Morty Lefkoe

Fear of public speaking? Get rid of it for good!

Morty Lefkoe — Tue, 26 Mar 2013 22:46:35 +0000

Note: There is an email link embedded within this post, please visit this post to email it.

If you fear public speaking more than going to the dentist—or even death—you are not alone.

Not only is this type of fear often extremely intense, surveys indicate that over 50% of the adult population of the United States experiences fear when speaking in public. As Jerry Seinfield put it quite accurately on one of his shows: Most people at a funeral would rather be in the casket than delivering the eulogy.

People in all areas of life fear speaking in public

We have had a number of clients whose fear of public speaking was so great that they turned down promotions rather than take a job that required them to speak in public on a regular basis. Another client turned down the chance to go to law school because she would have to speak in front of the class in so many courses.

Perhaps the saddest call we ever had was from a man who called to say his daughter had just announced to him that she was about to get married … and this news made him very unhappy. Why? Because he realized he was going to have to make a toast at her wedding!

In fact, there is nothing inherently scary about talking to a group of people. Rarely is there any type of real threat. So what makes speaking in public so common and so frightful?

After helping almost 4,000 people permanently eliminate this problem, we’ve discovered that there are a few specific beliefs that cause it in most people. Let me tell you what they are and explain why they result in this widespread fear.

The beliefs that cause a fear of public speaking

Mistakes and failure are bad.
If I make a mistake or fail I’ll be rejected.
I’m not good enough.
I’m not capable.
I’m not competent.
What I have to say is not important.
People aren’t interested in what I have to say.
I’m not important.
What makes me good enough and important is having people think well of me.
Change is difficult.
Public speaking is inherently scary.

To make it real that these beliefs could cause such terror in so many people, ask yourself this question: Imagine someone, whom you don’t know, who had all the beliefs I listed above. Do you think she would be afraid to speak in public? In fact, wouldn’t you be willing to wager that she would have public speaking anxiety?

I think most people would agree that anyone with these beliefs would fear public speaking. And here’s why: a belief is nothing more than a statement about reality that we feel is true. And if we think it is true that it is bad to make mistakes and if we do we’ll be rejected, and if our sense of importance is dependent on others thinking well of us—then we would have to be terrified when we stand up to speak in front of others because we could make a mistake, leading to rejection, and because we would feel less important if people thought less of us.

Knowing a belief isn’t true doesn’t lessen its hold over us

But you might be thinking: I am afraid to speak in public but I don’t agree with most of these beliefs. I especially don’t believe I’m not good enough. Here’s a strange thing about beliefs: It is possible to intellectually disagree with a belief we hold. In other words, early in life we might have concluded as a result of interactions with our parents that it’s bad to make a mistake (because mom and dad got upset when we didn’t live up to their expectations).

Now, today, we might realize that innovation is possible only if we are willing to try new things that might not work out. Mistakes are an inherent part of the process of doing something new and different. So we “know” that it’s okay to make mistakes and learn from them. But merely knowing that does not get rid of beliefs.

If the fear is not inherent in public speaking and if the fear is caused by specific beliefs, then eliminating the beliefs will eliminate the fear. Not reduce it or make it easier to deal with. Eliminate it.

People who eliminate their beliefs eliminate their fear

Watch this short video where several people who were plagued with this common fear describe how getting rid of the beliefs helped them eliminate the fear.

Research proves that getting rid of the beliefs totally eliminates the fear

A study conducted by the University of Arizona several years ago determined that if the beliefs listed above (and a few conditionings) were eliminated, the mean level of fear of the subjects studied fell from 7 to 1.5 on a scale of 1-10, one being no fear whatsoever and 10 being terror. The researchers followed up with these formerly “fearful speakers” six months later. And in the words of Dr. Lee Sechrest, Professor Emeritus University of Arizona and primary researcher, “We had expected that the fear would come back but it didn’t. They had, in fact, changed. Their fear of public speaking was gone.”

The fear of public speaking is not inherent in human nature. If you suffer from this fear, get rid of it … for good.

Note to readers: I do my best to present useful information to my readers and not use my blog posts to “sell” our products and services. Today, however, I’ve included “testimonials” from people who have used TLM to get rid of a problem as the result of a note my daughter Brittany sent me recently:

“Dad. You are great. You don’t brag, but you also don’t show your results. You need to include your success in what you write. You do a lot of work to defend your theories and then don’t follow through with any success stories. It is important to demonstrate that this stuff works, not just because it makes sense, but because people have told you it does. People want to hear it from other people, not just from you. I love you.”

By the way, this post is based on one that previously appeared in American Express Open Forum a couple of years ago.

Thanks for reading my blog. Please post your questions or comments about the fear of public speaking. Your comments will add value for thousands of readers. I read them all and respond to as many as I can.

If you think others will find this post useful, please tell your friends and followers by using the buttons located both at the top and the end of this post.

To get my blog posts as podcasts, sign up for the RSS feed above or look up “Morty Lefkoe” at iTunes to have the podcasts sent to you weekly.

If you haven’t yet eliminated at least one of your limiting self-esteem beliefs using the Lefkoe Belief Process, go to http://www.recreateyourlife.com where you can eliminate one limiting belief free.

For more details how you can quickly, easily, and permanently eliminate the fear of public speaking, check out http://speakingwithoutfear.com.

Use this information to improve your life

Your fear of speaking in public is not due to “human nature.” You can rid yourself of that terrifying prospect once and for all. To prove this to yourself, get rid of three of the 11 beliefs that cause a fear of public speaking (and a bunch of other unpleasant feelings) by using a free belief-elimination process at http://recreateyourlife.com/free. Your fear will not totally go away because you still hold many other beliefs, but you should notice some shift.

What’s the difference between intuition and occurrings?

Morty Lefkoe — Tue, 19 Mar 2013 19:55:05 +0000

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The question frequently arises: How can I tell the difference between occurrings and the following other phenomena that seem like occurrings?

making conscious assessments about the events,
positive thinking (affirmations),
random thoughts,
alternative interpretations, and
intuition I have about events.

Let me briefly describe each and explain how each is different. If you are able to distinguish your occurrings from the other phenomena and dissolve the occurrings, you can create your moment-to-moment experience of life.

To begin with, let me explain what I mean by “reality/events”:

Events are what actually happens in the world. What you know through your five senses, especially what you can see or hear. What you usually could capture on a video recording. Sometimes “reality” can’t be “seen” because it is inside your mind, such as thoughts, memories, projections of the future, and physical sensations. We can give meaning to both external and internal reality, in other words, to events that occur “out there in the world” and to those that happen in your mind.

All the phenomena listed above are different ways of relating to reality/events.

Occurrings

Occurrings are meanings that you have automatically and unconsciously given to events as they happen. A critical aspect of occurrings is that they feel like “the truth” to us. They seem like part of “reality” to us. We have to look carefully to distinguish them from actual events in reality. I’ve written about occurrings on several occasions before. See especially http://www.mortylefkoe.com/important-improve-life/#.

Conscious Assessments

Occurrings are very different from conscious assessments—which consist of consciously looking at reality and asking ourselves: What are some of the possible implications of, and what would be the best way to deal with, the events? For example, imagine a friend walked in a room you were in and didn’t say hello or even acknowledge your presence. One possible occurring might be: He is angry with me. If that were your occurring, it would seem to you as if he really is angry with you.

After dissolving the occurring you would realize that all that actually happened is he walked in and didn’t pay attention to you. Then could you consciously ask yourself: What could his behavior possibly mean? You might conclude that it could mean he is angry, or he is distracted, or upset and doesn’t want to talk to anyone, or deep in thought and doesn’t want to get off track, etc. At which point you could deal with the reality of what actually happened by walking over to the friend and asking if he is okay, or by waiting until later if you think waiting would make sense.

An assessment about an event that is made consciously—that is clearly an assumption and doesn’t feel like the truth—is different from an occurring, which is made unconsciously and which does feel like the truth.

When you act on a conscious assessment you realize you do not know for sure what an event really meant or the best way to deal with it, so you investigate to find out. When you act on an occurring, you are certain what an event meant because you perceive your occurring as reality.

And because occurrings are always meanings that exist only in your mind, acting as if they are The Truth is likely to get you into trouble.

Positive thinking (affirmations)

Positive thinking is an attempt to convince yourself of something positive when you really think something negative. In other words, with affirmations you don’t dissolve a negative occurring and then create a positive meaning in its place; instead you try to cover the negative occurring with a positive thought through force and repetition.

The theory is if you say something enough times with sufficient positive energy behind it, you will convince yourself that it is true. Unfortunately this rarely works. You still have your original negative occurring underneath the positive affirmation, which will affect your thoughts, feelings, and behaviors.

In fact, the very act of saying to yourself in the mirror: “I am good enough,” over and over often creates the opposite effect to the one you want. Why? Because people who really thought they were good enough would not be standing in front of a mirror trying to convince themselves of that. The only people who would take that type of action are people who really didn’t think they are were good enough and were trying to convince themselves otherwise. In other words, the very act of saying repeatedly that “I am good enough” actually implies that I am not.

Positive thinking, which is an attempt to convince yourself of something you feel isn’t true, has nothing to do with dissolving occurrings or forming conscious assessments.

Alternative Interpretations

The purpose of using alternative interpretations is to realize that the meaning you gave an event is not “the truth,” but only one of several possible interpretations. You are not trying to convince yourself that any of the alternative interpretations is correct and your meaning is wrong. By definition, an occurring seems to us to be the truth, part of reality, a fact. Alternative interpretations help us to realize that an occurring is only one of many possible ways to view an event and is not the truth.

Random thoughts

The primary difference between a random thought and an occurring is that the occurring seems like it is reality—it seems like the truth. A thought is usually seen as just an idea in our mind and does not necessarily seem to be the truth. Occurrings are always related to events, in other words, they are the meaning we give specific events. Thoughts are not necessarily related to anything. Moreover, just like we have certainty about reality, we have certainty about our occurrings, which we think are the truth. When we have thoughts we don’t assume they are the truth. A thought usually would not produce an emotion, an occurring often does.

Intuition

Another phenomenon that can be confused with occurrings is intuition. Intuition is a type of knowing that usually doesn’t depend on the five senses; it is a feeling about something that seems to be true. According to Wikipedia, it is “the ability to acquire knowledge without inference or the use of reason.” Because an intuitive thought can seem like the meaning you are giving an event, it can be difficult to distinguish between intuitive thoughts and an occurring.

Usually intuitive thoughts don’t have the certainty that occurrings do, although in some situations they might. I think that after making a concerted effort to identify occurrings and distinguishing them from events several hundred times, you will get to the point where they “feel different” from intuition.

But you still might not always know the difference. Even if you are not always able to distinguish occurrings from intuition, you can always make it a practice to distinguish both occurrings and intuition from reality and then consider anything other than reality something that needs to be taken as tentative and investigated further.

Obviously if it can be dissolved using the Lefkoe Occurring Process, then it likely is an occurring and not intuition.

Thanks for reading my blog. Please post your questions or comments about occurrings and other phenomena that it is sometimes mistaken for. Your comments will add value for thousands of readers. I read them all and respond to as many as I can.

If you think others will find this post useful, please tell your friends and followers by using the buttons located both at the top and the end of this post.

To get my blog posts as podcasts, sign up for the RSS feed above or look up “Morty Lefkoe” at iTunes to have the podcasts sent to you weekly.

Use this information to improve your life

Would you like to feel unconditional love?

Morty Lefkoe — Tue, 12 Mar 2013 19:07:17 +0000

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Would you like to experience more love and compassion for people and less judgment and criticism? Most people would and lots of people have described how to do this: adopt a serious meditation program and after years and years of consistent practice, you probably will achieve your goal.

I’ve written in the past about my ability to not only feel unconditional love for my wife Shelly and two daughters, but also for friends and associates. And I have pretty much stopped judging and criticizing people. Because I’ve never been a serious meditator, I was clear that meditation wasn’t the only way to achieve this very desirable goal.

I thought it was possible to create a simple exercise that would enable others to experience unconditional love and stop the negative chatter about people that makes us feel distant from them. So in the Advanced Lefkoe Freedom Course that is currently in progress, I created a process designed to do just that and asked the people in the class to use it and let me know what happened.

The results were spectacular, beyond my wildest dreams, and hard to believe. Before I describe these results, let me tell you what I asked them to do.

How to do the exercise

This exercise takes only five days.

Get into an altered state of consciousness in which you experience being the creator of your life using the Who Am I Really? Process. It is a very simple process that takes about five minutes. Anyone can do it after you’ve eliminated at least one belief using the Lefkoe Belief Process, which you can do at http://recreateyourlife.com if you haven’t already. Here is a link to an MP3 recording of the WAIR? Process: http://d3n3f57qjh51zc.cloudfront.net/who-am-i-really-new.mp3

After getting into that altered state, imagine right now, as consciousness, that everyone else is the same consciousness you are experiencing yourself as being. Using the old metaphor, imagine you are a wave over here and other people are waves over there, but all of you are essentially the same ocean.

Next, think of a specific person you know, anyone with whom you have a relationship. Imagine that person being the same ocean you are, but just looking different at the movement as a different wave. Make that as real as you can. Then describe your experience of love for that person right now and write it down.

Then write down if that experience is any different from the way you usually experience your relationship with that person and, if so, how it is different.

Do this three times a day with three different people. On subsequent days you can use people you used in earlier days, but use three different people on a given day. Don’t try to force anything.

Do this exercise for five days, three times a day, and then post a summary of what you discovered from doing this exercise on this course’s forum.

Here are some of the results from class participants

After doing this exercise only 15 times, members of the class posted the following results.

My experiences every time were profoundly freeing. I can honestly say my experience of love toward every person I applied this to increased from any number (some were a 2 or 3) to a 9 or 10. What a great and freeing thing. The people I focused on were my immediate family, clients, a grandmother (deceased) I have been somewhat grumpy about, and the LAST TWO presidents! I don’t tend to hold grudges or fail to forgive, but this takes it up a notch. Stopping feeling bad about someone by forgiving and letting go is fine, but this process added actually feeling good about them. Even with the clients, I felt connected before I met some of them. Thanks, Morty.

Judgments and negative thoughts about the other person were suspended. The experience was much different than how my relationships usually are with the other people. Usually there is judging and negative thoughts. Also there is usually more thinking and analyzing going on in my head regarding my relationships with others.

I did the WAIR process with those people I have strong negative feelings toward because I wanted to see if this would actually help me to feel more loving kindness towards these individuals.
I don’t generally hold grudges and tend to forgive people and am able to let go of attachments to any ill feelings, but it is difficult with those who really hurt me. … After I put myself in the Creator State, any negative feelings I still had for these individuals softened. Some people I felt just neutral towards. Others I felt more compassion for to the point that I actually got emotional. I was quite surprised by this, particularly since a couple of these individuals did some pretty horrible things to me.
I also tested this theory on a colleague at work with whom I had a confrontation. I now feel a lot more love for this person and we are now working on a deal together.
When I am in the Creator State, I can really experience how we are all “one” – that we are all part of something bigger and that anything is possible.

I used this process every day first time in the morning with all people with whom I supposed to contact that day: my family, friends, co-workers. It was like a mental shower, cleaning away all judgments and negative feelings, keeping only love and compassion.
It was much easier to interact with people, the collaboration with my colleagues was more productive and enjoyable and the relationships with family members became more cordial and loving. I will definitely use this process on a regular basis.

I too find that when I imagine myself as the ocean and people as the waves I instantly feel a oneness. I did this with a man who just recently behaved very badly around my daughter. When he came up out of the wave I felt enormous compassion for him. We are all part of the same ocean. It’s a very powerful exercise.
There are some people I do it with and feel love and others more compassion than love.

My experience with this exercise was amazing and it deepened my awareness of that consciousness we are all a part of. I started out by going through the process using immediate family as my focus. I extended this to include extended family and friends. With immediate family, I experienced love as an expansion of my heart. With extended family I, again, felt that expansion though not as strongly. With one or two people I didn’t particularly care for, my judgment of them based on what they did dissolved and my love for them increased.

You can achieve the same results

Everyone who did the exercise had a powerful emotional experience of love and/or compassion toward the people they imagined as ultimately being the same consciousness they were, only showing up as a different wave. And you can too. It will only take a few minutes a day.

Thanks for reading my blog. After trying the exercise, please share below your experience of unconditional love and compassion for people. Your comments will add value for thousands of readers. I read them all and respond to as many as I can.

If you think others will find this post useful, please tell your friends and followers by using the buttons located both at the top and the end of this post.

To get my blog posts as podcasts, sign up for the RSS feed above or look up “Morty Lefkoe” at iTunes to have the podcasts sent to you weekly.

Use this information to improve your life

Try the exercise I describe in the post. You will be amazed at how much love you feel for people, even those people you had serious negative judgments about before.

Your questions get answered

Morty Lefkoe — Tue, 05 Mar 2013 22:21:11 +0000

Note: There is an email link embedded within this post, please visit this post to email it.

Last week’s post sparked a lot of comments and questions. I wrote on the dangers of trying to be positive when you are feeling negative and I suggested that instead of pretending to be positive you just dissolve your negative occurrings and feelings.

Because there has been so much interest in this topic, I decided to devote this week’s post to responding to some of the questions from last week. My comments below go much deeper into the topic than my original post.

Marie wrote:

“Thank you for the post. Separating the meaning from the event is a very useful and clarifying thing to do. However, I have in my mind something for what I cannot use this method to dissolve the negative feeling. The event: a colleague, who is also a good friend, gave me feedback from a recent work project; he basically says that it should be redone (and his comments make sense). The meaning I associate with it: I am not able to do my job well enough. I am sad for that, and I am afraid that I will lose this job that I like very much. Would you have a comment on this?”

Here’s my response:

Virtually all negative feelings come from meaning and ALL meaning is made up in our mind. Telling you a job should be redone has no inherent meaning.

It could mean you are not able to do your job well enough. It could mean you do your job very well and this one assignment needs improvement. It could mean the colleague thinks it needs improvement and he is wrong. You could create many meanings—but what you were told has no inherent meaning. When you really get that idea, the meaning will dissolve along with the sadness. So will your fear that you will lose your job.

Kevin wrote:

“Sounds like what you are saying is to simply re-frame a negative meaning you ascribe to an event, into a positive meaning so as to experience positive feelings.
My question then, is how do you get around your negative beliefs about a situation, which have been formed from negative experiences from your past; which are now bringing up your negative feelings within this now-occurring situation?”

Here’s my response:

My four-step process for dissolving occurrings is not “simply re-framing a negative meaning into a positive meaning.” I suggest that you first dissolve the negative meaning. When you do that the feelings that accompanied the meaning also will dissolve. Also, in most cases you do not need to create a positive meaning. You are better off looking at any event clearly, without a positive or negative filter.

Your beliefs are a major influence on the meaning you give events, but beliefs and occurrings are not the same thing. Your feelings are caused by your occurrings, not your beliefs. Moreover, it is possible to dissolve meaning without getting rid of the beliefs that caused it.

Frances Cranton wrote:

“Morty thanks for post. I have found our old programming and beliefs define how we feel about an event. I really try to get to the route of why I feel a certain way and what is within me causing the true upset.”

Here’s my response:

You don’t have to try to figure out why you feel the way you do. You feel a certain way because of the meaning you have given an event. That is what’s causing your upset.

Follow the four-step process from last week’s post and the meaning will dissolve, along with the upset.

Gary wrote:

“These are good suggestions. But emotions are like an elephant and the conscious mind is like its rider. The conscious mind may be convinced of the logic of a teaching it hears and want to implement it, but the elephant, or subconscious mind, where emotions reside, has been deeply conditioned to react to stimuli in certain ways and is not easily persuaded to change using logic alone. That ‘self’ underneath has its own view of reality and won’t give it up easily. However, I will give this a try and be in touch. Thanks.”

Here’s my response:

I understand your point of view, but hundreds of people (including me) have tried this process and discovered that if you apply the four steps the meaning dissolves easily, along with any feelings caused by the meaning. It is not our experience that the “self underneath has its own view of reality and won’t give it up easily.”

The process I suggest is not using logic to convince the conscious mind of anything; it is just recognizing that something you thought was inherent in the event is, instead, meaning you added to the event.

Take a look at this short video for more details of how the mind unconsciously and automatically creates meaning and how the Lefkoe Occurring Process dissolves it: http://occurringcourse.com/how-lop-works/

Suzanne Kiraly wrote:

“I think for smaller things it may work to be positive to turn things around. You might ask yourself, how much will this really matter in a week, month or year? And you might be able to easily turn your emotion around. But when you are hit with major bad news like a loved one dying or having a serious health problem, you can’t just put on a happy face and pretend that everything is okay. It takes time to digest the problem and to heal. … The more meaning you give to something the bigger the problem related to it can seem and the harder it can be to dissolve the meaning.”

Here’s my reply:

I’m not talking about trying to put a positive feeling on top of a negative feeling or “pretending that everything is okay.” I agree; that won’t work. In fact, that was the main point of my post last week.

My experience and the experience of hundreds of others is that there is no such thing as “more meaning” versus less meaning. Moreover, it doesn’t have to take “time to digest the problem and heal.”

That may be true of techniques you have used in the past. This process, however, can be used as soon as you recognize that you have ascribed meaning to an event. I contend that it is possible to dissolve any meaning, regardless of the event. People have told me that they have used this process when informed about serious illness and it worked for them.

Sharon wrote:

“I am confused about the meaning I give something. Suppose the meaning is: people are not doing their jobs and this is correct, and it makes me angry how do I change the meaning? I understand if the meaning is my negative meaning, but what if my meaning is correct and not only my negativity. Can you help me understand that? It is a large problem for me.”

Here’s my reply:

If people are not doing what they are supposed to do, that is not meaning; it is an event in reality. And there are consequences to many events. But the event has no meaning, in other words, you don’t know anything about anything for sure merely from the fact that an event happened. The fact they aren’t doing their jobs will not produce any feelings. The feelings (in your case, anger) come from the meaning you attribute to the event. What meaning are you giving the event?

Angie wrote:

“What if the ‘event’ ended in someone you love no longer speaking to you because they’re blaming you for something that occurred? Even if you give the event no meaning, they’re still not speaking to you. How do you not give that meaning?”

Here’s my reply:

You can—and most people do—give meaning to many events all day long. I don’t contest that. What I suggest is that all those meanings can be easily dissolved.

Moreover, what do I know for sure about you, the person no longer speaking to you, relationships, the rest of your life, etc. from the fact that someone you love is no longer speaking to you? I don’t know anything for sure. That’s what I mean by events have no inherent meaning.

Rodrigues wrote:

“I have a friend who is passing thru a very difficult time in her life. Broken relationship, financial problems, weak health… We are very intimate, so she feels free to tell me how she feels. But among other people she is motivated to pretend that every thing is going to be all right, its just a matter of time… in fact we both know that that is not true. Once, a person met her at a coffee break and asked her for a smile… she couldn’t do it, of course!!! Indeed, positive thoughts do not solve the real problem… only covers it.”

Here’s my reply:

I’m not talking about creating positive thoughts to cover negative thoughts. I agree that doesn’t work. I’m saying that you can interpret events as disasters or opportunities—in other words, they have no inherent meaning. When you make a clear distinction between an event and the meaning you attribute to it, the meaning will dissolve. There is no need to pretend everything is okay or try to cover up negative feelings.

Thanks for reading my blog. Please share below your thoughts and questions on why trying to be positive doesn’t help you … and can actually hurt you, and how you can actually dissolve negative feelings quickly and easily. Your comments will add value for thousands of readers. I read them all and respond to as many as I can.

If you think others will find this post useful, please tell your friends and followers by using the buttons located both at the top and the end of this post.

To get my blog posts as podcasts, sign up for the RSS feed above or look up “Morty Lefkoe” at iTunes to have the podcasts sent to you weekly.

Use this information to improve your life

The next time you notice you are experiencing any negative feelings, use the four steps I described in last week’s post to dissolve the occurrings that are causing the feelings. http://www.mortylefkoe.com/positive-doesnt/#comments. It really does work.

Trying to be “positive” doesn’t work

Morty Lefkoe — Tue, 26 Feb 2013 20:48:38 +0000

Note: There is an email link embedded within this post, please visit this post to email it.

I recently was having a conversation with a very close friend. She had just broken up with her boyfriend after a long relationship; she was feeling lonely; she was having difficulties getting work; and she was feeling sad, frustrated and disappointed. At the same time she was trying very hard to be positive during our talk.

“I know that everything will work out in the long run. I know that everything is just a learning experience. I know I should be giving positive meanings to everything that’s happening to me.”

She went on and on trying to be positive, when I could tell she was really feeling miserable. She kept talking about what she “knew” she should feel (positive), instead of what she actually did feel (negative).

Most of us try to be positive

Haven’t you done the same thing? Haven’t you done your best to put a positive spin on what was happening to you, when deep inside you felt very unhappy?

Most of us do that because of the conventional wisdom that it’s better to be positive than negative, optimistic instead of pessimistic. We are constantly admonished that we shouldn’t be victims; we should look at the bright side of things. And of course it is important to banish negative thoughts from consciousness so they don’t manifest.

Pretending can get you into trouble

Unfortunately, pretending that you don’t feel what you actually feel doesn’t make the feelings go away. Yes, you can suppress them so that you aren’t fully in touch with them for a short time. But feelings that you are not in touch with still affect your health and your behavior. Suppressed fear will still inhibit your behavior and suppressed angry has been linked to heart disease. In fact, suppression doesn’t even work in the long run; suppressed feelings usually pop back into consciousness when you least expect them. So working directly on feelings to try to get rid of them doesn’t work.

Fortunately, there is an indirect way to get negative feelings to literally disappear. As I’ve explained in prior posts, almost all our feelings—positive and negative—are the result of how events occur to us (in other words, the meaning we give events) moment to moment. By dissolving the meaning we give events we are able to simultaneously dissolve any negative feelings caused by the meaning.

Events have no inherent meaning

Before I remind you how to do that, it is important to really get that events have no inherent meaning. By which I mean, you can never draw any conclusion, for sure, from an event. In other words, you can’t know anything for sure about anything merely as the result of an event or a series of events. All you can know for sure is that the event happened.

And if events have no inherent meaning, they can’t make you feel anything. Your feelings come primarily from the meaning you ascribe to events (and sometimes from stimulus conditioning).

For example, losing your job has no inherent meaning. It could mean you will now change your career to do what you’ve always wanted to do, and that meaning probably would make you feel good. It could mean that you will be out of work for a long time and use up all your savings, and that meaning would make you feel bad. What does the fact of losing your job mean? Nothing. What would the event make you feel? Nothing.

Here’s another example: You call a friend a few times and leave messages, but the friend doesn’t return the call after two or three days. The failure to return the calls would occur to most people as the friend does not care about me, he is rejecting me, and perhaps there is something wrong with me which is why the friend doesn’t care about me. In fact, the friend not calling back could mean he has been out of town and not getting his messages; it could mean he has been really busy; it could mean almost anything. What does it really mean? Can you get that the friend not calling back has no real meaning.

It should now be clear that pretending you feel good when you really don’t doesn’t work, that suppressing negative feelings doesn’t help, and the only way to really get rid of negative feelings is to dissolve the meaning that is causing the feeling.

Here’s how to do that

So here is what to do:

First, recognize that all meaning exists only in your mind, in other words, that events have no inherent meaning.

Second, when you are having negative feelings, allow yourself to experience them fully. Don’t try to cover them up with positive thoughts.

Third, ask yourself what meaning you have ascribed to the event facing you that is causing the feeling.

Fourth, make a clear distinction between the actual event and the meaning that exists in the world. The only reason the meaning is able to affect you is that it appears to be part of the event, in other words, inherent in the event. As soon as you disconnect the meaning from the event and recognize that the meaning exists only in your mind—and not in the event—it is no longer “The Truth.” At which point it loses its power to create feelings. As a result, when the meaning dissolves, the feeling it causes does also.

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Use this information to improve your life

The next time you notice you are experiencing any negative feelings, use the four steps I describe in the post. It really does work.

You can always keep growing

Morty Lefkoe — Tue, 12 Feb 2013 23:38:21 +0000

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We all know that children develop through stages—such as infant, toddler, adolescent, teenager—where how they think and their ability to handle more complex issues improves. But few people are aware that adults also are capable of moving through higher and still higher stages of development. While virtually all children pass through these stages pretty much automatically, not all adults do. Many get stuck along the way.

In recent years scientists have discovered that the brain is plastic and is capable of change and development until the day we die. Three major stages of adult development have been identified by researchers, some of whom have used different names for essentially the same stages:

Three adult stages of development

Pre-conventional, pre-operational (preop), egocentric
Conventional, conventional operational (conop), ethnocentric
Post-conventional, formal operational (formop), world centric

A fourth stage, characteristic of less than one percent of the adult population in Western countries, is a highly developed spiritual stage that has been called transcendent, integral, unitive, or cosmic perspective.

Although your behavior and feelings are significantly affected by beliefs at each stage, your level of development also significantly affects your life in a multitude of ways. Each level has a different way of knowing, a unique worldview, and a distinct way of making meaning.

And just as one childhood stage is not inherently “better” than another—teenagers are not inherently “better” than adolescents; they are only better able to deal with more complex issues—the same is true of the adult stages.

Because so much of the way we perceive and interact with reality is a function of the stage of development we are at, understanding the different stages enables us to understand others and ourselves much better. As you start to become aware of the various stages, other people’s incomprehensible behavior will start making sense.

The differences between the three stages

Here are several excerpts from “Unfolding Perspectives,” an excellent article by Bill Harris of Holosync that describes some aspects of several stages of development. (To read the entire article, go to http://mortylefkoe-podcast.s3.amazonaws.com/Unfolding_Perspectives_2012-10-17.pdf)

From “me” to “us”

“The shift from preop to conop … involves moving from ‘it’s about me’ to ‘it’s about us.’ In making this shift, the child exchanges his previous immersion in ‘me’

for the collective security of the group. The group is organized around the group’s idea of what is important, what their truth is (‘our myth’)…. At this stage there is little or no ambiguity. Life is about this or that, about concrete objects and concrete procedures (hence the name concrete operations). Things are either black or white, this or that, with no shades of gray. What is true is visible. There are no internal, abstract ideas or principles yet, just concrete objects and concrete ways to manipulate them to achieve outcomes. …

“To move into this stage [namely, conop] the child must transcend a merely bodily orientation, where the world is experienced solely through physical actions and bodily feelings (an immersion in the body), and learn to experience the world through the mind as well as through the body. To do this, the child must learn to take the role of other, to shift from an egocentric orientation to a sociocentric (or group-centric) orientation. This is a shift from a bodily identity to a role identity, an identity based upon one’s role in the group. This new ability to take the perspective of others is more than just knowing that others have a perspective, though. It also includes the ability to mentally reconstruct that perspective, so as to put oneself in the shoes of another. The preoperational child [and adult] can’t do this; the concrete operational child can. …

People at different stages see reality differently

“The conop child easily sees that when liquid is poured from a short, fat containerinto a tall thin one the amount of liquid remains the same. The preop child believes that the thin container, being taller, holds more, even though it’s the same liquid. …

“One more example: if a ball of clay is broken into twenty smaller balls, the preopchild (centering on the size of the pieces) thinks that there is now less clay. The conop child, however, isn’t fooled. He can logically see that the amount of clay is conserved, just as the amount of liquid was conserved in the previous situation.

I once saw a mother give an older child two cookies and a younger (obviously preoperational) child one cookie. The younger child cried because he had only one cookie, so the mother broke his cookie in two, saying, ‘There. Now you also havetwo.’ The child … was satisfied. …

“Needing concrete evidence in order to believe something is concrete operational thinking. Being able to imagine what it would be like to believe in some other way is formal operational. The visionaries of the world use formal operational thinking (and, very likely, cognitive strategies beyond formal operational …). If you call concrete operational ‘thinking,’ then formal operational could be termed ‘thinking about thinking.’ Where concrete operational thinking might be described as learning the rules for how to do things, formal operations involves looking at how rules are generated, noticing patterns, and so forth — in other words, operating on rules and other ways of thinking, rather than operating merely on concrete things and situations. …

“Adults who remain in this stage (namely, conop, which makes up the largest percentage of adults in Western countries) are capable of mastering incredibly complex concrete operations: flying an airplane, being an expert locksmith, building a house, repairing complex engines or other machines, being an expert woodworker, and on and on. …

“Ken Wilber points out three important qualities of formal operational. It is the first stage that is ecological, in the sense that it can see and hold in awareness the possible consequences of the relationships involved in a situation. Second, formal operational involves an understanding of relativity. In being able to hold in mind different perspectives, it sees in what way they operate relative to each other.

“Finally, formal operational thinking is nonanthropocentric (it doesn’t interpret the world solely in terms of human values and experiences). Formop sees a bigger picture, a larger perspective, in which humans are a part of a larger whole that includes the entire planet and other living things.

During this developmental process we’ve seen morality move from a pre-conventional, narcissistic perspective, centered around the child’s bodycentered feelings and impulses; to a conventional, ethnocentric, group-centric perspective centered around one’s tribe, society, race, or social group; to a postconventional or worldcentric [formal operational] perspective, oriented to “all of us.” … (Emphasis added.)

“Only about 30% of adults develop formal operational cognitive abilities.” (Emphasis added.)

I have just started a course designed to help people move through these stages. I’ll keep you informed about what we learn. I expect there will be many more blog posts on this topic in the months to come.

Thanks for reading my blog. Please share below your thoughts and questions on stages of development. Your comments will add value for thousands of readers. I read them all and respond to as many as I can.

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Use this information to improve your life

Take a look at some of the characteristics of the three stages described in the post and see which are more typical of you.

Then take a look at some people whose behavior makes no sense to you whatsoever. See if you can figure out what stage of development they are at. Perhaps the fact that they are at a different stage from you explains why the way they see the world seems so foreign to you.

Why you can’t motivate yourself to take action

Morty Lefkoe — Wed, 06 Feb 2013 00:33:18 +0000

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Have you ever tried to motivate yourself to take action? … What happened? If you are typical, the motivation might have worked for a short time, but probably didn’t last and didn’t work in the long run. Did you then ask yourself: What’s wrong with me? Why am I unable to motivate myself to do the things I really want to do?

I’d like to present a heretical notion about motivation: It’s not your fault if you are unable to motivate yourself. Motivation is a spurious concept, because it actually cannot work in the long run.

What is motivation?

First, let’s define motivation. Here are three definitions I found on the Internet:

Providing with a reason to act in a certain way.
The reason or reasons one has for acting or behaving in a particular way.
Motivation is defined as the process that initiates, guides and maintains goal-oriented behaviors. Motivation is what causes us to act, whether it is getting a glass of water to reduce thirst or reading a book to gain knowledge.

To begin with, the primary source of what people do and don’t do is their beliefs, not “reasons,” whether given by themselves or others. Moreover, the “process that initiates, guides and maintains goal-oriented behaviors,” is beliefs, not anything we say to ourselves or others say to us. Finally, motivation is not the process that “causes us to act”; our beliefs are the primary cause of our behavior.

In the long run people cannot be motivated by others (or even by themselves) to do anything using the promise of reward or the threat of punishment. If you want to do something and the necessary behavior is consistent with your beliefs, no motivation is necessary. You will do it naturally. If what you want to do (or what others want you to do) is inconsistent with your beliefs, your beliefs will trump your motivation in the long run.

If you have any questions about the impotence of motivation to drive behavior consider the tens of thousands of people who are told by doctors annually that they will die if they don’t start exercising, change their eating habits, stop smoking, etc.—and who make no changes at all in their behavior. Almost all of these people want to live and don’t want to die, and yet those reasons do not “motivate” a huge percentage of them to take the action necessary to live.

How to get yourself to do what you need or want to do

If you aren’t doing with you want to do, don’t try to motivate yourself. In such situations you will usually notice anxiety just preceding the need to take action, which is what prevents you from taking action. So the real question is: What do you believe that would cause you to feel anxious about taking action?

Some of the most common beliefs causing this anxiety include, mistakes and failure are bad, if I make a mistake or fail I’ll be rejected, what makes me good enough and important is doing things perfectly, what makes me good enough or important is having people think well of me, and many of the core self-esteem beliefs, such as I’m not good enough, I’m inadequate, I’m not capable, and I’m not competent.

These are the beliefs that cause the anxiety that frequently stops us from taking action. Yes, with sufficient will power you can do anything in the short run.

But if you have beliefs like these, “motivation” (in other words, reasons for acting, be they threats or promises) rarely will be sufficient to overcome them in the long run. On the other hand, if you eliminate the beliefs that prevent action, motivation will be unnecessary.

Banish your frustration and disappointments

It really is possible to be what you want to be, do what you want to do, and have what you want to have. Life does not have to be a series of frustrations and disappointments. The tools exist to remove your barriers to true happiness and satisfaction. Don’t try to motivate yourself. Use the tools I’ve told you about and create the life you’ve always wanted.

Thanks for reading my blog. Please share below your thoughts and questions on the role of motivation in human behavior and the possibility of having the life you’ve always wanted. Your comments will add value for thousands of readers. I read them all and respond to as many as I can.

If you think others will find this post useful, please tell your friends and followers by using the buttons located both at the top and the end of this post.

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Use this information to improve your life

The next time you notice yourself avoiding doing something you want or need to do, don’t waste time by trying to motivate yourself. Instead, see if you can get in touch with the anxiety you are probably feeling that is the source of your failure to act. Then ask yourself: What do I believe that is the source of the fear?

The best way to identify the beliefs is to notice the thoughts that accompany the anxiety. They are the best clues to the beliefs, which are the source of the anxiety.

When you eliminate those beliefs, notice that the anxiety is gone. And when it goes you will notice how easy it is to be, do, and have what you’ve always wanted. Without needing any motivation.

There was never anything to be upset about

Morty Lefkoe — Tue, 29 Jan 2013 22:22:24 +0000

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Today’s blog post is a “how to.” Something happened to me recently that would have upset most people. It didn’t upset me. And I am going to show you how to keep similar “upsetting” situations from upsetting you in the future.

The beginning of the story

My wife Shelly and I were on our way to the bi-annual meeting of the Transformational Leadership Council in St. Maarten last week. The flight involved a change to planes in San Juan and we had only 30 minutes from the time we landed there until the connecting flight left.

As we were waiting for the first flight to board an announcement came over the loudspeaker saying that our flight was going to be delayed. A retainer clip in the galley was broken and they were waiting for a new one to be delivered.

Given that we only had 30 minutes between flights, even a 10-15 minute delay could result in us missing our connecting flight. I knew Shelly had been looking forward to the opening ceremonies so I thought she might be concerned. So I said to her: “Nothing has happened yet. We haven’t missed the connection. We don’t know anything for sure about whether or not we will make our connection.” Shelly nodded her understanding and any concern she had evaporated immediately.

Although I wasn’t at all upset or even concerned, I realized there was a possibility we could miss our connection. I talked to the gate agent about getting another flight to St. Maarten if we missed our connecting flight. She said that our airline had no other flights out later that day. So I got on my phone and started looking for other airlines that could get us to where we wanted to go in case we left so late that we missed our connection.

Meaning and emotion is not required to take action

What I want to emphasize is that I didn’t need to assume we would miss our flight and get upset in order for me to act. In fact, not being upset enabled me to think more clearly about alternatives and take immediate action.

About 15 minutes later as I was calling other airlines we heard another announcement saying our plane would be delayed at least 30 minutes and we would get another update shortly. I reminded Shelly that we still didn’t know for sure what would happen in the future. The fact we were going to be at least 30 minutes late did not necessarily mean we were going to miss our connection.

When I told Shelly that we were going to take off at least 30 minutes late and that I hadn’t been able to find another airline to get to the meeting that evening, Shelly smiled at me and said: “That doesn’t have any inherent meaning either.” Nothing that we had been told meant for sure that we would miss the start of the meaning.

We were finally ready to leave

A few minutes later another announcement came over the loudspeaker: The replacement part had arrived and had been installed. As we walked on the plane the gate agent told me that we would be leaving about an hour late, but the flight time had been reduced by 30 minutes, so we would be arriving just about the time the connecting flight was scheduled to take off.

The gate agent also said she had contacted the airline’s control center in New York about holding the connecting flight because there were eight people on our flight who held reservations for our flight to St. Maarten. But we wouldn’t find out if the control center had approved our connecting flight’s delay until the plane had already taken off. Can you get that this news also had no meaning?

After everyone was on board and just before we took off, the agent announced that the control center said that they would hold the connecting flight if it didn’t have to wait more than 10 minutes. If we were later than that, the plane would leave without us. Even this latest news had no meaning. I still didn’t know for sure whether or not we would miss the connecting flight.

