10 Facts About The Placebo Effect

“Placebo” is Latin for “I shall please.”

Placebo trials are used to tell researchers whether a tested drug has any healing effect beyond that which occurs a certain percentage of time when people take an inert pill. A patient’s belief in a pill - a supposed medicine, but chemically innocuous - is thought to activate their body’s healing powers.

Do you believe the power of your mind can heal your body?

For years, scientists have looked at the placebo effect as just a figment of overactive patient imaginations. However, by now researchers have discovered that the placebo effect is not “all in patients’ heads” but rather, in their brains.

Placebo effect is a wonderful presentation of the power of our minds and our belief systems. It proves that our thoughts may actually interact with the brain in a physical way.

We have looked through scientific research and found a number of quite interesting data about placebos that have been published in the medical literature.

1. Placebo Effect Produces Real Pain-killers

The most significant research in placebos has been seen in the treatment of pain.

Medical researchers have found, for example, that a placebo given for pain may be as effective as 8 mg of morphine (a modest dose).

Using brain scans the University of Michigan Health System scientists found that placebo treatment triggers the brains natural painkillers, called endorphins. This study provides the first direct evidence that the brain’s own pain-fighting chemicals play a role in the pain-related placebo effect - and that this response corresponds with a reduction in feelings of pain.

2. Costly Placebo Works Better Than Cheap One

A 10-cent pill doesn’t kill pain as well as a $2.50 pill, even when they are identical placebos, according to a provocative study by Dan Ariely, a behavioral economist at Duke University.

Researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology used a standard protocol for administering light electric shock to participants’ wrists to measure their subjective rating of pain. The 82 study subjects were tested before getting the placebo and after. Half the participants were given a brochure describing the pill as a newly-approved pain-killer which cost $2.50 per dose and half were given a brochure describing it as marked down to 10 cents, without saying why. In the full-price group, 85% of participants experienced a reduction in pain after taking the placebo. In the low-price group, 61% said the pain was less.

3. All Placebos Are Not Created Alike: The Power Of Healing Ritual

Sham devices seems to be more effective than sham pills.

While researchers usually use placebos in clinical trials to test the effectiveness of a new treatment, this trial pitted one placebo against another. Ted Kaptchuk, an associate professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School, investigated whether a sham acupuncture device has a greater placebo effect than an inert pill. The results of this study show that the placebo effect varies by type of placebo used.

In the second phase of the study, participants receiving sham acupuncture reported a more significant decrease in pain and symptom severity than those receiving placebo pills for the duration of the trials.

These findings suggest that the medical ritual of a device can deliver an enhanced placebo effect beyond that of a placebo pill.

4. Placebo Response Is Strong With Asthma

Placebo effect is often observed in asthma patients - that is, they show an improvement in their condition even when they just think they are being treated.

Interestingly, the patients not only report an improvement in their disease, but objective tests indicate a benefit as well, according to the report in the Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology.

Previous reviews have suggested that placebo benefits are restricted to subjective responses, like pain, but are ineffective for objective physiological outcomes. Researchers from the University of California, San Francisco, investigated whether there was a placebo response in objective measures of lung function in 55 patients with asthma.

The results of the methacholine challenge test, which gauges how well a particular drug opens constricted airways, showed that placebo did, in fact, seem to improve lung function.

5. Placebo Effect Can Last For Years

The brain’s power to make people feel better can last for years.

The 2-year study, conducted at 28 centers in Canada, involved 613 patients who were given either the drug Proscar (finasteride) or a placebo. Doctors found that the 303 men on the placebo pills really were doing better, even though their prostates had grown, on average, by 8.4%. Although an enlarged prostate can impede urine flow, urine flow was improved for the men taking the placebo. Some participants, continuing to do very well on placebo, didn’t want to stop taking the pills.

The placebo effect can last for a long time if the three necessary elements are maintained:

* beliefs and expectations of patients
* beliefs and expectations of doctors
* a good relationship between them

6. Huge Placebo Effect In Depression

The placebo effect is particularly apparent in illnesses that have a strong psychological component, such as anxiety and depression. Placebo help nearly half of depressed people get better.

In 2009 researchers analyzed 12 studies which included 2,862 children (median age 12.3 years) who were randomized to either an antidepressant or placebo. The medications in those 12 studies were Prozac, Paxil, Zoloft, Lexapro, Celexa, Effexor, Remeron and Serzone. Taken together, 49% of children responded to placebo while 57% percent responded to an antidepressant. That makes for a global effect size of 8%, meaning a doctor would have to give anti-depressants to 10 kids before seeing a response in one of them.

How long-lasting is this placebo effect? If a person continues receiving a placebo instead of an antidepressant, does their depression get worse over time?

Scientists from Northwest Clinical Research Center analyzed research where patients were continued on placebo for more than 12 weeks and examined whether they relapsed back into depression or not. The researchers found that 79% of those receiving placebo continued to be depression-free 4 months after their initial treatment (4 out of 5 people), compared with 93% of those taking an antidepressant medication.

7. Placebo Is Quite Effective Treatment For Osteoarthritis

Researchers examined the placebo effect in 198 randomized, placebo-controlled studies (16,364 patients) for osteoarthritis. A wide range of treatments were involved - drugs, non-drug treatments, and surgical procedures.

The ultimate conclusion was surprising. It stated that, “Placebo is effective in the treatment of osteoarthritis, especially for pain, stiffness and self-reported function.”

Placebo was found to be effective for relieving pain, improving function, and decreasing joint stiffness associated with osteoarthritis. The size of the placebo effect was affected by the strength of the active treatment, how severe the disease was at the study onset, as well as how the placebo was administered.

Interestingly, the pain-relieving effect of the placebo increased when the placebo was given through injection.

8. Placebo Surgery Surprise: Fake Procedures Are As Good As “Real” Surgery

Placebo surgery shows surprising results! In fact, in those studies where placebo surgery has been used, many patients receiving the placebo improved.

The study of treatments for angina pectoris (unspecified chest pain) has been particularly revealing.

In the 1950s, many physicians treated angina with ligation of the internal mammary artery. Despite claims of up to a 91% success rate, in the late 1950s, two skeptics conducted separate double-blind tests in which half the patients received skin incision, but not artery ligation. In both studies, the placebo surgery proved equally effective as the ligation. And the overall rate of improvement with the placebo was 37%.

A 2002 study of arthroscopic knee surgery found that the outcomes for a placebo procedure were as good as those of the “real” surgery.

The bigger and more dramatic the patient perceives the intervention to be, the bigger the placebo effect. Big pills have more than small pills, injections have more than pills and surgery has the most of all.

9. Taking Pills, Even If Placebo, Predicts Better Survival In Heart Failure

Heart-failure patients have a better chance of survival if they’re conscientious about taking their pills, even if those pills are placebos, says a Duke University Medical Center study.

In an international clinical trial of 7,599 heart failure patients, the researchers found that good adherence was associated with similar lower mortality rates for both the placebo and an angiotensin receptor blocker (ARB), a medication used to relax and dilate blood vessels, when compared to patients who were not as adherent. Also, good adherence was associated with lower rates of hospitalization for both placebo and active drug.

10. Placebo Acupuncture Tied To Higher In-Vitro Fertilization Pregnancies

Compared to real acupuncture, placebo acupuncture is associated with significantly higher overall pregnancy rates among women undergoing in-vitro fertilization (IVF), according to the University of Hong Kong study.

The researchers gave real or placebo acupuncture to 370 women on the day of embryo transfer and found that 55.1% of those who received placebo acupuncture became pregnant, compared to 43.8% of those who received real acupuncture.

Our conclusion

Hope, faith, and love work wonders.

Source: eMedExpert Blog

The Science of Creating Your Own Reality

In 1633, an aging Italian astronomer named Galileo Galilei was taken before the Roman Inquisition, tried, convicted of heresy, and sentenced to spend the rest of his life in prison.

Galileo’s crime? He endorsed the idea, proposed a century earlier by the great Catholic astronomer Nicolaus Copernicus, that the earth is not the center of the solar system. In fact, said Galileo, it is the other way around: The sun sits at the center, and the earth is simply one of a handful of planets that revolve around it.

Galileo was forced to publicly recant his views, and his book containing the offending idea, Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems, was banned. The old man’s sentence was later commuted to house arrest, and he lived out the rest of his days confined to his villa outside Florence, where he eventually went blind.

Still, Galileo’s views persisted, and the meticulous experiments and mathematical models he used in his search to understand nature set the stage for all the developments of modern science that followed. Three centuries later, a German physicist named Albert Einstein called him “the father of modern science.”

From Galileo’s time onward, scientists’ precise observations contributed to a picture of the world that looked very much like a massive piece of mechanical clockwork; they had little practical use for such ideas as soul, spirit, or consciousness.

The French philosopher and mathematician René Descartes, a contemporary of Galileo’s who is today regarded as “the father of modern philosophy,” declared that the best way to understand how the world works would be to divide existence into two parts: the objective or material world, governed by the principles of science, and the subjective world of the mind and the soul, which would be the province of the church.

