When I got up this morning the “it” was raging in my head telling me what a waste of human experience I was. Planning to record “it’s”  thoughts in my new Christmas journal, I opened to the first page and another voice speaking to me from the blank pages. This voice whispered, “Your past is empty and meaningless and the fact that it is empty and meaningless is empty and meaningless.”

 My goal for this new journal is to begin each day as nothing or on a blank page. The whisper went on to say, “As you sit here writing on these blank pages you have the tools and the ability to build on solid rock. Everything else is gone. You now have the opportunity to start at the bottom with nothing. You will be at rock bottom.  

This is a good beginning. I am nothing.

 In the story of “Fiddler On The Roof “a Jewish community is commanded to leave their little village of Anateveka.  The villagers are inflamed, hurt and upset until they start to think about what they have in Anatevka. Nothing!

“A little bit of this, a little bit of that, a stone, a rock a bench a tree. Anatevka, tumble down, work a day. Underfed, Overworked. We should have put a match to this place a long time ago.”

Today I took a match to my past and burned it up. Let it go. It all means nothing. I let it go and went to my early morning meeting mentally healthy. The insanity of my past may attempt to sneak back by this afternoon, but for the moment I am pretty healthy.

Today my T shirt says, “Sometimes it take knowing the Jesus Christ is all you have to realize that Jesus Christ is all you need.” Today Jesus Christ is all I have. I have nothing else and it is a good place to be. Today I challenge you to give it all up and start with a blank page.  Start by recognizing that your slate has been wiped clean.

StevenBPhD lover of what works LLC  

- Sun-tzu (Chinese general & military strategist ~400 BC)

One of my favorite places in the world is a cabin high up in the mountains of Carbon County, Utah. My father and his four brothers each purchased a building lot along the banks of Scofield Reservoir when I was about 14 years old. Over the years we have parked various trailers on the property, but after the past 4 years we have had a modular log cabin on the property that has provided us as a family a haven on earth. My father and his brothers have always referred to this property and its dwellings as the poor man’s Hyannis Port. Although maybe not as magnificent as the Kennedys mansion in Massachusetts, this that place has allowed us to feel very wealthy indeed. Since the passing of my parents I have shared that cabin with my two sisters and my brother. I now have 23 grand children and my siblings have been almost as prolific. The result is there are a lot of people wanting to spend time at the precious spot in the wilderness during the summer months.

Early one Saturday morning I was dragging a canoe into the water to go fishing. Eleven year old Emma, granddaughter of one of my sisters, came walking down the beach to where I was launching my craft and asked if she could go with me.

Emma is chatty and friendly and I was happy to have her company. After getting a green light from Emma’s grandmother, she and I  paddled off together. We had a magnificent time. Emma talked and we caught fish as fast we could get one off the hook and get the line back in the water.

After reeling in her fourth fish Emma came to a brilliant conclusion. She said, “We don’t go fishing to make us happy. Because we are happy we go fishing.”  Intrigued by her comment and the depth of her wisdom, I asked her to repeat her observation.

Again she affirmed,  “We don’t go fishing to make us happy. Because we are happy we go fishing.” 

“What would happen,” I asked her, “if we started out happy and then go fishing but don’t catch any fish? Would we then be sad?”

“Oh no,” responded the eleven year old sage. “If we are happy and don’t catch any fish then God will use that as an opportunity to teach us patience and He knows I must have patience to live with my little sister.

I said, ”Emma, you have the capacity of becoming one of my favorite people.”

She pointed her finger at me and exclaimed, “YOU, are already one of my favorite people.”

Emma holds a special place in my heart to this day. She has held on to one of the greatest innate childhood secrets of all times, being comes before doing.   

As adults we have the tendency to live backwards and that backwards thinking puts us in a position of having to fight the current of life by continually swimming upstream.

Being, The Entry Point To All Change

The world in which we live has a physical, mental and spiritual aspect to it. As adults most of us work from the physical towards the spiritual. We work in order to Have so we can Do in order to Be something. For example  we think, “If I Had money, then I could Do what I wanted and then I would Be happy.”

Reality Check: How is the “If I Had…” model working for you?  Frustrating?  Tiring?  Unfruitful?  Do you feel like a victim of your circumstances, thoughts, beliefs?  Are the things you want materializing in a physical world? – or do they seem to be “out there” somewhere just beyond our reach leaving you to think if only . . . . . . . .

If we focus on the mental we become human doings and wear ourselves out in constant effort to prove that we are OK. From that point of view we can never Do enough to be OK.

BeingàDoingàHavingàThinking like a child

Like Emma, the individuals in our society who are the most adept at thinking in the correct order are little children. Take, for example, Joe in the following story. We pick up on Joe at age five.

Joe arrived on this planet perfect and innocent. Without language to describe himself he accepted himself as “I am Being me.” Around age five Joe realized his love for animals and with that love came the decision to see himself as “I am being a veterinarian.” Being a vet resulted in being able to give up making other decisions. His decision to be, left his doing without question. He just did what came naturally to who he was. He cared for the dogs and cats in the neighborhood and took little birds home and made splints for their wings. “I am a veterinarian,” said Joe to himself and he knew it was true because he said so. As long as he just said it to himself he did just fine. It is when he started to share his self perception that the problems began to crop up. On the first day of kindergarten Joe stood atop his desk and announced the obvious. “I am a veterinarian,” he said. All of the other children and the teacher laughed and said, “Joe, you wouldn’t make a wart on a veterinarian’s nose.”

Joe stomped his foot on his desk and insisted, “I am a veterinarian. I am I am!” His class mates grumbled among themselves saying, “Who does this smart aleck think he is? He is not even in the first grade. He doesn’t have an education a degree or nothing.” They waited for him in an alley after school. That afternoon Joe went home with a bump on his lip. But Joe was a veterinarian. He did what veterinarians do. He helped animals. Joe just learned Being rule number 1. “Don’t insist on other people knowing who you are.” He also realized the two reasons not to insist. Reason number 1: When you insist that other people accept you as you see yourself, they beat you up after school. Reason number 2: It doesn’t require anyone’s permission to be whatever you want to be. There is only one reason you are who you are and that is who you and God say you are. It will do well for you to accept His vision of you rather than any perception you may come up with on your own. God vision of you is that you are fine and perfect just the way you are. The rest of the story will serve to illustrate the point.  

It didn’t require anyone’s permission for Joe to be a veterinarian. He was a vet the moment he said it was so. It was a creation that began in his own language and spread to the conversations he had with other people. So Joe became a veterinarian the moment the words came out of his mouth. He became a veterinarian with nobody’s agreement but his own and that was all he needed to begin.

One day, while sitting on his front porch watching the world go by through his veterinarian eyes, an old dog limped by. Joe, with his astute veterinarian judgment, concluded that without an operation this dog was going to die. “What would a veterinarian do in this situation?” he asked himself.

“He would operate,” Joe concluded with a few moments’ hesitation. Joe operated. This was Joe’s first experience operating and the outcome was different than he expected. The dog wouldn’t hold still and the procedure created a big mess. Eventually, the dog died.

“Whoops,” said Joe, “the next time I operate I will do it different.” And the next time he did do it different. That dog died too, but not in exactly same way and the mess wasn’t quite so bad. Eventually Joe’s patients didn’t die and even more eventually after that, some of them actually got better. Joe had just learned Being rule number 2. “Anything worth doing is worth screwing up or, there are no such things as mistakes only learning experiences. Who I am is not determined by performance. I am a human being because I was born a human being. I am not a human doing. Doing comes from practice. Being comes from birth.

Some 6 years later, at age twelve, Joe finds himself walking down the road again looking at the world though veterinarian eyes. The kids who used to beat him up in kindergarten don’t beat him up any more and when their dogs are sick they take them to Joe because he is now recognized as having a gift with dogs. Joe is one who stands out among his peers and reflects a standard far above the norm which bespeaks of a heavenly birth. How has he become possessed of that standard? He didn’t catch it from the world around him. He is altogether different from the masses. It is his own character. It rises up from something within himself an innate creative genius that was not learned. His genius is clear but seems to be coming from a mysterious force.

As Joe goes by his neighbor’s chicken coop he notices the chickens look strange. They have pink eyes, blue beaks, are walking in tight circles to the left and obviously laying no eggs. Joe does what veterinarians do because that is who he is. He goes into the chicken coop and starts checking those chickens out. The neighbor sees Joe in the coop and runs out and hollers, “Hey you dumb little kid, what are you doing in my chicken coop?”

“I’m a veterinarian,” replies Joe, “Your chickens are in good hands.”

“OK, if you’re so smart, you tell me what’s wrong with them” says the neighbor. “They aren’t laying any eggs.”

“I don’t know yet,” says Joe, “I’m a dog expert. I’ve never worked on chickens before but I’ll find out.” Joe then proceeds to do what a veterinarian would do. He goes down to the local vet who has a license, a degree and the agreement of the community that he can practice veterinary medicine and explains  the situation as he sees it.

The local vet doesn’t know what is wrong with the chickens either, but being impressed with this 12 year old boy asking such deep questions he gets out his chicken book that lists all the chicken diseases in the world and matches Joe’s description with a diagnosis in the book. “They have cooper deficiency,” says the local vet. “They need vitamin X with a cooper supplement.”  Joe goes down to the feed store and buys himself two bags of vitamin X with a cooper supplement, takes it back and feeds it to the chickens. The chickens start laying eggs like crazy.

The neighbor sees this and decides Joe is a genius and tells Joe’s teacher what has happened. When Joe’s 6th grade teacher hears from someone other than Joe that Joe is a genius Joe will never in his life time from that point forward get anything but straight A’s in school. Teachers don’t mess with geniuses. They flunk kids who see themselves and have the reputation of being dumb, but they don’t flunk geniuses.

Another 6 years go by and Joe comes out of the 12th grade with straight A’s in school and a reputation of being a gifted child. Where does he go to veterinary school? Right, anywhere he wants. Who foots the bill? Not Joe. Joe’s life works because he knows who he is. When we know who we are our lives will work and that life will flow to us like the current of a beautiful river.

Eight years later Joe comes out of school with a degree, an education and everything his kindergarten class mates said he needed to be a veterinarian in the first place. “Now they say, “We give you permission to be a veterinarian.”

Joe’s reply, “I was a veterinarian when I was five. The day I stood on my desk and announced it to the world I was a vet. I am a vet and always have been. I am a vet because I say so. It has nothing to do with what you say, what I do or have done or anything I have. It is so because I say so. ”

What Joe learned was that life goes from BeingàDoingàHavingà and is created in word by declaration. This is a law that works for us or against us. If I declare “I am stupid or broken or flawed,” that is what gets created. Be very careful about how you label yourself. You are what you say. Other people or situations can offer you labels but they only stick if you accept and declare them. What others say or think about you is really none of your business.

If you think you must Have money before you can Do what you want in order to Be happy, your thinking is backwards.  Become as a little child again. Being is a beginning place not an ending place. Having is a result not a cause. Think like a child and watch the miracles happen.

Being Law #1:  “Being” does not need the approval of other people. It is something observed by other people as it is occurring.  There is no need to tell other people who you are. You don’t need their permission.

Being Law #2: Anything worth doing is worth screwing up; there are no such things as mistakes only learning experiences. Behavior, past present or future does not determine “Being.” “Being” is only determined by declaration.”

You don’t start by having. You start by being. You can start doing but if you start doing before you start being, you are white knuckling the process.  We start every day be being or seeing ourselves as something. Much of the time it is done by default or habit. Much of the time, because we are playing old tapes and listening to the old voices in our heads we wake up saying, “Today I think I will be miserable,” and then go out and begin to do miserable stuff. Instead we could wake up and make a conscious choice to be something, anything else from miserable, and then the doing as a result of the being comes naturally. Try it and see.

What determines my Being? ________________________________________

What effect does my Being have on my Doing and Having? _______________ ________________________________________________________________

When can I choose my Being? _______________________________________

We started out real in the beginning. The picture in the center of the circle is representative of you and me when we arrived up on the planet. We couldn’t speak the language so no one could tell us we were flawed. We were totally self adsorbed in our own goodness. In other words we were pure, sweet, and innocent. We are brand new clean slates. What went wrong?   

Self-Defeating Behavior Target Chart

 Life becomes more and more difficult

1. 1.      My Inner Core:  We all started out as happy, innocent children. As I write this I have the great blessing of 23 grandchildren. I think of one in particular who, along her siblings just spent the week end with me and at a sleep over at my house. This little girl, whose name is Rose, wakes up every morning full of life and wonder.  She doesn’t want to go to sleep at night because she might miss something.  She is innocent and excited.
2. 2.      My Experience: At stage 2 in our circle of life, someone says something, or something happens that causes us to make a judgment about ourselves that there is something wrong or more accurately, “There is something wrong with me.” Rose’s older brother has become a critical voice in her life. Thus far Rose is handling it well but she may well comes to the point she starts to believe what her brother says, she will then move to stage three.
3. 3.      My False Self Perception:  This judgment, created in language (i.e., I’m not good enough) creates a distorted view or a filter the “it” can now use to cloud our thinking. If the time comes that Rose decides that the purpose of her life is to please her brother and that she realizes that she can’t please him she will move to step 4.
4. 4.      My Distorted Thinking:  Since I act in accordance with the way I see myself and my self perception has now become distorted, my life becomes fraught with the next stage in the circle.
5. 5.      Acting out Self Defeating Behaviors:  This may include anxiety depression and or dictions of any kind. My guilt, shame, anger hatred and frustration justify my acting.
6. 6.      My Life feels powerless & un-expressed!