Information can never be upsetting

Notice that nothing we had been told from the start of the incident to that moment allowed us to know anything for sure about our ability to make the connecting flight. The information we received wasn’t upsetting; the only thing that could be upsetting would be giving that information the meaning that we would miss our connection and the start of the meeting. As long as we realized that the events had no meaning, there could be no upset.

We landed and got off the plane three minutes before the connecting flight was supposed to take off. It took the eight of us over 10 minutes to walk to the departing plane’s gate. The plane was waiting. We boarded and had an uneventful flight to St. Maarten.

How would you have handled this situation?

Would you have gotten upset upon hearing the first announcement? Or when you heard the second? Or while you were sitting on the plane wondering if the connecting flight would still be there when you arrived?

You have the power to stop your suffering

Can you get that events, no matter what they are, have no inherent meaning and therefore can’t cause emotions? Only the meaning we give events can cause emotions. By making a clear distinction between events and the meaning you give them, you can always be clear that the event itself is meaningless. And when you are able to do that, you are able to prevent yourself from experiencing anxiety, upset, and suffering.

I’ve gotten to the point where I am able to do that pretty much automatically now and Shelly is finding it easier every day. Sometimes all she needs is a quick reminder and she is able to make that distinction.

Suffering is not necessary. Really. The next time you find yourself upset about anything ask yourself what is upsetting you. You will attribute your upset to something that is a combination of an event and a meaning, but which seems to you only like an event. The meaning will seem to be inherent in the event. All you need to do is recognize that you have not made a clear distinction between the event and the meaning, and then make that distinbction. Once the meaning has been made separate in your mind from the event, the feeling that had been caused by the meaning just dissolves.

Try it. Practice it. Make it a part of your life. Don’t listen to the people who tell you that suffering is a necessary part of the human condition. It isn’t.

Thanks for reading my blog. Please share below your thoughts and questions on how to stop giving meaning and stop your suffering. Your comments will add value for thousands of readers. I read them all and respond to as many as I can.

If you think others will find this post useful, please tell your friends and followers by using the buttons located both at the top and the end of this post.

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Use this information to improve your life

This week’s exercise is contained in the blog post itself. Try dissolving the meaning that is causing your upset. It really works.

Why don’t you want to improve your life?

Morty Lefkoe — Tue, 22 Jan 2013 19:25:23 +0000

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According to numerous surveys, every day literally millions of people suffer …

from negative feelings (like anxiety, anger, and guilt).
from a fear of taking action (procrastination).
from the inability to have a truly nurturing relationship (you either can’t find a good one, can’t leave a bad one, or don’t know how to improve an merely okay one).
from an unsatisfying work life (either not doing what you really enjoy or doing what you want and not making enough money doing it).
from self-sabotaging behavior.
from worrying about what others think about us and doing things just to have others think well of us.
from negative self-talk (thinking we aren’t good enough, important, deserving and/or loveable).

If you do not recognize yourself on this list, count yourself fortunate. Most people in the world suffer from at least one of these conditions.

Life does not have to be this way

And yet, based on our work with over 13,000 people over the past 28 years (the first Lefkoe Method process was developed in early January 1985), none of these conditions are necessary. We have helped literally thousands of people to totally eliminate each one of these insidious barriers to happiness and success.

Now here’s the really interesting part of the story. Most people don’t seek psychotherapy or personal growth help. Why? If so many people are afflicted with these problems, why do so few seek help in dealing with them?

Why people don’t seek help

I don’t know the answer for sure, but here are several possibilities:

They believe that permanent change is impossible
They think the people who offer help are not trustworthy. As someone replied in a recent survey we conducted: “Maybe you could stop pretending to tell people that they actually CAN change themselves with these methods, because you know full well that it is next to impossible to change a person’s personality, barring a major crisis.”
They feel that “change might be possible for others but not for me.”
They are convinced that living with one or more of these conditions is an unavoidable part of being human.
They’ve given up any hope of permanent improvement after so many disappointments.
They are embarrassed about having any of the conditions I listed above and seeking help would mean having to acknowledge having the condition.

It’s understandable why so many people have reached most of these conclusions. They have tried very hard to improve their lives for many years without success.

I’ve experienced the pain many others experience today

I know this frustration first hand as I tried private psychotherapy, group therapy, meditation, and a lot of books and saw very little improvement from my depression, my neediness, my general unhappiness with my life, my loneliness, my inability to form and sustain a good romantic relationship (I had been married and divorced twice), and my lack of success in business.

But I never gave up even after decades of daily pain and despair. I knew there was an answer out there, someplace, and eventually I would find it. Ultimately I had to create my own solution.

The solution consists of eliminating the source of all the negative conditions we confront daily: limiting beliefs, stimuli that result in negative emotions, negative senses and expectations, triggers for emotional eating, and negative meanings we give moment by moment to meaningless events. The techniques that comprise TLM can eliminate all these “sources.” I know because I used all of them myself to eliminate most of my “conditions.” Since then literally thousands of people have testified to the effectiveness of these techniques. (Over 150,000 people in over 90 countries have used the free belief-elimination program at http://recreateyourlife.com to eliminate at least one damaging belief.)

Where to find the answers

As I’ve explained in earlier posts, for those of us in developed countries, almost all of our “problems” are the result of our perceptions of reality, not “reality” itself—our perceptions being the result of our beliefs about ourselves and reality, and the meaning we give to moment-to-moment events. Thus almost all of our problems are “self-imposed.” And that’s the good news. Because if we are the source of our problems, we have the ability to get rid of them.

As a new year begins I urge you to make a commitment to have this year be the last year you live with the seven conditions I listed at the start of this post, or any other condition that causes suffering. No matter how painful your feelings, no matter how stuck you may feel, no matter how many books or courses haven’t worked, no matter how long you’ve tried unsuccessfully to change—happiness is your birthright.

We are here to help. Obviously we charge for some of the help we offer, namely private sessions, the Natural Confidence program (which assists you to eliminate 23 of the most common beliefs and conditionings), the Lefkoe Method Training (where you learn how to eliminate beliefs), and the Lefkoe Freedom Course (where you learn how to dissolve meaning automatically.

One relatively inexpensive form of help is an eBook I’ve almost completed—consisting largely of my best blog posts from the previous four years—that describes the nine processes that constitute TLM and how you can use them to improve the quality of your life. Each post has an exercise, which, if you use it, will enable you to rid yourself of many of the conditions I listed above. It includes links to a site where you can eliminate several beliefs for free, videos of belief-elimination sessions, videos that show you how to dissolve the meaning you give to moment-to-moment events, etc. The eBook should be available later this spring.

If you don’t wait to wait for the eBook or pay anything at all for our help, just click on the Table of Contents link above this post and read all the posts that seem relevant to your specific needs.

The happiness you seek is just around the corner. Do not give up hope.

Thanks for reading my blog. Please share below your thoughts and questions on what you are committed to doing this year to finally achieve the happiness and well-being you’ve always dreamed of. Your comments will add value for thousands of readers. I read them all and respond to as many as I can.

If you think others will find this post useful, please tell your friends and followers by using the buttons located both at the top and the end of this post.

To get my blog posts as podcasts, sign up for the RSS feed above or look up “Morty Lefkoe” at iTunes to have the podcasts sent to you weekly.

Use this information to improve your life

While you’re waiting for my eBook to become available, use the Table of Contents to find blog posts on the topics of interest to you. Many of them contain links to videos that will help you use the processes of TLM. You might not be able to totally eliminate all your problems on your own, but you can significantly improve your quality of life. Try it and let me know what you are able to accomplish on your own.

Are we robots?

Morty Lefkoe — Tue, 15 Jan 2013 20:12:59 +0000

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The behaviorist school of thought maintains that behaviors as such can be described scientifically without recourse either to internal physiological events or to hypothetical constructs such as thoughts and beliefs. In other words, consciousness is not relevant to understanding human behavior. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Behaviorism)

As regular readers of this blog know very well, I do agree that some of our behavior (especially emotional eating) and some of our feelings (such as anxiety and anger) can be the result of conditioning.

This agreement would seem to validate the claim of the behavioral school of psychology that our behavior is the result of environmental stimuli (in other words, conditioning) and that we don’t need the idea of consciousness to understand human behavior.

In fact, however, I disagree totally with the idea that we are not, at our essence, conscious beings. Most of our behavior and feelings are caused by beliefs, which are the result of the meaning we give meaningless events. And meaning requires consciousness. When conditioning does happen it is because the faculty of consciousness that we do possess is not being used.

Let me explain.

How classical conditioning happens

The type of conditioning that causes feelings is called classical conditioning. Anything that occurs repeatedly (or even once if the incident is traumatic enough) at the same time that something else is causing an emotion will itself get conditioned to produce the same emotion.

That’s how making mistakes, being criticized, not meeting expectations, being rejected, and a host of other non-scary situations get conditioned to produce anxiety and how other stimuli get conditioned to produce other emotions or actions.

An example of classical conditioning

Here’s an example I use with my clients that will make the idea of classical conditioning very clear. Imagine that I handed you an ice cream cone with one hand. How would you feel? … If you were like most people who like ice cream, you would feel happy. Now imagine I handed you an ice cream cone with one hand and made a fist with my other hand and drew it back as if to hit you. What would you probably feel now? … Some level of anxiety if you thought you might get hit. Now imagine that the next few times someone handed you an ice cream cone, the same thing happened and you felt anxious each time.

What do you think you would feel the next time you were handed an ice cream cone, even if there was no menacing fist? … Probably anxious. And yet it’s clear that ice cream cones are not inherently scary. If this next time there were no fist, only ice cream, why would you feel anxious? Because the ice cream cone got conditioned to produce fear when it became associated with the fist. Ice cream just happened to be there every time you got scared by the fist.

Here’s a practical example of classical conditioning

It is common for us to get conditioned to experience fear whenever we are criticized, judged or evaluated. Whenever our parents criticized, judged or evaluated us as children, they almost always were annoyed, frustrated, or angry with us. The meaning young children give this type of parental behavior is that their parents no longer love them, so their parents could leave them, and so they could die. That meaning is what causes the fear. The “neutral stimulus” that gets conditioned is the criticism, judgment or evaluation.

But notice what is actually happening here. We are not making a distinction between the real cause of the fear (the meaning we give to our parent’s behavior) and a neutral event (being criticized) that is happening at the same time. In other words, consciousness is absent from this situation, resulting in a conflating of two separate events into one.

Consciousness prevents conditioning

If we had made a conscious distinction at the time between the real cause of the fear and an event that merely accompanied the fear, conditioning would not have taken place. Moreover, the way to decondition the stimulus (for example, criticism) so that it no longer causes fear is to consciously make that distinction.

Thus it isn’t that consciousness is not relevant to understanding human behavior, it’s that automatic processes (such as conditioning) can determine human behavior only when consciousness is absent. When consciousness is present, conditioning doesn’t happen.

Is it possible to prevent all conditioning if we were conscious enough? Although it might be theoretically possible, from a practical standpoint it seems to be impossible. Most of the conditioning that results in negative emotions takes place in childhood, where our level of consciousness (in other words, our thinking and understanding capabilities) is at a lower level than it is after we have become adults.

Most of the “programming” that runs us is the result of a conscious (or at least semi-conscious) process, namely, forming beliefs by giving meaning to events. The other programming (conditioning) happens automatically when we are not conscious of what’s happening. Luckily, if that happens, we can decondition that type of programming by making a conscious distinction we failed to make earlier.

To the extent we are at all robotic, it is because we are not using our consciousness effectively. If we do, we have the ability to act and feel pretty much however we desire.

For more details on how the Lefkoe Stimulus Process (LStimP )works, see http://www.mortylefkoe.com/how-to-eliminate-some-of-your-negative-emotions/#.

For the steps of the LStimP, check out http://www.decisionmaker.com/docs/LStimulusP_Steps.pdf .

For a recording of a session in which I help a client decondition a stimulus for a negative emotion, please listen at http://www.mortylefkoe.com/anna-charlotta-demo/.

Thanks for reading my blog. Please share below your thoughts and questions on the role of consciousness in determining behavior and feelings. Your comments will add value for thousands of readers. I read them all and respond to as many as I can.

If you think others will find this post useful, please tell your friends and followers by using the buttons located both at the top and the end of this post.

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Use this information to improve your life

Identify one belief you formed in your childhood and find its source. Notice that the belief is the meaning you gave childhood interactions with your parents. Although you might not have been aware of forming the belief, notice that some level of conscious was required to create a meaning for the meaningless event.

Then identify an emotion that you always have following a certain type of event. Become aware of the earlier circumstances that led to the event getting conditioned to produce the emotion. Notice the absence of consciousness.

Are you prepared for the workplace of the future?

Morty Lefkoe — Tue, 08 Jan 2013 22:13:32 +0000

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Whether you work for a business corporation, a non-profit, the government, or yourself, the requirements for career success are changing rapidly.

An excellent article, “The Secrets of Generation Flux,” in the February 2012 issue of Fast Company describes some of these changes:

“The next decade or so will be defined more by fluidity than by any new, settled paradigm; if there is a pattern to all this, it is that is no pattern. The most valuable insight is that we all are, in a critical sense, in a time of chaos.

“To thrive in this climate requires a whole new approach …. some people will thrive. They are members of Generation Flux. … What defines GenFlux is a mindset that embraces instability, that tolerates–even enjoys–recalibrating careers, business models, and assumptions. …

“Few traditional career tactics train us for an era where the most important skill is the ability to acquire new skills. …You do not have to be a jack-of-all-trades to flourish in the age of flux but you do need to be open-minded.”

Are you prepared?

Do you have the right mindset to thrive in this new world?

Our mindset is ultimately a function of our beliefs and our stage of development. Obviously negative beliefs can impede our success in any environment. But in an Industrial Age where employers only wanted your body—“leave your mind at the door” was the unstated order—all you needed to do was what you were told to do. You did essentially the same thing day after day. Almost all the important decisions were made for you. Not only did you not need to think for yourself, in most situations (unless you were a high level manager or executive) you had strict procedures to follow and were actively discouraged from thinking for yourself.

In that environment, the typical negative self-esteem beliefs so many of us leave childhood with would affect our sense of ourselves and our level of confidence, but they wouldn’t necessarily affect our job performance very much. Beliefs like, Mistakes and failure are bad, I’m not good enough, I’m inadequate, I’m powerless, and Nobody is interested in what I have to say.

In today’s chaotic environment success depends on taking chances, innovating, and “embracing instability.” What worked yesterday probably won’t work tomorrow. Even if you haven’t opened your own business, more and more organizations are demanding that their employees have an entrepreneurial attitude.

Can you easily acquire new skills if you believe I’m not capable or competent? Can you be open-minded if you believe What makes me good enough is doing things perfectly (as defined by others) and What makes me good enough is being right? Can you embrace instability if you believe If I make a mistake or fail I’ll be rejected?

The same beliefs that would have had minimum impact only 20 years ago would totally sabotage you today. The mindset required to be successful today is virtually impossible for someone with a large number of negative self-esteem beliefs.

Eliminating beliefs has helped many organizations

Over 20 years ago I developed a process specifically designed to help organizations change their culture. See the article I wrote for American Express Open Forum that describes that process (LBP-Changed Environment) in detail: http://www.openforum.com/idea-hub/topics/lifestyle/article/how-to-get-your-employees-to-embrace-change-1/. Many organizations have used that process to eliminate the company-wide cultural beliefs that had impeded their success.

We’ve also worked with individual managers and executives in a number of firms, helping them eliminate the personal beliefs that engendered destructive behavior and kept them from having a Generation Flux mindset. (See http://lefkoe.com for details.)

I wouldn’t be surprised if lots of organizations started offering belief-elimination programs to their employees on all levels as a way of preparing people with Industrial Age mindsets to work effectively in “The Age of Chaos.”

What do you need to do?

To give yourself the best chance to succeed in today’s ever-changing environment, which places a premium on being able to embrace uncertainly and instability, get rid of any beliefs that would make it difficult to have a “Generation Flux” mindset. Operate in the present and deal with what actually is by learning how to distinguish between events and the unconscious meaning you give to events moment by moment.

Become someone who is challenged and excited by change and instability, instead of someone who fears them. Become someone who is not stopped by fear or distracted by anger. Become someone who enjoys taking risks. Become someone who is able to work easily with a team and who is not distracted by upsets caused by imagined affronts.

Thousands of people have already achieved these characteristics by eliminating the relevant beliefs and learning how to stop giving meaning to meaningless events. You can too. When you do you will be able to operate effectively in today’s increasing-challenging work environment.

Thanks for reading my blog. Please share below your thoughts and questions on the new mindset required for business success today. Your comments will add value for thousands of readers. I read them all and respond to as many as I can.

If you think others will find this post useful, please tell your friends and followers by using the buttons located both at the top and the end of this post.

To get my blog posts as podcasts, sign up for the RSS feed above or look up “Morty Lefkoe” at iTunes to have the podcasts sent to you weekly.

Use this information to improve your life

Make a list of the characteristics you think you need to succeed, as an employee in your chosen field or in your own business. Then determine what beliefs you have that prevent you from exhibiting these characteristics. Finally, eliminate those beliefs. Don’t allow yourself to be stopped by your self-imposed limitations.

How To Keep Your New Year’s Resolutions. Guaranteed!

Morty Lefkoe — Mon, 31 Dec 2012 23:10:07 +0000

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Did you keep your New Year’s resolutions last year? … What about the year before? …

If you are like most people, you worked on them through the middle of January and by early February you had forgotten you ever made them. Or, perhaps after several years of failure, you stopped making New Year’s resolutions at all.

Why don’t we do the things that we say we are going to do? Things we really want to do? Things that truly would benefit our lives?

The answer is simple. Our behavior is not the result of our desires or even our commitments. It is the result of our beliefs and conditioning. And if there is a conflict between our beliefs/conditioning and our commitments/desires, the beliefs/conditioning usually will win.

Let me give you a few examples.

I’m going to stop procrastinating

A few years ago I had a client named Johnny whose problem was that he procrastinated a lot of the time. He almost always let work projects go until the last minute. As a result, he was anxious much of the time and sometimes he would turn projects in late, which resulted in an upset boss.

At some point he decided he must change, so he made a New Year’s resolution to stop procrastinating the next year. Because he was really committed, he did everything he could to insure his success.

He prioritized his activities, assuming that it would help him focus on the most important projects.
He made a schedule that helped him allot time during the month for work on the projects.
He put up reminders in prominent places.
He created rewards to give himself when he finished a project—a special dinner or a new item of clothing.
He asked his friends to support him.

And yet—despite this detailed strategy for keeping his resolution—by early February he told me the problem was as bad as ever.

I asked Johnny what thoughts and feelings he had when he was about to do what he knew he should do at work, just before he put it off and did something else instead. He gave me the following list. (Notice that the first two are his occurrings, the meaning he gave to having a project to complete.)

What I do might not be good enough.
People might judge my work badly.
I feel uncomfortable when I think about doing the project.

Can you see that these thoughts and feelings were keeping him from acting? That most people with those thoughts and feelings probably would procrastinate, especially with important projects?

After a short discussion we found a number of beliefs that were causing the thoughts and feelings, including these three:

I’m not good enough.
What makes me good enough is having others think well of me.
Mistakes and failure are bad.

These beliefs (and several others) led to the thoughts and feelings that caused Johnny’s procrastination. After I helped him get rid of the beliefs, the procrastination stopped … totally.

If you resolve to stop procrastination, eliminate all of the relevant beliefs and your New Year’s resolution will finally manifest.

I’m going to find a great relationship this year

Here’s another story that will explain why it can be so difficult to stick with our New Year’s resolutions.

Years ago I had a friend, Jennifer, who really wanted a great romantic relationship. In fact, it was all she could talk about. But she either went months at a time without any relationship at all, or she would get into disastrous relationships that didn’t last more than a couple of months and then ended with a lot of upset.

One year she made a New Year’s resolution to create a great guy in the coming year. She made a list of all the qualities she wanted, visualized what he looked like, and imagined spending time with him as he did all the things she imagined this great guy would do.

But after February came and went she asked if I would put on my professional hat and help her. We quickly identified the following beliefs, among others: I’m not good enough. I’m not loveable. I’m not deserving. Men can’t be trusted. Men are jerks. Relationships don’t work. I’ll never get what I want.

What were the chances of a nurturing long-term romantic relationship with beliefs like these? … Slim to nil. So I helped her eliminate these and a few other beliefs and conditionings.

By June she was in the relationship of her dreams and by the end of the year she was married. (Obviously, not everyone who eliminates the beliefs that act as barriers to getting what they want will automatically get what they want if they eliminate those beliefs.)

I’m going to lose weight

With about 70% of American adults obese or overweight, the resolution to lose weight is probably a common one.

Unfortunately, the reason people have a difficult time losing weight is the same reason they overeat and gained the weight in the first place.

As I explain in detail in my eBook, The Secret to Ending Overeating For Good, (http://emotionaleatingreport.com) overeating—in other words, eating when you aren’t hungry—is caused both by conditioning and beliefs. And most people’s weight problem is the result of overeating. In other words, if you only ate when you were truly hungry—and not for emotional reasons—and you ate healthy food with a modicum of exercise, you would not gain weight.

Overeaters have conditioned eating as the “drug of choice” whenever certain emotional “triggers” occur, such as feeling lonely, bored, anxious, feeling unlovable, depressed, stressed, or rejected.

Many also have beliefs like: If I don’t eat the food in front of me now, there won’t be any later. If I can’t eat “bad” foods, I’m missing out. The way to keep food from running my life (like it did my mom’s) is to eat whatever I want to eat.

What are the possibilities of keeping your resolution to lose weight if you have conditionings and beliefs like these? Again, not too good. On the other hand, if you get rid of all the relevant beliefs and conditionings, your overeating will stop naturally and automatically, and losing weight will be relatively easy.

2013 is the year you can achieve all your resolutions

As you make your list of what you resolve to do in 2013, take a look and see if you have any beliefs or conditionings that might be barriers to achieving any of your goals. If so, get rid of them and then notice that, perhaps for the first time, you keep your New Year’s resolutions and you achieve all that you want.

Happy Holidays! May you continue to dissolve the barriers to your “creation’s” happiness and well being and may you continue to experience yourself as the “creator” you actually are—with nothing missing and anything possible.

Let’s have 2013 be the year you make all your dreams come true.

Thanks for reading my blog. Please share below your thoughts and questions on keeping your New Year‘s resolutions. Your comments will add value for thousands of readers. I read them all and respond to as many as I can.

If you think others will find this post useful, please tell your friends and followers by using the buttons located both at the top and the end of this post.

To get my blog posts as podcasts, sign up for the RSS feed above or look up “Morty Lefkoe” at iTunes to have the podcasts sent to you weekly.

Use this information to improve your life

Do as I suggest in the post.

First, make a list of all the things you resolve to accomplish in 2013.
Second, make a list of all the beliefs you might have that could sabotage your efforts to achieve each one. (For some tips on how to find the beliefs causing specific problems, see my earlier posts: http://www.mortylefkoe.com/092209/# and http://www.mortylefkoe.com/find-beliefs-underlying/#).
Third, eliminate those beliefs.
Fourth, celebrate your achievements.

What’s next after getting better?

Morty Lefkoe — Wed, 26 Dec 2012 20:00:39 +0000

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Why do you read personal growth materials or purchase personal growth products? If you are typical, there is something in your life you would like to improve. Most people interested in personal growth programs would like to “get better” in some way.

The meaning of “getting better” varies from person to person, but it can include relieving suffering, getting over various fears, taking action when we feel fear, stopping compulsive behavior, improving relationships, eliminating the barriers to making and saving money, stopping the negative self talk, etc. Most of the people in the world are trying to get better in some way.

But what happens once we’ve eliminated the beliefs and conditionings that cause most of our behavioral and emotional problems? What happens once we’ve stopped giving meaning to most of the moment-to-moment meanings we unconsciously create? Once we stop seeking to get better, what’s next?

Abraham Maslow, an American psychologist, identified what he described as a hierarchy of needs. He said that needs must be satisfied in the given order. Levels 1 through 4 are deficiency motivators, in other words, there is something missing that must be attained; we want to get better. Level 5 is a growth motivator; it is about self-actualization.

Maslow’s hierarchy of needs

1. Biological and Physiological needs – air, food, drink, shelter, warmth, sex, sleep, etc.

2. Safety needs – protection from elements, security, order, law, limits, stability, etc.

3. Belongingness and Love needs – work group, family, affection, relationships, etc.

4. Esteem needs – self-esteem, achievement, mastery, independence, status, dominance, prestige, managerial responsibility, etc.

5. Self-Actualization needs – realizing personal potential, self-fulfillment, seeking peak experiences.

Maslow argued and I agree fully that you have to progress through these five or from level three to level five. Moreover, at any given level the higher levels levels in order. In other words, you can’t skip from level one to level three or four, are not fully real to you. But once you’ve satisfied your needs at any given level the next level becomes real. And once you’ve satisfied all your deficiency needs, you are ready to self-actualize.

Unfortunately, tens of millions of people still exist at levels one and two, still trying to meet survival needs.

My experience with literally thousands of people has demonstrated that eliminating beliefs and conditionings can move people upward through levels three and four. Moreover, hundreds of people who have learned to stop giving meaning to daily events report that they experience some of the characteristics of self-actualization.

A website devoted to Maslow’s work (http://www.businessballs.com/maslow.htm) presents a list of self-actualizing characteristics.

Maslow’s self-actualizing characteristics

keen sense of reality – aware of real situations – objective judgment, rather than subjective
see problems in terms of challenges and situations requiring solutions, rather than see problems as personal complaints or excuses
need for privacy and comfortable being alone
reliant on own experiences and judgment – independent – not reliant on culture and environment to form opinions and views
not susceptible to social pressures – non-conformist
democratic, fair and non-discriminating – embracing and enjoying all cultures, races and individual styles
socially compassionate – possessing humanity
accepting others as they are and not trying to change people
comfortable with oneself – despite any unconventional tendencies
a few close intimate friends rather than many surface relationships
sense of humor directed at oneself or the human condition, rather than at the expense of others
spontaneous and natural – true to oneself, rather than being how others want
excited and interested in everything, even ordinary things
creative, inventive and original
seek peak experiences that leave a lasting impression

I want to help people with self-actualization

For 28 years the Lefkoe Institute has focused on the first four levels. Our current mission is “to help create a world in which people are empowered to rid themselves of their self-imposed limitations and to create unimagined possibilities for their lives.” This can be achieved with the various processes that currently comprise The Lefkoe Method (TLM).

Using TLM myself I’ve eliminated too many beliefs and conditionings to count and achieved a state where most of my occurrings dissolve automatically. I rarely give meaning to events. I am no longer attached to the outcome of my choices. I hardly ever get upset (and when I do I don’t give it any meaning) and even less frequently have arguments with my wife Shelly and my children.

After a lifetime of trying to get better, overcome my constant anxiety and depression, stop my neediness, and halt my concern with the opinion of others, these problems are gone. I no longer wish I were anyone other than me. I am finally okay with myself. I no longer think about getting better.

So as I ask myself what’s next for me, I wonder what I can do for others who are asking the same question. I’ve been thinking a lot recently about this fifth level, which is what life is all about once you have meet your deficiency needs and no longer seek to change the way you are.

In order to explore self-actualization I am offering a new course that is only open to people who have completed our Occurring Course and who have stopped giving meaning to most events. The purpose of this new course is to investigate what life is all about after one is no longer trying to get better.

The new Advanced Lefkoe Freedom Course

Starting in January, the name of the current Lefkoe Occurring Course is being changed to the Lefkoe Freedom Course (LFC). The new course will be called: the Advanced Lefkoe Freedom Course (ALFC). The reasoning behind the name change is that once someone joins the course I can explain what “occurring” is, but it doesn’t make sense to use a term no one is familiar with as the title of the course. (The word comes from how the world occurs to us, in other words, the meaning we give events moment to moment.)

When I created the LFC almost three years ago I had a sense it would make a profound difference in people’s lives, but I wasn’t sure exactly what we would do in the course or how we would do it. It turned out to be the most powerful program we have ever offered. I have the same sense about this new ALFC. I think it will enable people to enter and extend their experience of self-actualization.

I intend to explore with members of the course a wide range of issues, including:

Learn how to live with passion but without attachment, in other words, live life as a game. There is nothing inherently better about having cards that match than ones that don’t, or getting a little ball in a hole in less attempts than someone else, etc. You pretend something is better than something else. When you play a game you can be very passionate, excited, and committed to winning, but you still know it is a game and not “real.” At some point the game will be over and you will go back to “life.” It is possible to live all of life as a game.

Think about the question: If events have no meaning, is there ever a need (as opposed to a desire) to change anything from the way it is?

In the creator space you experience that there is nothing missing, that everything has already turned out, that there is no place to get to. This course will explore what it takes to live out of that experience. You can have a vision of more to do in your life, but you don’t have to be attached to it.

I’ll keep you informed about what we learn as the course progresses. Whatever we discover I will find a way to make it available to everyone who is interested in it. In the meantime, have 2013 be the year you no longer need to get better and you begin your process of self-actualization.

Thanks for reading my blog. Do you agree or disagree with the points I made in this post? Why? Do you have something to add? Your comments will add value for thousands of readers. I read them all and respond to as many as I can.

If you think others will find this post useful, please tell your friends and followers by using the buttons located both at the top and the end of this post.

To get my blog posts as podcasts, sign up for the RSS feed above or look up “Morty Lefkoe” at iTunes to have the podcasts sent to you weekly.

Use this information to improve your life

Make an honest appraisal of your life and determine at which of Maslow’s five levels you are. And if you are at the third or fourth level, which is where most people in the developed world are, see if you can identify what beliefs and conditionings have you stuck at that level. Eliminating those beliefs and conditionings will probably move you to the next level.

If you are at the fifth level, what are you doing to improve your ability to live at that level consistently and effectively?

Are our emotions a good guide to action?

Morty Lefkoe — Tue, 18 Dec 2012 22:41:00 +0000

Note: There is an email link embedded within this post, please visit this post to email it.

I recently got into a discussion about the appropriate use of emotions in making important decisions with my daughter Brittany. Several points that I have never written about or which were touched on only briefly in prior posts were discussed in our conversations. I think you will find our conversation on this topic useful as she raised some questions that I’m sure some of you also would raise if you had the opportunity.

My first note to Brittany

I’ll start with a note I sent to my daughter Brittany recently after she had said something about the importance of considering our emotions when making a decision:

Here’s the thing about reason and emotion. What makes sense rationally will continue to make sense forever. The logical answer doesn’t change from day to day.

On the other hand, what you feel today you are unlikely to continue to feel forever, no matter what the feeling is. Feelings come and go. What makes rational sense does not.

Also, you have no control over your feelings; in other words, you are not sure what is causing them, where they came from, how long they will last. It doesn’t make sense making decisions (especially on something that will have a big impact on your life) on something as ephemeral as emotions.

If you do what makes sense and it doesn’t work out, at least you can say: it made sense at the time. If you ignore what makes sense and act totally on your feelings and it doesn’t work out, you are likely to feel like a fool for acting on your feelings after the feeling is long gone.

Love, DAD

Britt’s comments and my response

Here is Britt’s response to that note and the email I sent her (my response to her is in red and in parenthesis):

Dad,

Very nice note. I think everything you are saying makes sense. I will, however, add that sometimes emotions are just as important as logic. Sometimes our emotions tell us how we feel about things, uncover what we actually want or can act as roadmaps to help us better understand ourselves.

(By definition, our emotions tell us what we feel about things, but they are unlikely to tell us what we actually want. Emotions are automatic and unconscious meanings we give to meaningless events. For example, they have us get angry at things that never happened, for example, someone not doing what we asked occurs to us as they don’t love us, which has us get angry, when that is not what the person meant at all).

I know you disagree with this, because feelings are only caused by the meaning we give to meaningless events, but unfortunately, logic doesn’t always lead us making decisions that will fill our lives with joy.

(That’s true. We can certainly make mistakes using logic to make decisions. But the chance of making a decision that serves us well in the future is more likely using logic than emotion.)

By logic, I might not make many of the decisions that have made me extremely happy or provided me with invaluable learning experiences. It was not logical for me to move to San Diego (after we graduated from college) with no money rather than living with you guys or Erik’s (Britt’s fiancé) parents while we made money. But this is the best learning experience I could have imagined. Plus, we would be stuck somewhere we didn’t want to be, living with none of our own space, and we would probably be far worse off.

(Actually given how responsible you are and your ability to have things turn out for you, moving to San Diego made perfect sense. You could have predicted that it would be an incredible learning experience and that you would have been unhappy living with us for many months without privacy.)

Flying to Europe without a schedule was completely illogical. I went to Europe and did not see the Sistine Chapel! Who does that? But, I got to experience complete freedom. I can think of countless examples where I acted out of emotion and not logic and I am so grateful for those choices. If I followed all the logical paths I could have I would not be who I am today.

(You can visit Europe with or without a schedule; neither is the logical thing to do. It depends on your preference and given your preference for “freedom,” it made sense to do what you did. Given your values and what was important to you, not seeing the Sistine Chapel and going where you felt like going every day made total sense. Perhaps you were doing what you felt like doing at the time, but you knew you were acting consistently with your values, not with emotions you didn’t understand or that were inconsistent with your values.)

That does not mean that people should not consult logic. Acting without thinking is never smart. But, consulting logic and emotions and taking them both as valuable guides is what I believe.

(Almost all fear is the result of unconsciously-created meaning and rarely is there a real threat to your life. Taking the fear as a guide to action will rarely prove useful in the long run. Wanting very much to do something tells you nothing about whether it is good for you or not. That feeling of desire is the result of a meaning you created unconsciously and probably came from beliefs you are unaware of and which are never “the truth.”

(If you can trace your feeling of desire to a consciously created value, that’s useful information. For example, if you consciously value spontaneity, then traveling without a schedule and specific plans is consistent both with your feelings and logic. If you aren’t aware of the source of the feeling and the meaning that caused it, then the feeling tells you nothing you can use to make a decision, especially an important one.

(I know that strong feelings feel like “this is me,” especially if you are emotionally kinesthetic and identify with your feelings. Nonetheless, we have feelings; we aren’t our feelings.)

But, I just want to suggest, that maybe while logic stays and emotions generally don’t, sometimes emotions and feelings might be more valuable than you think. That’s all. Love you lots and talk to you at 3. Xoxo

(If you start with your feelings and then check and see if they make logical sense—and if you know where the feelings came from, that’s fine. Making decisions based solely on feelings and ignoring logic is a long-term recipe for disaster. Love, DAD)

Britt disagreed with my response.

Shortly after Britt read my response she called me and said: “I disagree with you totally.” She went on to argue the points she disagreed with and ended the conversation by exclaiming in frustration when she couldn’t convince me of her point of view: “You’re in a box the size of a pea!”

Was Brittany right? Was I not being open to another point of view? After a lot of careful reflection, I don’t think so. But her comments made me realize that I hadn’t responded to all her questions and disagreements as completely as I could have. I hadn’t presented my case as completely as possible.

So here are a few of the points I hadn’t covered completely in our exchange of notes:

1. Britt said that she trusted her intuition and I wasn’t taking that into account. Although it can sometimes be difficult to distinguish between emotions and intuition, there is a big difference between them.

Intuitions are usually experienced as information (which can cause a feeling). Intuition is thinking something is true without conscious evidence, or expecting something to happen, etc. The intuition is generally in the form of a thought that seems to be true, such as, going on this trip is going to be a disaster or we ought to decline this party invitation as we probably won’t have a good time. The prediction-like quality of an intuition can be experienced as a feeling, but it clearly is very different from a specific emotion like fear, anger, and guilt.

2. As I’ve written before, we can choose our values (which are merely a type of belief) consciously knowing they are not “the truth,” but nonetheless deciding that they are how we want to live our lives. So we can consciously decide to value telling the truth, respecting other people, and not harming others.

Once we have done that our emotions can tell us if we are living consistently with our values. In such a case, we know where the emotion is coming from and can decide to give validity to the emotion because it is based on a consciously-chosen value belief.

That is totally different from an emotion that automatically arises from an unconsciously generated occurring/meaning, which is turn is primarily caused by beliefs we were not conscious of forming and which are never “the truth.”

3. The next point I made, which is related to the prior one, is that if you take the time to find the source of your emotion and conclude you consciously agree with it, then you can use the emotion as a guide to action. In such a case however, you are not really being guided by the emotion but the meanings and beliefs that generated the emotion that you have consciously identified and carefully considered.

4. Here’s what might have been going on with Britt and others who sometimes want to hold on to their emotions so desperately. As I wrote in an earlier post, we often want our emotion to validate our occurring. In other words, if an event occurs to us as dangerous and we feel fear, in some way we want the fear because it validates our emotion of fear. Similarly, if we say someone wronged us and we can’t do anything about it and we feel anger toward that person, in some way we want to experience anger because it “proves” that our appraisal that we were wronged is valid.

5. Nothing I’ve said is meant to invalidate emotions. I am not saying emotions are bad or even irrelevant. I am only saying that emotions, as such, should never serve as the primary basis for making a decision.

This post is unlikely to be the last word between my daughter and me on the relationship between emotions and logic/reason and when (if ever) it is appropriate to rely on emotions when making decisions. I’m sure that many of you still have some questions about my point of view. But this is a good start.

I’ve written several earlier posts about emotions: why negative ones are unnecessary, how they are the result of the meaning we give meaningless events, etc.

http://www.mortylefkoe.com/resist-letting-negative/#

http://www.mortylefkoe.com/run-feelings/#

http://www.mortylefkoe.com/neg-emotions/#

If you found this post useful, please tell your friends and followers by using the buttons at the top of this post.

To get my blog posts as podcasts, sign up for the RSS feed above or look up “Morty Lefkoe” at iTunes to have the podcasts sent to you weekly.

Use this information to improve your life

The next time you notice a decision of yours is being influenced by a strong emotion, do the following:

1. Ask yourself if you are having an intuition about what you should or should not be doing, in other words, a thought with information, or is there a very specific emotion like fear, anger or guilt?

2. If it is a clear emotion, determine what meaning you have given the event that is causing the emotion.

3. Notice if some part of you wants to hold on to the emotion to justify some meaning you have given the situation.

4. If you make a clear distinction between the event and the meaning, the meaning will dissolve along with the emotion it has caused.

Most people agree … and they are all wrong

Morty Lefkoe — Tue, 11 Dec 2012 22:59:56 +0000

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Because I’m in the change business I am frequently telling people that change is really easy if you know how to do it. Almost without exception, however, their response is: “What do you mean change is easy? Everyone knows that people resist change!”

Don’t you think that people resist change? Don’t you notice that your friends, family and co-workers frequently know what to do and just don’t do it. Of course people resist change. It’s obviously human nature.

Despite the conventional wisdom, people don’t resist change. People do resist something, but it’s not change. Let’s take a look and see what it is.

Let me describe two situations where people usually don’t change when they’ve been told why it is necessary and see if you can figure out what they really are resisting.

Resistance in Business

A common business situation involves workers who are seemingly resisting change. Many companies employ people called service technicians. These people see their job as installing, fixing, and maintaining whatever product their company sells.

In recent years management has tried very hard to get these people to provide a higher level of customer service. They are sent to workshops where they are told the importance of taking better care of customers: how customers will buy elsewhere unless they get a high level of service, how their jobs will be threatened if customers stop doing business with their company due to poor service, etc.

But in case after case the level of customer service doesn’t improve much. According to management, many of the service technicians are “resistant” to change.

Well, if I’m right and they aren’t resistant to change, what are they resistant to? … Here’s a clue: These employees believe they are technicians, whose job it is to install, fix, and maintain the company’s products. Now they are being told to take more time talking to customers, telling customers what they are doing and why, answering all the questions customers might have, etc.

Given their belief about their job, they think that what they are being asked to do will make it more difficult to do what they think their job is. They are thinking: How in hell will I ever get my job done if I have to spend all my time talking to customers?

Well, if someone is telling you to do something that will make it difficult for you to do what you think is right, what does their request sound like to you? … Like they’re telling you to do what you think is wrong.

In other words, the technicians are not resisting change (doing something different), they are resisting doing what they think is wrong given their existing beliefs.

What appears to be widespread resistance to change is nothing more than people acting consistently with their beliefs.

When I realized this many years ago (when I was a management consultant), I created workshops that would change workers’ beliefs about their jobs. The new job belief led to the desired behavior. After eliminating the old belief and creating the new one, the workers naturally and effortlessly changed their behavior.

In the case of service technicians, we had them create a new job belief—I am a customer satisfier—in which taking better care of customers became possible. The shift in belief allowed employees to see taking care of customers as an integral part of their job, instead of getting in the way of their job. (This new belief led to the level of customer satisfaction going from the mid 70s to the mid 90s, with 100 being the highest.)

