To Tell the Truth

Have you ever been in or observed an automobile accident? Many people have. Insurance companies try to get as many firsthand accounts of the accident as possible because they know that there will be as many different accounts as there are observations. This reduces their financial culpability in the matter.

While there are very specific facts that surround any event, including accidents (i.e., how fast the cars were moving, who was at fault, did they try to avoid the accident, etc.), our perceptions of what we witnessed are based on our past histories, beliefs, expectations, attitudes, and prejudices. These may be so ingrained that we don’t realize that our report of what we observed differed ever so slightly or grossly from what actually occurred. Multiply this by the number of people observing the accident and it’s easy to see why there is no consensus of reports and the truth is completely blurred. Not one person may actually report the facts accurately.

Unfortunately, our beliefs, attitudes, expectations, and prejudices also color our perceptions of the reality of our lives and obliterate the truth of who we are and what we experience. This creates a lot of shoulds and should nots. "I should do this." "This should not happen to me." "He should do that for me." "She should not treat me that way." We should all over ourselves and our lives can get pretty stinky.

At any given moment, reality is what it is and cannot be changed. We can do things now that alter our future realities, but our lives will only be filled with stress and suffering if we argue with our present reality. Or as Byron Katie, author of Loving What Is, says, “The only way we suffer is when we believe a thought that argues with what is. When the mind is perfectly clear, what Is is what we want.” Too many forces are in play and too many events have transpired to bring us to our present condition. These events and forces cannot be changed and so neither can our reality. We can argue with or resent the forces and events that have created a reality different than what we wanted, but the effect is still the same. We suffer.

The only way to end our suffering and eliminate stress is to stop arguing with reality. That doesn’t mean that we give up hope for a better future. It just means that we accept things as they are, focus on the task before us, and prepare for a better tomorrow. We can also begin the process of challenging our belief statements to help end our present suffering and to keep from suffering in the future when our lives do not meet our expectations. Byron Katie offers a method for doing this which she refers to as The Work. The Work consists of three main questions, a turn around, and potentially two additional questions. Is it true? Can I absolutely know it’s true? Who would I be without that thought? A turn around that restates the original belief statement. Can I see a reason to drop the thought? Can I think of a stress-free reason for keeping the thought? Let me offer you an example to see how this process works.

Mary worked for a high powered marketing firm. Her boss gave her a project to create a marketing plan for a potential new client. Unfortunately, he provided her with some misinformation. When she finished the project the company was brought in and her boss presented the completed project to the client. Their response was, “This is great, but that’s not what we told you we wanted." Her boss was furious and verbally abused her in front of her co-workers. She had put a lot of hard work into the project and had expected to receive praise and quite possibly a bonus. Hurt and distraught, she tried to explain that the mistake was not hers, but his. This only infuriated him further. He threatened her with firing and he told her she should have checked his facts out before proceeding. She suffered and cried for days. She could not get over the abuse she suffered.

A friend who had done some work with me suggested she give me a call to see if I could help her. She did. Before describing the event that brought her to my door she called her boss a so-and-so jerk. I’ve cleaned up the words a little as they could be somewhat offensive to people. After describing every painful detail she could remember and crying through the entire explanation she finished with, “He shouldn’t treat me that way.” To which I replied, “Is that true?” “What do you mean? Is that true? Of course it’s true”, she replied. I then asked, "Does he treat your co-workers differently" (Can you absolutely know it’s true)? Of course he treated them just as poorly. At least his behaviors were consistent. She then stated that he shouldn’t treat them that way either. Again I asked, “Is that true?” She just looked at me in disbelief. I continued. “You called your boss a jerk when you first arrived. Describe a jerk to me.” She did; listing every one of her boss’s behaviors. It seems to me that he was being who he is, a jerk. And you were being who you were, a victim. (Who would you be without that thought?) She didn’t like that. “Have you ever tried to get him to change his behaviors?” “Yes it hasn’t worked in the two years I’ve worked there. In fact, I left a job where I was treated the same by my ex-boss.” I explained that we can’t change the jerks of the world (and there are a lot of them) and can only be concerned with how we react when we are verbally assaulted by them so we don’t become victims of their rude and crude behaviors.

