CHAPTER 1
The Purpose
The three purposes of this book are:
1. To start you on a path of personal transformation. My definition of transformation is chipping away at everything that is not your highest, best SELF by practicing progress not perfection.
2. To have you start to become conscious to, or awake to the fact that you create your own life through your thoughts, words, and energy, and for you to start doing it consciously, rather than by default.
3. My third, and most important purpose, is to have you know that you are loved and are worthy of love. People who know that they are loved behave in loving ways. People who know that they are loved are spiritually mature. They don't need to gossip or stir up trouble. They are secure in themselves. They see their impact on the world and have a commitment to make a difference. Throughout my life I have seen people go from being people with no support or connection to their higher SELF turn into people who know they are loved. It is like watching a flower bloom. Just a little love and support for people goes a long way.
I want you to know that you are loved so that you can have real fulfillment and joy in your life. Being someone who is loved makes all that possible. I want a world full of people who know they are loved, who feel connected to the knowing that I have, which is the knowing of being loved.
CHAPTER 2
Waking Up!
All of my work comes from the premises that everything is energy, and we each create our own reality. I believe we do this through our thoughts, words, and emotions. If I could define my work in one question it would be, "Why are you creating it that way?" I ask my clients that question a lot. Anytime they tell me a story where they have a loss of power I ask them, "Why are you creating it that way?" I have clients with whom I have worked for years that are quite facile with using this perspective. This is how I look at my life. I own all of it. It is rare that I have times when life looks "real" to me. I feel blessed to have acquired that level of consciousness. There are still times when I get triggered, or hijacked, or I haven't managed my well-being. That is when life looks like it is happening to me. Fortunately, I have designed my life so that I am surrounded by people who can remind me that I am creating all of it and ask me the question, "Why are you creating it that way?" The answer usually is so that I can be right about something. It used to be so that I could be right about how unworthy I was. For the most part, that has disappeared for me. I know that I am loved beyond measure. Still, sometimes I find myself playing the victim or martyr. By doing so, I get to get out of being responsible, or I get to justify my bad behavior. It's always one of those things. Ego in charge.
When you can ask yourself, or look at, "Why am I creating it this way?" without being defensive, or self-judging, a whole new level of freedom and power is available.
The practices that I do and that I teach are based in principles of New Thought teachings and the Law of Attraction. Much has been written about the principles of spiritual law and the laws of the Universe. My friend Pam Grout (www.pamgrout.com) is the author of two books, E-Squared and E-Cubed. Each book offers nine experiments to prove your thoughts create your reality. I hope you will read Pam's books as well as many others that have you understand that you are the only one creating the reality you live in.
Even if you don't completely believe it, practicing the principles I will talk about in this book will take you out of the role of victim or martyr, and will put you in the driver's seat of your life. Who doesn't want that?
In Shawn Achor's book, The Happiness Advantage, he talks about how Einstein's Theory of Relativity challenges our common understanding of the fixed nature of time. He gives the example that because of the relative nature of time and motion, a person standing still would age faster than one travelling at the speed of light. Though it challenges our common sense, which would tell us that our rate of aging should be fixed, it illuminates the relative relationship of time and motion. Even those things that seem so fixed and unchangeable, according to Einstein's theory depend a lot on where the observer stands.
Achor says, "Relativity doesn't end with mere physics. Every second of our own experience has to be measured through a relative and subjective brain. In other words, "reality" is merely our brain's relative understanding of the world based on where and how we are observing it. Most important, we can change this perspective at any moment, and by doing so change our experience of the world around us."
You don't have to believe as I do, that everything is energy and we are always creating our own reality with our words, thoughts, and emotions. If you make a choice to come from the perspective that you are creating your own reality, and view your life through that lens, then you can be someone who takes 100% responsibility for their life. And if you can be someone who can take 100% responsibility for their life, then you are never a victim of anyone or anything. And that, my friend, is power!
I like using the term response ability or being 100% able to respond to my life, to my own moods and feelings, and life as it comes.
Being proactive instead of reactive is the number one habit in Stephen Covey's book, The 7 Habits of Highly Successful People. Covey writes about being 100% response able for your reactions to life.
When people come to work with me as a coach, I ask them two questions before we can start. They are: Are you willing to have a powerful and happy life? Are you willing to be held 100% responsible for creating it?