Resistance in Relationships

Now let’s look at a situation that comes up frequently in relationships. Imagine that you have a relationship with someone who yells at people whenever they don’t do what she thinks they ought to be doing. Perhaps you have told this person that you don’t like her yelling at you and you think it is inappropriate for her to yell at others. The response might be, “Yeah, I guess you’re right.” But her behavior continues despite this admission.

What if she had the belief: Yelling is the only way to get people to listen and do what I want? If she had this belief, if she wanted to get someone to do something and they weren’t doing it, she would be predisposed to yell to get results.

So if yelling is the right thing to do to achieve her goal, then not yelling is the wrong thing to do. The “yeller” doesn’t resist change; she resists doing what, for her, is wrong. Change the belief and the behavior will change naturally and effortlessly.

The logic of your argument for change is useless if you are trying to get people to do something inconsistent with their beliefs. They will continue to resist doing something they think is wrong. The next time you think someone is resisting change, ask yourself: What must they believe that has them think their current behavior is right and what you are suggesting is wrong?

Fundamental change IS possible

If people were generally resistant to change, then there would be little if anything we could do about it. But if people don’t change because they believe what they are doing is right and what you (or others) want is wrong, then we are now in a position to produce change in individuals and in the world by helping people realize that their beliefs are not “the truth.” (Can you see that all political arguments are nothing more than conflicting beliefs? Consider: Global warming. How to deal with the economy. The failure of our educational system. Health care.)

How do you know someone’s belief isn’t “the truth”? Because all beliefs are only “a truths,” the meaning we give to meaningless events.

What appears to be widespread resistance to change is nothing more than people acting consistently with their beliefs. When people change their beliefs, change occurs naturally and effortless

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Use this information to improve your life

Think about something you have been trying unsuccessfully to change in your life … something that seems impervious to change. Then see if you can identify the beliefs that have you acting the way you are currently acting and that are inimical to the new behavior.

Once you identify these beliefs, can you see how they are keeping the current behavior in place and making it difficult to exhibit the new, desired behavior?

After you’ve done this exercise a few times it will become clear to you that change is not inherently difficult; the difficulty is in acting inconsistently with your beliefs.

Would you like to improve your game?

Morty Lefkoe — Tue, 04 Dec 2012 23:44:40 +0000

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In order to make this blog post personally valuable to you, I’d like to start by asking you a couple of questions. First, whatever sport you play, how often do you play up to your potential, in other words, if you rate your best performance a 10, how often do you play at a 10? …

The next question I’d like to ask you is: If you can play at a 10 sometimes, why can’t you do it more frequently? You obviously have the physical skills and ability or you wouldn’t have been able to do it that one time. …

I’d like to suggest that the reason your game isn’t consistent and you don’t play up to your potential most of the time is strictly mental—specifically, your beliefs, feelings, and the meaning you give what happens while you play, all of which are within your power to change.

It’s not how good you play, but how often you play that well.

Obviously you need the appropriate skills for your sport but, as Jim Loehr (a sports psychologist who has worked with a number of successful professional athletes) points out, “the distinguishing trademark of great players in any sport is not so much their exceptional talent, but rather their exceptional ability to consistently play at the peak of their talent.” (Emphasis added.)

Many others agree. For example, a story in USA Today pointed out: “For years, golf’s top players have agreed: little separates the physical capabilities of the world’s 100 or so best players. The difference between success and failure, they agree, largely depends on their approach, their handling of crisis situations on the course, their response to pressure, the ability to handle their emotions and fears and doubts. In short, it’s the mental side of the game.” (Emphasis added.)

Does this sound like you?

If you’re like most serious amateur competitors, you don’t complain very much about your physical limitations. Here is a list of some of the most common complaints. Which sound familiar to you?

• “It’s not that I don’t know what to do, it’s that I don’t do what I know.”

• “The harder I try, the worse I seem to perform.”

• “I know exactly what I’m doing wrong on my forehand (or my putting, or my footwork, or my swimming stroke, etc.), but I just can’t seem to break the habit.”

• “When I concentrate on one thing I’m supposed to be doing, I flub something else.”

• “I’m my own worst enemy.”

Notice that every one of these complaints is a mental one. Moreover, all of them are the result of pressure you put on yourself.

In fact, Loehr contends, “If you can take the pressure off yourself, then winning will take care of itself.”

Why? What’s the connection between pressure and your ability to perform?

Tony Schwartz points out in a New York Magazine article that “Thoughts about losing or playing poorly may lead to fear and anxiety, which prompt an array of physiological reactions such as increased heart rate, muscle tightness, shortness of breath, reduced blood flow to the hands and feet, and even narrowing of vision. All of these reactions make it impossible to play up to one’s potential. ”

How do you react to mistakes?

According to Loehr:

“The emotional downfall for most players is mistakes. Mistakes can trigger strong emotional responses (disappointment, embarrassment, anger, temper, low intensity) that can cause inconsistent or poor play. For some players, nearly every mistake represents an emotional crisis. But it’s interesting to note that everyone manages mistakes the same way when they’re playing well. They simply turn and walk away confidently, as if nothing happened. Ideally, the best emotional response to mistakes is to get challenged. A mistake is simply feedback to the mental computer that the shot wasn’t perfect, that some adjustment is necessary. And the simple fact is that without mistakes, the learning process would be permanently blocked. No mistakes, no progress. But negative emotion also blocks the progress and is a natural response to mistakes. So what’s the answer? The answer is that players must train emotionally so that mistakes produce the right emotional response.” (Emphasis added.)

It might be possible to “train emotionally,” but ultimately emotions are the result of beliefs, conditionings, and how events occur to us. Eliminate the beliefs and conditionings—and learn how to dissolve your “occurrings—and the emotions change automatically.

Imagine the following: You have the belief that a ball being hit into the net (or into the water, etc., depending on your sport) is a mistake, and mistakes mean there is something wrong with you. Now imagine that the ball hits the net or goes into the water. What would you have to feel? … Angry at yourself, annoyed, frustrated, hopeless, etc.

Now imagine this scenario: You have the belief that there is no such thing as a mistake, that every result that isn’t what you intended is an opportunity to learn how to improve your game. Moreover, you believe that not achieving your intended result means nothing about you. Now imagine that the ball hits the net or goes into the water. What would you feel in this situation? … You might find it difficult to imagine right now that there are only outcomes and no mistakes, but just do your best to imagine the scenario I’ve just described. Okay? … What would you feel? … Challenged, calm, curious, or possibly nothing at all.

How stress affects the body

What happens physiologically when you think you’ve made a mistake and you think mistakes are bad? Too much negative energy, which gets translated into being too excited, too angry, or too anxious. Some typical signs of over arousal include:

• Legs feel weak and rubbery.

• Difficulty in concentrating and focusing.

• Everything seems to be going faster than it really is.

• Inability to think clearly and accurately.

• Attention gets focused on one thing and refocusing is difficult.

• Become fatigued very quickly.

Changing your beliefs about mistakes would minimize these conditions.

Stress Is an Interpretation

“The greatness of a Gretsky, a Connors, a Palmer, or an Evert is not that they perform well under pressure,” Loehr contends. “No one performs well under pressure. Their greatness is in their learned ability to take the pressure off. … In the face of great external pressure, these [top] performers felt almost no anxiety. To the contrary, they felt calm and peaceful inside but also highly energized, positive, and enthusiastic…

“It is this skill that separates the superstars from the troops—they have the ability to take pressure off, transforming crisis into opportunity and threat into challenge. All that stands between you and that ability is your own head! … Pressure is something you put on yourself.” (Emphasis added.)

Nothing is inherently stressful. Contrary to common knowledge, there is no such thing as a “stressor.” In other words, stress doesn’t exist “out there” and nothing “out there” causes stress. Stress originates in the mind and exists only in the mind; it’s the result of an interpretation. Change the interpretation by changing beliefs or dissolving the meaning you just gave to an event and the stress will disappear.

For example, assume you had a project to complete and had a number of limiting beliefs, including I’m not capable and Nothing I do is good enough. What would you feel as you began the project? … Some level of stress. And it would feel as if the project was causing the stress, wouldn’t it?

Now let’s assume you had the same project but had the opposite beliefs, including I am capable and Whatever I do is good enough. If your beliefs made you feel confident that you would do a good job, do you still think the project would make you feel stress? … Unlikely. Same project, but different beliefs would result in stress or no stress.

By changing your beliefs and dissolving your occurrings, something that had been experienced as stressful can be experienced as fun or challenging.

By the way, did you notice that although the specific examples I gave had to do with sports, everything I said about the source and consequences of stress is just as applicable to everything else in life?

If you found this post useful, please tell your friends and followers by using the buttons at the top of this post.

To get my blog posts as podcasts, sign up for the RSS feed above or look up “Morty Lefkoe” at iTunes to have the podcasts sent to you weekly.

If you haven’t yet eliminated at least one of your limiting self-esteem beliefs using the Lefkoe Belief Process, go to http://www.recreateyourlife.com/free where you can eliminate one limiting belief free.

This post is a revised version of a post that first appeared in 2009.

Use this information to improve your life

Think about any sport that you engage in regularly and see if you can identify a few beliefs that might be affecting your game. How much would your game improve if you eliminated those beliefs? Try it.

Am I in denial?

Morty Lefkoe — Tue, 27 Nov 2012 23:25:13 +0000

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My friend said to me: “I don’t believe you. You are in total denial.”

I had been having a conversation with my friend and I had just told him about a “difficult” circumstance in my life that hadn’t upset me. He replied with a bit of righteousness that that circumstance was upsetting and, if I wasn’t upset, I had to be in denial.

Most people can’t grasp “no meaning”

Most people in the world think that events cause us to have specific feelings. Very few people understand, much less have experienced directly, that events have no inherent meaning and thus cannot cause feelings. They aren’t aware that we automatically and unconsciously give meaning to meaningless events and it is that meaning that causes most of our feelings.

As a result when I, or anyone else who is able to dissolve meaning easily and quickly, says that we aren’t upset by an event that most people consider to be upsetting, the only logical possible explanation for them is that we are in denial.

After years of depression, neediness, loneliness, and general unhappiness, I am finally totally at peace with myself and with life. I feel as though it has all turned out. Although I still have things I would like to accomplish (in fact, more than I have time for), there is nothing more that I need to be happy. I am happy, as my friend Marci Shimoff says in her book, “for no reason at all.” (Happy for No Reason)

I still have occasional incidents like the one I wrote about a few weeks ago where I get upset because I can’t immediately find the meaning causing the upset. But I almost always do eventually and I’m able to dissolve the meaning and the feelings stemming from the meaning in a relatively short time.

Don’t settle

The purpose of today’s post is to remind you that there is a way to experience life that most people do not think possible—a way that is unimaginable to most people. Actually that way of living is possible for anyone who eliminates the beliefs and conditionings that keep them stuck, and who learns how to dissolve the meanings they give to meaningless events.

Don’t settle for less than is possible for you. Your dreams can come true. In fact, you can have more than you dreamed possible. Please, never, ever give up.

This week’s exercise

Try the following exercise for seven days.

Whenever you think that your circumstances are upsetting you, or your goals are frightening you, or your relationships are annoying you, remind yourself that these circumstances, goals and relationships are not the source of your negative feelings. You are.

As long as you think something outside of you is the source of a problem, your ability to resolve the problem is severely diminished. As soon as you recognize that you are the source of the problem, your ability to resolve the problem is significantly enhanced.

Please comment on this post and write your results from the exercise.

Your comments and questions increase the value we all receive. I read them all and respond to as many as I can.

If you found this post useful, please tell your friends and followers by using the buttons at the top of this post

If you haven’t yet eliminated at least one of your limiting self-esteem beliefs using the Lefkoe Belief Process, go to http://recreateyourlife.com/free.

To get my blog posts as podcasts, sign up for the RSS feed above or look up “Morty Lefkoe” at iTunes to have the podcasts sent to you weekly.

Why you resist letting go of your negative feelings

Morty Lefkoe — Tue, 20 Nov 2012 22:35:39 +0000

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Have you ever noticed that sometimes you have a hard time letting go of a negative emotion that feels really painful, an emotion you wish you could make disappear? In today’s post I’ll explain why that happens and also give you a few techniques to lessen the intensity of those unpleasant feelings. (I provided one such technique in an earlier post, http://www.mortylefkoe.com/upset-today-upset/#.)

Why we resist letting go of painful feelings

When a man says: “I am a man, or a woman says: “I am a woman”, they are describing who they experience themselves to be. They are describing part of their identity. Our gender is so much a part of us that if you weren’t the gender you are, you would no longer feel like “you.”

The same is frequently true for our intense emotions. When you feel upset you experience: I am upset—with an emphasis both on the “I” and the “am.” It feels like who you are is upset and that you are almost defined by that feeling. Thus, when you feel upset, if the upset disappeared, it seems like the “you” that remained would not really be you, because the upset you are is no longer present. If an emotion that seems like an inherent part of you—like part of who you are—disappears, it feels like you have been wiped out of existence

There’s another reason it can be hard to let go of a negative feeling. If you try to dissolve the meaning (the occurring) that gave rise to the feeling, some part of you doesn’t want to let go of the meaning because it validates and justifies the feeling. For example, imagine someone says or does something and you feel angry. Assume you had given what the person said or did the meaning: If he really cared about me, he wouldn’t have done it. The meaning you gave to the event justifies and validates your feeling of anger, which feels like a part of who you are. If you dissolved the meaning and realized the event had no inherent meaning, you could no longer justify the anger. So some part of you wants to hold on to the meaning.

How to lessen the intensity of your negative feelings

In the blog post in which I describe my recent upset I offered you one technique for lessening the intensity of your emotions. (http://www.mortylefkoe.com/upset-today-upset/#.) Here are three techniques that I’ve used personally.

1. Get into the creator state using the Who Am I Really? Process. In that state the negative emotion will disappear.

http://d3n3f57qjh51zc.cloudfront.net/who-am-i-really-new.mp3

2. Get into the creator space using the following technique.

Realize that the emotion I am having now is being caused by the meaning I gave a reality that has no inherent meaning.
If I created the meaning that caused the feelings and thoughts, what does that make me?
Is it real now that I’m the consciousness that creates meanings that ultimately determine how I experience my life?
Check and see if you are in the creator space. The way to be certain is to ask yourself what’s possible (answer: anything) and ask yourself if you have any limitations (answer: no).

3. “Step outside yourself” and observe yourself having feelings. Say to yourself: “I have feelings; I am not my feelings. They have nothing to do with reality. They are not caused by reality. My feelings are the result of automatic, unconscious occurrings that are not true.” To the extent you can make this real you will be able to detach somewhat from your feelings.

This week’s exercise

The next time you experience an upset or any other negative feeling, notice that some part of you seems to be holding on to it. See if my explanation accurately describes your experience.

Then, use any of the three techniques I described in this post to reduce the intensity of the feeling.

Please comment on this post and write your results from the exercise.

Your comments and questions increase the value we all receive. I read them all and respond to as many as I can.

If you found this post useful, please tell your friends and followers by using the buttons at the top of this post.

If you haven’t yet eliminated at least one of your limiting self-esteem beliefs using the Lefkoe Belief Process, go to http://recreateyourlife.com/free where you can eliminate one negative belief free.

To get my blog posts as podcasts, sign up for the RSS feed above or look up “Morty Lefkoe” at iTunes to have the podcasts sent to you weekly.

Can you change your behavior and feelings without eliminating beliefs? Yes!

Morty Lefkoe — Tue, 13 Nov 2012 23:40:45 +0000

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When I first developed the Lefkoe Belief process to eliminate limiting beliefs almost 28 years ago, very few people talked about the importance of beliefs. Today most people in the personal growth field acknowledge that permanent change is really impossible unless you eliminate the beliefs that drive your current behavior and make lasting change almost impossible.

In the past couple of years, however, I’ve discovered that beliefs are not the immediate cause of our behavior and feelings. Our occurrings are. As a result, fundamental change is possible without eliminating beliefs, if you know how to dissolve your occurrings.

Because very few people even discuss occurrings, much less distinguish between them and beliefs, I’m going to devote today’s post to explaining the difference between them in detail. (I discussed aspects of this issue in an earlier post, http://www.mortylefkoe.com/beliefs-dont-behavior/)

This distinction is important for many reasons, especially because each is formed differently and each is eliminated differently. The process required to eliminate beliefs won’t dissolve occurrings and vice versa. If you aren’t clear about the difference between the two and use the wrong process you won’t be successful in your attempts to change.

There are crucial differences between beliefs and occurrings

Despite their similarities, occurrings and beliefs are two very different phenomena.

Beliefs are the meaning we give (usually) to a series of events. Beliefs are broad generalizations, for example, I am …. People are …. Life is …. A belief is a statement about reality that we feel and act is the truth, although it is possible to intellectually disagree with something we believe. Once formed, beliefs continue to exist and affect our behavior, feelings and perceptions forever, unless we are able to eliminate the belief. We view life through the filter of our beliefs.

Our occurrings, on the other hand, are the meaning we give to a specific event, in other words, how reality occurs to us at a given moment. Each occurring is a distinct meaning that usually lasts only a short time and then fades away by itself when we stop thinking about the event. An example of an occurring is your boss asking you a question and it occurring to you as she doesn’t trust me, she doesn’t like me, or I’m going to get fired. That is the meaning you have given to the boss’s question. In reality all that happened is that she asked you a question. Contrast that occurring—the meaning you gave to that specific event—to beliefs that act as a filter through which we view all events, such as No one trusts me. No one likes me. I can’t keep a job.

Why occurrings are so important

Because we don’t distinguish between reality and how reality occurs for us (our occurring), we think the meaning we give reality IS reality. Because we think our occurring IS reality, we interact with our occurring, not reality. In other words, we rarely deal with what is actually in the world; we deal with the meaning we have given what is in the world, a meaning that exists only in our own mind.

For example, losing our job is a fact in reality, seeing it as a disaster or a great opportunity are two possible ways the event can occur for you. You can “see” that you no longer have a job. You can’t “see” that the job loss is a disaster or an opportunity. If your job loss occurred to you as a disaster, you would try to deal with “a disaster,” instead of with a job loss, which probably would have you feel and behave differently.

The simple distinction between beliefs and occurrings

Is it now clear that beliefs are broad generalizations that filter your view of all events, while occurrings are “one time” meanings you give to specific events that do not affect the meaning you give to similar events in the future?

Your long-held beliefs are NOT occurrings. An occurring is how an event occurs for you. Therefore, occurrings require, by definition, a preceding event, either in your mind or in the world. If there is no event, there is no occurring.

Beliefs are the major source of our occurrings

Is it now clear that beliefs and occurrings are two totally different phenomena? There is a crucial relationship between them, however, in that beliefs are the major source of our occurrings. In other words, how a meaningless event occurs for us is determined mainly by our beliefs. (Other determining factors can include our mood, physical condition, and stage of development [see almost any of Ken Wilber’s books for details on stages of development]).

Change your beliefs and you can change how events show up for you. For example, if you believe, People are stupid, individuals will occur for you that way. Eliminate that belief and your future occurrings probably will change.

It is important to realize that it is possible to dissolve an occurring without eliminating any beliefs. On the other hand, if you don’t eliminate the beliefs that are causing a occurring, you will continue to have similar occurrings when similar events happen in your life.

I don’t want to mislead you. Although you can change your behavior and feelings by dissolving occurrings without eliminating beliefs, in most cases the fastest and easiest method to do that is to eliminate the beliefs causing the behavioral or emotional problem. For example, procrastination for most people is caused by about 16 beliefs and conditionings. Although you could dissolve the occurrings caused by these beliefs whenever you had to do something that you might procrastinate, it would be simpler to eliminate the 16 beliefs and conditionings and never procrastinate (or have to dissolve an occurring) again.

Define a few relevant terms

Let me define a few other terms that are relevant to this discussion. First, reality, by which I mean what actually happens in the world. Events. What you know through your five senses, especially what you can see or hear. What you usually could capture on a video recording. Sometimes “reality” can’t be “seen” because it is inside your mind, such as thoughts, memories, projections of the future, and physical sensations. We can give all of these meaning, so we can have occurrings about all of them.

The next term I want to clarify is “No meaning.” Events in reality have no inherent meaning. In other words, you can’t draw any inferences or make any predictions—for sure—as a result of observing any events, including internal events such as memories or physical sensations. All meaning, therefore, is in your mind.

This idea can be difficult to prove to someone who hasn’t experienced it. I hear all the time: “Of course events have meaning! Doesn’t dying have meaning? Doesn’t it mean something if someone treats you badly?” The best way I know to make this idea real is to experience it when you use the Lefkoe Belief Process (LBP) to eliminate a belief formed in childhood, where you experience clearly that mom’s and dad’s behavior had no inherent meaning, that the way they treated you meant nothing about you or even about them. (You can experience the LBP in a free online interactive program at http://recreateyourlife.com.)

Our occurrings cause most of our feelings

The third idea I want to clarify is: “Reality can’t cause feelings.” Reality/events are unable to make you feel anything because they have no inherent meaning. The primary source of your feelings is the meaning you give to events.

For example: If you don’t get something you want and you give it the meaning: I can’t get what I want and I never will—you probably will get upset. If you give the same event the meaning: I haven’t gotten what I want yet, so what do I have to do to get it?—you probably will feel challenged and excited. The meaning we give events is the primary source of our feelings. Thus, dissolving your occurrings enables you to simultaneously dissolve negative feelings, such as anxiety, anger, and upset.

In other words, beliefs are a primary determinant of our occurrings, and our occurrings cause most of our feelings.

For example, imagine that your boss walks in your room and says to you: “Is the project complete yet?” That is the reality, what actually happened. That might occur to you as she is dissatisfied with me, or my job is in jeopardy, or I never do anything right. That occurring, in turn, might have you feel anxious or possibly even angry.

I needed to eliminate a lot of beliefs (and some conditionings) to get rid of my depression, my neediness, my need for the approval of others, and a bunch of other problems. But I still had some occurrings daily that caused little upsets. I’ve written about these in earlier blog posts. When I stopped giving meaning to events most of the time, these minor upsets stopped.

Because getting rid of beliefs and occurrings are two totally different processes, it is possible for you to dissolve your moment-by-moment occurrings without having to eliminate any beliefs.

This week’s exercise

For the next three days ask yourself what meaning you must have given what just happened for you to be acting the way you just did. If you don’t do something you intended to do, what meaning did you give the event that could have prevented you from acting? An example might be: Not making a call or starting a project and noticing that the meaning you gave was: I can’t do this, I won’t do it well, or I‘ll probably fail. Can you see how those meanings would have inhibited your taking action? If you do this consistently for three days it will become very real to you how your “occurrings” determine your behavior.

At the same time see if you can identify the beliefs that are responsible for the specific meanings you are giving events. Notice the difference between the beliefs and the occurrings.

Please comment on this post and write your results from the exercise.

Your comments and questions increase the value we all receive. I read them all and respond to as many as I can.

If you found this post useful, please tell your friends and followers by using the buttons at the top of this post.

To get my blog posts as podcasts, sign up for the RSS feed above or look up “Morty Lefkoe” at iTunes to have the podcasts sent to you weekly.

I was upset today … really upset

Morty Lefkoe — Tue, 06 Nov 2012 23:21:42 +0000

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As I started to get dressed this morning it hit me. “It” was this overwhelming feeling of unhappiness, heaviness, and upset. I felt miserable. I did not want to go to work. I hadn’t felt this badly in many months.

I hadn’t felt this way when I had awakened a couple of hours earlier. I had jumped out of bed when the alarm went off after getting plenty of sleep. I had put on my robe and gone down to my desk as I always do to spend about 45 minutes answering emails and preparing my schedule for the day. Then still feeling fine, I had a good breakfast of eggs and toast. It was when I went to the bathroom to start getting ready for the day that this horrible feeling seemed to spring up from out of nowhere.

For a few minutes I felt overwhelmed by it. Then I started to use some of the techniques I’ve developed and written about to try to get myself out from underneath this ominous black cloud. After a few minutes the thought occurred to me:

“This is a great opportunity to notice everything I am doing to overcome this heavy, dismal feeling, so I can write about it in this week’s blog post. Instead of writing an article with suggestions on how to overcome suffering, I’ll write an article about what I actually did. I’ll dictate my thoughts into my pocket recorder and transcribe them later.”

I felt really terrible

So here are my thoughts and feelings from earlier today.

The first thoughts I recorded were: “It’s hard for me to think; it’s hard to concentrate. I just don’t want to be here. This is really painful.”

I used to have this type of feeling at least once a week for most of my life. As I eliminated beliefs and conditionings, these attacks became less and less frequent. I think the last episode was about a year ago.

It only took a couple of minutes of focusing on what I was feeling before I noticed a big difference between my experience of painful feelings today and my experience of similar feelings years ago.

In the past Morty had been upset. The upset had been inside me and all around me at the same time. There had been no part of me that wasn’t upset. This morning was very different: “I” could detach from the upset and watch myself being upset. It was almost as if there was a separate “I” who was watching Morty be upset. Moreover, I knew I was only having a “feeling”; it wasn’t who I was. I knew it would pass soon no matter what I did or didn’t do. This little exercise didn’t make the feeling go away, but it did create a slight distance between the upset and ME. As a result I didn’t feel totally overwhelmed by the feeling, as I had been years ago.

Looking for the source of the feeling

Once I had gotten some distance from the “black hole” I seemed to be in, I asked myself: “Where did this feeling come from? What is causing it?”

I thought of everything that was going on in my life. Both of my daughters have been going through difficult times recently and I felt that neither have allowed me to help them the way I wanted. They have been talking to my wife Shelly a lot more than they have been talking to me. Had I given that any meaning? I realized that I had given it meaning when I first noticed it, but I had dissolved it quickly. This morning it was clear to me that my relationship with the two of them had nothing to do with the lousy way I was feeling.

At this point I noticed that some part of me wanted to hold on to the upset. I had reverted to feeling that Morty was upset. I was so identified with the upset that not having it seemed like an invalidation of me somehow. As soon as I noticed this, I again focused on observing myself having the feeling. As soon as I was able to separate myself from the feeling and watch myself having it, the resistance to finding a way to get rid of it disappeared and the feeling itself diminished in intensity.

Then, as I started looking for the source of the feeling “I” was observing Morty having, the intensity diminished even more. But Morty was still feeling pretty horrible.

The event that started it all

I suddenly realized that just about the time I first noticed the unhappiness this morning, I had the thought: “I don’t want to go to work today. I really don’t.”

I had a strong sense that that wasn’t just a coincidence, so I looked more closely at that thought. Maybe I felt shitty because I needed a good excuse for not going to work. But on reflection that explanation didn’t really make sense. If I really wanted to take the day off, I would have. I didn’t really need an excuse. I’ve taken time off, even an entire day, when I felt really tired and needed some time off.

But it still seemed as if the event that set off this miserable feeling was thinking about going to work. What meaning had I given this event that could produce the upset I was experiencing?

The meaning I gave the event

Here’s my answer as I said it out loud into my recorder earlier today:

“It’s a struggle. It’s too hard. I have something that makes such a profound difference in people’s lives. It shouldn’t be so hard to make the world aware of it. Yes, over 150,000 have tried the free belief-elimination program, but that’s just a drop in the bucket. We should be helping millions of people.

“I’ve been at this for almost 28 years and I shouldn’t have to work this hard to contribute this to the world. The Lefkoe Method can help people get rid of their negative feelings and their barriers to taking action. There’s nothing else in the world that can do what our work can do. Yes, it’s getting out there but it is so slow, so incremental.

“I spend almost a full day each week to write a blog that can make a profound difference in people’s lives and there are only about 50 thousand people on the mailing list. I’m 75 years old and I don’t have forever. If I were only 35 it would be different. I’m never going to make the impact I want to make in my lifetime.”

That last sentence was it: “I’m never going to make the impact I want to make in my lifetime.” That was the meaning I was giving to getting ready to go to work. And that meaning had produced the all-encompassing upset that seemed to have descended on me from out of nowhere. But the feeling hadn’t come from out of nowhere. It had come as the direct result of giving a meaningless event this particular meaning.

How I stopped the cloud of negativity

The next thing I did was to realize that what I have accomplished so far tells me nothing for sure about what I will accomplish in the future. In other words, no matter what my team and I accomplish … or fail to accomplish, has no inherent meaning. It isn’t the truth that I’m never going to make the impact I want to make in my lifetime.

When I made it clear that what had seemed like a fact—meaning that had seemed to be inherent in the event—was actually only a meaning I had ascribed to the event, the feeling dissolved on the spot. And when the meaning dissipated, the dark cloud I had been living under for the prior couple of hours dissipated also.

I was almost done. But before I stopped I also wanted to get clear on my vision and what I might and might not accomplish, so what happened this morning wouldn’t happen again.

Making sure this doesn’t happen again

My vision is to help create a world in which people stop their mental anguish and suffering and create new possibilities for happiness and success. Was I attached to that vision? For many years I had been attached. I thought that achieving my vision is what made me a good and worthy person. I thought my vision was better than the visions other people had for their lives. I thought the world “needed” what I had to offer.

But many years ago I had let go of all that. I had started seeing my vision as a game I choose to play. I knew I was okay regardless of what I achieved and I was clear the world would do just fine with or without me. So I wasn’t attached any more, but, like when playing any other game, I get excited when I win and unhappy when I lose my “make a difference in the world” game. When you play a real game, you always know you are playing a game that you can put away and go back to life, so the unhappiness when you lose only goes down so deep. But you can still be unhappy for a while when you don’t do well in your game.

Now this is the most important realization of the day:

Even though I was experiencing my life as a game, I could still be unhappy for a short time if I thought I was losing the game. The trick is to not give that meaning—namely, that I am losing the game—to anything I achieve … or don’t achieve.

No matter how much I achieve, there is always so much more I have not yet achieved. By focusing on all the things I want to do that I haven’t been able to do, instead of focusing on what the number of lives we at the Lefkoe Institute have impacted positively, this morning I was giving what we haven’t yet achieved the meaning that I am losing the game. And that meaning resulted in me feeling really bad for a couple of hours.

So you’ve now seen a blow-by-blow description of my thoughts and feelings over the past couple of hours. The black cloud and heaviness I felt all morning has totally lifted.

How did I do it?

What exactly did I do to stop my suffering?

First, I remembered that I have feelings, but I am not my feelings. I was able to separate from the “creation” called Morty and observe him being upset. That perspective significantly lessened the intensity of the negative feelings I was experiencing and enabled me to complete the other steps.

Second, I looked for the event that immediately preceded the onset of the upset.

Third, then I found the meaning I had given the event that was responsible for the upset.

Fourth, once I made a clear distinction between the event and the meaning, the meaning dissolved along with the feelings that had been caused by the meaning.

There is no need to suffer

These four steps really do work. The next time you find yourself overcome by negative feelings, no matter what they are, just follow these four steps. There really is no need for you to suffer any more. Try it and see for yourself. I love you.

This week’s exercise

The next time you experience an upset, follow the four steps I present in the post.

For more information about how to observe yourself having a feeling, see http://www.mortylefkoe.com/042709/#. And for more information about how to distinguish meanings from events, read my post at http://www.mortylefkoe.com/important-improve-life/# and watch this short video http://www.occurringcourse.com/#.

Please comment on this post and write your results from the exercise

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Learn how to get rid of a negative sense of yourself

Morty Lefkoe — Tue, 30 Oct 2012 22:50:16 +0000

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Larry said at the start of a Skype session with me, “You’ve helped me get rid of a bunch of self-esteem beliefs and I feel much better, but I still can’t seem to move forward on the things that are most important in my life.”

I replied, “If some things in your life are improving, then beliefs clearly are being eliminated. Now we need to find the additional beliefs that are causing your continuing resistance.”

In that session he eliminated a few more relevant beliefs, such as, what happens in my life is outside my control, I’m deeply flawed, and I don’t work.

At our next session Larry seemed puzzled. “Every time we eliminate beliefs I feel better, but the problem doesn’t seem to go away. Moreover, the words of the beliefs we’ve worked on don’t seem true, but something about them does feel true.”

When you’ve eliminated all the beliefs you can think of that could explain a given problem and when the beliefs that have been eliminated somehow still feel true, the problem is probably being caused by a conditioned “sense.”

A sense is not a cognitive statement like a belief; it exists as a feeling. If you try to communicate to someone what that sense feels like, you might use colors (like dark), physical sensations (like heavy), metaphors (like I’m being stopped by a wall), short phrases (like can’t move forward), etc. You can have a sense of many things, but the most common three senses are of yourself, of people, and of life.

Larry’s sense of self

I decided to check Larry’s sense of self to see if that explained why his resistance to taking action was still there after eliminating all the beliefs we could find. When I asked him to close his eyes and get in touch with his sense of self—and then describe it with whatever words came closest to what he was feeling—here’s what he said: “total mismatch for life; not really functional enough for life; out of control; overwhelmed; the world seems totally uncontrollable; things coming at me all around; I don’t have the computing power to cope with the world; and I have no capability to react adequately.”

What is a sense?

Your sense of yourself feels like who you really are; it feels like you were born this way; this feeling is you. A sense of people feels like who people really are; people are inherently this way; they always were and always will be this way. And a sense of life feels like the way life really is; life is always this way, no matter what.

These three senses can be positive or negative. If they are positive, leave them alone. If they are negative and adversely affecting your life, de-condition them with the process I provide at the end of this post. (See also an earlier post that discussed the Lefkoe Sense Process, http://www.mortylefkoe.com/rid-negative-senses/)

Where do these senses come from?

Our senses are the result of conditioning specific feelings, as I’ll explain below. But where do the feelings come from?

In order for us to be able to experience a feeling, there must be an event stimulating the feeling. But that is not sufficient. Except for stimuli that are explicit threats to our physical survival, like the experience of drowning, stimuli themselves do not have inherent meaning for adults. The meaning adults give to events is what triggers emotions. On the other hand, certain events can have inherent meaning for children.

Because young children realize their survival depends on adults, especially their parents, being yelled at or punished inherently means to them they are not loved, which means they might be abandoned, which means they could die. Obviously similar events (such as being yelled at by a spouse, friend or boss) don’t have the same inherent meaning for adults.

If we experience similar meanings repeatedly, obviously we will have the same feelings over and over. We forget the feelings were caused by external events (interactions with our parents) and conclude: If I feel this way about myself most of the time, my feelings must be true; they must be who I really am.

An example of this would be criticism or punishment from mom and dad that you (as a child) automatically interpret to mean: Mom and dad are unhappy with me; I’m not pleasing mom and dad; I seem to be incapable of doing what I’m supposed to do; etc. Those meanings, in turn, might make you feel about yourself: heavy; dark; stuck; overwhelmed; powerless; etc. If you felt that way often enough as a child, you would get conditioned to experience yourself that way any time you looked inside for a sense of who you were, as I just explained.

Problems are caused by beliefs AND senses

To summarize: Most behavioral and emotional problems, such as procrastination and a fear of taking action, are caused primarily by beliefs. When the beliefs are gone, the problem usually is also. Sometimes, however, when all the relevant beliefs have been eliminated, the problem still remains. In such a situation the source of the remaining problem likely is a conditioned sense. If that is the case, use the following process to decondition the relevant sense (of self, of people, or of life).

Steps of the Lefkoe Sense Process (LSenseP)
To be used to eliminate a negative emotional “sense” of oneself. To be used ONLY after all the relevant self-esteem beliefs have been eliminated.

1. Close your eyes, look inside, and find your sense of yourself. Don’t worry about putting words on the sense. Your experience might be in the form of pictures, images, feelings, or vague thoughts. Just try to experience it as fully as you can right now. [Give the client a moment to think.] … Now that it is real, please use a few words to describe that sense so that I can get an idea of your experience, even though the words are not your experience.
Client’s description of sense: ______________________.

2. What are the events when you were a young child that first caused______________________?
[Describe the sense using client’s exact words]

3. Is it real to you that your current sense of yourself was caused by these events you just mentioned? [The answer should be, yes.] NOTE: even though usually events have no inherent meaning for adults, they do for children who are dependent on their parents (or other adults) for their very survival. Thus behaviors, tones of voice, expressions, etc. have an inherent meaning for children.

4. Is it real to you that the only reason that__________________________ is
[Describe the sense using client’s exact words]
your sense of yourself today is that as a child you never distinguished between you and the specific circumstances outside of you that really caused the _____________________?
[Describe the sense using client’s exact words]
In other words, can you see that the ___________________________ was never
[Describe the sense using client’s exact words]
inherent in you—it was never who you really are? [The answer should be, yes.]

4. To make this distinction real, if earlier in life the circumstances that originally caused the ________________________________had been different, if _______________________
[Describe the sense using client’s exact words] [State the opposite of what actually happened]

had happened instead, would you have had the ________________________then?
[Describe the sense using client’s exact words]
[The answer should be, no.] If you didn’t have it then, would you have it now? [The answer should be, no.]

5. Do you still experience yourself as ______________________________?

[Describe the sense using client’s exact words]
[The answer should be, no.]

Note: Sometimes the entire sense will be gone at the end of the process. If only some aspects of the sense have been eliminated, do the process again with whatever words describing the sense still feel true to the client and look for a different source. Sometimes this has to be done four or five times to de-condition all the aspects of the sense.

This week’s exercise

Close your eyes and take a minute to get in touch with your sense of yourself. You are not looking for beliefs you have about yourself. You are looking for feelings. … When you are in touch with that feeling, describe it as best you can. You might use colors, shapes, metaphors, short phrases, etc. There might be as many as ten different attributes of the feeling. Write them all down.

Then use the Lefkoe Sense Process to de-condition all the negative aspects of your sense of yourself. You will be amazed at the remarkable shift in your experience of yourself.

Please comment on this post and write your results from the exercise.

Your comments and questions increase the value we all receive. I read them all and respond to as many as I can.

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Joe Vitale and I discuss the Law of Attraction

Morty Lefkoe — Tue, 23 Oct 2012 23:50:02 +0000

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“What is your understanding of the Law of Attraction?” I asked Joe Vitale. He has become a good friend who I really love and admire. He and his wife Nerissa had traveled from their home in Texas to visit my wife Shelly and me for the weekend. Over dinner one night we talked about a wide variety of topics, including Internet marketing, spirituality, and relationships.

I asked this specific question because I knew that Joe had written extensively on the Law of Attraction (LOA) and I wanted to hear his thoughts. Over the years I have gone from totally believing in the LOA to thinking it is absolute nonsense. I thought it was time to finally resolve my position on the issue.

Joe started by explaining that he did not accept what many LOA teachers claim, which is that all you need to do is focus on what you want with enough emotion and it will “show up” in your life. Joe contended that merely sitting in a room focusing on a goal would not produce results; action was required.

Moreover, he argued, your intention can be totally stopped if you have beliefs in the way. I agreed wholeheartedly and added that getting rid of beliefs actually opens up possibilities that hadn’t existed before.

After a fascinating give and take, I think Joe agrees with me on the essentials, but he is going to write a blog post today on his version of what happened. I can’t wait to read his post and see if we do fully agree on what the LOA actually is and is not.

Here’s my current position that resulted from our discussion. The following description of how the LOA works makes more sense to me than any I’ve ever seen.

Create a clear vision of what you want

First, create a vision. In order to have an effective vision you need to distinguish between a vision and a goal. A goal is something specific you want to have happen; it is measurable. A vision is like a direction you want to go in; it is a process; it is never ending. Wanting to teach something specific to 100 people in a workshop is an example of a goal. Wanting to help as many people as possible improve their lives in any way you can, is a vision. You can achieve a vision and still have more to do the next day. Once a goal is achieved, there is nothing more to do.

Be passionate about your vision

Second, you need to be passionate about your vision. You have to be so excited about your vision that you constantly look for ways to achieve it. You need a vision that you really are passionate about having or doing or being. This is not the same as holding a vision strongly and with emotion, as some teachers have recommended. As you will see in a moment, it’s not having emotion as such that is important, it is about really caring about your vision.

Get rid of beliefs that will sabotage your vision

Third, eliminate any beliefs that are inconsistent with your vision. If you don’t, the beliefs will likely foreclose the possibility of getting what you want. For example, if you focus on the vision of having a great relationship (as distinct from the goal of having a relationship with a specific person) and you believe Relationships don’t work, I’m not loveable, and Men/women can’t be trusted, you probably will find it difficult to have a good, long term, nurturing relationship.

Here’s why. Our beliefs are the primary determinant for the meaning we give events moment to moment, and that meaning determines our behavior and emotions. For example, assume you had the beliefs I just listed above. You now meet someone you like and a relationship is forming. The meaning you give to everything your new girl/boyfriend does and says is directly affected by these beliefs.

