Showing posts with label NLP. Show all posts
Showing posts with label NLP. Show all posts
Friday, May 07, 2010
Great examples of real hypnosis you can use
If you have ever wondered what hypnosis is really like, the Hypnosis World Summit is a terrific site, and you owe it to yourself to check it out. It's probably most useful for people who have no clue about what hypnosis is, but there are some real gems for experienced hypnotists. For one week, featured hypnotists from around the country talk about some of the things hypnosis can help with, and many include a microsession in their talks, so you can close your eyes and experience a sample hypnotic process. There are male and female hypnotists, fast and slow inductions, all sorts of processes, and the topics range from the common (e.g., losing weight, improving sports performance, & gaining confidence) to the more unusual. Two or three talks are presented each day; after that, they are removed from the site (although they are being compiled for release on disc). So far, I've been very impressed. I'm grateful to Tom Nicoli for putting this together.
Sunday, June 21, 2009
Perfectionism
Martha Cilley, the Flylady (author of Sink Reflections), teaches crazy-busy people to gain control of their cluttered homes. She says perfectionism is one of the biggest obstacles. If we can't do something in a way that meets our high standards, we put it off until we can do it right. But often, that time never seems to come, and the work piles up.
Cilley teaches baby steps. No matter where you are, you can do a little bit. You don't have to catch up. Just start where you are.
By chunking big jobs down into little steps, procrastination ceases and you start making progress. You get more done. And the more you do something, the better you get at it. The better you get, the faster the job goes. It's a "virtuous cycle." It's a great feeling.
Someone once said, "If at first you don't succeed, pick a smaller goal." My friend Lisa-Marie says, "Lower expectation, higher satisfaction."
Does this mean I shouldn't shoot for the stars? No way! Some goals are so big that to tackle them without breaking them into smaller chunks leads to frustration and discouragement. If I set mini-goals along the way and celebrate those achievements, I'm more likely to stay engaged and keep moving forward.
Cilley teaches baby steps. No matter where you are, you can do a little bit. You don't have to catch up. Just start where you are.
By chunking big jobs down into little steps, procrastination ceases and you start making progress. You get more done. And the more you do something, the better you get at it. The better you get, the faster the job goes. It's a "virtuous cycle." It's a great feeling.
Someone once said, "If at first you don't succeed, pick a smaller goal." My friend Lisa-Marie says, "Lower expectation, higher satisfaction."
Does this mean I shouldn't shoot for the stars? No way! Some goals are so big that to tackle them without breaking them into smaller chunks leads to frustration and discouragement. If I set mini-goals along the way and celebrate those achievements, I'm more likely to stay engaged and keep moving forward.
Sunday, May 24, 2009
Boo!
My sister and I were having dinner when she said, "Did you know the house we lived in was haunted?"
"The one on Hitchcock?" I asked.
"No, the one on Sierra Vista."
I laughed. That house was the stereotypical suburban 3-bedroom-2-kids-and-a-dog house with a spider plant in a macrame planter on the front porch. The creepiest thing I'd ever seen there were the Vincent Price movies I liked to watch on weekends. Haunted? Right.
"It was," she insisted. "Do you remember the remodel?"
My sister and I shared a bedroom until she was 7 or 8, and then my parents converted the playroom into her bedroom. I knew the playroom wasn't original to the house, but I don't remember it being added on.
My sister says remodeling increases paranormal activity. "The original owner was blind, and I used to see this man staggering around like he was drunk. He bumped into things because he didn't know where things were anymore. And he used to bumble into my room at night and grab my feet."
I stared at her. One night when I was about 10 or 11, I woke up screaming because someone had grabbed my feet. Hard. That experience became the mother of all nightmares - the one by which all others are measured. I've had some bad dreams in my life, but none but that one ever ended with the vivid physical sensation of being grabbed.
I told her about it. "But it was a dream," I said. "Mom told me it was just a bad dream."
"It wasn't," she said, delighted. "It was the ghost."
"But it never happened again," I said. "Just that one time."
"Did you believe her?"
I was silent. I hadn't, at first. But Mom kept repeating, "It was just a dream; go back to sleep." I argued tearfully, because I couldn't block out the memory of those hard hands clenched around my feet. It was so real. But mom said it was just a dream, the room was clearly empty, except for me, and the house was empty, except for my family. All the evidence pointed to "No one could have grabbed me." I decided dreams could be that vivid and seem that real.
My sister nodded, seeing the answer in my expression. "That's why it only happened once. You closed it out. That's probably why you've never had any paranormal experiences. You don't believe them and you don't want them."
In retrospect, I'm glad I closed out that particular belief: "Our house is haunted by a blind guy who wakes you up out of a sound sleep by grabbing your feet." Who needs that kind of thing when there's a math test in Mrs. Dunlop's class the next morning? Maybe I can attribute my good grades to good study habits, but maybe my good study habits were a result of being immune to spooky distractions!
My sister has always been sensitive to weird things, and I have typically been oblivious to them. But then, because of my copyediting experience, I can spot an italicized comma or a boldfaced period where most people can't. You find what you look for, and over time, you become more sensitive to certain types of information. Which means you notice it more often. Which means you're likely to believe there's more evidence for it than there actually is.
"The one on Hitchcock?" I asked.
"No, the one on Sierra Vista."
I laughed. That house was the stereotypical suburban 3-bedroom-2-kids-and-a-dog house with a spider plant in a macrame planter on the front porch. The creepiest thing I'd ever seen there were the Vincent Price movies I liked to watch on weekends. Haunted? Right.
"It was," she insisted. "Do you remember the remodel?"
My sister and I shared a bedroom until she was 7 or 8, and then my parents converted the playroom into her bedroom. I knew the playroom wasn't original to the house, but I don't remember it being added on.
My sister says remodeling increases paranormal activity. "The original owner was blind, and I used to see this man staggering around like he was drunk. He bumped into things because he didn't know where things were anymore. And he used to bumble into my room at night and grab my feet."
I stared at her. One night when I was about 10 or 11, I woke up screaming because someone had grabbed my feet. Hard. That experience became the mother of all nightmares - the one by which all others are measured. I've had some bad dreams in my life, but none but that one ever ended with the vivid physical sensation of being grabbed.
I told her about it. "But it was a dream," I said. "Mom told me it was just a bad dream."
"It wasn't," she said, delighted. "It was the ghost."
"But it never happened again," I said. "Just that one time."
"Did you believe her?"
I was silent. I hadn't, at first. But Mom kept repeating, "It was just a dream; go back to sleep." I argued tearfully, because I couldn't block out the memory of those hard hands clenched around my feet. It was so real. But mom said it was just a dream, the room was clearly empty, except for me, and the house was empty, except for my family. All the evidence pointed to "No one could have grabbed me." I decided dreams could be that vivid and seem that real.
My sister nodded, seeing the answer in my expression. "That's why it only happened once. You closed it out. That's probably why you've never had any paranormal experiences. You don't believe them and you don't want them."
In retrospect, I'm glad I closed out that particular belief: "Our house is haunted by a blind guy who wakes you up out of a sound sleep by grabbing your feet." Who needs that kind of thing when there's a math test in Mrs. Dunlop's class the next morning? Maybe I can attribute my good grades to good study habits, but maybe my good study habits were a result of being immune to spooky distractions!
My sister has always been sensitive to weird things, and I have typically been oblivious to them. But then, because of my copyediting experience, I can spot an italicized comma or a boldfaced period where most people can't. You find what you look for, and over time, you become more sensitive to certain types of information. Which means you notice it more often. Which means you're likely to believe there's more evidence for it than there actually is.
Sunday, May 10, 2009
Do it badly!
I once knew a sociologist who told me most innovations (scientific, creative, business) were made by people under age 30. What a sad statistic, I thought. Why? What happens to our brains as we age?
I think it's less about what happens to our brains and ore about what happens to our beliefs. As we get older, I think we tend to specialize. We get good at certain things and excel. We prize efficiency and become impatient with bumbling. Because trying new things means making mistakes, we try fewer new things. Most people don't like to make mistakes.
My dance teacher in Los Angeles, John Hertz, used to say, "Anything worth doing is worth doing badly." His words have resonated with me over the years. It took me five years of dancing once a month to learn to waltz without stepping on my own feet. I learned most from the better dancers: the ones who took the time to coach, and the ones who led by example and gave me something to strive for. I'm so grateful to the patient men who were willing to dance with a rank beginner. I know I slowed them down. My stumbling kept them from dancing at their highest level... at least, when they were dancing with me. But their examples inspire me to pass it on. When I'm paired with someone who doesn't have my experience, I remember their model of patience and kindness and do my best to come from that place.
As a rank beginner at dancing, my head sometimes filled with self-criticism. "I should be learning faster; I shouldn't be making those same mistakes by now; I should be more careful; I should concentrate more; I should relax more." At other times, I let go of the need to live up to anyone's expectations, and I found that place of persistence, curiosity, and experimentation that Richard Bandler describes as the attitude of a magician learning a trick: "That wasn't quite right; let me try it again."
Mistakes are part of learning. Good teachers support their students with patience and encouragement. Of course, there's also the challenge to improve, but correction is tempered by confidence in the student's ability. Where do we get the idea that we must do everything perfectly the first time, or if we don't get it right, we weren't meant to do it? That seems to me to be a discouraging approach.
I think it's less about what happens to our brains and ore about what happens to our beliefs. As we get older, I think we tend to specialize. We get good at certain things and excel. We prize efficiency and become impatient with bumbling. Because trying new things means making mistakes, we try fewer new things. Most people don't like to make mistakes.
