Podcast: Play in new window | Download
A number of years ago I bought a home study program, and then I did the live course. It was a super fast reading method, PhotoReading. In that you look behind the pages, flip them one page per second, and voila, you’ve read the book. Truth be told there are other steps, but this was the step I had a problem with.
I didn’t trust it. I didn’t believe that the brain, or whatever it was doing it, would actually see something I don’t consciously see.
Hell, it was a long time ago… I just looked it up and I did the course in 2007.
Because I didn’t trust the method I didn’t really use it. If you don’t trust something you either won’t do it, or you won’t do it properly. So I never got proof positive that it works.
Now, fast forward 15 years. I play Freecell… and lately I have been playing poorly. I have been violating all the principles I had discovered that made me a good player.
The main issue was that I didn’t look before I leaped.
Why? I guess when life is hectic, and it’s been somewhat hectic, it is hard to really slow down and trust that slow is smooth, smooth is fast.
If you start a project, any project where the end result depends highly on the first few steps, then looking first to see what would be the best first steps is mandatory.
In essence you need to see that the first steps don’t render the game/project unwinnable.
Unwittingly I ran a whole two weeks of losing streak. Losing more games than I won… Before my track record was almost 100% winning.
So this morning I had an idea to test the brain the Photoreading way: I allowed my eyes to scan the eight columns of card without making any conscious effort to see what is in front A of me. And then I waited to be ‘told’ what to play. And the game was won.
I did it again, and again to test it, and again the game was won.
So what exactly happens in the invisible, in the other than conscious realm?
Surprisingly, at least to me, the eyes see everything. And they communicate it to the brain… unless.
Unless what?
If you want to consciously see what you are looking at, the mind kicks in.
The mind seems to be a filtering/storage unit in the brain… maybe it is a function not a location, although when people are looking in the mind, I feel it always at the same place in the head… so I am not sure.
Anyway, when you look consciously, then you look through the mind, and the filters kick in.
The filters that block anything they have a program to not to allow through.
For example, back in 2007 in was still too important to me to be smart. So using my other than conscious brain to read offended my self-concern to consider myself smart. So I just could not do the Photoreading.
Same thing happened with the scanning of The Zohar… that I learned around the same time in the Kabbalah Centre. It offended my self-concern.
In the 15 years since I have given up the importance of being smart, somewhat, so now I could just scan the cards and not resist. Not need to involve my mind… and render the activity not effective.
Now, why is this, maybe, relevant to you, maybe even important?
When you read my articles, watch my workshops, or are live at one of my workshops, you almost certainly listen through your self-concern. Your doom. The agenda. The fear.
So your filters are very active and you get to hear only a little bit of what is going on, and you probably also hear it distorted.
Yesterday we had a potentially breakthrough session. And yet the highest ‘landing’ rate was 10%. And two students had a 1% landing rate.
Landing rate measures how much of what was said actually got through the filters.
What hijacked the potentially breakthrough ideas is the mind.
When I listen I make sure that I create a blank slate before I come to a call. When I don’t, I use the first few minutes to publicly ‘blank-slate’… i.e. empty my vessel so I can absorb everything being said.
I also don’t speak from the mind, so I also need to hear what I say…
So my landing rate, to the rate what I hear lands in my brain is 91%. 9% is still blocked… but 91% gets through, as opposed to the students 1-10%.
Is this true everywhere? In other teachers’ classes? In books? In videos? Audios?
Yes. This is so across the board.
Landmark Education calls this your already always listening… which is a great expression, but doesn’t quite help, or not always.
What you need to do is blank-slate.
You need to look what are you expecting and let it go. Good or bad… let it go. What is the agenda? let it go.
Jim Camp pioneered blank-slating in his book ‘Start with NO’. It can also be called clearing… I have been clearing for 35 years… But Jim Camp manages to specify what it is you need to clear… so it is a superior method.
The purpose of blank-slating is to get rid of all neediness, fear, hope, excitement, anger, or worry. If you can maintain this emotionally neutral place then you’ll be able to hear more, retain more, and be more effective in all your actions, including communication.
What blank-slating does is this: done properly and completely it really removes the mind and its filters. It’s a lot like the instruction to leave your baggage at the door.
People who cannot do that, unwilling to do that, are ineffective in life… and we all have those in our lives… and maybe we are them.
The way to get rid of all that is in the way is to state what is there, and own it. Embrace it… like the monkey embraces its child in the picture, and that allows the thing, the neediness, the fear, the hope, the excitement, the anger or the worry to stay out of the way.
They are not gone. Often something triggers them again, and then you need to take a breather and blank-slate again.
With enough practice you’ll be able to maintain that blank slate for the duration of a conversation, or a course, or a video.
The responsibility questions are a great guidance, if you can identify, if you can stop lying to yourself, if you can bring some humility to them.
In the next core group session I intend to explore this whole idea of blank-slating. If the session turns out to be useful, then I’ll make the recordings available to everyone who is willing to wing a small sum for it.
And because it is so important, I’ll make it part of the Moneyroots workshop… for free.
Of all the areas of life Money is the most muddled, most confusing, most emotional area of life for most people, even if you are a social justice warrior, or a warrior for some other cause, good or bad.
So therefore it needs to be in your toolbox, so you can blank-slate yourself and not drag all that stuff into your work, your dealing with money, or people connected to money.
The second most muddy area is relationships… but even in relationships the same issues dominate… so if you do the Moneyroots workshop, your relationship power can double, triple, quadruple, because the issues are surprisingly the same.
How you do anything is how you do everything.
Back in 2007 I also did a course where the teacher attempted to clear our minds energetically.
It didn’t work at all. Muscletest says it cannot work. Sorry to disappoint you… you have to do the work yourself… or you’ll remain the same.
Here is the link to sign up to the Moneyroots Workshop, session 3.
It’s on Saturday, September 24 at 11 am EDT.
Let’s clear up your money issuesAnd if you want to learn how to blank-slate… email me… I may do a live session if there is enough interest.