Imagine your girl/boyfriend doesn’t call when promised. Given these three and other similar beliefs his/her behavior will likely occur to you as: He/she has probably just been stringing me along. He/she doesn’t really like me. I’m happy he/she never called, as it probably wouldn’t have worked out anyway. If you didn’t have those beliefs, you might well have given the same event the following meanings: It could mean he/she got busy. It could mean he/she forgot. It could mean a lot of different things.

And if that is the way your new friend’s behavior occurs to you, the relationship has little chance of surviving.

Eliminating beliefs creates new possibilities

Fourth, eliminating beliefs literally creates new possibilities that didn’t exist before. Because how we view reality determines the possibilities for action that are open for us, eliminating limiting beliefs literally creates new possibilities in your life. When you say something is impossible it actually becomes impossible for you. If you believe Life is difficult, you will experience things not going the way you wanted them to go as upsetting obstacles rather than exciting challenges. If you believe I’m not capable or I’m not competent, would you likely try to do something you believe you can’t do? And if you tried, do you think you would succeed with these beliefs? (See my earlier post where I discuss this issue in detail. http://www.mortylefkoe.com/create-possibilities/

Notice what emerges

Fifth, notices what “emerges.” After you have created new possibilities by eliminating the relevant limiting beliefs, your passionately-held vision will insure that you constantly focus on what “emerges” on a daily basis. As an example, my vision is to help create a world in which people are empowered to rid themselves of their self-imposed limitations and create unimagined new possibilities for their lives. I’ve eliminated many beliefs that could keep me from pursuing that vision. (See my blog post in which I discuss the idea of emerging in more detail: http://www.mortylefkoe.com/what-i-just-learned-will-transform-my-life-%E2%80%A6-and-yours/

I keep looking at what emerges in my life to see what opportunities there are to manifest my vision. After completing a study with the University of Arizona that showed that our Natural Confidence (NC) program reduced stress by over 50%, it occurred to me that we might be able to help insurance companies reduce their out of pocket health care expenditures by having their policyholders complete the NC program. While I was trying to figure out how to approach health insurance companies a friend suggested we bypass the insurance companies and go directly to organizations that hire the workers and pay the insurance premiums. These possibilities just “emerged” without any effort. But if I hadn’t been looking for them, I wouldn’t have noticed them. As a result of what I noticed, we intend to conduct another study to determine how much lower health care costs will be for employees who eliminate the 19 beliefs and four conditionings on the NC program as compared to employees who don’t use NC.

Proving that the NC program will significantly reduce health insurance costs probably will lead to hundreds of companies making the NC program available to hundreds of thousands or even millions of employees. That is my vision manifesting in the world. Because there is no way I could have foreseen this possibility even a few months ago, conducting this new study couldn’t have possibly been a goal; it is, however, a manifestation of my vision. Before I could create this new study I needed the results of the last study and a friend who suggested we conduct another study with business firms instead of insurance companies.

Now here’s why passion is important. If I were not passionate about helping people free themselves from their self-imposed limitations, I might not have thought of doing the original study that showed the NC program reduces stress, or thought about making that program available to insurance companies, or listened to my friend’s suggestion to go directly to organizations who pay the insurance premiums.

Take action

Sixth, take action. Although some teachers of the LOA claim that action is not required to manifest what you desire in reality, most of them disagree with this point and argue that we need to act on the opportunities that we notice. I am in full agreement with that point of view.

The crucial importance of taking action clarifies why you need to eliminate beliefs and be passionate about your vision. If you notice a possibility for achieving your vision and you believe you are not good enough, or capable, or competent, or deserving, you are unlikely to act. And if you are not really excited about manifesting your vision in the world and always looking for ways to do it, you will not notice the new possibilities that emerge and act on them.

If there are no beliefs in the way and if you are passionate about your vision, you probably will take the action needed to make your vision real in the world.

So here’s my final take on the LOA

To summarize what I realized during my conversation with Joe: The “Law of Attraction” is really a misnomer. It is neither a “law” nor do you literally “attract” anything. There is, however, a very effective way to get what you want.

create a vision,
be passionate about that vision and make it a major focus of your life (as distinct from merely focusing on a goal “with emotion”),
eliminate any beliefs that are inconsistent with your vision,
notice the new possibilities you have created,
observe the opportunities that “emerge” from those possibilities,
and take action to implement that possibilities.

If you follow these six steps the chances are very good you will get what you want. You will have manifested your vision in your universe. This approach is not an airy-fairy, mystical way to get things to magically appear in the world; instead, it is a very practical series of steps that will enable you to bring your vision into reality most of the time.

* * *

Here’s a link to Joe Vitale’s blog. After reading my post read his and see if each of us reached the same conclusion after our discussion. http://blog.mrfire.com/secret-meeting-reveals-truth-about-law-of-attraction/

* * *

This week’s exercise

Follow the six steps I outlined above and notice what happens in each step. If you have any questions or problems with any step, please post them here. Also let us know what you are able to create in the world by following this simple approach.

Please comment on this post and write your results from the exercise.

Your comments and questions increase the value we all receive. I read them all and respond to as many as I can.

If you found this post useful, please tell your friends and followers by using the buttons at the top of this post.

If you haven’t yet eliminated at least one of your limiting self-esteem beliefs using the Lefkoe Belief Process, go to htp://www.recreateyourlife.com/free where you can eliminate one negative belief free.

To get my blog posts as podcasts, sign up for the RSS feed above or look up “Morty Lefkoe” at iTunes to have the podcasts sent to you weekly.

Five ways to avoid mental pain and suffering

Morty Lefkoe — Tue, 16 Oct 2012 20:21:13 +0000

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Do you experience mental pain and suffering from time to time? Most of us have those unpleasant experiences far more often than we’d like, so we search for a way to get rid of them. Here are several possible approaches.

First, we can try to suppress them. If we aren’t aware of them, they can’t hurt us. We aren’t necessarily consciously aware of shutting down and numbing ourselves to our internal state, but doing this is a common approach to stopping our experience of unpleasant feelings. Unfortunately, no matter how hard we try, it is very difficult to suppress pain and suffering constantly. It’s like holding a beach ball filled with air underwater. With enough effort and concentration you can do it for a while, but eventually you will forget and the ball will pop to the surface. As a result this is probably the least effective approach.

Second, we can cover them with some type of addiction. Addictions to alcohol, drugs, gambling, sex, etc. are all attempts either to deaden ourselves in order to stop feeling pain or to increase our endorphins so we feel good. Addictions can sometimes cover up our pain in the short run, but the long-term consequences of an addiction are usually far worse than the pain could ever be.

Third, we can try psychotherapy. Although there are many different forms of psychotherapy and most are very different from each other, almost all of them assume that pain and suffering are inevitable. As a result their goal is to teach you how to deal with them as effectively as possible. Luckily, some therapies can be very effective in helping us deal with our pain and suffering.

Fourth, we can turn to spirituality. A spiritual path has a lot of important benefits, but trying to transcend one’s pain and suffering to avoid dealing with it can be a trap. Being in a non-dual state is a powerful experience, but it does not necessarily change one’s experience as a “creation.”

Jack Kornfield, an American who spent years meditating in the East, writes how he experienced dissolving into white light and being at one with the universe and yet when he got home had the same relationship problems he left with.

If you don’t use spirituality as an escape from your pain and suffering, it can be extremely valuable. Realizing that you are something more than your body, thoughts, and feelings can be very liberating. Recognizing that you are a manifestation of something bigger than yourself can be very empowering. A spiritual practice only becomes a problem when you use it to pretend that it is sufficient to deal with the concerns of your “creation,” including pain and suffering.

As the philosopher Ken Wilber has pointed out, a spiritual practice is not a substitute for dealing with our day to day psychological problems.

Fifth, we can acknowledge that pain and suffering are not inevitable. They are the result of the meaning we give events. Once we realize that, we can dissolve the meaning, thereby eliminating our pain and suffering, instead of assuming they are inevitable and trying to cope with them.

As I’ve explained many times in this blog, events have no inherent meaning. As a result, events cannot make us feel anything. And if they can’t make us feel anything, events can’t produce mental pain and suffering. So where do our pain and suffering come from? The meaning we give both internal and external events as they happen.

For example, imagine you lose your job. It seems as if that event is causing you pain and suffering. It is not. If we experience pain and suffering it is the result of giving the event the meaning: This is a disaster. I will have a hard time getting another comparable job. That meaning would inevitably lead to pain and suffering. On the other hand, if you gave the same event the meaning: This is an opportunity to start my own business, or do what I’ve always wanted to do, or move to a different location where I’ve always wanted to live and work there, etc., the same event would lead to joy and excitement.

Suffering is not necessary

The common idea that human beings are born to suffer is nonsense. It is possible to fully acknowledge your pain and suffering, and then get rid of it in moments. How? Identify the meaning you are giving events that is causing the pain and suffering, and then dissolve the meaning, thereby dissolving the pain and suffering.

How to use this post to improve your life

For one week be aware every time you experience any mental pain or suffering. Don’t suppress it; experience it fully for just a moment. Then ask yourself, what meaning did I just give to an event that could cause what I’m feeling? When you make a clear distinction between the event and how the event occurs to you, the meaning will dissolve along with any feelings caused by the meaning.

This really does work. Try it for one week and then come back here and write your experience of doing this exercise.

For more details about our occurrings and how to dissolve them, see an earlier post: http://www.mortylefkoe.com/important-improve-life/#

Please comment on this post and write your results from the exercise.

Your comments and questions increase the value we all receive. I read them all and respond to as many as I can.

If you found this post useful, please tell your friends and followers by using the buttons at the top of this post.

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It Is Barbaric And Must Be Stopped

Morty Lefkoe — Tue, 09 Oct 2012 22:15:32 +0000

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Time magazine this week reported that 19 states still allow teachers to paddle students in schools. What is even more alarming is that adult acceptance of spanking, while lower than it was 50 years ago, was still approved of by 71% in 2004. The article made me realize that a blog post I wrote a couple of years ago is as relevant as ever. So I’m reprinting it this week with some editing to bring it up to date. If you didn’t read it, please read it now. If you did read it when it was originally published, please read it again. There is an important exercise at the end for everyone, even if you aren’t a parent or your children are grown and out of the house.

There was a time in America when some people were treated as property, forced to do whatever other people wanted, abused without any ability to respond, and unable to obtain their freedom. Such behavior was legal and considered appropriate by the people practicing it.

When we look at the people who exhibited that behavior we think with repulsion, “What could they possibly have been thinking?”

I’m not referring to slavery 150 years ago. I’m referring to the abuse heaped upon millions of children daily by well-meaning parents who don’t realize the long-term damage being done by spanking and other forms of punishment.

Corporal punishment doesn’t work

Research has shown that corporal (physical) punishment not only doesn’t stop the behavior it was intended to stop, it produces a host of negative consequences. These studies have linked corporal punishment to adverse physical, psychological and educational outcomes.

Researcher Elizabeth Gershoff, Ph.D., in a 2002 meta-analytic study that combined 60 years of research on corporal punishment, found that the only positive outcome of corporal punishment was immediate compliance; however, corporal punishment was associated with less long-term compliance. Corporal punishment was linked with nine other negative outcomes, including increased rates of aggression, delinquency, mental health problems, problems in relationships with their parents, and likelihood of being physically abused.

Time several years ago described a new study published in Pediatrics that confirms the results of many earlier studies, “As five-year-olds, the children who had been spanked were more likely than the non-spanked to be defiant, demand immediate satisfaction of their wants and needs, become frustrated easily, have temper tantrums and lash out physically against other people or animals.” (Emphasis added.)

We’ve discovered from our one-on-one sessions with over 13,000 clients that most self-esteem beliefs are formed from interactions with parents during the first six years of life. Spanking produces the dysfunctional behavior described in the studies quoted above because it leads to such beliefs as: I’m powerless. I’m bad. If I do something wrong, I deserve to be punished. There’s something wrong with me. The way to be safe is to have power over others. Violence is an acceptable way to handle disagreements. The way to keep from being punished is to not get caught. I’m not good enough.

Here’s what’s interesting: Most parents would be upset if they realized that their children were forming most of these negative beliefs, but they actually want their children to conclude one of these beliefs as a result of the punishment, namely I have done something bad. They think that knowing they have done something “bad” will prevent their children from doing it again. But if a child thinks over and over that he has done something bad, what is he likely to conclude after a while: I am bad. Imagine the consequences of growing up and living with the sense of yourself that you are a bad person?

Despite all the evidence showing the negative consequences of spanking, many people still argue that it is a useful and appropriate tool for parents. One such person is Dr. James Dobson, a psychologist who Time called “the nation’s most influential evangelical leader.” He argues "[P]ain is a marvelous purifier. . . It is not necessary to beat the child into submission; a little bit of pain goes a long way for a young child. However, the spanking should be of sufficient magnitude to cause the child to cry genuinely." (Emphasis added.) (From his book, Dare to Discipline, pages 6 and 7.)

Now you may be thinking, I don’t spank my child and I don’t know any parents who do; it isn’t really that common anymore. In fact, it is a lot more common than you might imagine. A recent survey in the UK showed that seven out of 10 parents used corporal punishment on their children. And as I mentioned earlier when quoting last week’s Time, 71% of adults in the U.S. accept spanking as acceptable discipline. That same story reported that 23% of U.S. parents still support spanking by teachers. The result of that support: According to the Center for Effective Discipline, in the 2006-2007 school year, 223,190 school children in the U.S. were subjected to physical punishment.

Yelling also can be abusive

But that’s only half the story. A lot of people who would never physically abuse their children abuse them emotionally on a regular basis. Such people can grasp the brutality of hitting a defenseless child, but think nothing of screaming at their child, uttering such common phrases as: “What’s wrong with you?” “Are you stupid?” “How many times do I have to tell you?” “Don’t you understand English?” “If you were a good child you’d obey me.” “Why aren’t you a good child like …?”

Our work with clients also has showed us that such emotional abuse often leads to as many negative beliefs about ourselves as physical abuse, including many of the same beliefs that spanking produces, plus I’m not capable, I’m not competent. Mistakes are bad. I’m not loveable. I’m not worthy. I’m inadequate.

There’s an important distinction to be made here: Physical and emotional abuse, as painful as it might be in the moment, has no long-term consequences. But the abuse inevitably leads children to form negative beliefs about themselves and life, that in turn lead to a wide variety of behavioral and emotional problems for the rest of their lives. (Thousands of our clients have stopped their chronic anxiety, eating disorders, needing the approval of others, lack of confidence, mistreatment of others, etc. by eliminating the childhood beliefs that had caused such debilitating problems.)

Why do we hit or yell at our children? The answer most parents probably would give is “Nothing else seems to get my children to listen.” Would you hit or yell at your friends who frustrated you because they wouldn’t listen to your advice? And if that’s not appropriate, what makes it okay to do it to defenseless children?

Shouldn’t children be disciplined if they don’t obey?

Think of a time when your parents disciplined you. … Did you think: I’ll never do that again, or did you think: I’ll make sure I never get caught doing that again? … Did you learn anything from the punishment other than to make sure you didn’t get caught the next time? … Did it instill a moral sense of right and wrong and the desire to do what’s right—or were you just angry with your parents? …

Research has shown that spanking and browbeating sometimes can work to produce immediately compliance due to the fear of punishment, but there is no learning involved. (Actually the children do “learn” [form the belief] that the way to get what you want is to instill fear in others.)

If physical and emotional abuse really worked to permanently change behavior you’d only have to use them once or perhaps a few times. It’s weird to me that parents justify hitting and yelling as a way to get their children to listen, and then keep doing it over and over because their children don’t listen! That reminds me of the old saying: Insanity consists of doing the same thing over and over expecting to get a different result.

By the way, if punishment really worked to deter behavior, almost two-thirds of the people released from prison would not result in the re-arrest, reconviction, or return to prison with or without a new sentence during a three-year period following the prisoner’s release. This figure is taken from “2011 Adult Institutions Outcome Evaluation Report” prepared by the California Department of Corrections And Rehabilitation, and is typical of other states.)

Consider this: If a stranger treated our children the way so many parents do they would be arrested for child abuse. Why is the same behavior toward a child a crime when exhibited by a stranger and perfectly okay if done by parents? Here’s the answer.

Do we really “own” our children?

Many parents feel they are legally and morally justified in forcing their children to do whatever they arbitrarily decide they want their children to do, just because they are the parents. If a master’s absolute dominion over his slaves was justified by the argument that the slaves were “owned” by their masters, isn’t that the implicit argument that justifies punishing children? Obviously, parents don’t consciously think that about their children, but think about it for a moment, isn’t that the implicit assumption out of which most parents operate? Don’t they think: “Who are you to tell me how to parent? They are ‘my’ children.”

If we ever are going to raise a generation of children who don’t have the negative beliefs and day-to-day problems so many of us have today, the first thing we are going to have to do is realize that physical and even emotional abuse results in lasting damage. Not the actual abuse itself, which is over in a few minutes. But the meaning children give that abuse results in crippling beliefs that stay with them and cause them suffering for the rest of their lives.

This post is not meant to make parents feel guilty who didn’t realize the consequences of their behavior or who just don’t have any effective parenting skills. It is meant to destroy, once and for all, the idea that parents “own” their children and have the right to spank or scream at them for disobeying.

Please help get this post into the hands of as many parents as possible. Let’s do whatever we can to hasten the day when everyone looks back at these early 21^st century parenting practices in America and says: “What could they possibly have been thinking?”

How to use this post to improve your life (and the life of your child)

If you or your spouse spanks or even yells at your child, consider what you just read and see if you really want to continue doing that. Consider making a promise to your child to never do that again. And find more effective ways to interact with your children that lead to positive instead of negative beliefs.

If it is okay for teachers in your state to spank children while they are in school (for a list of states, click here http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0934191.html), send a note to your state representatives urging them to pass legislation banning all forms of corporal punishment in schools.

In any case, discuss the material in this post with your friends and do what you can to urge other parents to stop spanking their children.

Please comment both on this post and on your results from the exercise.

Your comments and questions increase the value we all receive. I read them all and respond to as many as I can.

If you found this post useful, please tell your friends and followers by using the buttons at the top of this post.

If you would like some free information about how to interact with your children so that they form positive instead of negative beliefs, check out Shelly Lefkoe’s parenting program at http://parentingthelefkoeway.com.

To get my blog posts as podcasts, sign up for the RSS feed above or look up “Morty Lefkoe” at iTunes to have the podcasts sent to you weekly.

Specific instructions guaranteed to improve your life

Morty Lefkoe — Tue, 02 Oct 2012 22:02:19 +0000

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Knowing what to do rarely changes your life. Taking action often does. Transforming the way you experience your life—eliminating beliefs, getting rid of conditionings, and dissolving your occurrings—almost always results in profound positive change.

I’ve been writing posts for this blog for over three years and recently decided to turn the best of the posts into a book. As I tried to figure out how to make the book as valuable as possible, I thought about the three-part statement I started today’s post with. So I asked myself: How could I help you translate the information in the posts into action that would make a noticeable improvement in your life? Even better, how could I help you use the posts to transform how you experience your life?

Here’s what I decided to do. At the end of each post in the book I am adding a short assignment, suggesting a way to use the information in the post to improve your life. As I started writing these assignments for the old posts in the book I had this further thought: Why don’t I start doing that with my weekly posts from now on? Why don’t I suggest a way to use the information in my weekly posts that will improve the quality of your life?

I liked that idea so much that I intend to implement it from now on.

To get you a sense of how valuable these weekly exercises will be for you, try it now. Here is a link to one of my favorite posts from a couple of months ago that describes how to get rid of the negative feelings that plague us by dissolving the meaning that gives rise to them. http://www.mortylefkoe.com/important-improve-life/#

Read the post and then complete this assignment

As I acknowledged in the post, merely understanding the information I present won’t change anything. So to start dramatically improving the quality of your life, for the next seven days notice each time you experience any anxiety or fear at all. Then ask yourself what meaning you just gave what happened that could have produced those emotions.

For example, imagine you notice anxiety and realize you were just thinking about starting a new project. Ask yourself: What meaning did I give starting the new project that could have made me anxious? In most cases it will be something like: I can’t do it. I’ll probably fail. People will laugh at my failure. Can you see that if the event occurs to you this way you would feel anxious?

Then make a clear distinction between the event and the meaning, in other words, make real to yourself that the meaning is not inherent in the event—that the event is in the world and you can see it—while the meaning is in your mind and you can’t see it. For example, you can see that you have a new project that should be started. That is a fact. But that you can’t do it and that you’ll fail and that others will laugh is not in the world—it is not a fact—it exists only in your mind!

There are only three simple steps:

1. Notice the negative feeling you are having.

2. Identify the meaning that is producing the feeling.

3. Make a clear distinction between the meaning and what actually happened.

When you make a clear distinction between the event and how the event occurred to you, your occurring will dissolve along with the emotion it had caused.

If you do this exercise for seven days you will notice that both your sense of victimization and your negative feelings will be significantly reduced. And you will experience being a lot happier.

What do you think about adding exercises like this each week? Will you do them? If not, why not?

Please comment both on this post and on your results from the exercise.

Your comments and questions increase the value we all receive. I read them all and respond to as many as I can.

If you found this post useful, please tell your friends and followers by using the buttons at the top of this post.

If you would like information about having a Certified Lefkoe Method Facilitator help you permanently eliminate any behavioral or emotional problem in your life, please call us at 415-884-0552.

To get my blog posts as podcasts, sign up for the RSS feed above or look up “Morty Lefkoe” at iTunes to have the podcasts sent to you weekly.

Do you know about the two types of conditioning that have caused the emotional eating epidemic?

Morty Lefkoe — Tue, 25 Sep 2012 22:58:23 +0000

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During the past two years I’ve written several blog posts about emotional eating and its causes. As I learned more about emotional eating from my clients and about learning theory, I’ve changed my mind on several occasions. I now think I understand the essential causes of one of the biggest problems we face: One-third of America’s adult population is obese and another one-third is overweight. The health consequences are devastating; the financial costs are staggering; the misery experienced by those afflicted is overwhelming. Nothing proposed thus far has come close to being able to stem the epidemic. I think I have the answer.

Most proposed solutions attempt to deal with the symptoms, namely the weight people gain when they eat emotionally. These proposed solutions include a wide variety of diets, special eating plans like Jenny Craig, in-patient facilities, exercise programs, pills to kill appetite, pills to change metabolism, 12 step programs, etc. On his television show last week, Dr. Oz tried to scare obese people into stopping their emotional eating by graphically displaying the medical consequences of their behavior.

The reason these plans for dealing with the obesity epidemic ultimately fail is that all of them ignore the source of the problem: a conditioned, obsessive need to eat in order to deal with negative emotions and to attain specific rewards.

The first type of conditioning: emotional triggers

The primary cause of emotional eating is emotional triggers, usually negative emotions such as anxiety, feeling unlovable, feeling angry, and feeling bored. At some point in life an emotional eater ate and experienced either comfort, a pleasurable distraction from the negative feeling, and/or a calming sensation. After that sequences happened a few times, the negative emotion got conditioned to result in an obsessive need to eat because eating relieved the discomfort of the negative feeling. The negative emotion became an unconscious and automatic trigger for the eating.

Graphically it looks like this:

Negative emotion + accidental eating (results in)> pleasurable distraction x repetition = (results in conditioning) Negative emotion (results in)> an obsessive need to eat

In other words, when a negative feeling is followed by normal eating and that eating produces a pleasurable distraction or a sense of calming, and that sequence happens repeatedly, eating gets transformed from an activity we engage in only when we are hungry, to a compulsion that gets triggered when that negative feeling is experienced, in order to gain the pleasurable distraction.

The second type of conditioning: to gain a reward

There is a second type of conditioning involved in emotional eating. This occurs when eating is consistently followed by some type of “reward,” resulting in a compulsive need to eat whenever those “rewards” are desired. Some typical “rewards” include the desire to celebrate, the desire to give oneself pleasure, and wanting to be in control.

In other words, rewards have been conditioned so that desiring them will result in a compulsive need to eat.

Graphically it looks like this:

Eating (results in)> reward x repetition = (results in conditioning) the desire for the reward (results in)> the obsessive need to eat

I created the Lefkoe De-conditioning Process (LDP) specifically to de-condition these two types of conditioning that are responsible for emotional eating. See http://emotionaleatingreport.com to learn how the LDP works.)

Beliefs are a secondary cause of emotional eating

In most cases of emotional eating beliefs are a secondary cause. Some typical beliefs that lead to emotional eating include:

To lose weight you can’t eat anything “bad.”
The way to keep food from running my life (like it did my mom’s) is to eat whatever I want to eat.
If I don’t eat when there’s food around there won’t be any later.
Eating is a way to not be alone.
The best way to avoid sex is to be heavy so men wouldn’t be interested in me.

Although the elimination of some beliefs might be required to totally eliminate someone’s emotional eating, conditioning is the primary cause of the problem.

Other learning theories

There are other theories psychologists could use to explain the “conditioning” or “learning” that I contend causes emotional eating, including Information Processing Theory and Behavioral Theory. Each theory comes at learning or conditioning in a totally different way than I do. If either theory has both an explanation for how emotional eating becomes an unconscious, automatic, obsessive behavior that emotional eaters are helpless to overcome on their own and a technique for effectively stopping that behavior, I am not aware of it.

The problems can be overcome

Although the twin problems of obesity and overweight are the result of more factors than emotional eating, if people were not conditioned to eat when they weren’t hungry, they would gain far fewer pounds. The Lefkoe De-conditioning Process quickly, easily, and permanently de-conditions that conditioning. Now let’s find a way to make it available to the hundreds of millions of people who need it desperately.

Your comments and questions increase the value we all receive. I read them all and respond to as many as I can.

If you found this post useful, please tell your friends and followers by using the buttons at the top of this post.

If you would like information about having a Certified Lefkoe Method Facilitator help you permanently eliminate any behavioral or emotional problem in your life, please call us at 415-884-0552.

To get my blog posts as podcasts, sign up for the RSS feed above or look up “Morty Lefkoe” at iTunes to have the podcasts sent to you weekly.

How to find the beliefs causing your problems

Morty Lefkoe — Tue, 18 Sep 2012 19:45:01 +0000

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Perhaps the most frequent question I get from readers of this blog is: You’ve convinced me that the behaviors and emotions I want to change are caused mainly by my beliefs. But how do I identify the specific beliefs that cause the problems?

For a full answer to that question you are going to have to wait until the second part of the Lefkoe Method Training is complete early next year. It will take almost 20 hours to teach you everything we know about how to find all the beliefs that cause any given problem. (For information about the next Lefkoe Method Training, Part 1, where you will learn how to eliminate your own and the beliefs of others, visit http://lefkoeuniversity.com.)

Nonetheless, there is one tip I can give you right now that will be very useful in identifying many of the relevant beliefs.

Our occurrings are the direct cause of our behavior and emotions

A few months ago I realized that, contrary to popular opinion, beliefs don’t affect our behavior and emotions directly. How events occur to us—in other words, the meaning we unconsciously and automatically give meaningless events—are the immediate cause of our emotions and behavior. Beliefs affect us indirectly by being the main source of our occurrings.

For example, imagine you are about to start a project and it occurs to you as: I’m going to fail. People are going to think I’m stupid when I don’t succeed.

Can you get how that meaning would inhibit you from taking action? On the other hand, if you had given the event the meaning that this project is going to be a total success and people will acknowledge you for the quality of the project, you would not be afraid to take action. You would move right ahead.

Beliefs cause your occurrings

So why would you give the event (the need to take action on the project) that particular negative meaning rather than any other meaning? The probable source is beliefs such as Mistakes and failure are bad, If I make a mistake or fail I’ll be rejected, I’m stupid, and What makes me good enough or important is having people think well of me.

I said that our occurrings are the source of both behavior and emotions. If we look further at the event I just mentioned (starting a new project) and if you have the occurring I stated above (I’m going to fail), can you see that you probably would experience fear when you thought about starting the project? The fear is not caused by the event itself and is not directly caused by the beliefs. It is caused by the meaning you gave to wanting to start the project, namely, I’m going to fail.

So if you wanted to identify the beliefs that ultimately caused the feeling of fear, first identify your occurrings and then ask yourself: What beliefs would cause these occurrings?

Use your occurrings to find your beliefs

Because our occurrings determine our behavior and feelings and because our beliefs are the major source of our occurrings, the best way to identify the beliefs that ultimately cause our behavior and feelings is to identify the occurrings that immediately precede the action or feeling and then ask yourself: What would I have to believe to give that specific meaning?

Try it and then let my readers and me know what happens. Your comments increase the value we all receive. I read all comments and respond to as many as I can.

If you found this post useful, please tell your friends and followers by using the buttons at the top of this post.

If you would like information about having a Certified Lefkoe Method Facilitator help you permanently eliminate any behavioral or emotional problem in your life, please call us at 415-884-0552.

To get my blog posts as podcasts, sign up for the RSS feed above or look up “Morty Lefkoe” at iTunes to have the podcasts sent to you weekly.

Life is a game… and you make the rules

Morty Lefkoe — Tue, 11 Sep 2012 20:21:16 +0000

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As I read your comments to last week’s post—in which I contended that forgiveness is never necessary because people’s behavior has no meaning—I could hear many of you thinking, “If events have no meaning, what’s the point of life? Why do anything? Why care about anything? In fact, how can you possibly care about anything if nothing has meaning?”

These are thoughtful questions that I will answer in today’s post. (Please also take a look at my responses to last week’s comments at http://www.mortylefkoe.com/dont-forgive/#.)

The difference between consequences and meaning

Events, including people’s behavior, usually have consequences. In my case, for example, my mom had to work two jobs when I was young and I had to work full time while going to graduate business school as a result of my dad not providing financial support. But his not giving us financial support had no meaning, by which I mean, I can’t draw any conclusion for sure from his behavior. I don’t know anything I didn’t know before, from his behavior.

We have had clients who had been sexually abused earlier in life. The meaning they gave the abuse (the beliefs they formed) was that they were damaged goods, that men couldn’t be trusted, that life was dangerous, etc. When they realized the event had horrific consequences but it had no inherent meaning, and when the beliefs had all disappeared, they experienced a freedom they couldn’t have imagined possible. The event hadn’t been running their life; the meanings they had given the event had been.

The role of values

A belief is a statement about reality that feels true, but exists only in our mind. It is the meaning we gave to a series of meaningless events. We have beliefs about ourselves (e.g., I’m not good enough), people (e.g., people can’t be trusted), and life (e.g., life is difficult). These are meanings we gave to events in our lives.

A value is a belief about what we think is right and wrong, good and bad. Examples include parents should (or shouldn’t) …, the function of government should be …, people should …, it is wrong to ….

These and any other value statements are beliefs. You can’t “see” in the world that they are true. Many people would disagree with any value statement you make. They exist only in your mind.

If value statements are always a type of belief and beliefs are always meaning we make up to explain meaningless events, then value statements are arbitrary and cannot be absolute truth. I’m not saying this is easy to accept, or that it doesn’t feel “wrong,” or that it seems to create many insolvable problems. Maybe it does. Wanting values to be objective and wanting your values to be the “right” values don’t make them so.

Ken Wilber has summarized the conclusions of many people who study the development of consciousness. They have demonstrated that society and individuals go through stages of consciousness, with each stage having its own unique worldview. The three stages that exist in most third world counties today are Traditional (ethnocentric, family values, accepting religious dogma as absolute truth), Modern (world-centric, the Industrial Revolution, science, rationality) and Post Modern (pluralistic, civil rights for all, a concern for the well-being of all people and for the environment). People in each stage of development think that their worldview is correct and the others are wrong. If you have any question about this, look at how conservatives (largely at the Traditional stage) and liberals (largely at the Post Modern stage) view each other. (See almost any of Wilber’s many books for more information on stages of development.)

You forgot your life is a game

When you play a game, be it a sport like golf or tennis, or a card game like poker, or a board game like Clue or Monopoly, you feel good when you win and bad when you lose. Why? Because you have arbitrarily accepted that something is better than something else. You try to get the little white ball in a hole hundreds of yards away in less tries than someone else. Is it really “better” to do that? No, there is nothing about the nature of reality that makes it better. It’s better because we say so, and only because we say so. The same is true for any sport or any game.

Yet despite the fact that we arbitrary made up rules that said something is better than something else, we get excited when we “win” (in other words, do what the rules require better than others) and sad or even upset when we “lose.” What does it really mean if we win or lose? Take a moment and think about it. … Can you get that it really means nothing. But because we “pretend” that it matters, we give all we can give, mentally and physically, to winning and not losing, and we have positive emotions when we win and negative emotions when we lose.

And yet, despite those reactions, some part of us knows that we are playing a game. We know that at some point we will put the game away and go back to “real life,” to our family and career. So although we have emotional reactions to how well we play the game, the feelings only go down so far and not farther, because we know it is a game. The emotions engendered by a game are rarely as intense as those in “real life.”

Life is a game just like all the other games. The only difference is that life is the only game that we don’t realize is a game. Each of us has made up, largely unconsciously, a set of rules (our values)—based on our worldview and our beliefs—and we think our rules are right and inherently true. And everyone else’s are wrong. Sorry to break the bad news: Ours aren’t right and theirs aren’t wrong.

I’m not suggesting that we do anything different than what we are already doing. All I’m suggesting is that we acknowledge that what we think is real is actually a game. We made up the rules and now we can play the “life game” full out; we can be happy when we “win” and dissatisfied when we “lose.” But realize it is only because we said so.

And here’s the bottom line: It is always possible to remember that we made up the rules, even if they were made up unconsciously and adopted largely by osmosis from our culture and our parents. And when we do that, we also can remember that events have no inherent meaning, at which point the pain and suffering resulting from “losing at the game of life” can be dissolved on the spot.

Please let me and my readers know what you think. Your comments increase the value we all receive. I read all comments and respond to as many as I can.

If you found this post useful, please tell your friends and followers by using the buttons at the top of this post.

If you would like information about having a Certified Lefkoe Method Facilitator help you permanently eliminate any behavioral or emotional problem in your life, please call us at 415-884-0552.

To get my blog posts as podcasts, sign up for the RSS feed above or look up “Morty Lefkoe” at iTunes to have the podcasts sent to you weekly.

Why you don’t need to forgive anyone

Morty Lefkoe — Thu, 06 Sep 2012 15:05:13 +0000

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My wife Shelly really disliked my father. Before he died over 20 years ago she was polite when we were with him, but when we were alone she made no secret of her disdain for him.

Why Shelly disliked my father

She thought she had good reason for her resentment. In her eyes he had treated me very badly: He had not helped me financially as a child, while I was working my way through college, or during my early adult years when I struggled. Most people who knew about my relationship with my father agreed with her that my father was “cheap” and had treated me “badly.”

My parents had divorced when I was three. My dad provided my mom with virtually no child support ($15 a week) despite his ability to do much more. He had little involvement in my upbringing. When I was 14 he told me he was leaving town (we lived in Miami Beach at the time) because, he said, “Your mom is driving me out of town with her constant requests for money.” By this time he was giving her $30 a week and she was working two jobs to make ends meet.

He didn’t tell me where he was going when he left and the only way I could reach him was to give a letter to my aunt (his sister who still lived in Miami Beach) and she would mail it to him. My dad didn’t help me financially with college (despite telling me hundreds of times how important it was to get a college education) and I saw him only three times in the next 27 years.

I reestablished contact with my father

After attending a workshop on completing your relationship with your parents, I tracked my dad down and reestablished contact. I saw him once a year and talked every couple of months. After I married Shelly we were in even closer contact. He enjoyed spending time with my oldest daughter Blake during the first few years of her life.

Although as a child I missed having a dad in my life and although I was upset as a child about how hard my mom had to work when my dad could have helped a lot more, by the time I married Shelly and had children, I held no resentment toward him.

Shelly and I gave my father’s behavior different meanings

You see, the meaning Shelly gave my father’s behavior is that he was a bad father who didn’t really care about his son. The meaning I gave my father’s behavior is that he did the best he could do given his beliefs, especially his beliefs about money. Because he lived through the depression, he was always worried about money, even after he accumulated over a million dollars.

Moreover, my dad had never finished high school and was a “self-made” man. He was a successful businessman who had never received assistance from anyone. He told me shortly before he died that he was concerned that if he helped me financially in college and beyond, I would never know that I could make it on my own.

Here’s the point of my story. After Shelly learned how my father had treated my mom and me as I was growing up, she asked me how I could forgive my father. I replied: “There is nothing to forgive. Even though I wasn’t happy about what he did at the time, he did what he thought was best for me.”

What I didn’t realize at the time and I do today is that events have no inherent meaning. In order to forgive you need to have been wronged. If events have no meaning, wrong exists only in your mind—it is a meaning you give to the other person’s behavior. No meaning, no wrong. No wrong, nothing to forgive.

(I’m sure that some readers will think of situations that must have inherent meaning. See two earlier blog posts that delve deeper into what I mean by events have no meaning and some of the implications of that fact. http://www.mortylefkoe.com/why-create-meaning/#, http://www.mortylefkoe.com/real-meaning/#)

Here’s how someone else saw the same issue

Here is a comment posted by someone in my occurring class about forgiveness once he got that all meaning was in his mind, not in the world.

“I do not expect any admissions or apologies anymore. The events have been made neutral, non meaningful and its impact will evaporate with that understanding. … It is important for me to understand letting something pass into non meaning does not mean forgiving that event, because if something does not mean anything it does not need to be forgiven. It just is not important.”

You don’t need to forgive yourself either

By the way, just as you don’t need to forgive others because they didn’t do anything “wrong,” so too you also don’t need to forgive yourself for anything because you’ve never done anything that needs forgiveness. Dissolve the meaning that seems to make forgiveness necessary and there will be nothing left to forgive.

This is likely to be a very controversial post. I’d really love to know if you agree or disagree with my point of view and why.

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How is TLM different from psychotherapy?

Morty Lefkoe — Wed, 29 Aug 2012 04:21:41 +0000

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The Lefkoe Method (TLM) is very different both from most personal growth techniques and most forms of psychotherapy.

To begin with, TLM is not merely about personal growth—although it does deliver that. It goes well beyond that in promising that specific behavioral and emotional problems—such as depression, eating disorders, a wide variety of negative emotions like fear and anger, and many dysfunctional behaviors—can be totally eliminated. Although personal growth products are all different in their claims, for the most part they offer emotional and behavioral improvements, not the total elimination of existing problems.

In that respect TLM (which consists of the Lefkoe Belief Process and a number of other psychological processes) is closer to psychotherapy, although it is different from most forms of therapy also.

Here is a list of some of the most important differences and links to other blog posts that discuss each difference in more detail.

1. The Lefkoe Belief Process (LBP) assumes most psychological issues are the result of beliefs (and sometimes conditioning) and can be totally resolved by eliminating the relevant beliefs. Our work is different in two important respects from other disciplines that claim to eliminate beliefs, such as Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT):

First, we contend that beliefs can be permanently eliminated in a matter of minutes.
Second, because we contend that when beliefs are eliminated the problems they cause are not merely diminished but totally eliminated, we guarantee to help clients totally eliminate their fear of public speaking, not merely reduce the extent of the fear. http://www.mortylefkoe.com/dont-reduce-problem/
Third, the beliefs and conditionings that cause problems are totally eliminated during TLM sessions and require no client “homework,” whereas CBT requires clients to constantly challenge their undesirable/dysfunctional thinking processes as they recognize them in daily life. http://www.mortylefkoe.com/the-lefkoe-method-is-not-cognitive-behavioral-therapy/#

2. TLM theory of survival strategies explains most compulsive behavior and offers a rapid approach to eliminate that type of behavior. After forming beliefs that result in low self-esteem and a negative sense of oneself (such as I’m not good enough and I’m not important), we do something that makes us feel good about ourselves and we then conclude: What makes me good or important enough is … (having people think well of me, being successful, being smart, etc.). We are then compulsively driven to do whatever we decide makes us good enough or important. Eliminating the underlying negative self-esteem beliefs and the survival strategy beliefs stops this type of behavior completely. http://www.mortylefkoe.com/how-do-beliefs-produce-driven-compulsive-behavior/#

3. Emotions are caused both by beliefs and by stimulus conditioning. The Lefkoe Stimulus Process can decondition those stimuli. It is also possible to have a negative sense of oneself or life and to have negative expectations. The Lefkoe Sense Process deconditions negative senses and the Lefkoe Expectation Process deconditions negative expectations. In both cases the process takes only a few minutes. http://www.mortylefkoe.com/get-rid-of-negative-senses-and-expectations/, http://www.mortylefkoe.com/032310/, www.mortylefkoe.com/lefkoe-method-part-1/, http://www.mortylefkoe.com/rid-negative-senses/

4. It is possible to condition stimuli to cause specific behavior, such as conditioning negative feelings to cause emotional eating. The Lefkoe Deconditioning Process can decondition those “triggers.” Individual triggers, such as boredom, anxiety and depression, can be permanently deconditioned in a matter of minutes. http://www.mortylefkoe.com/emotional-eating/

5. Many people understand that events have no inherent meaning and that most of our emotions and all of our behavior come from how those events occur to us moment by moment. The Lefkoe Occurring Process has proved effective in enabling people to learn how to easily and quickly distinguish between events and the meaning they unconsciously and automatically assigned the events, and then to automatically dissolve that meaning in seconds. If the LOP is used frequently enough, there is actually a reduction in the frequency of our “occurrings.” Although I am not aware of any form of psychotherapy that does this, it is the goal of various Eastern disciplines. http://www.mortylefkoe.com/important-improve-life/

6. The Who Am I Really? Process enables people to quickly and easily get into an altered state of consciousness after using the LBP to eliminate a belief. In that altered state they have the profound experience that anything is possible, nothing is missing, and they have no limitations. Many people describe this state, which takes only minutes to enter, as similar to meditative states that can take years to achieve. The LBP not only produces practical benefits, it is highly spiritual in nature. There maybe some forms of therapy that offer this, but most do not. http://www.mortylefkoe.com/get-into-an-altered-state-of-consciousness-in-minutes/, http://www.mortylefkoe.com/relationship-buddhism/

7. The Lefkoe Method includes several useful processes for organizations, including a process that can easily be taught to all employees: how to eliminate beliefs starting with “I (we) can’t ….” and a process to change the behavior of large groups of employees when the environment changes and radical behavior change is needed. http://www.mortylefkoe.com/effective-work-tlm/

8. Some TLM processes are offered to clients via streaming video and DVDs, which enables people to eliminate serious psychological problems inexpensively and anywhere in the world without needing a live facilitator.