At that point I had her do so some Breaths of Life, smile, and a little Relaxation Therapy before continuing. I then asked her to turn around her original statement, “He shouldn’t treat me that way.” With a little training she came up with, “My boss is a jerk that treats people rudely. I can either be victimized by his treatment or learn how not to take it personally. I am not a victim and deserve to be treated well. I will treat me well.” “Great”, I said. I then asked the other two questions. “Can you see a reason to drop that thought?" You don’t have to if you don’t want.” “Yes, if I continue to believe that he should treat me the way I want to be treated, knowing that he won't I know that I’ll only keep suffering. “Can you think of a stress-free reason for keeping the thought? Again, you don’t have to change.” “Absolutely not!” “Can you show me how not to take it personally so I don’t suffer any more?” “Yes.”

We then set about that process. Within a few weeks of reprogramming Mary was a force to be reckoned with. The next time her boss berated her (we knew he would), she stood there smiling and nodding her head. When he finished she thanked him for his wise words, turned and walked away. He was so stunned that she didn’t completely break down and start crying that he stood there for five minutes in a daze. Eventually word got back to his supervisors that he was verbally abusing his staff. He almost lost his job and was required to attend anger management classes. While that was a pleasant but unexpected surprise, it was not the intent of our consults. We were determined to help Mary deal with the jerks of the world without taking their abuse personally or emotional breaking down, all the while standing in her own truth knowing she deserved to be treated respectfully.

If your life has become stinky because of all the should in it, you may want to explore The Work to help you overcome the belief statements that create your stress and suffering. And if you need a hand, I am always here to help. Until next time, breathe, smile, relax, and tell the truth.

I Think I Can, I Think I Can, I Think I Can

“I can actually feel it coming on;I can predict when I’m going to self-destruct.” These were the painful words of Peter, a golfer I introduced you to in my last blog, “I’ve Fallen and Can’t get Up”,who was plagued by a Negative Programming Cycle. While he was quite talented, his play rarely lived up to his potential in the recent past because memories of previous failures haunted him every time he stepped onto the golf course.

Do you suffer from a Negative Programming Cycle? Do memories of previous mistakes and failures or unwanted life circumstances haunt your thoughts and control your feelings, behaviors, happiness, and success? Does this create feelings of helplessness and hopelessness and that painful circumstances are just being relived? That’s the way it was for Peter until I began helping him develop a Positive Programming Cycle.

Here’s what we did for Peter. Hopefully it will work for you. First, we identified all the situations where Peter began self-destructing. I had him write them all down. A pattern developed so we only had to deal with a few types of situations. One of them was when he competed against players he deemed more talented than himself. What kind of situations cause you stress? Then he wrote down all the negative thoughts that went through his headduirng his self-destruction. What do you say to yourself in stressful situations? Write these down as well. Finally, Peter wrote down all of the emotions that he experienced while self-destructing. What emotions do you experience in stressful situations? Write them down. He finished up by writing down how his behaviors changed in these situations. Do you change how you act in stressful situations? Write down these behaviors. You now have a starting point for building a Positive Programming Cycle.

Once Peter had his lists completed I had him recall a situation where he self-destructed. I had him imagine it as vividly as possible so it was almost like being there for him. Only this time, he replaced his negative thoughts with positive ones. For example, instead of thinking, “Gee, I’m terrible”, he forced himself to think, “I’m a gifted golfer.” Since this was true, even though he had to force it, he could believe it. He replaced each negative emotion (e.g., frustration and fear) with positive emotions (excitement and love for the game). He then imagined himself behaving like he did when he was playing well. Instead of dropping his head into his chest, slouching his shoulders, frowning, and walking slower, he imagined himself holding his head up high, his shoulders back, chest out, smiling and walking with a quick pace. Finally, instead of reliving mistakes, failures, and defeat I had him imagine a successful outcome.

We considered every situation where he self-destructed and replaced his Negative Programming Cycle with his new Positive Programming Cycle. I then had him repeat this procedure everyday for thirty minutes without exception. Because playing well was so important to him, he kept to this procedure even though he didn’t see improvement in his performance for several weeks. But then things started to change slowly. His Negative Programming Cycle and self-destruction began to fade. He started playing more like the old Peter; closer to his potential. Within just a few short months his self-destructive behaviors almost completely disappeared. And when they did, he used the same procedure he used during his training to reverse the Negative Programming Cycle right in the middle of a round and turn his performance completely around.

