Become all you can become with Sophie
He that won't be counselled, can't be helped
Originally posted 2011-05-11 13:15:05.
In a Landmark Education Course I took back in 1987, I learned that it is possible to live life from a new context: “Life is a conversation”
It is quite simple if you can wrap your mind around it, incredibly difficult if you are attached to the way you see the world. Continue reading “How To Play An Active Part In Your life, your fortune”
Originally posted 2011-05-07 23:30:04.
If you know me, you know that the misery I experienced in my life for 50 years drove me to many modalities of relief, including affirmations.
Why? Because affirmations are spoken from the mind: and the mind says so many things, a nice word here and there won’t make a difference. Just watch how much difference and how long a pat on the back does to you: not much, correct?
Life started to change when I learned different ways of speaking. I learned that there is descriptive language, and that includes the affirmations: the ordinary way of speaking of most people.
requests, promises, and declarations. This way of speaking does not come from the mind: it comes from your higher way of being: your vertical plane, your vertical self.
This kind of speaking creates a context that is inescapable.
Of course, this doesn’t mean that people won’t use request or promise sounding sentences, that come from the mind, a casual tool of babbling. They may even seem to declare something, but the power is missing.
I measure the power of your word in the Starting Point Measurements
The power of MY word is 70%… But even with that much power you need to know that what you say matters. If the mind says: ‘you are lying’, then it doesn’t matter how much power your word has… does it?
So then why do negative statements seem to have disastrous consequences: what the statement says seems to come true? Because those statements, when spoken in the absence of a commitment, the absence of a higher context, are the true description of where the speaker’s world is heading.
I often say: this won’t work… this is going to fail… but my actions are not consistent with those ‘affirmations’, they are consistent with making it work.
Your most important job, if you want your word to have power, is to learn to connect to your higher self (not god! not Jesus! but your own higher self), and speak from there.
Until then you are just littering the world with your affirmations.
‘What changes your focus: changes your faith. What changes your faith changes your outcome.’ ~ Jesse Duplantis
Let me start by saying that everything you say is some kind of affirmation – either positive or negative. When you complain to your friends, ‘nothing ever goes right for me,’ you are affirming to the world and the universe that nothing should go right in your life.
It’s true, you know. You are where you are today because of your beliefs, attitudes and words.
What you say today becomes your reality tomorrow. What you believe about yourself and your situation creates and maintains your world.
You may not like where you are right now. You may not think you deserve all the hassles, stress and problems. And you are right. But you are the only one who can change your life with affirmations.
It was a revelation to me that my lack of money, bad attitude and poor relationships were my own fault! It was life-changing to learn that I could change my circumstances by changing my words.
Over the years, I have learned to say certain things – affirmations – to cancel negatives and attract positive results. Here are six affirmations that changed my life.
1. ‘I will not be defeated and I will not quit.’ It is so easy to throw up your hands and say, ‘I tried.’ But ‘try’ is never enough. To win in any situation, you have to be prepared to stay with it until you do win! It’s a philosophy that applies to everything. Michael Jordan is perhaps the greatest basketball player ever. But he freely admits that he has lost more than 300 games and missed over 9,000 shots. But he never quit. Whatever you want, whatever you need to accomplish, don’t let your circumstances win. Don’t quit.
2. ‘I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.’ Yes, it’s a Bible verse. But I use it all the time – when I’m tired and just want to give up (see #1!), when I’m faced with a problem that I don’t know how to solve, when I need physical strength to just get through the day. Sometimes I partner it with ‘I rest in God’s energy,’ drawing strength and resolve from the Eternal source of all energy and ability.
3. ‘I have the mind of Christ.’ The power here taps into Divine wisdom to solve seemingly unsolvable problems. God has answers to every situation. Affirming that connects your spirit with His wisdom. Patience allows Spirit to work on your behalf to bring the answers or change the circumstances to bring the solution you seek.
4. ‘I am rooted and grounded in Love.’
This one is particularly effective when I’m NOT feeling very loving. When someone interrupts ‘my’ routine, wants something from me that I don’t really want to do, or when I’m feeling selfish, I remind myself of my higher calling. I am rooted and grounded in love. I can set aside my wants and focus on the other person. God will take care of me. Use that as an affirmation, coupled with appropriate action to line yourself up for greater blessing.