9. People with minimal academic qualifications can be trained in only a few months to become a LM facilitator and help people make massive improvements in their lives.

The Lefkoe Method clearly has the potential to transform the quality of life on the planet.

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If you would like information about having a Certified Lefkoe Method Facilitator help you permanently eliminate any behavioral or emotional problem in your life, please call us at 415-884-0552.

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What is the most important thing you can do to improve your life?

Morty Lefkoe — Wed, 22 Aug 2012 22:59:24 +0000

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I can’t think of a single thing that can make as profound a difference in your life as being able to dissolve your “occurrings”—the meaning you unconsciously and automatically give events, which you think are The Truth.

Our “occurrings” are

the source of most of our negative emotions, which means they are the source of most of our suffering;
they are the vehicle through which our beliefs determine our behavior and feelings;
they are the source of most disagreements and arguments between people; and
they are one of the biggest barriers to being able to successfully resolve problems in our life.

There is nothing else you can do—regardless of how much you pay or how much time it takes—that will improve the quality of your life as much. In this post I will explain why and provide some tips on how you can quickly dissolve your occurrings.

Although I’ve written on this topic before, this will be the best overall summary of what occurrings are, where they come from, what determines the content of a given occurring, why occurrings are a problem and how to dissolve occurrings.

What is an occurring?

Here are a few examples:

Reality: My co-worker is asking me to find some information for him instead of doing it himself.
Occurring: He doesn’t respect my time.

Reality: It is the last day of my vacation and I get an e-mail from my co-worker asking me to do some work.
Occurring: She is inconsiderate of me.

Reality: I’m supposed to study with a friend of mine today and he’s not calling me.
Occurring: He doesn’t want to study with me.

Reality: My friend cancelled on me.
Occurring: He doesn’t value my time or our friendship.

What’s important to get here is that occurrings seem as if they are a part of reality; they seem as real as what is actually happening in the world. That’s what gives them their power: We react to them as if they are The Truth when in fact they are meanings that exist only in our minds.

Where do our occurrings come from?

Occurrings are meanings that we unconsciously and automatically assign to events that have no inherent meaning.

I don’t know for sure, but I suspect they served the evolutionary purpose of giving us immediate “information” about our surroundings to protect our lives. When a second could be the difference between escaping a wild animal or being killed, and when we didn’t have a fully developed frontal cortex that would enable us to think rationally, our occurrings (and the emotions that they give rise to) gave us instantaneous feedback so we could take immediate action.

And to make sure we heeded the occurring, nature made occurrings seem like an aspect of reality, not a separate meaning in our mind.

Today even though we almost always have at least a few seconds to think about the situations we are facing before action is required, our mind continues to provide us with unconsciously-created meaning.

What determines our occurrings?

Why do we give an event one meaning and not another? There are several sources of our occurrings, the main one being our beliefs. Our moods and physical condition are also important factors.

Beliefs are the meaning we give (usually) to a series of events. Beliefs are broad generalizations, for example, I am …. People are …. Life is …. A belief is a statement about reality that we feel is the truth, although it is possible to intellectually disagree with something we believe. Once formed, beliefs continue to exist and affect our behavior, feelings and perceptions forever, unless we are able to eliminate the belief. We view life through the filter of our beliefs.

Our occurrings, on the other hand, are the meaning we give to an event in reality, in other words, how reality occurs to us at a given moment. Each occurring is a distinct meaning that usually lasts only a short time and then fades away by itself when we stop thinking about the event. An example of an occurring is your boss asking you a question and it occurring to you as she doesn’t trust me, she doesn’t like me, or I’m going to get fired. That is the meaning you have given to the boss’s question. In reality all that happened is that she asked you a question. Contrast that occurring—the meaning you gave to that specific event—to beliefs that act as a filter through which we view all events, such as No one trusts me. No one likes me. Nothing I do is good enough. I am inadequate.

Although beliefs are the main source of our occurrings, it is possible to dissolve occurrings without knowing which beliefs caused them. Also, you do not need to eliminate any beliefs before dissolving your occurrings. On the other hand, if you have similar occurrings in similar situations repeatedly (such as new projects always occurring to you as: I can’t do this), then the way to stop the repeated occurrings is to eliminate the beliefs that lead to them.

Why are our occurrings a problem?

There are at least three ways that our occurrings create problems in our lives:

First, because events have no inherent meaning, they cannot cause us to feel anything. So most negative feelings like anxiety, anger, and upset are the result of our occurrings, not meaningless events. Moreover, when we are overcome with frequent negative feelings we experience suffering.

Second, these negative feelings can make it difficult to think clearly about the events underlying the occurring that caused the feelings. When action needs to be taken (see the four examples above where action needs to be taken with the co-worker or friend), being angry at the people involved or afraid of the situation makes it much more difficult to determine the most effective course of action.

Third, it is difficult to resolve situations effectively if we are confusing the actual situations with a meaning that does not really exist in the world. Look at the four examples I gave earlier and notice that it would be more difficult to communicate with the co-worker or friend if you thought the meaning you had given the event was The Truth. When you dissolve the occurring and are focused only on the event itself, it is a lot easier to find an effective resolution to the event.

How to dissolve occurrings

The technique for dissolving occurrings in seconds is quite simple: Make a clear distinction between the actual event in reality and the meaning/occurring that exists only in your mind. When it is fully real to you that the occurring is not the inherent meaning of the event, that it is a separate phenomenon that you made up, it will dissolve. Why? Because an occurring by definition is a meaning that seems like part of reality. As soon as you distinguish it as meaning and not part of reality, it is no longer an occurring.

If there were only one message I could communicate to everyone in the world, it would be what I’ve written this week in this blog post. Unfortunately knowing all I’ve explained here about occurrings will not change anything in your life. Dissolving them one by one as they show up will transform the quality of your life. What are you waiting for?

(To read some of my other posts on this topic where I go into more detail on specific aspects of occurring, type “occurring” into the search box to the right)

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If you would like information about having a Certified Lefkoe Method Facilitator help you permanently eliminate any behavioral or emotional problem in your life, please call us at 415-884-0552.

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Do you express your love for people?

Morty Lefkoe — Tue, 14 Aug 2012 22:32:33 +0000

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Shortly after I married Shelly over 31 years ago people started to describe her as representing the heart in our relationship and me, the mind. We were great leading workshops together because I taught distinctions and abstractions, and she told stories to illustrate my abstractions and usually created a better relationship with people in the class.

Even though expressing love was not one of my strong suits, I have always experienced a profound love for Shelly and our two girls, Blake and Brittany. Over the past few years, however, that love has gotten so immense inside me that I am frustrated because I can’t find words to express it fully enough. “I love you” just doesn’t adequately express my feelings.

At the same time I have been experiencing so much love in general that I have just been looking for people to express it to. It’s like “I love” and then I need people to direct that intense feeling toward.

My first awareness

I first started becoming aware this overpowering feeling of love at my semi-annual meetings of the Transformational Leadership Council, which I joined over eight years ago as a founding member. I started to notice feeling love and directing it toward whoever showed up in front of me. I think the precipitating factor was being surrounded by so many people who shared my commitment to make a difference in people’s lives, which meant I really knew their essence and they really knew one of the most important things I valued about myself.

So although I still see myself as a creative and committed person who is focused on getting The Lefkoe Method into the hands of as many people as possible and creating new processes to free people from their barriers to happiness, I have been experiencing myself more and more as someone who loves people a lot—as a truly loving person.

My birthday party

Then, a couple of months ago, Shelly threw me a surprise 75^th birthday party. There were about 30 of my friends there. One of them, Dave Ellis, started a toast with a process he had done many time before. He said to me: “What I love about you is everything. And what I love about you is…. And what I love about you is ….” He repeated this at least ten times, stating each time something different he loved about me. Then each of the other people at the party did the same thing.

The experience of hearing 30 people share what they loved about me was overwhelming. It was one of the most profoundly special evenings of my life. What made it especially meaningful was the fact that every person who described what they loved about me included how loving I was. Yes, they mentioned my commitment, my relationship with Shelly and my daughters, and the difference I make in people’s lives … but every single person said they loved how loving I was. Because that’s how I’ve been seeing myself and I wasn’t sure others saw it, I felt more seen and “gotten” by more people that night than I ever have in my life.

A very special gift

And then last week I got a package from a close male friend. In it was a note that read: “You are the most loving man I know. I just wanted to say thank you.” Enclosed was a very special gift. That was the final straw that made real to me that my love for others was so palpable that others experienced it also.

Where did this outpouring of love come from? What got it started a few years ago and what allows me to express it so fully that all my friends experience it?

I’m not sure, but here’s what I think. I stopped judging others. I stopped giving meaning to what others do. I allow people to be who and what they are. They don’t have to be or do anything special for them to be okay with me. (See my post http://www.mortylefkoe.com/love-unconditionally/# regarding love for no reason.)

Allow yourself to get in touch with your love for people. We all have it and if you aren’t in touch with it, it’s right under your judgments and evaluations of people and right under beliefs like If I allowed others to know how much I loved them I’d get hurt and Real men don’t display their feelings.

When we are in touch with who we really are and in touch with who others really are—without any judgments or evaluations—all there is is love. There’s nothing better. Try it and see for yourself.

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If you would like information about having a Certified Lefkoe Method Facilitator help you permanently eliminate any behavioral or emotional problem in your life, please call us at 415-884-0552.

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Are you run by your feelings?

Morty Lefkoe — Tue, 07 Aug 2012 20:03:37 +0000

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Negative emotions like anxiety can be really painful. I know because I felt anxiety and many other negative feelings intensely and frequently for most of my life. My depression seemed to take over my entire mind and body. It seemed to envelope me so completely that I felt as if there were no way to escape it. I also felt as if it would never end. My anxiety and depression was so great in my 20s that I thought about ending my life on many occasions.

Based upon the thousands of communications we’ve received in the past few years (and those we’ve read on several personal growth forums), it appears that many people are overwhelmed by negative feelings.

Although I’ve written about negative emotions several times in the past, see (http://www.mortylefkoe.com/neg-emotions/# and http://www.mortylefkoe.com/live-state-bliss/#), today I want to discuss emotions in a slightly different way in order to help free you from any that may be running your life.

Emotions seem justified

Have you noticed that we usually think our emotions are communicating some information, for example, if we feel afraid to take action, the fear seems to be telling us that taking action is dangerous? If we feel angry at something someone did, the anger seems to be telling us that that person did something to hurt us?

This results in us both wanting to get rid of the emotion because it feels so bad and, at the same time, wanting to hold on to the emotion because it seems we are “right” to feel it given our appraisal of the events. For example, did you ever notice that if you view doing something you’ve never done before as risky, it “makes sense” for you to feel anxiety? It’s almost as if you “should” feel anxious in that situation. If you think someone treated you unfairly, don’t you feel as if you “should” feel angry at them?

You create your feelings

If reality were really causing our emotions, this reaction would make perfect sense. In fact, however, because events have no inherent meaning, events can’t cause us to feel anything. Most feelings are the result of the meaning we attribute to events, not the events themselves.

For example, losing a job has no inherent meaning. It could mean we will never find another job and become destitute. It could mean it will take a lot of time and effort to find a job. It could mean we will find a better job where we will be much happier. It could mean we will change careers and discover we care more about the new career (and job) than we ever did about the old one. What does losing your job really mean? Until you give it a meaning, it has no inherent meaning.

If you give losing your job the meaning that you will never find another good one, you will be incredibly anxious. If you give it the meaning that you can now change careers to do what you always wanted to do and had been afraid to try, you will feel excited and turned on. And if you give the event no meaning at all, you will feel nothing at all.

Therefore, your feelings tell you nothing about yourself, life, reality, the future, etc. Your feelings tell you only one thing: That you have given meaning to an event. No meaning, no feelings.

And if your feelings are the result of the meaning you have given an event, then you create your feelings. And that news is about as good as you can get. Why? Because if you create your feelings, you can get rid of them.

As I’ve explained in detail before, when you distinguish the meaning you give events from the events themselves, the meaning will literally dissolve. And when the meaning dissolves, the emotions it causes will dissolve also. (See a short video that introduces my occurring course that describes in detail how this process works. http://occurringcourse.com. Please ignore the information about the scholarship, as the course isn’t being offered at this time.)

When you master the ability to make that distinction, you will have mastered life. I rarely experience anxiety or any other negative emotion any more. And if I can do it, you can too.

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If you would like information about having a Certified Lefkoe Method Facilitator help you permanently eliminate an emotional eating problem or any other problem in your life, please call us at 415-884-0552.

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Is Doing it Perfectly Actually Better?

Morty Lefkoe — Tue, 31 Jul 2012 23:00:17 +0000

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Today’s post is written by my daughter, Brittany Lefkoe. She has grown up around The Lefkoe Method (she had her first session at nine years old) and is a Certified Lefkoe Method Facilitator (she is Shelly’s facilitator when Shelly has a belief she needs help eliminating). She has been helping friends get rid of behavioral and emotional problems since she was in high school. She graduated from Washington University in St. Louis in May and is now living in San Diego with her fiancé, Erik. She has opened a private practice using The Lefkoe Method with her clients.

* * *

One day, my body finally gave out on me. It was tired. And so was I.

Before that, overachieving was simply part of my personality. It was who I was and nothing was going to change that. I was in college, taking all the hardest classes, reading every assignment page-for-page, and always getting my homework done on time. I worked three part-time jobs, played sports, kept my apartment clean, cooked, and somehow managed to have a relationship and friends. It wasn’t something I had to think about, it was just something I did.

Then, I got sick. I was competing at National Championships for the Triathlon Team at my school and I barely finished the race. After that, going for a ten-minute walk left me sitting at my doorstep in tears from exhaustion.

I had been told time and time again that I was working too hard and I needed to take some time for myself. But to be honest, I didn’t even know what that meant.

Perfectionism comes in many forms. For some people, it is feeling like failing isn’t an option, not matter what the cost. For others, it is believing that you can and should take on the world entirely by yourself, no matter how hard it gets. Sometimes it is driven by the fear of making a mistake or not being good at something. And often, it is masking one’s fear of being exposed.

Being a perfectionist is different from caring about having a professionally-finished product. Perfectionism is a behavior pattern that is caused by negative beliefs such as, “If I make a mistake or fail I will be rejected,” “I’m not good enough,” “What makes me good enough is doing things perfectly,” and “Mistakes and failures are bad.”

Working hard to put out something you are proud of is a positive thing. Doing it out of fear isn’t.

Many people think that their perfectionism drives their good work. However, we have found the opposite to be true. Perfectionism tends to cripple our creative potential, prevent us from taking risks and trying new things, and keep us stuck. Most importantly, it causes unnecessary stress, which eats up most of our energy.

Doing well in school served me well. But, being bedridden didn’t. Once I eliminated the beliefs that were underlying my perfectionism, I didn’t stop producing good results. I still did well in school, was successful at my jobs, and got done everything that needed to get done. The only difference was that I didn’t think my worth and value were dependent upon how successful or perfect I was. I was no longer afraid of making mistakes, I wasn’t stressed out all the time, and I had extra energy to fuel my passion.

Your passion and potential are fueled by confidence and determination, not by a fear of making mistakes

Michael Jordan said, “I have missed more than 9000 shots in my career. I have lost almost 300 games. Twenty six times I have been trusted to take the game winning shot and missed. I have failed over and over again in my life; and that is why I succeed.”

Thomas Edison said after inventing the light bulb, “I have not failed. I have just found 10,000 ways that won’t work.”

Perfectionism doesn’t serve us. It debilitates us. Finding and eliminating the underlying beliefs doesn’t make us less productive, it opens up the space for us to become our own Michael Jordan and Thomas Edison.

Emotional eating: the cause and the cure

Morty Lefkoe — Thu, 19 Jul 2012 00:00:18 +0000

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Joanne was 52 when she called me to help her with her weight problem. She said she needed to lose 80-90 pounds, but her real complaint was, “I need to eat all the time. I know I’m full and I keep eating anyway.”

As I questioned her she revealed that it was easier for her to eat and be fat than to have to explain to herself why men didn’t love her. “Men are not interested in fat women, so if I’m fat a lack of interest from men won’t mean anything about ME.” She said she used food to celebrate and also to show love for herself when she didn’t get it from others. Her sense of self was very poor and she had most of the typical negative self-esteem beliefs.

She had been on many diets, all of which had worked for a short time, but none had lasted for long. She hated being fat but couldn’t stop eating.

In short, her story sounded just like that of tens of millions of other women (and many men).

The problem is immense and getting worse

Because at least one third of our adult population is obese and another third is overweight, overeating and excess weight are is one of the biggest problems facing our society.

The total economic cost of these excessive pounds is estimated to be $270 billion annually in the U.S. alone. Moreover, Marketdata Enterprises, a market research firm that has tracked the weight-loss products and services market since 1989, estimates that the total U.S. weight loss market was $60.9 billion in 2010.

But the dollars spent is only part of the story. People with an emotional eating problem have their lives run by the constant need to eat. No matter how hard they try to fight the urge, in the long run they always lose, which usually results in guilt. Most people who are overweight are dissatisfied with their weight and beat themselves up for not being able to lose the weight.

It would not be an overstatement to say that one of the major sources of unhappiness in developed countries today is emotional eating and excessive weight.

Because these two closely-related problems can be overcome and because I haven’t written about this topic for over a year and a half (http://www.mortylefkoe.com/cure-overeating/#), I decided that it was time to revisit the topic.

The sources of overeating

There are several different sources of overweight, including:

Insufficient or no physical exercise
Eating unhealthy food, especially fast foods with high carbohydrate content
Medical problems, such as thyroid dysfunction
Emotional eating

There is a plethora of useful information about the first three. There is very little information that is truly useful about the fourth. Unfortunately, most of the programs and therapies don’t produce lasting results, which have led to millions of frustrated emotional eaters. In fact, however, emotional eating can be stopped … forever.

Two types of emotional eating

Based on many years of working with clients I am convinced that almost all overeating is at least partially the result of emotional eating, in other words, most overeating is due to emotional reasons. Such overeating is of two types:

Eating to cover up negative feelings, such as loneliness, anxiety, feeling unloved, and boredom, and
Eating to reward oneself, such as eating to celebrate or to give oneself pleasure.

Emotional eating is caused primarily by operant conditioning. When we had negative feelings earlier in our lives and then ate, there was a positive payoff, such as a pleasurable distraction from the negative feeling. After experiencing that payoff on many occasions, the negative feelings (such as boredom and anxiety) became a “trigger” that got conditioned to produce a compulsive desire to eat.

The same principle is applicable regarding rewards. When we wanted to celebrate or experience pleasure and then we experienced what we wanted after eating, wanting to celebrate or to experience pleasure got conditioned to produce a compulsive desire to eat.

This operant conditioning always seems to be present when someone overeats on a regular basis.

Beliefs also play a role

Beliefs also are usually present in the case of emotional eating. Some typical beliefs include:

focusing on eating/weight is the best way to avoid engaging fully in life,
the way to be accepted by others is to be imperfect and for me that’s being heavy,
eating is the best way to get pleasure,
if I can’t eat what I want when I want it I’m deprived and powerless,
the best way to avoid sex is to be heavy,
the best way to feel better when I don’t feel good is to eat,
the best way to celebrate is to eat,
eating is the best way to suppress feelings,
if I don’t eat the food right now there won’t be any later.

There really is a solution

The Lefkoe De-conditioning Process can easily de-condition both the “rewards” and the negative feelings that act as “eating triggers.” The Lefkoe Belief Process can easily eliminate any beliefs that cause emotional eating.

I’ve written an eBook that describes in detail the true causes of overeating and explains how using the two processes I just mentioned make possible an effective solution. The eBook is free and is available at http://emotionaleatingreport.com.

If you or a friend or a loved one have an eating/food/weight problem, please take a look at the free eBook and at the same time sign up to get my weekly blog. The blog includes posts from me and interviews with noted experts in the field. I’ve posted five interviews (both audio and transcripts) in the past few weeks. You can see all the existing posts and sign up to receive future ones at http://emotionaleatingreport.com/blog/.

When I discuss the problems we face in life, I often mention that The Lefkoe Method is a useful tool to get rid of those problems. There may be other solutions. What’s important is not which tool you use, but that you realize that solutions do exist … and that you then utilize them to get rid of your eating/weight problems or any others you might have. Most of the problems so many of us face daily are not due to human nature and they are not inevitable.

Find your own solution and then use it.

P.S. My client Joanne who I described at the start of this post has lost two dress sizes during the past four months … without dieting.

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Is it really all going to turn out?

Morty Lefkoe — Tue, 10 Jul 2012 22:09:06 +0000

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I have a test for you. All you have to do to pass it is to answer one question honestly. For many of us that might be difficult because we might not want to know the answer.

Here is the question: Do you really feel that it’s all going to turn out for you?

No, I didn’t ask if you wanted it to turn out. Of course you do. I asked do you really feel, deep down, that it’s all going to turn out for you. Do you really feel you will have a long-lasting nurturing, loving relationship? That you will have financial abundance? That you will get paid to do work you are passionate about? That you will truly enjoy life?

Based on our one-on-one work with well over 13,000 clients it is clear that although most people want their lives to turn out, at the same time most fear that it never will.

My story

For a large part of my life I intended things to turn out, I wanted things to turn out, I did my best to make things turn out … but deep down, I felt that they wouldn’t. And no matter what I did or how hard I tried, and as good as things got, they never turned out the way I really wanted them to.

Because I thought that negative thoughts and feelings would keep me from getting what I wanted, I did my best to bury them so I wouldn’t know they were there. I covered them with positive thoughts and feelings, which I focused on constantly. But when things didn’t turn out the way I wanted, I had the sense: “I knew it. I knew it would never turn out the way I wanted.” I had managed to hide that sense from myself most of the time, but I never got rid of it.

Because many people committed to personal growth believe that what they focus on manifests, they are afraid of their “negative” thoughts and feelings. They suppress them. They do their best to have “positive” thoughts and feelings.

Unfortunately, underneath the layer of positivity lies the widespread sense that it is never really going to turn out.

How to deal with the fear it will never turn out for you

There is no need to live with the fear that your life is never going to turn out, whether that fear is conscious or just below the surface. So, I have a suggestion for those of you who have that sense.

First, acknowledge that you have it. Hiding it, suppressing it, pretending you don’t have it will not make it go away.

Second, identify the beliefs that cause it. Beliefs like: I’ll never get what I want. Life is difficult. I’m not deserving. I’m not worthy. I’m not good enough. It’s never going to turn out for me.

Third, eliminate the beliefs. If you eliminate the beliefs that cause the feeling that your life will never be the way you want it to be, the feeling will not merely be suppressed, it will be eliminated … forever.

When I finally eliminated the beliefs listed above and several others, my fear that my life would never be what I wanted it to be disappeared forever.

Create your own possibilities

One of the purposes of this weekly blog is to make you aware of possibilities for your life that you might not have been aware of previously. This week I want you to know that the feeling so many of us live with constantly—that our dreams will remain only dreams, never to manifest—is not the truth. No matter who you are or what your situation, that feeling is the result of beliefs. Eliminate the beliefs and the feeling will disappear.

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If you would like information about having a Certified Lefkoe Method Facilitator help you permanently eliminate any problem in your life, please call us at 415-884-0552.

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“Negative” emotions are not necessary

Morty Lefkoe — Tue, 19 Jun 2012 23:13:53 +0000

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My post several months ago, How To Live In A State of Bliss produced many more comments than usual. Many of you disagreed with my statements that it is possible to never have negative emotions if you dissolve the meaning you give the events that produce the emotion.

I’d like to respond to some of your comments as I think a lot of people think that it is important to feel ALL our feelings, even the unpleasant ones, and that it is impossible to take action if we don’t have emotional responses to events.

The negative is not necessary to achieve balance in our lives

Morty,
I don’t believe our goal should be to only experience positive emotions. If one
does not acknowledge and accept all sides of themselves and all emotions
that they feel, then they will not achieve a sense of balance in their lives.
After spending 20 years reading all the self-help books and partaking in a
couple of the programs you have to offer, I have come to this conclusion. Like
anything good in life, one can get accustomed to it or the “bliss” starts to lose
it’s meaning and significance. That’s one of the main problems [of] most , if
not all, self-help programs and gurus……they’re always trying to find ways to
make the bad go away. There is beauty in the imperfections of human beings
and the “negative” ways in which the mind works. There really is something
to the concept of Ying and Yang. It’s old, it’s simple, and you don’t have get rid
of anything or learn any techniques for being or living. I’m interested in your
response, Morty. –Eric

Eric implies that we inherently have negative and positive emotions—that they are part of us, and we should accept them both.

I would contend that our emotions are primarily the result of the meaning we
give events (some are the result of conditioning), and if we stop giving negative meanings to events, we will stop having negative emotions. If you say trying something new means you probably will fail, you will feel anxiety. Anxiety feels bad. If you realize that trying a new project or even failing has no inherent meaning, you won’t feel anxiety.

What’s wrong with that? What wrong with stopping pretending that the meaning
you gave a meaningless event is true? Yes, we have a built-in capacity for positive
and negative emotions (good for me or bad for me), but that doesn’t mean we need
to feel negative emotions.

Thoughts can’t be hurtful

It’s very challenging to remain impassive in the face of negative comments
and abuse. Thoughts are powerful and hurtful ones, once verbalized, pierce
like an arrow. I’ve spent my life dodging the arrows and stray bullets. It’s
hard not to take things personally and abuse will win unless you take action.
–Lucille

My experience is that if you really do not give meaning to what others say,
their comments are not “hurtful.” Moreover, it actually is not “hard” to not
take things personally when you learn how to stop giving meaning to events.
The Lefkoe Occurring Process actually makes it relatively easy to stop giving
meaning to events.

You don’t need to give meaning to events to take action

Hi Morty,

Reading this post, and then Lucille’s take on it, leads me to ask about the
physical realities of positive or negative events brought by others into our
lives. For one example, if a stranger on the street comes up and says “you’re
an idiot” well, I don’t have to live with that guy and maybe if I do some self-
reflection he might have been giving his opinion over something I might have
overlooked and desire to change, perhaps something like walking under a
construction scaffold?

But what about when the other person’s comments are from a person whom
you have deeply ingrained in your life like a wife or serious girlfriend?
What if ignoring that person’s negative comments, such as anger toward
you for something that is strictly within “their” perception rather than
something “you” have done, will lead to negative actions? How to “not take it
personally” and yet still react in a way that creates positive change from such
a situation? — Smoke

You do not need to give meaning to a meaningless situation to be able to take
appropriate action. If you get fired you don’t need to give it the meaning that it is a
disaster to look for a new job.

If someone “treats you badly,” e.g., yells at you, you can choose to not give it
any meaning and still choose to not deal with that person in the future. Or ask
them why they were angry. Or take any other action. In fact, if your thinking
is not clouded by the emotions that result from occurrings, it is easier to take
appropriate action after dissolving your occurrings.

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buttons at the top of this post.

If you would like information about having a Certified Lefkoe Method Facilitator
help you permanently eliminate any problem in your life, please call us at 415-884-
0552.

If you haven’t yet eliminated at least one of your limiting self-esteem beliefs using
the Lefkoe Belief Process, go to http://recreateyourlife.com/free where you can
eliminate one negative belief free.

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Lefkoe” at iTunes to have the podcasts sent to you weekly.

Get rid of the pain in your painful memories

Morty Lefkoe — Tue, 12 Jun 2012 22:11:23 +0000

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Do you have memories that recur from time to time that are painful? Are there events from the past that upset you every time you recall them? Events such as breaking up after a long-term love affair, or getting fired from a job, or not getting something you had expected to get.

If so, I have some good news for you. I am going to show you how you can quickly and easily dissolve the meaning you gave those “painful” events so that you will be able to recall them without the emotional discomfort that usually accompanies them.

Dissolve the meaning and the emotion also will disappear

If you are reading this you probably have eliminated at least one belief using the Lefkoe Belief Process and have experienced (in addition to intellectually understanding) that events have no inherent meaning.

All meaning resides in our mind, not in events. Meaningless events can’t produce emotions, except in relatively infrequent cases of stimulus conditioning. Consequently, most of our emotions arise from the meaning we assign events.

That being the case, dissolving the meaning you give events automatically will dissolve the emotions that accompany those events.

I have been teaching people how to use the Lefkoe Occurring Process (LOP) to dissolve how daily events occur to them—in other words, the meaning they give them—in my Occurring Courses for the past few years.

In the last course one of the participants said that he had been able to use the LOP to dissolve the meaning he had given an event in his past. I had never thought of using the LOP that way. He reported that when he did that, both the meaning and the painful emotion that had accompanied that event dissolved and never returned. So when he had the memory again, all he recalled was the event itself, without the meaning and the emotion.

Here’s what to do

Here’s how you can do that too.

Step 1: Recall the specifics of the event, exactly what happened.

Step 2: Make a clear distinction between the event, the meaning you gave it, and the emotion that resulted from the meaning. Here’s one example from a client today. Event: When I was a child I fell when playing and broke a tooth. Meaning: When I tell my mom she will be upset and there will be chaos in the house as a result of what I did. Emotion: Anxiety.

Step 3: In order to help you clearly get that the meaning is not inherent in the event, ask yourself if you can “see” the meaning in the world. When you realize you can actually see the event but you can’t see the meaning (because it is only in your mind), you will have made a clear distinction between the event and the meaning, and the meaning will dissolve.

Step 4: Recall the earlier event. Notice that you no longer experience the meaning and the emotion that used to be attached to the event. When I asked the client to recall the earlier memory of breaking her tooth, she said that the anxiety she had always felt when she had the memory was gone.

This is a simple process that literally takes only a few minutes to complete, but it can make a profound difference in your daily experience of life. Imagine being able to smile as you relive old events that used to be accompanied by painful emotions.

Share your experience

As an optional Step 5, please share your experience of doing this simple process in the “Leave a Comment” box below. I would love to hear about your successes and others will be inspired to try this process if they read about your experience.

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Why what people do and say sometimes seem insane

Morty Lefkoe — Tue, 05 Jun 2012 23:43:17 +0000

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Have you ever listened to something a friend or loved one said to you and thought: “They have to be insane! That makes no sense at all!”

And what about things they do? Aren’t you flabbergasted when a friend or loved one doesn’t do something they promised to do or not returned a call for days?

So much of what people do and say make little or no sense to us. Why?

Things people say and do don’t make sense to us because we assume that they are giving events the same meaning we do. If we realized that most of what people do and say make perfect sense given the meanings they have assigned events, we’d stop being so puzzled.

Let me give you a few examples.

A relationship example

Imagine you ask your partner to pick up something at the store and he (or she) doesn’t. You are likely to give it the meaning that he doesn’t care about you because if he did, he wouldn’t have forgotten. That meaning is likely to make you upset or even angry.

And the more your partner doesn’t acknowledge that you have a right to be upset or angry, the more upset and angry you get. In the end you just can’t understand why your partner didn’t do what you asked and why he isn’t apologizing for being so thoughtless.

Your partner on the other hand, gives the same event a different meaning: What you want is important to me, I just forgot. People forget things. My forgetting has nothing to do with how much I care about you. Why are you so upset or angry?

What does the event—failing to pick up the item you requested at the store—really mean? You give it one meaning and your partner gives it another. Neither is “the truth.” Both meanings are merely the way the event occurs for you. Can you get that the event doesn’t have any inherent meaning?

If each of you could recognize that how the event occurs for you is not reality—it is merely the meaning each of you has attributed to reality—there would be nothing to get upset or angry about. And the other’s reaction would not be so incomprehensible. In fact, given the other’s “occurring,” the reaction would make perfect sense.

Are they really inconsiderate jerks?

Imagine that your neighbors are having a party that lasts until the wee hours of the morning and they are making noise that is keeping you awake. Clearly they are inconsiderate jerks who have no respect for anyone else. And that meaning makes you angry. You just can’t imagine why people would do what they are doing.

Do your neighbors agree they are “inconsiderate jerks”? No, they don’t. From their point of view, they were just having fun, not realizing that they were making so much noise that you were being kept from sleep.

Whose point of view—whose meaning—is correct? Can you get that both are and both are not. In other words, the event as such has no inherent meaning and both meanings are just different ways of interpreting what happened.

Understanding people’s meaning makes sense of what they do and say

I’m not asking you to give up the meaning you assign to events, although if you did you would be able to dissolve your fears and anger, in fact, virtually all the negative emotions you experience. Because almost all of our emotions are the result of the meaning we assign events—in other words, how the events occur for us—dissolving the meaning simultaneously dissolves the emotions.

I’m only suggesting that people’s actions and statements make perfect sense once you understanding that what people do and say will always be consistent with how events occur for them. Understand people’s occurring and you will understand them.

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A realization while on vacation in NYC

Morty Lefkoe — Tue, 29 May 2012 23:08:06 +0000

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I am writing this in New York City, almost 3,000 miles from my home in the San Francisco Bay area. My wife Shelly took me here for a week to celebrate my 75^th birthday.

I had planned to skip my blog post this week (I think I’ve only missed one post in three years), but I decided to share some insights I’ve had as I’ve walked miles every day, seeing sights I haven’t seen for over 10 years.

Over a year ago I wrote a post about moods, asking you what you thought a mood was. The response of over 85 replies was the highest of any post I’ve ever written. http://www.mortylefkoe.com/moods/#.

What is a mood?

I’m now pretty sure that emotions result primarily from the meaning we give specific events. Moods, on the other hand, are feelings that result from the meaning you give to several prior meanings. Here’s what I mean.

An event happens that has no inherent meaning. We give it a meaning, which usually results in a feeling. If that happens repeatedly, we are likely to give a meaning to the prior meanings and feelings. That new meaning and feeling is a mood.

Let me make that real with a specific example. Imagine that a loved one misunderstands something you said and gets annoyed at you. Her annoyance has no inherent meaning. But if it occurs for us as: if she really loved me, she would understand—then you will feel unloved. That is a single example of how an event can occurs for you and how that meaning can cause a feeling.

Our occurrings seem real

Remember, the important thing about our meanings/occurrings is that they seem real; in other words, a meaning that exists only in our mind seems to exist in the world, as a fact.

Now let’s assume that you don’t realize what just happened and you don’t dissolve your occurring. As a result you continue to feel not understood and unloved. Later that day or the next day that same loved one says something that occurs to you as: her behavior was very inconsiderate. If she really cared about me she wouldn’t have done that. So again your occurring makes you feel not understood and unloved.

It is possible to notice that you have given a meaningless event a meaning—which has caused an unpleasant feeling—and then dissolve the meaning and the feeling. But very few people distinguish between their occurrings and reality, and even fewer know how to dissolve their occurrings. So now you have a second meaning you think is true and another unpleasant feeling.

When your occurrings “add up”

Let’s assume that happens several times in a short period of time. It is now possible for you to give a meaning to the group of individual meanings: my loved one doesn’t care about me—a meaning that makes you feel sad. At which point you find yourself in a sad mood for several days, having no idea of where that mood came from.

The mood is the result of giving meaning to several prior meanings.

I’m not sure yet how to eliminate a mood once it has started, but it is possible to learn how to recognize your “occurrings” as the happen and dissolve them on the spot. If you do that on a regular basis, you won’t have any “unresolved occurrings” to give meanings to that produce moods.

I’m going to ruminate on this for a while. I’ll let you know what else I come up with in the next few weeks

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Do you need positive self-esteem beliefs?

Morty Lefkoe — Tue, 22 May 2012 21:52:29 +0000

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Many of you have contacted us after eliminating a negative belief using the Lefkoe Belief Process, asking how you can create a positive belief in its place. I explained why that isn’t necessary (or even possible) in a prior blog post: http://www.mortylefkoe.com/010510/#

I’ve recently had some new insights about how to have a positive sense of yourself that expands on that earlier explanation.

A positive sense of yourself can be experienced in two different ways: as the “creator” or the “creation.” A positive sense of yourself is both the natural experience of the “creator” and the result of specific beliefs possessed by a “creation.” Let me explain.

Inherent in the experience of yourself as the creator of your life is feeling whole, complete, anything is possible, you have no limitations, etc. In other words, as consciousness, you experience your Self as all the positive self-esteem beliefs. You don’t “believe” they are true, in that altered state you experience being okay just the way you are and there is nothing missing.

Experiencing yourself as a “creation”

On the other hand, when you experience yourself as a creation, as the person with your name, as a physical “thing,” then you either can have a positive or negative sense of yourself. Positive beliefs (such as I am good enough, I am important, and I am worthy) result in a positive sense of yourself; negative beliefs (such as I’m not good enough, I’m not important, and I’m not deserving) result in a negative sense of yourself.

When you eliminate negative self-esteem beliefs you don’t need to replace them with positive beliefs, because when you eliminate beliefs using the Lefkoe Belief Process you naturally go into an altered state where you experience yourself as the creator of your life. In that state, you don’t need positive self-esteem beliefs—the experience they produce is already inherent in the experience of your Self.

So experiencing yourself as the creator of your life is actually a more effective way to experience your “okeyness” than creating specific, positive self-esteem beliefs for the creation.

And, if you use the Who Am I Really? (WAIR?) Process enough times, you will get to the point where you are able to access the “creator” experience any time you want to. It’s a much more powerful experience than positive beliefs.

By the way, very young children seem to experience themselves as the “creator” does: they seem unafraid of anything, they are not in the least concerned with what others think, they are willing to explore and try anything, they expect to be loved, they expect to get what they want, etc. In other words, children naturally act as if they have positive self-esteem beliefs until they start forming negative beliefs about themselves.

There’s a parenting lesson here: you don’t need to help your children form positive self-esteem beliefs; you only need to make sure they don’t form negative ones.

To have a positive sense of yourself

So if you want to have a positive sense of yourself, first eliminate your negative self-esteem beliefs and then use the WAIR? Process to experience yourself as the creator of your life. Try it. There are no words to describe how thrilling that experience is.

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Do You Want To Create New Possibilities In Your Life?

Morty Lefkoe — Wed, 16 May 2012 22:59:12 +0000

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Recently I wrote about how our beliefs become reality for us, determining our behavior and feelings. Because how we view reality determines the possibilities for action that are open for us, by eliminating limiting beliefs you are able to literally create new possibilities in your life.

Let me give you an example. Assume you had the beliefs: I’m not loveable. Relationships don’t work. Men/women can’t be trusted.

With these beliefs, what are the possibilities that you could have a really good, nurturing, long-term romantic relationship? … Slim to nil, right?

Now let’s assume you completely eliminate those beliefs. Can you see you have just created the possibility of a good, nurturing, long-term relationship that literally didn’t exist before? There is no guarantee you will ever find such a relationship, but the possibility exists now that didn’t exist before.

This is one of the most powerful consequences of eliminating beliefs: You not only change your behavior and feelings, you actually change the reality you live in.