Descartes is especially famous for the statement I think, therefore I am. But the truth is, the think part of that declaration puzzled Descartes, much as it has puzzled scientists for centuries since. Just how is it that we think? Where do our thoughts come from? How do the bits of physical matter that constitute our brains generate consciousness? The answers to those questions open up a tremendous new world of possibility for what we can achieve in our lives, and they form a central part of The Answer.

A World Inside the Atom

In the generations following Galileo and Descartes, Sir Isaac Newton took the idea of nature-as-machine much further, detailing the precise laws that govern how that machine operates. All of classical physics, and in fact, all of modern science, has been built upon the foundation created by Newton. His laws of motion made possible the advance of modern technology, from simple steam engines to the space probes that have analyzed soil samples on Mars.

But scientists eventually reached the limits of the Newtonian worldview. As their tools grew more sophisticated, their explorations of the physical world took them deep into the heart of the atom, where the nature of reality proved to be something quite different from anything Descartes or Newton ever imagined.

At the dawn of the twentieth century, scientists began looking into the world within the atomic nucleus, and they were shocked to discover that on the subatomic level, the physical world did not behave at all the way Newton said it should. In fact, the “atom” itself turned out to be a sort of illusion: The closer scientists looked, the less it really appeared to be there.

And when our vision of the atom fractured, the foundation of classical physics fractured along with it. Our view of how the world works was in for a radical transformation.

Everything Is Energy

When we say the name Albert Einstein, what comes to mind? Perhaps you think of his wild mane of white hair, or that famous picture of the distinguished physicist sticking out his tongue. Or maybe you think simply, “Genius.” But whatever picture you have, you will also probably come up with “E=MC2.”

Why on earth would a mathematical equation for a sophisticated theory be so famous that even nonscientists recognize it immediately? Because with that simple equation, “Energy equals mass times the speed of light squared,” Einstein shattered centuries of thinking and radically altered our view of how the world works.

One reason Einstein’s idea was so transformative was that for the first time ever, it described how energy and matter are not only related, but can be transformed back and forth into each other. Now the elegant, clear-cut world of classical, Newtonian physics would be forced to move over and make room for the fuzzy, strange, nearly unimaginable world of quantum physics.

Quantum physics is the study of how the world works on the smallest scale, at a level far smaller than the atom. And as scientists studied the nature of reality on a smaller and smaller scale, something strange began to happen: The deeper we went into reality, the more it seemed to dissolve from view. The search for the smallest known particle of matter had instead turned up distinct yet elusive little packets of energy, which physicists called quanta.

The Einstein breakthrough comes down to this: Everything is energy. A rock, a planet, a glass of water, your hand, everything you can touch, taste, or smell - it’s all made of molecules, which are made of atoms, which are made of protons and electrons and neutrons, which are made of nothing but vibrating packets of energy.

This is where quantum physics intersects with what I found inside that cardboard box. What physicists found has everything to do with how you are going to create the life of your dreams by building your dream business. For once we know that everything is energy - that there is no absolute distinction between matter and energy - then the boundaries between the physical world and the world of our thoughts start to disappear as well.

Reading the Mind of God

In the decades that followed Einstein’s theory of relativity, the new quantum physics began to reveal some very strange things. The tiny packets of energy known as quanta exhibited some very peculiar behaviors, including an unexplainable ability to influence one another, a property called entanglement.

In his book Science and the Akashic Field, physicist Ervin Laszlo describes a series of experiments conducted by lie detector expert Cleve Backster. Backster took some white blood cells from the mouths of his subjects and cultured them in a test tube. He then moved the cultures to distant locations, more than seven miles away. He attached lie detectors to the cultures and then performed a series of experiments on his subjects.

In one of his tests, he showed his subject a television program depicting the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941. This man was a former navy gunner who had actually been present at Pearl Harbor during the attack. When the face of a navy gunner appeared on the screen, the man’s face betrayed an emotional reaction—and at that precise moment, the lie detector’s needle seven and a half miles away jumped, exactly as it would have had it been attached to the man himself, and not just to a test tube of his cultured white blood cells miles away.

How is such a thing possible? In the language of quantum physics, the particles of the gunner’s body are still connected or “entangled” with one another, and no matter how far apart they are separated in space, they will continue to influence one another. In fact, this effect appears to occur at speeds faster than the speed of light, which violates one of Einstein’s basic rules.

Scientists dubbed this mind-boggling capacity for instantaneous interconnection non locality. Einstein had a somewhat less technical term for it. He called it spooky action at a distance.

A Bizarre Discovery: Thought Influences Matter

Within twenty years of Einstein’s radical work, another revolution in worldview occurred, just as cataclysmic as Einstein’s. It started with two of the early pioneers of the quantum world, the Danish physicist Niels Bohr and his protégé Werner Heisenberg.

Bohr and Heisenberg studied the puzzling behaviors of these tiny subatomic particles and recognized that once you look deep within the heart of atoms, these “indivisible particles” are something like tiny packets of possibility.

Each subatomic particle appeared to exist not as a solid, stable “thing,” but as the potential of any one of its various possible selves. Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle stated that it was not possible to measure all of a subatomic particle’s properties at the same time. For example, if you record information about the location of a proton, you cannot pin down its speed or trajectory; if you figure out its speed, now its precise location eludes you.

Bohr and Heisenberg’s work suggested that at its most basic level, physical matter isn’t exactly anything yet. At the subatomic scale, according to this new understanding, reality was made not of solid substance but of fields of potentiality - more like a set of possible sketches or ideas of a thing than the thing itself. A particle would take on the specific character of a material “thing” only when it was measured or observed.

In fact, even more bizarre, it was soon found that the mere intention of measuring particles, even without carrying out the actual act itself, would still affect the particles in question!

Suddenly subjectivity - the action of consciousness upon a piece of “matter” - had become an essential component in the very nature of reality.

The Zero-Point Field

As scientists continued pursuing their explorations on staggeringly small scales, they eventually found themselves staring at something truly confounding. They termed it the zero-point field (ZPF), because at this most infinitesimal of levels, some sort of force appears to be present even at a temperature of absolute zero, when all known forms of energy vanish.

Here, beneath the level of energy itself, exists a still more basic level. The field at this level is not exactly “energy” anymore, nor is it a field of empty space. It is best described, physicists realized, as a field of information.

To put it another way, the undifferentiated ocean out of which energy arises appears to be a sea of pure consciousness, from which matter emerges in clustered localities here and there. Consciousness is what the universe is made of; matter and energy are just two of the forms that consciousness takes. Ervin Laszlo calls this field that underlies and connects all things the A-field, in deference to the ancient Vedic concept of the Akashic record, a nonphysical repository of all knowledge in the universe, including all human experience.

The psychologist Carl Jung called it the collective unconscious. It has been intuited and described for thousands of years and in a multitude of terms and images throughout human history. Only in the last few decades has science caught up to what we always sensed but could never fully explain.

Says Laszlo: “The ancients knew that space is not empty; it is the origin and memory of all things that exist and have ever existed. . . .[This insight] is now being rediscovered at the cutting edge of the sciences [and is emerging] as a main pillar of the scientific world’s picture of the twenty-first century. This will profoundly change our concept of ourselves and of the world.”

In fact, it has already profoundly changed our picture of ourselves and our world—and it will radically change how you approach your life and your business.

Thought Creates Everything

So what are we saying here, that everything that is, is made of thought? That thought creates the physical world? Yes, that is exactly what we’re saying.

Your thoughts not only matter, they create matter. Thought is where everything comes from. And your thoughts are where your business comes from.

In the chapters that follow, we’re going to walk through the process, step by step, of building your dream business by first harnessing the most powerful force in the universe: your beliefs.

The Most Powerful Force In The Universe

If the idea that the universe is made of thought seems amazing, here is the truly amazing thing about it: The scale of power we’re talking about here is staggering beyond comprehension.

The universe appears to be structured as a series of layers or levels, much like an onion or Russian nesting dolls: Inside of organisms, we find cells; inside cells, molecules, then “indivisible” atoms, then electrons and protons, then quarks, bosons, mesons, photons, leptons . . . and the smaller the world, the greater the amount of force we find wrapped inside it.

The deeper in nature you go, the more dynamic nature becomes. In other words, the more fundamental the level to which you penetrate, the greater the power you’ll find.

For example, chemical power, the force of chemical interactions, operates at the level of molecules and atoms. Nuclear power operates at the level of the atomic nucleus, about a million times smaller - and it is a million times more powerful. Yet even the nuclear level pales in comparison to the deeper levels today’s quantum physics is exploring. According to Laszlo, the zero-point field has an energy density of 1094 ergs per cubic centimeter - that’s ten thousand billion, billion, billion, billion times more energy in a single cubic centimeter of “empty space” than you have in all the matter in the known universe.

And that’s just one cc of empty space. Imagine what you’d have in a quart.

How Quantum Science Helps You Build Your Dream Business

In 1902, two years after the physicist Max Planck first coined the term quantum to describe the core reality of light, a young British writer named James Allen penned a little book entitled As a Man Thinketh, which drew its title and its message from the biblical verse “As a man thinketh in his heart, so is he.”

At the time, few would have associated the two men and their work, but with the hindsight of a century’s discoveries, we can now see the connection. While scientists spent the rest of the century pursuing the horizon set by pioneers such as Planck, Einstein, Bohr, and Heisenberg, which would ultimately lead to the quantum vacuum, philosophers like Napoleon Hill, Earl Nightingale, and Bob Proctor worked to articulate its application to the practical world of human accomplishment.