Why did this work for Peter? First, the subconscious mind doesn’t know the difference between a real event or one that is vividly imagined. Science, through EEG monitoring has showed that the same parts of the brain become active and in the same way, whether an event is experienced or just vividly imagined in the mind. Initially, Peter could only imagine past failures and mistakes, which resulted in a loss of control over his thoughts, emotions, and behaviors, and so his performance deteriorated. It became self-fulfilling prophesy. As he increased the frequency and intensity of the positive images, thoughts, behaviors, and emotions through his simulated practice his play mirrored the new images.

The second reason this works is because the brain is made up of tiny cells called neurons. These neurons have tiny branches extending from them called synapses that connect neurons one to another to from a neural net. Think of telephone poles connected by cables. The poles are the neurons and the cabling are the synapses. Each place where the neurons connect incubates into a thought or memory. The brain builds all of its concepts by the Law of Associative Memory. Thoughts, ideas, and feelings are all constructed and interconnected out of electro-chemical messages sent from one neuron to another via the synapses that connect the neurons. These electro-chemical messages are no different than the sound of your voice travelling along the wires that connect your phone to any other phone. Or, now that we have wireless capabilities, the sound waves that travel through air from one phone or computer to another.

So when Peter would get into a situation that reminded him of previous failures, the same chemical messages coursed through his brain inducing his Negative Programming Cycle and self-destruction, which, in turn further strengthened the behaviors and poor performance. However, each time we interrupted that pattern in his simulation training, the connections weakened. At the same time, a new network was being constructed for the same situation; and as he practiced, this new network or pattern got stronger. Once the old pattern weakened sufficiently and the new pattern became stronger than the old, his performance mirrored the performance he imagined in his training.

Now unfortunately, the old pattern is never completely lost. It’s just there in a weakened state. If Peter hadn’t been vigilant and hadn’t continued his simulation training it would have been very easy for the old pattern to rear its ugly head at the most inopportune time.

How important is living Stress Free to you? Are you willing to risk spending thirty minutes a day developing a Positive Programming Cycle without knowing if or how long it will take before your stress fades into oblivion? This doesn’t mean that your situation will change. It means that your responses to your stressful conditions will change and you will remain in control of your thoughts, emotions, and behaviors regardless of what is occurring around you. You will also be able to focus on the task at hand better, and who knows, maybe your improved problem solving and creativity will find solutions that had eluded you in the past. And maybe you will find a way out of your present circumstances.

I've Fallen and Can't Get Up

I began my work as a Peak Performance Coach and Stress Relief Consultant working with golfers as I had been a competitive golfer for most of my life and a professional golf instructor for many years before receiving my degree in Sport Psychology from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro in 1993. While the example I am about to cite is from my years in the golf world, the application to all of life is quite strong. I am sure you will see the connection.

“I can actually feel it coming on: I can predict when I’m going to self-destruct during a round. Yet, I feel completely powerless to do anything about it, and it’s driving me crazy!” lamented Peter. “I’ve been playing golf for almost 20 years. I’ve spent a small fortune on lessons and practice, and I still choke! It’s no one particular shot, but whenever the self-destruction begins, I’d rather be playing in traffic than playing golf. I must be insane to continue playing.”

I listened to the anguish in his voice as Peter detailed every instance his memory allowed him to recall where he had once choked. “Just last week I started off well. I had a great front nine; but the back nine! You’d have thought I was a different person. My game fell completely apart, and by the twelfth hole, I had absolutely no confidence. I knew I couldn’t score and I didn’t. To top it all off I lost to three other golfers whom I should I have beaten easily.

Is peter Insane? I doubt it. Like many golfers, Peter is frustrated with his performance. He never performs as well as he thinks he should, but even more frustrating is that he doesn’t know why he self-destructs. While he is fairly accomplished, Peter’s frustrations are similar to those experienced by golfers at all ability levels. From his perspective, he has always suffered from this problem. During our conversations I was able to identify the reasons for Peter’s self-destruction.