My dance teacher in Los Angeles, John Hertz, used to say, "Anything worth doing is worth doing badly." His words have resonated with me over the years. It took me five years of dancing once a month to learn to waltz without stepping on my own feet. I learned most from the better dancers: the ones who took the time to coach, and the ones who led by example and gave me something to strive for. I'm so grateful to the patient men who were willing to dance with a rank beginner. I know I slowed them down. My stumbling kept them from dancing at their highest level... at least, when they were dancing with me. But their examples inspire me to pass it on. When I'm paired with someone who doesn't have my experience, I remember their model of patience and kindness and do my best to come from that place.
As a rank beginner at dancing, my head sometimes filled with self-criticism. "I should be learning faster; I shouldn't be making those same mistakes by now; I should be more careful; I should concentrate more; I should relax more." At other times, I let go of the need to live up to anyone's expectations, and I found that place of persistence, curiosity, and experimentation that Richard Bandler describes as the attitude of a magician learning a trick: "That wasn't quite right; let me try it again."
Mistakes are part of learning. Good teachers support their students with patience and encouragement. Of course, there's also the challenge to improve, but correction is tempered by confidence in the student's ability. Where do we get the idea that we must do everything perfectly the first time, or if we don't get it right, we weren't meant to do it? That seems to me to be a discouraging approach.
Sunday, April 19, 2009
Rewriting history
I went to the library recently to pick up some books on hold for my sweetie. Among them was The Mote in God's Eye, a first-contact novel by Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle. I sat reading in the car for a bit, to see if I'd like it. I couldn't remember reading a Niven/Pournelle novel. They tend to write hard science fiction, and while I love hard science, I generally like to get it in short nonfiction articles rather than book-length works, and I haven't often found hard sf captivating.
The first few chapters kept me going, but I never reached that level of absorption where time seems suspended. Mote was interesting, but not impossible to put down. Maybe there were more characters than I could track; maybe I had trouble conjuring a mental image of the aliens; maybe I tried too hard to puzzle out the backstory (which I hadn't read); perhaps I was feeling impatient for the payoff of what seemed to me an overlong setup. Maybe a combination. I got halfway through the book before resorting to the Web for a synopsis.
Once I read the synopsis and knew how the story turned out, I was eager to get back to the book and finish reading it. (And, having finished it, I'm looking forward to reading the sequel.)
This started me thinking about "spoilers," the cheat sheets of popular media. You can find spoiler pages for TV shows, movies, books, games, you name it. Sometimes I don't want to be "spoiled." I want to come to a work fresh and open. I want the suspense to last for as long as the author can draw it out. I want to take my time as it unfolds.
At other times, spoilers renew my interest when it starts to flag. And once I've read a book, or seen a movie, what then? Well, I've read Pride & Prejudice and Atlas Shrugged and War for the Oaks and The Beekeeper's Apprentice about a bazillion times each, and each time, I love them more. Something new opens up, even in that familiar experience.
Life can be like that. Retrospect can reveal patterns imperceptible when I was in the thick of things. Imagining the ultimate results ahead can help me re-engage and can carry me forward.
And there's power in retelling the past, or telling it differently. If history is written by the victors, I possess the privilege of rewriting my own history. I can go back with a new perspective, emphasize different details, come to different conclusions, and change the lessons I learn to more empowering or entertaining ones.
The first few chapters kept me going, but I never reached that level of absorption where time seems suspended. Mote was interesting, but not impossible to put down. Maybe there were more characters than I could track; maybe I had trouble conjuring a mental image of the aliens; maybe I tried too hard to puzzle out the backstory (which I hadn't read); perhaps I was feeling impatient for the payoff of what seemed to me an overlong setup. Maybe a combination. I got halfway through the book before resorting to the Web for a synopsis.
Once I read the synopsis and knew how the story turned out, I was eager to get back to the book and finish reading it. (And, having finished it, I'm looking forward to reading the sequel.)
This started me thinking about "spoilers," the cheat sheets of popular media. You can find spoiler pages for TV shows, movies, books, games, you name it. Sometimes I don't want to be "spoiled." I want to come to a work fresh and open. I want the suspense to last for as long as the author can draw it out. I want to take my time as it unfolds.
At other times, spoilers renew my interest when it starts to flag. And once I've read a book, or seen a movie, what then? Well, I've read Pride & Prejudice and Atlas Shrugged and War for the Oaks and The Beekeeper's Apprentice about a bazillion times each, and each time, I love them more. Something new opens up, even in that familiar experience.
Life can be like that. Retrospect can reveal patterns imperceptible when I was in the thick of things. Imagining the ultimate results ahead can help me re-engage and can carry me forward.
And there's power in retelling the past, or telling it differently. If history is written by the victors, I possess the privilege of rewriting my own history. I can go back with a new perspective, emphasize different details, come to different conclusions, and change the lessons I learn to more empowering or entertaining ones.
Sunday, April 05, 2009
No excuses!
One of my personal heroes is a former boss who was a no-excuses kind of guy. He would ask for the most complicated meetings, with the most pie-in-the-sky schedule, and it was challenging. I couldn't always get everyone in the same room at the same time. I did my best given the information and resources I had, but I almost always saw room for improvement:
I could have started earlier.
I could have continued longer.
I could have called people at home.
I could have e-mailed people at home.
I could have tried contacting them through other channels.
I could have been more persistent, insistent, or annoying.
I could have delegated to others who had more influence.
What stopped me from doing those things? My own thoughts or beliefs. Typically, they fell into one of three categories:
The significant point for me isn't whether the beliefs are true or not - that's secondary to the point that beliefs guide (or motivate) my actions. What I believe is always going to be more important than what's true.
I need to choose my beliefs carefully and be excruciatingly honest with myself.
Perfection isn't possible. No matter what I do, there's going to be room for improvement. The key questions for me are, "What do I want to achieve?" and "What beliefs will move me forward toward that?" and "Am I being honest with myself in those beliefs?"
Being clear about my goals helps me recognize the difference between an excuse and a change in priorities. A change in priorities keeps me moving forward. An excuse derails me. For instance, if my boss said, "Get these 15 people together for a meeting in two weeks," that's the assumed goal. If I couldn't do it because some people's schedules were already booked, I could say, "I can't do this." That's an excuse. But if I ask, "Which is more important: 100% attendance or the two-week time frame?" that's a change in priorities that keeps me moving forward. After all, the meeting itself isn't what's important; the meeting is just a strategy in service to some larger goal. Knowing the end goal means I can change my approach and keep on going.
I could have started earlier.
I could have continued longer.
I could have called people at home.
I could have e-mailed people at home.
I could have tried contacting them through other channels.
I could have been more persistent, insistent, or annoying.
I could have delegated to others who had more influence.
What stopped me from doing those things? My own thoughts or beliefs. Typically, they fell into one of three categories:
1. What I've done is good enough. (I've got commitments from the key people, I've met the most important requirements, etc..)Sometimes these beliefs were true. What I'd done was good enough. Investing more time or energy wasn't a good choice. Another opportunity did lie ahead. Sometimes they weren't true; they were excuses.
2. It's not worth it. (Investing more effort would likely have diminishing returns; time or quality on another project would suffer.)
3. There will be another opportunity to achieve the outcome. (We can have another meeting for people who couldn't make the first one, or we can have one-on-one meetings or phone calls.)
The significant point for me isn't whether the beliefs are true or not - that's secondary to the point that beliefs guide (or motivate) my actions. What I believe is always going to be more important than what's true.
I need to choose my beliefs carefully and be excruciatingly honest with myself.
Perfection isn't possible. No matter what I do, there's going to be room for improvement. The key questions for me are, "What do I want to achieve?" and "What beliefs will move me forward toward that?" and "Am I being honest with myself in those beliefs?"
Being clear about my goals helps me recognize the difference between an excuse and a change in priorities. A change in priorities keeps me moving forward. An excuse derails me. For instance, if my boss said, "Get these 15 people together for a meeting in two weeks," that's the assumed goal. If I couldn't do it because some people's schedules were already booked, I could say, "I can't do this." That's an excuse. But if I ask, "Which is more important: 100% attendance or the two-week time frame?" that's a change in priorities that keeps me moving forward. After all, the meeting itself isn't what's important; the meeting is just a strategy in service to some larger goal. Knowing the end goal means I can change my approach and keep on going.
Sunday, March 29, 2009
Perseverence
Staying on course comes from a combination of persistence and course correction.
I don't want to reward behavior that leads me away from my stated goal. Yet... when I'm going in a new direction, I'm going to fall short of my goals from time to time. If I fall short frequently, or by a large margin, I risk feeling discouraged to the point of despair and hopelessness. "I'm NEVER going to get it right!" It can be hard to remember at times that if I give it enough time, if I am consistent, if I try (that is, make the attempt) I will get there. If someone catches me in one of those moments of discouragement and tells me I'm throwing myself a pity party and get on with it already, girlfriend, I might feel even worse; withdraw, isolate, and cut myself off from others who have done it - who might give me encouragement and hope.
I think the word "try" gets a bad rap. I tried to waltz 500 times before I finally did it successfully. I tried to bake scones 50 times before I figured out how to do it consistently. People learn better when they are relaxed, curious, experimenting... Think about it - will you do better on a test in a quiet room where you can focus and concentrate, or with someone standing right behind you, looking over your shoulder, saying, "Are you sure that's right? Where did you get that answer? Aren't you done yet? You should know this! Haven't you learned this yet? What's your problem?"
Most people who are trying to [insert personal challenge here] have failed numerous times before. That critical, negative, inner voice is already turned up to HIGH VOLUME. What they need to build - to strengthen - is the "You can do it!" voice. The one that says, "The past does not equal the future. This time will be different. Keep going. You will get it. You will succeed."