This idea, that our thoughts have a direct, causal impact on our reality, has been observed, but it always seemed like something that rational people couldn’t buy into, an idea that created more questions than answers. Now science has given us that set of answers.

Remember the mind-boggling amount of power in that cubic centimeter of “empty space,” or consciousness? When Victor Hugo said, “There is nothing more powerful than an idea whose time has come,” we now know that this was more than a metaphor. He may not have fully realized it at the time, but he was giving us a literal description of how reality works.

Thought is the most powerful force in the universe. Our thoughts are the controlling factor in what we manifest and create in our lives.

The idea precedes the thing.

That is at the heart of how my dream house showed up, as well as every business I’ve built, and the same thing happens to every businessperson who has a vision and applies these strategies and tactics. It started as a picture, an idea in my mind, and before I knew what had happened, I was living in it.

Science tells us that underlying what we know as the world is a field of pure consciousness, billions upon billions of times more powerful than any measurable energy, and that this field of absolute consciousness knows everything that happens, anywhere and everywhere in the universe, instantaneously and with absolute accuracy.

This is not so different from the kind of descriptions people have given for millennia in their efforts to grasp the ultimate nature of our universal source, what some of us call God. Whatever you call it, the picture that emerges is of a world bounded by an infinitely large, omnipotent, omniscient intelligence, which lies behind everything in the phenomenal world as its source, author, and ultimate destination.

This is the dream world we live in, you and I, and it is the clay from which you will shape and give life to your dream business.

John Assaraf will be a featured trainer with The Masters Gathering, which will bring some of the world’s greatest teachers together for on amazing event. Join the masters here…

Honorable Manhood

Closing moments from the 1st segment of Ken Burns “Civil War”. Letter from Sullivan Ballou to his wife just before his death. Unfortunately, Sarah never received the letter. Sullivan’s letter was not found until years after the war… and Sarah’s death.

To the hope that there is a universal feeling of undying love in all of us.

July the 14th, 1861
Washington DC

My very dear Sarah:

The indications are very strong that we shall move in a few days - perhaps tomorrow. Lest I should not be able to write you again, I feel impelled to write lines that may fall under your eye when I shall be no more.

Our movement may be one of a few days duration and full of pleasure - and it may be one of severe conflict and death to me. Not my will, but thine 0 God, be done. If it is necessary that I should fall on the battlefield for my country, I am ready. I have no misgivings about, or lack of confidence in, the cause in which I am engaged, and my courage does not halt or falter. I know how strongly American Civilization now leans upon the triumph of the Government, and how great a debt we owe to those who went before us through the blood and suffering of the Revolution. And I am willing - perfectly willing - to lay down all my joys in this life, to help maintain this Government, and to pay that debt.

But, my dear wife, when I know that with my own joys I lay down nearly all of yours, and replace them in this life with cares and sorrows - when, after having eaten for long years the bitter fruit of orphanage myself, I must offer it as their only sustenance to my dear little children - is it weak or dishonorable, while the banner of my purpose floats calmly and proudly in the breeze, that my unbounded love for you, my darling wife and children, should struggle in fierce, though useless, contest with my love of country?

I cannot describe to you my feelings on this calm summer night, when two thousand men are sleeping around me, many of them enjoying the last, perhaps, before that of death — and I, suspicious that Death is creeping behind me with his fatal dart, am communing with God, my country, and thee.

I have sought most closely and diligently, and often in my breast, for a wrong motive in thus hazarding the happiness of those I loved and I could not find one. A pure love of my country and of the principles have often advocated before the people and “the name of honor that I love more than I fear death” have called upon me, and I have obeyed.

Sarah, my love for you is deathless, it seems to bind me to you with mighty cables that nothing but Omnipotence could break; and yet my love of Country comes over me like a strong wind and bears me irresistibly on with all these chains to the battlefield.

The memories of the blissful moments I have spent with you come creeping over me, and I feel most gratified to God and to you that I have enjoyed them so long. And hard it is for me to give them up and burn to ashes the hopes of future years, when God willing, we might still have lived and loved together and seen our sons grow up to honorable manhood around us. I have, I know, but few and small claims upon Divine Providence, but something whispers to me - perhaps it is the wafted prayer of my little Edgar — that I shall return to my loved ones unharmed. If I do not, my dear Sarah, never forget how much I love you, and when my last breath escapes me on the battlefield, it will whisper your name.

Forgive my many faults, and the many pains I have caused you. How thoughtless and foolish I have oftentimes been! How gladly would I wash out with my tears every little spot upon your happiness, and struggle with all the misfortune of this world, to shield you and my children from harm. But I cannot. I must watch you from the spirit land and hover near you, while you buffet the storms with your precious little freight, and wait with sad patience till we meet to part no more.

But, O Sarah! If the dead can come back to this earth and flit unseen around those they loved, I shall always be near you; in the garish day and in the darkest night — amidst your happiest scenes and gloomiest hours - always, always; and if there be a soft breeze upon your cheek, it shall be my breath; or the cool air fans your throbbing temple, it shall be my spirit passing by.

Sarah, do not mourn me dead; think I am gone and wait for thee, for we shall meet again.

As for my little boys, they will grow as I have done, and never know a father’s love and care. Little Willie is too young to remember me long, and my blue eyed Edgar will keep my frolics with him among the dimmest memories of his childhood. Sarah, I have unlimited confidence in your maternal care and your development of their characters. Tell my two mothers his and hers I call God’s blessing upon them. O Sarah, I wait for you there! Come to me, and lead thither my children.

Sullivan

Advice From The Dalai Lama

It’s been making the rounds, so I figured, why not here for those who haven’t seen this list before. Instructions for Life in the new millennium from the Dalai Lama:

1. Take into account that great love and great achievements involve great risk.

2. When you lose, don’t lose the lesson.

3. Follow the three Rules: Respect for self; Respect for others; and Responsibility for all your actions.

4. Remember that not getting what you want is sometimes a wonderful stroke of luck.

5. Learn the rules so you know how to break them properly.

6. Don’t let a little dispute injure a great friendship.

7. When you realize you’ve made a mistake, take immediate steps to correct it.

8. Spend some time alone every day.

9. Open your arms to change, but don’t let go of your values.

10. Remember that silence is sometimes the best answer.

11. Live a good, honorable life. Then when you get older and think back, you’ll be able to enjoy it a second time.

12. A loving atmosphere in your home is the foundation for your life.

13. In disagreements with loved ones, deal only with the current situation. Don’t bring up the past.

14. Share your knowledge. It’s a way to achieve immortality.

15. Be gentle with the earth.

16. Once a year, go someplace you’ve never been before.

17. Remember that the best relationship is one in which your love for each other exceeds your need for each other.

18. Judge your success by what you had to give up in order to get it.

19. Approach love and cooking with reckless abandon.

The Overview Effect

In February, 1971, Apollo 14 astronaut Edgar Mitchell experienced the little understood phenomenon sometimes called the “Overview Effect”.

He describes being completely engulfed by a profound sense of universal connectedness. Without warning, he says, a feeling of bliss, timelessness, and connectedness began to overwhelm him.

He describes becoming instantly and profoundly aware that each of his constituent atoms were connected to the fragile planet he saw in the window and to every other atom in the Universe. He described experiencing an intense awareness that Earth, with its humans, other animal species, and systems were all one synergistic whole.

He says the feeling that rushed over him was a sense of interconnected euphoria. He was not the first—nor the last—to experience this strange “cosmic connection”.

Rusty Schweikart experienced it on March 6th 1969 during a spacewalk outside his Apollo 9 vehicle: “When you go around the Earth in an hour and a half, you begin to recognize that your identity is with that whole thing. That makes a change…it comes through to you so powerfully that you’re the sensing element for Man.” Schweikart, similar to what Mitchell experienced, describes intuitively sensing that everything is profoundly connected.

Their experiences, along with dozens of other similar experiences described by other astronauts, intrigue scientists who study the brain. This “Overview Effect”, or acute awareness of all matter as synergistically connected, sounds somewhat similar to certain religious experiences described by Buddhist monks, for example.

Where does it come from and why?

Andy Newberg, a neuroscientist/physician with a background in space medicine, is learning how to identify the markers of someone who has had the experience. “You can often tell when you’re with someone who has flown in space,” he says, “It’s palpable.” Andy scans brains for a living: praying nuns, transcendental mediators, and others in the act of focused states.

Newberg can pinpoint regions in subjects’ gray matter that correlate to these circumstances. Newberg is seriously looking at how to fly equipment that could study—in action—the brain functions of space travelers. If this Overview Effect is a real, physiological phenomenon—he wants to watch it happen.

Newberg’s first test subject will not be a paid astronaut, but rather a paying space tourist: Reda Andersen slated to fly with Rocketplane Kistler says, “It would be criminal NOT to study the first of us (space adventure travelers).”

After decades of study and contemplation about his experience, Ed Mitchell believes that the feeling of “oneness” with the Universe that he and others have experienced is a consequence of little understood quantum physics.