5. ‘There is nothing lost in God’s world.’ Use this one where you are looking for lost keys, glasses or any misplaced item. It may take some time, but if you will let this work, a thought will pop into your mind to look… somewhere. And you will usually find exactly what you are looking for.
6. ‘God loves me and has a good plan for my life.’ Use this all the time, but especially when circumstances seem aligned against you. This affirmation helps to line up your thinking with the divine plan of blessing and abundance. It helps defeat stress by acknowledging the power of Divine assistance and direction.Remember, you must stay consistent with your affirmations.
Think of your words like a bucket of paint.
If you are filling the bucket with negative (black) words, complaints and mumblings throughout your day, how much white (positive) words will you have to speak to get the color you want?
Don’t just think of affirmations as things you speak sometimes. Watch your everyday words to make sure you are speaking what you want. God explained it this way: call those things that be not as though they were (Rom. 4:17). By following His method of creation, you can re-create your own world with your words.
Words have power. They have the power to change your mindset. By changing your mind – your beliefs – you change your attitude. That leads to a change in your actions. Use the ‘A-team’ – Affirmation, Attitude and Action – to change your life.
Obviously this wasn’t my article… it was quoted by some god-fearing person. You need to find what YOU have faith in… if you don’t have faith in Christ or whatever….
Originally posted 2011-05-05 02:00:09.
Hypnosis is mysterious and peculiar. It is not fully understood. Some therapists are taught a very diluted version of hypnosis and they market themselves with statements about hypnosis that are not true. They are true to the techniques they use, but not to hypnosis. Here are six common misconceptions about hypnosis and their relevance to effective change work. Some are encouraged by practicing therapists and some are just urban legends.
Hypnosis is a sleep like state
Hypnosis gets its name from the Greek God of sleep, Hypnos, which is misleading. Relaxation and sleep are two very common suggestions used in the induction process. The relaxed state you often see in hypnotised people is the acceptance of a suggestion, but it is not hypnosis. It is the effect not the cause.
In a stage show you will see the subjects slumped when the hypnotist is not using them, they look like they are asleep, puppets with their strings cut, yet as soon as the puppeteer gives them an instruction they jump to it – you do not do that when you are asleep. When they are doing what they are told as part of the performance – eating an onion or falling in love with a mop – in the reality that the hypnotist has given them they are in they still hypnotised and they are very definitely not asleep.
In therapy the client will spend a lot of time with their eyes closed in a relaxed state as in therapy the attention is turned inwards and so it makes sense to block out external stimulus, but they are not asleep, they are following instructions given to them by the hypnotist, rearranging their subconscious patterns and changing their lives.
A good therapist will ensure some sort of two way communication between themselves and the client so they can gauge the effectiveness of what they are doing as they go. This might involve talking with the client, asking for head nods or shakes or establishing Ideo Motor Responses which are tiny involuntary muscle movements – one for Yes and one for No. You cannot do that with someone who is asleep.
The most common phrase from a clients mouth when you wake them up is something along the lines of ‘that was weird’ – probably not the first phrase uttered each morning.
The Hypnotist cannot make you do anything you do not want to do!
Many hypnotherapists will claim this on their FAQ pages, they will tell you that you are completely in control throughout the session as many hypnotherapy schools teach this. Any therapist that claims this is not using hypnosis or they do not understand the tools of their own trade. Hypnosis is the acceptance of suggestion without question, without reservation, without inhibition and that is exactly why you go to hypnotist rather than a counsellor or psychotherapist which work with your conscious faculty at the pace you wish to go to try and get past problems – hypnosis removes your conscious critical faculty from the equation to get you fast results.
Let’s examine the term ‘want’. Let’s say you get a panic attack every time you are in a small enclosed space. You want to stop doing that but you can’t. If you really truly wanted to stop you would. So why is it not possible? Because there is a deeper want – part of your mind wants to keep you out of small enclosed spaces. Part of your mind, the part that is in charge, does not want to go into small enclosed spaces. Go and see a hypnotist though, and they can talk to that part of your mind and tell it that you will be okay if you go into small enclosed spaces without panicking. And you will feel fine after that. The hypnotist has made you do something that you do not want to do.
The same goes for any issue that you might want to see a hypnotist for – the process aligns your conscious desires with your subconscious resistance so there is no conflict.
It is a wonderful process that can do wonderful things for you but be sure you trust your hypnotist and chose them carefully.
