Inspiration and How We Can Dream Good Things to Life

Inspiration: Stimulation of the mind or emotions to a high level of feeling or activity.

Previously I have spoken about how we are separated from reality by our senses and how this can work against us in many situations. Conversely I thought I would take the time to also explain how we can use this very powerful and amazing ability can actually work in our favor.

Many studies have proven that our unconscious mind is incapable of making the distinction between the things we actually experience in our “reality” and what we simply imagine/wish to be a part of our “reality.” This is a principle in NLP that we refer to as “perception is projection.” Our unconscious minds supply our conscious mind with directions on exactly how to achieve any goal we wish and/or believe we can achieve. It supplies our drives and is directly responsible for the action or inaction we take toward the purposes of achieving any goal. In short, if you can imagine anything vividly and in any amount detail our unconscious minds will take this as reality and set upon the path of achieving the desired goal.

This concept has been proven by many studies most notably to me are the following two examples I believe were quite fascinating. In the summer of 1971 at Sanford University in California, conducted by Professor Phil Zimbardo took place where and ad was placed in the college paper for 18 students to be paid $15 dollars a day to take place in a psychology study, the students that responded were interviewed and chosen by the professor and his staff, all students chosen were of sound mental faculties, they all came from similar backgrounds and good family histories, and additionally were of similar height and weight. What they were not told was that this study was one where 9 students would be chosen to live as inmates and 9 of them would be guards in a constructed mock prison facility. The experiment was to take place over a two week period; it was stopped at the end of only the first week due to the psychological and physical danger to the participants. In just one week the student had gone from joking about the experiment to displaying the abhorrent behaviors reported in real maximum security prison facilities with long time inmates serving extended sentences. Additionally the students acting as guards displayed the same types of all too realistic behaviors, which included; stripping the prisoners of their uniforms and forcing them to stay in their cells naked, spraying the inmates with a fire extinguisher that contained CO2 to keep them away from the bars, inflicting physical injuries, as well as leaving certain prisoners in solitary confinement for time periods long over the dictated maximum time allowed to hold them there. The extent of the shocking behaviors of the students and even the faculty in some cases caused Professor Zimbardo to decide the students were in danger of potentially serious harm and thus he ended the study. No one expected this simple study to go as awry as it did, but it does stand out as strong example of how one perceives their experience produces complimentary behaviors.

The second example is of a different nature. Please keep in mind that this is a real case file of an actual patient that took place in 1957. We shall call the Patient Mr. White in this example.  Mr. White was a cancer patient whom was diagnosed with no more then 3 weeks to live. He had metastic tumors the size of grape fruits that were causing fluid to fill his lungs; he required oxygen and an oxygen mask constantly. Simply he was dying and modern medicine at the time had nothing left for him to hope to live for much longer. Mr. White however fervently believed that something was going to save him from the cancer that was destroying his body. His doctor had heard of a potential cancer cure called Krebiozen that was being tested on human subjects at the time, he obtained a supply of Krebiozen and offered it to a group of his patients that included Mr. White.

Mr. White believed that this was the answer he was waiting for, and after just one treatment his tumors started to shrink, his lungs produced less and less fluid in a matter of days. After 6 weeks Mr. White was tumor and cancer free and in turn was released from the hospital. A few weeks after his release from the hospital Mr. White came in for a check up with his doctor and reported that he had even returned to flying his private plane that he had not been able to fly in over 2 years.

Six months after this the news was released that Krebiozen was found to useless in most of the cases it was used as a cancer treatment. Within a couple of weeks Mr. White was back in the hospital with small tumors and on oxygen once more. The doctor was deeply affected by the severity of Mr. White’s condition in such a short span of time, so he decided to try something desperate to save Mr. White. The doctor came to Mr. White and explained that it was found that Krebiozen had such poor response from most patients because it had an unstable shelf life and would lost most of its potency in transport and sitting on the shelf waiting to reach the patients. The doctor then explained to Mr. White that he had obtained a sample of the next generation of this medication called Krebiozen 2 that now had a stable shelf life and was guaranteed would retain its potency for a much longer period of time than its predecessor. The doctor then began treating Mr. White with a clear liquid Mr. White thought it was Krebiozen 2, when in truth it was only distilled water. Mr. White again fully recovered and returned to flying his plane for the next 2 months. Unfortunately though the final verdict on Krebiozen was published in the press, and the drug was proven to be totally ineffective in the treatment of cancer. Mr. White died just a few days after the findings were released, much to the disappointment of his doctor.

In both of these cases their minds created beliefs and conceptions about their particular circumstances. The idea that absolute power corrupts absolutely, has been often proven all to very true through many cultures, and the idea of placebo’s are so famous the in the late 70’s Dr. Richard Bandler himself even attempted to produce a useless tablet that he was going to market under the name “placebo,” for doctors to give to their patients that required the use of one. Ultimately the “placebo” pill was refused by the patent office and the FDA and never made it to the market place. But what makes these cases unique and so fascinating are the lengths to which the patient and the volunteer’s unconscious followed their own perceptions of their circumstances and acted to create both a cure and the potential harmful behaviors.

Sometimes it feels like the circumstances of our lives so desperate that we all wish for a bit of magic to make our circumstances more like our imaginations and morals say should be. Also I truly believe that everyone imagines the kind of out comes they wish to have in their lives and I’m eve sure that there is quite a bit of detail we all add to our own wishes in the hopes they might be realistic enough to come true. But the truth is that most people do not achieve the things they want in life simply because the on some level do not believe they truly deserve the outcomes that they seek. Deservedness issues are common for most people, after all how many people buy a lottery ticket, and if you wish them luck the first thing they say is something to the effect of "I'm not that lucky" when I hear that I have to ask "and what makes you any less potentially lucky that the other 10 million people who bought a ticket this week?"  Truthfully I believe everyone deserves to win the lottery after all it would only increase the potentially for everyone's dreams to come true in one way or another.