In a recent interview with writer Diana deRegnier of American Chronicle, Mitchell explains how the event changed his life and his entire perspective on the world and how each of us fits into the grand scale of the cosmos.

“Four hundred years ago. the philosopher Rene Descartes came to the conclusion that physicality, spirituality, mind and body belonged to different realms of reality that didn’t interact. Now, that served the purpose to get the Inquisition off the backs of the intellectuals so they could disagree on material things with the church and without the fear of being burned at the stake. So that ended that, but it did cause, for four hundred years, science to consider consciousness and mind a subject for philosophy and religion and not a subject for science.

Now, one of the things that happened, in the 1940s, was the mathematician, physicist, Norbert Wiener (MIT, Massachusetts Institute of Technology) for the first time really defined information as the negative of entropy, and entropy as the idea of the universe is running down and wastes energy. But, Wiener defined information as the negative of entropy, and that’s wonderful but it didn’t go far enough.”

Mitchell says that in an attempt to fill in some of the missing gap, the 2008 revised edition of his book The Way of the Explorer explores the largely ignored science of human consciousness. Using what he calls the “dyadic model” he outlines the “two faces” of energy. “Instead of being two separate things, it’s the energy as the basis of our existence in matter. And, it’s the basis of our knowing and information,” Mitchell explains.

“We had not had, in science, a definition of consciousness. The only definition of consciousness from the dictionary is that at its basic level it is awareness. Consciousness means to be aware, and then we have different levels of consciousness depending upon how complex the substance is. It has been demonstrated many times over in laboratories that basic awareness is demonstrable at the level of plants, at simple bacteria, at simple life forms.

This is done with Faraday cages. It’s shown that this information at this deep level, at the quantum level, can transcend electromagnetic theory. And, now we’re getting into quantum physics and we don´t want to go there at this point. But it’s a very fundamental notion that awareness is at the very basis of things.”

Mitchell believes that perhaps both the theologians and scientists have missed the mark.

“All I can suggest to the mystic and the theologian is that our gods have been too small; they fill the universe. And to the scientist all I can say is that the gods do exist; they are the eternal, connected, and aware Self experienced by all intelligent beings.’

In response to DeRegnier questioning whether or not Mitchell believes in the idea of God, he responds that while he does not believe in the traditional “grandfather figure” version of God, “we do have great mystery about what is the origin of the universe, how it came to be. There’s a great deal of question as to whether the big bang is the correct answer to the way the universe arose, and under what auspices and conditions. I don’t think we have the full answers to that yet. Hopefully in due course we’ll be able to find a much better way to describe all this.”

But while Mitchell does not claim to know how to perfectly interpret his experience, he is certain that it was a glimpse into a largely ignored reality: People, places and things are all more closely connected than they sometimes appear. He also mentions the need for better stewardship of our precious planet.

“The great thinker Buckminster Fuller, philosopher, now deceased but for a goodly portion of the twentieth century, pointed out at the beginning of our space exploration that we are the crew of ‘space ship earth’. But we ‘re a crew of mutiny and how can you run a space ship with a mutinous crew?”

By Rebecca Sato
Source: Daily Galaxy

A Closely Guarded Secret

“Be Warned!”, says the author. Here’s a clip described as a “Devastating tactic of the Elite Persuaders revealed. Do not view if you disapprove of covert persuasion techniques.” Well, it caught my eye and I have my opinion, but you take a look and you decide.

How to Lead in a Crisis

Best-selling author and careers expert Jim Citrin on How to lead in a crises - The current environment presents us with new challenges and opportunities at an ever accelerating pace. While we are constantly in search of stability and predictability with which to base decisions, it has become evident that very rare events, such as the rise of Google, the collapse of Bear Stearns, and 9/11, just to name a few, occur without warning and obviate all of our assumptions and prior forecasts. This underscores the fact that one of the toughest management challenges is dealing with uncertainty.

So just how do you lead people, manage your investments, and handle yourself when you can’t fall back on past experiences to deal with a situation that no one has seen before? Nobel laureates have wrestled with these seemingly unanswerable questions and have sought to model unpredictable occurrences, which have more popularly been termed “long-tail” events, or “Black Swans.”

To look at these issues in a practical manner, I spoke with Robert L. Dilenschneider, a renowned strategy and communications advisor who formed The Dilenschneider Group in 1991, after having served as CEO of public relations firm Hill and Knowlton. Mr. Dilenschneider has advised major corporations on crisis communications and related issues ranging from mergers and acquisitions and to marketing, government affairs and international media. He has authored twelve books, including the best-selling Power and Influence.

Based on his work over the years and on recent conversations with the renowned financial markets guru and Nobel Prize winner, Myron Scholes, Mr. Dilenschneider has developed four simple rules for managing and leading in times of crisis:

1. Project a Sense of Calm

Just as panic is contagious, so too is a sense of calm, which when it kicks in can settle the frayed nerves of those around you. In a crisis, you should project a sense of continuity, of having managed through similarly difficult predicaments, and of applying the lessons learned in a calm and reasoned manner to the situation at hand.

Responding to such pressure in a cool, calm and collected way requires being guided by your mind rather than your emotions. There are different areas of the brain which govern us when we are thinking clearly and calmly on the one hand and when we are operating in a state of anxiety or fear on the other hand. When it comes to working in a crisis, we perform at our best when we are guided by the prefrontal cortex, the area of the brain that plans and reasons.

When we are scared or anxious, however, we are driven by the part of the brain that produces the fight-or-flight emotions. By simply deciding to project a sense of calm, not only will you be quelling the fears of those around you, but you will be consciously triggering the part of your brain that will enable you to problem-solve your way through the situation.

Whether it is the current credit crisis, the dot-com bust of 2000, the Asian debt crisis of 1997, or Black Monday in October 1987, Wall Street and the economy have been through many “sky is falling” crises. After this passes, the economy and markets will still function and survive, often, healthier than before. As Mr. Dilenschneider said, “Remember; this too shall pass!”

2. Take Early and Decisive Action on Personnel

If you are in a management position during a crisis or period of great uncertainty you should also create an immediate feeling of decisiveness and accountability, according to Mr. Dilenschneider. You need to decide early on which employees you need to let go and which you are going to keep. The goal is to reduce the sense of uncertainty as soon as possible and get everyone focused on the tasks at hand. One dilemma is that the very people who let you get into the current difficulty are often times the best-equipped to help you get out of it.

The analysis of what to do with the individuals involved must be objective and fact-based and must weigh the advantages to the organization of their departure in terms of morale, public perception or operations compared to the loss these individuals in terms of their expertise and relationships. If you decide to retain these individuals, you as a manager must make sure to align their incentives with those of the organization. Once you have decided who to keep, in order to calm down still skittish employees you should reassure them that their jobs are secure — at least until the organization navigates its way out of the crisis.

3. Ensure That the Information You Receive is Accurate

Mr. Dilenschneider has advised scores of clients during many crises and has come to believe that the single most important thing you can do as a manager during a crisis is to ensure that the information flowing to you and your team is comprehensive and accurate. He says that under no circumstances can you delegate the collection of information to subordinates whose interests could diverge from yours or that of the organization. Recognize that they will naturally be focused on their own survival while your concern as a leader is the well-being of your organization. You must play a hands-on role in determining what information you need, how it will be obtained, and how and to whom it will be disseminated.

From a communications perspective, what you say publicly and privately must be consistent. The levels of detail you share may differ, but what you discuss publicly must be both accurate and consistent with what you are saying to your team and more broadly inside the organization. If you violate this rule, the inconsistency will find its way out, into conversations with others and with the media. That then would undermine everything else you are saying and doing and create more, rather than less, panic.

4. Manage Yourself First

Finally, Mr. Dilenschneider stresses that above everything else, the one thing that you must do when disorder replaces order is “seize control of your own head.” In times of distress, it is often easy to get swept away in the flow of events. It is imperative that throughout the crisis, you as a manager take care of yourself, get enough rest, and keep stress levels as low as possible. It is well documented that you make poor decisions when you are tired and stressed. Yet many top executives ignore their own health and state of mind in times of trouble. As a manager, your job is to make good decisions. By taking care of yourself you are helping do your job by improving the quality of the decisions you will make.

To take care of yourself properly, follow the same advice that you surely give to others:

* Put limits on your workday. You can’t function well in your job if you are fatigued. Cap the number of hours you work and carve out enough time to make sure that you get enough sleep and spend some time every day with your family.

* Practice deep breathing and take a nap. Both can be done in a few minutes and can be vital in maintaining your equilibrium.

* Maintain your exercise routine. When a crisis starts to fill up your schedule, the daily workout is often one of the first things to get pushed aside. Make it the last. Exercise keeps your mind sharp and routine helps you retain a sense of calm.

Article by Jim Citrin - Leadership by Example

Napoleon Hill Discusses Andrew Carnegie

An oldie but a goodie. Napoleon Hill talks about the wisdom the billionaire Andrew Carnegie shared with him some hundred years ago.

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“Last Lecture” Professor Randy Pausch Has Died

Some of you may recall Randy Pausch, the Carnegie Mellon University computer science professor whose final lecture inspired millions. News came out today that he has died of pancreatic cancer.

