As we enter the Christmas season it becomes amazingly obvious how governed we are by the material world. Queues form outside shops as people learn that a certain 'must have' item is available inside in either limited supply or at an 'unbeatable price'. People treat each other with complete disregard as they try to buy the perfect gift for someone they 'care' about and mob mentality often ensues.
What is something worth? Beyond the physical components, the labor, the shipping and the sales fees, what is something really worth? Do you remember something that was 'necessary' from a few Christmases ago? Where is it now? As the novelty wears off either because the kids grew up or you grew up or the parts fell off or it is no longer in 'style', what is actually happening?
This world is created from the inside out. Look around the room you are in. Not a single thing in it existed before it first existed in the mind of a human being. Nothing existed before it was thought.
'Necessity' becomes idea, idea is considered until it becomes a concept which requires agreement in principle (either with yourself because you have to make it or with someone else because you have to get materials etc) which turns into creation. This is the same for a chair as it is for a PS3. The only difference is that I don't need to spend 50 million dollars convincing you that you NEED a chair.
Since the world is created from the inside out, what kind of world are you going to help create this Christmas? Memories will be made this year. They will be of families and friends; they will be of quiet conversations and parties bordering on total madness. Few will remember what they wore or even what they got, but everyone will remember who they were with. I'll attempt a quote here that I'll paraphrase because I can't even remember now where I heard it but it has always stuck with me.
"They may not remember what you said, they might not even remember what you did, but they will always remember how you made them feel"
...so before you go madly tearing into this holiday season with your credit card in you hand working yourself into a situation that you don't pay off until June, remember something...
I'm not certain who K is but I am certain that every kiss begins with love...
See ya next week.
Tuesday, November 30, 2010
Tuesday, November 23, 2010
Beliefs Part III
A very common mistake that many of you have been making when turning around beliefs is to involve others in your beliefs. This leads me to conclude that I simply have not been clear enough about something. The quality of your life has nothing to do with anyone else.
Even if right now, you find yourself in what feels like an impossible situation, I can assure you it has more to do with how you are looking at the situation than it does the situation itself. Please understand that in every situation you find intolerable, there is one common denominator: You. If you don’t like the situation one of your kids are in, if you have a sibling who is doing something you can’t understand, if your spouse or boss is continuously being unreasonable… the question is not what they are doing, it’s always how do you feel about it? There is nothing you cannot change it you are willing to pay the price. The question always becomes, are you willing to pay the price?
Now there are extremes people… I know that for example, if you are in an abusive relationship, you need to leave. I’m not asking you to stay there and reevaluate the way you are seeing things and it will get better. What I am saying is that, changing your beliefs must include you. Avoid the subtle traps, which include: Why is he/she like that to me (or my friend or my brother)? Which puts the emphasis on them to be nicer to you (or your friend or your sister). Understand that you cannot control someone else’ behavior, you can only influence your reaction. You can only influence your reaction if you are aware of your own feelings surrounding the situation. Watch in the space between their action and your reaction and choose freedom from emotional reaction. You won’t win 100% of the time at first, but starting out, it’s actually fun to realize how much of your life is in your own hands… see you next week
Tuesday, November 16, 2010
Beliefs Part II
Happy Tuesday,
Thanks once again. What a week. So many wonderful questions and interactions. I'm accumulating some amazing people here.
Many of my questions this week were technical. So, if someone knows how blogger works and wants to let me know how to tell people to sign up so they get notification of a post, I'd love to know. marxstuff@gmail.com
I thought I'd get specific with the mechanics of belief so that people could have something a little more concrete as a map for change. I think it was Einstein who said (and I'm paraphrasing) "Insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result".
Changing behavior without changing the underlying belief that causes the behavior is like medicating symptoms. Wouldn't you rather find out why you have a B12 deficiency and fix the 'why' as opposed to having to get in the car and drive to your Dr.'s office every week or month for the rest of your life and get a shot?
To go a little deeper on last week's example, if I believe that smoking makes me calm and I like being calm... why in the world would my body give that up, even if I can see the statistics staring me in the face that say smoking is killing me a little at a time?