To show you the potential of how this can work for you I would like for everyone to do this simple exercise, and please let me know how successful it is for you.

You deserve a lot in my opinion but let start with something realistic that you can agree with, a quarter. You surely deserve to find one quarter. Imagine that sometime in the future you will find one quarter, it doesn't matter where you will find it, or how you find it, just imagine a moment you stop and see a quarter before you and you reach out and pick it up. Imagine the year of the quarter, how scratched up is it? What time of day it will be, what location will you find it at?  Are you alone or with someone? Is it at home or out somewhere? Where every you will be, what ever the circumstances, you just find a quarter and pick it up. Surely you have worked hard enough to deserve a simple quarter, and you shall have it easy enough if you just pick it up. Get this picture in your mind and then clear your mind, think of a bill you have to pay, whats your date of birth? Then think of that clear picture you have of finding your quarter, clear your mind again once you have it fixed in your mind, then imagine you have found the quarter again, do this 3 times to send the signal to your unconscious that this is what you want, and within the next week you will find that quarter exactly as you imagined it will happen.

Success is always within our reach and all we have to do it simply dream that good thing life.

Again please let me know about your success.

Who's line is it anyway?

Did I just say that out loud?

Have you ever had to ask this question of someone you were talking to? Most people have had this experience at least once in their lives. Previously I have written about the representations we use in our minds that are the summation of our experiences and memories. But just as important as these representations is how we talk to our selves inside our minds that is called internal dialog. Our internal dialog is simply the thoughts that naturally occur in ones mind from moment to moment. For example, do you feel smart, or ignorant on a consistent basis? Is what you’re wearing comfortable? Or fashionable? Any answers you may have heard in your mind are a part of your internal dialog. Internal dialog is very large part of our life, it is I believe best descried as “an ongoing conversation with our selves.”

It wasn’t all too long ago when admitting that you had internal dialog would have gotten you diagnosed with a disorder and possibly help for “psychiatric assistance.” To me it is rather ironic that one of the primary questions that are asked in any psychiatric evaluation questionnaire to this day is: “Do you hear voices when no one else is present?” The true answer anytime this is asked is yes, because we all hear the voice of our internal dialog stating our opinions, giving commentary about a situation, making jokes, voicing our assessments of people, and situations we face constantly. It is also an amazing fact that our ability to speak is lost when our internal dialog is speechless and silent, and this is true100% of the time. If you think about a time in the past when you experience a moment of total silence inside your mind, you would also find that you were unable to voice any thought or opinion.

The quality of the statements and questions we pose to ourselves can have a very profound and dramatic effect on out attitudes and feelings in any situation. Most times our internal dialog is unwittingly very negative in its messages and meanings. Phrases like “I doubt it, that’s unlikely, yeah right, I don’t think so, Why did I say that? It’s because…, I bet they won’t like me, What if I am embarrassed? How could I ever? Why can’t I…, etc…” These are just a few of the negative things that we can say to our selves internally, continuously worrying about our future or indulging in memories of our past.

Often times it is also believed that this voice is our conscience. The conscience is a part of our unconscious mind, and yes it does communicate in the things that we say to ourselves internally. But it is better to say that your conscience is located in a much deeper part of your mind and at times its voice does surface with chatter that your conscious mind generates.

The important thing to remember about your internal dialog is that is does have a profound effect on the way you feel about yourself, your self image, and how you relate to others at any given time. But if you learn how to direct and change the voice that resonates through your mind so often, you will then be able to harness the benefits of all of its positive abilities to make changes in your life on a constant day to day basis.

Conventional cognitive approaches state that you can only make most positive changes to your internal workings by working purely with the content of your memories. For example one might say “every time I think about drinking a Coke I tell myself how bad they are for me.” And a Therapist would ask “How does this make you feel? When did you first start hearing this?  Why do you think it says that? Etc…” This is commonly called the insight approach. The thing about the insight approach is that by exploring deeply into the history of why we say these things to ourselves leads us into a potentially never ending pit of personal history that seldom if at all brings any real conclusion to the problems we experience. The basic idea is that gaining insight and understanding of the origin of the problem will change the problem and often it doesn’t. In NLP we assume that at the time you had any problem you were dealing with it with the very best resources you had at the time, but now you may have acquired new skills and or tools based on your experiences that will aid you better in resolving these unresolved conflicts.

As I stated in a previous posting the quality of our experiences can be increased by simply changing the nature of the representations we use internally as the construct for our ongoing experiences. In the following I would like to teach you a few ways that you can work with your own internal dialog so that you can increase the positive messages you give to yourself.  The structure of our internal dialog is very simple to change, however to make the processes you will learn in the following, an automatic process in your mind will need to practice these skills beyond just one simple test that I invite you to enjoy now. But once you have practiced these skills a few times, you will find that you can quickly and easily apply them to many different situations in your life every day.

Changing Critical Voices Quickly and Easily

The following technique will assist you in enabling yourself to quickly and easily change your internal dialog. If you have never practiced anything like this previously, please set aside 15 minutes to allow yourself to learn and see how easily you can use this wonderful tool, and once you practice this a few times you will be able to apply the techniques quickly and easily when ever and where ever you want.

Mickey Mouse Technique

1. Remember a moment in time where you were internally talking to yourself in a less than positive way. Maybe you forgot to do something? Maybe you did something wrong? Maybe you were trying to do something positive and it blew up in your face? What ever it was just remember that voice now inside your mind.

2. Next take a moment and become more aware of this voice, where in relation to your body do you spatially hear the voice coming from? Is it coming from behind you, in front of you, from the right, left, diagonally? As you are becoming increasingly aware of the direction the voice is coming from in your mind, what direction would you say best describes its current location?