Hypnosis is a completely natural state which you drift in and out of several times a day
For hypnosis to happen you need a hypnotist and a hypnotee. The thing that makes hypnosis hypnosis is the acceptance of the hypnotist’s suggestion without reservation, without inhibition. This cannot happen regularly throughout the day unless you are joined at the hip of a hypnotist who barks suggestions at you regularly.
Trance is often mistaken for hypnosis. Daydreaming is a form of trance. Autopilot that you slip into while driving a familiar root is a form of trance. Watching TV is a form of trance. Hypnosis is a form of trance, but trance is not hypnosis, not without a hypnotist there to drive it.
Hypnosis is when a hypnotist encourages your subconscious to become dominant over your conscious mind which is important because your subconscious can do anything, it does not know its limits, whereas your conscious mind has limits and it knows exactly where they are.
The hypnotist does not do anything to you, they just encourage the subconscious to come out and play, using your imagination and focus while persuading the conscious mind to sit back for a while. This does not happen several times a day. In a session with a good hypnotist you will have a new and different, weird and wonderful experience.
You can hypnotize yourself
Following the above logic, you cannot hypnotise yourself. You cannot bypass your own conscious faculty. You cannot stick your own finger to the end of your own nose without glue but a hypnotist can. It is very hard to consciously change a subconscious belief once it is formed as your conscious mind is a result of that belief – this is a bit like trying to pick yourself up off the floor. You need someone else to bypass that conscious mind for you.
Self hypnosis can be good to focus your attention, your energy and your self awareness, it can be good to really think about how you are seeing the world and to find new ways of seeing it, but it is not hypnosis – it is self-induced trance or meditation and it can do you the world of good, but it will not be as fast as hypnosis and is not the same thing.
Only the weak minded can be hypnotized
This misconception was quite possibly started by bad hypnotists who just wanted people to comply. It is not true. Hypnosis is more of a talent of the hypnotee than the hypnotist, it is a skill to be able to take someone else’s words as your own reality. It is a skill that some people have naturally, others can learn to be better at it and some people will never be able to do it. So what determines how good a hypnotee you are?
In a study by J. E. Horton et al entitled ‘Increased anterior corpus callosum size associated positively with hypnotizability and the ability to control pain’, he discovers that someone’s ability to be hypnotised depends on the size of the rostrum which is part of the brain within the corpus callosum which links the left and right hemispheres, the rational and creative parts of the brain. The bigger the rostrum the better a hypnotee you are; if your rostrum is small it may be that you cannot be hypnotized.
The best way to find out how hypnotizable you are is to spend some time with a hypnotist and try some things and this would be wise to do before investing a full amount in treatment. Do some tests and you have an idea how likely it is to work and a good hypnotist will give you the opportunity to find this out as this determines if and how they are going to be help you.
The other things that may get in the way on the day are: mood, rapport with the hypnotist, setting, things going on in your life and choice of inductions to name but a few, but a good hypnotist will work with you to get past these variables and if you can be hypnotised, you will be.
You can get stuck in hypnosis
If the stage hypnotist dies in the middle of the show, will you live the rest of your life in love with a mop? If the therapist walks out in the middle of a session and never comes back will you never ‘wake up’?
To take the therapy scenario first, your subconscious is bright, it is in control of so much all the time, it will realise that the hypnotist is gone and allow you to either fall into a comfortable sleep or ‘wake you up’ of its own accord.
In terms of your showbiz love affair with a mop, you may stay in love with the mop for a while, but your mind can still learn and there is more evidence that the mop is not actually a person worthy of your love than there is to the contrary and so you will process this and fall out of love quite quickly.
This is why the hypnotist needs to be clever in therapy as the effects in the session need to last. The suggestions that are designed to effect the rest of your life must be put in a way that will remain congruent with the way you experience life or the work that is done in the session will be undone over time. The change needs to be made and then your subconscious prepared for potential challenging times ahead so that it can run the new pattern even when the going gets tough rather than reverting habitually to the old pattern. The therapist cannot stop life from happening, but they can give you the tools to cope with whatever is thrown at you.
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If I see you as beautiful… will you see yourself as beautiful?
If I see you as magnificent, great, awesome… will you see yourself like I do?
Muscletest and my experience says: no.
The most beautiful women spend hours in front of the mirror staring at their imperfections… trying to hide them.