I don't want to reward behavior that leads me away from my stated goal. Yet... when I'm going in a new direction, I'm going to fall short of my goals from time to time. If I fall short frequently, or by a large margin, I risk feeling discouraged to the point of despair and hopelessness. "I'm NEVER going to get it right!" It can be hard to remember at times that if I give it enough time, if I am consistent, if I try (that is, make the attempt) I will get there. If someone catches me in one of those moments of discouragement and tells me I'm throwing myself a pity party and get on with it already, girlfriend, I might feel even worse; withdraw, isolate, and cut myself off from others who have done it - who might give me encouragement and hope.
I think the word "try" gets a bad rap. I tried to waltz 500 times before I finally did it successfully. I tried to bake scones 50 times before I figured out how to do it consistently. People learn better when they are relaxed, curious, experimenting... Think about it - will you do better on a test in a quiet room where you can focus and concentrate, or with someone standing right behind you, looking over your shoulder, saying, "Are you sure that's right? Where did you get that answer? Aren't you done yet? You should know this! Haven't you learned this yet? What's your problem?"
Most people who are trying to [insert personal challenge here] have failed numerous times before. That critical, negative, inner voice is already turned up to HIGH VOLUME. What they need to build - to strengthen - is the "You can do it!" voice. The one that says, "The past does not equal the future. This time will be different. Keep going. You will get it. You will succeed."
Tuesday, December 16, 2008
Change or Die
I loved Alan Deutschman's article "Change or Die" when it ran in Fast Company, and I love the book he expanded the article into: Change or Die: The Three Keys to Change in Work and in Life.
In 2004, Deutschman attended a conference to explore solutions to the world's biggest problems. A dream of experts who spoke on health care said, "A relatively small percentage of the population consumes the vast majority of the health-care budget for diseases that are very well known and by and large behavioral."
Smoking. Drinking. Eating unhealthily. Stress. Not enough exercise.
And only 1 in 10 given the "change or die" choice changed their behavior.
Deutschman spends the bulk of his book examining the components of successful change. It is possible to change the way you think, feel, and act. Deutschman identifies three motivators that don't work -- fear, facts, and force -- and three that do -- relationships, reframing, and repeating. He uses three major case studies and a number of others to illustrate these principles and describes how individuals and organizations can use these processes to make deep-seated, lasting changes.
In clear, practical language, Deutschman explains important tools for change:
Nothing in the book is really groundbreaking (Deutschman himself points out that the patterns for successful change have been known for decades), and I think his model is simplistic at times, but that's part of what I enjoy about the book. Deutschman takes a range of change models and in clear, direct language synthesizes their mutual and most powerful elements in a practical handbook for change. For me, the real strength of Change or Die is that simplicity.
In 2004, Deutschman attended a conference to explore solutions to the world's biggest problems. A dream of experts who spoke on health care said, "A relatively small percentage of the population consumes the vast majority of the health-care budget for diseases that are very well known and by and large behavioral."
Smoking. Drinking. Eating unhealthily. Stress. Not enough exercise.
And only 1 in 10 given the "change or die" choice changed their behavior.
Deutschman spends the bulk of his book examining the components of successful change. It is possible to change the way you think, feel, and act. Deutschman identifies three motivators that don't work -- fear, facts, and force -- and three that do -- relationships, reframing, and repeating. He uses three major case studies and a number of others to illustrate these principles and describes how individuals and organizations can use these processes to make deep-seated, lasting changes.
In clear, practical language, Deutschman explains important tools for change:
- Frames
- Denial and other psychological defenses
- Short-term wins
- Community and culture
- Acting as if
- Recasting a life story
- Walk the walk
- The brain is plastic
- The solution might be the problem
Nothing in the book is really groundbreaking (Deutschman himself points out that the patterns for successful change have been known for decades), and I think his model is simplistic at times, but that's part of what I enjoy about the book. Deutschman takes a range of change models and in clear, direct language synthesizes their mutual and most powerful elements in a practical handbook for change. For me, the real strength of Change or Die is that simplicity.
Monday, December 08, 2008
Steve's story
In the September 2008 issue of The Journal of Hypnotism, there's a brilliant article by Stephen Greco in John Weir's column on "Enthusiastic Professionalism."
Steve was 22 years old when he awoke one morning with a tiny blind spot in his right eye that quickly grew until he was 80 percent blind in that eye. The doctors did tests, diagnosed probable multiple sclerosis, and asked if he had any tingling or numbness in his limbs. He became watchful for those symptoms, which soon manifested. Steve had been avoiding further tests, but when is arms became weak, he called the doctor.
"Both arms?" asked the doctor.
"Yes," said Steve.
"It's usually one arm at a time," said the doctor.
Immediately, Steve says, his life changed. He thought, "If he had told me that it was going to be one arm at a time, it would have been." The power of suggestion had done a number on him.
Steve began to systematically dismantle all the negative suggestions he'd been given (and had been giving himself!) and within two weeks, his eyesight returned to normal.
I tell this story to people to illustrate the power of expectation, suggestion, and belief. What we expect tends to be realized.
But often, people respond to this story with disbelief and analysis. "You mean it was all in his head?" As though it were imaginary blindness. As though somehow an illness created by the mind were less measurable by objective standards.
In 1982, in my home town of Monterey Park, California, a few people fell mildly ill at a high school football game and after being questioned by authorities, an announcement was made that no one should drink any soft drinks because of suspected contamination. Immediately, the stands were filled with fainting, retching people. One hundred and ninety-one persons were hospitalized.
There was nothing wrong with the soda. It was a case of "mass hysteria," which does not mean symptoms were imaginary. It means the symptoms were stimulated by mental processes instead of physical ones.
Many people think "in the mind" means "not real." Steve's story makes clear this isn't the case at all. Placebos operate on the same principle. Recovery after taking a placebo doesn't mean the illness was imagined or the recovery was imagined.
I once had a severely sprained ankle just days before I was supposed to drive to Seattle (with a standard transmission). I was desperate to go. I used a hypnotic process and the swelling and discoloration subsided enough that I could drive. (I once had a person look at me skeptically and say, "You'll forgive me if I don't believe you." Sure, dude. No problem. For me.)
Everything starts in the mind. Whatever you're sitting on -- started as an idea. The computer you're typing on. The TV programs you watch, the books you read, the people you interact with -- all a product of thought. Change your mind and change your life!
Steve was 22 years old when he awoke one morning with a tiny blind spot in his right eye that quickly grew until he was 80 percent blind in that eye. The doctors did tests, diagnosed probable multiple sclerosis, and asked if he had any tingling or numbness in his limbs. He became watchful for those symptoms, which soon manifested. Steve had been avoiding further tests, but when is arms became weak, he called the doctor.
"Both arms?" asked the doctor.
"Yes," said Steve.
"It's usually one arm at a time," said the doctor.
Immediately, Steve says, his life changed. He thought, "If he had told me that it was going to be one arm at a time, it would have been." The power of suggestion had done a number on him.
Steve began to systematically dismantle all the negative suggestions he'd been given (and had been giving himself!) and within two weeks, his eyesight returned to normal.
I tell this story to people to illustrate the power of expectation, suggestion, and belief. What we expect tends to be realized.
But often, people respond to this story with disbelief and analysis. "You mean it was all in his head?" As though it were imaginary blindness. As though somehow an illness created by the mind were less measurable by objective standards.
In 1982, in my home town of Monterey Park, California, a few people fell mildly ill at a high school football game and after being questioned by authorities, an announcement was made that no one should drink any soft drinks because of suspected contamination. Immediately, the stands were filled with fainting, retching people. One hundred and ninety-one persons were hospitalized.
There was nothing wrong with the soda. It was a case of "mass hysteria," which does not mean symptoms were imaginary. It means the symptoms were stimulated by mental processes instead of physical ones.
Many people think "in the mind" means "not real." Steve's story makes clear this isn't the case at all. Placebos operate on the same principle. Recovery after taking a placebo doesn't mean the illness was imagined or the recovery was imagined.
I once had a severely sprained ankle just days before I was supposed to drive to Seattle (with a standard transmission). I was desperate to go. I used a hypnotic process and the swelling and discoloration subsided enough that I could drive. (I once had a person look at me skeptically and say, "You'll forgive me if I don't believe you." Sure, dude. No problem. For me.)
Everything starts in the mind. Whatever you're sitting on -- started as an idea. The computer you're typing on. The TV programs you watch, the books you read, the people you interact with -- all a product of thought. Change your mind and change your life!
Thursday, November 27, 2008
Happy Thanksgiving!
It's Thanksgiving morning in the USA, and in Portland, Oregon, it's a cloudless, sunny (if cold) morning. A seagull just flew overhead, rosy in the rising sun. Glorious.
Michael Hall has developed a wonderful exercise he teaches in his Accessing Personal Genius seminar. I think it's appropriate for Thanksgiving, because it sets up a sliding anchor for acceptance, appreciation, and awe. Here's a summary.
(If you want to learn how to do this exercise on your own, without a partner, and to learn more about Michael's work, pick up his book, Secrets of Personal Mastery, visit his Web site at Neurosemantics.com, or attend one of his excellent seminars.)
Get a partner. Extend your arm, palm up. Figure out whether you are an "innie" or an "outie" by having your partner slide their finger up the inside of your arm from wrist to elbow crease. Then have them slide their finger the opposite way, from elbow crease to wrist. Does the intensity of sensation rise as they move their finger up your arm, toward you? Then you're an innie. Out and away? You're an outie.
Next, you're going to access (recall and get into), amplify, and anchor a state.