Now is the time for us to get once and for all that power, happiness and peace of mind is available to you in the face of any circumstance. That power and peace of mind comes from affirming your true identity. Most people do not want to have power and peace of mind in any circumstance because they don’t like their current circumstances. Why do we resist being happy and content in our current circumstance? Because we are afraid that if they feel contentment in their current circumstance then they will be stuck with their current circumstances. The truth of the matter, however, is that if you don’t have power and peace of mind in your current circumstances you are more likely to be stuck with those circumstances. We generally get stuck with a circumstance until we learn to be happy in that circumstance. When we learn to be happy where we are then we can move on to the next phase of our growth and development.     

    Put this into practice by experimenting with the “I am Happy  exercise mentioned in the previous chapter.  

On a 3 x 5 card (or something you can keep close at hand) write the words “I am _____________” (something, first person and present tense such as I am happy or I am peaceful.) Repeat this label 20 times per day and then whenever you have a choice or a decision to make, repeat the label and then immediately do what comes to your mind. Notice and write down what happens. The promise is that your behavior will now support who you really choose to be rather than supporting a self image that has come by default from “it” in the past.

“Perfect correspondence would be perfect life. Where there no changes in the environment but such as the organism had the ability to adapt to meet, and were it never to fail in the efficiency with which it met them, there would be eternal existence, eternal knowledge and therefore eternal life.” Drummond, Henry, Natural Law In The Spiritual World.

It is now time to really explore the real Me and listen to how this voice describes its perception of myself and others (you).

1. The real Me sees me as bigger and more capable than I can possible imagine.
2. The real Me sees me as someone who is cause in the matter of my own life.
3. The real Me sees me as whole and complete.
4. The real Me sees me as an awesome person ready to make a difference.
5. The real Me sees me as perfect the way I am and the way I am not with barriers to my expression and experience.
6. The real Me sees me as capable of disappearing those barriers.
7. The real Me sees me as a person who is ready and willing to consider new possibilities for thinking and action.
8. The real Me sees me as my friend.
9. The real Me sees me as someone who is totally capable of knowing and doing what is best for me in my life.

10. Other thoughts_______________________________________________

The real Me sees You as bigger and more capable than you can possible imagine.

1. The real Me sees You as someone who is cause in the matter of your own life.
2. The real Me sees You as whole and complete.
3. The real Me sees You as an awesome person ready to make a difference.
4. The real Me sees You as perfect the way you are and the way you are not with barriers to your expression and experience.
5. The real Me sees You as capable of disappearing those barriers.
6. The real Me sees You as a person who is ready and willing to consider new possibilities for thinking and action.
7. The real Me sees You as my friend and Your friend.
8. The real Me sees You as someone who is totally capable of knowing and doing what is best for You in Your life.
9. The real Me sees You as someone who is totally capable of knowing and doing what is best for You in Your life.

10. Others thoughts______________________________________________________________  

Referring back to the Three Laws of Performance, what difference would it make if I actually saw myself and used the language of the real Me to describe myself and to describe you? What kind of a world would this be and what kind of a world could we create?

1. I perform in accordance with the way I see myself.
2. The way I see myself is created in language
3. To see myself a new way I must begin to speak a new language.

My “it” cannot see the real Me or the real You. My “it” can only see your ”It.” In your “it” “’it “ sees failure, anger, irrelevance and a person who is dangerous and untrustworthy. My “it” sees your “it” as incapable and unwilling to understand me and support me. My ”it “sees your “its” as always conspiring against me.

Let’s take some time to fill out One more “Giving Up The ”it” To gain The Me” change form to see if indeed the “Me” voice is capable of helping us adapt to any situation or circumstance we face in our lives.

          If it passes the test, which I am certain it will; let’s take some time to ask ourselves, “Who is the real “Me?”

                                             Giving Up The “it” To Gain The Me

With every circumstance in your life you have a choice as to which voice you listen to.

(Please list an event from you distant or recent past which created trauma, anxiety or irritation in your life. It can be a great tragedy down to a small irritation.)

1. Event: _______________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________

Who am I? Who is the real Me? This is the question of the ages. Look at some of the aspect of your character that you cannot change such as your sex, being male or female. You were born a man or a woman. You can think all you want but what you were born to be you were born. Look at your race, the color of your skin. You were born that way and there is nothing you can do about that fact. I am black because I was born that way, or I am white because that is the way God made me. What else did God make me?

What would happen in my world if I began to see myself and talk about myself accurately? Matt 4:48. Be ye therefore perfect even as your father in Heaven is perfect. What would happen if you saw yourself as perfect and declared it that way? I have heard it said of superior athletes that they look at their lives and their game as perfect. Take Michael Jordan for example. He didn’t look at his game as anything but perfect. There was nothing wrong with Michael Jordan’s game of basket ball. After seeing it perfect he would watch movies of himself on the court and observe what might be missing as way of being the presence of which would make a difference. For example in watching the movie he noticed he had a perfect 10 foot swisher jump shoot. He noticed that he had a perfect 20 foot swisher jump shoot. He concluded that if he added a 15 foot jump shot it would bring his game that much close to the ideal he could see in his mind.

Think about the meaning of this concept. I can hear you say, “I’m not perfect” I do many wrong things. The truth of the matter is you are perfect and there is nothing you can do about it. It is just the way you are. You were born perfect just like you were born white or black or male or female. You cannot change the way you are. You can forget and in that forgetting you get enveloped in the “it” and the negative lies of this earth. What would your life be like if suddenly you realized and accepted who you really are? First of all you could stop trying to prove you are something you already are everything. You were born that way. You could stop trying to act like you are something special because you are already everything special.

          You might be saying, “How could I be perfect when my past life is so full of tragedy and mistakes. Again this is all in how you choose to look at it. C.S. Lewis has an enlightening conversation with an angel about the state mind of the “Saved” is his master piece, The Great Divorce.¹ Follow along in the dialog and see where you end up.

          “And the Saved?”

          “Ah, the Saved. . .  what happens to them is best described as the opposite of a mirage. What seemed, when they entered it, to be the vale of misery turn out, when they look back, to have been a well; and where present experience saw only salt deserts, memory truthfully records that the pools were full of water. There are not such things as mistakes there are only learning experiences. Those who attain “Heaven” will look back on their earthly lives and realize every experience they ever had led them to this perfect place. And the damned will look back on their earthly experience and they will say, everything that happened on earth led me to this place and both will speak truly. Every challenge that comes up in our lives can be interpreted by the “it” or the Me. The “it” will interpret everything from the past tense as a disaster and the “Me” will interpret everything a perfect future into which you are living as beautiful and as being in your best interest.

I work with and have worked with numerous addiction recovery groups. In my current group which I have been facilitating for over a year I asked the participants who all have their addiction solidly under control, “What is was in the recovery process that helped you turn the corner on your addiction and achieved a measure of sobriety?” The consistent and clear answer is, “The minute I saw the possibility of being someone other than who I had always thought myself to be.”  What difference would it make in your life to accept your real identity?

Your journey here on earth then is to come to know yourself as you really are. And that truth is that you are born to be a god because you are the son or daughter of God. That is the way you were born. We are perfect and therefore need to accept it. When we accept our real being God will unfold our lives to use without our effort or anxiety Just like the lilies grow without toil and effort.

Eph 2:8 For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: 9 Not of works, lest any man should boast. 10 For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them. When we accept who we are God takes us in hand and mold us into the creature he wants us to be. Does that mean we just sit by and let it happen? Is there not work for us to do? Just decide to be a Veterinarian and let the world flow to us. There is plenty of work for us to do but that work is not to be expended in being who we are. We are who we are because of our birth right. Our work is continually to fight off the voice of the “it” and preserve the right attitude. We must continually abide in Christ and to be in the position of the right attitude. All the work in the world is merely taking advantage of energies already existing within us. The energy to be gods is there we just has to acknowledge it and watch it evolve.²

This concept may be a little hard to accept because we have believed a lie for so long. Gen. 1:27. So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them. So what happened to that understanding. How did we come to believe the lie? The “it” showed up and got us off track.

          The following is an example giving to me many years ago from a client of mine who said he was quoting from a book entitled, How To Create A Schizophrenic. I can’t reference here because I have never been able to find it nor do I know it the book actually exits, but the idea is pertinent.

After having been created naked in the image of  God. Like all little children they didn’t judge themselves good of bad they just accepted themselves as who they were, creations in the image of their maker.  Them something happened that turned their lives upside down. God told them not to do it but being children and curios they did it anyway. They stood before a strange tree in the Garden of Eden. In the tree lived a snake called the “it”. “It” was a curious creature with an enticing voice. “It” convinced these perfect children to have just a little nibble. When they did they went through a thought change. They didn’t become bad they become teachable. All of a sudden they could see the possibility of making judgments between good and bad. Before they had just been the children of God. Now there was a good and a bad, a better and a best, a worse and a worse than. The snake now had an in which he used very quickly. They were now open to the slanted view of the snake. Before they were just of infinite worth because of there birthright. The snake now makes their worth dependent on an arbitrary comparison between good and bad, good and evil. The first thing the snake says to these perfect gullible children is, “You’re naked.” This was not hot news they had been naked all along but now they attached a new meaning to their condition.” The new meaning was, “There is something wrong with us. We are flawed. We are bad. We are not as good as we once were.”

Satan introduced shame into their lives. Shame comes from believing a falsehood about ourselves. The next things he says is, “Get some leaves and cover yourselves or God will see you nakedness.” The implication here is that when God sees you, he is going to know you are bad and be angry and punish you for what you have done. Satan creates in Adam and Eve a fear of God, the original “Me, the only one who can restore us to the truth, the only one who can straighten out their thinking. They now have a problem of shame. Guilt is defined as feeling remorse for what I have done. Shame is defined as feeling remorse for who I am.  The lies of Satan have now effectively cut Adam and Eve off from the solution to their problem. In a two step process, Satan effectively introduces insanity into the world. Step one he helps Adams and Eve feel shame for the natural condition of being naked. Step two he convinces them that God will not be pleased and sees them as bad and will hurt or punish them so they had better avoid Him. They are now shameful and disconnected from God who is the only solution to their condition. That is what has happened to every child in the world who has been embarrassed, abused or molested or gone astray. . Perception number 1. There is something wrong with you. Perception number 2. If adults find out about your problem they will punish you. What one of us on the planet is not suffering from this same kind of insanity?

The original sin was not sex or even eating the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil. The sin was believing the voice of the snake. The sin is believing the lie. How many lies do you believe in your own head on a daily basis? What are you trying to cover up? Who is it that is doing the judging? Who is talking and who is the one with all the opinions? The truth of the matter is you are valuable and worthwhile and your performance may need just a little tweaking.

We all have a negative voice in our heads, an opposition in all things. That voice doesn’t belong to us. When we were born, we didn’t have the voice. The voice comes after we learn language then the different points of view and all the judgments and lies from the tradition of our past. Even when we first learn to speak we speak only the truth. But little by little we get reprogrammed and the big lie is born. The big lie is, “There is something wrong with you and you had better cover it up. Hide or God will see your nakedness.”

God told Adam and Eve and all of us, “If you partake of the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil ye shall surely die,” We did eat of it and we are now dead. We are dead because our real authentic self covered up with lies is no longer there. The one who is living our life is the voice of the snake. We call it thinking. It isn’t thinking. It is just listening to the liar in our heads.

Being Law #1:  “Being” does not need the approval of other people. It is something observed by other people as it is occurring.  There is no need to tell other people who you are. You don’t need their permission.

Being Law #2: Anything worth doing is worth screwing up; there are no such things as mistakes only learning experiences. Behavior, past present or future does not determine “Being.” “Being” is only determined by declaration.”

You don’t start by having. You start by being. You can start doing but if you start doing before you start being, you are white knuckling the process.  We start every day by being or seeing ourselves as something. Much of the time it is done by default or habit. Much of the time, because we are playing old tapes and listening to the old voices in our heads we wake up saying, “Today I think I will be miserable,” and then go out and begin to do miserable stuff. Instead we could wake up and make a conscious choice to be something such as happy, and then a new doing comes naturally. Try it and see.

In keeping with what we have coved to this point I am asking you to create your new future with a personal mission statement. I included my own in the beginning of the book and also in the appendix for whatever value it may be to you. It is essential that you create one of your own in order to live into your own beautiful future which you are creating.