Peter is plagued by what Matt Oeschsli, a hypnotherapist and author of such books as Mind Power with Students and The Winning Game of Selling, refers to as a Negative Programming Cycle. Negative Programming Cycles affect our beliefs and our beliefs control our thoughts, actions, and emotions. Peter believed he possessed tremendous potential, but that to play at his perceived potential, he had to play near perfection. When he made a bad swing or poor putt Peter worried about future bad swings and putts, fiddled with his grip and tinkered with his mechanics, doubted his ability, began thinking negatively about his chances for success and self-destructed. “I knew I couldn’t score well and I didn’t.”

According to Dr. Shad Helmsetter, author of What to Say When You Talk to Yourself, 75% of early programming in our Western culture is typically negative. That is, we tend to be more critical and punish mistakes than we reward good behavior and success. We expect people to make the right choices and behaviors. We criticize and punish them when they make mistakes or make the wrong choices. The greater the discrepancy between negative and positive reinforcement, the stronger is our Negative Programming cycle. Is it any wonder that we develop the habit of negative self-talk, that we are critical and even punish ourselves for the simplest mistakes, and doubt our ability to improve our performance or live a better life?

You’ve heard the expression, self-fulfilling prophecy. Your outward thoughts, words expressions, and behaviors are a reflection of your most deeply held beliefs. If you have s strong Negative Programming Cycle you probably respond to adversity like Peter. In fact, the stronger your Negative Programming Cycle, the less likely you dare to dream and the sooner you give up on yourself in the face of adversity.

The Negative Programming Cycle starts a chain reaction of thoughts and responses every time we make a mistakes or life doesn’t go the way we want. It makes us believe that mistakes are wrong or we don’t deserve a better life. We then act in ways that are consistent with those negative beliefs. The Negative Programming Cycle is so insidious that we may not even be aware that we have these thoughts or responses. Peter didn’t and it affected his play. Unless we do something to counter the effects of our Negative Programming Cycle we will continue to falter.

First, we need to realize that there is nothing wrong with making mistakes and that there is always and ebb and flow to life. Mistakes are a natural part of life and so is some adversity. Today’s mistakes and/or adversity are not an indication of tomorrow’s failures; however, because we are bombarded with negative reinforcement, we carry this belief around with us. The Negative Programming Cycle causes us to think too much and worry about our chances for a future successful or happy life, creating negative thinking and inducing self-limiting behaviors.

If we have been subjected to a lifetime of negative reinforcement we possess an internal negative concept. A negative internal self-concept cause us to think too much in achievement situations, and because of previous failures and mistakes, cause negative thinking, projecting failure and adversity into the future. We begin to worry about the outcome, the consequences of failure, and what others will think about us if we fail. These worries and the negative self-concept interfere with our performance and create self-limiting behaviors that undermine our performance or life. The resulting outcome will be undesirable, just as we thought it would be; further strengthening the inner belief that we are not good or worthy.

Any time we make mistakes, fail in an important activity, or life is just not what we had intended, our mind goes back into history, recalling previous similar situations and our conscious mind then begins to consider all the negatives a la’ Murphy’s Law: If something can go wrong it will. Because performance or experiencing life in very specific ways is so important we give into negative thoughts and worry distracts us from the task at hand, ensuring our defeat. While we want to believe that we are more capable than are present performance indicates or deserve a better life than we are experiencing at the moment, we have no evidence to support that hope.

If we normally respond emotionally to mistakes or adversity we may get angry, frustrated, experience despair or despondency. Finally we give up. Because of the Negative Programming Cycle, we believe there is nothing we can do that will change the situation, now or in the future. We make mistakes or life continues to beat us down. We further fuel the flames of defeat by beating ourselves up emotionally, calling ourselves or the present situation every name in the book, most of which cannot be printed here. And our subconscious says, “See I knew you would fail!”

Fortunately, we can choose to end this downward cycle of negativity and defeat by learning the attributes of a Positive Programming Cycle. It starts with the recognition of our negative thoughts and emotions and self-defeating behaviors. Here are some questions to ask yourself to see if you suffer from a Negative Programming Cycle.