Recall (access) a time when you simply accepted something. Maybe it was that it was a rainy day and you had to take the bus. Maybe you chose to eat breakfast because you knew it was best even if you weren't terribly hungry at the time. Maybe it was scraping ice off the car before you got in and drove away. Mere acceptance.
Now that you've accessed that state of acceptance, amplify it. Build it up so it flows through you; step into it, breathe it in, pull it in and around you so you're actually experiencing it fully.
Anchor it. When it's at its peak, have your friend touch the lower end of the intensity spectrum on your arm. Apply some pressure so you can trigger the state at will later on by applying the same pressure in the same place.
That's it: Access, Amplify, Anchor.
Following the same process for appreciation, now work with the state of appreciation, and access a time you appreciated something or someone. Amplify it. Create this anchor at the midpoint of the intensity spectrum on your arm, halfway between the wrist and the elbow crease.
Same process, this time for awe. Access, amplify, then create this anchor at the high intensity point (your elbow crease, if you're an innie, or your wrist, if you're an outie).
Now have your friend slide their finger along the spectrum to move from acceptance to awe. You've built a sliding anchor and you can use it to help you change your state. Is there something you'd like to really appreciate rather than just accept? Is there something you've felt awed by, but milder appreciation would let you behave more effectively?
There is plenty to inspire awe. Einstein said, "There are two ways to live: You can live as if nothing is a miracle; you can live as if everything is a miracle."
Happy Thanksgiving!
Michael Hall has developed a wonderful exercise he teaches in his Accessing Personal Genius seminar. I think it's appropriate for Thanksgiving, because it sets up a sliding anchor for acceptance, appreciation, and awe. Here's a summary.
(If you want to learn how to do this exercise on your own, without a partner, and to learn more about Michael's work, pick up his book, Secrets of Personal Mastery, visit his Web site at Neurosemantics.com, or attend one of his excellent seminars.)
Get a partner. Extend your arm, palm up. Figure out whether you are an "innie" or an "outie" by having your partner slide their finger up the inside of your arm from wrist to elbow crease. Then have them slide their finger the opposite way, from elbow crease to wrist. Does the intensity of sensation rise as they move their finger up your arm, toward you? Then you're an innie. Out and away? You're an outie.
Next, you're going to access (recall and get into), amplify, and anchor a state.
Recall (access) a time when you simply accepted something. Maybe it was that it was a rainy day and you had to take the bus. Maybe you chose to eat breakfast because you knew it was best even if you weren't terribly hungry at the time. Maybe it was scraping ice off the car before you got in and drove away. Mere acceptance.
Now that you've accessed that state of acceptance, amplify it. Build it up so it flows through you; step into it, breathe it in, pull it in and around you so you're actually experiencing it fully.
Anchor it. When it's at its peak, have your friend touch the lower end of the intensity spectrum on your arm. Apply some pressure so you can trigger the state at will later on by applying the same pressure in the same place.
That's it: Access, Amplify, Anchor.
Following the same process for appreciation, now work with the state of appreciation, and access a time you appreciated something or someone. Amplify it. Create this anchor at the midpoint of the intensity spectrum on your arm, halfway between the wrist and the elbow crease.
Same process, this time for awe. Access, amplify, then create this anchor at the high intensity point (your elbow crease, if you're an innie, or your wrist, if you're an outie).
Now have your friend slide their finger along the spectrum to move from acceptance to awe. You've built a sliding anchor and you can use it to help you change your state. Is there something you'd like to really appreciate rather than just accept? Is there something you've felt awed by, but milder appreciation would let you behave more effectively?
There is plenty to inspire awe. Einstein said, "There are two ways to live: You can live as if nothing is a miracle; you can live as if everything is a miracle."
Happy Thanksgiving!
Monday, November 10, 2008
Book Review: Your Brain: The Missing Manual
I just finished a great book in a great series: Your Brain: The Missing Manual, by Matthew MacDonald. The O'Reilly Missing Manual series -- like their In a Nutshell series -- is a wonderful set of books that covers topics from Office to iPhoto to Vista in a fun, often funny, succinct, and useful way. It's all the stuff you ought to know (but often don't) that makes work easier and faster.
And as a hypnotist, I love fast and easy.
In Your Brain: The Missing Manual, you'll learn about the shortcuts your brain takes to make life easier for you, and how that can end up making life harder. You'll learn tips to work around the shortcuts. Modern life, with 24-hour stimulation and a bazillion cultural differences, has created an environment far more complicated than the environment the brain originated in. Sure, we're adapting. But if you know how your brain is wired, you'll adapt a bit better.
One of my favorite chapters is about how the brain processes pleasure, because the pleasure is one of the power sources that drives behavior change.
First, pleasure is, by design, short-lived. Your brain is wired to turn it off, as well as on. Why? Well, if pleasure lasted a long time, you'd get stuck in one place, soaking up wonderfulness, a sitting duck for some predator. Also, pleasure is a motivator, and motivators are more motivating if they're in short supply. The brain gets accustomed to prolonged pleasure and starts filtering it out, so the same stimulus doesn't give you the same kick.
Research shows that the first two bites of food are the most intense. After that, pleasure decreases. Your brain starts to habituate to the flavor (i.e., ignore the sensations).
As humans, we don't seek things or experiences, not really. We seek the pleasure they provide. And pleasure is hard-wired to diminish with exposure. There's always a saturation point.
But modern culture and the messages of more, better, faster try to convince us that more, better, faster, are ends in themselves. If one cookie is good, five must be better. That's working against how our brains naturally function. In fact, more, better, faster, are just levels of pleasure that in time we'll become habituated to.
Scientific American Mind (or maybe it was Psychology Today -- I'll have to go look it up) had a nice article last year about techniques for battling boredom. They involved taking control of your expectation and your focus of attention.
So the next time I find myself reaching for that third or fourth cookie, I pause and ask: "Am I really hungry? On a scale of 1 to 10, how much pleasure am I really experiencing right now?" When I remind myself of what's really going on, and how my brain is designed to make things feel less rewarding as I get used to them, it makes it easier to put the food away and wait until another time, when my pleasure will be heightened again. I can find another source of pleasure, like a Sudoku, a warm shower, a phone call to a friend, cleaning out old e-mails, petting the kitties.
And as a hypnotist, I love fast and easy.
In Your Brain: The Missing Manual, you'll learn about the shortcuts your brain takes to make life easier for you, and how that can end up making life harder. You'll learn tips to work around the shortcuts. Modern life, with 24-hour stimulation and a bazillion cultural differences, has created an environment far more complicated than the environment the brain originated in. Sure, we're adapting. But if you know how your brain is wired, you'll adapt a bit better.
One of my favorite chapters is about how the brain processes pleasure, because the pleasure is one of the power sources that drives behavior change.
First, pleasure is, by design, short-lived. Your brain is wired to turn it off, as well as on. Why? Well, if pleasure lasted a long time, you'd get stuck in one place, soaking up wonderfulness, a sitting duck for some predator. Also, pleasure is a motivator, and motivators are more motivating if they're in short supply. The brain gets accustomed to prolonged pleasure and starts filtering it out, so the same stimulus doesn't give you the same kick.
Research shows that the first two bites of food are the most intense. After that, pleasure decreases. Your brain starts to habituate to the flavor (i.e., ignore the sensations).
As humans, we don't seek things or experiences, not really. We seek the pleasure they provide. And pleasure is hard-wired to diminish with exposure. There's always a saturation point.
But modern culture and the messages of more, better, faster try to convince us that more, better, faster, are ends in themselves. If one cookie is good, five must be better. That's working against how our brains naturally function. In fact, more, better, faster, are just levels of pleasure that in time we'll become habituated to.
Scientific American Mind (or maybe it was Psychology Today -- I'll have to go look it up) had a nice article last year about techniques for battling boredom. They involved taking control of your expectation and your focus of attention.
So the next time I find myself reaching for that third or fourth cookie, I pause and ask: "Am I really hungry? On a scale of 1 to 10, how much pleasure am I really experiencing right now?" When I remind myself of what's really going on, and how my brain is designed to make things feel less rewarding as I get used to them, it makes it easier to put the food away and wait until another time, when my pleasure will be heightened again. I can find another source of pleasure, like a Sudoku, a warm shower, a phone call to a friend, cleaning out old e-mails, petting the kitties.
Sunday, August 31, 2008
What a gift an insult can be
Cleaning out e-mail, I found this story about one of Greg Tamblyn's excruciatingly embarrassing moments. I love it, because it really highlights the power we all have to choose what something will mean for us. As Shakespeare said, "There's nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so." Or, from Richard Bach: "Argue for your limitations, and sure enough, they're yours."
The original was forwarded to me by John Brown, one of the Portland NVC team members. I encourage you to check out Tamblyn's site. He describes himself as a Transformational Humorist, and he's a terrific writer.
CHAIRMAN MAO'S LIGHTER
Ever had a brilliant gift idea that turned out to be the most embarrassing and humiliating thing you could have brought to the party?
At a conference on consciousness we were told to bring a small,wrapped present to exchange as a means of getting to know each other. The gift was supposed to be related to something significant in our lives. After wracking my brains for awhile, and looking around the house, I found the perfect thing: a lighter I had brought back from China. It was a souvenir from the first time I ever hosted a group tour, which has become a yearly event since then.
Ah, but this was no ordinary lighter. It was a solid lighter with some heft to it, covered in bright red enamel. On one side, the imposing face of Chairman Mao stares out at you, totally out of context on this goofy trinket. Sort of like Abraham Lincoln on a box of Wheaties. But the kicker is that when you open the top, it plays a silly (and quite frankly annoying) Chinese marching song, which squeals on and on -- lit or not -- until you close it. Or until the battery runs out, should you leave it open for a few days as a sort of Chinese torture for the unlucky people you live with. In short, it's pretty funny. And it kind of reduces Mao to the status of a cartoon, which I like.