The Anatomy of a Belief
This book is intended to give you tools and perspectives that allow you to wake up and get conscious that you are the one creating your experience of reality. One of the main exercises we do in my seminars and you will do in the Practical Application section of this book is based on your BS, or Belief System.
We know today that the brain has recorded everything you have ever thought or emoted about all of your life. Whether you believe it or not, those programs or neural patterns are always running in the background of your mind, even if you don't know it or are unconscious of it.
The best example I can think of to explain this is to compare it to an iPhone. If you lightly double-click on the button at the bottom of the screen, all the programs or websites you have opened in the past will pop up. You need to take your finger and swipe them away to close them. They have been running in the background using your battery life even though you didn't see them, and probably weren't aware that they were there. The same is true with your BS (Belief System). It is always running in the background whether you are aware or not, and it may be sapping your energy, or working counter to what you say you want.
A belief is just something that you have told yourself over and over and over again. Some beliefs come from our cultural and family backgrounds, and some we made up based on an experience. Though we are the ones who made it up or said it to ourselves, once we have said it or affirmed it enough, we start acting like it is the truth.
One example from my life as a young person is the belief "You don't love me just the way I am." When I hit Jr. High, my mother and sisters often tried to get me to put on make-up and carry a purse because that is what girls my age were doing. At the time this embarrassed me, and I felt very ashamed and uncomfortable. I decided that they, "don't love me just the way I am." I had evidence because they consistently asked me to do things like put on make-up, which made me uncomfortable. This continued to be my evidence that they didn't love me the way I was. With maturity, age, and common sense, I am now very clear that my sisters and my mom were just doing what culture dictated them to do. It had nothing to do with how much they loved me. Yet at the time it validated my feelings of separation and insecurity and allowed me to be the victim of their attention.
To understand this BS even more clearly, let me outline the anatomy of a belief. A belief starts with a thought. It's just a thought. However, that thought elicits an emotion. The emotion then gives validity to the thought. Since we now have emotions about this thought, it must be true. Then we start speaking the thought, which makes it even more true. After thinking, feeling, and speaking these thoughts, we start to behave like this is all true, and that solidifies our belief in stone.
Here's the example I gave earlier:
Thought: You don't love me the way I am.
Emotion: Sad, upset, embarrassed
I start speaking and thinking all this to myself and I have evidence because my sisters and mom keep trying to get me to put on make-up.
I start acting like they don't love me the way I am. I do things like be angry and surly with them. Their complaints about my behavior solidify the thought.
It has become my truth that, "you don't love me the way I am".
Here's another one that many people can relate to:
Thought: I can't get a handle on my weight loss.
Emotion: Sad, depressed, overwhelmed, resigned
Speaking: "I can't get a handle on my weight loss, I should just give up ..."
Behavior: Eating every cookie in the house.
Evidence: Look, I just ate every cookie in the house, I really can't get a handle on my weight loss.
Can you see how important it is to understand that your thoughts create beliefs about yourself? Later in the book when we get to practical application, I will have you get clear about what you say about the areas of your life you would like to change or transform. Each thing you say started out as just a thought. By now they are beliefs you have about yourself, but they started as a thought and can be undone the same way.
In my experience, all people are run by their BS. The key is to start to create them on purpose, because how you believe it will go is how it will go.
Your Operating System
Another way to gain awareness is to understand that you have an operating system. You have your BS, which is all based on your past, but the other part that is affected by your past are your brain centers. I am not a neuroscientist; in fact, I know just enough to be dangerous. However, some basic understanding of the brain and how it works can really empower us.
In his work on Emotional Intelligence, Daniel Goleman coined the term "amygdala hijack" to describe the physiological activity of the brain and its impact on our cognitive abilities when we are faced with an event that activates our "fight or flight" response. Just having this awareness is huge. Cultivating this awareness puts us in a position of power because when we can observe the automatic system at work, we are no longer blindly reacting, but can begin to step in and choose a response in line with how we want to show up in the world.
Here is the basic understanding of hijack that I share with clients:
There is a part of your brain called the amygdala. Its job is to be a sentry or lookout for threat. It serves to keep you safe. So it sits and looks for threat. When a threat is perceived, the amygdala activates a process that releases a hormone called cortisol into your brain. This initiates your freeze, flight or fight response.
