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 .
Tuesday 18 June 2013
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 .
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