What do I say to myself in adversity, when I make mistakes, or life doesn’t go my way?
Do I worry about the future?
Do I worry about what others will think about me, or worse yet, what I think of myself?
Do I think I’ll never get it or that life is destined to remain adverse?
Do I feel helpless or hopeless?
Do I have difficulty controlling thoughts?
Are most of my thoughts negative?
Do I remember similar negative situations?
Do I stop focusing on the task at hand (living in the present)?
Do I get stressed?
Do I have difficulty controlling my emotions?
Do my emotions turn to frustration, anger, rage, despair, despondency, or sadness?

If you look at your answers to these questions you can determine very quickly if you are affected by a Negative Programming Cycle. It doesn’t matter what forces are responsible for its development. You have to eliminate its influences if you ever hope to live the life you have always wanted and perform up to your expectation in all areas of your life. Next time we will continue on the journey to a Positive Programming Cycle and more abundant life. Until then, keep breathing, relax, and remember “Attitude is Everything.”

Do you know the way to...?

Many view the ego and the Self as opposite ends of our spiritual journey. The journey begins with the ego trying to learn who it is and why it is here. Through the mind, the ego separates and attempts to distinguish itself physically from other egos. “I am tall, short, thin, athletic, pleasingly plump, etc.” “I have blond hair.” The ego may also associate with ideals. “I am a good person, generous, helpful, etc.” At times the ego also identifies with social functions or groups within its social experience. “I am American, British, Catholic, Hebrew, Muslim, a fan of the Green Bay Packers.”

Why does the ego distinguish itself in so many ways? The only answer can be self-preservation. With so many ways to identify itself, the ego can never be lost in the morass of egos that inhabit this planet. If one identity ceases to exist, the ego can cling to another one of its identities or develop one to replace the one that was lost and remain alive, at least we assume, until the body itself dies.

Even its associations with social groups gives the ego life. When egos associate with groups, a collective consciousness or collective ego emerges that is different from other collective egos (i.e. democrat, republican) whose sole purpose also become one of survival and in many cases at the expense of the individual egos that comprise the collective ego.

Both individual egos and collective egos will do whatever is necessary to survive because they separate from others out of fear - the fear of its own death. The fear of death (and all other fears such as the fear of lack) and the struggle to survive leads to a loss of freedom, limited life choices, suffering, contention, strife, war, and every sort of human degradation. And this goes on ad infinitum or until there the world comes crushing down on the ego or that defining moment when the Self makes itself known. Usually it’s the former when we come to realize that all the faith we have put into our physical reality dies because all of our expectations of what should be is no longer is true. People make promises to us that because we and they change no longer hold true and the promises are broken. Or we believe in the American Dream, for example, and the economy dies as the result of the greed of those in power and we suffer financially.

When the ego becomes tired of the struggle to survive, to excel, or to set itself apart it becomes disenchanted with a life that promises the world in exchange for compliance, allegiance, and compromise but only delivers uncertainty, unwanted change, and lack of empathy, the Self can be heard whispering to try and get our attention. Sometimes it yells quite loudly and shocks us out of our self-imposed hells.

As fatigue sets in and the ego resigns itself to a life that is far less than what it believed it was promised, the mind surrenders its incessant struggle to determine the cause of its suffering so it can alter its future history. In these few moments of quiet solitude, a tiny voice can be heard, “There is more to life.” If we listen, the message continues. “Come inside and I will help you end your suffering so that you are completely free to explore who you really are. You are an infinite being of inner peace, happiness, joy, unconditional love, compassion, forgiveness and deserve all the abundance that Life has to offer, including life eternal.”

This whispered (or sometimes yelling) voice is the Self calling to the ego to remind it that because its Creator is Divine, it too is Divine and the source of all life itself. Because the ego has been conditioned to accept as truth only that which it can experience through the body’s five senses, it lacks the creativity and imagination necessary to envision life beyond the five senses. However, the Self is relentless, exposing the ego to synchronicities (unexplained coincidences) and experiences that defy logic or events which cannot be explained or identified through the five senses. It sends more evolved egos that are closer in touch with the Self to increase inquisitiveness for the ego to look to for answers beyond the external experience. The Self sends the ego inside.