The new future I declare for myself and my life is __________________________________________________________________

__________________________________________________________________

__________________________________________________________________

__________________________________________________________________

__________________________________________________________________

__________________________________________________________________

__________________________________________________________________

__________________________________________________________________

Share your mission statement with everyone who is important to you and lets live into this beautiful future together.

A New Voice Of Declaration¹

                   Based upon the following three principles²

            1.  We perform in accordance with the way we see ourselves.

2.    How we see ourselves is created in language, in the nature of the conversations we have about ourselves with ourselves and others.

3. We commit to continually speak with this new voice of reality about ourselves, and do hereby declare, by our word, that the following is true and accurate:

• ·        We are people builders. It is our desire and practice to raise each individual we meet to a level of listening to their real voice and thereby introducing the concept of eternal life and eternal existance.³ We seek the channel of the greatest activity where we can go the most good and be of the greatest service to mankind. To increase our supply of God’s influence, we continually increase our demand  by improving our thoughts daily.
• ·        We know that the dominant thoughts of our minds will eventually reproduce themselves into outward physical action, and gradually transform themselves into physical reality. We concentrate our thinking and repeat our declaration daily, thereby creating in our minds a clear mental picture of who we are and what our purpose is.
• ·        We are whole, strong, powerful, loving, harmonious, successful and happy. We are mindful and prudently aware of our primary mission in life which is service, home and posterity.
• ·        We recognize that God has commanded us and given us the ability and the resources to achieve our major purpose. And because He has commanded it He is preparing a way to create the tools to bring about global, social emotional, spiritual and economic freedom to each person we  meet, individually and in groups thereby generating a working capital sufficient to bring His will about. We demand persistent and continuous action towards this attainment and do hereby commit to render such action.
• ·        To this declaration we commit our lives, our time, our resources and our sacred word of honor. Our word of honor is our POWER!

Steven D. Bunnell, PhD

¹A declaration is an act of language requiring no evidence leading to an outcome. (Example: The Declaration of Independence)

²Zaffron, S. and D. Logan, The Three Laws Of Performance. Jossey-Bass Publishers. 2009

¹ Lewis, Clive Stapleton. The Great Divorce. Harper Collins Publishers, London: 1942.

²Drummond, Henry, Natural Law In The Spiritual World, New York: Clarke, Given & Hooper Publishers.

Let’s keep in touch. Look to the www.whatworksllc.wordpress.com  Website.

There is no labor from which most people shrink as they do from that of sustained and consecutive thought; it is the hardest work in the world. This is especially true when truth is contrary to appearances. Every appearance in the visible would tends to produce a corresponding form in the mind which observes it; and this can only be prevented by holding the thought of the TRUTH. To look upon the appearances of poverty will produce corresponding forms in your own mind, unless you hold to the truth that there is no poverty; there is only abundance.¹

Repentance. He Greek word of which this is the translation denotes a change of mind, i.e., a fresh view about God, about oneself, and about the world. The Greek word is Meta Noeo. (Change your mind) (Bible dictionary King James) version pg. 760.

At the end of this session each participant will understand how the “it” lives and dies and how to bring about permanent death and gain access to the Me.

Report on last week’s assignment. How successful have you been to this point in stopping your communication with the “it?”

In a fascinating book entitled Natural Law In The Spiritual World,¹ author, scientist and Christian writer, Henry Drummond, gives a scientific definition of both life and death.¹ The definition of life is “To be in correspondence with one’s environment.” That is to say that the meaning of life is to be in active vital connection and communication with and influencing one’s environment but most especially being influenced by that environment. If I am in communication with my children I am alive to my children. If I have no communication with them then they are dead to me and I am dead to them. If I am in vital communication with my wife and her with me, we are alive to each other. To cease that communication is to bring death to the relationship. I am alive to my body when my spirit is in communication with that body and we are influencing one another. When my spirit ceases to communicate with my body and no longer influences it, then I am dead to my body. If the meaning of life is to be in communication with, then the meaning of death is to cease communication.

To kill the “it” we must completely stop communication with ”it.” When we stop listening and stop talking to the ‘it” it becomes dead to us and “it” must die. The only place the “it” can live is in our communication with “it” in our own thoughts. “It” has no physical body of its own. Without our communication it ceases to exist. It is gone, done, finished, and kaput.

Access to the ME comes from the language the spoken words and private thoughts we chose to allow to occupy our minds. To Access the Me we must speak with intention.

I am Happy Declaration

The first time I tired thinking intentionally it came from a declaration technique I read about some 25 years ago and produced some amazing results. The technique was introduced to me a fascinating little book I had forgotten about until recently, entitled, Alpha Awareness by Wally Minto.¹

Wally suggested taking a 3 X 5 and making a positive declarative statement on in first person present tense. His challenge was to repeat the declaration 20 times per day and whenever making a choice or a decision, repeat the declaration and do the first thing that comes to your mind. He promised was that in doing so you give up making mistakes. Somewhat skeptically the statement I picked as a new declaration was, ”I am happy.” This exercise turned out to be a simple but powerful turning point in my life.

          On the first day I got in my 20 repetitions before my wife called me and told that my mother, who was visiting with us from out of town, wanted to take us out to dinner with our children. At this time I had 5 small children ages 11 and under. It dawned on me very quickly that taking my children out to eat in a public place was usually a very unhappy experience. I had my card, however, and decided to give Wally’s promise a try.

          The eight of us, my 5 children, my wife, my mother and myself, walked into the Village Inn Pizza in Spokane, Washington, that fateful night. We ordered the pizza and a pitcher of 7-up and 8 glasses. While waiting for the pizza I poured each of my ambulatory children a half a glass of pop in anticipation of a possible crisis. The crisis wasn’t long in coming. Within in a minute, one of my precious little girls spilled her drink on the table. I  watched the liquid run over the edge of the table and down on to the floor. My first inclination was to follow the “it’s” advice and pout. Not being a yeller or a screamer, my usual reaction was to roll my eyes, shake my head and quietly affirm my indignation at having to put up with such clumsiness.

          Then I remembered the card. I pulled out the card from my shirt pocket and read, “I am happy.” In an instant a thought occurred to me. “Get a rag and wipe this mess up.” I did it and I did it without attitude. Wow. How easy could that be if I did what I needed to do without a negative attitude?

          In the mean time another one of my precious little girls escaped into the din of the restaurant and, finding herself alone, started to scream at the top of her lungs. I reached for my card and read it again. Another thought came quickly, “Go tell her you love her.” What a radical thought that was, but the previous one worked, why not try it again. I walked over, picked up my wailing child, sat down with her on my lap and said, “Rebecca, I love you. Do you hear me” I love you.” She looked stunned. Then she smiled, relaxed, slide down off my lap, returned to our table and sat quietly sat down for about 40 seconds which was a long time for this little girl to remain silent.

          “Hey,” I thought. “Wally may be on to something.”

          My 11 year daughter started to study me out of the corner of her eye. I could see the wheels turning in her head. “He is doing something different. Now may be a good time to pop my question. Hey dad,” she asked, “Can we go ride on the horse?”

          The restaurant sported an electric horse for children which produced movement by pulling back on the reins. No money was required for the adventure. I checked it out with my card and the thought said, “Let them go.”

           I gave my permission and my children happily scampered off. At this time I could see the obvious irritation begin to arise in my wife’s face. Ever practical and not being one to hold back, she voiced her concerns openly.

          “You can’t let these children go free like that. They will break that machine and we will be held liable. And beside they are embarrassing me.”

          I reached for my card and read it. The thought brought a smile to my mind and face. I help the card up and showed it to her.

 “You see this card?” I said. With this card I believe I could control the whole word.”

          She shook her head and ceased her objection. The children returned happy and relaxed. We sat thought the rest of the meal without antagonism and frustration. After downing the pizza, my 11 year old the oldest screwed up her courage and popped the next question. “Hey dad, can we make our own ice cream cones?”

Along with an electric horse, the Village Inn Pizza supported a soft ice cream machine which allowed patrons to make their own ice cream cones by inserting a nickel in a bottle.

          The card said, “Let them go.” So I let them go and they happily complied.

          But again my wife was not in compliance. Her natural motherly and social instincts kicked in and she expressed her point of view.

          Steven, she said, “What is wrong with you? You know these children cannot be without our supervision for a minute. They will break that machine. They will boot us out of here and you will be liable. Use your head.”

           I reached for the support of my card which came to my rescue. When I read, “I am happy, the thought came back, “Tell her you have become drifting smoke.” The thought made me laugh but saying it didn’t make her laugh.

          Her response, “YOU ARE INSANE.”

          “Yes,” I said as directed by the card, But insanity is a state of mind that would give us all pleasure if would try it from time to time.”

          When I walked out of the Village Inn Pizza that night I was happy and so were my children. My wife on the other hand——–? Let me tell you the rest of the story. 

          My happiness lasted for three day. It was like a cloud in my mind lifted. I began to see and think more clearly. Solutions rather than problems began to occur to me.

          There is no activity we will ever perform in our lives more productive, yet more challenging than that of maintaining consistent sustained thought.⁶ As Napoleon Hill states¸”The dominant thoughts of our minds will eventually reproduce themselves into outward physical action and gradually transform themselves into physical reality.⁷  

On the second day of my new adventure I traveled with a group of my counseling co-workers to Richland Washington a city about 150 miles from Spokane where I was living. On that trip I sat in the back seat of the car getting in my 20 “I am happy” statements. As I focused my thinking on “being happy” the fog lifted. Answers to questions and solutions to problems began to occur to me. The Me stated to speak. I started to share my ideas with my traveling companions. As I did so I began to sense a surprising irritation arising in the expression and attitudes of my fellow travelers. The driver of the vehicle looked up at me through the rear view mirror. His negative expression loudly exclaimed, “I’m depressed and your happiness is messing with that depression.” I suddenly realized that my Me had come up against his “it” and his “it” wanted to shut Me down. I found this resistance humorous and continued my “I am Happies” in private.”  

Richland was the home of the Westinghouse Atomic Energy plant. I don’t know really what they do there but the personnel manning the facility were people with PhDs in physics. The chairman of our board in the area was one of those. I had never before spoken in a meeting with the chairman because I never considered myself intelligent enough to speak to such a learned being. Except that day I had my card and I had things to say. During our board meeting I raised my hand with several suggestions. He looked at me if as I were a bug who had crawled out from under a rock.

          “I don’t understand what you are talking about,” he said. “It may make sense in Spokane, but in our area quite frankly I fail to see the application.”

I reached for my card and held it under my suit coat. I read it quietly and then responded with an idea that popped into my mind. I don’t remember the idea now but whatever it was I voiced it and the countenance of the chairman changed. He smile and said, “You know that is one of the most creative ideas I have heard in a long time. Let’s do it!”

The joy I felt from that experience and from the rest of the day carried me in the face of the opposition I felt from my traveling companions until I got back home to Spokane that evening. Upon returning home I jumped out of the car, ran up the front steps of my house and threw open the door. Standing there in the breeze way was my precious wife with our colicky baby who had been up all day and all night.

“Do you notice anything about me,” I asked?

“Yes, she said. “You are obviously happy. You have been with adults for two days and have not had to be up with this crying baby. You don’t know which end is up. Your happiness makes me sick.

I reached for the card but I allowed the screaming “it” to interfere.  

“It” taunted, “If happiness makes your wife sick it is not worth the effort.” Maintaining the effort of the “I am Happy” declaration was strenuous work.  Listening to the “it” comes by default, like riding a bicycle downhill. You can just coast, but getting to the Me requires intension. It takes conscious effort, like going uphill. You have to peddle. Declarations are acts of language. They take thought and effort. I did give the thought up and the magic of my new awareness disappeared in an instant only to return on the occasion of my starting the declarative process again but I generally failed to leave out the consecutive and sustained part. Intermittent, distracted and occasional thinking doesn’t get the job done. Letting virtue garnish thy thoughts unceasingly, that is the ticket.

Six Principles to Keep The Miracle Alive

Principle  number 1 is recognizing the source of this great creative energy. I have read about the power of these concepts in many sources, some of which are referenced in this document. I don’t claim any of these Principle s to be original with me or with any of the authors or references I have quoted. We need to be careful in giving credit where credit is due to avoid climbing a ladder of success and in the end finding our ladder leaning against the wrong wall. These concepts are spiritual in nature and come from a spiritual source.

2 Tim 3 1-5 This know also, that in the last days perilous times shall come. For men shall be lovers of their own selves, covetous, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy, Without natural affection, trucebreakers, false accusers, incontinent, fierce, despisers of those that are good. Traitors, heady, high minded, lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God;  Having a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof: from such turn away.

(John 15 1, 5. I am the true vine, and my Father is the husbandman. I am the vine, ye are the branches: He that abideth in me, and I in him, the same bringeth forth much fruit: for without me ye can do nothing.