Our beliefs are embedded and therefore can be uprooted on the basis of two fundamental factors. Emotion and priority. You see, being calm is deeply emotional. It doesn't even occur to me that I might be uptight because the nicotine is leaving my system from the last cigarette I had... I 'crave' calm. My emotional investment in calm takes priority. Calm is immediate. Death by cigarettes is way down the road...in fact, there's this one guy who lived to be 100 and he smoked every day...
I reverse this trend only when I change the belief. I use my conscious mind to affect change in my subconscious mind in 3 steps:
Step 1. Identify the emotional factor (connection) that ties you to the unwanted behavior. (For the sake of our example...smoking makes you calm)
Step 2. Create a new, opposite, emotional connection. (Smoking is extremely irritating, I will never feel calm as long as I smoke)
Step 3. Use my old priority to infuse great strength in my new 'conviction'. (I must be calm at all cost).
I use the power of my conscious mind to infuse the new 'belief' into the subconscious by being aware of the constant useless nattering and putting that to use. I take every spare moment I have to repeat to myself how irritating smoking is and how I love being calm. Sooner than you can imagine, you will never understand what you got out of smoking. When your subconscious mind begins to keep you safe, heaven and earth will move to make it so.
This can be used for any behavior...
If you're having trouble identifying the emotional connection in the behavior you want to change. Drop me an email.
Have a great week.
Thanks once again. What a week. So many wonderful questions and interactions. I'm accumulating some amazing people here.
Many of my questions this week were technical. So, if someone knows how blogger works and wants to let me know how to tell people to sign up so they get notification of a post, I'd love to know. marxstuff@gmail.com
I thought I'd get specific with the mechanics of belief so that people could have something a little more concrete as a map for change. I think it was Einstein who said (and I'm paraphrasing) "Insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result".
Changing behavior without changing the underlying belief that causes the behavior is like medicating symptoms. Wouldn't you rather find out why you have a B12 deficiency and fix the 'why' as opposed to having to get in the car and drive to your Dr.'s office every week or month for the rest of your life and get a shot?
To go a little deeper on last week's example, if I believe that smoking makes me calm and I like being calm... why in the world would my body give that up, even if I can see the statistics staring me in the face that say smoking is killing me a little at a time?
Our beliefs are embedded and therefore can be uprooted on the basis of two fundamental factors. Emotion and priority. You see, being calm is deeply emotional. It doesn't even occur to me that I might be uptight because the nicotine is leaving my system from the last cigarette I had... I 'crave' calm. My emotional investment in calm takes priority. Calm is immediate. Death by cigarettes is way down the road...in fact, there's this one guy who lived to be 100 and he smoked every day...
I reverse this trend only when I change the belief. I use my conscious mind to affect change in my subconscious mind in 3 steps:
Step 1. Identify the emotional factor (connection) that ties you to the unwanted behavior. (For the sake of our example...smoking makes you calm)
Step 2. Create a new, opposite, emotional connection. (Smoking is extremely irritating, I will never feel calm as long as I smoke)
Step 3. Use my old priority to infuse great strength in my new 'conviction'. (I must be calm at all cost).
I use the power of my conscious mind to infuse the new 'belief' into the subconscious by being aware of the constant useless nattering and putting that to use. I take every spare moment I have to repeat to myself how irritating smoking is and how I love being calm. Sooner than you can imagine, you will never understand what you got out of smoking. When your subconscious mind begins to keep you safe, heaven and earth will move to make it so.
This can be used for any behavior...
If you're having trouble identifying the emotional connection in the behavior you want to change. Drop me an email.
Have a great week.
Tuesday, November 9, 2010
Beliefs...
I hope you've had an excellent week. I certainly did. Let's jump right in shall we?