When your brain gets flooded by this hormone, your reasoning brain (left and right prefrontal cortex) gets washed out. The bridge is out. Do not enter. When this part of your brain is washed out, you get stupid and reactive. This is when you say childish regressive statements like, "always" and "never" (e.g., "you 'never' contribute around here," or, "you 'always' take his side"). This is useful if your life is in danger and you need to react rather than weigh options, but not so useful when dealing with your boss or your spouse/partner/significant other.
When hijacked, you are being run by your limbic system, not your reasoning brain. You are confused and have a hard time remembering things. Once activated, your body needs time to process the hormone or "come down" from the hijack. Otherwise, the likelihood of it happening again is high.
My advice to people is to "Shut Your Mouth." I am a mouthy person and if I am functioning under a hijack I can get myself into trouble. I have to shut my mouth and find a way to come down.
It sometimes feels like everyone around you really is just being an asshole. If it seems like everyone and everything is out to ruin your day, I promise you have been triggered or hijacked by something or someone.
The practice to build awareness is to start to notice earlier and earlier when you have been hijacked. When it happens in an argument, I suggest you shut your mouth. I suggest couples and businesses use the vernacular "hijacked" with each other so that they can know what is happening.
You are not able to be rational when you are hijacked, so please wait to respond to any correspondence – especially with people that you love – because it's when you are hijacked that you say things you cannot take back. The more you practice awareness of your own responses and triggers and once you start to really clean out your past, the faster you will be able to talk yourself down from a hijack.
Universal Truth Principles
I mentioned spiritual law before, and I hope you will make learning more about spiritual law part of your journey. My favorite book to recommend is The Game of Life and How to Play It by Florence Scovel Shinn. Florence will educate you on the law, of which she is very clear.
Again, I have no care about what you believe about spiritual law. And in order to give you practical tools that will serve your personal growth, I want you to be at least conscious of the principles that follow. If you don't believe them, you can still use the tools to serve you by just being conscious and flexing your muscle around your awareness.
What You Focus On Gets Bigger
Any coach, or personal development person considers this a no-brainer, but it's so important to always notice where your focus is. Are you focusing on good behavior in your children or what they don't do well? The same would be true for your lover or spouse. What you focus your thoughts and energy on will always expand. Unfortunately, as human beings we have a tendency to focus and speak about what we don't want rather than what we do want. We go around saying things like "I'm broke", "I can never get ahead in my finances", "weight loss is an uphill battle", "I can't get a handle on my weight". In both cases, you are focusing on and giving energy to what you don't want - the weight and the debt. As long as that is your focus, your results will be unfavorable. Instead, you want to focus on what you want. Focus on building wealth and getting healthy. What you focus on gets bigger.
What you focus on gets bigger. That's all there is to it. It's common sense. Everybody knows it if you really think about it and pay attention to what you're focusing on in your life. When you are expecting or wanting a child, you notice children and babies everywhere. When you purchase or want a particular kind of car, you start noticing them frequently.
What I want for you is to become masters at looking at the results that you're producing in your life and asking, "Where the heck is my focus?" If I am having a bunch of negativity show up in my life, if I'm having a bunch of failure, if I'm having a bunch of drama, where is my focus if that's what's there? You want to become masters at looking at what you are already producing, the results you're already producing and asking yourself, "Where is my focus?"
Letting Go Of Attachment
Joe Vitale, author and law of attraction teacher, says, "You can have anything you want in your life as long as you don't need it". This is a common concept in personal development and spiritual circles. It takes practice to notice when you are focused on something so much that you are "attached" to it. Attachment energetically causes resistance, resistance to anything that does not perfectly match your ideal vision. I think of it as being like a dog with a bone. That dog will not play catch, chase cars, let people pet it, or interact in a friendly way with other dogs when it is focused on that bone. When your gums are bleeding and your friends are annoyed, you need to let it go.
Noticing attachment is a practice of awareness. There is a difference in the energy of working toward a goal and exhausting mental and physical energy obsessing about it. I can feel in my body when I hold that kind of energy. I notice, or at times have had friends tease me, when I constantly talk about something. When I get focused on that thing and I can't let it go, it becomes an exercise of the ego. I'm going to do what I want and I'm going to have it my way. The more I get like that, the less it's going to manifest, and the less capable I become of seeing better options or ways to achieve my ultimate goal.