We need to be very careful about accepting any credit for the power of the Principle s we are using. These are divine principles and were giving to use by God. We need to continually give Him credit and express our gratitude to Him for giving us these laws and principles. .

Principle  2 mental and spiritual integrity or a continuous conversation of possibility in the face of any circumstance.  When our thoughts are totally free from the “it” and we are having a pure conversation of possibility we have power. The best description I have found of how to make this power work for us is found in Doctrine & Covenants 121: 45-46.  Let thy bowels also be full of charity towards all men, and to the household of faith, and let virtue garnish thy thoughts unceasingly; then shall thy confidence wax strong in the presence of God; and the doctrine of the priesthood shall distil upon thy soul as the dews from heaven. The Holy Ghost shall be thy constant companion, and thy scepter an unchanging scepter of righteousness and truth; and thy dominion shall be an everlasting dominion, and without compulsory means it shall flow unto thee forever and ever.

For three days I continued using the “I am Happy” label even in the face of the opposition offered by my co-workers and the board chairman. The lights came on and life started to work and stayed working until I allowed the opposition of my wife’s “it” to stop the flow of the positive energy. That flow of energy came from a source greater than myself. I merely tapped into it for three days. I make the choice to stop. I got lazy and gave up because intentional thinking takes effort. I gave up the integrity and the magic stopped working. Thinking virtuous (righteous, honorable or moral) thoughts unceasingly is the ticket. Thinking these thoughts on an intermittent basis brings only intermittent results. How consistent are you and I in meeting that standard of consistency?

In his book The Science Of Getting Rich¸⁶ Wallace Wattles makes the following observation. “There is no labor from which most people shrink as they do from that of sustained and consecutive thought; it is the hardest work in the world. This is especially true when truth is contrary to appearances. Every appearance in the visible world tends to produce a corresponding form in the mind which observes it; and this can only be prevented by holding the thought of the TRUTH. To look upon the appearance of disease will produce the form of disease in your own mind, and ultimately in your body, unless you hold the thought of the truth, which is that there is no disease; it is only an appearance and the reality is health.”

Sustained consecutive thought then is the key to allowing the power of God into  our lives.

When my son Sam was 13 years old and in the 8^th grade he was on the school wrestling team. He and I experimented at the time with some of these ideas to help him with the sport. At that time a picture of Mary Lou Retten appeared on the cover of various magazines showing the emotion of perfection on her face at having accomplished the seeming impossible task of winning the Olympic gymnastic all around competition with a perfect score of 10 in each event. Sam cut that picture out, put it in a frame and hung it on the wall in his bedroom. Every day for two weeks he looked at that picture, thought about the emotion of accomplishment she must be feeling and tried to emulate that emotion. He refused to allow any emotion but that which was portrayed on Mary Lou’s face enter his mind. He thought with intention.  Then he entered the Spokane Valley junior high school wresting tournament.  I watched as if by magic Sam won all ten matches with a perfect score sweeping the tournament. Sustained and consecutive thought is the key to power in our lives.   

My “it” tells me that meeting that standard is not possible and then continues to remind me in every area where I fall short. How do I achieve ultimate integrity and become in essence perfect?

Principle  number 3 is practice, practice, practice. . It just takes practice and more practice just like Mr. Maagi teaches Daniel Laruso, the Karate Kid “Wax On, Wax Off” exercise. In the movie the old Karate master agrees to teach young Daniel the art of self defense. He gives him a bucket and a sponge and a can of car wax with the assignment to wash and wax about six cars sitting in the yard. The teacher gives his student some specific instruction on the circular movement of his hands while he is performing this task. He says, “Wax on with the right hand circling clockwise. Wax off with the left hand circling counter clockwise. Breath in thought the noise and out though the mouth.” Daniel takes on the task or the exercise and after several hours these movements and the breathing have become automatic. He now makes the movement without thought. He has now become automatic in his ability to fend off the blows of his opponents with his circular hand movements.

I am asking you to practice thinking or getting to the Me thoughts using one sheet per day to work thought any small or large problem you may be having.

When we no longer communicate with the “it” and “it” becomes dead to us we can bring the Me to life and increase its influence in our life by increasing our communication with that entity. We do that by practice and then more practice in the face of any circumstance in our lives which provides us with ultimate integrity.  

Ultimate integrity got Victor Frankl through the holocaust. In his book Man’s Search For Meaning,⁷ Dr. Frankl, a Jew, describes himself standing in a parade ground in a Nazi prison camp in Auschwitz, Poland. He is naked because his clothes have been taken. He is bald because his head has been shaved. Some of the gold has been removed from the fillings in his teeth. Several members of his family have been killed and his scientific papers have been confiscated.

He describes himself thinking that life has no purpose or meaning and he is contemplating what it would take for him to die at that moment. He then describes an insight. He has one thing left in life and that is his ability to think. He concludes that he will not give that up. He refuses to allow the Nazis to make him hate them. He chooses a purpose, a meaning. He is now thinking with intension. Victor Frankl discovers what he came to call “The last of the human liberties, the ability to choose ones attitude in the face of any circumstance. Dr. Frankl states that those Jews who could find meaning and purpose in their experience survived. Those who could find none simply died.

Principle  4 is to be willing to accept things we don’t deserve. Matt 6:28 Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they toil not, neither do they spin: And yet I say unto you, That even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. Wherefore, if God so clothe the grass of the field, which today is, and tomorrow is cast into the oven, Shall he not much more clothe you, O ye of little faith? Therefore take no thought, saying, What shall we eat? or, What shall we drink? or, Wherewithal shall we be clothed?  (For after all these things do the Gentiles seek:) for your heavenly Father knoweth that ye have need of all these things. So much of what we have and enjoy is the result of efforts other than our own,

Sitting here writing at this computer is a great miracle. It is the result of discoveries and innovations that I don’t even comprehend. The people in the generations before me created the present I am living in and they did it without me ever deserving a minute of it. As a matter of fact the earth upon which we are riding is here purely by the grace of a power outside ourselves. This is a book about the power of the word and the word both good and evil is powerful. God is the grantor of all great gifts. We are saved by grace after all we can do. Things work when we use the Principle s He has given us. Our work is to continually give up anxious thought. If we want work it is find there–In being still. We earn nothing, we manufacture nothing. Every thing we need is here for us. We are soldiers in God’s army and a soldier’s time is not spent in earning the money to buy his armor, or in seeking shelter. These things come from his king. Our work is to preserve the right attitude all our work is to merely take advantage of the energies that are already here. Abide in Me and I will give you rest.  

Principle  5 is keeping alive the picture of a positive future you are living into. Who we are in the present moment is not dictated to us by our past. Our attitude or our word of who we say we are in the present moment is dictated by the past that we see ourselves into.

Picture the following scenario. You come into your office on a holiday. You are not required to be there but you are. As you walk past the boss’s office you hear him talking on the phone. You can tell he is upset by the tone of his voice. As you stop to listen you hear him say, “You mean we are going to have to shut the whole operation down.”

You have just heard something you were not supposed to hear. But because it impacts your future that news will definitely impact the way you feel and act right now.

Play the scene out the other way. You come into the office on a Holiday. You hear your boss on the phone saying, ”You meaning we have done well enough this year that we can give every employee a 15% raise?” You were not supposed to hear that news either but because it impacts your future it would certainly cheer you up in the present moment.

Sometimes it looks like the past is what is creating who we are in the present because we keep having an imagined expectation that what has happened in the past will happen again in the future. Just because I failed at something once doesn’t mean that it is going to be that way again. There really are no such things as mistakes only learning experiences. Just because the last relationship didn’t work out doesn’t mean the next one will turn out the same way. We need to get the past out of our future and focus on a new possibility. An uneducated imagination is a cruel task master.

A story is told by Richard Bach in his book Illusions: The Adventures Of A Reluctant Messiah.⁶ In this book Richard invents a 20^th century Jesus named Donald. Donald is capable of using all of the principles and Principle s that God has given him. As  a result Donald lives a miraculous life and is attempting to teach Richard to do likewise. Richard Bach literary heroes are pilots and so it is with Donald. Donald accompanies Richard into a hardware store to buy parts for Richard’s airplane. Donald never needs parts because his airplane doesn’t break or wear out and he never kills bugs on his windshield.

“The whole economy would collapse,” thinks Richard, “if everyone were like Donald. He fixes things by just thinking about them.” As Richard is paying his .90 cents for a nut, bolt and lock washer he hears some beautiful music playing over what he thinks is a hidden sound system. As he looks around he sees Donald playing Green Sleeves on a guitar he picked up of the sales shelf in the hard ware store.

“I didn’t know you could play the guitar,” says Richard.

“Richard,” came the reply as Donald replaced the guitar on the shelf. ”Do you think someone could walk up to Jesus and hand Him a guitar and He couldn’t play, or if he wanted to skin a D-10 cat that he couldn’t do it or if someone spoke to Him in Russian or Persian that He would don’t understand what they were saying?”

“You really do know everything don’t you?” queries Richard.

“You do too,” says Donald. “The only difference between you and I is that I know that I know everything.”

“You mean,” asks Richard,”That I could play the guitar like that”?

“Of course,” says Donald. “All you have to do it give up all your inhibitions and beliefs that you can’t do it and let your real fingers take over the instrument and play.”

“I t would be very difficult to give up my inhibitions and belief that I can’t play the guitar,” says Richard.

“Then it will take years of practice before your self conscious mind tells you have suffered enough to have earned the right to play it well,’ cme Donald’s final verdict.  

What kind of possibilities can you image in your future? Whatever you imagine will show up in you present moment. Try imagining God in your future and watch what happen in your present life.

Phil 3:13 Brethren, I count not myself to have apprehended: but this one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before, I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus.  Let us therefore, as many as be perfect, be thus minded: and if in anything ye be otherwise minded, God shall reveal even this unto you.

Principle  6 is consider that anything is possible. None of us can predict the future. We may go out of here with great place and get run over on the way home. Our goal may never be achieved, but picturing those goals and aspirations make what we are doing right now fun and exciting. The future only lives as a possibility and as I look into the future what do I see as possible? Anything I choose to see as possible becomes possible in my imagination. The possibility I am creating for myself and my life right now is the possibility of securing a grant for $100,000 to share this information with 600 people each year. Living into that future gets me up and out of bed ever morning.

Again the “Giving Up The “it” To gain The Me” sheet is a vital Principle . By practicing conscious and sustained thinking and changing the voice you listen to, you can virtually figure out a solution or an adaptation to literally any problem that could ever come up in your life. That is a majestic promise, but just checks it out for yourself. I think back to the biggest challenge of my life time and take it through the sheet as an illustration. Here are several blank “Change Your” Mind” sheets in the appendix.

Giving Up The “it” To Gain The Me

With every circumstance in your life you have a choice as to which voice you listen to.

1. Event: _One night while I was asleep my wife packed my bags and put them out on the front porch, then told me to get out.   
2. Emotions: Fear, frustration anger, shame, guilt, etc.
3. What does the “it” say about the situation? (This is a most important part; it requires the most work and attention.  Consciously notice the thoughts flowing through your mind.  Ex: “Life is hard”.)  You are never going to make it. The economy is a disaster. There is no way to turn this around. You are going to end up in a bad place. Everything that ever meant anything to you is gone. You have no meaning, no purpose in life.
4. Resulting Behavior: (What behavior do you see coming out of these thoughts and emotions generated by the “it’? Withdrawal, worry, chaotic thinking, unclear decision making, worry, fret anxiety, loss of focus, forgetfulness, thoughts of ending it all.
5. What are the thoughts coming from the Me: (This is now the most important part of this exercise.) This may look like the end to you but it is just the beginning. It took this tragedy in your life to get you to grow up and discover Me. You have been listening to the wrong voice all your life and now that you have given that up, your life will become magnificent. Together we are capable and we will survive. You are now a new creature.  
6. Which thoughts are true?  Whichever ones I choose to declare as a real possibility.
7. Which thoughts take me where I want to go, the “it” or the Me? The Me. 

The startling question here is, “What is the Me and what is it capable of providing me?”  What would it be like to have a Principle  or a voice that will help you adjust perfectly to any circumstance that you now face or will ever face in your life? With the Me you now have such a Principle . From this point forward all you have to do is to practice using every day forever. You will find the “Giving Up The ‘it’ To Gain The Me” worksheet to help you solve any problem you can face in your life

¹ Wattles, William. The Science Of Getting Rich. Barnes and Noble, Inc.        Originally published in 1910.

²Drummond, Henry, Natural Law In The Spiritual World, New York: Clarke, Given & Hooper Publishers.

³Ibid. pg. 203

⁴Wattles, op. Cite pg. 18

⁵Hill, Napoleon. Think And Grow Rich.  Random House Books, 1987.

⁶Bach, Richard. Illusions: The Adventures Of A Reluctant Messiah. Random House 1977.

⁷ Frankl, V. E. Man’s  Search For Meaning. New York: Pocket Books, 1963.

