Archive for December, 2008

Big Peace Day 13

Another late posting today…..my son has been off school as he was up last night with a raging temperature, sickness and woke up with my baggy eyes of last week. Poor little soul. So I've been on nurse duty today so not at my desk.

I need some TLC now! so here's a lovely exercise for Friday after all the work we've been doing over the past couple of weeks:

Rip up your to-do list of shoulds/oughts and ask yourself -  "if I wasn't people pleasing/had a list of must do/ought tos what would I do with my weekend?"

Now choose one on your list and do it. I'll explain more of the
theory tomorrow.

I'm off for a long, hot bath and yes, a bit of hot slipper wearing. Gawd, it's all party, party, party in my house. Happy Friday.

Big Peace December Day 10

How are you doing on day 10? Do you feel anything beginning to shift? I know I had you ranting and moaning yesterday (more on that below) but generally are you feeling any more peaceful?

Last night, I felt extremely content with my lovely puppy on my knee, a glass of wine, Ant and Dec on the telly and my new pair of slippers on my feet. Inner peace via slippers? Now there's a revelation!  I was naughty and opened a Christmas present from my in-laws and found these slippers..

They are slippers with lavender-scented wheat in them that you heat up in the microwave. wow, just felt cherished and nourished from the feet up and with Oscar sleeping on my knee, my son fast asleep upstairs, I got that 'all is well with the world' feeling. 

Just thought I'd share.

Right, back to 'the work'.

Yesterday I had you completing what Byron Katie calles her Judge Your Neighbour Worksheet and today we're going use her legendary 4 question technique to turn it around.

I truly believe this is a life changing, mind-blowing, negative belief-destroying process and constantly use the 4 questions in my own life. 

Follow the instructions below.

The Four Questions

Investigate each of your statements
from the Judge-Your-Neighbor Worksheet using
the four questions and the turnaround below. The Work is
meditation. It’s about awareness, not about trying to change your thoughts.
Ask the questions, then take your time, go inside, and wait for the deeper
answers to surface. Download the blue sheet for use as a facilitation guide.

In its most basic form, The Work consists of four questions
and a turnaround. For example, the first thought that you might question
on the above Worksheet is "Paul doesn't listen to me." Find someone in
your life about whom you have had that thought, and let's do The Work.
"[Name] doesn't listen to me":

Is it true?

Can you absolutely know that it's true?

How do you react, what happens, when you believe that thought?

Who would you be without the thought?

Then turn it around (the concept you are questioning), and don't forget
to find three genuine examples of each turnaround.

Turn it
Around

After you've investigated your statement
with the four questions, you're ready to turn it around (the concept you are questioning).

Each turnaround is an opportunity
to experience the opposite of your original statement and see what you
and the person you've judged have in common.

A statement can be turned around to the opposite, to the other,
and to the self (and sometimes to "my thinking," wherever that
applies). Find a minimum of three genuine examples in your life where
each turnaround is true.

For example, "Paul doesn't understand me"
can be turned around to "Paul does understand me." Another turnaround
is "I don't understand Paul." A third is "I don't understand
myself."

Be creative with the turnarounds. They are revelations,
showing you previously unseen aspects of yourself reflected back through
others. Once you've found a turnaround, go inside and let yourself feel
it. Find a minimum of three genuine examples where the turnaround is true
in your life.

The turnarounds are your prescription
for happiness. Live the medicine you have been prescribing for others.
The world is waiting for just one person to live it. You're the one.

Examples of Turnarounds

Here are a few more examples of
turnarounds:

"He should understand me"
turns around to:
- He shouldn't understand me. (This is reality.)
- I should understand him.
- I should understand myself.

"I need him to be kind to
me" turns around to:
- I don't need him to be kind to me.
- I need me to be kind to him. (Can I live it?)
- I need me to be kind to myself.

"He is unloving to me"
turns around to:
- He is loving to me. (To the best of his ability)
- I am unloving to him. (Can I find it?)
- I am unloving to me (When I don't inquire.)

"Paul shouldn't shout at
me" turns around to:
- Paul should shout at me. (Obviously: In reality, he does sometimes.
Am I listening?)
- I shouldn't shout at Paul.
- I shouldn't shout at me.
(In my head, am I playing over and over again Paul's shouting? Who's more
merciful, Paul who shouted once, or me who replayed it a 100 times?)

Embracing Reality

After you have turned around the judgments in your answers
to numbers 1 through 5 on the Worksheet
(asking if they are as true or truer), turn number 6 around using
"I am willing …" and "I look forward to …"

For example, "I don't ever
want to experience an argument with Paul" turns around to "I
am willing to experience an argument with Paul" and "I look
forward to experiencing an argument with Paul." Why would you look
forward to it?

Number 6 is about fully embracing all of mind and
life without fear, and being open to reality. If you experience
an argument with Paul again, good. If it hurts, you can put your thoughts
on paper and investigate them. Uncomfortable feelings are merely the reminders
that we've attached to something that may not be true for us. They let
us know that it's time to do The Work.

Until you can see the enemy as
a friend, your Work is not done. This doesn't mean you must invite
him to dinner. Friendship is an internal experience. You may never see
him again, you may even divorce him, but as you think about him are you
feeling stress or peace?

In my experience, it takes only
one person to have a successful relationship.

Big Peace December Day 7

Maybe it wasn't the cats. The cold that I've been attempting to shake off is back with a vengeance this morning. More puffy eyes. So I have left Charlie (and his two friends that have been on a sleepover last night) to trash the house while I lie in bed and read The Biology of Belief by Bruce Lipman. (Hay House)

My god! Have you read this book?! Bruce Lipman is a renowned cell biologist who explains in (fairly) simple scientific language how the cells of our body are affected by our thoughts. Lipman describes the precise molecular pathways through which this occurs.