In May, Dr. Pausch spoke at the Carnegie Mellon University commencement. He said a friend recently told him he was “beating the [Grim] Reaper” because it’s now been nine months since his doctor told him he would die in six.

“But we don’t beat the Reaper by living longer. We beat the Reaper by living well,” said Dr. Pausch, who urged the graduates to find and pursue their passion. He put an exclamation point at the end of his remarks by kissing his wife, Jai, and carrying her off stage.

Below is the video link to the “Last Lecture” we posted back in Mar 2008.

http://myselfdevelopment.net/index.php/2008/03/14/the-last-lecture/

The Strangest Secret (Video)

Earl Nightingale’s classic, The Strangest Secret, earned the first Gold Record for the spoken word, with sales exceeding 1 million copies. Nightingale, known as the “dean of personal development,” reveals how he discovered and lived the secret to success.

Louise Hay - You Can Heal Your Life: The Movie

This entertaining and inspirational movie based on the best-selling book of the same name is hosted by author and teacher Louise L. Hay. This film gives penetrating insights into Louise’s fascinating personal story; and shows how her views on self-esteem, abundance, and the metaphysical causes behind physical ailments were developed. It also reveals how she applied these concepts to her own emotional, spiritual, and professional life.

A number of luminaries in the fields of self-help, philosophy, health, spirituality, and New Thought join Louise, giving their take on success, happiness, and the myriad ways in which people can heal their own lives. And there are also gripping firsthand accounts from others who have been positively affected by Louise’s work.

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Some Thoughts On The Mind…

Throughout history, in every great teaching, culture and religion, a central principle is the power of our thoughts to build the life we desire. The essential power of our thoughts is no secret…except to those who have yet to learn it.

“Man’s mind, once stretched by a new idea, never regains its original dimensions.”
– Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.

“For as a man thinketh in his heart so is he.”
– Proverbs 23:7

“All that we are is the result of what we have thought; it is founded on our thoughts; it is made up of our thoughts. A man’s life is the direct result of his thoughts… We are what we think. All that we are arises with our thoughts. With our thoughts we make the world.”
– Gautama Siddhartha (Buddha)

“To know, yet to think that one does not know, is best; not to know, yet to think that one knows, will lead to difficulty.”
– Lao-Tzu

” A thought is an idea in transit.”
– Pythagoras

“He who learns but does not think, is lost! He who thinks but does not learn is in great danger… Men of superior mind busy themselves first getting at the root of things; when they succeed, the right course is open to them.”
– Confucius

“Let go the things in which you are in doubt for the things in which there is no doubt.”
– Mohammed

“Mind is the creator of everything.
You should therefore guide it to create only good.
If you cling to a certain thought with dynamic will power,
It finally assumes a tangible outward form.
When you are able to employ your will for constructive purposes,
You become the controller of your destiny.”
– Paramahansa Yogananda

“They can because they think they can.”
– Virgil

“Our life is what our thoughts make it.”
– Marcus Aurelius Antonius

“It is not the events but our viewpoint toward events that is the determining factor. We ought to be more concerned about removing wrong thoughts from the mind than removing tumors and abscesses from the body.”
– Epictetus

“There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so.”
– Shakespeare

“I think, therefore I am.”
– Descartes

“The universe begins to look more like a great thought than like a great machine.”
– Sir James Jeans

“Mind is the Master-power that molds and makes, and man is Mind, and ever more he takes the tool of Thought, and shaping what he wills, brings forth a thousand joys, or a thousand ills. He thinks in secret and it comes to pass; Environment is but his looking-glass.”
– James Allen

“What the mind of man can conceive and believe, the mind of man can achieve.”
– Napoleon Hill

“If I have the belief that I can do it, I shall surely acquire the capacity to do it even if I may not have it at the beginning.”
– Mahatma Gandhi

“Somehow I can’t believe that there are any heights that can’t be scaled by a man who knows the secrets of making dreams come true. This special secret — curiosity, confidence, courage, and constancy, and the greatest of all is confidence. When you believe in a thing, believe in it all the way, implicitly and unquestionable.”
– Walt Disney

“Happiness is not a matter of events; it depends upon the tides of the mind.”
– Alice Meynell

“Human beings can alter their lives by altering their attitudes of mind.”
– William James

“Our life is what our thoughts make it. A man will find that as he alters his thoughts toward things and other people, things and other people will alter towards him.”
– James Allen

“When you rule your mind you rule your world. When you choose your thoughts you choose results.”
– Imelda Shanklin

“Think positively and masterfully, with confidence and faith, and life become more secure, more fraught with action, richer in experience and achievement.”
– Edward Rickenbacker

“You have to expect things of yourself before you can do them.”
– Michael Jordan

“We are what we think; as we desire so do we become! By our thoughts, desires, and habits, we either ascend to the full divine dignity of our nature, or we descend to suffer and learn.”
– J. Todd Ferrier

“The significant problems we face today cannot be solved on the same level of thinking we were at when we created them.”
– Albert Einstein

“The soul attracts that which it secretly harbors; that which it loves, and also that which it fears; it reaches the height of its cherished aspirations; it falls to the level of its unchastened desires. Every thought-seed sown or allowed to fall into the mind, and to take root there, produces its own, blossoming sooner or later into act, and bearing its own furtive of opportunity and circumstance. Good thoughts bear good fruit; bad thought, bad fruit.”
– James Allen

“What gets us into trouble is not what we don’t know. It’s what we know for sure that just ain’t so.”
– Yogi Berra

“The world we see that seems so insane is the result of a belief system that is not working. To perceive the world differently, we must be willing to change our belief system, let the past slip away, expand our sense of now, and dissolve the fear in our minds.”
– Gerald G. Jampolsky

“Be not afraid of life. Believe that life is worth living and your belief will help create the fact.”
– William James

“To think health when surrounded by the appearances of disease or to think riches when in the midst of the appearances of poverty requires power, but whoever acquires this power becomes a mastermind. That person can conquer fate and can have what he or she wants.”
– Wallace D.Wattles

“What the mind does not attend to, the mind dismisses. What the mind attends to, the mind considers. What the mind constantly considers, the mind believes. What the mind believes, the mind eventually does.”
– William J. McCrane

“Man, alone has the power to transform his thoughts into physical reality; man, alone can dream and make his dreams come true.”
– Napoleon Hill

“Just as each plant has its foundation in the hidden soil of the earth, so too are your thoughts based in the inner part of yourself… By learning what goes into creating within the inner part of your mind and what the process of growth is for your thoughts, you can learn how to make your thoughts stronger and healthier, and enrich your existence.”
– Brad Jensen

“Your thoughts are the architects of your destiny.”
– David O. McKay

“Reality is not so much what happens to us; rather, it is how we think about those events that create the reality we experience. In a very real sense, this means that we each create the reality in which we live.”
– Dr. Albert Ellis

“Thought takes man out of servitude, into freedom.”
– Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

“We lift ourselves by our thought, we climb upon our vision of ourselves. If you want to enlarge your life, you must first enlarge your thought of it and of yourself. Hold the ideal of yourself as you long to be, always, everywhere — your ideal of what you long to attain — the ideal of health, efficiency, success.”
– Orison Swett Marden

“We tend to get what we expect.”
– Norman Vincent Peale

“All things are created twice. There’s a mental or first creation, and a physical or second creation of all things. You have to make sure that the blueprint, the first creation, is really what you want, that you’ve thought everything through. Then you put it into bricks and mortar. Each day you go to the construction shed and pull out the blueprint to get marching orders for the day. You begin with the end in mind.”
– Stephen Covey

“You are today where your thoughts have brought you; you will be tomorrow where your thoughts take you.”
– James Allen

“The mind is not a vessel to be filled but a fire to be kindled.”
– Plutarch

“The more intensely we feel about an idea or a goal, the more assuredly the idea, buried deep in our subconscious, will direct us along the path to its fulfillment.”
– Earl Nightingale

“Our imagination is the only limitation to what we can have in the future.”
– Charles Kettering

“Our subconscious minds have no sense of humor, play no jokes and cannot tell the difference between reality and an imagined thought or image. What we continually think about eventually will manifest in our lives. The first order of business of anyone who wants to enjoy success in all areas of his/her life is to take charge of the internal dialogue they have and only think, say and behave in a manner consistent with the results they truly desire.”
– Sidney Madwed

“A man’s felicity consists not in the outward and visible blessing of fortune, but in the inward and unseen perfections and riches of the mind.”
– Anacharsis

“For success, attitude is equally as important as ability.”
– Harry F. Banks

“Any fact facing us is not as important as our attitude toward it, for that determines our success or failure. The way you think about a fact may defeat you before you ever do anything about it. You are overcome by the fact because you think you are.”
– Norman Vincent Peale

“Every achiever I have ever met says, “My life turned around when I began to believe in me.”
– Robert Schuller

“Great spirits have always encountered violent opposition from mediocre minds. The latter cannot understand it when a man does not thoughtlessly submit to hereditary prejudices but honestly and courageously uses his intelligence
– Albert Einstein

“It is not who you think you are…or even who you think you are not that really determines success…it’s who you think you are becoming…”
– Doug Firebaugh

“A belief is not merely an idea the mind possesses; it is an idea that possesses the mind.”
– Robert Bolton