Whatever amount of power an organism expends in any shape is the correlate and equivalent of a power that was taken into it from without.” Herbert Spencer. (When “it” is the environment in which we live. What we take in is not healthy for who we are.) See Living In The Land of Possibilities in the Appendix. 

At the end of this session each participant will recognize the methods the “it” uses to entrap our thinking.

Report on assignment from the previous week.

Every week for the past few years I have conducted a “possibilities” group using the concepts and material presented here. In that group I have endeavored to create an environment of learning and transformation. It is very difficult to learn and grow if the environment in which one is living is hostile and negative. I tell my participants that while we are in the environment of this group room the generation of positive thinking, feeling and action is easy, but lurking outside this room is the environment of the “it.” “It” is not about to leave us alone. There are or may be a few other environments in your life that are “it” free but not many. When our world or our environment is healthy and positive and we see ourselves as healthy and positive we have achieved interim integrity. But with only interim integrity what happens when my world or the circumstances of my life turn to crap? What happens to my word? Right, it generally turns sour as well. Our goal here is to be involved in this celestial conversion long enough and often enough that we achieve ultimate integrity, and that my friends is ultimate power and that is our goal.

When my world creates my word = Interim integrity.

When my word creates my world= Ultimate integrity.

We will talk more about ultimate integrity in the next section.   

Once the “it” knows it has been identified and selected for destruction it begins to fight for its life. “It” is not about to willingly relinquish “it’s” hold on our environment. “It” is subtle and ingenious and doesn’t go down easily. To help us with that fight we need to recognize some of the survival tools the “it” uses to keep “it’s” environment alive and keep from being killed. In my original story of my discovery of the “it” I described it as a little Chihuahua dog behind my neighbor’s fence. I have since heard it described as a pesky horse fly buzzing around my head inside my car while I am driving through beautiful vistas of scenery outside. That image fits with how intrusive and annoying “it” is but also how unable “it” is to do us any harm unless we focus upon “it” and crash into a tree.  

Some of the possible tools for entrapment the “it” uses to maintain control of our environment may include but are not limited to the following:

1. You deserve to be loved by everyone in your world. This is one entrapment I can identify with personally. Much of my life I waited to be loved, honored and obeyed before I lifted a finger to help anyone. When I did get a little recognition as I supposed I became pushy and obnoxious. When I didn’t get the attention I wanted I was sullen and felt sorry for myself and just plain angry with the world. This lie from the “it” is just not reality.
2. Certain things are bad and people who do them should be punished. Anything that leaves us angry is a distraction from the real you. Rather than going on a crusade against war and terrorism we might try going on a crusade for peace and forgiveness. Rather than raging against the darkness we might try praising and promoting the light.
3. Something is wrong if things are not the way I want them to be. The truth of the matter is that things are the way they are and to wish them any different puts us at odds with nature. When you argue with reality you always come out on the short end of the stick.
4. My problems are not my fault. This does not mean to say that you don’t have some responsibility for your life’s situations. This is just to say that to get caught up in a conversation with the “it” about fault and blame is a distraction and a waste of time. A more helpful conversation is to look for a solution rather than try to figure out who is to blame.
5. My problems are my fault. The same logic applies here as above. The conversation about who is a fault and who isn’t, is irrelevant and a waste of time. “It” loves to waste your time and keep you focused on things that don’t really matter.
6. You should be strong and competent in every aspect of your life. Remember you are a human being not a human doing. You can never do enough to be OK. Just accept yourself as OK the way you are. The reality of life is that you were born OK. If you don’t think you are OK now it is because you forgot the truth about.
7. If something once affected my life it will always be that way in the future. The “it” loves to point out how we screwed up in the past and remind us that most likely we will screw again in the future. The real Me would say, “Anything worth doing is worth screwing up,” or “there are no such things as mistakes, only learning experiences.” Remember, how many things you have learned by not doing it exactly right the first time. Give yourself another shot and see if this time it goes in the basket. If not just try again.
8. I must be in control. Thinking we must be in control causes us all sorts of problems. No one ever accomplishes things all by themselves. WE are saved by grace after all we can do and all we can do is really mess things up. Give it up and get out of God’s way.
9. I know the answer to everything. When I think I know the answer to everything I give up the possibility of knowing the answer to anything new or the possibility that I may have come to an erroneous conclusion about something. When I think I know the answer to something I stop listening for new possibilities.

10. The drama triangle was discussed in Tool 1. When I play one of the three roles, that of victim, rescuer or persecutor, my life will go nowhere. Those are the three roles played out in a soap opera. If you have ever been a soap opera fan you know you can watch one for a year, turn it off for a year and then when you tune back in all the characters are in the same mess you left them in a year ago. When caught in any role in the drama you life goes nowhere.

11.  Standards vs. principles. A standard is a rule we use to dictate how we want to be treated or the way we want the world to be. I used a standard for years that now as I look back the “it” used this standard to ruining not only my first marriage but a whole host of other relationships. The standard was, “I would be happy if everyone in my life honored me and treated me with dignity and respect.” That may sound OK on the surface but the problem is it is not reality. That may be possible about 2% of the time or less but that leave me angry and unhappy the other 98%. We need to exchange that standard for a principle. A principle is a rule I use to dictate how I am going to treat other people. “I people all people in my sphere of influence with dignity and respect.” This puts the center of my emotional and spiritual control back in my own hands and not in the hand of other people. 

12.  Distraction. Father Screwtape In The Screwtape Letters instructs his student Wormwood never to take his “patient” head on in a discussion. Screwtape gives the example, “I had a patient once who was a confirmed atheist. Sitting in a library one day my patient’s thoughts started to go astray. He began to wonder if there might be a God in heaven. I was right there by his side, of course, and suggested that this was a very important subject, one much too important to consider on an empty stomach. I suggested he go to lunch. Once he was out on the street thinking about food he never thought about God again and he is now safely secured in our father’s kingdom below.” Beware of distractions.  

13. The myth of self esteem, I am better or worse than. Making comparisons between ourselves and other people is always disempowering. Again I am a human being not a human doing. I am OK just because God made me that way and I accept it as the truth.

The story is told of the old Taos farmer whose horse ran away. There is an old Taoist story about a poor farmer whose lone horse runs away.  His neighbors say, “What terrible misfortune to have your horse run away!”  The farmer, however, is unsure of the events meaning.  He shrugs his shoulders and continues with his work.  The next day his horse returns accompanied by several other wild horses.  His neighbors say, “What great good fortune you have!”

The farmer, however, is unsure of the events meaning.  He shrugs his shoulders and calls his sons to coral and break in the wild horses.  The next day, his eldest son, while taming one of the wild horses, falls off it and breaks his leg, making it impossible to help the family in the harvest.  “A terrible misfortune,” say his neighbors. The farmer, however, chooses to put no meaning to the event and shrugs his shoulders as if to say, “Good News, Bad News, who knows?” Next day, a vicious and selfish warlord sweeps through the area, taking away each families eldest son to fight his selfish and bloody war but leaving the farmer’s son because of his broken leg.

Life is perfect just the way it is. All things work for those who come to trust the Me.

                            Pain Is Inevitable But Misery Is Optional.

The key to the whole concept we are discussing here is to be able to separate what happened in our past from the meaning we attached to it. What happened is what happed and that was painful but that pain is over, past and gone. What continues to live in the present moment and causes us the real misery is the story we made up about past events and therefore the meaning attached to it. The “it” will fight tooth and nail to keep the old self-perceptions and images alive. The New ME will rise from the ashes of the past.

.

In one of our recovery groups we were discussing the above concept. One of the group members balked at the concept and said, “You can’t tell me that the beating I received from my father meant nothing.”

“NO,” I said, “I am not saying they meant nothing. I am saying that they didn’t mean what you think it means. After some further processing I could see this man’s eyes light up when he exclaimed, “It had nothing to do with me.” I asked him to explain his epiphany.

“It just occurred to me,” he said, “that I thought all these years that my father beat me because there was something wrong with me. I just realized that he beat me because he was crazy and was crazy before I was ever born. I just happened to get in the way of his insanity.” Twenty years of misery disappeared with one new insight. The pain was still there but the misery vanished.

Events do not determine meanings.

• The event and the meaning assigned are two separate entities. It is the meaning I assign to the event which always causes us the most grief and the meaning is something I can change.
• When we are able to separate what actually happened from our “story” of what happened, our interpretation, we discover that much of what we considered already determined, given and fixed, may in fact not be that way. It only existed in own minds.

Now we are going to put what are learning into practice and watch the magic of transformation. You now recognize that you have a white and a black wolf, a positive and a negative voice, a “me” and an “it.” Let’s take some time now and see how we can use this awareness to solve ANY problem that may come up in our lives. We are going to challenge that old meanings assigned by the “it” and exchange for the real meaning coming from the Me.”

Who we are is the sum total of the meaning of all the events to which we assigned meaning in our lives. In other words, we created ourselves out of our own thoughts. These are thoughts that the “it” made up and we accepted as true. We are nothing more than an illusion which we ourselves created. What happens when you stopped thinking and believing all of the things you have ever thought about yourself? You would become nothing. Now before you get angry at me try the thought on. What would it feel like to be a clean slate or a blank canvas? What would it be like to have the past gone and be born again? What can you create on a blank canvas? That’s right, anything. If you never again thought about yourself the way you thinking about yourself you cease to be who you think you are. If you don’t like your past, stop thinking about it. Terry Warner in the great book, The Bonds That Make Us Free, states, “There is nothing in our past that can harm us unless we go back into the past, drag it into the present moment and think about it now.” Who we are is created in language, in the conversations we have with ourselves and other people. If you stop saying “I am depressed then “I am depressed” ceases to exit. If you become nothing what can be created in that blank space? That’s right. Anything.

Refer to the worksheet, “Giving Up The “it” to Gain the Me.” Pick a problem, event or situation from your life with which you are currently dealing, for example, “I can’t make my house payment.” Detach from “it’s” description of the past and pick up the new meaning come from this real voice.

Giving Up The “it” To Gain The Me

With every circumstance in your life you have a choice as to which voice you listen to.

1. Event: _I can’t make my house payment.
2. Emotions: Fear, frustration anger, etc.
3. What does the “it” say about the situation? (This is the most important part; it requires the most work and attention.  Consciously notice the thoughts flowing through your mind.  Ex: “Life is hard”.)  You are never going to make it. The economy is a disaster. There is no way to turn this around. You are going to end up in a bad place.
4. Resulting Behavior: (What behavior do you see coming out of these thoughts and emotions generated by the “it’? Withdrawal, worry, chaotic thinking, unclear decision making, worry, fret anxiety, loss of focus, forgetfulness.
5. What are the thoughts coming from the Me: You are capable. You have survived hard times before. You are creative, strong and energetic.
6. Which thoughts are true?  Whichever ones I choose to declare as a real possibility.
7. Which thoughts take me where I want to go, the “it” or the Me? The Me. 

Giving Up The “it” To Gain The Me

With every circumstance in your life you have a choice as to which voice you listen to. (Please list an event from you distant or recent past which created trauma, anxiety or irritation in your life. It can be a great tragedy down to a small irritation.)

1. Event: _______________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________________

10. What behavior is now possible?

At the end of this session each participant will recognize the negative voice and begin the process of detaching from “it.” 

A story is told of a young native boy who stepped out into the world on a vision quest. One night while sojourning in the wilderness he had a vision. In his trance he discovered himself being followed by two wolves, one white and one black. Arriving back at home the young native lad shared his vision with his seasoned old grandfather and asked, “Grandfather, which of these wolves will be the greatest power in my life?

“Grandson,” came the sage reply, “you give power to whichever one you feed.”

I have been a therapist for almost 35 years. During that time I have met and talked with hundreds of people and few if any ever deny the identity two or more voices in their heads. Most of us are at least a little bit schizophrenic.

Only half of me is what I am

The rest is what want to be.

These halves they twist and turn

And use up all my energy

Our biggest obstacle to transformation is the inner critic or the black wolf inside your own head. Check it out. Take a moment and list six negative things about yourself since you got up this morning.

1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

6.

Now take a minute and do six positives in which you have used to compliment yourself.  

1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

6.

Which was the easiest list to come up with? Everyone has The Voice or the “it” as I have come to call it. Operative in most of us by age 4 “it” shows up to keep us from being lonely but as we get older and if “it” goes unchecked and unexamined it can and will create great havoc in our lives especially if we identify “it” as being us. All anxiety and depression are the result of unexamined thought coming from the “it.”¹

Along with my own account of voices in my head I recorded in the introduction there are many examples of the dual voices in the literature. One voice speaks the truth and the other one or other ones tell us lies.

 Colin Wilson, a very brilliant and prolific British writer had an individual goal of becoming the next Albert Einstein. Because he came from a relatively poor family he was forced to drop out of school at the age of 16. While working as a laboratory assistant he became very despondent and decided to commit suicide by drinking hydrocyanic acid. Just before he was to commit this desperate and final act he had a flash of insight. There were actually two Colin Wilsons. He felt like there were two people living inside the same body. One was a boy idiot filled with anger and self pity who had a negative view on everything. The other was his real self that saw the truth and told the truth. The boy idiot, he realized, was about to kill them both.