3. Now as best as you can define for yourself the qualities of this voice, is it speaking loudly or softly? How fast do you hear this voice speaking to you is it fast or slow? Is the voice speaking towards you or away from you? What kind of tone is it speaking in, is it gentle, harsh, critical, cynical, etc…?  

4. What I would like you to do now is to use your imagination just a bit, I’m sure you will find this very easy to do with just a bit of your already well developed imagination. What I would like you to do is to make so that you move this voice from wherever it is now and move it to your little finger you feel would be the right one to choose.

5. Then I would like you to have this voice say everything it has been saying to you exactly the same way it was speaking previously with one exception, I would like it for you to change the tone of the voice to sound exactly like that of Mickey Mouse.

6. Have it repeat the things it has been saying a few times, or if you like you can pick one of your favorite cartoon character voices.

7. Notice how it sounds, notice the difference in how you feel about it. Is there any way you could hear this voice nagging at you and find anything less than its own ridiculousness in its words?

8. Now imagine a time in the future when this voice would normally nag you again, and then repeat the steps 2 thru 7. Once you have done that successfully Find another point in the future it would have nagged you and repeat steps 2-7, and repeat it only as many times as you feel is necessary so that anytime you might have been nagged by this voice, you will only find it pleasantly amusing.

Voice Recording / Rewind Technique

1. Identify another one of those less than helpful voices for one last time.

2. Become aware of its qualities, tones, volume, pitch, timber, etc…

3. Now hear it as if you were playing it backwards on an old cassette tape.

4. Hear it both fast and slow in playback, and then hear it backwards, rewinding very fast in less than ½ a second. Now repeat this no less than 3 times.

5. Now replace that backwards voice with a new positive message and give it to yourself in the sexiest voice tone you have ever heard.

Slow – It - Way – Down Technique

1. Become aware of those inner voices that you would like to be rid of.

2. Notice its qualities, tone, volume, pitch, timber, etc…

3. Hear it from the beginning, only this only this time slow it down, and put pauses in between or the words.

*Note: It can be fun to hear the voice in a Regional accent as well.

4. Now hear it again from the beginning and slow it down even more, be sure to even stretch out the sounds of each syllable of every word.

5. Repeat slowing down and stretching out the words until you can REALY HEAR IT SSSSLLLLOOOOWWWWEEEEEDDDDD DOOOOOOWWWNNNNN.

(*Note: This technique can be especially helpful in falling asleep for some who have problems sleeping. Insomnia has been reported often due to chattering away to your self in a fast paced voice, so this technique can really help.

The more you apply these techniques, the more optimized your internal dialog will become!

With the techniques I’ve listed here you can easily and quickly change those bothersome internal voices. By becoming more aware of your internal dialog, and a little practice, you will be able to apply one of the techniques listed here when ever one of your “critical” voices arises in the future. This will not only assist in helping you get things done when you need or assist in allowing you to feel more at ease when you should, thus allowing you more time and space to think clearly.

You can gain all the benefits of having a positive internal dialog today! Yes, it is that easy!

Cause and Effect At The Heart of Any Problem

Recently I talked to a woman who told me about many problems she knew she had, and while she was talking I noticed that everything she said was a problem that she assigned to other people and circumstances that she believed were out side of her ability to control. It made me wonder why so often people surrender themselves to any problem simply because they feel their circumstances are outside of the locus of their control.

In any problem there are at least 2 parts that make up its base equation and those are cause and effect. I believe that when we assess any problem in our lives, the first question we should ask ourselves is "Am I on the Cause or Effect side of this problem?" By definition a cause, literally causes a certain effect. Now if you are on the cause side of the equation then you then say “yes, I create all of the effects that happen in my life, yes, I’m create all of the effects that happen in my world. I am responsible for everything I create” in a joyous and meaningful way. Now on the other part of the equation, which by the way is the most uncomfortable side, and is also the side that most people in the world are on at this time. Is the effect side of the equation, on the effect side one would say “Yes, everything that happens to me someone else did, every thing that happens to me I didn’t do it myself someone did it to me.” It is definitely more popular to be on the effect side than the cause side of any problem it seems.

What this means is that we have to ask our selves in these times is “Who is in charge of the results you produce?” or as Dr. Richard Bandler is often quoted as saying “who is driving the bus?” I think that this is a very good question, now think about this for just a moment. If you’re on the cause side of the question, then you are the one who is going to produce results for which you can take credit for and fell wonderful or at the very least successful. But if you’re on the effect side of the equation, instead of results, you’re going to have only reasons why you didn’t get the things you wanted.  I don’t know how much you have thought about this, but the reasons side of life is not really best side to be on. It certainly is not the most empowering or even fulfilling side to be on for sure. I want you to know through any number of years, no matter how many numbers of years it may be, it will not be the most satisfying side to be on. Unfortunately the fact is that it is the most prevalent side most of society is on today. I think that this type of thinking is best summed up by the great American philosopher Bart Simpson who said “I didn’t do it, nobody saw me do it, and you can’t prove anything!” or maybe that was one of our presidents? Anyhow the effects side of the equations we like to be on and this is true for most societies around the world. In business there is a saying that goes “If at first you don’t succeed, fix the blame fast, and sue the SOB for every dime you can get!” Even in the things we see in our media we have advertisements that say “If you’re injured in an accident, it’s not your fault! Find out who did it and call “these” lawyers and we’ll help you sure them for everything you deserve!”