I've given a few of these away to friends, and everybody gets a kick out of them. My brother likes to walk down the grocery store aisle with his lighter held aloft, music blaring and people staring. I think he does it to embarrass his daughter. But I digress...
So I felt quite proud of myself for bringing this funny, clever gift that I knew everyone at the conference would find amusing. That first night, all 120 of us were sorted into small circles of eight, and instructed to put our presents in the middle. One by one we took turns choosing a gift that someone else had brought, and then we took turns unwrapping them. When someone opened the gift you brought, you explained what it meant to you, and so we'd get to know a bit about each other.
But what happened in our little circle was a kind of cosmic joke.
Imagine: out of all the 120 people at this event, the one person who ended up with my little wrapped package containing this incredibly funny, brilliantly clever, totally unique Chairman Mao lighter, just happened to be the childhood/lifelong friend, as well as the official biographer of.........the Dalai Lama.
I'm not kidding.
He was seated just to my left. As soon as I saw him pick up the little package, I felt myself shrink about five sizes. What I really wanted was to disappear altogether. If humiliation was a color, I would have been a bright orange 4th of July smoke bomb, just fizzing away into nothing. I didn't know there would be a Tibetan at this conference. I didn't know there would be a man who, as I later found out, actually fought Chinese soldiers and was forced to flee into exile as they took over and brutalized his country.
All the time we were going around the circle opening presents, I was sitting there, completely freaked out at the fact that I'd brought the most insulting gift I possibly could have, and it was going to be unbearably awkward when this gentle, elderly, dignified, much-loved man opened it. Unbelievably embarrassing. Life-shattering buckets of shame. For once in my life, I'd been just a little too clever, and my sick sense of humor had come back to haunt me. How could I possibly explain this to him? What could I say? Especially when all the other gifts were so thoughtful and beautiful. What would he say? What would he do?
When it got to be my turn, I suggested we switch presents.
"Why?" he asked.
"Because I don't think you'll like it. I want you to have something you'll like."
"No," he said. "I chose this one."
Slowly and calmly, he unwrapped the lighter. He turned it over, and for a minute just looked at the picture of Mao. I can't remember if he opened the top and played the little song.
After what seemed like forever, during which time I would have gladly traded my whole life to be somewhere else, he spoke.
"Oh," he said firmly. "This is karma."
He looked at me with steady, sincere eyes and said, "This will help me remember to practice compassion."
POSTSCRIPT #1
The next morning, I was relating this episode to one of the conference organizers, and she insisted I tell the entire gathering about it. So I got up in front of the group and told this story. When I mentioned who got the lighter, everybody gasped. And then when I told them what Kuno (his nickname) had said, Kuno stood up, smiled and bowed low, and everybody laughed. And right then we all got it that he was really okay about it.
During the week of this conference, every time I saw Kuno he would shake my hand and thank me for the lighter. So by the end of the week, we had kind of become buddies. On the last morning, he sat next to me at lunch. We talked about Dharmsala, where the Tibetan refugees live with the Dalai Lama, and about life in India. I told him I'd always wanted to go there, and about hosting my group tours. Kuno picked up on this immediately. He invited me to Dharmsala, and said he had friends who would handle all the travel arrangements for us. We could even do some kind of a concert with myself and some Tibetan musicians. He was really into the whole idea, and I got all excited at the prospect too.
It's amazing how things work out sometimes.
POSTSCRIPT #2
(A letter from a friend at the conference, reporting how Kuno described this experience.)
"Dear Greg,
I love that you tell the story about your lighter, but you must tell more of the story. The way you ended it made it sound like he was being polite--but it was MUCH more than that. It was huge, and wonderful.
You should have heard Kuno's talk at the International House after the Conference. He began to talk about his history and connection with the Dalai Lama, and he briefly mentioned his important role as a general in the war. He spoke about how the Chinese killed his parents, family members, and so many of his friends. He talked about his anger at the Chinese--so much anger. He talked about how the Dalai Lama told him many times, he needed to make peace with the Chinese, to not hate them, to have love in his heart, compassion, forgiveness. He saw no way to do this, it was impossible, he hated them all to such an extent that he wouldn't even eat Chinese food. The Dalai Lama would laugh at this and tell him that Chinese food is very good and his anger is making him miss out on some very good things.
Well, before the conference Kuno was visiting a site of one of the bloody battles between China and Tibet where he lost many friends. He was at the memorial, trying to make peace, but only feeling anger, pain and sadness. He began to cry. A couple was there, crying also. They and Kuno started talking about their losses, and began bonding. After a while they decided to go to a place for some food and to talk more. During the meal each asked where the other was from, and it turned out that the couple were Chinese! He had thought they were on his side, not theirs. Karma again. They continued their meal together with new understanding. This experience totally changed his perspective.
He wanted to continue healing so he then started trying to get to know Chinese people. He tried Chinese food and liked it. When the conference organizer invited Kuno to be with us, he also wanted to set up some lectures for Kuno in the area and offered to let him stay at his house. Kuno told him that he would like to do the lectures, but he wanted to stay with a Chinese family, if possible. The organizer said that would be very easy to organize since his foreign-exchange student host family lived nearby, and they just happen to be Chinese! (Coincidence? I think not.) Kuno stayed with the Chinese family before and after the conference and had a wonderful time in their home.
After a couple of days with them, he came to our conference and received your lighter. At this point in his lecture, he held up your lighter, lit it, and played the little song. He told the story of getting the lighter at the conference, of all the groups he could have been with, of all the wrapped gifts he could have picked, he picked you and yours.
It was a gift, supporting his new path to healing. At the time you picked the gift, you didn't know about his new found attempts at healing this pain in his heart, but you helped the process and supported his new path.
I bet the Dalai Lama had a big belly laugh when Kuno told the full story to him.
It's a full circle thing.
If I were you, I'd be honored to be part of that healing circle.
And the lesson for you? Trust your instincts. There is a reason for everything. There's probably even a reason you were put in that situation so you could fidget and feel such nervousness--but only you know the answer to that.
Love and Peace to you, Greg,
Alison Sheafor-Joy"
A FINAL WORD:
Forgiveness has always been my biggest personal challenge, so yes, there's a LOT in this for me. Please feel free to send this to anyone you think it may uplift.
~ Greg Tamblyn
Transformational Humorist ~ Musical Laf-ologist
http://www.gregtamblyn.com
The original was forwarded to me by John Brown, one of the Portland NVC team members. I encourage you to check out Tamblyn's site. He describes himself as a Transformational Humorist, and he's a terrific writer.
CHAIRMAN MAO'S LIGHTER
Ever had a brilliant gift idea that turned out to be the most embarrassing and humiliating thing you could have brought to the party?
At a conference on consciousness we were told to bring a small,wrapped present to exchange as a means of getting to know each other. The gift was supposed to be related to something significant in our lives. After wracking my brains for awhile, and looking around the house, I found the perfect thing: a lighter I had brought back from China. It was a souvenir from the first time I ever hosted a group tour, which has become a yearly event since then.
Ah, but this was no ordinary lighter. It was a solid lighter with some heft to it, covered in bright red enamel. On one side, the imposing face of Chairman Mao stares out at you, totally out of context on this goofy trinket. Sort of like Abraham Lincoln on a box of Wheaties. But the kicker is that when you open the top, it plays a silly (and quite frankly annoying) Chinese marching song, which squeals on and on -- lit or not -- until you close it. Or until the battery runs out, should you leave it open for a few days as a sort of Chinese torture for the unlucky people you live with. In short, it's pretty funny. And it kind of reduces Mao to the status of a cartoon, which I like.
I've given a few of these away to friends, and everybody gets a kick out of them. My brother likes to walk down the grocery store aisle with his lighter held aloft, music blaring and people staring. I think he does it to embarrass his daughter. But I digress...
So I felt quite proud of myself for bringing this funny, clever gift that I knew everyone at the conference would find amusing. That first night, all 120 of us were sorted into small circles of eight, and instructed to put our presents in the middle. One by one we took turns choosing a gift that someone else had brought, and then we took turns unwrapping them. When someone opened the gift you brought, you explained what it meant to you, and so we'd get to know a bit about each other.
But what happened in our little circle was a kind of cosmic joke.
Imagine: out of all the 120 people at this event, the one person who ended up with my little wrapped package containing this incredibly funny, brilliantly clever, totally unique Chairman Mao lighter, just happened to be the childhood/lifelong friend, as well as the official biographer of.........the Dalai Lama.
I'm not kidding.
He was seated just to my left. As soon as I saw him pick up the little package, I felt myself shrink about five sizes. What I really wanted was to disappear altogether. If humiliation was a color, I would have been a bright orange 4th of July smoke bomb, just fizzing away into nothing. I didn't know there would be a Tibetan at this conference. I didn't know there would be a man who, as I later found out, actually fought Chinese soldiers and was forced to flee into exile as they took over and brutalized his country.
All the time we were going around the circle opening presents, I was sitting there, completely freaked out at the fact that I'd brought the most insulting gift I possibly could have, and it was going to be unbearably awkward when this gentle, elderly, dignified, much-loved man opened it. Unbelievably embarrassing. Life-shattering buckets of shame. For once in my life, I'd been just a little too clever, and my sick sense of humor had come back to haunt me. How could I possibly explain this to him? What could I say? Especially when all the other gifts were so thoughtful and beautiful. What would he say? What would he do?
When it got to be my turn, I suggested we switch presents.
"Why?" he asked.
"Because I don't think you'll like it. I want you to have something you'll like."