There are also beautiful women who can say: so what. They are in search of some other imperfection.
We know ourselves intimately, and rare is the person who can leave it alone… who can refrain bemoaning their faults, and stop trying to fix themselves while keeping up appearances.
Continue reading “If I see you as beautiful… will you too?”
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One of my ‘favorite’ practices is this:
I find out that I misunderstood something. It cost me to miss something. It cost me to misunderstand. And it always does.
So instead of getting upset. Or angry. Or beat myself up. I do something constructive.
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Correcting the languageThis article tries to explain something I heard 30 years ago, and it took, till today to understand. So it’s not easy, but it has the answer to the question in the title, and it has the key you’ve been looking for, though you didn’t know what exactly you were looking for.
The reason you are unhappy, lonely, and afraid because language directly leads there. Continue reading “Why You’re Dumb, Sick, Broke, and miserable”
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Summary: Most of us don’t know who we really are. We don’t know what we really want. We don’t know where to start, what to do to become an expanding human being.
Here is an exercise that can be really helpful. With it you could start exercising the faculties that will lead you to clarity about who you are and what you want… eventually.
The complex problem I have been struggling with is how to teach people to start using their faculties. How to start using their brain for what it is really good for. Doing that instead of searching for answers outside of them, or in their minds. Instead of asking questions from others and never actually think.
First time client, totally immersed in the current culture (politically correct). When asked to share about himself he said he gave blood every two weeks and helped out with the high school in his town.
Typical outward directed focus. Selfless. He didn’t say anything about himself. What he said though said that he wasn’t an independent thinker. Or a thinker at all.
I shared with him about my collapsed dreams with Amazon. I shared how I learned a lesson. He praised me for being tough. Then I shared with him that I had thoughts of suicide. He said that he thought I was stronger than that.
In Christianity, especially in Catholicism, even the thought of a sin is a sin.So Christians are commanded to avoid thoughts of sin. Thus they avoid thoughts of anything worth thinking about. They avoid knowing themselves.
I told him that because I was able to tell the difference between my thoughts and my actions for me there was no harm in thinking through any action, any reaction. No harm thinking about suicide. No harm thinking about the aftermath, etc. Or no harm thinking where my current actions in life are leading me… even if it is a horrible place. The more I can see it the better for me. I said that thinking ‘bad thoughts’ was actually a useful exercise.
That both Christianity and Positive Thinking rob people of choosing for themselves. Rob them of being able tell apples from oranges, their thoughts from their actions.
That not being willing (or able) to be in the presence of unpleasant or ‘sinful’ thoughts and ideas render them ready preys for the powers that be, for the marketeers, for everyone and anyone who want to exploit them.
When you cannot tell the difference between your thoughts and your actions, you have to act on every urge. you are a puppet on the string for your urges.
When you see an advertising for a chocolate cake… you need to have it. When you see the picture of a half naked woman, you need to do what the urge tells you to do: you are not in the driver’s seat, you are not the boss.
You cannot just be… and live your life, drive your life where you want it to go.
And that’s when it hit me”
If I asked you to imagine situations where the decision can be confronting. Where the decisions would be revealing, ugly, or ethically challenging. Where you would really look what decisions you could make. You would feel into what decision you like, what decisions you dislike. What decisions you would entertain. What decisions you would be too cowardly to make, fearing the consequences.
If you were willing to contemplate the question, then, through these ‘mental imaginings’ you could actually start growing. You could start getting some self-knowledge. And you could start telling apart yourself from others. What others told you and what you feel, what you think. Your own judgment. And thus you could exercise your brain, exercise your thinking, use your mental tools. Review your moral values, awaken your self-awareness.
You would access the thinking functions of the brain instead of the limited storage device mind.
Until the age of about 40 I was largely a mystery to myself, because I didn’t know what I liked, what I disliked. I couldn’t tell.
I didn’t know what were my preferences, because I was cut off from my feelings. Because I was an empath I felt too much. I felt everything and the opposite.
I couldn’t tell my feelings from ‘not-my’ feelings.
For me the only way to avoid confusion and maybe even schizophrenia, was to not feel. To suppress ALL feelings. To live entirely for the mental pursuits, for intellectual pleasures. And outside of that be an automaton.
At exactly 40 I was refused admittance to a week-long course, because of my inability to tell the difference between thought and action.