But the fact remains that the effect side of the equation is not a very satisfying side to be on. Imagine being on this side of the equation for the rest of your life, and see your self around age 95, realize that you have never created the opportunity to get a single thing that you ever wanted in your life.  You will realize that this is not really a very satisfying side to be on at all. I’m sure you can think of at least one person you know like this, they always say something like, well I would have been a success if it had not have been for “blank” and then they will name someone, and they’ll say its the IRS, an ex partner, an ex spouse, someone that did “it” to them. That they didn’t do and it’s not their fault. Most clients come in and they ask for help, and most times they state that they have tried to change but they couldn’t and that this was their spouses fault, their employer’s fault, in education there are tons of disenfranchised learner’s, people that have developed a learning dis-ability, and they can’t learn because they have this thing or that thing, that particular problem that keep them from learning. In business we have a sales person who can’t sell because the economy is down, or they can’t sell because the economy is up, or side ways, or bonds are up, or who knows what, what ever the limitation is if you can move yourself from the effect side of the equation to the cause side of the equation you find something magical happens, you get to never have this problem ever again.

The important thing to know about being on the cause side of the equation is that any time that you assign someone or something as the cause of any problem, you are essentially giving up any and all power you have to not only resolve any situation, but also you are throwing away valuable learning’s that could assist you in avoiding future problems such as these as well as the piece of mind that comes with knowing you can overcome such obstacles, and just the knowledge that you have overcome that obstacle once previously is invaluable to our self esteem, self worth, and can only increase the positive messages to the unconscious that we do have control of any problem we face even if that means we simply have control over only our own actions.

I think it bears repeating that in life all we have either results or reasons, and results are things that we want, need, or desire, where as reasons are as my mother used to say “a pocket full could have’s”. Reasons are something you can not take to the bank; if I went to my landlord this month and told him “I’m sorry I can’t pay you because the economy is bad” you can imagine his response would be less than positive.

Another thing about reasons is also that if you have many reasons that fill your life, you will attract and find others that will support those reasons. Everyday there are literally millions of support groups through out the US. The fact is that people get together in groups like this and take care of each other needs to have these reasons that hold them back at times and often all this does for anyone is supply support for people’s reasons for why they can not change.

Now I can not really say if it is truth that we cause the bad things that happen to us, but I do know and believe that the sum total of our conscious and unconscious choices have lead us to where we are today. And if you find that you are on the effect side of any equation the only way we can achieve the goal that we were seeking that lead us there is if we move our selves from the effects side of the equation and bring ourselves over to the cause side of the equation, we do this by changing, the internal representations that occur in our minds, and by doing so changing the experience we currently have as a result of what has happened to you in the past so that they are of your creation. The moment that you accept that and move to the cause side of the equation saying “Ok, I chose this, I created this (even if it was an unconscious decision), now I’m done with it, I’ve really had enough of it, and now its time to move on.” In this we are embracing the situation so that you can get learning lessons from the situation, because learning is the key. I truly do not think that any one would consciously and willingly create any situation where they would have the government come after them, or people would do bad things to them. But I honestly do think that we do put ourselves in the situation that we are by our conscious and unconscious choices, and just knowing and deciding that, then you truly have the ability to decide where you want to be today, tomorrow, and for the rest of your life.

The Blues Clues!

I thought today I would share a problem that is very personal to me, as I have a form of this particular dis-order. Being a hypnotists and a practitioner of NLP does give us a “golden ticket” that makes us immune to all of the problems that many people suffer from. I’ll start with a bit of history to foreshadow my writing about this terrible potentially debilitating problem:

When I was a child, Fall and Winter were the most magical time of year for me, I can still recall how I would wait mark off the days on the calendar counting down the days till it would be Christmas. The closer it got the more my home filled with the most wondrous aromas, ham, pies, cakes, brownies, cookies etc… My mom would wait every day for the mail to get the Christmas cards that came in to show us all which of our relatives remembered us and how pretty the cards were, then she would take the cards and tape them to the wall in our living room one at a time, and at the time I would memorize who sent each one so that if any one asked I could tell you who sent them. We had elaborate decorations that took weeks to put up; literally our house looked like Christmas was its entire reason for existing.

Christmas morning would arrive and I would find myself wide awake at 6am and lie in my bed for at least 30 minutes waiting to get up so that it would not be too extremely early to wake everyone in my family up because I knew Santa had been by and filled the space under our tree and I could not wait to see what I had gotten for being so good all year long! Then when the time was right I would spring out of my bed like a bat out of hell and run to my parent’s room, my mother would spring up and tell me to wake my brothers and my sister, they would be most annoyingly sluggish about waking up, but I was relentless in my determination and there would be no going back to sleep, for I had already waited long enough and there was no escaping my enthusiasm! After I made sure they were awake I would sprint to the end of the hallway and stop just short of my living room and peek around the corner barely able to contain myself looking slowly at the huge pile of presents stacked carefully under our Christmas tree.

I would then walk through the living room and join my mother in the kitchen, who would just be turning the coffee pot on, and she would ask me about the status of my siblings, and I would report to her how hard they were to wake up and then she would tell me it was time to wake my dad, and I would sprint like the flash down the hall again and wake my dad. He would always ask me “Did Santa come last night son?” I would then speak in what must have been an incoherent blurb about how huge the piles of gifts were and how hard everyone was to wake, in what I know had to be a single breath. He would chuckle to himself and then get up and grab his robe and head towards the living room camera in hand. The rest of the morning was a blur of ripping paper and adrenalin. My parents would sit and watch us play with a smile that I truly believe comes from a form of self satisfaction only a parent can truly know.  

That was 18 years ago, and now I am an adult and a parent. My home is sparsely decorated but decorated enough. Both of my parents have passed away, and my brothers and sister live in different places both physically, emotionally and mentally. Until I met my wife this was the most unpleasant time of year for me, since my parents passed away I have suffered from something called “Seasonal Affective Disorder” otherwise known as the Holiday Blues/depression. Previously to meeting my wife and kids, I all but shut down during this time of year, I would not listen to any Christmas songs, watch any of the Christmas specials I used to enjoy most of my life from when I was a child, shows like the Santa Clause specials, Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer, Charlie Brown, etc… My Favorite Christmas movie has always been ironically enough “A Christmas Carol” But I also avoided this like the plague as well. When it comes to how I treat others I have hardly ever been a Scrooge despite how I felt. Simply I just didn’t celebrate the holiday much. I felt a sense of disconnection, like the holiday was for everyone else but not for me. I still bought presents for others, went to parties, and even made cappuccino for my family every Christmas morning with breakfast, and would be very thankful for any presents that I received. But when no one was around, I would spend quite a bit of time crying, aching to see my parents again and practically dying to just hear them say my name, reliving those moment of Christmas from so long ago and mourning the fact that I would never see another moment as fine as those shared with my family in the past.