Beliefs and core values are what determine how you see the world. You may think it's the other way around but do you remember in an earlier blog when we talked about getting a new car and how 'all of a sudden' you saw the kind of car you wanted everywhere? Whether you realize it or not, you are doing that many times a minute, an hour, a day... The world only shapes your vision of things when you are too young to decide for yourself. Once you become 'self governing' you create the world as you want to see it, not as it could be. An example would be the whisper line we all did in school where someone whispers something to the first person in the line and by the time it gets to the end of the line (10 kids or so later) it is something completely different...according to the way each of us thinks, we leave out 'this' or put in 'that'. Those things shape our experience of the world.
When a core belief in your subconscious mind is: 'eating will cure my boredom' or 'They will laugh at me' or 'I am not special enough to do x', you act in ways that make these things true. When you act in ways that make these things true, you reinforce the 'truth' and fuel the belief. If you want to know what your core beliefs are, look at your life. Anywhere that you are not happy (not enough money, over weight, in the wrong job or relationship) you have a core belief blocking you that you need to fix.
Our freedom is in our understanding that these beliefs are not 'fixed'. They were put in your subconscious mind and they can be changed, rearranged or removed completely if you have the will. I'm sure you've heard by now that everything wonderful that happens in life, happens just outside your comfort zone. If you haven't heard that before, go back and read that sentence a couple of hundred times. The reason this is true is because you have an amazing internal system that wants to keep you safe. You stay 'safe' according to what you believe. So if you believe that a cigarette will calm you down (even though science proves the opposite and you know for a fact that every one is filled with poison) then quitting will be like climbing Mount Everest. Your body actually begins to 'keep you safe' by urging you to have a cigarette. I quit years ago and haven't given it a second thought. My beliefs on smoking are simple... I have none.
This week, find a belief you need to fix. Write it down on a piece of paper. Right next to it write down the opposite, but write it in positive language. Make sure it's a bite sized belief for now. We want to use measurable changes. Here's an example:
Core belief: People are annoying. New Belief: People are beautiful and I enjoy how different they can be.
Your only job then this week is to prove your new belief. Note that it could be food related, behavior related etc. Your body will work so hard at proving this if you 'believe it' with all your might that you will be startled. But know that you work in exact measure of strength of the belief. That's why some things really upset you (even though you don't know why) and others don't really matter...
Give it a shot...freedom is just right there... can you feel it?
Beliefs and core values are what determine how you see the world. You may think it's the other way around but do you remember in an earlier blog when we talked about getting a new car and how 'all of a sudden' you saw the kind of car you wanted everywhere? Whether you realize it or not, you are doing that many times a minute, an hour, a day... The world only shapes your vision of things when you are too young to decide for yourself. Once you become 'self governing' you create the world as you want to see it, not as it could be. An example would be the whisper line we all did in school where someone whispers something to the first person in the line and by the time it gets to the end of the line (10 kids or so later) it is something completely different...according to the way each of us thinks, we leave out 'this' or put in 'that'. Those things shape our experience of the world.
When a core belief in your subconscious mind is: 'eating will cure my boredom' or 'They will laugh at me' or 'I am not special enough to do x', you act in ways that make these things true. When you act in ways that make these things true, you reinforce the 'truth' and fuel the belief. If you want to know what your core beliefs are, look at your life. Anywhere that you are not happy (not enough money, over weight, in the wrong job or relationship) you have a core belief blocking you that you need to fix.
Our freedom is in our understanding that these beliefs are not 'fixed'. They were put in your subconscious mind and they can be changed, rearranged or removed completely if you have the will. I'm sure you've heard by now that everything wonderful that happens in life, happens just outside your comfort zone. If you haven't heard that before, go back and read that sentence a couple of hundred times. The reason this is true is because you have an amazing internal system that wants to keep you safe. You stay 'safe' according to what you believe. So if you believe that a cigarette will calm you down (even though science proves the opposite and you know for a fact that every one is filled with poison) then quitting will be like climbing Mount Everest. Your body actually begins to 'keep you safe' by urging you to have a cigarette. I quit years ago and haven't given it a second thought. My beliefs on smoking are simple... I have none.
This week, find a belief you need to fix. Write it down on a piece of paper. Right next to it write down the opposite, but write it in positive language. Make sure it's a bite sized belief for now. We want to use measurable changes. Here's an example:
Core belief: People are annoying. New Belief: People are beautiful and I enjoy how different they can be.