“Once you begin to believe there is help ‘out there,’ you will know it to be true.”
– Saint Bartholomew

“What this power is, I cannot say. All I know is that it exists…and it becomes available only when you are in that state of mind in which you know exactly what you want…and are fully determined not to quit until you get it.”
– Alexander Graham Bell

“People become really quite remarkable when they start thinking that they can do things. When they believe in themselves they have the first secret of success.”
– Norman Vincent Peale

“You can conquer almost any fear if you will only make up your mind to do so. For remember, fear doesn’t exist anywhere except in the mind.”
– Dale Carnegie

“Poverty is a way of living and thinking, and not just a lack of money or things. Prosperity is not just having things. It is the consciousness that attracts the things. Prosperity is a way of living and thinking, and not just having money or things.”
– Eric Butterworth

“The person who sends out positive thoughts activates the world around him positively and draws back to himself positive results.”
– Norman Vincent Peale

“The Law of Attraction attracts to you everything you need, according to the nature of your thought life. Your environment and financial condition are the perfect reflection of your habitual thinking. Thought rules the world.”
– Joseph Murphy

“People are just about as happy as they make up their minds to be.”
– Abraham Lincoln

“The happiness of your life depends upon the quality of your thoughts: therefore, guard accordingly, and take care that you entertain no notions unsuitable to virtue and reasonable nature.”
– Marcus Aurelius

“Mind is the master weaver, both of the inner garment of character and the outer garment of circumstance.”
– James Allen

“Truly, thoughts are things, and powerful things at that, when they are mixed with definiteness of purpose, persistence and a burning desire for their translation into riches, or other material objects.”
– Napoleon Hill

“Be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind.”
– Romans 12:2

Realizing Our Dreams

Mark Jones and Dr. Patricia Collette have written an e-book that assist individuals in achieving greater success and fulfillment in their lives. One chapter in particular addresses the idea that it’s because of our beliefs that we are causing or allowing our unique experiences in life. A pretty good read….

Most of us have learned to look outside of ourselves for the cause of the experiences that we don’t like. So it may seem difficult at first to entertain the idea that it’s because of our beliefs that we are causing or allowing our unique experiences in life. However, by finding and changing some of the limiting beliefs that are causing us to create or allow undesired experiences, we can gain assurance.

Fortunately, life gives us ample feedback from several sources. The primary source is what we actually experience. Experience functions as a mirror. We not only create or allow what we experience through our beliefs, but we also view experience through their lenses. On hearing a compliment about something he has done, a person with confident beliefs about himself is likely to accept this as a sincere acknowledgment. Someone who lacks confident beliefs might see or interpret it as an insincere “buttering up” to get or gain something, or an outright lie.

We also get continual feedback from our bodies and emotions. When we live our lives with negative or limiting beliefs, we get feedback from our body in the form of pains, aches, illnesses, lack of energy, etc.; and from our emotions; undesired feelings such as anxiety, depression, apathy, anger, grief, etc. These can provide some of the valuable clues we need to find our limiting beliefs. (Refer to appendices H, I, and K for more specifics on how these relate to our limiting beliefs.) As we identify some of them, our next step is to change them to positive ones in our subconscious minds.

For example, upper back problems are often symptoms of feeling a lack of support or love. Limiting beliefs might be that “I am unlovable,” “I don’t deserve love,” or “Loving is dangerous,” etc. Then, by entering the subconscious and changing these to “I am lovable,” “I deserve love,” and “loving is safe,” the cause and symptoms may be relieved. Of course physical difficulties may have advanced to a stage where recovery will take time, and the relief may not become apparent at once. The difficulty may also be at a stage where medical treatment is needed, and if so, such treatment should be sought. As an analogy, our house may be burning as a consequence of having limited beliefs that caused the probability of some form of destruction to become high; but at this point, our most urgent action to save it would be to call the fire department.

An anxiety problem is often a symptom of fear, and limiting beliefs which could be causing it are “I am powerless,” “I can’t trust myself,” or “I am helpless.” etc. By changing these in the subconscious to “I am powerful,” “I can trust myself” and “I am self reliant,” the fear and anxiety should be alleviated. It’s quite likely that other limiting beliefs making up the set causing anxiety will also need to be found and changed, for there may be several contributing factors.

In doing the focused observation and detective work to spot our limiting beliefs, we must bypass the tendency so many people have to place the responsibility elsewhere, i.e. to blame others, fate, or outside circumstances as the cause of our undesired experiences. Obviously, others do play a part in our experiences, but our vibrations attract certain people and through resonance, activate particular qualities in them, as well as creating environmental circumstances. Thus we set up the probability of having the unique experiences we have, and through our vibrations, of attracting others to play roles.

RECOGNIZING LIMITING BELIEFS ABOUT CHANGING

Unfortunately, we are likely to have some beliefs that limit the changes we allow ourselves to make. Change brings about different conditions in our lives, and we may have doubts about whether a change will really make us happier. We may be concerned that as we change we will affect the people close to us in different ways, and they may have trouble accepting the changes in us. We may be apprehensive that changing might lead to disaster, or that if we change we will fail. For some people, change seems to threaten their very existence; perhaps by threatening to expose their excuses or the unhealthy or dysfunctional roles they have adopted as a way of handling life, or to keep from getting hurt.

Some typical excuses and concerns are:

a. I have to control everything in my life, (by intimidation or by being weak.)

b. If I change I might be lonely, and I don’t want to risk it.

c. It might involve becoming more intimate and having to expose my shallowness, vulnerability, etc.

d. Change might expose my shame for what I have done or for just being who and what I am.

e. I might have to stop being self-obsessed.

f. I might have to give up self-pity and stop being a martyr.

g. I don’t or won’t deserve anything better.

Obviously, in order to change, you need to find and change your limiting beliefs regarding making changes. You may find in reading this that some of these forms of resistance apply to you. If so, make a note of them so that when you come to the chapter on how to find and change limiting beliefs, you can make these the first ones to change. Otherwise, they will stand in the way of you making the other changes that you want to make.

DEVELOPING A NEW WAY OF LOOKING AT EXPERIENCES

To find our limiting beliefs, we need to adopt a new way of looking at our experiences. Sometimes, to make the search less personal, it may help to get a stuffed doll or animal and use it as a substitute for yourself, a representation to whom to ask questions. Keep in mind that those limiting beliefs from which we create vibrations and unwelcomed experiences are in our subconscious. These are not necessarily logical and sometimes not even ones we can consciously imagine having. So we have to be open and imaginative in looking for them. Also, since beliefs are stored in sets or systems, there may be several linked beliefs which contribute to the particular vibrations leading to undesired experiences. It’s important to find and change as many in the set or system as possible, so even if some beliefs seem similar, make note of each one that comes to mind.

IDENTIFY THE AREAS OF UNDESIRED EXPERIENCES & LIMITING BELIEFS

To find one’s limiting beliefs, first identify the areas in which you have had some patterns of undesired experiences that you’d like to change. These are likely to have common characteristics. Here are some examples to which you might add some of your own:

Feeling anxious or fearful in certain life situations.

Feeling upset with people in particular relationships or circumstances.

Feeling let down or betrayed by others.

Experiencing a lack of success or recognition for your efforts in certain areas of your life.

Feeling purposeless or lacking motivation.

Encountering financial difficulties.

Having problems in relationships for which you may blame your mate or others.

Experiencing a lack of creativity or its expression.

Encountering learning difficulties.

Resisting change or feeling threatened by it.

Being unable to be as successful as one desires.

Experiencing ill health.

Once an area has been identified, then pose questions to yourself or your substitute such as, “What would someone (or the name of the stuffed animal) have to believe, particularly about himself, to be creating or allowing this type of undesired experience?”

“What inner conflicts might someone have that would cause that person to create this type of undesired experience?”

Always look for the most basic beliefs possible. These may lie at a deeper level than those which come to mind at first. For example, a person who has a belief that he is not able or competent in an area, or isn’t succeeding, might have beliefs of the type “I have no choice but to work in this area or field,” “I can’t trust myself,” “I’m stupid,” “I never do anything right,” “I’m irresponsible,” “I’m powerless,” “Whatever I do it will turn out to be wrong,” “I’m bad or evil,” “I’m a failure,” “No matter how hard I try, it never works out,” “Nothing comes easy,” “I have to ‘knock myself out’ to get anything done,” “I’m a misfit,” “I’m bad,” “I deserve punishment,” “I always gum things up.”

USING BLAME AS A LEAD FOR FINDING LIMITING BELIEFS

What a person blames another for provides useful clues regarding his limiting beliefs. As the Chinese philosopher Lao Tzu stated in about 600 B.C:

Having what is called insight.
A good man, before he can help a bad man,
Finds in himself the matter with the bad man,
And whichever teacher
Discounts the lesson
Is as far off the road as the other,
Whatever else he may know.

Blaming is almost invariably a projection of a person’s limiting beliefs, particularly ones about himself, on to others or external factors. You can start by asking yourself, or the person whom you are assisting, “Regarding this experience, what am I blaming others for?” Then take the answers to this question and ask, “What aspect of what I am blaming others for may lie in me?” “In what ways might I be doing this to others or to myself?” “What would my underlying beliefs be, particularly about myself for me to do this?”