This type problem is a very common experience for many people, statistics on seasonal affective disorder in the United States include that this disorder occurs in about 5% of adults, with up to 20% of people having some symptoms of the condition but not sufficient enough to meet diagnostic criteria for this disorder (AMA). Seasonal affective disorder is less common where there is snow on the ground. Seasonal affective disorder is about four times more common in women than men, and the average age of people when they first develop this illness is 23 years of age. People of all ages can develop seasonal affective disorder. (AMA)

I would describe the symptoms commonly used to diagnose this type of depression but frankly, most times general descriptions of any dis-order is used by most people as a sort of checklist to create one, and personally I believe in curing problems more so that creating them. But often this type of dis-order is attributed to the Cycle of the seasons, the shorter days of the year when we see less and less sunlight which disrupts the body’s internal clock, it is thought that the disruption of our body’s natural rhythm could possibly cause depression like symptoms. It is also diagnosed that the disruption in the body natural cycle’s can also an acute decrease in Melatonin and Serotonin two chemicals produced in the body that maintains our sleep and awake cycles. Often for this light therapy is prescribed as a solution. The thought is that exposure to very bright light for the same periods of time you would have normally experienced sunlight will assist the body in restoring its internal rhythm. Also supplements of Melatonin are available over the counter, and additionally other prescriptions are available of many well know anti-depressant medications.

Recent studies relating to the change of the season as being the cause SAD lead us to believe that the changing season have little or nothing to do with SAD, when we consider things like; Norway, every year Norway spends 2 months in complete darkness, as well as certain parts of Alaska and significant areas of Russia such as Siberia and none of these regions of the world report any significant increases in the amount of the population suffering from this potentially debilitating form of depression. (Institute of Clinical Medicine, Dr. V Hansen 2008, Norway). More and more SAD is being treated as a form of clinical depression for which increasingly medications and cognitive and other forms of conventional therapy are being prescribed.

*Note: It is commonly believed that suicide rates increase during the Christmas season, this myth has been proven by many studies to be completely false. Studies have shown that suicide rates actually increase in spring conversely. The thought that suicide is more common in the winter is perpetuated and fabricated by the press and media, the American foundation for Suicide Prevention has also released articles that show a direct link between articles released within the last 10 years about this and many suicides that shortly followed their release. (Psychology Today and Annenberg Public Policy Center University of Pennsylvania, 2008)

With all of these fact figures and conjecture it can definitely leave one feeling overwhelmed! Which in truth can compound the problem of SAD even more, after all how many people have had the experience of going to the doctor and being prescribed any medication let alone anti-depressants that is only for a short period of time? Most doctors do not like to discontinue a medication regiment once it has been established. Additionally, even if it is a short lived, with a problem that is seasonal, who wants to be diagnosed as being depressed, especially with how closely our personal health information is monitored by certain organizations? This can make it almost impossible to get insurance or at least make it very costly. Anti-depressant medication can also take quite a toll on the body and be quite costly, how many people have adequate health coverage for both the multiple visits to the Psychologist / Psychiatrist and such medications for such an intermittent problem?

The true problem lies in the unconscious mind, if you remember a principle of the unconscious mind is that it hides memories from us in order to protect us from things we may not be able to handle at the time they happened in order to maintain our well being. The Christmas season is a season filled with memories and associations, as we grew up when experienced November as the beginning of the biggest holiday season of our year, our parents would prepare and cook for Thanksgiving, our relatives we hadn’t seen through most of the year would come and we would get a chance to have a few special moments to share with our families that were at best rare in our day to day lives. Then Christmas would be right around the corner with the excitement of our parents and our families we all as children would fill with their excitement for the entire month and our own for that all important visit from Santa Claus, and the gifts he would leave us for being so good through out the rest of the year. We would practice this cycle every year, like a habit.

Then the inevitable happened, we grew up. Santa Claus for a time lost his relevance to us (until we had children of our own), and unfortunately our parents and dear family members got older as well and some of them passed way before their time. But our minds remain; they have kept their associations to this wondrous season, for some that have very large families it was easier as they may have had plenty of relatives that shared their lives and still to this day they can visit and find that sense of family and connection. While others who have smaller families losing family members can leave very large empty spaces that with no one to fill can take root in their psyche, that they are unable fill. And of course vice versa, folks with large families can lose important members and no one can take their place, and smaller families can lose member and knit tighter together to support one another. Either way the result is that we have very strong associations to the holidays, and every year we repeat the rituals and habits that as we have been through most of our lives, we repeat them because of our associations and then painful memories or unresolved issues we may have are then brought back to the surface from our unconscious. Because the unconscious is unable to both repress and share these memories simultaneously the strong associations we have are highly emotionally charged, and in many cases our feelings of grief or pain are repressed for our own well being the rest of the year, the automatic unpacking and being almost forced into dealing with it causes a sort of short circuit in our emotional balance to which the end result is holiday depression.  

I would also like to take a moment to address the medical diagnosis of the lower levels of Serotonin and Melatonin. Depression has been proven to cause our bodies to drastically change the levels of many chemicals in our bodies. Additionally our unconscious controls these levels and is also responsible for the function of keeping them balanced. Why someone’s unconscious would allow these levels to change drastically enough to cause such problems can indicate many things, such things are easy to solve permanently with hypnosis. This explanation I feel is very simplified and I would like to take a moment to give you an idea of why these kinds of imbalances happen, even if someone isn’t aware their unconscious is in conflict our bodies will still show the evidence of this type of conflict, and this is displayed through many types of dis-ease that many people suffer from today.