Inner exploration of the ego to discover the Self can be quite frightening. The ego has been so conditioned by social institutions with which it associates to judge unacceptable certain personality characteristics or behaviors and physical features. The ego also has been conditioned by these same institutions (collective egos) that no one is perfect. If in exploring this internal world, the ego confronts or exposes its human imperfections and if acknowledging these imperfections is overly painful, the ego may resist all attempts to discover the Self. The ego is destined to suffer at its own hands. It cannot achieve full Consciousness in this life and possibly even after the demise of the physical body.

One cannot assume that the death of the body results in the death of the ego and the blossoming of the Self. If the ego has been so conditioned to assume it is unworthy and does survive the body’s demise it may continue to override the urgings of the Self to explore the beauty of eternal happiness, joy, and love and continue to exist in a hell of its own making. I believe that the only way to achieve Full Consciousness in this life or any other is to go deep within to explore all that we are, to accept, embrace, and love unconditionally all of our human failures and imperfections. When we do we discover the Self; our connection to eternal Divine life. We enter into the Kingdom of Heaven.

As we begin to end our judgments of ourselves we begin to look out into the world with new eyes and see perfection in every human event, even those that we previously deemed most despicable. We recognize the Divine Plan from our Ascension into Full Consciousness and unconditional love and accept that joy and pain, happiness and sorrow, love and hate, war and peace push us along this path to our ultimate destination. For example, Hitler exterminated millions of Jews, Catholics, and all he deemed would contaminate the super race he planned for the earth. The world united to squelch his attempts at world domination and said, “Never again will we accept such reprehensible behavior.” Since then many have tried to reignite this search for a superior race and extermination of those deemed unworthy. Each time, humanity remembered and with a united voice said, “No!”

While it has taken wars and killing to stop this onslaught on humanity, there exists the possibility that we will find peaceful means to end this struggle because humanity, as a whole, is getting tired of hate, violence and war. If not, maybe the only way to end war is to end all human life. Even this would be acceptable within Divine Law as we are much more than just our bodies. After all we are spiritual beings having a human experience. Who knows, maybe the realization will occur one day that the human experiment is no longer necessary. The human experience is only an infinitesimal part of the Divine experience and even if all human life ends, Divine Life continues into and throughout eternity.

Even for those pursuing a spiritual path the journey may not be smooth, easy, or pain free. The recognition of our acceptance of the Self and all it implies is in direct conflict with the condition, experience, and past history of the human ego. The only way to experience unlimited joy, happiness, love, and freedom is to choose them, regardless of what we experience on a human level. There are no laws that state that we must suffer if we are poor, ugly, homeless, unsuccessful, or uneducated.

When you suffer because your efforts have not resulted in desired outcomes, it’s your ego reminding you that you put your faith in a reality that can only offer uncertainty, change, inconsistency and compromise. You must be willing to give up your faith, hope, and expectation that specific behaviors produce specific human experiences. At the moment you become aware of your suffering, close your eyes, take a deep, long, slow breath, and smile. Remind yourself that this too shall pass; that you are much more than your physical experiences and destined for a future far greater than your feeble mind can imagine.

You must be ruthless in the use of this simple tool until the current episode of suffering ends and with each and every episode thereafter. If you remain committed to your Self, the continued use of this tool, which I refer to as the Attitude Adjustment Routine, will end your suffering quicker and quicker. As the suffering ends you will have reconnected with your Self.

There will be times when your efforts result in desired outcomes and may reconfirm your faith in the human experience. At these times too, use the Attitude Adjustment Routine, express your gratitude for the experience, and remind yourself, “this too shall pass” so you don’t fall victim to your addictions to the world’s lure of promise and hope. Secretly you may not want to admit this. You may not want the experience to end. Unfortunately, the next time the world does not cooperate your suffering may increase and you will once again find yourself on that downward spiral towards pain, confusion, mental agitation, and resistance. You may even give up and resign yourself once again to a life of restriction and limitation. Trust me. I know from many, many such experiences.

I have wanted to give up so many times, but the Self is too strong and resilient. It continues to call even if I turn off the sound or take the phone off the hook. Somehow its message gets through and I start all over again. You can too. All it takes is the intention to connect with the Self, an awareness of the ego’s function in human experience, and commitment to the use of a simple tool that transcends the human experience. Are you ready for that plunge inwards?