"No," he said. "I chose this one."
Slowly and calmly, he unwrapped the lighter. He turned it over, and for a minute just looked at the picture of Mao. I can't remember if he opened the top and played the little song.
After what seemed like forever, during which time I would have gladly traded my whole life to be somewhere else, he spoke.
"Oh," he said firmly. "This is karma."
He looked at me with steady, sincere eyes and said, "This will help me remember to practice compassion."
POSTSCRIPT #1
The next morning, I was relating this episode to one of the conference organizers, and she insisted I tell the entire gathering about it. So I got up in front of the group and told this story. When I mentioned who got the lighter, everybody gasped. And then when I told them what Kuno (his nickname) had said, Kuno stood up, smiled and bowed low, and everybody laughed. And right then we all got it that he was really okay about it.
During the week of this conference, every time I saw Kuno he would shake my hand and thank me for the lighter. So by the end of the week, we had kind of become buddies. On the last morning, he sat next to me at lunch. We talked about Dharmsala, where the Tibetan refugees live with the Dalai Lama, and about life in India. I told him I'd always wanted to go there, and about hosting my group tours. Kuno picked up on this immediately. He invited me to Dharmsala, and said he had friends who would handle all the travel arrangements for us. We could even do some kind of a concert with myself and some Tibetan musicians. He was really into the whole idea, and I got all excited at the prospect too.
It's amazing how things work out sometimes.
POSTSCRIPT #2
(A letter from a friend at the conference, reporting how Kuno described this experience.)
"Dear Greg,
I love that you tell the story about your lighter, but you must tell more of the story. The way you ended it made it sound like he was being polite--but it was MUCH more than that. It was huge, and wonderful.
You should have heard Kuno's talk at the International House after the Conference. He began to talk about his history and connection with the Dalai Lama, and he briefly mentioned his important role as a general in the war. He spoke about how the Chinese killed his parents, family members, and so many of his friends. He talked about his anger at the Chinese--so much anger. He talked about how the Dalai Lama told him many times, he needed to make peace with the Chinese, to not hate them, to have love in his heart, compassion, forgiveness. He saw no way to do this, it was impossible, he hated them all to such an extent that he wouldn't even eat Chinese food. The Dalai Lama would laugh at this and tell him that Chinese food is very good and his anger is making him miss out on some very good things.
Well, before the conference Kuno was visiting a site of one of the bloody battles between China and Tibet where he lost many friends. He was at the memorial, trying to make peace, but only feeling anger, pain and sadness. He began to cry. A couple was there, crying also. They and Kuno started talking about their losses, and began bonding. After a while they decided to go to a place for some food and to talk more. During the meal each asked where the other was from, and it turned out that the couple were Chinese! He had thought they were on his side, not theirs. Karma again. They continued their meal together with new understanding. This experience totally changed his perspective.
He wanted to continue healing so he then started trying to get to know Chinese people. He tried Chinese food and liked it. When the conference organizer invited Kuno to be with us, he also wanted to set up some lectures for Kuno in the area and offered to let him stay at his house. Kuno told him that he would like to do the lectures, but he wanted to stay with a Chinese family, if possible. The organizer said that would be very easy to organize since his foreign-exchange student host family lived nearby, and they just happen to be Chinese! (Coincidence? I think not.) Kuno stayed with the Chinese family before and after the conference and had a wonderful time in their home.
After a couple of days with them, he came to our conference and received your lighter. At this point in his lecture, he held up your lighter, lit it, and played the little song. He told the story of getting the lighter at the conference, of all the groups he could have been with, of all the wrapped gifts he could have picked, he picked you and yours.
It was a gift, supporting his new path to healing. At the time you picked the gift, you didn't know about his new found attempts at healing this pain in his heart, but you helped the process and supported his new path.
I bet the Dalai Lama had a big belly laugh when Kuno told the full story to him.
It's a full circle thing.
If I were you, I'd be honored to be part of that healing circle.
And the lesson for you? Trust your instincts. There is a reason for everything. There's probably even a reason you were put in that situation so you could fidget and feel such nervousness--but only you know the answer to that.
Love and Peace to you, Greg,
Alison Sheafor-Joy"
A FINAL WORD:
Forgiveness has always been my biggest personal challenge, so yes, there's a LOT in this for me. Please feel free to send this to anyone you think it may uplift.
~ Greg Tamblyn
Transformational Humorist ~ Musical Laf-ologist
http://www.gregtamblyn.com
Wednesday, March 19, 2008
Media Review: Paul McKenna
Paul McKenna is more familiar to viewers across the pond, but he's come to the USA in a big way now on TLC's show, I Can Make You Thin with Paul McKenna. He used hypnosis with Ellen Degeneres to help her stop smoking and was on her show using hypnosis to help folks eilminate fear of snakes, spiders, etc.
Now, McKenna is spending five weeks to help folks lose weight.
I watched the debut on Sunday and delighted at the provocative way he couched his Golden Rules for weight loss.
1. When you're hungry, go and eat.
2. Eat what you want, not what you think you should.
2. Eat consciously.
4. When you're full, stop.
Why are these provocative? A couple are so simple that they're easy to dismiss. I can imagine people rolling their eyes in disgust, saying, "Well, of course, everybody knows that."
If those Golden Rules were really as simple as they appear, McKenna wouldn't have spent a full hour explaining them! Hypnosis depends on precise language, and McKenna took care to unpack "hungry," "consciously," and "full."
I loved the experiment where they invited people to a restaurant for identical breakfasts on two consecutive mornings. The second day, they blindfolded the customers. And guess what? People felt full sooner. They left food on their plates. I'm guessing they also ate more slowly, because it's probably a little more difficult to eat when you're blindfolded. I wonder if the food tasted differently, too?
McKenna hasn't talked about hypnosis, but clips from next week's show had people using EFT, Gary Craig's Emotional Freedom Technique, derived from Roger Callahan's Thought Field Therapy. A recent article in the March 2008 Journal of Hypnotism cited a study that said people who eat for emotional reasons (bored, stressed, lonely) have a harder time losing weight than others. I'm looking forward to watching McKenna at work.
Now, McKenna is spending five weeks to help folks lose weight.
I watched the debut on Sunday and delighted at the provocative way he couched his Golden Rules for weight loss.
1. When you're hungry, go and eat.
2. Eat what you want, not what you think you should.
2. Eat consciously.
4. When you're full, stop.
Why are these provocative? A couple are so simple that they're easy to dismiss. I can imagine people rolling their eyes in disgust, saying, "Well, of course, everybody knows that."
If those Golden Rules were really as simple as they appear, McKenna wouldn't have spent a full hour explaining them! Hypnosis depends on precise language, and McKenna took care to unpack "hungry," "consciously," and "full."
I loved the experiment where they invited people to a restaurant for identical breakfasts on two consecutive mornings. The second day, they blindfolded the customers. And guess what? People felt full sooner. They left food on their plates. I'm guessing they also ate more slowly, because it's probably a little more difficult to eat when you're blindfolded. I wonder if the food tasted differently, too?
McKenna hasn't talked about hypnosis, but clips from next week's show had people using EFT, Gary Craig's Emotional Freedom Technique, derived from Roger Callahan's Thought Field Therapy. A recent article in the March 2008 Journal of Hypnotism cited a study that said people who eat for emotional reasons (bored, stressed, lonely) have a harder time losing weight than others. I'm looking forward to watching McKenna at work.
Thursday, February 28, 2008
Nearly ninety days in...
...to 2008. Are you on track?
Certified Stress Management expert (and hypnotist) Rick Allen led a terrific teleseminar on goal setting around the first of the year. Those who don't make New Year's Resolutions tend to set goals: Specific, Measurable, Actionable, Realistic, and Time-defined (SMART).
Where to you want to be, this year or in five? How do you want to live? What do you want to do differently? With NLP, change begins with a well-formed outcome. An outcome is well formed when it is within your personal power to change, when it is within a specific context, and when it is ecological (congruent with your values and situation).
Rick had listeners vividly imagine their outcomes, or goals. That's the first step, which is partly rooted in, "If you don't know what you want, how will you formulate the steps to get there?"
To get to Seattle, for instance, there are a lot of intermediary steps. If I'm driving, I have to get on I-5 and pass through Vancouver, Centralia, Olympia, Tacoma, etc. I need petrol and a car. I probably need an address in Seattle, or else I could stop at the city limit... but I probably wouldn't reach my desired destination.
The other part of the equation is, "If you don't know what you want, how will you know when you get it?"
For example, if you say you want more money, and I give you a quarter... well, you got what you said you wanted, but it's probably not what you meant.
So, to continue with the Seattle illustration, what's the address? What are the landmarks? What sequence are they in? What position, or orientation, do they have?
Don't know the steps or the landmarks? One good way of finding out is to ask someone who's been there.
Goals help us get where we want to be, but they need to be SMART. Now is a great time to review your New Year's Resolutions and 2008 goals and check them for well-formedness.
Certified Stress Management expert (and hypnotist) Rick Allen led a terrific teleseminar on goal setting around the first of the year. Those who don't make New Year's Resolutions tend to set goals: Specific, Measurable, Actionable, Realistic, and Time-defined (SMART).
Where to you want to be, this year or in five? How do you want to live? What do you want to do differently? With NLP, change begins with a well-formed outcome. An outcome is well formed when it is within your personal power to change, when it is within a specific context, and when it is ecological (congruent with your values and situation).
Rick had listeners vividly imagine their outcomes, or goals. That's the first step, which is partly rooted in, "If you don't know what you want, how will you formulate the steps to get there?"