The phenomenon know commonly as dis-ease is, I believe the result of conflicting programs that confuse our unconscious minds. To explain best how dis-ease can be created by the unconscious I will start by saying that dis-ease is cause by one thing; improper functioning of the cells of the body. The causes of this breakdown or malfunction are various, but at a basic level it can be described as it relates to the pathways that conduct the energy that flows through our bodies.

Eastern Medicine describes the flow of the life force energy through out our bodies as “chi” and this is the term I will use to describe this energy. Chi is described as entering body when we inhale and is the forwarded to the body’s energy accumulators and transformers commonly know as chakras. Each of these energy centers focuses on one of the 7 glands of our endocrine system. These chakras modify the chi energy to be specific for the particular endocrine gland that uses it. The now modified energy flows through our body’s energy pathways or meridians if you like, to the cells via the endocrine gland and stimulates the cells to regenerate; not only do the cells regenerate but also they purge the body of toxins. If this chi energy is blocked and can not reach the cell community or is diminished, the cell community is deprived of its life force and begins to degrade. Blockages in the body’s main energy pathways (meridians) or its main energy centers (chakras) cause this type of phenomenon to occur. The causes for this could be from bad experiences in this life, previous lives, unresolved internal conflicts and biological memories carried over from our genetic ancestors, we shall call these energy blocking programs of the unconscious mind Negative Force Functions (NFF’s).  These NFF’s function in 3 ways:

1. They distort the body’s energy field thus disrupting the energy pathways.
2. They create negative habits that our unconscious dutifully follows.
3. They continuously support these negative habits which only embeds them further into our unconscious, which only makes them stronger.

These habits cause the distortions of our bodies energy field or blockages that affect our behaviors, the way we feel, how we relate to others, and the way we respond to life. Unless these distortions are cleared or removed, over time they can have serious consequences that affect every aspect of our lives, and ultimately can be potentially fatal in some cases.

Changing our habits and releasing the negative attachments that cause these NFF’s to exist, is ultimately the best and surest cure for most problems. Once the blockages and distortions are removed the life force energy is restored to the cell communities that have been deprived, these cells contain, in the base makeup of the cell, the blueprint for perfectly functioning new cells, and they will begin to regenerate and replace any damaged cells until the entire community of cells are restored.

The symptoms of any form of depression are mostly physical, and once the root of the cause of our woes is gone, then we are free to feel better, and true healing begins. When it comes to the "Holiday Blues" or depression in its many guises, the problem starts form with us, and the cure does also, because no matter what if you only cure a symptom, the problem remains free and unchecked to cause more problems in the future.

Now I'll sit down in my thinking chair, instead of my shrinking chair. Free to think after 18 years. Happy Holidays!

The Road Map of Destiny and How to Chart Its Course

As I mention in my last post the unconscious mind is symbolic by nature, the conscious mind in order to communicate effectively with the unconscious also process the incoming information transmitted by our senses symbolically as well. The result of this is that when we think our minds process what we see, hear, smell, taste, etc… into what can be best describe as a holographic representation of the experience and then store the memory in our neuro synapses (Karl Pribram, Stanford University, “Holonomic Brain Theory”). Now these representations are individually stored with variances in the qualities of these representations, these qualities and the variations we assign to them actually have a very profound effect on our emotional states and the way we relate to them. We call these qualities in the field of NLP; Submodalities. To illustrate this for you, I would like you to think about a couple of things.

First think of the home you grew up in as a child.

Is the image in color? When you see it do you see your self standing in this place… or, do you see it through your own eyes as if your there? Do you hear any sounds?  Are you alone? Is the picture clear or hazy?

Now think of you current home or if you live in your parent’s home by chance, think of a place you want to live some day.

 Is the image in color? When you see it do you see your self standing in this place… or, do you see it through your own eyes as if your there? Do you hear any sounds?  Are you alone? Is the picture clear or hazy?

Now in comparing the two memories, and notice any difference in the quality of the images, sounds, feelings, does either image have a frame? If they are both in color are the colors more vibrant in one that the other? Does either image seem more realistic?

The differences in these qualities are what make up our attitudes and feelings about everything we experience in life. Believe it or not, just making minor changes to these representations in our minds, can allow us to do many things we at times have thought impossible.

For instance, let’s say you wanted to ask your boss for a raise. Well most people get this small picture in their minds of seeing themselves walk into their boss’s office, and their boss is sitting behind their desk, and talking in a loud voice. The in turn, see themselves asking the boss for a raise in a very meek tone, and of course the boss almost screams “NO!” (or worse)  at them and tells them to get back to work. They silently walk back out of the office telling them selves how foolish they were to even ask.

Images such as this have a way of stopping people from doing things long before they even start to do anything.

Most men when they see an attractive woman across the room never walk over to them because they imagine that if they did walk over and actually talk to the woman that they would be turned down right after they said “Hi” I believe this is a over simplified version of what most men picture, but it sums it up neatly enough.  

Both of theses examples do however share the theme of losing out, before even trying anything. Believe it or not there is something good to be found in even these examples, if we just change a few of the qualities of these images, sounds, relations to emotions in them, instead of defeating an idea at its inception, it can actually encourage us to ask for that raise or even maybe say “Hi” to the person that may potentially be the love of our lifetime.

The following is an incomplete list of Submodalities that we can notice about the images and sounds and other things that make up the representations we use in our minds to relate to the “reality” and events of our lives.