This delights me because although I've always know that our beliefs affect our bodies aka Louise Hay and You can Heal Your LIfe….I just didn't know HOW that worked. The Biology of Belief explains how.

The science is great but ultimately I love Lipman's epilogue and conclusion that it is the power of love and acceptance that will heal you and the world. He urges: "Joining communities of like-minded people who are working towards advancing human civilisation by realizing that Survival of The Most Loving is the only ethic that will ensure not only a healthy personal life but also a healthy planet."

At the end, Lipman recommends something called Pscyhe-K (www.psyche-K.com) , which his friend and colleague psychotherapist Rob Williams has created – a process which promises to help you reprogramme your subsconcious mind. I've never heard of this process – has anyone else? Will research and get back to you and will see if I can get an interview with Dr Bruce and Rob Williams.

IN the meantime, I've been on their website and thought it might be brilliant to experiment with the exercise they give us on identifying beliefs. Martha Beck – who I went to see this year – also worked with this technique so I absolutely know (believe!) it works on accessing and realising our subsconscious beliefs.

Below is copy and exercise from Rob Williams' website Psyche-K. You will need a partner to work through this exercise. Click through to the video and let me know how you get on and I'll see if I can get on to Rob Williams/Bruce Lipman in the next few days and get some exercises to do once we have identified our beliefs.

"Your self-esteem
profoundly influences how others view you. If your self-esteem is high,
other people will tend to see you that way also. However, if your
self-esteem is low, others will respond accordingly with a lack of
confidence and trust in you. Essentially, your beliefs (especially the
subconscious ones) are teaching the world how to treat you. The way
people treat you is a reflection of those subconscious beliefs.
Consequently, if you want to change the way others behave toward you,
you need to change the self-sabotaging beliefs that are causing the
undesirable treatment. As the saying goes, “If you can’t love yourself,
you can’t expect others to.”

Another aspect of self-esteem is the concept of unworthiness. Some
world religions teach us that we are fundamentally unworthy. Others
teach that life is endless suffering and to simply embrace it as an
inevitable consequence of being in the world. Perhaps the nuances of
these beliefs are understood by theologians in a way that doesn’t lead
to the conclusion that “life’s a bitch and then you die,” but to the
average person that conclusion is hard to escape. More often than not
it leads to a deep sense of hopelessness and helplessness. And to add
insult to injury, you are not worthy of having it be different! If you
want to be free of the limitations of unworthiness in your life, be
sure that your subconscious beliefs support that goal.

Click here to discover if your subconscious mind supports these self-esteem enhancing beliefs.

Sample Beliefs:

1. I deeply appreciate and accept myself.

2. I love myself unconditionally.

3. I deserve the very best life has to offer.

4. I am confident and self-assured.

5. I am proud of my results and comfortable with my successes and my failures.

6. I am a good person.

7. I do my best and my best is good enough

   .

IN the meantime, I will be visualising and working on the beliefs that I can be free of this cold in the next couple of days! I'll let you know how I get on.

Big Peace December Day 5

Yesterday we were experimenting in focussing differently. How easy was
it to adopt a different belief system? Was it fun? Were you
resistant?

Our beliefs about life and ourselves form and then come true for us
when we find evidence to support them. By 'acting as if', we start
creating evidence to prove this new belief about ourselves is right.

What we focus on expands. If you believe that you're not good enough,
we constantly look for evidence to prove ourselves right.

Ask yourself:

What is the belief system that will bring you contentment?

What is the belief system that will soothe your soul?

What would be the soothing antidote to all those negative and nasty beliefs about yourself and life? E.g. I don't have to be giving/doing/proving
myself to be worthwhile, I can just be me.

What could be your Big Peace belief that you could adopt as your
personal mantra?

Write it down and post it where you can see it for
the rest of December.

What you focus on expands

As we talked about in day 1, our mind cannot tell the difference between real or imagined. Our mind (and our bodies) believe the stories we tell ourselves. But not sure about you, but I'm not always aware of the stories or negative beliefs that cause the stress in my life. At the Big Peace retreat last weekend, I was shocked to discover a 'no one cares about me' belief hanging around in my psyche. It was subtle but it was there.

When we have a belief, our mind is constantly searching for evidence to prove that this is true. It's the old adage that what you focus on expands. If you buy a red car, all you see is red cars. The conscious mind is on search mode, looking for evidence to prove your belief to be correct.

So what do you believe about yourself and life? Do you believe that life is wonderful, that you will always be okay, that you are priceless, that you deserve only the best and that life is easy? Do you believe that you will always be supported, land on your feet, that life is fun, that you'll always attract the best in life and life is one big party?

Or do you believe that life is hard, money is the root of all evil, all men are bastards, all women are mad, life is a struggle, men don't commit, life is a rollercoaster, all men leave, all women cheat and that you have to be bad to be rich? Do you believe you'll never make it because you're not good enough, in fact you're actually pretty worthless, oh, and you're stupid too?

What is your reality? What do you believe to be true about yourself and life? Because whatever you believe, you're right. You're right because you believe it to be true.

Quantum scientists and physicists are teaching us that our world is what we perceive it to be. Reality is simply raw, unformed data waiting to be interpreted by you, the perceiver. And scientists like Dr David Hamilton on day 1 are showing us that by changing the way we think – we can actually change our reality.

So the exercise for today is this. Figure out what you believe. Awareness is the first step, we'll talk about creating new beliefs in the coming days.

Often it's hard to identify what we believe because we've been living in that world for a long time.

Try these questions and let's see if we can winkle out an idea of what you really believe about yourself and life? Just quickly put pen to paper – don't think too hard and speed write your answers.

Put these questions and answers away for now and we'll come back to
them soon.