Let me remind you of something I wrote in an earlier blog post to make this idea completely clear. Let’s assume you held the following beliefs: You have to work hard to make money. I’m not deserving. I’ll never have enough money. /There is never enough money. Money is a struggle. Life is difficult. Your reality with those beliefs does not include the possibility of acquiring wealth easily, if at all. Without those beliefs the possibility comes into existence.

The possibilities that exist in your reality are defined by your beliefs. When you say something is impossible it actually becomes impossible for you. If you believe Life is difficult, you will experience things not going the way you wanted them to go as upsetting obstacles rather than exciting challenges. If you believe I’m not capable or I’m not competent, would you likely try to do something you believe you can’t do? And if you tried, do you think you would succeed with these beliefs?

Beliefs Create An Organization’s Environment

Even the environment in which an organization operates is largely a function of its beliefs. When I do workshops for CEOs I tell them that the biggest barrier their organization faces is not in the world (competition, government, costs, etc.), but in the minds of their employees.

For example, if most of the people in a company believe that something is impossible—such as outsourcing, raising capital, finding qualified new employees, or reaching a certain sales or earnings target—that belief becomes a self-fulfilling prophesy, because the employees will operate according to a reality consistent with their beliefs. If something is impossible, there is no sense in trying to do it.

Notice that you don’t have to do anything (other than eliminate the beliefs) in order to create a new possibility and literally change your reality. Your reality changes automatically after the belief(s) has been eliminated.

You are not aware of the change

As amazing as that is, another remarkable thing occurs: When fundamental changes in our behavior and feelings occur after eliminating a few beliefs, we usually are not even aware of the change.

If there are no beliefs in the way, all we have to do to make a change in our way of living is to make a commitment to the change, and it usually occurs. Sometimes we don’t know how and have to get some needed information, and then the change happens. But it’s not so easy when there are beliefs in the way.

When we try to act inconsistently with our beliefs—such as trying to create wealth or relationships when we have beliefs that act as barriers, or trying to stop procrastination when we have beliefs that necessitate it—we are aware both of the struggle to change and our inability to produce lasting change.

Our Reality Changes Without Us Even Noticing It

But when the belief(s) is gone, we unconsciously do whatever we choose to do and there is no resistance. We just automatically do it. Because there is no resistance, because we are able to make the change so easily, we frequently are not even aware that the old barriers are gone

One of the most dramatic examples of that fact was when I once asked a client whom I hadn’t talked to for a few months about her sex life. She replied, “It’s fine, why do you ask?” I read to her from her file the details of her lack of interest in sex that had plagued her for years, which she had related to me just a few months earlier. She was flabbergasted. “I totally forgot that that’s how it used to be. My new feelings and behavior now seem so natural and automatic I just take them for granted.”

Here’s a metaphor that makes very real what happens in your life when you eliminate limiting beliefs.

When you drive down a highway and come across a barrier in the middle of the road, you are aware of your inability to drive on. After you remove the roadblock and you then continually drive down that same highway, at some point you drive down the highway and forget that the barrier had ever been there.

It’s so easy to create new possibilities for yourself. What are you waiting for?

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Are you trying to get better?

Morty Lefkoe — Wed, 09 May 2012 23:17:08 +0000

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Have you been trying to “get better”—to make a significant improvement in your life—without real success?

If so, then you are one of the tens of millions of people who either are in psychotherapy or part of the personal growth movement—reading books, attending workshops, and using digital products—in an attempt to reduce your anxiety and suffering and increase your happiness.

Unfortunately the success rate for these people is not very high. Although there is often some improvement, the negative self-talk, some noticeable anxiety, and an obsessive concern with the opinions of others usually continue after years of therapy and many courses.

Let me offer a possible explanation

Most therapies and personal growth systems assume that we all live and deal with the same objective reality, and that some of us need better thinking and/or additional skills and information to deal with it more effectively.

I think the reason for their poor success rates is that their basic assumption is flawed: we are not all dealing with the same objective reality and our biggest problem is not our inability to deal effectively with that reality. Instead, the problem is that we are all dealing with different realities (based on our beliefs) and our problems arise primarily from our mistaken views of reality.

Let me elaborate. Beliefs are statement about reality that we feel are the truth. “I am ….” “People are ….” “Life is ….” Beliefs like these describe our reality. We think it really is true that I am not good enough, or people can’t be trusted, or life is difficult. If you hold these beliefs, for you they are actual descriptions of the world you live in. The problem for you and others holding such beliefs people isn’t merely an inability to cope with the world as it really is, their real problem is that they are trying to deal effectively with a world that exists only in their mind.

For example, if you believe that mistakes and failure are bad and that if I make a mistake I’ll be rejected, then that is a fact in your world. That is an accurate description of the way the world really is, for you. That view of the world will inhibit you from trying new things, it likely will make you afraid to speak in public, it will result in anxiety that you will do something wrong and get rejected, and other dysfunctional behavior.

If in the “real” world mistakes and failure are only good learning experiences, if really successful people consider their “mistakes” and “failures” to be merely building blocks for later success, then people with the two beliefs just mentioned don’t need to think more effectively, to learn how to handle their emotions better, or to devise more effective business strategies—they need to change their view of reality. In other words, they need to eliminate their beliefs about mistakes and failure that constitute as aspect of their worldview.

Relationship problems are usually not due to a lack of interpersonal skills

Here’s another illustration of my point. Imagine that in your world, it was a fact that you were not loveable, that relationships never worked out in the long run, and that men/women couldn’t be trusted. For you, given the nature of your world, the possibility of a good, nurturing, loving long-term relationship would be slim to nil. Not because of your fears or your lack of social skills, but because your behavior in relationships is shaped totally by your view of yourself, potential mates, and relationships.

Learning more interpersonal skills, better understanding your childhood influences, and learning some behaviors that make for better relationships will do little to help you have better relationships if you have the beliefs I just named.

What will help you create and sustain a loving, satisfying relationship? Changing your beliefs so that you live in a world in which you are loveable, relationships can work, and men/women can be trusted.

There obviously are times when having certain skills and information can improve your ability to make money, have better relationships, be more successful at whatever your do, and reduce negative feelings. I am not saying that eliminating beliefs and changing your worldview will automatically provide you with everything you want, automatically. Regardless of your worldview, some behaviors will be more effective in getting what you want than others.

The single most important factor determining your happiness

What I am saying—based on what we’ve learned after helping over 13,000 clients in one-to-one sessions and over 150,000 people in our digital programs—is that the single most important thing causing the behavioral and emotional problems we face is our beliefs. And the single most important thing we can do to eliminate the behavioral and emotional problems we face is to eliminate the beliefs that determine our distorted worldview.

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Is There An Effective Anxiety Treatment?

Morty Lefkoe — Tue, 01 May 2012 23:02:22 +0000

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Have you ever experienced anxiety? If you haven’t yet, the odds are good that you will at some point in your life.

According to MedicineNet, anxiety is definitely a pretty common thing! In the United States, more than 60 million people will suffer from anxiety at a certain point in their lives and more than three million will have a panic disorder in the course of their lifetime. Over four million people experience general anxiety each year. Panic attacks typically begin during teenage years, from 15 to 19. (Emphasis in original.) (http://anxietybuzz.com/how-many-people-have-anxiety/)

If you are one of the millions of people who already has suffered from anxiety (and I am one of them), you know how incapacitating it can be. If you haven’t yet, it’s not something to look forward to. When you experience anxiety it’s hard to focus, to make decisions, to act, and to think. All you want to do is escape, but there is no escape at the moment.

Luckily there are effective anxiety treatments.

There are three major approaches to anxiety treatment and several sub-categories

(adapted from the Anxiety Disorders Association of America):

1. Psychotherapy

· Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy (CBT)

A well-established, highly effective, and lasting treatment is called cognitive-behavioral therapy, or CBT. It focuses on identifying, understanding, and changing thinking and behavior patterns. Benefits are usually seen in 12 to 16 weeks, depending on the individual.

In this type of therapy the patient is actively involved in his or her own recovery, has a sense of control, and learns skills that are useful throughout life. CBT typically involves reading about the problem, keeping records between appointments, and completing homework assignments in which the treatment procedures are practiced. Patients learn skills during therapy sessions, but they must practice repeatedly to see improvement.

· Exposure Therapy

A form of CBT, exposure therapy is a process for reducing fear and anxiety responses. In therapy, a person is gradually exposed to a feared situation or object, learning to become less sensitive over time. This type of therapy has been found to be particularly effective for obsessive-compulsive disorder and phobias.

· Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT)

Also known as ACT, this type of therapy uses strategies of acceptance and mindfulness (living in the moment and experiencing things without judgment), along with commitment and behavior change, as a way to cope with unwanted thoughts, feelings, and sensations. ACT imparts skills to accept these experiences, place them in a different context, develop greater clarity about personal values, and commit to needed behavior change.

· Dialectical Behavioral Therapy (DBT)

Integrating cognitive-behavioral techniques with concepts from Eastern meditation, dialectical behavioral therapy, or DBT, combines acceptance and change. DBT involves individual and group therapy to learn mindfulness, as well as skills for interpersonal effectiveness, tolerating distress, regulating emotions.

· Interpersonal Therapy (IPT)

Often referred to as IPT, interpersonal therapy is a short-term supportive psychotherapy that addresses interpersonal issues in depression in adults, adolescents, and older adults. IPT usually involves 12 to 16 one-hour weekly sessions. The initial sessions are devoted to gathering information about the nature of a person’s depression and interpersonal experience.

· Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR)

Under certain conditions eye movements appear to reduce the intensity of disturbing thoughts. A treatment known as eye movement desensitization and reprocessing, or EMDR, seems to have a direct effect on the way that the brain processes information. Basically, it helps a person see disturbing material in a less distressing way.

2. Medication

3. Complimentary and Alternative treatment

Stress and Relaxation Techniques
Yoga
Acupuncture
Kava

Many people have found relief from each of these modalities.

Using The Lefkoe Method

After helping literally thousands of clients get rid of their panic disorders and various forms of anxiety, I think that the fastest and most lasting anxiety treatment is to eliminate the specific beliefs and conditionings that underlie any given anxiety disorder.

Unlike cognitive-behavioral therapy—perhaps the most effective psychotherapy technique—The Lefkoe Method (TLM) does not require clients to “practice” after they leave the office. TLM permanently eliminates your limiting beliefs and conditionings during a session, after which you observe your anxiety disappear.

Interestingly, the same beliefs that cause anxiety also cause a lack of confidence, a concern with the opinion of others, procrastination, and other common mental problems—most of which are sources of anxiety.

Here is a list of beliefs and conditionings that we have discovered underlie most forms of anxiety. Eliminating them probably will eliminate your anxiety.

Mistakes and failure are bad.
I’m not good enough.
Change is difficult.
I’m not important.
What makes me good enough or important is having people think well of me.
Nothing I do is good enough.
I’m not capable.
I’m not competent.
I’m inadequate.
If I make a mistake or fail I’ll be rejected.
I’m a failure.
I’m stupid.
I’m not worthy.
I’ll never get what I want.
I’m powerless.
People aren’t interested in what I have to say.
What I have to say isn’t important.
It’s dangerous to have people put their attention on me (something bad will happen).
What makes me good enough or important is doing things perfectly.
Conditioning: Fear associated with criticism and judgment.
Conditioning: Fear associated with not meeting expectations.
Conditioning: Fear associated with people putting their attention on me.
Conditioning: Fear associated with rejection

Whatever anxiety treatment approach you choose, the most important thing to remember is that there is no need to live with anxiety. Suffering is not our natural birthright—happiness is.

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If you haven’t yet eliminated at least one of your limiting self-esteem beliefs using the Lefkoe Belief Process, go to http://recreateyourlife.com/anxietytreatment where you can eliminate one negative belief free.

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Enlightenment and improvements in daily life in one package

Morty Lefkoe — Tue, 24 Apr 2012 22:52:25 +0000

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I’ve written before about the fact that the Lefkoe Belief Process (one of the many processes that comprise The Lefkoe Method) has both a very practical element and a profound spiritual element. Getting rid of beliefs and conditionings changes your “creation,” in other words, it results in major changes in our daily behavior and emotions. The Who Am I Really? Process, which is an element of the Lefkoe Belief Process (LBP), enables you to enter an altered state of consciousness where you deeply experience anything is possible, there is nothing missing, and you have no limitations.

I am now discovering that another one of TLM processes is more spiritual than I had realized.

The practical side of the LOP

The Lefkoe Occurring Process (LOP) enables you to recognize that you automatically and unconsciously give meaning to events, perhaps 20-50 times a day, and usually do not distinguish between reality and that meaning, in other words, how reality occurs to you. Therefore, your “occurring”—the meaning you give reality—is experienced as reality.

And because events have no inherent meaning, all of our feelings—positive and negative—are the result of our occurrings.

The LOP then enables you to make a clear distinction between reality/events and meaning/occurring, and finally to dissolve your occurring. As a result you are able to deal more effectively with reality, easily get rid of negative feelings, and create your experience of life moment by moment. Obviously the LOP produces very practical results.

The spiritual side of the LOP

Although I have had some sense that there are spiritual elements to the LOP, I have started to realize that it is almost like a spiritual practice.

A friend of mine who lived at an ashram when he was younger and who has studied many of the Eastern religions said that there are several things in common with the Eastern traditions: You learn to hold all concepts lightly. You learn to drop evaluations. You learn to drop the tendency to stick new ideas into an old slot, in other words, say that the new thing is “like that,” which keeps you from fully experiencing the new thing. You learn to climb outside of your customary way of interpreting. And you learn to jettison old identifies and ways of thinking.

I’ve never described the LOP quite like that before, but I could accurately use it as a description of my process.

Another person I talked recently who has being studying Taoism said that his guru taught him by using events in reality. By that he meant, he learned to stop giving meaning to things either his guru told him to do or that the guru suggested he notice. Eventually that practice enabled him to stop living in the past and future and live totally in the present.

That also is one way of describing the purpose of using the LOP on a regular basis.

A description of Taoism

Read the following partial description of Taoism from Wikipedia:

“Pu … is a metaphor for the state of wu wei … It represents a passive state of receptiveness. Pu is a symbol for a state of pure potential and perception without prejudice. In this state, Taoists believe everything is seen as it is, without preconceptions or illusion.

“Pu is usually seen as keeping oneself in the primordial state of tao. It is believed to be the true nature of the mind, unburdened by knowledge or experiences. In the state of pu, there is no right or wrong, beautiful or ugly. There is only pure experience, or awareness, free from learned labels and definitions.”

Interestingly, that also is one of the results of using the LOP on a regular basis: you stop judging and evaluating events; you focus on and deal with just the event itself, without any meaning.

Although I designed the LOP to produce a practical result, now that I and others have been using it consistently for the past couple of years, I am seeing that it also serves as a spiritual practice. Consistent use of the LOP produces many of the same results that years of meditation and various types of spiritual practice produce, namely, a major reduction in stress, a significant lessening of suffering, and the ability to “passively” observe your thoughts without giving them meaning or being attached to them.

To get a sense of how the LOP works please watch a short video I’ve prepared, http://occurringcourse.com.

I would love to hear from those of you who have practiced Toaism, Buddhism, or any other Eastern discipline, and who are familiar with the LOP. Please let me know your take on the relationship between the two. How are they similar and how are they different? I especially would love to hear from people who also have taken the Lefkoe Occurring Course and can describe the similarities and differences they notice from their personal experience.

Please leave your comments and questions here about today’s post. I read all posts and answer as many as I can.

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If you haven’t yet eliminated at least one of your limiting self-esteem beliefs using the Lefkoe Belief Process, go to htp://www.recreateyourlife.com/free, where you can eliminate one negative belief free.

To get my blog posts as podcasts, sign up for the RSS feed above or look up “Morty Lefkoe” at iTunes to have the podcasts sent to you weekly.

Fear of rejection

Morty Lefkoe — Tue, 17 Apr 2012 23:25:06 +0000

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If there was ever a psychological trait that was considered to be a part of human nature, it’s the fear of rejection.

In the thousands of comments people have posted on my various blogs, in conversations with friends over a lifetime, and in hearing people speak in more seminars than I can count, the fear of rejection is probably the most frequent complaint I’ve heard. And, obviously, if virtually everyone has this fear, it must be human nature. Right?

Not necessarily.

There are at least two possible explanations for most people having this specific psychological trait: it could be human nature and it also could be the result of most people having the beliefs and conditionings that cause a fear of rejection.

What beliefs and conditionings cause a fear of rejection?

After having worked with hundreds of clients with the fear of rejection, my colleagues and I have compiled a list of the beliefs and conditionings that usually cause this common problem. Take a look at them and see what conclusions you draw from the list.

I’m not good enough.
I’m not important.
What makes me good enough and important is having people think well of me.
If I make a mistake or fail I’ll be rejected.
Conditioning: Fear associated with criticism and judgment.
Conditioning: Fear associated with not meeting expectations.
Conditioning: Fear associated with rejection.

If you are at all familiar with how beliefs are formed in early childhood as a result of interactions with parents, you’ll realize why most people form these beliefs and conditionings. (For details, see my blog posts, http://www.mortylefkoe.com/092209/# and http://www.mortylefkoe.com/wonderful-parents/#) If most people form the beliefs and conditionings that cause a fear of rejection, most people will fear rejection—not because they were born with the fear, but because most people have the beliefs and conditionings that cause the problem.

How can I be so sure that this list of beliefs and conditionings are responsible for the fear of rejection? Because hundreds of people who had the fear eliminated the fear when they eliminated these beliefs and conditionings. In some cases there might have been a few additional ones, but for most people these were sufficient to free themselves from the fear of rejection for good.

Fear of rejection can be deadly

Fearing rejection can lead people to not pursuing their dreams, being afraid to take chances, doing things they would not ordinarily do in order to get the approval of others, and generally worrying about rejection before they do anything. It is not a pleasant way to live.

Get rid of a few specific beliefs and conditionings and discover that your real human nature is to act without concern for rejection.

Please leave your comments and questions here about today’s post. I read all posts and answer as many as I can.

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If you haven’t yet eliminated at least one of your limiting self-esteem beliefs using the Lefkoe Belief Process, go to http://recreateyourlife.com/fearofrejection where you can eliminate one negative belief free.

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Stop beating yourself up

Morty Lefkoe — Tue, 03 Apr 2012 23:24:19 +0000

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There’s “good news” and “bad news” about the many personal growth improvement courses. The good news is that many of them actually provide information, which, if used, will improve your life. The bad news is that many of us have beliefs that prevent us from implementing the good advice.

And there’s even worse news: Far too many people who find themselves unable to implement the advice in the course blame themselves. I’m weak. I can’t stick with anything. I’m not good enough. I’ll never amount to anything. There’s something wrong with me. Etc.

If this sounds familiar, I’m talking to you: Your inability to take action in the face of your limiting beliefs IS NOT YOUR FAULT.

There is only one thing worse than not getting value from a course because of our beliefs—and that is blaming ourselves for not getting value.

There’s actually more good news, however: You always have the ability to eliminate the beliefs that are stopping you.

Most of us, most of the time, act consistently with our view of reality. If we believe we’ll never get what we want, or we don’t deserve to get what we want, or we are not inherently able to get what we want, the chances are good that we will never pursue what we want—even if some part of us really wants it and even if we know how to get it. Our beliefs about reality will sabotage our efforts.

For example, one of our clients came to us complaining that every time she was about to take action on her dreams, she got scared and froze. She had been beating herself up for years for being so cowardly. She reported that she had taken a number of courses that told her exactly what to do and how to do it. She knew exactly what needed to be done to create the business she had dreamed of starting for years. But she was always stopped by fear.

During our sessions with her she discovered and eliminated a host of negative beliefs. Some of the self-esteem beliefs included: Mistakes and failure are bad. I’m not good enough. I’m inadequate. I‘m powerless. Some of her other relevant beliefs included: I’m not deserving, I’ll never get what I want, life is difficult, the only way to make money is to hurt others, and money is hard to get.

Within days of eliminating the last belief she had taken more action than she had in years. Within a month she had created the business and was moving forward with the marketing plan that had been gathering dusk on her desk. During the following months she made good use of all that she had learned in her courses and the business of her dreams was well underway.

So we have a choice: we either can beat ourselves up for not using the material in the courses we’ve purchased, or we can eliminate the beliefs that keep us from taking full advantage of the useful information.

What is your choice?

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Why some get angry and others fear it.

Morty Lefkoe — Tue, 27 Mar 2012 22:10:20 +0000

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The first time I really allowed myself to experience my anger I fainted.

I was about 36 and had successfully suppressed my anger since childhood. And there I was in a group therapy session, hitting a mat with a stick with foam wrapped around it, screaming: “Mom, I’m really angry at you.” When I started the exercise I was only mouthing empty words, but then at some point the words became real and the anger surfaced. It terrified me so much that I literally passed out on the mat.

I fainted the next couple of times I tried that exercise, but eventually I was able to experience anger toward my mother that I had never allowed myself to experience. And I was able to remain in an upright position.

Although there probably aren’t many people who first experienced their anger in exactly the same way I did, there are millions who are terrified of experiencing their own anger or being in the presence of the anger of others. Many people get in touch with that anger in therapy or some personal growth course, and millions never do.

In addition to the fact that suppressing your anger is suppressing a part of yourself—in other words, having a part of you be unknown to you—suppressed anger has been implicated in serious illnesses, especially heart diseases.

If you want to be able to experience your own anger without fear and if you want to discover why the anger of others can be so scary, read on and let me explain

The Primary Source of Our Fear

The primary source of our fear of anger is four specific beliefs and two conditionings. The beliefs are: Confrontation is dangerous, If I’m angry I’ll lose control, If I express anger I’ll lose love, and Anger is dangerous. And the conditionings are: fear associated with anger and fear associated with confrontation. There can be several other relevant beliefs and conditionings, but it is my experience that when these six have been eliminated, much of the fear we have of our own anger and the anger of others will be gone.

The source of these six beliefs and conditionings is almost always a childhood where one or both parents frequently displayed extreme anger. (I’ll explain why some people frequently express anger in a minute.) If we are terrified by the anger of our parents as a child, the typical reaction is the six beliefs and conditionings I listed.

The group therapy I described above helped me get in touch with my anger and allowed me to experience it instead of suppress it so totally that I didn’t even know I was feeling it. But my fear of anger did not disappear totally until I eliminated the five beliefs and conditionings many years later.

Now what about people who aren’t afraid of anger, but who themselves are angry a lot and express that anger as verbal or physical abuse? What is the source of that?

Why People Get Angry Easily

Kids want affection, attention, and acknowledgment. When they repeatedly can’t get what they want, they are likely to feel powerless. Also, frequently being told: “Just do it because I said so (or because I’m the parent)” can produce the same feeling. This leads to the belief I’m powerless.

This is a basic self-esteem belief that makes us feel out of control and insecure, because if we are powerless then we don’t have the ability to do what we think needs to be done. In other words, on a subconscious level we know our survival is always at stake.

When we form such a belief as a child we need to find some way to deal with the ever-present anxiety it produces. As I explained in an earlier blog post (http://bit.ly/ohzdoy), when we form a negative self-esteem belief as a child we need to develop some strategy to deal with it. For example, if we conclude I’m not good enough or important, the most common survival strategy is the belief: What makes me good enough and important is having people think well of me.

And the most frequently-formed survival strategy when one concludes I’m powerless is, The way to be in control is to have everything be exactly the way I want it to be. Another common one is, The way to have power is to dominate others.

Feeling Powerless

Think about this for a moment. Imagine you needed to have everything be exactly the way you wanted in order to feel in control. In such a situation if things weren’t exactly the way you wanted them to be—or if someone didn’t listen to you—you would feel out of control. That would mean, to you, that you were powerless, which would lead to a profound anxiety. What would happen when someone or something kept you from having things the way you wanted them to be and “made you” feel powerless?

You’d feel lots of anger, probably rage. You would be angry with whomever or whatever you feel is making you feel powerless. And if it’s a child or spouse, the rage can easily turn into verbal and/or physical abuse. (This explains people like O.J. Simpson.)

(If you form the belief I’m powerless and don’t ever form the survival strategy belief, instead of exploding in anger you are likely to be a typical “victim.” You will always be talking about how people and events are “doing it to me” and you will allow people to take advantage of you.)

Based on over 25 years of experience I am now fairly certain that underneath all anger is a sense of powerlessness, because if you could do something about the situation you wouldn’t feel angry. And if the two beliefs I mentioned above were eliminated, a large part of one’s anger would be dissipated.

It’s amazing to think that merely getting rid of a few beliefs and conditionings could minimize one of the major sources of heart disease and getting rid of a few more could halt the epidemic of child and spouse abuse. Just one more example of the power of beliefs in our lives.

Please leave your comments and questions here about today’s post. I read all posts and answer as many as I can.

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Do your beliefs embarrass you?

Morty Lefkoe — Tue, 20 Mar 2012 21:41:46 +0000

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“Everything I say to you is confidential, isn’t it?”

This is one of the first questions our new clients usually ask us. The answer, of course, is yes. Nothing a client tells us is ever divulged to anyone.

But I’ve found it interesting that so many people are concerned that others will find out about their beliefs. One obvious reason is that, for us, they aren’t beliefs; they are true statements about us. As a result, most of us are embarrassed about having such beliefs as I’m not good enough, I’m not important, and I’m powerless. And we don’t want anyone to know these “truths” about us.

But there is another assumption many of us have: These terrible things that are true about us aren’t true about anyone else. We are among the few people who were born to be not good enough, not important, not loveable, and not worthy. If other people—who are good enough, important, loveable, and worthy—knew we weren’t, they wouldn’t want to have anything to do with us. On the other hand, if we thought that many others also had our negative beliefs, then having them might not be quite as embarrassing.

Well, based on our experience with well over 13,000 live clients and 100,000 people who have used our on-line programs, I am convinced that very few people escape childhood without having a bunch of negative self-esteem beliefs.

Let me explain why.

The source of our negative self-esteem beliefs

As little kids we are always asking, “Why?” Sometimes we ask our parents to explain things to us and sometimes we ask ourselves, “Why am I being treated like this? Why is my life like this?” We answer these questions for ourselves (unconsciously) during the first few years of life. Because our parents are the people with whom we spend most of our waking hours, they are involved in most of the experiences that lead to our fundamental beliefs.

And what are those experiences in most households? Parents, being adults, generally like quiet; children are not quiet and cannot even understand why anyone would value quiet. Parents generally want their house to be neat; young children don’t even understand the concept of “neat.” Parents want to sit down for dinner when it is ready and before it gets cold; children are almost always doing something that is far more important to them and don’t want to stop doing it when their parents call them. Etc.

In other words, most parents usually want their children to do things that they are developmentally incapable of doing. They want their young children to act like little adults, which they cannot possibly do.

The question is not, Do children frequently “disobey” their parents? Children are developmentally incapable of living up to most parents’ expectations. The only question is how parents react when their children are not doing what the parents want them to do, when they want, or the way they want.

And because few parents go to parenting school and most bring their own beliefs from their own childhoods with them, their reactions range from annoyance and frustration to anger and physical abuse, with every possibility in between.

Virtually all of us have lots of negative self-beliefs

I think there are three primary reasons why the source of self-beliefs is always interactions with parents as a young child and not people or events later in life.

First, as children we depend on them for our very survival; on some level we feel that we have to be able to trust them to survive. In other words, we assume they must have good reasons for treating us as they do.
Second, as adults, they seem to know how to navigate reality and we know we can’t. (What do all kids say? “When I grow up, then I’ll be able to ….”) So they must know what they are doing and their behavior must be “correct.” If I don’t like how I’m treated, it must be my fault.
Third, all children pass through a stage of development in which they are totally narcissistic, in other words, the world revolves around them. (This is a normal part of human development; if adults are still stuck at this level we call their narcissism a psychological problem.) Children experience the outside world as an extension of them. They are responsible for everything, including mom’s and dad’s behavior.

The source of specific self-beliefs

Here is the common source of a few negative self-esteem beliefs.

If my parents are critical of me, I must be doing something wrong, it must be my fault. I’m not good enough.
If I can’t get them to spend the time with me that I want or if they are physically around but not paying attention to me, it must be my fault. I’m not important.
If I can’t get them to give me what I want most of the time, it must be my fault. I’m not worthy or deserving.
If my parents make all the decisions that affect my life and they don’t allow me any say, I have no control over my life. I’m powerless.

If we could all recognize that few of us escape childhood without forming a bunch of negative self-esteem beliefs, we would better understand why we and others act the way we all do, we would not be embarrassed to have these beliefs, and we would be more willing to acknowledge them and eliminate them.

Please leave your comments and questions here about today’s post. I read all posts and answer as many as I can.

If you found this post useful, please tell your friends and followers by using the buttons at the top of this post.

If you haven’t yet eliminated at least one of your limitinself-esteem beliefs using the Lefkoe Belief Process, go to http://www.recreateyourlife.com/free where you can eliminate one negative belief free.

To get my blog posts as podcasts, sign up for the RSS feed above or look up “Morty Lefkoe” at iTunes to have the podcasts sent to you weekly.

Why do most of us act compulsively?

Morty Lefkoe — Tue, 13 Mar 2012 23:12:54 +0000

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Why are so many of us “driven” compulsively to seek or do things that frequently aren’t in our own best self-interest?

You probably aren’t surprised that my answer is: beliefs. But there is a specific type of belief that results in “driven” behavior. And it is formed in a very specific way. Let me explain.

Imagine you are a young child who has created a host of negative beliefs about yourself or about life. (Very few of us escape childhood without forming a bunch of negative self-esteem beliefs. I’ve explained why in earlier blogs. http://www.mortylefkoe.com/031610/; http://www.mortylefkoe.com/wonderful-parents/#) At this point you are in school, interacting with lots of other kids and adults. It dawns on you that you are going to grow up and will have to make your own way in life. You are confronted with a real dilemma, albeit an unconscious one: “How will I make it in life if there’s something fundamentally wrong with me or the world?”

Imagine the fear and anxiety you must feel when you experience these two conflicting “facts”: On one hand, you sense that you must make it on your own in life. On the other hand, you have concluded that “There’s something fundamentally wrong with me or life that will make it difficult, if not impossible, to make it on my own.”

Why we need survival strategies

Fear and anxiety are unpleasant and painful feelings, so children who have them try to find ways of not feeling them. In tens of thousands of sessions with clients, I and other Certified Lefkoe Method Facilitators have discovered that people have two basic ways of dealing with the unpleasant feelings that are caused by negative self-esteem beliefs:

First, they use alcohol, drugs, sex, food, or other substances to cover up the feelings and numb themselves or to make themselves feel good.

Second, they develop strategies that help them deal with the anxiety that stems from their negative beliefs. I call them “survival strategies” because the fear one experiences when one has negative self-esteem beliefs often makes one feel as if his survival is being threatened.

When a survival strategy is formed, the child also forms a belief about that strategy:

“What makes me good enough (or important, or worthwhile, etc.) is ….” A variation of that is: “The way to survive is ….”

Survival strategies are based on a child’s observation of what it takes to feel good about herself, to be important, to be worthwhile, or to be able to deal with life in spite of negative self-esteem beliefs.

How specific survival strategies are formed

Susan’s parents placed a heavy emphasis on friendships, on what others thought of them, and on impressing people, so Susan concluded that the way to survive was to get everyone to like and approve of her.

Fred formed a similar belief in a different way: When he got praise and acknowledgement from his parents he really felt good about himself, in a way he normally didn’t. So he concluded what made him good enough and important was having people think well of him.

Here’s Lauren’s story: She noticed that people treated her dad with respect and admiration because he had been so successful in business and had so much money, so Lauren concluded that what made her important and good enough was being financially successful.

Art lived in a community where the people who were considered important and given respect were in gangs and carried guns, so he chose that as his survival strategy.

(By the way, one way to know if you have negative self-esteem beliefs is to ask yourself: What makes you good enough [or important, or worthwhile, etc.]? When you answer anything other than: “Nothing,” it becomes clear that you need whatever you answered in order to be okay.)

Once you decide that a positive sense of yourself is “because of” anything, you’ve created a lifelong problem. For example, if you believe the only way to be good enough is to be wealthy and have a big house, your sense of worth is linked to those conditions. If you aren’t wealthy and don’t have a big house, you are forced to face your belief that you’re not good enough, which produces anxiety. Moreover, even if your survival strategy is achieved, there’s the danger of losing it. Total disaster is always just around the corner for you. Life becomes a sea of anxiety, in which you are constantly struggling to meet the conditions you have made for being good enough. Your self-esteem is always in question.

A few case histories

Tom, an executive in a Wall Street firm, earns over $200,000 a year. His core belief is I don’t matter, and his survival strategy belief is: What makes me worthwhile is being seen as important by others. As a result, Tom becomes anxious whenever a new person gets hired, a colleague wins praise, he isn’t included in a meeting, or his boss doesn’t acknowledge him after he’s completed a project.

Miriam has the survival strategy belief: What makes me acceptable is being beautiful. For most of her life, she has lived comfortably with that belief. Her beauty earned her quite a bit of attention, admiration, and even love. But now Miriam is approaching fifty, and she’s frightened. The march of time is threatening to rob her of the one thing that she believes makes her acceptable. She has become increasingly depressed; every time a man fails to look at her admiringly, she has a deep feeling of not being okay.

One consequence of being run by survival strategy beliefs is that instead of living out of choices and pleasure—doing things because you want to do them—you do them primarily to survive (to feel okay about yourself). You experience your survival as dependent on the success of your survival strategy. The need to fulfill the terms of your survival strategy dominates your life.

Survival strategies don’t really work

Someone once said, “You can never get enough of what you never really wanted in the first place.” That’s an excellent description of trying to live using survival strategies to compensate for negative self-esteem beliefs. Once you say you’re not worthwhile just the way you are, no amount of accomplishment or praise will provide the unconditional sense of self-esteem you want and need

People who have beliefs that are indicative of low self-esteem are not just criminals, drug addicts, unsuccessful people, or those who suffer from deep depression. Many people with low self-esteem are visibly successful, living in nice homes with stable families. What distinguishes people is not their self-esteem beliefs, but their survival strategies—the ways they cope with a negative sense of themselves.

Although the dysfunctional behavior that people exhibit is usually a direct result of their survival strategy beliefs, the energy that drives the survival strategies is the underlying negative self-esteem. We don’t want to have to acknowledge the negative self-esteem belief (it’s too scary), so we do whatever it takes to manifest the survival strategy belief. That’s why the underlying self-esteem belief should be eliminated before the survival strategy belief.

The role of survival strategy beliefs explains why therapies designed only to improve self-esteem rarely produce fundamental and lasting changes in people’s behavior and feelings.

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Will you die with these regrets?

Morty Lefkoe — Tue, 06 Mar 2012 23:43:13 +0000

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Bonnie Ware is an Australian nurse who spent several years caring for patients in the last 12 weeks of their lives.  She recorded their dying epiphanies in a blog called Inspiration and Chai (http://www.inspirationandchai.com/Regrets-of-the-Dying.html), which gathered so much attention that she put her observations into a book called The Top Five Regrets of the Dying.  

Read her original blog post and see my explanation why so many of us have these regrets.

“For many years I worked in palliative care. My patients were those who had gone home to die. Some incredibly special times were shared. I was with them for the last three to twelve weeks of their lives. …

“When questioned about any regrets they had or anything they would do differently, common themes surfaced again and again. Here are the most common five:”

1. “I wish I’d had the courage to live a life true to myself, not the life others expected of me.

“This was the most common regret of all. When people realise that their life is almost over and look back clearly on it, it is easy to see how many dreams have gone unfulfilled. Most people had not honoured even a half of their dreams and had to die knowing that it was due to choices they had made, or not made.”

Notice that Ms. Ware said they knew they had surrendered their dreams “due to choices they had made, or not made.” And what determined their choices? Beliefs such as:

It’s selfish to do what I want. I’m not worthy. I don’t deserve to have what I want. Mistakes and failure are bad. If I make a mistake or fail I’ll be rejected. What makes me good enough and important is having people think well of me. The way to survive is to do what others want me to do. I’m not good enough.

2. “I wish I hadn’t worked so hard.

“This came from every male patient that I nursed. They missed their children’s youth and their partner’s companionship. Women also spoke of this regret, but as most were from an older generation, many of the female patients had not been breadwinners. All of the men I nursed deeply regretted spending so much of their lives on the treadmill of a work existence.”

The behavior leading to this regret is caused by many beliefs, the most important being: What makes me good enough and important are my achievements. What makes me good enough or important is being successful.

3. “I wish I’d had the courage to express my feelings.

“Many people suppressed their feelings in order to keep peace with others. As a result, they settled for a mediocre existence and never became who they were truly capable of becoming. Many developed illnesses relating to the bitterness and resentment they carried as a result.”

Here are some beliefs that could keep people from expressing their feelings: My feelings are not important. If I express my feelings I’ll be rejected. What makes me good enough or important is having people think well of me. Anger and conflict are dangerous.

4. “I wish I had stayed in touch with my friends.

“Often they would not truly realise the full benefits of old friends until their dying weeks and it was not always possible to track them down. Many had become so caught up in their own lives that they had let golden friendships slip by over the years. There were many deep regrets about not giving friendships the time and effort that they deserved. Everyone misses their friends when they are dying.”

Not staying in touch with friends could be caused by such beliefs as: What makes me good enough or important are my achievements. What makes me good enough or important is being successful. You have to work hard to make money. If I express myself I’ll get hurt. Relationships are painful.

5. “I wish that I had let myself be happier.

“This is a surprisingly common one. Many did not realise until the end that happiness is a choice. They had stayed stuck in old patterns and habits. The so-called ‘comfort’ of familiarity overflowed into their emotions, as well as their physical lives. Fear of change had them pretending to others, and to their selves, that they were content, when deep within, they longed to laugh properly and have silliness in their life again.”

Read that again. They “did not realize until the end that happiness is a choice.” Get rid of the beliefs that might keep you from realizing that happiness is a choice.

Life is difficult. You have to take life seriously. Having fun is childish and stupid. Mistakes and failure are bad. If I make a mistake or fail I’ll be rejected. What makes me good enough or important is having people think well of me.

Don’t allow your beliefs to cause you to reach the end of your life having lived an unfulfilled life. Eliminate all the beliefs that could keep you from living a full life, from pursuing your dreams, from having your life be all that it can be.

I’d like to end this post with one of my favorite quotes from a former president, Teddy Roosevelt:

“It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.”

Your only real limits are the limits you place on yourself. Get rid of all those self-imposed limitations. It is possible.

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How to live in a state of bliss

Morty Lefkoe — Tue, 28 Feb 2012 22:38:31 +0000

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The Four Agreements, by Don Miguel Ruiz, is one of the most popular personal growth books ever written. I had the pleasure of meeting him for the first time at the semi-annual Transformational Leadership Council (TLC) meeting last month.

Don Miguel is one the most “present” and alive individuals I have ever met. His eyes seem to twinkle with joy. On the second day of the meeting we spent some time together. Whenever he saw me after that, he got up from his chair, walked across the room, and hugged me.

Because I knew I would be meeting him at the TLC meeting and because I had never read The Four Agreements, I decided to read it before the meeting. I was amazed how similar it was to so much of what I believe and have written myself.

Because so much of what he says mirrors my own thoughts (although our writing styles are very different), I want to quote a few passages from his book in order to emphasize some ideas that I think are particularly important to insuring your happiness.

Passages from The Four Agreements

Nothing other people do is because of you. It is because of themselves. All people live in their own dream, in their own mind; they are in a completely different world from the one we live in. When we take something personally, we make the assumption that they know what is in our world, and we try to impose our world on their world.

Even when a situation seems so personal, even if others insult you directly, it has nothing to do with you. What they say, what they do, and the opinions they give are according to the agreements they have in their own minds. Their point of view comes from all the programming they received during domestication.

If someone gives you an opinion and says, ‘Hey, you look so fat,’ don’t take it personally, because the truth is that this person is dealing with his or her own feelings, beliefs, and opinions. That person tried to send poison to you and if you take it personally, then you take that poison and it becomes yours. …

When you take things personally, then you feel offended and your reaction is to defend your beliefs and create conflicts. You make something big out of something so little, because you have the need to be right and make everybody else wrong. …

It is not important to me what you think about me, and I don’t take what you think personally. I don’t take it personally when people say, ‘Miguel, you are the best,’ and I also don’t take it personally when they say, “Miguel, you are the worst.’ …

No, I don’t take it personally. Whatever you think, whatever you feel, I know is your problem and not my problem. It is the way you see the world. It is nothing personal, because you are dealing with yourself, not with me. Others are going to have their own opinion according to their belief system, but nothing they think about me is really about me, but it is about them. …

If you live without fear, if you love, there is no place for those [negative] emotions. If you don’t feel any of those emotions, it is logical that you will feel good. When you feel good, everything around you is good. When everything around you is great, everything makes you happy. You are loving everything that is around you because you are loving yourself. … You live in that state of bliss where everything is so wonderful, and everything is so beautiful. In that state of bliss you are making love all the time with everything you perceive.