Visual Submodalities

If you picture something in your mind you might:

• See a movie or a still picture
• See a panorama or a frame
• See it in color or black and white
• Have a focused clear vision or see it blurry
• See it close to you or at a distance
• See it from various angles
• Associated (see it from inside yourself) Dissociated (externally watching yourself)
• See it vibrant and warm in color or washed out and faded

Auditory Submodalities

If you hear sounds in your mind they maybe:

• Loud or soft
• Still or moving
• Of various frequencies – High or Low pitched
• Timber (characteristics of voice like the voice of Mickey Mouse)
• Clear or Raspy
• Of Various Duration – Long or Short
• Talking maybe very fast or slow
• Monotone or excited

Kinesthetic Submodalities

Kinesthetic Submodalities are different as they represent feelings we have as well as actions that concern touching.

Feeling Submodalities

If you have a feeling it maybe:

• Hot or Cold
• Texture (rough or smooth)
• Hard or Soft
• Light or Heavy
• Steady or Intermittent
• Rhythmic
• Location Specific
• Displayed through positions of the eyes
• Displayed with gestures of the hands

Action (Touch) Submodalities

• Grabbing
• Reaching or Withdrawing
• Holding or Letting go
• Grappling
• Hugging
• Kissing
• Rubbing

Pain Submodalities

• Tingling
• Hot or cold
• Throbbing
• Sharp or Dull
• High or Low Pressure
• Location
• Duration

Gustatory and Olfactory Submodalities

Olfactory and Gustatory Submodalities are often grouped into the category of Kinesthetic Submodalities. In most cases their very presence can indicate very important associations that I believe are a key to the basis of everyone’s internal experience.

Olfactory Submodalities

Olfactory senses specifically deal with the sense of smell, so if you have an Olfactory Submodality you might smell:

• Sweet or Sour
• Fragrant or Fowl
• Fresh or Stale
• Familiar or Strange      

Gustatory Submodalities

Gustatory Submodalities deal specifically with the sense of taste. If you have a Gustatory Submodality you might taste:

• Salty or Sweet
• Savory
• Bitters
• Dry or Wet
• Acidity
• Strong or Mild             

These are but a few of the Submodalities that we can change in the internal representations we use in our moment to moment experience. Just changing one can at times change the entire structure of how we react or feel about a situation at any given time. I invite you to test this in your daily life and wonder at how powerful it can be. Maybe the next time you are frustrated by a situation you can remember another time you were frustrated and how you resolved at that time. Then notice how you see that moment, the people you might have been with, the time of day, what you heard or saw, then take the picture of your current experience and change it to match the previous one. Make the sounds the same, the brightness of the colors, the same clarity, if one has a frame and the other doesn’t add or remove the frame, etc… Then notice how the solution to the problem comes to mind and smile to yourself knowing you have the power to change not only this moment, but to shape the future that can be what ever you wish, for every moment of every day, for now and the rest of your life. The power to change it has always been yours, just, no one has ever given you a specific way to take the power into your hands and shape your destiny. Destiny is not always exclusive to the cosmic whims of the universe; we also are large part of that plan and if we know how to shape it, can be ours to decide.

The Prime Directives of the Unconscious mind

For quite a while now I have been explaining and talking about things that have mostly to do with the conscious mind and its devices and mechanisms. Today I thought I would switch gears and speak about the other part of the mind that we are, by and large unaware of most of the time and that is the unconscious mind. What I would like to do now is to give your conscious mind a better understanding of the unconscious mind. One thing I thing I think that is really important about the unconscious mind is that the unconscious mind is the part of our minds that is responsible for all of the changes in our lives we make at any time.

I believe it is also important to take a moment to define the meaning of the unconscious mind which is: The part of your mind that you’re not conscious of… right … now.  Think about that for a moment, until I mentioned it you weren’t conscious of the feeling of your feet against the floor, or possibly you’re back against the chair, maybe you weren’t conscious of the sound of some of the things around you, like the sound the air makes passing thought ventilation system in your home, or the sound of the muffled noise coming from outside of your home, all of those noises you weren’t conscious of, certainly you weren’t conscious of your eyes blinking, or the beating of  your heart.

 The prime directives of the unconscious mind put the notion of change into perspective, because when we create changes the changes we make they are going to happen at the unconscious level and in conjunction with the unconscious mind. So let’s examine the prime directives of the unconscious mind.

1.)    The unconscious mind primary function is to store your memories; it stores your temporal and temporal memories and their relationship to your personal timeline. The word “relationship” is important here as it is also the job of the unconscious to create relationships and connectedness at the unconscious level, which is also in regards to the unconscious in storing our memories.

2.)    The unconscious is the domain of the emotions, its where all of our emotions “live”, someone who is not very in touch with there emotions may not be very well connected to their unconscious as well as someone that is well connected to their emotions. Simply the unconscious is the part of us that feels, although certainly we are conscious of our emotions, typically emotions are stored, organized and kept in the unconscious mind.

3.)    The unconscious organizes our memories; it maintains and creates our personal timeline chronicling the events and moments of our lives. The unconscious stores our memories in chronological order, but also it organizes them by subject and to feelings, this is what allows us to have chains of memories that feed each other when we think of them.

4.)    The unconscious will repress memories that have unresolved negative emotions. Often times I have heard an expression to the effect of “I just took it and stuffed it down, or I took it and went on” well where does all this negative feeling go? The answer is straight into the unconscious. If you have moments in your life where your memory is dim or someone has told you about a time they shared with you that you have no memory of, chances are that your unconscious has taken these memories and hid them from you.

5.)    The unconscious presents repressed memories for resolution; it waits until another time to bring those memories back to you when they can be handled when it is more rational for you to do so to release stored negative emotions. Primarily I believe that it does this because both your conscious and unconscious mind realizes how potentially harmful or stressful these emotions can be. This is also why you may from time to time have memories that just pop up seeming out of nowhere that you feel like “oh maybe I need to think about this now” and gain resolution on them, if you have had something like this happen to you, you may have noticed that since having gained resolution on it, it has ceased to bother you.