An example of applying this might come up when working with a wife who is having trouble in her relationship with her husband. She complains that he never listens to her. She could be asked; “What would someone have to believe about themselves for someone to not listen to them?” Then, write down any limiting beliefs that she comes up with. If some form of prompting seems needed, ask questions such as: “Might she believe that she is shallow, or boring, or has nothing interesting to say, is just an idle gossip, that she should be seen but not heard, etc.” Always come back to identifying what her basic beliefs might be, particularly ones she has about herself.

What a husband or wife blames the other for is almost always a reflection of the blamer’s limiting beliefs. So returning to our example of the wife, ask other questions to help her find additional limiting beliefs such as: “Who or what are you not listening to?” “To what inner signals from your emotions or body are you not listening?” “What intuitional messages are you disregarding?” “What aspirations are you ignoring?”

IDENTIFYING THE LACK OF PURPOSE AND ASPIRATIONS

An underlying and common element in individuals who are creating undesired experiences is a lack of purpose or excitement in life. We could say that these individuals are not in communication with their inner or higher selves i.e. that aspect of their being that operates at a non-physical, vibratory level. It directly effects the experiences in their daily lives. From that level aspirations evolve from the dimensions of thought and feeling into physical reality. If aspirations are not recognized, expressed and acted upon, a person is not likely to feel ‘centered’ and in harmony within himself. Instead, he will create negative or amorphous vibrations. When these vibrations exist, they are likely to produce experiences that the person doesn’t want. Not having one’s aspirations defined can be explored by asking questions such as, “What beliefs would someone be likely to have to not recognize his aspirations? These might be aspirations to be a person with certain abilities, or qualities such as good character, positive principles, integrity, trust, creativity in various areas, generosity, imagination, enthusiasm for life and involvement in life, commitment, love, empathy, depth of feeling, gratitude, forgiveness, etc. What beliefs might he have that would inhibit him from aspiring to and developing these qualities as fully as he might like to?”

“These might be aspirations to do certain things, like changing conditions, writing, teaching, selling, managing, directing, engaging in sports, etc. What beliefs might he have that would inhibit him from aspiring to and doing these things?”

“These might be aspirations to have certain things like facilities, equipment, housing, etc. What beliefs might he have that would inhibit him from aspiring to have and getting these things?”

One could also ask, “What have you dreamed or imagined being, doing or having that you rejected, or for which you allowed other’s attitudes to discourage you?” Identify what occurred and express the feelings you had. Then, ask, “What beliefs might someone have that would cause them to reject or not pursue their dreams?” If prompting seemed necessary, questions such as, “Might they believe they were unworthy or not deserving, that they were bad or evil, that they were of no importance, that their dreams are unreal, the future is dangerous, etc.”

It could also be helpful to ask what beliefs that he might have which would prevent him from being in communication with his inner or higher self?

PROCEDURE FOR FINDING LIMITING BELIEFS CAUSING ANXIETY, DEPRESSION AND HEALTH PROBLEMS

If you or a person with whom you are working is experiencing anxieties or depression, for reasons other than specific medical problems, the underlying beliefs are often ones such as: I lack self confidence and/or self trust, self worth, a sense of identity, or I am powerless, I can’t express my anger, I’m not deserving, I’m untrustworthy, I’m bad, I’m evil, I have to be in control but I’m not, I can’t trust, or even such beliefs as that I wouldn’t exist if I didn’t achieve such and such, or I’m nothing. If you or the person you are guiding has difficulty finding the basic beliefs which might be causing anxiety and/or depression, beliefs of this type may lay at the root. If they do, get a statement of the positive belief and change the limiting beliefs to positive ones. See Appendix H, I and K for additional questions.

When you or the person with whom you are working has health problems, a very useful reference is the excellent book, by Louise Hay, You Can Heal Your Life. In it she helps to relate symptoms for various maladies to the possible limiting beliefs. For example, Louise suggests that a person with asthma might examine probable causes such as: “Smothering love; inability to breath for one’s self; feeling stifled or suppressed crying.” Questions which might assist an asthmatic in finding his limiting beliefs might begin with: “What are your beliefs about love?” “Is it safe to give or to receive love?”

“Are there dangers in loving?” “Do you deserve love?” “Do you feel trapped by love?” “Are you afraid of being smothered by or smothering another with love?”

Regarding the issue of “inability to breathe for one’s self,” you could ask, “What would someone have to believe to not be able to breathe for oneself, breathe in a wider context; a taking in and giving out of life. You might suggest: “Might the person believe that he is powerless?” “That he can’t sustain himself in life?” You can ask if the person believes that he is weak or ineffective; can’t trust or depend on himself; that he is vulnerable, that it’s dangerous to take in things, etc.

For the third possible cause suggested by Louise, “feeling stifled,” one could begin by asking, “What would a person have to believe to feel stifled?” You could explore issues such as self trust, lack of ability, or beliefs that what he has to offer isn’t good enough, or that he is unable, isn’t creative, that he creates bad effects, is bad or evil, is unworthy, or that expression is dangerous, or might lead to exposure or embarrassment, etc.

From the fourth possible cause which Louise lists for asthma, suppressed crying, you could ask, “What would a person have to believe, particularly about himself to suppress crying?” After getting all of the answers that are readily available on this question, you might prompt further exploration by asking, “Might he-have a belief that he is powerless, helpless, weak or a victim?” “Could the person believe that emotions or expressing them is dangerous?” “Might the person believe that he is bad, has done something bad or deserves to be punished.”

Again, in suggesting possible beliefs, it can be helpful to use a stuffed animal or doll surrogate with a common name such as Sam or Lisa. Some people may take probing questions as accusative or evaluative, and become defensive, so a question such as “What would Sam or Lisa have to believe to suppress crying,” might be less threatening for the client, or less introverting to oneself.

by Mark Jones and Dr. Patricia Collette

Never, Ever, Ever Give Up

Winston Churchill was famous for saying “Never, Never, Never Give Up! I guess he would know since he helped save a whole nation…this, from someone who failed sixth grade. He was also defeated in every election for public office until he became Prime Minister at the age of 62. In any event, here are some other more notable examples in history to help us put one foot in front of the other and keep on keeping on.

As a young man, Abraham Lincoln went to war a captain and returned a private. Afterwards, he was a failure as a businessman. As a lawyer in Springfield, he was too impractical and temperamental to be a success. He turned to politics and was defeated in his first try for the legislature, again defeated in his first attempt to be nominated for congress, defeated in his application to be commissioner of the General Land Office, defeated in the senatorial election of 1854, defeated in his efforts for the vice-presidency in 1856, and defeated in the senatorial election of 1858. At about that time, he wrote in a letter to a friend, “I am now the most miserable man living. If what I feel were equally distributed to the whole human family, there would not be one cheerful face on the earth.”

Socrates was called “an immoral corrupter of youth” and continued to corrupt even after a sentence of death was imposed on him. He drank the hemlock and died corrupting.

Sigmund Freud was booed from the podium when he first presented his ideas to the scientific community of Europe. He returned to his office and kept on writing.

Robert Sternberg received a C in his first college introductory-psychology class. His teacher commented that “there was a famous Sternberg in psychology and it was obvious there would not be another.” Three years later Sternberg graduated with honors from Stanford University with exceptional distinction in psychology, summa cum laude, and Phi Beta Kappa. In 2002, he became President of the American Psychological Association.

Charles Darwin gave up a medical career and was told by his father, “You care for nothing but shooting, dogs and rat catching.” In his autobiography, Darwin wrote, “I was considered by all my masters and my father, a very ordinary boy, rather below the common standard of intellect.” Clearly, he evolved.

Thomas Edison’s teachers said he was “too stupid to learn anything.” He was fired from his first two jobs for being “non-productive.” As an inventor, Edison made 1,000 unsuccessful attempts at inventing the light bulb. When a reporter asked, “How did it feel to fail 1,000 times?” Edison replied, “I didn’t fail 1,000 times. The light bulb was an invention with 1,000 steps.”

Albert Einstein did not speak until he was 4-years-old and did not read until he was 7. His parents thought he was “sub-normal,” and one of his teachers described him as “mentally slow, unsociable, and adrift forever in foolish dreams.” He was expelled from school and was refused admittance to the Zurich Polytechnic School. He did eventually learn to speak and read. Even to do a little math.

Louis Pasteur was only a mediocre pupil in undergraduate studies and ranked 15th out of 22 students in chemistry.

Henry Ford failed and went broke five times before he succeeded.

R. H. Macy failed seven times before his store in New York City caught on.

F. W. Woolworth was not allowed to wait on customers when he worked in a dry goods store because, his boss said, “he didn’t have enough sense.”

When Bell telephone was struggling to get started, its owners offered all their rights to Western Union for $100,000. The offer was disdainfully rejected with the pronouncement, “What use could this company make of an electrical toy.”

John Garcia, who eventually was honored for his fundamental psychological discoveries, was once told by a reviewer of his often-rejected manuscripts that one is no more likely to find the phenomenon he discovered than to find bird droppings in a cuckoo clock. (sort of a cute critique actually)

Rocket scientist Robert Goddard found his ideas bitterly rejected by his scientific peers on the grounds that rocket propulsion would not work in the rarefied atmosphere of outer space.