Each thought occurred to me as an action in and of itself. And I needed to be able to tell them apart, and become clear.
This is just a thought… this is an action.
Sometimes the thought was totally independent, not resulting in anything, not resulting in an action…
You may have different thoughts.
Since that realization at age 40 I have been pulling myself up by my bootstraps. My power became distinguishing, aka telling apart. Slowly but surely, telling things apart. Not being the ‘for you everything is the same as everything else except not always‘. I started to become able to tell apples from oranges, myself from others, actions from thoughts. And started getting to know me, my machine, my desires, my urges, my aspirations that have taken me to where I am.
I want this for you. I want you to get clear distinction between thought and actionThe exercise, putting yourself mentally in situations where you can test your mettle, is simple, but not easy.
Your tools of imaginings are rusty. Your imagination is weak. And you may find yourself squeamish. Hesitant. Unwilling. Scared. Pretending. You may try to outsmart the game by hiding, outrunning, outsmarting the issues, but never actually facing them.
You can get the hang of the game. And you’ll get better at it.
But bewares: You’ll do this game like you do everything else. That means most of you will quit before you start. Another half will quit after tying it once. And one or two in a hundred will hang in there, and grow.
It could become a mode of meditation. A meditation where you imagine up situations, and imagine yourself in them, and go back and forth and test different choices, different actions… Thus start getting to know yourself.
This is what Tai calls armchair meditation in step 54 (‘Chess-like Assiduity and armchair meditation)
What situations would you imagine? Any… the world and the internet offers up so many situations to imagine yourself in. 24 hours a day would not be enough if you wanted to play with them all.
What would you do if you were one of the relatives of the lost Malaysian airline plane? What would you do if your boy friend/husband got ill and he were a nasty patient? Or what would you do if you swallowed your wedding ring? What would you do if you found out you had cancer? (This last one is sorely missing for my clients who refuse to take care of themselves)
Look at the scenarios through your own eyes. Then switch and look at them from outside. Then switch again and look at them from the eyes of another person in the story, or outside of the story.
In my pondering about suicide looking at the fact through your (the client’s) eyes was a really educational experience. It helped that some celebrity’s girl friend just committed suicide. I could see being plastered on social media. It felt like being naked in public.
Do it, it’s amazing!
Expect a growth spurt once you figure this outExpect a growth spurt once you figure this out, once you get the hang of it. And expect lots of fun. Much like in a psychodrama class… Psychodrama on steroid.
Spend as much time with each situation as you need, until you get clear what the ‘real’ you would do in that situation.
My series of challenges are an excellent place to first dip your toes in, and then expand your immersion.
The best is to start with the Reality Challenge. It is designed to help you distinguish between thought and action. Priceless.
PS: Another article with specific exercises is already lined up for you.
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In this article I’ll teach you something that has the potential to turn you into a happy, joyful person. No kidding.Also, it can serve as the bridge between human and human being…
From that you can guess: the distinctions in this article are high level.
At present, if you are a ‘normal’ human, you are judging yourself and others. You are miserable, wretched, prone to get happy, get sad, get depressed at the drop of a hat. Continue reading “The 3 levels of value: an amazing process to love yourself”
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Get Rid of Frustration Once and for All?I just pulled the energetic attachments from two guys, and I had an insight while I was doing the work.
You see, to do any work on you, I have to merge my body with yours, and only feel your emotions and feelings, none of mine.
Both guys are frustrated. Why? This is their attitude: given how smart they are, their results should be over the top. but they aren’t. Continue reading “Being smart is like money: it can buy you life or junk”
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On the other side of pain, on the other side of unpleasant… How firewalking is an analogy to life… Or how to innovate yourself out of a bad situationFirewalking is the act of walking barefoot over a bed of hot embers or stones.
Firewalking has been practiced by many people and cultures in all parts of the world, with the earliest known reference dating back to Iron Age India – c. 1200 BC. It is often used as a rite of passage, as a test of an individual’s strength and courage, or in religion as a test of one’s faith.
One of the buzz-words Tai uses in several of his steps is ‘innovate yourself out of’ the trouble you are in… the stuck states, the problem, etc. It’s Jeff Bezos’ favorite method of growth… Jeff Bezos of Amazon.com fame…
I have never met a person, I have never met a student who even remotely could imagine this accurately, including Tai. Continue reading “How to innovate yourself out of a bad situation”