          From that moment on, Colin Wilson consciously decided to see himself in a new way.  He saw himself as the real Colin Wilson and stopped paying attention to the idiot teenager. He later wrote that from that point, “I glimpsed the marvelous immense richness of reality, extended to distant horizons.” ¹

                Another prominent writer tells of suffering from extremes anxiety up until just prior to his 30th birthday. “I awakened one night,” he says, “like I had for so many nights in complete excruciating anxiety. The noises of the night and the shadows in the room contributed to my feelings of dread and despair. The desire for annihilation had overcome the nature desire to want to go on living. I didn’t want to live this way anymore. The thought that kept going through my mind was, ‘I can’t stand myself anymore.’ Then it occurred to what an interesting thought this was. ‘Is there one of me or is there two? There must be two, the I and the me who can’t stand me.’ Maybe only one of them is real.”

          This author concluded that there was a speaker and a listener. He identified his real self as the listener and an entity other than himself as the speaker. When he stopped listening to the speaker his whole life changed and his depression dissappeared.²

The “it” is always irrelevant to who you are today. It treats you as if you were a child and leaves you unable to contact the real You. You could think of the ”it’’ as a GPS from the Twilight Zone. When you follow “its” directions you spend your life trying to find streets that no longer exist in a city that vanished decades ago.   

When we pay attention most of us will recognize within us an ever constant stream of incessant, unintentional, involuntary thought, 90% of which is negative. This mindless thought stream is like a tape recorder that plays without our invitation.  It produces ideas and images that just pop up in our mind like advertisements on a computer. The thoughts may appear at random or in response to an event in our lives. That thought stream is unremitting and will flow through our minds continually – becoming harmful if we unconsciously get caught in the negative stream and let the negative emotions lead to our self-defeating behaviors. The source of this stream is the arbitrary or erroneous meaning that we assign to the events of our past, opinions we received from others and old situations. These thoughts, unexamined, are the source of all negative emotions, anxiety, depression, and unhappiness. These emotions then give rise to our self-defeating behaviors. Sometimes those voices are very loud and obtrusive. Sometimes they are just subtle and judgmental providing a filter through which all incoming information is screened making judgments such as, “Is this right? What if this isn’t right? I wasn’t raised to think like that. I already know all about that but it is quite right according to what I heard the last time.”    
         In some things I have read the voice is referred to as the “Already Always Listening Voice” which provides an all-pervasive influence that profoundly colors our relationships with people circumstance and even ourselves. An awareness of these filters, and a recognition of the striking limits they impose on us allows for a refreshing freedom from out past. Dumping the influence of that negative voice can and will dramatically alter our lives.

C. S. Lewis in his brilliant Book The Screwtape Letters,³ gives this thought stream an evil or Satanic origin. Screwtape, an elderly retired devil is sending written instruction to Wormwood, a young devil who has just started work on his first ‘patient.’ Paraphrased here it says:

“My dear Wormwood,

You have been strengthening in your patient the fatal habit of attending to universal issues and withdrawing his attention from the stream of immediate sense experiences. Your business is to fix his attention on the stream. Teach him to call it ‘real life’ and don’t let him ask what he means by ‘real’. Encourage him to read nothing and give him the grand idea that he knows it all and that everything he happens to pick up is true. It is not your job to teach. It is your job to befuddle.”

Your affectionate Uncle

Screwtape.

In our addiction recovery groups we have an exercise we call “interviewing the snake.” We can always get the snake or the “it” to speak to us. Until this exercise the participants have just assumed that the voice of the snake was coming from them and just accepted the thoughts as true. These are not our thoughts and we don’t have to believe any of them as valid. To stay present to your own negative thoughts read the following exercise and some possible responses and then try it on yourself or do it with a partner with you playing the role of the snake. Pay attention to what you are thinking and what you feel. For a graphic description as to how individuals of authority can act as the “it” in our lives, refer to ‘Others As The “it,’” in the appendix.

Now we are going to interview your already always listening voice and identify your “it” to see “it’s” true identity.

A typical conversation with the addiction might go as follows:

Interviewer: “So Snake, how long have you been an influence in John’s life?”

 Snake: “Since he was about age 12.”

Interviewer: “What was going on at that time that allowed you into his life?”

Snake: “It was a lonely time for him. He was being bullied at school and I stepped in to get him through the experience. After that I just showed up to give him comfort when things got hard.” 

Interviewer: “What influence have you had on his relationships with members of his own family?”

Snake: “I convinced him that he didn’t need them. After all, I got him through the hard things. I convinced him that he doesn’t need anything or anyone but me.”

Interviewer: “How have you impacted his school work or his productivity in life?”

Snake: “I constantly distract him from other interests. I am his focus. I am going to be his only focus. I helped him get to the internet, pornography and other mindless pastimes, anything to keep him from real life interactions and bound up inside his own head.”

Interviewer: “So if you were in total control of his life what would his life be like?”

Snake: “He would admit that he doesn’t need other people or anything outside of me. I am looking for total control.”

Interviewer: “Then you don’t really have John’s best interest at heart, do you?”

Snake: “I don’t understand the question.”

The key to this exercise is to remember that the voice of the snake or the “it” is not you. It is an entity in and of itself. It isn’t speaking in your behalf or in your best interest. Always question what you consider to be your own thinking.  

What was this exercise like for you? Please record your response here.

After coming face-to-face with the “it” in the previous exercise, it is now time to say goodbye in written form. I’m asking you to write a good bye letter to your “it.” Now that you see “it” as separate from who you really are, you will find the following exercise powerful and freeing from your negative past. There is no right or wrong way to do this exercise. In thinking about writing the letter you might consider that the “it” started out as and felt like a trusted friend. “It” helped you get through some tough times in your life by keeping your secrets and giving you a false sense of security and never judging any of your behaviors as bad or wrong. “It” may have stepped in and handled a difficult situation or two for you. With sincere thanks you might express some appreciation just as you would to any friend who has become a part of your life.

The main part of the letter is to look at how destructive  “it” has become and what you have lost by letting “it” become such a part of your life. List all the consequences, such as broken trust, destroyed relationships, financial loss, embarrassment, etc. Add these to your letter as you explain to your “it” why it is time for you to say goodbye. At this point in your letter, I encourage you to really feel the emotion of letting go. It is hard to say goodbye to a friend even when the relationship has been more negative than positive. I encourage you to be forceful. You will need to tell “it” in no uncertain terms that this is the end. Most of those who have success with this exercise have really gotten angry with ”it” in the end. For help refer to the sample letter to the “it” in the appendix.

Now we are going to go to one of the most effective tools we have to killing the “it.” This is the “Giving Up the “it” To Gain The Me” worksheet. To do this lets go through one together and see how it works.

Giving Up The “it” To Gain The Me

With every circumstance in your life you have a choice as to which voice you listen to.

(Please list an event from you distant or recent past which created trauma, anxiety or irritation in your life. It can be a great tragedy down to a small irritation.)

1. 1.     Event: _I can’t make my house payment.  
2. 2.     Emotions: Fear, frustration anger, etc.
3. 3.     What does the “it” say about the situation? (This is a most important part; it requires the most work and attention.  Consciously notice the thoughts flowing through your mind.  You are never going to make it. The economy is a disaster. There is no way to turn this around. You are going to end up in a bad place.
4. 4.     Resulting Behavior: (What behavior do you see coming out of these thoughts and emotions generated by the “it’?) Withdrawal, worry, chaotic thinking, unclear decision making, worry, fret anxiety, loss of focus, forgetfulness.
5. 5.     What are the thoughts coming from the Me: You are capable. You have survived hard times before. You are creative, strong and energetic. There is always an answer or a solution.
6. 6.     Which thoughts are true?  Whichever ones I choose to declare as a real possibility.
7. 7.     Which thoughts take me where I want to go, the “it” or the Me? The Me. 

We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States; that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.

Feel the power of that statement, while realizing that his statement was created in word without the slightest evidence that it was even possible. As it was stated, read and reread, look at the outcome it took us too. How many times do you think the “it” tried to convince the original framer of this document how foolish they were?

Now how does that feel?   

Giving Up The “it” To Gain The Me

With every circumstance in your life you have a choice as to which voice you listen to. (Please list an event from you distant or recent past which created trauma, anxiety or irritation in your life. It can be a great tragedy down to a small irritation.)

1. Event: _______________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________________

The Emotional and Physiological Point of View

In the previous section we took at look at the “it” voice from a spiritual point of view. Here we are looking at misperceptions from an emotional and physiological view point.

Down at the base of our brain we each have a net like structure of cells called the Reticular Activating System or the Reticular Formation. The net work referred to as the RAS works like a screen or a net. The RAS screens input from the outside allowing us to focus on the things that are important to us. It has been said that an autistic child has a malfunction of the reticular activating system and to a child with autism the world is like listening to 32 radio stations at the same time.  A fly buzzing in the room would demand as much attention as a conversation with another human being.

The RAS then allows us to focus on those things that are or become important and screen out those things that we may consider to be irrelevant. Just take moment to listen intently to the background noise of your current environment. You might here the noise of traffic, people talking in the distance, the ticking of a clock or the hum of a computer. Without the RAS all of these sounds and any smells or flashes of light would be screaming at you with a loud roar.

Take for example a young could who moves into a condominium alongside a busy freeway. The only thing separating the couple from the noise of the freeway is a thin wooden fence. For the first two weeks in their new apartment they have a very difficult time sleeping because of the noise of the traffic. But after the first two weeks the RAS will effectively screen out the traffic noise because it is insignificant. About a year and a half later they bring home a new baby. During the night and amidst the noise of the traffic the baby gives a whimper. What does momma do? That is right. She pops up because the sound of the baby is very important to her. She is still oblivious to the roar of the road outside but the sound of that baby is her top priority and it will not get past her, but what about dad? He will sleep right the traffic and the baby noise unless he accepts responsibility for the baby during the night. We always become aware of those things we accept responsibility for or for things we believe or deem to be important.

 This screening mechanism can work for us or against us. Once we have a belief system in place the RAS will shift and make the world appear the way we think it is. If we believe someone or something is evil or bad that is the way that person or circumstance will show up. If we believe we are in love the RAS will screen all of the negative characteristic of our love object that might otherwise be good for us to be aware of. I have talked with hundreds of men and woman who were in love with someone not good for their health but they just couldn’t seem to see the danger.

When I was growing up my father was a Dodge dealer in a small Eastern Utah community. I developed a firm belief that all good people drove Dodges. It was difficult for anyone who drove a Ford or Chevy to have any redeeming qualities at all from my point of view. When the man who was supposed to be my religious leader showed up driving a Mercury station wagon I had a very difficult time giving any credibility to anything he said. Much of the time we say, “I’ll believe it when I see it” when what we should be saying is, “When I believe it, I will see it.”

The RAS then assists us in forming Scotomas or perceptual blind spots that keep us from seeing the world the way it really is. A blind spot is a place in a perceptual field in which vision or awareness is absent or deficient.  This assists the “it” in deceiving us about what is really real. We are very easily deceived about reality. Blind spots form because we think we “already know that information” creating distorted conclusions. The RAS then creates a filter through which our previous experiences screen all things which are going on in the present moment. I conclude then what happened in the past is just like what is happening now and in the future and that is not true at all. 

For a fun demonstration of how the RAS works try the following exercise. 

How many times do you see the letter “F” in this sentence? Write the number here_______. Most people come up with 3. Now go back and could how many times you see a little two letter word beginning with “o” and see if you get a different count. 

What do you see? Left to right you might get a duck or a strange looking bird of some kind. Right to left you get something else. Try making the back of the head the nose and what was the beak a pair of ears. How you look at it make all the difference in the world.

                                                         Drama Triangle

Anyone who has ever watched a day time TV soap opera should be able to recognize the Drama Triangle. The three corners of the triangle are the three roles played out in every episode. There is the victim or the pretty young thing who is being abused by the persecutor and ends up being saved by the rescuer. You may have noticed that when playing out the drama nothing ever really changes. You can watch the drams for a year, turn it off for a year and when you turn it back on the same three roles are still being played but this time by different people.

It may be a blind spot if:

By definition, a scotoma or blind spot is something we can not see.  So, how do we spot it if we can not see it?  Here are a few tips:

• If you find yourself in the Drama Triangle where you see yourself as a victim, persecutor or rescuer, inferior to, superior to, or more or less than anyone) you may be in a blind spot. Hint: seeing yourself and others as “Nothing” is the position of power because it removes all faulty judgments. 
• If you feel Doubt, Fear or Anxiety, you may be in a blind spot.
• If you hear yourself say, “I all ready know that…” you may be in a blind spot.
• If you think it’s your job to council God, you may be in a blind spot.
• If you think you need something you do not have, you may be in a blind spot.
• What are some other ways you may know you are in a blind spot?