Daniel Boone was once asked by a reporter if he had ever been lost in the wilderness. Boone thought for a moment and replied, “No, but I was once bewildered for about three days.”

An expert said of Vince Lombardi: “He possesses minimal football knowledge and lacks motivation.” Lombardi would later write, “It’s not whether you get knocked down; it’s whether you get back up.”

Michael Jordan and Bob Cousy were each cut from their high school basketball teams. Jordan once observed, “I’ve failed over and over again in my life. That is why I succeed.”

Babe Ruth is famous for his past home run record, but for decades he also held the record for strikeouts. He hit 714 home runs and struck out 1,330 times in his career (about which he said, “Every strike brings me closer to the next home run.”). And didn’t Mark McGwire break that strikeout record? (John Wooden once explained that winners make the most errors.)

Hank Aaron went 0 for 5 his first time at bat with the Milwaukee Braves.

Stan Smith was rejected as a ball boy for a Davis Cup tennis match because he was “too awkward and clumsy.” He went on to clumsily win Wimbledon and the U. S. Open. And eight Davis Cups.

Tom Landry, Chuck Noll, Bill Walsh, and Jimmy Johnson accounted for 11 of the 19 Super Bowl victories from 1974 to 1993. They also share the distinction of having the worst records of first-season head coaches in NFL history - they didn’t win a single game.

Johnny Unitas’s first pass in the NFL was intercepted and returned for a touchdown. Joe Montana’s first pass was also intercepted. And while we’re on quarterbacks, during his first season Troy Aikman threw twice as many interceptions (18) as touchdowns (9) . . . oh, and he didn’t win a single game. You think there’s a lesson here?

After Carl Lewis won the gold medal for the long jump in the 1996 Olympic games, he was asked to what he attributed his longevity, having competed for almost 20 years. He said, “Remembering that you have both wins and losses along the way. I don’t take either one too seriously.”

Walt Disney was fired by a newspaper editor because “he lacked imagination and had no good ideas.” He went bankrupt several times before he built Disneyland. In fact, the proposed park was rejected by the city of Anaheim on the grounds that it would only attract riffraff.

Charles Schultz had every cartoon he submitted rejected by his high school yearbook staff. Oh, and Walt Disney wouldn’t hire him.

After Fred Astaire’s first screen test, the memo from the testing director of MGM, dated 1933, read, “Can’t act. Can’t sing. Slightly bald. Can dance a little.” He kept that memo over the fire place in his Beverly Hills home. Astaire once observed that “when you’re experimenting, you have to try so many things before you choose what you want, that you may go days getting nothing but exhaustion.” And here is the reward for perseverance: “The higher up you go, the more mistakes you are allowed. Right at the top, if you make enough of them, it’s considered to be your style.”

After his first audition, Sidney Poitier was told by the casting director, “Why don’t you stop wasting people’s time and go out and become a dishwasher or something?” It was at that moment, recalls Poitier, that he decided to devote his life to acting.

When Lucille Ball began studying to be actress in 1927, she was told by the head instructor of the John Murray Anderson Drama School, “Try any other profession.”

The first time Jerry Seinfeld walked on-stage at a comedy club as a professional comic, he looked out at the audience, froze, and forgot the English language. He stumbled through “a minute-and a half” of material and was jeered offstage. He returned the following night and closed his set to wild applause.

In 1944, Emmeline Snively, director of the Blue Book Modeling Agency, told modeling hopeful Norma Jean Baker, “You’d better learn secretarial work or else get married.” I’m sure you know that Norma Jean was Marilyn Monroe. Now . . . who was Emmeline Snively?

At the age of 21, French acting legend Jeanne Moreau was told by a casting director that her head was too crooked, she wasn’t beautiful enough, and she wasn’t photogenic enough to make it in films. She took a deep breath and said to herself, “Alright, then, I guess I will have to make it my own way.” After making nearly 100 films her own way, in 1997 she received the European Film Academy Lifetime Achievement Award.

After Harrison Ford’s first performance as a hotel bellhop in the film Dead Heat on a Merry-Go-Round, the studio vice-president called him in to his office. “Sit down kid,” the studio head said, “I want to tell you a story. The first time Tony Curtis was ever in a movie he delivered a bag of groceries. We took one look at him and knew he was a movie star.” Ford replied, “I thought you were spossed to think that he was a grocery delivery boy.” The vice president dismissed Ford with “You ain’t got it kid , you ain’t got it … now get out of here.”

Michael Caine’s headmaster told him, “You will be a laborer all your life.”

Charlie Chaplin was initially rejected by Hollywood studio chiefs because his pantomime was considered “nonsense.”

Enrico Caruso’s music teacher said he had no voice at all and could not sing. His parents wanted him to become an engineer.

Decca Records turned down a recording contract with the Beatles with the unprophetic evaluation, “We don’t like their sound. Groups of guitars are on their way out.” After Decca rejected the Beatles, Columbia records followed suit.

In 1954, Jimmy Denny, manager of the Grand Ole Opry, fired Elvis Presley after one performance. He told Presley, “You ain’t goin’ nowhere, son. You ought to go back to drivin’ a truck.”

Beethoven handled the violin awkwardly and preferred playing his own compositions instead of improving his technique. His teacher called him “hopeless as a composer.” And, of course, you know that he wrote five of his greatest symphonies while completely deaf.

The Impressionists had to arrange their own art exhibitions because their works were routinely rejected by the Paris Salon. How many of you have heard of the Paris Salon?

A Paris art dealer refused Picasso shelter when he asked if he could bring in his paintings from out of the rain. One hopes that there is justice in this world and that the art dealer eventually went broke.

Van Gogh sold only one painting during his life. And this to the sister of one of his friends for 400 francs (approximately $50). This didn’t stop him from completing over 800 paintings.

John Constable’s luminous painting Watermeadows at Salisbury was dismissed in 1830 by a judge at the Royal Academy as “a nasty green thing.” Name of the judge, anyone? Anyone?

Rodin’s father once said, “I have an idiot for a son.” Described as the worst pupil in the school, he was rejected three times admittance to the Ecole des Beaux-Arts. His uncle called him uneducable. Perhaps this gave him food for thought.

Stravinsky was run out of town by an enraged audience and critics after the first performance of the Rite of Spring.

When Pablo Casals reached 95, a young reporter asked him “Mr. Casals, you are 95 and the greatest cellist that ever lived. Why do you still practice six hours a day?” Mr. Casals answered, “Because I think I’m making progress.”

Leo Tolstoy flunked out of college. He was described as both “unable and unwilling to learn.” No doubt a slow developer.

Louisa May Alcott, author of Little Women, was encouraged to find work as a servant by her family.

Emily Dickinson had only seven poems published in her lifetime.

15 publishers rejected a manuscript by e. e. cummings. When he finally got it published by his mother, the dedication, printed in uppercase letters, read WITH NO THANKS TO . . . followed by the list of publishers who had rejected his prized offering. Nice going Eddie. Thanks for illustrating that nobody loses all the time.

18 publishers turned down Richard Bach’s story about a “soaring eagle.” Macmillan finally published Jonathan Livingston Seagull in 1970. By 1975 it had sold more than 7 million copies in the U.S. alone.

21 publishers rejected Richard Hooker’s humorous war novel, M*A*S*H. He had worked on it for seven years.

22 publishers rejected James Joyce’s The Dubliners.

27 publishers rejected Dr. Seuss’s first book, To Think That I Saw It on Mulberry Street.

Jack London received six hundred rejection slips before he sold his first story.

English crime novelist John Creasey got 753 rejection slips before he published 564 books.

William Saroyan accumulated more than a thousand rejections before he had his first literary piece published. Way to not take a hint, Bill!

Gertrude Stein submitted poems to editors for nearly 20 years before one was finally accepted. See . . . a rose is a rose.

I bet you didn’t know that John Milton wrote Paradise Lost 16 years after losing his eyesight

One of Professor Pajares’s first research efforts came back with a review that began, “There are so many things I don’t like about this article I just don’t know where to begin.”

There is a professor at MIT who offers a course on failure. He does that, he says, because failure is a far more common experience than success. An interviewer once asked him if anybody ever failed the course on failure. He thought a moment and replied, “No, but there were two incomplete s.”

Follow Your Bliss

Bill Moyers once asked Joseph Campbell, the famous teacher, author and philosopher, “Do you ever have the sense of… being helped by hidden hands?” Campbell responded, “All the time. It is miraculous. I even have a superstition that has grown on me as a result of invisible hands coming all the time - namely, that if you do follow your bliss you put yourself on a kind of track that has been there all the while, waiting for you, and the life that you ought to be living is the one you are living. When you can see that, you begin to meet people who are in your field of bliss, and they open doors to you. I say, follow your bliss and don’t be afraid, and doors will open where you didn’t know they were going to be.”

So you have to ask yourself, are you following your bliss? Some people don’t know what that is, and they’re still searching and reaching and crying for guidance to figure out why they’re here and for what purpose.

“People say that what we are all seeking is a meaning for life,” Campbell wrote. “I don’t think that’s what we are really seeking… I think what we are seeking is an experience of being alive.”

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