To get to Seattle, for instance, there are a lot of intermediary steps. If I'm driving, I have to get on I-5 and pass through Vancouver, Centralia, Olympia, Tacoma, etc. I need petrol and a car. I probably need an address in Seattle, or else I could stop at the city limit... but I probably wouldn't reach my desired destination.
The other part of the equation is, "If you don't know what you want, how will you know when you get it?"
For example, if you say you want more money, and I give you a quarter... well, you got what you said you wanted, but it's probably not what you meant.
So, to continue with the Seattle illustration, what's the address? What are the landmarks? What sequence are they in? What position, or orientation, do they have?
Don't know the steps or the landmarks? One good way of finding out is to ask someone who's been there.
Goals help us get where we want to be, but they need to be SMART. Now is a great time to review your New Year's Resolutions and 2008 goals and check them for well-formedness.
Tuesday, July 31, 2007
Observations again
A recent kerfluffle on a couple of online communities (one of them focusing on conflict resolution -- HA!) have me musing once again on the concept of what are called "observations" in NVC and "clean sensory channels" in NLP.
It's amazing how much of our own self-talk we accept as coming from "out there." We know, without even thinking about it, when someone is angry, sad, puzzled, or delighted.
But those realizations are based on something. That something is sensory experience: information that comes in through our eyes, ears, skin, nose or mouth. You know the drill: sight, sound, touch, smell, and taste.
Most of this information comes in and is processed subconsciously. You don't typically notice or analyze, with your conscious mind, how you know what you know.
When you're in a struggle, either with another person or with yourself, this can lead to deepening conflict, rather than resolution.
Take a step back. Ask: What am I noticing? Is it something I see or hear? What conclusions am I coming to? Could I possibly come to different ones? (We'll explore that question in an upcoming blog entry on reframing.
This can be extremely difficult to do in a moment of upset; human brains and bodies react to emotional threats the same way they react to physical ones, and the flood of stress hormones creates obstacles to rational thinking. So if you've ever "lost your head" in anger, don't beat yourself up about it. Just know that you can take steps to keep your cool, and you can do it without squashing your emotions or denying what's bothering you. (Emotions feed you information about whether a situation is healthy or dangerous -- you don't want to cut yourself off from valuable information!)
Of course, it's best to practice on a daily basis, when stress is low or mild, to develop the mental and emotional muscles you want to come into play when you're in a situation where you really need them.
So: Do a check-in exercise. Set an alarm, or find a way to signal yourself, to stop periodically throughout your day. Do a body scan. Are you relaxed? Tense? Happy? How do you know? Which muscles are tight, and which relaxed? (Pay attention to your face muscles, too -- when you're relaxed, happy, worried, annoyed.) What's you're posture like? Scan your senses. What are you seeing, hearing, tasting, smelling, or taking in with your skin? (Many people focus on texture, but don't ignore pressure and temperature.) Lastly, what sort of internal dialog have you been running since your last check-in? What have you been telling yourself about what things mean?
The point of this exercise is to practice separating sensory awareness and internal dialog. If you did this all the time, you'd never get anything done, because you'd be paying attention -- consciously -- to the way the light hits the water cooler, the cooler's proximity to other objects, the amount of dust or moisture that has collected on various surfaces of the cooler, the amount of pressure you need to use to press the dispenser bar, the sight of the water level rising, how the cup and water and breath smell and the texture of the cup and water on your lips... you get it, right? All this normally happens in 15 or 20 seconds, and you're oblivious, thinking about the work you did or haven't done or the questionable dating choices your kid is making or your lunch forgotten on the counter at home or whether you need to get any last-minute groceries for dinner...
Learning to notice the boundaries between sensory experience and internal experience can boost your ability to shift between the two, so the next time you're about to accuse someone (maybe yourself) of something you'll regret, you can more easily switch gears to a more productive and resourceful solution.
It's amazing how much of our own self-talk we accept as coming from "out there." We know, without even thinking about it, when someone is angry, sad, puzzled, or delighted.
But those realizations are based on something. That something is sensory experience: information that comes in through our eyes, ears, skin, nose or mouth. You know the drill: sight, sound, touch, smell, and taste.
Most of this information comes in and is processed subconsciously. You don't typically notice or analyze, with your conscious mind, how you know what you know.
When you're in a struggle, either with another person or with yourself, this can lead to deepening conflict, rather than resolution.
Take a step back. Ask: What am I noticing? Is it something I see or hear? What conclusions am I coming to? Could I possibly come to different ones? (We'll explore that question in an upcoming blog entry on reframing.
This can be extremely difficult to do in a moment of upset; human brains and bodies react to emotional threats the same way they react to physical ones, and the flood of stress hormones creates obstacles to rational thinking. So if you've ever "lost your head" in anger, don't beat yourself up about it. Just know that you can take steps to keep your cool, and you can do it without squashing your emotions or denying what's bothering you. (Emotions feed you information about whether a situation is healthy or dangerous -- you don't want to cut yourself off from valuable information!)
Of course, it's best to practice on a daily basis, when stress is low or mild, to develop the mental and emotional muscles you want to come into play when you're in a situation where you really need them.
So: Do a check-in exercise. Set an alarm, or find a way to signal yourself, to stop periodically throughout your day. Do a body scan. Are you relaxed? Tense? Happy? How do you know? Which muscles are tight, and which relaxed? (Pay attention to your face muscles, too -- when you're relaxed, happy, worried, annoyed.) What's you're posture like? Scan your senses. What are you seeing, hearing, tasting, smelling, or taking in with your skin? (Many people focus on texture, but don't ignore pressure and temperature.) Lastly, what sort of internal dialog have you been running since your last check-in? What have you been telling yourself about what things mean?
The point of this exercise is to practice separating sensory awareness and internal dialog. If you did this all the time, you'd never get anything done, because you'd be paying attention -- consciously -- to the way the light hits the water cooler, the cooler's proximity to other objects, the amount of dust or moisture that has collected on various surfaces of the cooler, the amount of pressure you need to use to press the dispenser bar, the sight of the water level rising, how the cup and water and breath smell and the texture of the cup and water on your lips... you get it, right? All this normally happens in 15 or 20 seconds, and you're oblivious, thinking about the work you did or haven't done or the questionable dating choices your kid is making or your lunch forgotten on the counter at home or whether you need to get any last-minute groceries for dinner...
Learning to notice the boundaries between sensory experience and internal experience can boost your ability to shift between the two, so the next time you're about to accuse someone (maybe yourself) of something you'll regret, you can more easily switch gears to a more productive and resourceful solution.
Tuesday, July 24, 2007
Book Review: Stumbling on Happiness
Daniel Gilbert's book ought to be required reading for every college freshman, and for everyone considering a major life change... or where to go for dinner.
Gilbert says we're astoundingly poor predictors of what will make us happy in the future. As we decide on career pursuits, marriages, restaurant reservations, transportation, and what to plant in the garden this spring, biology conspires to make life simple, and in doing so, thwarts many of our efforts even as the electricity whizzes toward those little light bulbs in our brains.
Happiness! Who doesn't want it? But what is it, really, and how do we get there? Are there standards we can use to measure? Is there a blueprint for having more happiness in our lives?
Well, yes and no. Gilbert's hilarious book runs us through the processes of perceiving where we are, predicting where we want to be, and all the pitfalls along the way. From magicians to man-on-the-street, Gilbert describes the way brains sense and organize the present, imagine what will come next (seconds from now or years later), and how we think we'll bridge the gap between the two. It's fascinating and funny stuff.
What makes us happy? Is one person's idea of happiness different from another's? How do we make comparisons between where we are and where we want to be? Although we spend our lives thinking about this stuff, Gilbert illustrates how we think we think is largely an illusion; the brain covering its tracks to save us time and trouble.
With amusing and compelling stories, Gilbert shines the laboratory light on everyday decisions and planning strategies, and yes: He even provides a formula for attaining happiness, which he claims most readers will never accept or use.
(But if you're reading this, you're not "most readers," are you?)
Gilbert says we're astoundingly poor predictors of what will make us happy in the future. As we decide on career pursuits, marriages, restaurant reservations, transportation, and what to plant in the garden this spring, biology conspires to make life simple, and in doing so, thwarts many of our efforts even as the electricity whizzes toward those little light bulbs in our brains.
Happiness! Who doesn't want it? But what is it, really, and how do we get there? Are there standards we can use to measure? Is there a blueprint for having more happiness in our lives?
Well, yes and no. Gilbert's hilarious book runs us through the processes of perceiving where we are, predicting where we want to be, and all the pitfalls along the way. From magicians to man-on-the-street, Gilbert describes the way brains sense and organize the present, imagine what will come next (seconds from now or years later), and how we think we'll bridge the gap between the two. It's fascinating and funny stuff.
What makes us happy? Is one person's idea of happiness different from another's? How do we make comparisons between where we are and where we want to be? Although we spend our lives thinking about this stuff, Gilbert illustrates how we think we think is largely an illusion; the brain covering its tracks to save us time and trouble.
With amusing and compelling stories, Gilbert shines the laboratory light on everyday decisions and planning strategies, and yes: He even provides a formula for attaining happiness, which he claims most readers will never accept or use.
(But if you're reading this, you're not "most readers," are you?)
Tuesday, July 17, 2007
Vision boards and the Portland Pen Show
I spent some of this past weekend at the Portland Pen Show, where fountain pen collectors from all over the country buy, sell, trade, and admire new releases by pen manufacturers and vintage models lovingly preserved or restored from the 1960s, '50, '40s and earlier.
When I began collecting fountain pens, I made a collage in Photoshop and put it on my computer desktop. The pens I wanted to purchase were there for me to look at every moment I was at my computer. All day long, I stared at those pens, imagining how each one would feel in my hand; what I would be writing; how others would look at them and at me.