So what do I do? 

When you pay attention and listen with purpose the ever present chatter of the sounds in your head cannot distract you. Look at anything or anyone who causes you pain. Explore how you see that irritation.

It is more accurate to assume you know nothing so your mind can be open to new possibilities.  I am asking you to suspend your judgment because your judgment is distorting your perception of everything.  Suspend the filters. Assume you know nothing and keep asking questions.  Stay in the present moment by asking questions such as, “Is pain my enemy or my teacher?”

Recognize the “flags” where you may have a perceptual blind spot.  How do they create perceptual problems for you?  Come back ready to tell about two or three perceptual blind spots you have noticed this week.

¹Zaffron, S., Logan D. The Three Laws Of Performance San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2009.

²Tolle, E. The Power Of Now Novato, California: New World Library, 1997.

³ Lewis, C. S. The Screwtape Letters London: Harper Collins Publishers, 1942.

You are an excellent person. The potential of your possibilities are now endless. You have rediscovered those possibilities. As you share that rediscovery of possibilities it will be tangible in the real world as you share those possibilities with other people.  

Through your participation in this program you have accomplished the following:

1. You have gained the tools to eliminate your own self-destructive behaviors.
2. Your ability to produce results in your life has taken off.
3. Your power to contribute to life has become amazing even to you.
4. Your relationship with other people has improved dramatically.
5. You have become an inter-dependent team member with the ability to influence your surrounding communities in a dramatic way. 

The continued manifestation of these accomplishments is dependent upon the sustained focus on the primary goal of building excellent people. The change of behavior or the production of improved skills is only a byproduct of that primary goal. This project is designed, and has demonstrated in action, that when great individuals come to realize their innate greatness they then transform themselves, their communities, their organizations and the world in which they live.

The following model has been developed as a guideline to this individual, community and organizational development project.

Seven Levels Of Leadership

The theory behind this model is that the leader or COMMUNITY organizer has a clear vision of the end result and begins the project with the end in mind that being the transformation of the vision of the followers into equals or peers. The Phase I followers begin as naïve dependents externally motivated by the leader for the development of that vision much like a parent and a young and innocent child. At level 1 the leader must insist upon complete obedience to the tenets or rules of the organization. Creative thinking on the part of the followers at this stage is not useful. Deviation from the plan would result in slowed progress or the complete halting of the progress. The first step in building people into leaders is to help them govern themselves or self leadership. In the model the leadership style is described in Levels. The followership style is described in Phases.  

The followers at Phase I generally have a notion that they know it all and need no direction and if left to their own devices will end up in a mess. Phase II begin to recognize the wisdom and experience of the leader and demonstrate a dependence on that leadership. They become more willing use compliance with the rules of self control. With the followers at Phase II the leader is able, and finds it indeed essential, to loosen up and become more benevolent in attitude and approach. The leader is always free to back up a step if the vision of the followers regresses. When the followers develop a good grasp of the fundamental tasks at hand and begin to recognize their ability to take direction and achieve improved  results, the leader then is required to move to level 3 and become a protector of the progress of the organization and a modeler of the rules. Standards are set, group comparisons are made and the performance of the followers is brought closer to the standard of excellence.

The leadership style continues to evolve as the followers become more skilled at their tasks or duties. A higher skill level brings the followers to a new level of creative inquiry. The level 5 leader is no longer making all of the decisions but is encouraging the followers to ask questions, think for themselves and propose solutions for the progress of the organization. Again using the parent-child model the child asks, “What should I do for a living?” The wise parent responds, “You figure it out and then I will help you get there.”

At Phase III the followers have figured out their own plan for progress and come to the leader with that plan. They begin to see themselves as competent. They don’t come to the leader for decision but for guidance. The leader then becomes the servant leader and helps the follower get the bureaucracy out of the way so the follower’s plan can be implemented. The followers accept stewardship responsibility and their own planned project with the help and support the leader and the entire organization. At this point either the leader or the followers could lead the project because they have become one among equals.

The leader and followers have now achieved level 7 or peer visionaries and Phase IV Interdependence. Both leaders and followers are now ready to begin again with a new group of beginning peer visionaries. This model then is an effective illustration of the means to transform an individual, a family, an organization, a community and the world. The first part of this training was about you. The next part is about relating to other people. We have 4 session of support to assist you in moving to Phase IV and level 7.

1. Listening to understand
2. Speaking to motivate
3. Creating a new future with acknowledgement
4. The language of shared vision

Let us begin that process together.

The Nature of Transformation

Thinking of myself while trying to change me, is pointless. Changing me requires something outside of me. That something is always present in the form of other people in my community. We have been saying that we are free to choose the meaning of any event in our lives. Actually, real change comes at a deeper level. That level is at the level of how am I being towards other people and/or my community? When I choose to see people as real and having needs as real as my own I am being real. I have not only changed myself, I have changed my response to the event, and I have recreated the event itself. The same is true of my community. I can choose my response to my community but at a deeper level the way I be see my community is the way it will show up in my life. Feeling care and compassion, I have recovered my sense of what others need. I see things I can do, things I should do and things I must do. The responsive way of being always entails taking action in the service of others, otherwise who I am is just a theory. If I feel what I should do and betray it, I am deceiving myself. When I feel what I should do and do it, I am being who I really am. This is how I can recreate community. By being real, I am no longer stuck in the drama triangle.

The Drama Triangle

The Choice

Freud noticed that people often are blind to their actual motivations and fail to understand their influence on others. He also noticed that this blindness seems willful. That is, to the outside observer, it appears that people systematically create their own obstacles to well-being—without knowing they are creating them—and then resist any attempts to overcome those obstacles. This creates a paradox. How can one who is blind to the trouble he has created see and resist so perfectly any attempts to correct that trouble? Modern psychology began as an attempt to explain this paradox, a paradox that has become known as “self-deception.”¹

 Principles vs. Standards

In our lives we get caught between standards and principles. Standards keep use mired in this self-deception. A standard is a rule I use to dictate how I want to be treated by other people. Living by my standards puts the center of my control outside myself thus making me a victim of my circumstances, and then I blame my circumstances for my misery.

Faulty core beliefs are the core of our self-defeating behaviors and our self-deception. During the time I participated in a 12 step recovery program I had the opportunity to do a step 4 which is, “a deep searching, written moral inventory of one’s life. The purpose of that step is to look in all the dark corners of your life to discover ideas or concepts that may be at the core of your faulty thinking. During the process of putting this 32 page document in writing I came across a standard I had set up to dictate the way I wanted other people to treat me. The standard was, “I would be happy if all the people in my circle of influence treated with dignity, respect and unconditional positive regard. Quoting Garrison Keeler, I didn’t want people just to say nice speech,” I wanted them to say as they lifted their faces from the carpet, “On great and learned one, we are honored by your presence. Thank you ever so much for shedding your brilliant light upon us and blessing our lives with your great wisdom and knowledge.” This is a little exaggerated but I could really identify with it when I heard him say it. Simply said my standard was, “If those around me are worshipping me I would be happy.”²

The problem with living our lives by false standards puts the center of control of our lives outside ourselves and creates a context of frustration and anger we get stuck with. The 2% of the time that this standard may be in effect I felt like a king but the other 98% of the time I am just frustrated and angry.

          One night after attending a training seminar I was driving my wife home in her car. As I stopped in the driveway of the parking lot to put on my seat belt I happened to be in the path of an automatic sprinkler. My wife was trying to salvage her recent was job and said, “I would appreciate it if you didn’t get canal water on my car.” She just violated my standard. She was not worshipping me. My anger ignited and my sarcasm flowed out. “Well then when we get home I will lick it off.”

          The following exercise is designed to help you uncover the depth of a core belief that may be the source of much of the frustration in your life.  To discover your own faulty standard for happiness ask yourself the following questions:

1. What is the key to my happiness? What would it take to make me truly happy?
2. I would be happy if_________________________________________

_________________________________________________________.

1. What is missing in my life the presence of which would make me truly happy?___________________________________________________.
2. What situations push my buttons and make me angry? ____________ __________________________________________________________.
3. Write your standard here. ____________________________________ _________________________________________________________.
4. What is there about this standard that is and might continue to cause you trouble? ___________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________.

Life becomes better when we switch from standards to principles. I principle is a rule I use to dictate how I will treat other people thus giving me back the control of my life. My new principle might be, “I will treat everyone I meet with dignity and respect no matter what.”

Please record what your new principle might be. ­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­___________________________ __________________________________________________________________

Stated as a mission or possibility statement: Recognizing that all behavior makes sense in the context in which it occurs, I am creating the possibility for myself and my life the possibility of being an effective listener in each of my associations with other people, thereby being a positive influence to assist in transforming their speaking to a new language that will make a significant difference in helping them achieve that which is most important in their lives.

Write principle here as a possibility statement.

__________________________________________________________________

¹The Arbinger Institute, The Choice. The Arbinger Institute. Salt Lake City, Utah, 1998.

²Keoller, Garrison, Lake Wobegon Days.  Viking Penguin Books New York, 1986.

Report On Assignment

Objective: By the end of this session you will understand the effect your perception of others has on the treatment you receive from others in your communities. Using the tools learned in this session will accept the assignment to bring peace into an existing relationship where contention has previously existed. 

Using tool 3 we separated events in our lives from the meaning we assigned to them. The events happened and are real. The meaning we assigned is individually made up and arbitrary. The meaning we assign will most generally determine the mood and the behavior we exhibit in each situation. This is the same in our relationships with other people.

After a lifetime of experience the view we have of people who are close to us is determined by our experience of them.  Once the perception is formed we teach other people how to relate to us based upon our view of them. Once we have that view we send out vibrations which return our misperceptions back to us as reality.

One of the most important practices for letting go of the past is forgiveness. When I continue to resent myself or someone from my past I continue to be a living breathing crap magnet. To turn lose of the crap I need to let go of the grudges. Sometimes the person you most need to forgive is yourself.

       Picture of conflict:                            Picture of harmony:

Do you see your parents, spouse or children as a hindrance or as responsible to your happiness? Do your see others as irrelevant or unimportant to you?  Take a few minutes and fill in the boxes below like we did using Tool 3. 

In the box on the left list the name of a significant individual in your life who causes you pain or whom you feel at odds with at the present time. In the box on the right, write down your perception of this individual.

Again in the box on the left, list the name of a significant person who you love, enjoy and appreciate. In the box on the right, record your perception of this person. 

 
          One Christmas not long ago I went into a pawn shop to get a body for my old camera. A short, stocky Hispanic woman stood behind the counter and looked like she had had a hard day. I pointed to a camera and asked her to get it down for me. She did so very quickly and efficiently. Wanting to make a comparison I asked for a second camera from the self. She very curtly replied, “Only one to a customer, sir.” Reacting to what I considered to be very rude behavior I turned and walked out. As I drove down the road I felt myself gripping the steering wheel very tightly while growling to myself about the poor treatment I have received. I suddenly realized that I was in was at war with someone I didn’t even know. I was seeing this store clerk as an obstacle. When I was able rethink my perception and ask myself the question, “What must be going on in her life to cause her to treat a perfect stranger the way she just treated me?” As I moved towards seeing this woman as having wants and needs as real and my own I considered the possibility of some things that might be going on in her life. Maybe past customers had stolen from her. Maybe someone was kicking her dog or maybe someone was kicking her. When I thought about her and her life and the things that may be occurring that I obviously didn’t understand my compassion for her showed up and my anger dissipated very rapidly. 

How does your view of these individuals affect the way you relate to them? If you changed the way you saw each of them how would that change the way you related to them? What if your perception of each of them were reversed?

          Think about the significant relationships in your life past and present. Rate them on a scale of 1 through 10.  ____________ (If the relationship is a 10 it is as good as it can be. A one is at the bottom of the heap.)

Pick one that you rated below a 5. Think about that person and write down what you could do to change the relationship when you change your perception. Now go out and do it.

The view that someone is an obstacle, a vehicle to our happiness or irrelevant gives us an excuse to act contrary to what we know to be right and then seek to justification our behavior by changing our self view and feel the betrayal in anger and anxiety.

If in the present we see others as INDIVIDUALS with hopes, needs, and cares as real to us as our own it allows us to get past our self betrayal and treat others with dignity and respect. The painful behavior they may have exhibited towards us was only coming out of their own stories and misperception of their own true identity. This leaves us with the opportunity to take action and do the next right thing because of who we are and because of who they are.

Assignment:

Between now and our next session pick at least one damaged relationship in your life, contact that person and do and say what you need to do and say to attempt to bring peace to that relationship.  

Healing Relationships and Understanding Forgiveness

                                       Forgiveness is a private matter.

To forgive someone:

1.  I do not need their permission.
2. They do not need to deserve my forgiveness.
3. I do not need to tell them they are forgiven.
4. To avoid forgiving is like drinking poison hoping someone else will die.