Don Miguel walks his talk

Based on my personal experience of him, Don Miguel lives in this state of bliss.

What about you? Could you imagine not giving meaning to what others say?

Could you imagine living without negative emotions? Could you imagine living in bliss?

It is possible. Try making a clear distinction between what people say and the meaning you give it. Make real to yourself that nothing anyone says or does has any inherent meaning. Events only have the meaning you give them and that meaning exists only in your mind. When you make that distinction clear enough, the meaning will dissolve along with any feelings that the meaning had created.

Create your own life of bliss

Try it. No, don’t think about trying it some day. Really try it. Right now. And then write and tell me what it feels like to, as Don Miguel puts it, stop taking personally what others say.

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It’s not your fault

Morty Lefkoe — Tue, 21 Feb 2012 22:53:40 +0000

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If you’re reading this, you are probably interested in personal growth. And if you are interested in personal growth you’ve probably read a lot of books, taken a lot of workshops, and purchased a lot of programs. And if you are a typical buyer, you’ve probably been disappointed many times by the results. Right?

And what is your response when you don’t get the desired result? It’s got to be someone’s fault: Either what I purchased is not effective or it’s my fault.

Sad to say, some of the programs for sale in the personal growth market are not very effective and don’t work for most people. You have to be a smart shopper and check the reputation of the people you deal with before making a purchase. But the worst that happens if it’s “their” fault is that you lose a few bucks.

The alternative response when a program doesn’t work for you is much deadlier. “If the program is good and it didn’t work for me (or if I never got around to even using it), then it must be my fault. If a program that works for others doesn’t produce change in me, I must be in even worse shape than I thought.” This response just piles more guilt on the guilt we already felt for having the condition that led us to buy the product in the first place.

It’s not your fault and it’s not the fault of the program

Our behavior is determined primarily by our beliefs and the meaning we give events moment by moment, in other words, how events occur for us. (See my earlier post for more details on the relationship between beliefs and “occurrings,” http://www.mortylefkoe.com/beliefs-dont-behavior/#) As a result, if you read a really useful book, like Jack Canfield’s The Success Principles, you may not be able to apply his valuable strategies, which, if implemented, would help you get what you want in life. (This in not an affiliate link and I don’t get anything if you buy the book—except the satisfaction of knowing I helped someone find some useful information.)

It’s not Jack’s fault if you don’t get results because his strategies can work. And it’s not your fault because the beliefs I’m not good enough, I’m not capable, I’m not competent, and Mistakes and failure are bad, among others, can literally prevent you from acting on Jack’s good advice.

Any time you find yourself not doing what you know you should do or even what you want to do, recognize that you aren’t a bad person, a lazy person, or a forever hopeless person for not acting—only a person with limiting beliefs and destructive “occurrings.”

What’s upsetting is not our failures as such, but the meaning we give our failures. The purpose of today’s post is to help you shift that meaning by giving you an insight into “free will.” That is the first step to truly achieving freedom in your life.

What we feel and what we do is almost totally determined by our beliefs and occurrings at any given moment. On the other hand, we are free to choose to eliminate the beliefs and dissolve the occurrings that run our lives. That is where real free will lies, not in trying to override our beliefs and occurrings at the moment.

Beating yourself up for feeling anxious, angry or depressed—or for not doing what you know you should do—keeps you stuck in a never-ending loop of helplessness and hopelessness. Eliminating the source of your negative feelings and your inability to act is the first step to creating your life instead of merely living it.

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Beliefs determine behavior, right? Wrong.

Morty Lefkoe — Wed, 15 Feb 2012 00:01:08 +0000

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For many years I thought that virtually all of our behavior and feelings were caused by beliefs. When thousands of clients found and eliminated the relevant beliefs, they saw spectacular behavioral and emotional changes.

After about 12 years, however, I had a client who eliminated scores of beliefs and made many significant changes in his life, but who couldn’t get rid of the anger he felt toward his mother, who was a partner in his construction business, when she gave him advice on how to run his company.

At that point I realized that beliefs weren’t the only cause of our feelings, that stimuli could be conditioned to cause emotions, such as being told what to do causing anger and not living up to expectations causing anxiety.

As time went on I realized that sometimes a sense of ourselves or a sense of life could result in feelings, as could conditioned expectations. In other words, there were several sources of emotions in addition to beliefs, although beliefs still seemed to be the major source.

Occurrings are the major direct cause of feelings

There I was for many years until about two years ago when I came upon the distinction between reality and how reality occurs for us, in other words, the meaning we give reality. I soon realized that the feelings that seemed to be caused by beliefs were caused indirectly by beliefs, but directly by our occurrings. Here’s an example: Assume a woman has the belief, Men are dangerous. When she sees a man and feels fear, it seems as if the belief is causing the fear. In fact, it isn’t. The belief is responsible for the woman giving the man’s presence the meaning, at that moment, that she is in danger. That immediate meaning, that “occurring,” is actually causing the feeling of fear.

It is true that the meaning she gives that particular man is determined primarily by the beliefs she already had about men in general, but the feeling is still caused by the occurring. Therefore, by dissolving the occurring you could get rid of the fear at that moment without getting rid of the belief. This was a major insight for me.

Although the occurring can be dissolved immediately along with the emotion it caused, if the belief was not eliminated this woman would continue to give “negative” meanings to encounters with men in the future, which would cause fear.

Beliefs don’t directly cause behavior either

So for the past couple of years I was clear that emotions were directly caused by occurrings and conditionings, not beliefs. But up until last week I still thought that our behavior is caused directly by beliefs. I had plenty of evidence. For example, I had seen many clients totally stop their procrastination by eliminating 16 or so beliefs. I had seen many clients start taking actions they had been afraid to take—such as doing things for the first time, approaching women, changing careers—after eliminating the relevant beliefs.

What I just realized (and I need to check out further) is that there are usually thoughts just before we act, especially when we refrain from acting. It appears that those thoughts are occurrings or at least clues to our occurrings. If this is true, then, like feelings, beliefs are only the indirect cause of our behavior and our occurrings are the direct cause. If we dissolve those occurrings I suspect that we could take action without eliminating the beliefs.

Let’s look at a specific behavior and see how this works. Procrastination consists of not doing things that either should be done or that we actually want to do. We have identified about 16 beliefs and conditionings that have seemed to cause this behavioral problem. How might your occurrings cause you to procrastinate?

Imagine you have the “procrastination beliefs,” such as I’m not capable, I’m not competent, mistakes and failure are bad, if I make a mistake I’ll be rejected, and what makes me good enough and important is doing things perfectly. Now imagine you were about to take on some new project. Given these beliefs, it probably would occur to you as: I can’t do this project. I will fail. Anything less than perfection means there’s something wrong with me.

This occurring is what would determine your behavior at that moment; the beliefs are relevant only in that they are the major source of the occurring.

It is important to remember that getting rid of the beliefs is still crucial because they are the primary cause of our occurrings. If we don’t get rid of the beliefs, we will keep having similar occurrings in similar situations over and over. On the other hand, if we eliminated the relevant beliefs, we probably would stop having those occurrings.

To summarize: What seems to determine our behavior and feelings moment by moment are our occurrings, which, in turn, are caused primarily by our beliefs.

Getting rid of beliefs and dissolving occurrings are not substitutes for each other

It would be nice if we could resolve all our problems either by eliminating all our limiting beliefs or by learning how to dissolve our occurrings. Unfortunately, although doing either would make a significant improvement in the quality of our life, we should learn how to do both.

Learning how to dissolve our occurrings enables us to handle any negative feelings as they happen, instead of having to wait until we discover and eliminate the beliefs that caused the occurring. Also, sometimes the source of any given occurring is a belief that doesn’t have much impact in other areas of our life, so it would only show up infrequently. As a result we might have to continually identify and eliminate new beliefs as we notice them causing new occurrings.

(Here is an example of a belief that caused me to have a negative occurring, but that probably wouldn’t show up often or affect my life in any significant way. I noticed that my wife Shelly usually left water glasses or teacups in the bathroom, her office, the bedroom, and any other room she happened to wander into during the course of a day. I gave it the meaning that she was making a mess in the house and I got annoyed. I dissolved the meaning and the upset went away, but I also discovered the belief that produced that occurring: Shelly is unconscious about making a mess.)

On the other hand, eliminating a lot of beliefs would prevent a lot of occurrings from ever happening, but because some occurrings are caused by beliefs that don’t show up very often and because some occurrings are not even caused by beliefs, this strategy would not enable you to prevent all occurrings in the future. Based on my experience over the past couple of years, other factors determining occurrings include moods, conditionings (stimuli, sense, and expectations), and physical sensations

So beliefs are still a very important factor in improving your experience of life—making you happier, getting rid of anxieties and other negative feelings, and enabling you to take action you had been unable to take before. But they are not the determining cause. Our occurrings are.

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You are not your feelings

Morty Lefkoe — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 00:22:53 +0000

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How many times have you heard yourself say: I’m upset, or I’m angry, or I’m happy? If you are typical, many times a day. But stop for a moment and consider what you are actually saying. You are saying “I am …. (some specific emotion).” Whether you mean to or not, you are defining yourself as being your emotions.

Actually, when you are in the grip of a strong emotion, it really feels all encompassing, as if there is no part of “you” that isn’t that emotion. In fact, sometimes a negative emotion so feels like who we are that we resist letting go of it even when we dislike having the feeling. In other words, often we seem to want to hold on to feelings because it seems as if giving up the feeling is like giving up part of ourselves.

Take a moment and remember a time when you felt angry at someone and you knew on some level that the person really hadn’t done anything so terrible and that you ought to let go of the anger. Take a moment and really make the incident real. … Do you remember that some part of you didn’t want to let go of the anger, as if you’d be losing some part of yourself if the emotion were to stop?

It also can be difficult to let go of an emotion when it feels as if the emotion is validating the meaning we’ve given an event. It can feel to us as if letting go of the emotion will invalidate that meaning and letting go of the meaning will invalidate the feeling (which is who we feel we are). An example of this would be someone who doesn’t do something for us that he promised to do. We might give that event the meaning that I can’t count on people and I have to do everything myself, which likely would lead us to feel angry. It feels to us as if it really is true that we can’t count on people. So the anger justifies the meaning we gave the event (which has no inherent meaning). At the same time the meaning justifies the feeling, so we might resist letting go of the meaning we made up.

But is that actually true? Are we our emotions?

If we really are our emotions, then when an emotion disappeared, we should disappear … but we don’t. Let me explain this outrageous statement: If we say we are anything specific, and that thing disappears, then logically we would have to disappear. But we don’t disappear when our emotions disappear.

Not only do emotions fade away automatically after a period of time, it also is possible to stop emotions on the spot by getting rid of the two things that cause them: stimuli that have been conditioned and our occurrings, in other words, the meaning we give events moment-to-moment.

As I’ve explained in several posts, we unconsciously and automatically give meaning to meaningless events all day long. Because events that have no inherent meaning can’t cause us to have feelings, the feelings we have must come from the meaning we give the events. And by dissolving the meaning—in other words, how events occur for us—we can dissolve all the negative feelings that arise from the meaning.

So if the emotions we have usually dissipate on their own after a while and if our emotions are primarily the result of meaning we give events and we can dissolve most emotions merely by dissolving the meaning that gave rise to them, can you get that it is more accurate to say we “have” emotions, but are not our emotions?

The two best ways to get rid of negative emotions are to dissolve the conditionings and the occurrings that cause the feelings. But if you don’t know how to do that, however, it still is possible to lessen the impact emotions have on you. How? By noticing when you feel swept up by a strong negative emotion that “you” are observing your feeling. And the “you” that is doing the observing is not the same “you” that is having the emotion. That realization will enable you to make a clear distinction between “being” your emotion and “having” an emotion. And that will enable you to get some perspective on the emotion and extricate yourself from it to a large extent.

Try my suggestion and let me know what happens in a comment.

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How the Lefkoe Institute can serve you

Morty Lefkoe — Tue, 31 Jan 2012 20:39:55 +0000

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Can I eliminate beliefs on my own? Do you have Certified Lefkoe Method Facilitators in my area? How do beliefs differ from occurrings?

Now that over 100,000 people from over 60 countries have eliminated at least one belief using the Lefkoe Belief Process, we get calls all day long from every corner of the globe. We are asked these and similar questions about the Lefkoe Institute’s products and services that are designed to free you from your limitations and enable you to create the life you’ve always wanted to live.

Although we are happy to talk to you directly and personally answer all your questions, I thought it would be useful to describe in a blog post all the products and services we offer and how they differ from each other. This post will help you decide which of our products or services will best help you reach your goals and give you some suggestions on where to begin. Please don’t hesitate to call us at 415-884-0552 if you still have any questions.

The sources of our problems

The Lefkoe Method (TLM) consists of several processes that we use to help clients eliminate limiting beliefs and de-condition stimuli that result in negative emotions. Here is a short description of the major processes.

The most significant source of our self-imposed limitations is our beliefs. Our core beliefs about ourselves, people and life are formed in the first five or six years of life through interactions with our primary caretakers, usually our parents. Other beliefs can be formed at any point in our lives and determine our behavior and influence our feelings. All of these beliefs can be eliminated with the Lefkoe Belief Process.

Our emotional life is the result both of beliefs and conditionings. Emotions can result from conditioned events, such as fear that is caused by criticism, or anger caused by being told what to do. Such conditionings can be de-conditioned with the Lefkoe Stimulus Process.

Our feeling sense of ourselves (such as heavy, overwhelming, and despair) can be the result of a conditioned sense of self, which can be de-conditioned by the Lefkoe Sense Process. And we can have feelings resulting from our expectations, such as expecting disaster when we try something new. Such negative expectations can be eliminated with the Lefkoe Expectation Process.

On a moment-to-moment basis, our reactions are determined mainly by our “occurrings,” which are the meaning we give to events that have no inherent meaning. To use the example I’ve used before, imagine a friend of yours comes into a room, sees you, and doesn’t say hello. To many of us it would seem as if what actually happened in reality was our friend was angry with us. In fact, all that happened is that our friend saw us and did not say hello. That event has no inherent meaning. That he is angry with us is how the event occurs to us. Beliefs are generalized statements about ourselves, people and life that serve as a filter through which we view reality all the time. Our “occurrings,” on the other hand, are the meaning we give specific events as they happen moment-to-moment. The Lefkoe Occurring Process teaches you how to distinguish between events and how events occur for us, and then how to dissolve the occurring.

The Lefkoe Method

The Lefkoe Method consists of all the processes we have created, most of which I’ve described above. For more details about these processes and a few others, designed mainly for organizations, please see a series of four blog posts I wrote in 2010.

http://www.mortylefkoe.com/lefkoe-method-part-1/#.
http://www.mortylefkoe.com/rid-negative-senses/#.
http://www.mortylefkoe.com/well-being-tlm-part/#.
http://www.mortylefkoe.com/effective-work-tlm/#.

The different ways the Lefkoe Institute can help

Step 1: The best place to get an experience of how the Lefkoe Belief Process eliminates beliefs is http://recreateyourlife.com/free, where you can eliminate three of the most common beliefs without charge. This is an excellent way to determine if TLM will be useful for you.

Step 2: The simplest and least expensive way to eliminate 19 of the most common beliefs and four of the most common conditionings is our Natural Confidence program. Getting rid of these beliefs and conditionings will eliminate eight common problems, such as procrastination, worrying what others think about you, and your fear of rejection. This is available as streaming video or streaming video and a DVD. Information and an order form can be found at http://recreateyourlife.com/naturalconfidence.

The self-help/help others path

Step 3a: Because so many of you asked us to create a course to learn how to eliminate beliefs on your own, we did so and started offering such a training last year. This on-line course only teaches you how to eliminate a belief once you know what it is. You learn how to eliminate your own beliefs and how to help others get rid of beliefs. For more information about this course, please go to http://lefkoeuniversity.com.

Step 3b: Two additional courses are in development. We intend to create a second Lefkoe Belief Process Training later this year that will teach you how to identify all the beliefs that cause any given problem. At some point we also will create a course that teaches you how to use some of the de-conditioning processes, namely, the Lefkoe Stimulus Process, the Lefkoe Sense Process, and the Lefkoe Expectation Process.

Step 3c: Parenting. My wife Shelly has created a separate parenting business that offers a seven-CD program called “Parenting the Lefkoe Way.” It teaches parents how to enable their children to form positive beliefs out of their daily interactions and helps parents identify beliefs they may have that are adversely affecting their parenting. For information about this course please go to http://parentingthelefkoeway.com.

The webinar path

Step 4: At present there is only one way to learn how to use the Lefkoe Occurring Process (LOP) and that is the Lefkoe Occurring Course. This course consists of a webinar of an hour and 45 minutes weekly for 10 weeks. In this course you learn, first, how to distinguish between events and the meaning you give those events (how the events occur to you) and, second, how to completely dissolve the meaning so you are left with nothing but the events. And because most of our moment-to-moment feelings are the result of the meaning we give to meaningless events, dissolving the meaning also dissolves the negative feelings caused by our occurrings, such as frustration, annoyance, upset, stress, anxiety, and anger. For more information on this course please go to http://occurringcourse.com/discover.

The Certified Lefkoe Method Facilitator path

Step 5: The best place to get help identifying and then eliminating all the beliefs and conditionings that are causing any given problem—including emotional eating, improving golf performance, and a fear of public speaking—is one-hour one-on-one sessions with a Certified Lefkoe Method Facilitator (CLMF). Most of our CLMF are located in California, but almost all of our sessions are held on the phone or Skype. For more information or to schedule a phone or Skype session please call us at 415-884-0552.

Although we have helped clients with almost all the problems they might see a psychotherapist for, including problems as serious as depression and phobias, and as common as worrying about what people think of you and procrastination, we have several niche areas that a CLMF can help you with. The major ones are described below.

Fear of Public Speaking

If your problem is a fear of public speaking, and if you prefer to work with a trained facilitator, we guarantee to help you totally eliminate that fear in four one-hour one-to-one sessions. For information about that specific program please go to http://speakingwithoutfear.com. You also can order a DVD program designed just to handle that problem. It can be found at http://undoityourself.com. The Natural Confidence program has many of the same beliefs and conditionings as the UnDoItYourself DVD program, but we would recommend the latter program if you specifically want to get rid of the fear of public speaking.

How we help organizations

We offer a special service to organizations that is designed to help executives and managers become more effective at their job. We employ all the tools of TLM to accomplish this. We have been able to help employees become more innovative, gain better interpersonal skills, delegate more, become more decisive, and gain more confidence. For information about this unique program please visit http://lefkoe.com.

Golf

We discovered years ago that TLM can make a profound difference in a golfer’s mental game. Eliminating beliefs and learning how to dissolve negative self-talk during a round can reduce your handicap by at least several strokes. For more information about our golf program please go to http://improvegolfperformance.com.

Emotional Eating

Emotional eating is caused both by beliefs and a different type of conditioning. Stimulus conditioning consists of conditioning an event to produce an emotion, as discussed above. The conditioning involved in emotional eating is conditioning an event to produce a behavior, namely, eating. So boredom, loneliness, feeling unloved, and many other negative feelings can get conditioned to produce a desire to eat. Getting rid of emotional eating requires de-conditioning as many as 20 different triggers, in addition to eliminating any relevant beliefs. The de-conditioning can be done easily with the Lefkoe De-conditioning Process. For more information about our emotional eating program, please read my eBook, The Secret to Ending Overeating For Good, which you can get free at http://emotionaleatingreport.com.

For lots of information about The Lefkoe Method and how it applies to all areas of life, subscribe to my weekly blog posts at http://mortylefkoe.com.

The website that has information about the Lefkoe Institute with links to most of the websites named above is http://lefkoeinstitute.com.

This blog post should help to clarify the difference between our various products and services that are designed to help free you from your limitations. If you have any further questions, please let me know and I will try to answer frequently asked questions in another post. If you have a question about your personal needs, please call us at 415-884-0552.

Please leave your comments and questions here about today’s post. I read all posts and answer as many as I can.

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Does “reality” really exist?

Morty Lefkoe — Wed, 18 Jan 2012 17:33:52 +0000

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If you asked someone, “Do things exist?” the response would probably be, “Of course things exist! The world is full of things. Everyone knows that there is physical stuff out there—that reality is tangible and real!”

But what allows any thing—a hand, a chair, or any other object—to exist? One way to discover the answer is to imagine a specific thing—say, your hand—expanding and expanding until there is nothing in the universe except the hand. What would happen to it? … Really, just take a moment and try this. You’ll be amazed at your experience … You wouldn’t see the hand anymore, would you? Why? … It would disappear because there would be nothing in the universe that was not the hand. This is a very basic concept about reality: In order for any thing to exist, there must also be not that thing.

Consider this for a moment. Can you see that any physical object is bounded by “not that object”? If an object did not have any borders—that is, if it wasn’t surrounded by “not that object”—it couldn’t be distinguished from everything else. In other words, it wouldn’t exist.

The same principle applies to nonmaterial concepts. Love and hate, peace and war, strong and weak, beautiful and ugly—these only exist and have unique attributes because they have been distinguished from each other. For example, the state of war is distinguished from peace by the presence of armed conflict. When there is no armed conflict there is peace. But if peace existed throughout the world all the time, and if the alternative (war) was unimaginable, you wouldn’t be able to distinguish peace. Peace, as a condition distinct from war, couldn’t exist.

A Universe Without Distinctions

Now imagine everything in the universe without any distinctions. It’s all just an undifferentiated whole. Can you see that there is nothing? That’s because in order for anything to exist, it must be distinguished from everything else. If no distinction is made between a specific thing and everything else, there is only an undifferentiated everything—which is another way of saying nothing.

Everything, without any distinctions, is the same as nothing. Take a moment and think about that. Until consciousness has made a distinction, nothing can possibly exist.

Therefore, the world really isn’t the way you perceive it. In fact, it isn’t any way until you perceive it that way—that is, until you distinguish it that way. You don’t even sense what’s “out there” because there’s nothing out there to be sensed. (Nothing, as we’ve seen, however, is the potential for everything before anyTHING is distinguished.) In making distinctions, we use our sensory apparatus (the five senses) as well as our perceptual framework (language, culture, and individual beliefs).

An excellent example of this point comes from a Time magazine cover story on human consciousness.

“A baby born with cataracts—an unusual but not unheard-of condition—and left untreated for as little as six months becomes permanently and irrevocably blind. If a sixty-year-old develops cataracts, an operation can restore full sight. The distinctions most of us make unconsciously and at a glance—foreground vs. background, moving vs. stationary, vertical vs. horizontal, and dozens more—are concepts that the brain has learned. It literally has to wire itself, with neurons growing out to touch and communicate with one another in an ever more sophisticated network of connections. And if those connections are not repeatedly stimulated in the first few months of life, when the brain is still in its formative period, they atrophy and die.” (Emphasis added.)

In other words, moving and stationary or vertical and horizontal are not things “out there.” Rather they are “concepts that the brain has learned” (or distinguished) as a result of having a specific sensory apparatus (and brain), without which they couldn’t be distinguished. That means they literally wouldn’t exist.

In other words, if everyone was born with cataracts (which would be normal if everyone had that condition), our reality would not possess moving and stationary, vertical and horizontal, etc.—despite the fact that we are convinced that these are inherent attributes of reality.

Is There AnyTHING Out There?

Here’s another thought exercise that will help make it clear that what we think is “out there” is largely a function of our perceptual apparatus. Imagine that beings from another galaxy arrived on earth. Imagine further that instead of human eyes they had a different “viewing sense, namely, the equivalent of an electron microscope.” When they viewed our world they might not see the solid objects we see; instead they might see atoms: electrons spinning around protons and neutrons. They might notice that almost all of what they were viewing (the atom) was empty space. So if these creatures were the inhabitants of earth, they might not even have a concept of solid matter.

Imagine further that instead of human ears, these visitors from space had a sense that picked up radio waves but did not hear “sounds” made in their presence.

And finally imagine that they had a sensory mechanism like dolphins, who “see” the echo of sound vibrations they send out.

These aliens would experience and describe a totally different universe than the physical universe we would swear exists all around us.

Our role in creating our reality can be seen in another area. Apart from our perceptual apparatus, our most important tool in making distinctions and creating our reality is language.
As Edward Sapir, a noted anthropologist, has said: “We see and hear and otherwise experience very largely as we do because the language habits of our community predispose certain choices of interpretation.

Language Determines How We Perceive Reality

Language is far more than a tool for communication. With language we categorize, distinguish, and create the universe. Ultimately, we perceive the world consistently with our language. For example, when we think in English, we perceive a world made up primarily of objects: people, trees, and houses. These objects do things or have things done to them using verbs. We literally see everything in the world in this fashion. We don’t perceive “things out there” because there really are things out there. That just happens to be our worldview, because in our language there is a subject, which acts upon an object, which exists independently of the subject. In the English language, independent entities (subjects and objects) are primary, rather than processes or relationships. That’s not true in every language.

As Ralph Strauch points out in his book The Reality Illusion: “Some languages are structured around quite different basic word- categories and relationships. They project very different pictures of the basic nature of reality as a result. The language of the Nootka Indians in the Pacific Northwest, for example, has only one principle word-category; it denotes happenings or events. A verbal form like ‘eventing’ might better describe this word-category, except that such a form doesn’t sound right in English, with its emphasis on noun forms. We might think of Nootka as composed entirely of verbs, except that they take no subjects or objects as English verbs do. The Nootka, then, perceive the world as a stream of transient events, rather than as the collection of more or less permanent objects which we see. Even something which we see clearly as a physical object, like a house, the Nootka perceive of as a long-lived temporal event. The literal English translation of the Nootka concept might be something like ‘housing occurs;’ or ‘it houses.’”

We swear things exist because we distinguish them though our particular perceptual apparatus and through our language. Change those and you dramatically change the world that you think is “out there.” There might not even be any more “things.”

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You are both consciousness AND a “creation”

Morty Lefkoe — Tue, 10 Jan 2012 23:50:01 +0000

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Based on surveys of my blog readers, most of you are primarily interested in changing your “creation”—in other words, you want to improve your daily life by eliminating behavioral and emotional barriers. For example, you want to stop your anxiety and be able to take actions that you are unable to take now.

Some of you, however, seem to be more interested in growing spiritually—in other words, creating an altered state of consciousness in which you experience yourself as the creator of your life.

In fact, both are crucial to a life of happiness and fulfillment. And, I’m proud to say,The Lefkoe Method enables you to work on both at the same time.

You can’t ignore either state

Unfortunately, some people focus solely on spiritual growth, to the exclusion of improving their flesh and blood “creation.” Such people can be said to be “hiding out in spirituality, in their spiritual practice.

Here’s an example of what I mean. I was talking to a new client the other day who told me that she had been meditating and working hard on her “spiritual practice” for over 10 years, and couldn’t understand why she had seen virtually no change in her concern about what others thought about her, her fear of making mistakes, her procrastination, and the negative self-talk that filled her mind almost all the time. What was she doing wrong, she asked me.

I replied that she had neglected a crucial aspect of who she is. You see, many people have experienced a non-dual state of consciousness through meditation and think that all that is “real” is a formless, eternal, consciousness. For them, physical reality and the people named Morty, Joe, etc. are not “real.” As a result, they try to ignore, to the extent possible, “reality.”

Physical reality is “real”

There are several problems with this point of view.

First, how can you expect an improvement in your “creation,” the person who acts and feels, if you ignore it and pretend it doesn’t “really” exist?

Second, it may well be true that consciousness is the source of physical reality, in other words, that physical reality is a manifestation of consciousness. But that fact does not mean that physical reality is not real.

There is an old metaphor that explains this point clearly for me. It is as if consciousness is an ocean. The ocean creates (manifests) individual, specific waves. So there really are specific waves in different locations that are different from other waves, even though each of them comes from and will shortly return to the entire ocean.

Who you ultimately are

So who you ultimately are is formless, non-dual consciousness and, at the present moment, you also have manifested as a specific creation. Moreover, and this is crucial to remember, that creation has specific beliefs and conditionings. They, in turn, determine your behavior and feelings and—by being the primary source of your occurrings—your beliefs also determine your moment-to-moment responses to events.

I remember reading a book by Jack Kornfield, a Buddhist teacher at Spirit Rock near my home in California, who spent many years meditating and following a spiritual path in Thailand and other Far East countries. He wrote how in meditative states he totally transcended his body and dissolved in white light. He spent hundreds of hours in a state in which there was no distinction between the observer and what was observed. And yet, he reported, when he came back to America to teach he had all the same relationships problems he had had before his years of meditation.

This is not to minimize the importance of a spiritual practice. Recognizing that you are the creator of your life—as people experience in the Who Am I Really? (WAIR?) Process that is part of the Lefkoe Belief Process—provides an invaluable context to living as a creation.

Recognize you are both consciousness and a creation

So what should you do to live your best life possible? Recognize you are both the creator of your life (consciousness) and a creation (the person reading this post). And because you are both, work on both. Continue to eliminate the beliefs and conditionings that determine your behavior and feelings, and also learn to stop giving meaning to daily events, which will give you the ability to create your experience of life, moment by moment.

And find some spiritual practice, be it meditation, putting yourself in the “creator state” (an altered state of consciousness you can enter by using the WAIR? Process), or whatever else you choose. In that altered state you are able to get a valuable perspective on your life as a creation that cannot be obtained merely by working on the creation.

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Why you should be concerned about your beliefs

Morty Lefkoe — Thu, 05 Jan 2012 00:21:41 +0000

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If you have read any of the writings of the top self-help experts during the past 10 years—such as Deepak Chopra, Jack Canfield, or Joe Vitale—you’ve learned that permanent change is impossible without eliminating the beliefs that are keeping you stuck.

I agree; beliefs do have that power. But why? What gives our beliefs the power they have to determine our behavior and feelings?

There are two reasons why beliefs have the power they have—one is obvious, the other more subtle.

Our beliefs about reality ARE our reality

First, a belief is a statement about people, reality, or ourselves that feels like the truth to us. Although you might think that you would consciously agree with what you believe, in fact, it is possible to consciously disagree with something you believe.

For example, you can know intellectually that mistakes are good learning experiences and still believe that mistakes are bad. If you have that belief, you would be afraid of trying new things or allowing others to know about your mistakes, even if you consciously think that mistakes are not bad at all.

Because most of us usually act consistently with reality, we act consistently with what we think reality is, not with what reality actually is. In other words, if we believe I’m not good enough, People can’t be trusted, or Life is difficult (none of which are true)—then we will deal with reality as if these statements are the truth. As a result, they will determine what we do and how we feel.

To use one simple example, if you believe I’m not loveable, Relationships don’t work, and Men/women can’t be trusted—if that is your reality—you have virtually no chance of having a nurturing, loving long-term relationship. Get rid of those and other related beliefs and you’ve changed your reality. At which point the possibility of a nurturing, loving long-term relationships becomes possible.

Because we view reality through the filter of our beliefs, which color our perceptions, long-term fundamental change requires eliminating the beliefs that limit us. Yes, it sometimes is possible to use will power to act against our beliefs in the short run, but ultimately we will act consistently with the way we view reality.

Beliefs are the primary source of our “occurrings”

There is a second way in which beliefs determine our lives: by influencing our moment-to-moment reactions.

For about 25 years I thought that beliefs affected our behavior and feelings directly, as explained above. To some extent I still think that is true. But a couple of years ago I realized that our moment-to-moment actions and feelings are determined primarily by the meaning we unconsciously and automatically give reality, in other words, how reality occurs to us—not by what actually happens in reality.

For example, imagine a friend of yours walks in a room that you are in, notices you, and doesn’t talk to you. Most people would think: My friend is angry with me. This would be so real that most people would say to someone with them: Don’t you see that my friend is angry with me?

But all that actually happened is the friend noticed you and didn’t talk to you. That event could occur to you as: He is angry with me. And because you deal with reality based on how it occurs to you—which you are convinced is what actually happened—you would respond to your friend as if he really is angry with you. Even though his anger exists only in your mind, not in reality.

We are constantly giving meaning to events. We do it 20-40 times a day. And we are hardly ever aware of it. So our “occurrings” run our lives. And what is the relationship between our occurrings and our beliefs? Our beliefs are the primary determinant of how reality occurs to us.

The meaning we give events, which have no inherent meaning, is determined largely by our beliefs, although our moods and physical condition also play a role.

Thus our beliefs determine our lives in two ways: directly, because they are what we think reality actually is and, indirectly, by significantly influencing our occurrings, which have the biggest impact on our moment-to-moment reactions.

The bad news and the good news

As a result, the bad news is: long-term fundamental behavioral and emotional change is virtually impossible without eliminating the limiting beliefs that are running your life. The good news is: You can make massive positive changes in your life—such as taking actions you were afraid to take and ridding yourself of such negative feelings as anxiety and anger—by eliminating your limiting beliefs.

It might well be that getting rid of a bunch of limiting beliefs is the best way to reduce the negative and increase the positive in your life in 2012.

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Can you permanently eliminate a belief in minutes?

Morty Lefkoe — Tue, 27 Dec 2011 23:29:03 +0000

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About 30% of the people who used the Lefkoe Belief Process (LBP) to eliminate a belief told us in a survey that they thought the belief had not been eliminated. We were surprised at that statistic because well over 90% of the people we work with directly eliminate a belief. Why were so many not successful when they used the online process?

After spending a lot of time researching the issue we finally discovered that over 90% of the people who used the on-line process actually did eliminate a belief. The problem was that a large number of people who did eliminate a belief still thought that the LBP hadn’t worked. They had a hard time believing they had done what they just did.

This skepticism has produced a big marketing problem for the Lefkoe Institute since its inception 27 years ago. An awful lot of people just don’t believe it is possible to do what we promise to do.

What makes The Lefkoe Method unique

Our unique distinction is that we can help people quickly and permanently eliminate all the relevant beliefs and conditionings that cause virtually any behavioral or emotional problem in their lives. But most people have the belief: Change is difficult, takes a long time, and requires a lot of reinforcement. So telling people what we offer usually results in people expressing skepticism about our claim. Even when people actually eliminate a belief, they sometimes have a hard time acknowledging that it really has been eliminated.

Four ways to know that a belief really is gone

I’d like to suggest four questions you can ask to determine if any belief-elimination process you are using really works.

1. Does the belief you want to get rid of go away and stay away? You can know a belief is eliminated right after an exercise because the words of the belief no longer feel true; the words feel as if they have no meaning. That’s not the same as having an insight that has you conclude the belief must be gone because it no longer makes sense to hold the belief or because the belief doesn’t feel as true as it did before. In this type of situation it can seem as if the belief is really gone, but it really isn’t.

Another way to check is to say the words of the belief several days later. Do they feel true, uncomfortable? Do they resonate with you? Or do the words still feel meaningless? With no energy or discomfort? If you still feel as if the belief is gone several days later, it probably is.

2. Did you get rid of some undesirable behavior or feeling after eliminating all the relevant beliefs? Ultimately you don’t care about eliminating beliefs. Eliminating beliefs is a means to an end. The true test to know that beliefs are gone is if the problem that the beliefs caused is gone. Because most problems usually are caused by a number of beliefs, you have to eliminate at least 8-10 beliefs to know that any given problem is gone, which then is proof that the beliefs must also be gone. For example, procrastination is caused by 16 beliefs. A good test that the 16 beliefs have been eliminated is to see if your procrastination disappears and doesn’t come back. (Actually it is caused by 13 beliefs and three conditionings, but conditioning is not really relevant in this discussion.)

On the other hand, you cannot determine if any given belief is gone by checking to see if your problem is gone. Hardly ever will getting rid of just one or two beliefs eliminate a problem. Because there isn’t always any noticeable change in your behavior or emotions as a result of eliminating one or two beliefs, the absence of change is not proof that you still have the belief.

3. Did you get a guarantee that the beliefs will not come back AND the problem that the beliefs cause will not come back either.

We have helped over 13,000 clients in private sessions and about 100,000 in on-line and DVD programs eliminate beliefs and problems. We offer a year-long guarantee that the problem will not return and have a refund rate of less than 10%. To see just a few of the reviews of our on-line products, go to http://blog.recreateyourlife.com. To see some video reviews, go to http://bit.ly/3Z10LN.

4. Is there independent research that proves that the beliefs and the problems are truly eliminated and don’t return?

The most objective way to prove that beliefs and the problems they cause are really gone is an independent study with a control group. This is the “gold standard” for proof of the effectiveness of a belief-elimination process.

The University of Arizona conducted a study using The Lefkoe Method that was published in a peer-reviewed journal, Clinical Psychology and Psychotherapy.

Preliminary Report on Results from
“Speaking Without Fear” Study

Prepared by Victoria Cunningham, Ph.D. & Lee Sechrest, Ph.D.
Department of Psychology, University of Arizona

May 20, 2004

“A recent study was conducted to examine the ability of Morty Lefkoe’s ‘The Lefkoe Method’ to reduce or even eliminate fear of speaking in public in a group of forty volunteers recruited from Toastmasters Clubs and other random sources and who reported fairly severe symptoms related to public speaking. Subjects were randomly assigned to an experimental or a control group… All treatment sessions were conducted by telephone, and, on average, only three one-hour sessions were required to achieve treatment goals.

“The results support our hypothesis that self-reported fear of speaking in public would be virtually eliminated. Before the experiment, both groups rated their last public speaking experience as an average of about 7 on a 10-point scale on which 1 meant ‘not at all fearful,’ and 10 indicated ‘extremely fearful’. Subjects in the experimental group experienced a reduction of about 5 points to an average score of 1.5, whereas the control group remained unchanged. In addition, after receiving the same treatment, scores for the control group were also reduced by about 5 points to yield an average of 1.5. It is important to note that all subjects rated their post-treatment scores in relation to an actual public speaking experience.

“We also asked subjects about other common physical sensations and cognitive difficulties often associated with speaking in public, e.g., increased heart rate, sweating, dry mouth, quivering voice, stuttering and difficulty staying focused. The results were quite consistent with those from the rating scale: prominent symptoms were reduced for everyone who received the treatment, and the difference between the experimental and control groups was large and statistically significant. Responses to additional questions to gauge individuals’ self-confidence as a speaker also provide evidence that ‘The Lefkoe Method’ was effective in virtually eliminating the fear of public speaking.” (Emphasis added.)

For a copy of the entire study from Clinical Psychology and Psychotherapy, go to http://www.undoityourself.com/research.html.

A follow up was conducted with the subjects six months later. The average level of fear was still below 2.

The LBP has been proven effective in permanently eliminating beliefs with tens of thousands of people. It probably will work with you. If you had any doubts whether or not your belief really was gone when you tried it the first time, please try it again at http://recreateyourlife.com and keep in mind the four tests to determine if a belief really has been eliminated.

Please leave your comments and questions here about today’s post. I read all posts and answer as many as I can.

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Stop being run by your feelings

Morty Lefkoe — Wed, 21 Dec 2011 00:36:34 +0000

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At one point or another, everyone has uttered the words: “I am happy.” And: “I am upset.”

Notice what happens when you say: “I am [something].” You are describing yourself. Any words that follow the statement “I am” is your description of yourself.

Moreover, when we say, “I am [something],” it feels as if we really are that “something.” It feels as if our entire being is happy, or upset, or anxious, or any other emotion we say we are.

But is that really who we are?

Most readers of my weekly blog have eliminated at least one belief using the Lefkoe Belief Process (see http://recreateyourlife.com) where they discovered that they are not merely a “creation,” who has beliefs and feelings and who takes action, they also are the creator of that creation.

Although the creation you think you are is comprised of your beliefs and feelings and what you do, the consciousness you really are is whole and complete, for whom anything is possible and nothing is missing.

Thus, it actually is more accurate to say: My creation has feelings, but I am not my feelings. My creation has beliefs, but I am not my beliefs. My creation takes action, but I am not what I do.

This is not merely semantics

When you experience that you are your feelings, you are totally at the effect of them. They seem to pervade your entire being and there seems to be no escape from them.

When you experience that you have feelings, but they are not who you are, you make a clear distinction between “you” and “your feelings.” That enables you to get some perspective on the feelings and to place your SELF outside the feelings, so that you are no longer at their effect.

How do you do that? There is a simple way to experience that you have feelings, but are not your feelings. I’m not talking about an affirmation, where you try to convince yourself of something you don’t really believe. I’m talking about experiencing the truth of the statement.

First, use the Who Am I Really? Process, which comes at the end of the LBP, several times. You can get a link to the WAIR? Process at http://d3n3f57qjh51zc.cloudfront.net/who-am-i-really-new.mp3.