According to some gurus who recommend vision boards, I should have some of those pens in my collection, right?
Well, I don't. Does that mean I did something wrong in my "vision board"?
No. I listened to feedback as I made my collection plans. After I created the vision board on my computer desktop, I learned that some of the pens I wanted weren't worth having. Some turned out to be too large and heavy for my hand. Others, although pretty to look at, had flaws that prevented the ink from flowing evenly. Nevertheless, I now have a fantastic collection of fountain pens that bring me a lot of joy.
Knowing your outcome is a terrific starting point. By making your goals visible, a vision board can help you stay focused and motivated. Make room for course corrections, though. Be willing to say, "This -- or something better!" By focusing too exclusively on one factor, rather than the big picture, I've missed opportunities.
Treasure your goals; stay flexible and alert.
When I began collecting fountain pens, I made a collage in Photoshop and put it on my computer desktop. The pens I wanted to purchase were there for me to look at every moment I was at my computer. All day long, I stared at those pens, imagining how each one would feel in my hand; what I would be writing; how others would look at them and at me.
According to some gurus who recommend vision boards, I should have some of those pens in my collection, right?
Well, I don't. Does that mean I did something wrong in my "vision board"?
No. I listened to feedback as I made my collection plans. After I created the vision board on my computer desktop, I learned that some of the pens I wanted weren't worth having. Some turned out to be too large and heavy for my hand. Others, although pretty to look at, had flaws that prevented the ink from flowing evenly. Nevertheless, I now have a fantastic collection of fountain pens that bring me a lot of joy.
Knowing your outcome is a terrific starting point. By making your goals visible, a vision board can help you stay focused and motivated. Make room for course corrections, though. Be willing to say, "This -- or something better!" By focusing too exclusively on one factor, rather than the big picture, I've missed opportunities.
Treasure your goals; stay flexible and alert.
Sunday, June 10, 2007
This is Your Brain on Filters
I watched a video by Paul Scheele recently in which he quoted the following findings from some research done in 1985-86. (Unfortunately, he didn't cite the study in his presentation. *sigh*).
Compare:
The rate (in BPS, or Bits Per Second) at which our sensory organs receive input:
Eyes - 10,000,000
Ears - 100,000
Skin - 1,000,000
Taste - 1,000
Smell - 100,000
Wow! Pretty amazing!
Now, let's look at how much of that information (also in BPS) reaches the conscious mind:
Eyes - 40
Ears - 30
Skin - 5
Taste - 1
Smell - 1
No, that is not a typo.
Think about this for a moment! Most of the information that's coming in bypasses the conscious mind and goes straight into the nonconscious mind! We're only consciously aware of a fraction of the information we receive about the external world! That doesn't mean we are totally unaware of that information. We simply don't consciously notice it.
This is one reason I love Nonviolent Communication and hypnosis. During the "input" phase of communication, NVC "observations" help me focus my attention on sensory input. What am I seeing and hearing? Who is present? What is happening, in what order? Bringing my focus to these things helps me slow down and notice whether my reactions to the situation are coming from what I'm actually noticing or from a habit, memory, or old interpretation of an earlier, similar event.
Hypnosis, on the other hand, goes directly to the nonconscious mind. When I allow myself to go into trance, I can invite the nonconscious mind to share the perceptions it received but withheld from the conscious mind, not wanting to bother it with a lot of irrelevant details.
Compare:
The rate (in BPS, or Bits Per Second) at which our sensory organs receive input:
Eyes - 10,000,000
Ears - 100,000
Skin - 1,000,000
Taste - 1,000
Smell - 100,000
Wow! Pretty amazing!
Now, let's look at how much of that information (also in BPS) reaches the conscious mind:
Eyes - 40
Ears - 30
Skin - 5
Taste - 1
Smell - 1
No, that is not a typo.
Think about this for a moment! Most of the information that's coming in bypasses the conscious mind and goes straight into the nonconscious mind! We're only consciously aware of a fraction of the information we receive about the external world! That doesn't mean we are totally unaware of that information. We simply don't consciously notice it.
This is one reason I love Nonviolent Communication and hypnosis. During the "input" phase of communication, NVC "observations" help me focus my attention on sensory input. What am I seeing and hearing? Who is present? What is happening, in what order? Bringing my focus to these things helps me slow down and notice whether my reactions to the situation are coming from what I'm actually noticing or from a habit, memory, or old interpretation of an earlier, similar event.
Hypnosis, on the other hand, goes directly to the nonconscious mind. When I allow myself to go into trance, I can invite the nonconscious mind to share the perceptions it received but withheld from the conscious mind, not wanting to bother it with a lot of irrelevant details.
Saturday, May 12, 2007
The Power of Doubt
In a recent article on his Web site, Kevin Hogan wrote:
Doubt is the birthing place of careful, concerned and critical thinking.
Now, I purchased a copy of the movie, The Secret, the first week it came out, because I enjoy Joe Vitale's marketing and PR materials. If he was involved in the project, I was interested.
I am a big believer in focus and staying open to possibilities. But do I think that's all I need to do? That if I focus on something, the universe will come into alignment and my desired outcome will manifest? That if I let doubt and "negative" thinking in, that I'm dooming my chances of success? No way!
I once attended a planning meeting for an event. At one point, the group chose to devote several minutes to visualizing the event filled to overflowing.
I thought that time would have been spent better developing a printing schedule for flyers, developing a list of venues to post the flyers, assigning people to post them, building a calendar of complementary events to distribute flyers... you know: a PLAN. With assigned tasks.
So I got up and left. I went home to work on my plan for filling those seats.
I love The Secret because I need to be reminded that the more passionate and detailed my goals, the better my chances of achieving them. (In NLP, it's called having a "well formed outcome.") But do I think there's some unseen force at work that works to attract stuff to me?
Nope.
I don't see anything in The Secret that isn't described in clearer, more measurable terms with NLP's concept of well-formed outcomes.
Doubt is the birthing place of careful, concerned and critical thinking.
- You must doubt your plan.
- You must doubt yourself.
- You must doubt those around you.
- You must doubt the vehicle you are taking to achieve.
- You must doubt the entire process.
Now, I purchased a copy of the movie, The Secret, the first week it came out, because I enjoy Joe Vitale's marketing and PR materials. If he was involved in the project, I was interested.
I am a big believer in focus and staying open to possibilities. But do I think that's all I need to do? That if I focus on something, the universe will come into alignment and my desired outcome will manifest? That if I let doubt and "negative" thinking in, that I'm dooming my chances of success? No way!
I once attended a planning meeting for an event. At one point, the group chose to devote several minutes to visualizing the event filled to overflowing.
I thought that time would have been spent better developing a printing schedule for flyers, developing a list of venues to post the flyers, assigning people to post them, building a calendar of complementary events to distribute flyers... you know: a PLAN. With assigned tasks.
So I got up and left. I went home to work on my plan for filling those seats.
I love The Secret because I need to be reminded that the more passionate and detailed my goals, the better my chances of achieving them. (In NLP, it's called having a "well formed outcome.") But do I think there's some unseen force at work that works to attract stuff to me?
Nope.
I don't see anything in The Secret that isn't described in clearer, more measurable terms with NLP's concept of well-formed outcomes.
Saturday, April 28, 2007
The Law of Attraction (I mean, Attention)
I want to think about a saying I hate (because it has a cutesy Hallmark Cards quality) and love (because I agree with the concept):
Energy flows where attention goes."
Ohmygoshwow! It's the Law of Attraction!
No. It's physics. Performing any mental, physical, or emotional action requires energy. Thinking, exercising, grieving, loving, laughing, walking, working... it all takes energy. So of course, if I'm focusing my attention on (i.e., thinking about) a math test, my neurons are firing and energy is being expended toward that math test.
The more pertinent question, in my opinion, is: How much energy? How well is it being focused? And what measurable difference does it make?
If I sit on the couch thinking about all the ways I could eat better, but I shove potato chips and chocolate into my mouth because that's what I've got on hand, I'm not going to lose weight. If I focus on how beautiful my body will look once I've dropped 30 pounds, but I never get off the couch, my mirror will persist in displaying the same overweight image.
My attention is on eating better, until I get hungry; then, my attention focuses on convenience.
Hypnosis, NLP and NVC can be used to train the subconscious mind to focus attention in ways that serve our outcomes. Steps involve slowing down and noticing our habitual behaviors. Then, asking better questions:
Energy flows where attention goes."
Ohmygoshwow! It's the Law of Attraction!
No. It's physics. Performing any mental, physical, or emotional action requires energy. Thinking, exercising, grieving, loving, laughing, walking, working... it all takes energy. So of course, if I'm focusing my attention on (i.e., thinking about) a math test, my neurons are firing and energy is being expended toward that math test.
The more pertinent question, in my opinion, is: How much energy? How well is it being focused? And what measurable difference does it make?
If I sit on the couch thinking about all the ways I could eat better, but I shove potato chips and chocolate into my mouth because that's what I've got on hand, I'm not going to lose weight. If I focus on how beautiful my body will look once I've dropped 30 pounds, but I never get off the couch, my mirror will persist in displaying the same overweight image.
My attention is on eating better, until I get hungry; then, my attention focuses on convenience.
Hypnosis, NLP and NVC can be used to train the subconscious mind to focus attention in ways that serve our outcomes. Steps involve slowing down and noticing our habitual behaviors. Then, asking better questions:
- Where am I putting my attention?
- What am I feeling?
- As I decide how to act, what factors am I paying attention to?
- What needs or outcomes are in play?
- Will the action I plan to take block me from my goal, or get me closer to it?
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