In healing a relationship often the concept of forgiveness is relevant. To help us out it is suggested that we love our enemies as we love ourselves. Three basic questions are asked about self love and then applied to our enemies as well.

Self-forgiveness and the process of demotivation.

When I was completing my PhD I took a class in labor negotiations. The teacher for this class had been a corporate executive somewhere out in the Midwest. He described his unofficial job title as “The Corporate Hatchet Man.” He worked for an organization which had a very strong union making if difficult to fire people. My teacher’s job, as he described it, was to focus on an individual who had been marked for dismissal and get them to quit. The method he used he referred to as “The Process Of Demotivation.” The process of demotivation contained 5 steps which are listed below. I will take some time here and describe each of these steps.

1. Creation of conflict
2. Self Directed anger
3. Loss of Hope
4. Depression or Rebellion
5. Self Destruction
6. Creation of conflict. Conflict is created by calling someone’s competence into question. Each of you, I am sure, has had that experience. When someone of power or influence in your life like a superior, spouse or respected individual tells you you are less than perfect. That criticism immediately causes you to begin to question or doubt yourself. When a marked individual would go to the demotivator for suggestions he would say, “There is no point in giving you a suggestion because you are a loser and everyone here knows it. This treatment wove cause the victim to move to the next step.
7. Self directed anger.  At this point the marked individual would begin to question their own competence and doubt their own abilities. Again in trying to work it out with the demotivation who is out to destroy the victim he would say, “Give it up. You are never going to baking any progress here.” This would case the victim to move to the next step.
8. Loss of hope: At this point the identified victim gives up all hope of ever making a contribution or being recognized as competent on the job. As my teaching said, “We can live without a lot of things including love, but we cannot live without hope. Loss of hope leads to,
9. Depression or rebellion: Either of these two attitudes would be described by the demotivator as unacceptable which would take the victim to the last step:
10. Self destruction: Self destruction would take the form of quitting the job, getting drunk, driving one’s car into a tree, cutting the wrist or anything that could be done to get the victim away from the demotivator. According to my teacher the process of demotivaion never failed. It worked every time. He never started out to demotivate someone that didn’t become demotivated. Has this ever happened to you?

Remember to continue the Wax On, Wax Off exercise by continually affirming your own competence and the competence of others. You are now a people builder.

Objective: At the end of this session you will understand the root cause of your self-defeating behavior, recognize the ability to stop the cycle by disappearing the triggers and making another choice by bringing into your life the things that you want.  Each participant will share what they have learned with at least two other people and return and report their experience at the next session.

You will fill out one more “Change your thoughts and your life” worksheet.

Lets Review …

Go back to Lesson 1, what was the Self Defeating Behavior you decided to work on? _____________________________________________________

Distinguish between positive thinking and possibility thinking.

_____________________________________________________________

Continue by filling out the following “Self – Creating Possibilities Chart”.

Now that your thoughts are being distinguished and intentional thoughts are being processed, the process of change has been identified and your behaviors are being modified, what is now possible for you? _____________________________________________________________

_____________________________________________________________

Assignment:  Post the possibilities chart somewhere you will see it daily and review it often (Ex: Bathroom mirror, beside your bed, in your office, etc.) as a reminder of who you are creating yourself to be.  Make it a living document that may expand over time.  Write in new ideas and empowering thoughts as you find them.  Create a possibility statement. (Example: I am the possibility of a caring, creative channel of universal energy.)

Self-Creating Possibility Chart

1. 1.      The truth about me is … Blank Canvas, Nothing, Brand New  
2. 2.      I accept experiences as having no meaning; I distinguish what happened from the meanings I created about what happened. 
3. 3.      My intentional & empowering self thoughts about that are … 
4. 4.      An active description I use to clear my thoughts and remind myself of who I choose to be is … Ex: I am happy, I am peaceful, etc.
5. 5.      I express myself and my life powerfully by …
6. 6.      The Productive Behaviors I exhibit are …
7. 7.      How this contributes back to my community is …

Seven Levels Of Leadership

The only real way to transform a family, an organization or a community is to transform the individuals within that community. Once transformed, it becomes the goal, the responsibility and the great passion of these transformed individuals to collectively facilitate the transformation of others in that community. The ultimate purpose of this project is to create a community of peer visionaries who will share these concepts in an ever expanding circle of influence. Now that you have eliminated your own negative behaviors and thinking patterns or have the tools to complete and maintain the process, what possibilities exist for you to impact the communities in which you live individually or as a group?  

Who do you know individually who could benefit from this material? Who can I share these ideas with?  ____________________________________________________

What community, group or organization do you know who could benefit from the team building material presented here? This group may be your own family.

____________________________________________________

Change Your Thoughts and Your Life worksheet

The following worksheet will assist you to stay “in the present moment”.  You may use the process anytime, but especially use it in situations you feel particularly depressed or anxious about right now. 

1. Event:  ________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Objective: By the end of this session you will understand how to bring about permanent and lasting change by giving up the past and living in the now.  You will learn to stay present with thoughts and actions to create a future you choose, not by allowing it to happen by default.  You will complete another “Change your thoughts; change your life worksheet.”

The Ideal Future Demoralized Cycle.

List some times in your life when you thought “Things will get better when”:  Ex: “When I graduate from high school then__________.”                      “When I get married then_____.”                                             “When I get the divorce, then things will improve.”

________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Did the thought process “________ will get better when ________” bring you what you thought you would get?  

The transformation process can only happen now in the present moment by declaration. When ever you put something off into the future you allow yourself to create inactivity in your life.  This means, by default, your future will be just like your past.  Nothing will happen to change anything. The time to act is now. This moment is the gateway to all moments. You are who you are, now, and now is the time to act. There is a difference between talking for something and talking about something. Talking about something like a radio announcer talking about what is happening. Talking for something is like being in the game making it happen. “Did you see what happened?” “I am making it happen now.”

Access to power in the present moment.

Access to real power is rendering the past meaningless. I can do that by declaring, “Today the world is exactly the way it should be. I accept my bank account exactly the way it is. I give up needing anything to be different than it is. Everything in my past is perfect and complete. (If it isn’t do what you need to do to make it that way. Refer to the article on completing the past in the appendix.) I accept myself exactly the way I am. I accept everyone I meet exactly the way they are, as perfect whole and complete. I recognize that I am free to choose liberty and eternal life and today I exercise my right to make that choice. I am totally liberated now.”

Depression and anxiety are reactions to whatever triggers us. It is unawareness, or unintentionally being lost in thought about what is happening that we don’t like or getting caught in the negative voice.  Much of our depression and anxiety come from worrying about the past or being anxious about the future. When we shift our awareness from the past or future to our purpose in the present moment – without judgment – accepting things as they are, the negative emotions cannot survive.  

Mindfulness – awareness, consciously and intentionally paying attention to things as they actually are, in any given moment, rather than idealizing them as we want them to be.

Peace can exist only in the present moment. It is ridiculous to say, “Wait until I finish this, then I will be free to live in peace.”  If you think that way, peace will never come because there is always another “this” following the present one. If you are not creating peace at this moment, then your default future will take over and inevitably you will not be at peace; there will only be what you all ready have: the hope of peace – some day. 

If you want to be at peace, be at peace now by declaring it!  Even a little bit of mindfulness, brought to a single moment, can break the unhappy chain of events and lead to persistent happiness.

One of the most effective ways to disengage from the negative thoughts is to become fully absorbed in the present moment. You can practice this by taking any routine activity that normally is only a means to an end and give it your fullest attention so that it becomes an end in itself. For example, every time you walk up and down the stairs in your house or place of work, pay close attention to every step, every movement, even your breathing. Be totally present. Or when you wash your hand, pay attention to the sense perceptions associated with the activity, the sound and feel of the water, the movement of your hands, the smell of the soap and so on. When get into your car, after closing the door, pause for a few moments and become aware of your breathing and your heart rate. The is one certain criterion by which you can measure your success in this practice: The degree of peach that you feel within.

Before starting our present moment activity find a rasin or a grape of any piece of small fruit. We will do this exercise describing a raisin but any people of small fruit will do. Next rate you current anxiety level on a scale of 1 to 10, 10 being high anxiety and 1 being the low end of the scale. ___________. 

1. Hold the raisin in the palm of your hand or between your fingers and your thumb.
2. Focus on it. Imagine you’ve just dropped in from another planet and have never experienced an object like this before.
3. Take some time to really see it. Gaze at the raisin with care and full attention.
4. Let your eyes explore every part of it, examining the highlights, darker hollows, the folds and ridges, and any asymmetries or unique features.
5. Turn the raisin over between your fingers, exploring its texture, maybe with your eyes closed if this enhances your sense of touch.
6. Hold the raisin beneath your nose. With each inhalation, drink in the smell, aroma, or fragrance that may arise. Notice as you do this anything interesting that may be happening in your mouth or stomach.
7. Now slowly bring the raisin up to your lips. Notice how your hand and arm know exactly how and where to position it. Gently place the object in your mouth. Without chewing, notice how it gets into the mouth without you thinking about it. Spend a few moments exploring the sensations of having it in your mouth, examining it with your tongue.
8. When you are ready, prepare to chew the raisin, noticing how and where it needs to be for chewing. Consciously take one or two bites.
9. Notice the waves of the taste sensation as they pulsate through your mouth as you continue to chew.

10.  Without swallowing yet, notice the sensations of taste and texture in the mouth and how these may change over time, moment by moment, as well as any changes in the object itself.

11.  When you feel ready to swallow see if you can first detect the intention to swallow as it comes along.

12.  Experience this sensation consciously before you actually swallow the raisin.

13.  Finally, see if you can feel what is left of the raisin moving down into your stomach, and sense how the body as a whole is feeling after completing this exercise in mindful eating.

 After the exercise: What did you discover?  Take a few moments to write down anything that you noticed about the raisin and the process of eating it that you may not have been aware of before.  ______________________________ ________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

What is your depression and anxiety level now?  _____________.                   Is there is any change in your feeling level? 

Now that you are aware of “mindful thinking”, defined as “intentionally paying attention to things as they actually are in the present moment, however they are, rather than as we want them to be”, contrast that to a mere reaction to whatever triggers us.  This is defined as unawareness, or being lost in thought about what is happening that we fantasize about or do not like.

Now that you are aware of “mindful thinking”, defined as “intentionally paying attention to things as they actually are in the present moment, however they are, rather than as we want them to be”, contrast that to a mere reaction to whatever triggers us.  This is defined as unawareness, or being lost in thought about what is happening that we fantasize about or do not like.

Unawareness – being lost in thought, not aware of what is occurring in the present.  Reacting to triggers, carelessly unmindful, inattentive.

Assignment #1:

Continue to use the following worksheet to identify and change your thoughts in the present moment and watch your negative moods improve:

Change Your Thoughts and Your Life worksheet

The following worksheet will assist you to stay “in the present moment”.  You may use the process anytime, but especially use it in situations you feel particularly depressed or anxious about right now. 

1. Event:  ___________________________________________________________________________ ___________________________________________________________________________

Are there any changes in your self-defeating behavior? Go back to page 2 in the workbook and look at the Self-defeating behavior you listed. Are there any changes that have come out of your new ways of thinking?  Write down any differences you notice. _________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Assignment # 3:

Continue the mental blessing and the “I am________ (Happy).” Spend at least 15 minutes a day affirming your own competence and thinking possibility thoughts. No thought exists in your head rent free. Negative thoughts cost you greatly and power thoughts pay you dividends. Our minds are tools that we can choose to use any way we wish. The thoughts you choose to think create the experiences you have. I you believe that it is hard or difficult to change a habit or a thought, then your choice of this thought will make it true for you. If you would choose to think, “It is becoming easier for me to make changes,” then your choice of these thoughts will make that true for you.

On Wax, Wax Off

In the movie, Karate Kid, Mr. Maagi agrees to teach Daniel Laruso who to become proficient in the art of self defense. He gives him a bucket and a sponge and a can of car wax with the assignment to wash and wax about six cars in sitting in the yard. The teacher gives his student some specific instruction on the circular movement of his hands while he is performing this task. He says, “Wax on with the right hand circling clockwise. Wax off with the left hand circling counter clockwise. Breath in thought the noise and out though the mouth.” Daniel takes on the task or the exercise and after several hours these movements and the breathing have become automatic. He now makes the movement without thought. He has now become automatic in his ability to fend off the blows of his opponents with his circular hand movements.

I am asking you to practice just like Daniel Laruso. Every day for the next 21 days spend 15 minutes in practice with power thoughts. Make a list of those thoughts and repeat them over and over for the course of the practice.  Thoughts such as, “I am whole, strong, powerful, loving, harmonious and happy.” “I have a millionaire mind.” “I enjoy my mind and body.” “Other people love and accept me.” I love and accept other people.” These thoughts are only suggestions. Pick the thoughts that will work for you and change your life and watch them change your life. It’s OK to multi-task.