uncounted numbers have resisted darker urges to misbehave that they don’t even fully understand.
Yet the new research on priming makes it clear that we are not alone in our own consciousness. We have company, an invisible partner who has strong reactions about the world that don’t always agree with our own, but whose instincts, these studies clearly show, are at least as likely to be helpful, and attentive to others, as they are to be disruptive.
By Benedict Carey
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