Your only job then this week is to prove your new belief. Note that it could be food related, behavior related etc. Your body will work so hard at proving this if you 'believe it' with all your might that you will be startled. But know that you work in exact measure of strength of the belief. That's why some things really upset you (even though you don't know why) and others don't really matter...
Give it a shot...freedom is just right there... can you feel it?
Tuesday, November 2, 2010
Love Part 3 (final)
Happy Tuesday,
I've had some remarkable interactions over the past week. Thank you to all of you who shared comments, sent links and thoughts. I 'love' it!
It's quite amazing how hard it is to stay on track when making change isn't it? Most of the comments I got were about forgetting to maintain the practice or having the mind wander so much during the 10 minutes that you forgot what you started trying to do. It's fantastic that you tried and for the few of you that had a breakthrough, congratulations. When you get the nerve to share the comments publicly we could all learn so much... but we're in no rush! I fully realize how personal this is.
The purpose of my sharing these practices with you was to introduce you to the way your mind does what it does. Many of you are all very aware of how the mind works but for those of you that aren't I'll offer this bit of info that might surprise you. We will do this in computer terms because everyone of you are using one at the moment so you at least know the basics.
Your conscious mind (you know, the voice that was nattering away while you tried to concentrate) processes 184 bits of information a second... a lot huh? Your subconscious mind (the place where all your 'beliefs' and such are stored) processes 2 million bits of information per second.
Conscious mind: Part of you that actively decide to 'do' something.
Subconscious mind: Part that does it.
For example, you type on your computer because you subconscious knows how to do what your fingers need to do after your conscious mind decides 'what to type'. In other words, the tons of little muscles in your fingers firing away 'seems automatic' but that's your subconscious mind dealing with every process (while healing you, beating your heart, breathing, growing your hair etc) 'after' your conscious mind decides what to do.
Just imagine what happens when your conscious mind decides it wants to do something and your subconscious mind goes...'no thanks'. 184 bits to 2,000,000 bits. Who wins?
That's why you know how to lose weight or simply eat better, you know how to stop smoking, you know that negative thoughts are useless and destructive and yet...you can't seem to do what's necessary.
Next week were going to talk about what to do fix this.... who's in?
I've had some remarkable interactions over the past week. Thank you to all of you who shared comments, sent links and thoughts. I 'love' it!
It's quite amazing how hard it is to stay on track when making change isn't it? Most of the comments I got were about forgetting to maintain the practice or having the mind wander so much during the 10 minutes that you forgot what you started trying to do. It's fantastic that you tried and for the few of you that had a breakthrough, congratulations. When you get the nerve to share the comments publicly we could all learn so much... but we're in no rush! I fully realize how personal this is.
The purpose of my sharing these practices with you was to introduce you to the way your mind does what it does. Many of you are all very aware of how the mind works but for those of you that aren't I'll offer this bit of info that might surprise you. We will do this in computer terms because everyone of you are using one at the moment so you at least know the basics.
Your conscious mind (you know, the voice that was nattering away while you tried to concentrate) processes 184 bits of information a second... a lot huh? Your subconscious mind (the place where all your 'beliefs' and such are stored) processes 2 million bits of information per second.
Conscious mind: Part of you that actively decide to 'do' something.
Subconscious mind: Part that does it.
For example, you type on your computer because you subconscious knows how to do what your fingers need to do after your conscious mind decides 'what to type'. In other words, the tons of little muscles in your fingers firing away 'seems automatic' but that's your subconscious mind dealing with every process (while healing you, beating your heart, breathing, growing your hair etc) 'after' your conscious mind decides what to do.
Just imagine what happens when your conscious mind decides it wants to do something and your subconscious mind goes...'no thanks'. 184 bits to 2,000,000 bits. Who wins?
That's why you know how to lose weight or simply eat better, you know how to stop smoking, you know that negative thoughts are useless and destructive and yet...you can't seem to do what's necessary.
Next week were going to talk about what to do fix this.... who's in?
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