6.)    The unconscious does have the right to keep repressed emotions repressed for your own protection. This is the mechanism that keeps from recalling the full content of a certain memory.

7.)    The unconscious runs the body, this couldn’t be considered as anything less than entirely wonderful, imagine if you had to remind yourself to breathe all the time, or remind your kidneys to function, or even keep tabs on what your spleen is doing. Not to mention how well would we all sleep if we kept waking up to remind our bodies to just function? Gratefully we don’t have to do this; our unconscious is maintaining these things for us at all times. (*note: A lot of times people have told me that they are afraid to trust their unconscious mind. I usually have to ask “well who ran your body last night while you were asleep?” and they usually ask “what do you mean?” and I then ask “did you sleep ok” and they of course say “yes” and then I ask “well whom did you trust all night to run your body while you are sleeping?” and of course that is their unconscious mind. The unconscious mind also has a blue print of your body, and it also has a blue print of perfect health, it keeps inside what’s known as “the higher self” or if you like in the deepest part of the unconscious mind. This is what our bodies utilize when we are healing from any injury.

8.)    The unconscious mind preserves the body. This is the highest prime directive of the unconscious mind. Sometimes the unconscious can forget this directive or become confused and have difficulty following this rule, this is how things like disease set in and can be very troublesome if not fatal.

9.)     The unconscious is a highly moral being, it accepts the moral you have been taught, or have grown to accept in time as you have developed through out your life via experience. Whatever form of moral you have the unconscious holds to these and will follow them exclusively.

10.)                  The unconscious mind enjoys serving, and requires really clear orders to follow. Most people give their unconscious mind very conflicting messages unintentionally and this causes the unconscious mind to become confused. Example: One day a person will say to themselves they are a good person and the next day; tell themselves they are no good. This leaves the unconscious confused and unclear what to do to help resolve the conflict. One of the most important things we can do is to give our unconscious mind very clear and consistent directives to assist it in following our wishes, if we did; I believe we would all find ourselves in very desirable positions or situations frequently in our lives.

11.)                  The unconscious mind maintains and controls all perceptions. This is a unique ability of the unconscious as this also directly controls our senses such as hearing and vision. Once a good rapport is established with ones unconscious you can literally ask it to tune your senses and find that you can sharpen your hearing, eye sight, sense of smell, touch and taste. Additionally this is also includes any type of abilities that are referred to as extra sensory perceptions aka sixth senses such as telekinesis, telekinetic, psychic, etc…

12.)                  The unconscious is charge of the generation, storage, transmission, creation, and distribution of energy through out the body.

13.)                  The unconscious mind is in charge of instincts, such as our fight or flight responses.  

14.)                  The unconscious mind is in charge of generation habits, both good and bad habits. All habits typically required repetition in order to be installed in the unconscious. It is important to note that the repetition that is required to install such habits are not purely a physical exercise, you can practice a habit mentally and achieve the same results as if you have been doing it for years, by just running through the pattern of performing the habit repeatedly ones mind. Most often habits that most people will call addictions are formed in this manner. The person will repeat the harmful pattern or the practice of performing the habit in their minds over and over again, so that is it like a circle that keeps them performing the habit over and over again in their minds, even when they are not performing it. This is why the habit that we call addictions can be problematic at best to change, most people focus solely on the physical acts/cravings/problems and  spend very little effort in changing the mental processes associated to the habit, this I believe is because practicing the habit mentally becomes such an automatic process that it is not very easy to recognize when the pattern is running through the persons mind. But if we can sensitize ourselves and change these internal processes then the physical aspect of releasing a habit becomes very easy and is 99.9% effective in achieving a permanent change for any type of habit.

15.)                  The unconscious mind is programmed to always seek more and more, which means there is always more to discover. When ever we hear about any subject we often assume that there always is more information to be learned than what we are initially presented. This is primarily because our unconscious mind works by comparison, and in this we always seek more and more examples to compare any experience to in order to provide us with answers when needed at any given time or in any situation to gain not only understanding, but also to provide resolutions to any problems that may arise.

16.)                  The unconscious mind functions best as a whole integrated unit. The habits one can have are often driven by what is referred to as a part. Essentially it is a part of the person that is drives them to perform a habit, or is responsible for actions or behaviors that the person displays. I.E. “part of me wants to stop smoking, and part of me doesn’t.” The only way this can be resolved is by having both parts in conflict re-integrated back into the whole so that hey can serve their purpose for the whole person and not the habit or behavior.

17.)                  The unconscious mind is symbolic it uses and responds to symbols. The first person to really point this out was Carl Yung (Psyche and Symbols.) Remember that most of what the unconscious gives us may be very symbolic and may actually not be a memory of the event or item that is represented.

18.)                  The unconscious mind takes every thing personally. It’s important to remember that what you say about others around you your unconscious can and will interpret that as how you view yourself. This can be both a good and bad thing, if you can get control of how you think then you can control the messages your unconscious receives frequently. A wise man once said “See everyone as if they are divine” (Swami Vivekananda), when it comes to our unconscious nothing could be more beneficial, because if all you see before you is divine then the more you see yourself as divine, and in turn your unconscious will follow this and assist you accordingly.

19.)                  The unconscious works on the principle of least effort. It will always take the path of least resistance to achieve its ends, or it will do as little as possible to achieve all that you have asked it to do.

20.)                  The unconscious mind does not process negatives. I have talked about this in a previous posting, but I felt that it was so important it bears repeating. In order for us to not think of something we have to think about it first and then negate the original thought. I.E.   “Don’t think of a blue tree.”

This is as complete a description of the motives and methods of the unconscious mind. Always remember the unconscious is very much like a 7 years old child that loves you very much and will do anything you ask of it, although it can be confused and splintered just like our conscious mind can. But in know this powerful resource you have available and at your disposal everyday all day and every night of your life can be most helpful and an enriching experience.