Then, when you start having some negative feelings and you notice that you are at the effect of them, remind yourself what you experienced in the WAIR? Process: “I am the creator of my life, not merely a creation.” And then remind yourself of the experience you will already have had: “I have feelings; I am not my feelings.”

When you do that, notice how the intensity of the feeling diminishes and how the feeling starts to lose its grip on you.

Try it and let me know your experience. I promise it will transform the way you experience your feelings.

Please leave your comments and questions here about today’s post. I read all posts and answer as many as I can.

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Let’s play a game: dissolve meaning

Morty Lefkoe — Wed, 14 Dec 2011 00:29:03 +0000

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This week I am going to tell you about an easy-to-play game that will enable you to banish negativity and victimhood from your life. If you actually play the game, I promise you will fundamentally transform your experience of life.

No meaning

This game requires you to really get that events have no inherent meaning—all events, all the time, without exception. If that’s real for you, fine. If it’s not, eliminate at least one limiting belief free using the Lefkoe Belief Process (LBP) at http://recreateyourlife.com.

It is useful to have used the LBP to eliminate at least one belief because during that Process you get a very clear experience that events have no inherent meaning. Not because I prove it to you or because it makes logical sense, but because you have a profound personal experience that events have no inherent meaning. Events might have consequences, but they have no meaning—in other words, you can’t draw any conclusions for sure from any event or series of events.

Here are the details of the game

The game consists of noticing all day long for the next seven days every time you experience a negative feeling, such as anxiety or anger. Then ask yourself what meaning you must have given some recent event to produce the negative feeling. Once you identify the meaning you gave to a meaningless event, make a clear distinction between the event in reality and the meaning you have given the event, which exists only in your mind.

When you make that clear distinction, you will dissolve the meaning that you unconsciously and automatically assigned to the event—in other words, how the event occurs for you.

Because meaningless events can’t produce feelings, most feelings are the result of the meaning we have given events. (Some feelings are caused by conditioning and moods.) Therefore, dissolving the meaning you have given an event will, at the same time, dissolve any negative feelings that are the result of that meaning.

Now, here is the final step: Imagine that several years later you are looking back at today’s event thinking how the event that originally had seemed so bad turned out to be one of the best things that ever happened to you. Describe in detail the many wonderful consequences of the event.

If you play the game for seven days you will notice that any sense of victimization and any negative feelings are significantly reduced. You will experience being a lot happier.

How’s that for giving yourself a Christmas gift that won’t cost you a cent?

A summary of the game

Notice all negative feelings, all day long, for seven days.
Ask yourself what meaning you gave something that just happened that produced the feeling you are having.
Make a clear distinction between the event in the world and the meaning you gave the event, which exists only in your mind.
When you make a clear distinction, the meaning dissolves, along with any feelings that had been caused by the meaning.
Imagine yourself a few years in the future looking back at the event and describe in detail how that event led to so many wonderful things.

To view a short video that describes how to play this game, go to http://occurringcourse.com.

Here is an example of how to play the game

Imagine a friend of yours walks into a room you are in, notices you, and doesn’t say hello. Many people would experience that their friend is angry with them and get upset. In fact, all that happened in reality is the friend didn’t say hello. That he is angry is the meaning you have given to the event, which has no inherent meaning. Your anger is the result of the meaning you made up.

Next, you make a clear distinction between the event (your friend walking into the room and not saying hello) and how the event occurs to you (he is angry at me).

Making that distinction clearly will dissolve the meaning, leaving you only with the fact your friend didn’t say hello. And when the meaning disappears, the upset will also.

Looking back at that event from the future you might describe what happened subsequently: He called me the next day and explained that a great opportunity had just presented itself to him that he wanted to include me in, but he hadn’t worked out all the details yet and didn’t want to talk to me until he did.

More examples

Most of us have had events happen to us that appeared to be “bad” at the time and then later we realized they actually had been a good thing for us, we just hadn’t realized it at the time. I’ve had that happen many times to me.

For example, we had been renting a house since we arrived in California about nine years ago. We originally found a place near the high school we wanted our daughter Brittany to attend. Because we didn’t know where we wanted to settle after Brittany graduated, we decided to rent for a few years.

Eventually Brittany left for college, but our home was okay, in a good location, and it seemed too much work to pack up and move.

A little over a year ago our landlord let us know that he had refinanced the house we were living in and, when the market collapsed, he ended up owing much more on it than the current value. So he intended to walk away from the house and let the bank foreclose.

The letter from the bank asked us to get out and gave us a deadline only a few weeks away. We didn’t want to move at all, much less in a hurry. We had a house filled with furniture and other possessions, and a garage filled with boxes of “stuff.” It would take us weeks to get rid of what we didn’t want and pack the rest, find a new place to live, move in and unpack. Moving was clearly going to take a lot of time and effort. Most people would have agreed that our having to move was clearly a “bad” thing.

In fact, however, we after we moved we ended up in a nicer neighborhood with a bigger and more comfortable house. In the process of packing we got rid of a lot of junk we didn’t really need. And we are much happier in our new home than we were in the old one.

Here’s another situation that’s happened to almost all of us. Haven’t you ever had a relationship end and have that breakup seem to be a terrible thing at that time? Then, later on, you found someone else who was a better fit, at which time you realized that breaking up with the first person was a wonderful thing because it enabled you to find the new person. So the break up, which seemed “bad” at the time, turned out really to be “good.”

Play the game

Play the game. Just for one week. I promise it will transform the quality of your life and you will never be the same again. At which point you will realize that you can experience joy for the rest of your life, playing the most empowering game you’ve ever played.

Please leave your comments and questions here about today’s post. Also, after playing this game for a week, tell me your experience of playing. I read all posts and answer as many as I can.

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Are Your Beliefs Dumbing You Down?

Morty Lefkoe — Tue, 06 Dec 2011 23:49:02 +0000

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This week, for the very first time in the three years I’ve been writing this blog, I am devoting the entire space to reprinting an article written by someone else. I think Anne Lieberman, who is a Certified Lefkoe Method Facilitator, has written a brilliant piece on how beliefs can literally make us less intelligent. I think you will find her article fascinating and useful.

* * *

As a Lefkoe Method practitioner, I spend my days working with clients to eliminate beliefs that are adversely affecting them. The central tenet of TLM is that our beliefs drive our behavior. I find it exciting to read research by others that confirms and extends this basic idea. The work of Stanford Professor, Carol Dweck, illustrates the connection between beliefs and the kind of behavior that primes us for success or failure.

Investigating Failure

As a young researcher, Dweck was obsessed with how people cope with failure. She decided to investigate failure by inviting children into her lab to solve puzzles. After a few easy-to-solve examples, she gave her unsuspecting subjects some doozies and investigated their strategies as they grunted, sweated and chewed their pencils. Probing their thinking and feeling, she expected to see differences in how kids cope with failure. What she saw astonished her. One ten-year old, confronted with the hard puzzles, pulled up his chair, rubbed his hands together, smacked his lips and said, “I love a challenge.” Another attacked the task with equal relish and said, “You know, I was hoping this would be informative!”

Dweck was flummoxed. She thought you either coped with failure or didn’t. It never occurred to her that people could love failure. Her first instinct, “What’s wrong with them,” was quickly followed by “or are they on to something?”

What Dweck has learned through decades of research is that our beliefs about our brains can set us on the path to success … or not. [Emphasis added.)

In our lifetimes, intelligence has been thought of as a fixed phenomenon. We know now that it is not. People begin with their unique genetic endowments, but it is clear that experience, training and personal effort take us the rest of the way. Scientists have shown that we have a great capacity for lifelong learning and brain development. Intelligence is not fixed, but evolves via a constant give and take between genetics and the environment.

What Does All This Have to do with Beliefs?

Dweck says that one simple belief has the power to determine what you accomplish in life. She talks about this in terms of a Fixed Mindset and a Growth Mindset. Dweck says, “Mindsets are beliefs individuals hold about their most basic qualities and abilities.” In a Growth Mindset, people believe they can develop their brain, abilities and talent. This view creates a love for learning, a drive for growth and a resilience that is essential for great accomplishments. On the contrary, people with a Fixed Mindset believe their basic qualities, such as intelligence and abilities, are fixed and can’t be expanded. They also believe that talent alone creates success, and see effort as a sign of weakness rather than as a positive element of life needed to reach one’s full potential.” (I have worked with clients who believe that if something is hard, it means it’s beyond them.)

The misconception that IQ is fixed has been largely discredited by neuroscience. And the pervasive assumption that hugely successful people are “naturals”–that Michael Jordan was born to be a star, that top entrepreneurs and CEOs are rare geniuses and natural leaders–has not been borne out in research. Studies of extremely successful people show that hard work is the key to success. And if you don’t believe you can accomplish something, are you likely to work hard at it?

What does it take to create that kind of fire-in-the-belly attitude? It turns out that the way people view the learning process itself and what they believe about their brains are hugely important in determining their willingness to put forth effort to achieve mastery. Dweck discovered that she could actually change kids’ mindsets. Further, children who adopted a Growth Mindset and came to believe that their brain is like a muscle that gets stronger as they use it were more likely to excel in school. They approached new challenges with enthusiasm, while other students shirked pursuits outside their comfort zones.

Do you have a Fixed or Growth Mindset?

Would it surprise you to know that you can think you are very intelligent and still have that debilitating Fixed Mindset? How do you know you have it? People with the fixed mindset operate in some or all of these ways:

When you fail at something, you feel unworthy in some way and pessimistic about yourself.

You’re more focused on being seen as smart than on learning.

You feel like you have to prove yourself over and over. (If our intelligence is fixed, you want to make sure people know you have a lot of it, right?)

You shy away from people and experiences that challenge you.

In brief, in the face of failure, those with Fixed Mindsets become self-critical and throw up their hands. People with a Growth Mindset look at how they might have approached things differently and they redouble their efforts.

If your Fixed Mindset is limiting you, a few Lefkoe Method sessions can eliminate those long-held, limiting beliefs about your intelligence and abilities.

* * *

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If you’re confused, this should help

Morty Lefkoe — Wed, 30 Nov 2011 00:32:44 +0000

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The question frequently arises: How can I tell the difference between three related phenomena:

the meaning we automatically and unconsciously give events (how external and internal events occur to me),
making conscious assumptions about the events,
and intuition we have about events.

This question arises when I tell people that operating as if our “occurrings” are the truth about reality is never appropriate because we are confusing a meaning that exists only in our mind with what actually happens in reality. And we can’t possibly deal effectively with reality if we don’t correctly identify what it is.

Reality/events

First let’s get clear about what I mean by “reality/events.”

It is what actually happens in the world; events. What you know through your five senses, especially what you can see or hear. What you usually could capture on a video recording, although sometimes “reality” can’t be “seen” because it is inside your mind, such as thoughts, memories, projections of the future, and physical sensations.

Now, how does reality/events differ from occurrings, conscious inferences, and intuition?

Occurrings

Occurrings are meanings that you have automatically and unconsciously given to events as they happen. For example, a friend of yours walks into a room you are in, sees you, and doesn’t say hello. That’s the event in reality. It could occur for you, however, as if your friend is angry at you.

A critical aspect of occurrings is that they feel like “the truth” to us. They seem like “reality” to us. We have to look carefully to distinguish them from actual events in reality. We can give meaning to both internal and external reality, in other words, events that occur “out there in the world” and those that happen in your mind.

In the situation described above, it would seem like the friend really is angry at you, when, in fact, all that happened is he didn’t say hello. That he is angry at you is how the actual event “occurred” to you.

Conscious Inferences

Occurrings are very different from conscious inferences, which are the result of consciously looking at reality and asking ourselves: What are some of the possible implications of, and what would be the best way to deal with, the events? For example, remember the friend who walked in a room you were in and didn’t say hello or even acknowledge your presence. One possible occurring might be: He is angry at me. If that were your occurring, it would seem to you as if he really is angry.

After dissolving the occurring you would realize that all that actually happened is he walked in and didn’t pay attention to you. Then you could consciously ask yourself: What could his behavior possibly mean? You might conclude that it could mean he is angry, or he is distracted, or upset and doesn’t want to talk to anyone, or deep in thought and doesn’t want to get off track, etc. At which point you could deal with the reality of what actually happened by walking over to the friend and asking if he is okay, or by waiting until later if you think waiting would make sense.

A inference about an event that is made consciously—that is clearly an assumption and doesn’t feel like the truth—is different from an occurring, which is made unconsciously and which does feel like the truth.

When you act on a conscious inference you realize that events have no inherent meaning and that you don’t know the best way to deal with it, so you investigate to find out. When you act on an occurring, you are certain what an event meant because you perceive your occurring as reality.

Intuition

Another phenomenon that is sometimes confused with occurrings is intuition. Intuition is a type of knowing that usually doesn’t depend on the five senses; it is a feeling about something that seems to be true. According to Wikipedia, it is “the ability to acquire knowledge without inference or the use of reason.” Because an intuitive thought can seem like the meaning you are giving an event, it can be difficult to distinguish between intuitive thoughts and how events occur to you.

Usually intuitive thoughts don’t have the certainty that occurrings do, although in some situations they might. My experience is that after making a concerted effort to identify occurrings and distinguishing them from events hundred of times, I (and others whom I’ve trained) have gotten to the point where occurrings usually “feel different” from intuition.

But you still might not always know the difference. So the best way to deal with possible intuitions is the following: Because we can never be absolutely sure that our intuitive thoughts are accurate, it makes sense to treat all thoughts about an event (occurrings, conscious inferences, and intuitions) as tentative, as being subject to further checking.

Even if you are not always able to distinguish occurrings from intuition, you can always make it a practice to distinguish occurrings, conscious inferences, and intuition from reality and then consider anything other than reality as something that needs to be considered tentative and investigated further.

Please leave your comments and questions here about today’s post. I read all posts and answer as many as Ian.

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For information about eliminating 23 of the most common limiting beliefs and conditionings, which cause eight of the most common problems in our lives including a lack of confidence, and get a separate video of the WAIR? Process, please check out: http://recreateyourlife.com/naturalconfidence.

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You are weird

Morty Lefkoe — Tue, 18 Oct 2011 22:43:24 +0000

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All of you who read my blog posts and who signed up on my website to eliminate a limiting belief are “weird,” according to best-selling author and popular blogger Seth Godin.

Why would he apply that term to you? Seth uses the term “weird” to describe anyone who is not “normal,” in other words, people who express their uniqueness and who don’t try to fit in with what “most people” are doing.

What makes YOU weird? Most “normal” people are not interested in personal growth. You—who are on my mailing list and reading this blog post—are a distinct minority. Because you want more out of life … because you are willing to spend your time, energy, and money to create a better life for yourself. Most “normal” people do not have this awareness and commitment.

Interestingly enough, many of the people who come to us to help them eliminate beliefs are normal. Thousands of clients who come to us to get rid of their fear of public speaking only want to get rid of that specific practical problem. Most of them deny they have any problems at all in their lives other than their public speaking fear. They have no interest in personal growth. They are normal.

Seth’s newest book, We Are All Weird, makes the point that there are getting to be fewer and fewer “normal” people in the world, in other words, people who aspire to be just like everyone else. More and more people are beginning to express their unique selves, which are weird to the normal people.

We want to hang out in “tribes”

And as people get interested in being their authentic selves, they also want to hang out with others who are weird in the same way they are weird, in “tribes” as Seth puts it.

So if you are weird because you are interested in living the best life you can possible live, because you are willing to put in the effort to overcome the barriers to having a life that truly works, and because you are unwilling to put up with merely getting by—then, first, I want to acknowledge you for that weirdness. You are part of a relatively small group of people on this planet.

And, second, I would like to support you. I have created a page on Facebook that over 1,400 of you weirdoes who are devoted to personal transformation already have joined. I put a link there to my blog posts each week as well as other information that I think would be valuable. I intend to make even more useful material available in the future. You can post comments and questions there and have other members of your tribe respond.

In addition, I have offered to answer any question posted on that site pertaining to personal growth.

If you would like to converse with people who have a similar commitment to personal growth, be given information that will contribute to that growth, and have a chance to get your questions answered, please join your fellow tribe members at http://facebook.com/recreateyourlife.

As one of the weirdoes who has committed his life to helping others get rid of the barriers in their lives that keep them from the lives they want to live, I look forward to interacting with you there

Please leave your comments and questions about how I can support your personal journey to a life free from unnecessary limitations.

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It took me 26 years

Morty Lefkoe — Tue, 11 Oct 2011 22:33:15 +0000

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Today (Monday) is a holiday and I’m sitting in my office writing this on my MAC.

No one else is around and the phones are pretty quiet. I came in on what should have been a day off because this week we are going to make available our new Lefkoe Belief Process Training and I have to work with Rodney (who works virtually from Southern California) to make sure the web site and all the emails get completed today.

This week my dream of 26 years will finally come true. Ever since I figured out how to help people get rid of long-held, limiting beliefs I have imagined that some day everyone would be able to eliminate their own beliefs and the beliefs of friends and family.

Imagine a world like this

An incident my wife Shelly told me about a few years ago vividly captures my vision: Shelly had just gotten on a Stairmaster at the gym one morning when a friend she had not seen for a few months got on a machine next to her. Shelly asked her friend how she was doing. Her friend replied that she was having some relationship problems.

What do most people do when a friend tells them about their relationship difficulties? You listen, empathize, and perhaps give some advice. Does your response really help your friend? Maybe it makes your friend feel better for the moment, but, in the long run, unfortunately, rarely does your response make any real difference.

But here is how Shelly responded: She asked, “What do you believe about relationships that could be producing the problems you just told me about?” Her friend thought a minute and then named three. Forty-five minutes later both of them got off their Stairmasters, the three beliefs had been eliminated, and her friend left the gym with new possibilities for a great relationship that she hadn’t had before talking to Shelly.

When Shelly told me this story I thought: What if everyone knew how to eliminate their own beliefs and help others when they got stuck? What if parents and teachers could help children? What if spouses could help each other (as Shelly and I do with each other when we get stuck)? What if all of us could easily get ourselves into an altered state of consciousness in which we experience that anything is possible and we have no limitations?

Every time I think about a world like that I get goose pimples. There are a lot of things that could make a profound impact on the world, but I can’t think of anything that would have as great an impact on each person’s quality of life than this.

How do we get there?

For over 26 years the only way to be able to learn how to eliminate beliefs was a three-day in-person training. Because it took a lot of time and cost a lot of money for people to travel here from all over the world, we didn’t offer the training very often. As a result there are probably less than 200 people in the entire world who have been trained to use the Lefkoe Belief Process.

In order to make a training easily available to anyone who might be interested, we had to find a way to create an on-line training that could be accessed from your computer located anywhere in the world, that didn’t require extensive travel, and that could be offered for far less money than an in-person training.

We spent the last year figuring out a way to do this and finally solved the problem a few weeks ago. The training is now complete and will be made available this week.

Shelly has been back East visiting her friends and family. After she gets home I plan to break open a bottle of champagne and celebrate a dream come true. I hope you are as excited by my vision as I am.

Please leave your comments and questions about how millions of people knowing how to eliminate their own beliefs and the beliefs of others can transform the quality of life on this planet.

If you are interested in learning how to help people eliminate their beliefs, enter your name and email in the box below and we’ll send you information.

A tribute to Steve Jobs

Steve, thank you for the words that inspire me to get out of bed every day, committed to improving the quality of life on the planet, one person at a time.

“Here’s to the crazy ones, the misfits, the rebels, the troublemakers, the round pegs in the square holes… the ones who see things differently — they’re not fond of rules… You can quote them, disagree with them, glorify or vilify them, but the only thing you can’t do is ignore them because they change things… they push the human race forward, and while some may see them as the crazy ones, we see genius, because the ones who are crazy enough to think that they can change the world, are the ones who do.” Steve Jobs

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Are they really stupid?

Morty Lefkoe — Tue, 04 Oct 2011 21:33:00 +0000

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Rare is the day when we don’t think that someone’s behavior or emotional reaction makes absolutely no sense at all. One day it might be a government official, another day it could be a loved one.

In these situations there is always the unstated assumption that they are seeing the same reality I am seeing. And their response to the reality I am seeing is either crazy or stupid.

In fact, I contend that almost always there are at least two very different “realities” involved here: one for you and a totally different one for the other person. There also can be a third: what’s really happening “out there.”

The source of our “reality”

If you’ve been following this blog you’ve read on more than one occasion that our beliefs constitute our reality. If you believe relationships are difficult, that is an absolute fact for you. If you believe life is difficult, that too is a fact and you will have loads of evidence to prove you are right.

Beliefs are generalization we make about ourselves, people, and life that, for us, are “the truth.” So our beliefs about reality determine what we think our reality is.

In addition, we constantly give unconscious meaning to events and then we usually do not recognize the crucial distinction between reality and how that reality has occurred to us.

As a result of our beliefs and our occurrings, what we think is reality more often than not is really something that exists only in our mind, a subjective, unconsciously-created, personal view of reality, not what a video camera would record.

It follows, therefore, that although people’s behavior and emotional reactions might not make sense to us given our view of reality, they make perfect sense given their view of reality. Moreover, most of the time neither our view nor their view corresponds to what actually exists “out there in the world.”

Shelly and I disagree about our children’s education

To make this clear, here’s a personal example of what I mean.

Shortly after our first daughter was born over 29 years ago, Shelly and I started to have conversations about her education. I told her that I thought most public schools were toxic environments and produce more damage than value to the children who attend. (To fully explain my reasons would take an entire blog post. To briefly summarize my reasons, most public schools encourage conformity, discourage creativity and independence, and emphasize memorizing information at the expense of critical thinking.)

So I suggested that we find a really good alternative private school for Blake to attend. Shelly said that she understood my reasons for disliking most public schools and agreed with my reasoning, but still kept arguing that Blake should attend the best public school we could find.

If Shelly really understood my “reality” about public schools, it would make no sense at all for her to continue to argue that Blake should attend one. As a result, I would get frustrated and annoyed whenever we discussed Blake’s education. I remember a lot of heated discussions on this topic.

Shelly’s “reality” about public schools

Eventually I figured out Shelly’s “reality” about schools, at which point her preference for public school made perfect sense. Thirty years ago Shelly (like me and many other people in the world) had the belief: What makes me good enough and important is having people like me. Other related beliefs included: I can’t survive without close friends. Friends are the most important things in one’s life. As a result of these and other similar beliefs, Shelly’s friends were the most important thing in her life.

For Shelly, public school was the single most important place for our daughter to make friends and be accepted. And if making a lot of friends was one of the most important things one gets from school, then a small private alternative school with about 120 students spread over eight grades would be a horrible choice for her daughter. A public school with about a thousand kids would be far superior.

Shelly has since eliminated all these beliefs, but at the time her choice of schools for Blake—which seemed absolutely insane to me given what I thought about public schools—made perfect sense to Shelly given her view of public schools: the best place to make a lot of friends and learn about friendship.

Can you see that the difference between my behavior and feelings about public and private schools and Shelly’s was totally a function of how we viewed those schools. In fact, neither view of reality was “the truth.” Each was determined by our beliefs.

After I understood Shelly’s reality about public schools, I still disagreed with her choice, but I no longer thought her choice was stupid and felt annoyed at her. I realized that I would have made the same school choice as she did if I “saw” public schools the same way she did and she would have made the same choice I did if she had the same view I did.

In fact, over the next few years as Shelly eliminated her beliefs relating to friends and to her concern about what others thought of her, she ultimately saw public schools the way I did and ended up totally supporting our joint decision to send both our daughters to a great alternative private school.

The “reality” of government officials

My personal view about the role of the federal government is very different from conservative Republicans, especially the Tea Partyers. But unlike many of my friends who are angry at them and who think they are stupid, I have come to realize that their proposed policies are a function of their beliefs about the proper role of government. If I had those beliefs, I’d espouse the same policies.

Israel and Palestine: the problem is the result of different realities

For another good example where understanding this distinction can be very useful, look at the conflict between Israelis and the Palestinians. It should be clear that each side is viewing a totally different reality. And their different behaviors are a direct manifestation of each’s reality.

What are those behaviors? Israel puts up a fence and checkpoints to keep suicide bombers out of areas where Israelis congregate. Their invasions are designed to stop rocket fire, which comes from the invaded areas. Israelis settle anyplace they want, in other words, anyplace within the borders of the State of Israel, even in areas that are predominantly Palestinian.

Palestinians uses violence as the only avenue they claim remains open to them to try to get Israel to recognize their basic human rights and give them back their homeland, which was taken from them by force and by illegal and immoral international agreements. No matter where they live today they want the right to return to their former homes on land that is now part of Israel.

This is a very condensed description what each side does and wants. Now consider the “reality” as seen by both sides and notice how each’s behavior makes sense given the respective realities.

Reality for Israelis looks like: Centuries of anti-Semitism, the Holocaust, the struggle to create a homeland of their own, trying to survive as a small nation when others have sworn to push them back into the sea, constant shelling from Palestinian areas (and other countries), and the ever-present threat of suicide bombers. Jewish people have always lived on this land and King David made the city of Jerusalem the capital of Israel 3,000 years ago. Even 150 years ago there were more Jews living in Jerusalem than Muslims.

Reality for Palestinians looks like: We were living here peaceably when Israel and international agreements (we were not a party to) forcibly drove us from our homeland; Israel has kept us from returning and denies those of us living in Israel basic rights as human beings. Jerusalem contains some of Islam’s holiest cities. Moreover, the Jews used violence against the British when they thought it was the only way to get them to give up control over what is now the State of Israel. They thought they were morally justified in their action, and it worked—they got the land they wanted. (See my earlier blog post for more details on this particular issue: http://www.mortylefkoe.com/a-tool-for-resolving-conflict/#).

When you get that people’s behavior and emotional reactions always make sense given the way reality occurs to them (which is a function of their beliefs and occurrings), you might notice that you are less confused by what people do, less angry at them for doing it, and better able to find common ground for a solution that works for all concerned.

Please leave your comments and questions about how people’s different beliefs and occurrings account for their different reactions to things, and how recognizing that can reduce your upset and increase your compassio

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Your happiness depends on knowing the difference between beliefs and occurrings

Morty Lefkoe — Tue, 27 Sep 2011 22:48:46 +0000

Note: There is an email link embedded within this post, please visit this post to email it.

About two years ago I realized that the failure to make a distinction between reality and how reality occurs to us is the source of many problems in our life. As I’ve learned more about this distinction I’ve written several posts about it, which led to a lot of comments from you.

Perhaps the most common questions I’ve received ask: Both beliefs and occurrings seem to be meaning we give to meaningless events. What is the difference between them? Why is the difference important.

In today’s post I’ll answer these questions and explain how our happiness depends on understanding the difference between them.

There is a crucial difference between a belief and an occurring

Beliefs are the meaning we give (usually) to a series of events. Beliefs are broad generalizations, for example, I am …. People are …. Life is …. A belief is a statement about reality that we feel and act is the truth, although it is possible to intellectually disagree with something we believe. Once formed, beliefs continue to exist and affect our behavior, feelings and perceptions forever, unless we are able to eliminate the belief. We view life through the filter of our beliefs.

Why occurrings are so important

Usually we don’t distinguish between reality and how reality occurs for us (our occurring), so we think the meaning we give reality IS reality. Because we think our occurring IS reality, we interact with our occurring, not reality.

The simple distinction between beliefs and occurrings

Can you see that beliefs are broad generalizations that filter your view of all events, while occurrings are “one time” meanings you give to specific events that do not affect the meaning you give to similar events in the future?

Your long-held beliefs are NOT occurrings. Occurrings require, by definition, an event, either in your mind or in the world. An occurring is how an event occurs for you. If there is no event, there is no occurring.

Is it now clear that beliefs and occurrings are two totally different phenomena? There is a relationship between them, however, in that beliefs are the major source of our occurrings. In other words, how a meaningless event occurs for us is determined mainly by our beliefs. (Other determining factors can include our mood, physical condition, and stage of development [see almost any of Ken Wilber’s books for details on stages of development])

Change your beliefs and you can change how events show up for you. For example, if you believe, People are stupid, they will occur for you that way. Eliminate that belief and your future occurrings probably will change

It is important to realize that it is possible to dissolve an occurring without eliminating any beliefs. On the other hand, if you don’t eliminate the beliefs that are causing a occurring, you will continue to have the same occurring when similar events happen in your life.

I want to emphasize that the reason this distinction between reality and our occurrings is so important is that most people rarely distinguish between them, thereby acting as if their occurring IS reality. In other words, we rarely deal with what is actually in the world; we deal with the meaning we have given what is in the world, a meaning that exists only in our own mind.

Define a few relevant terms

Let me define a few other terms that are relevant to this discussion. First, reality, by which I mean what actually happens in the world. Events. What you know through your five senses, especially what you can see or hear. What you usually could capture on a video recording. Sometimes “reality” can’t be “seen” because it is inside your mind, such as thoughts, memories, projections of the future, and physical sensations. We can give all of these meaning, so we can have occurrings about all of them

The next term I want to clarify is “No meaning.” Events in reality have no inherent meaning. In other words, you can’t draw any inferences or make any predictions—for sure—as a result of observing any events, including internal events such as memories or physical sensations. All meaning, therefore, is in your mind. This idea can be difficult to prove to someone who hasn’t experienced it. I hear all the time: “Of course events have meaning! Doesn’t dying have meaning? Doesn’t it mean something if someone treats you badly?” The best way I know to make this idea real is to experience it when you do the Lefkoe Belief Process, where you experience clearly that mom’s and dad’s behavior had no inherent meaning, that the way they treated you meant nothing about you.

Our occurrings cause most of our feeling

For example: If you don’t get something you want and you give it the meaning: I can’t get what I want and I never will—you probably will get upset. If you give it the meaning: I haven’t gotten what I want yet, so what do I have to do to get it?—you probably will feel challenged and excited. The meaning we give events is the primary source of our feelings. Thus, being able to dissolve your occurrings enables you to simultaneously dissolve negative feelings, such as anxiety, anger, and upset

Although beliefs sometimes can cause feelings directly (for example, the belief men are dangerous probably would make a woman anxious around men), their major influence on feelings is via occurrings. In other words, beliefs are a primary determinant of our occurrings, and our occurrings cause most of our feelings.

I needed to eliminate a lot of beliefs (and some conditionings) to get rid of my depression, my neediness, my need for the approval of others, and a bunch of other problems. But I still had many occurrings daily that caused little upsets, many of which I’ve written about in earlier posts. When I stopped giving meaning to events, these minor upsets stopped completely.

Because getting rid of beliefs and occurrings are two totally different processes, it is possible for you to dissolve your moment-by-moment occurrings even before you have eliminated many beliefs

Please leave your comments and questions about the distinction between beliefs and occurrings and how each of them affects your life.

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Why do you have relationship problems?

Morty Lefkoe — Tue, 13 Sep 2011 22:11:52 +0000

Thanks so much for the many thoughtful responses to my post last week asking you how we can contribute to improving your life.

The single most common response had to do with relationships. Unfortunately, there is no simple advice I can offer in this area for several reasons.

Different types of relationship problems

To begin with, many of the beliefs men have that serve as barriers to having a great relationship are different from the beliefs women have.

Moreover, relationships have a lot of different aspects, such as:

• men can have a hard time approaching women,
• both men and women can have a hard time communicating with each other,
• either can continually get involved with someone from the who is abusive (although this is far more true for women than men),
• either can fear physical intimacy,
• both can have a hard time controlling their tempers in a relationship, and
• both can have difficulty in finding the right partner.

This multitude of sub-patterns is what makes it so difficult to create an on-line program that works for most people with a relationship problem. In addition, not only are there so many different types of relationship problems, each person with a given problem can have a few beliefs and conditionings other people don’t have.

In this post I’ll point out some of the most common beliefs and conditionings for each sub-pattern and try to provide some additional insights that might help you get or sustain a truly loving, nurturing relationship.

Three different types of “problems” we want to change

First of all, it is very important to distinguish between three very different types of problems or situations we want to change:

1. Our behavior—we can want to stop doing something we are already doing (such as emotional eating) or start doing something we are not doing (such as procrastinating any given activity).
2. Our feelings—we can want to stop feeling something we are already feeling (such as anxiety or anger) or start feeling something we have a hard time feeling (such as love).
3. Something in reality—we can want to change something in reality, such as acquire more wealth or find a great romantic partner.

It is important to distinguish between these three because The Lefkoe Method is extremely helpful with the first two types of problems. It is only marginally helpful with the third one.

You can have beliefs or conditionings that would make it difficult to have a great relationship, such as I’m not loveable, men/women can’t be trusted, relationships are difficult, and I’ll never get what I want. But eliminating those and other similar beliefs will not provide you with the perfect mate, although it will enable you to do things you couldn’t do before that might increase your changes of finding the perfect mate.

In other words, although The Lefkoe Method can almost always change your behavior and feelings, and can help you remove barriers to you getting what you want in reality, it is unlikely to provide you with what you want.

Obviously you have to take action and some actions are better than others. I offered several suggestions based on my own experience that you can use to create an incredibly loving and nurturing relationship. See http://www.mortylefkoe.com/improve-relationships/#. But if you have beliefs in the way, you could have a hard time doing what I suggest.

Does the Law of Attraction Work?

Will focusing on what you want (the Law of Attraction) result in you getting what you focus on? What about the variation of focusing with emotion and then taking action? Although it would be nice if that always worked, there are many more people who complain that it doesn’t work than people who claim that it does. In any case I wouldn’t count on it to provide you with the mate you are seeking.

That being said, I’ll tell you some of the beliefs and conditionings that can influence your behavior relating to relationships and serve as a barrier to you getting what you want. In addition to the list below, the negative self-esteem beliefs and conditionings on the Natural Confidence program are relevant in most relationship problems.

Here is a list of some common relationship problems and some of the most common beliefs and conditionings that cause them:

I usually pick unavailable men

• I can’t count on/trust men.
• I’m not what men want.
• I’m not worth loving.
• Commitment is dangerous.
• Fear associated with commitment.

Getting in and staying in physically/emotionally abusive relationships

• I’m powerless.
• Men have all the power.
• Women are victims.
• I’m not worth it.
• I’m not loveable.
• I’m bad.
• I don’t deserve to be happy/get what I want.

I can’t find a great relationship

This is an example of wanting to change reality, not your behavior or feelings. So getting rid of these beliefs will eliminate some barriers, but will not necessarily get you what you want. (Before looking for beliefs, notice if you are taking the appropriate actions, for example, going to places where you might find the type of person you are looking for.)

• Fear associated with rejection.
• There are no good men/women out there.
• Men/women are evil/controlling.
• I have to give up my independence/ freedom to be in a relationship.
• I’m not loveable.
• Men/women can’t be trusted.
• Relationships are difficult.
• I’ll never get what I want.
• Life is difficult.

Difficulty with physical intimacy/sex

• Sex is bad/evil.
• I’m bad if I desire sex.
• Sex is dirty.
• All that men want is sex.
• (If a woman has been raped or incested, she is likely to have beliefs like: I’m damaged goods, men are dangerous, life is dangerous, I’m bad—all of which can make physical intimacy very difficult.)

I get angry very easily and yell at my partner

• I’m powerless.
• What makes me good enough and important is having things be exactly the way I want them to be.
• (With these beliefs if someone doesn’t do exactly what you want, the way you want, when you want, you’ll feel powerless. And then you’ll get angry at the person who seems to be making you feel powerless.)

Men having a difficult time approaching women

Because this is largely a result of a lack of confidence, all the beliefs and conditionings on the Natural Confidence program are especially relevant. Also:

• I’m not attractive.
• I’m not interesting.
• I’m weird.
• I’m annoying.
• Fear associated with approaching women.
• Women don’t want nice guys.
• All the beliefs about sex listed above.
• Fear associated with making a fool of myself.
• Women want men who are confident, who can provide financial security, who are interesting, who are attractive, etc.—and I’m not those things.

Please leave your comments and questions about relationship problems below.

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How can we serve you?

Morty Lefkoe — Wed, 07 Sep 2011 23:08:00 +0000

I am committed to making the Lefkoe Institute as helpful to you as possible. To that end I’ve created a number of products and services designed to help you make lasting changes in your life. In addition, I’ve created this blog to provide you with useful information.

In order to continue to provide you with what you want and need, I would like to know exactly what you would find useful. So I have two questions:

1. What courses or solutions would you like us to offer that would help you permanently eliminate the barriers in your life and live the life you want to live?

So that you don’t suggest a product or service that I’ve already created, here’s a run-down of everything we currently offer.

PRODUCTS

Free Belief Elimination Program

We’ve made available three videos that help you eliminate three of the most common beliefs that keep people from having what they want. They are only available in streaming video. http://recreateyourlife.com/free

Natural Confidence Program

This program helps you attain the natural state of confidence you had before you formed any limiting beliefs. Once you complete the program, you’ll take action to achieve your goals, do what you believe is right even if others disagree, and feel calm and relaxed during what used to be experienced as troubling times.

Eliminating the 23 beliefs and conditionings on this program will also help you get rid of seven other common problems, including a lack of confidence, procrastination, worrying about what others think of you, and stress. This program is available as a DVD and in streaming video formats.

The Abundance Program

This series of five videos, available only in streaming video, helps you eliminate five beliefs that can block you from having a sense of financial abundance. http://recreateyourlife.com/moneybeliefs.

The Secret For Ending Overeating for Good (free eBook)

This eBook describes the causes of and a revolutionary cure for emotional eating. Get the free book at: http://www.emotionaleatingreport.com/. You also can sign up there to get regular blog posts specifically on emotional eating.

SERVICES

One-on-one Phone Sessions

We offer private phone and Skype sessions that help you discover the beliefs and conditionings that cause any behavioral or emotional problem, and then eliminate them. To find out how we can help you, please call us at 415-884-0552.

Courses

The Lefkoe Occurring Course

This powerful course, which is only offered three or four times a year, teaches you how to dissipate the fear that keeps you from taking action and dissolve the anger that harms relationships. You achieve this by dissolving your “occurrings,” which arise from the meanings you give to events moment-by-moment. These automatic, unconsciously created occurrings determine how you experience your life. When you complete this course, you will have made the Lefkoe Occurring Process—the Process that enables you to dissolve your “occurrings” in moments—so automatic that you’ll rarely have to use it consciously any more. The course results in you experiencing a peace of mind that is possible only when your mind stops creating negative meanings for events. As Krishnamurti once said, "The highest stage of human intelligence is to observe without evaluating."

Lefkoe Belief Process Training Course

This nearly completed tele-course will teach you how to help yourself and others eliminate beliefs using the Lefkoe Belief Process.

2. What topics would you like more information about?

During the past few years I’ve written 124 posts on this blog, the equivalent of over two full-length books, which have led to 3, 138 comments and questions from readers and my responses.

Because you—my readers—read these posts because you are interested in improving something in your life, I’ve mainly written about how you can make fundamental changes in your behavior and emotions. I intend this blog to be the “go to” site for people wanting to discover the real underlying source of their problems and learn about the best solutions.

Here’s a link to a list of topics I’ve already written about

http://www.mortylefkoe.com/table-of-contents/#

How can we serve you?

Please answer my two questions, which I’ve copied below, so we can continue to give you what you want and need.

1. What courses or problems would you like us to offer that would help you make the changes you want to make and live the life you want to live?

2. What topics would you like more information about?

We are committed to being the best place to get information on how to improve your life and to being the best company to obtain effective and permanent solutions to the problems in your life.

Please leave your comments and questions below.

If you found this post useful, please tell your friends and followers by using the buttons at the top of this post.

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How to build your self-confidence

Morty Lefkoe — Tue, 30 Aug 2011 22:51:28 +0000

NOTE: One of the most frequent questions I get is about what causes a low level of self-confidence and what can be done to improve it. To answer those questions I’ve posted an updated version of a post from early last year on this topic.

Most of us would like to improve our level of confidence.

But why?

What is confidence anyway?
Where does it come from? Why do some people have more of it than others?
How can we improve our level of confidence?
How does a low level of confidence affect us and what changes in our lives when we gain confidence?

As someone who has helped literally thousands of people build more confidence, I think I am qualified to answer these questions. (By the way, I had very little self-confidence for most of my life but now I consistently experience a high level of confidence.)

What is confidence?

Confidence actually exists on a continuum, ranging from a sense of victimization to a sense that we can handle whatever life throws at us. Some people are almost totally lacking in confidence and some feel confident that they can handle almost anything; most people are in-between. So the issue for most people is where they currently are on the continuum and how they can raise their level of confidence.

It is important to distinguish between confidence about being able to perform a specific task (such as fly a plane or speak a foreign language) and confidence in yourself. One might not be confident about being able to perform a specific task even though one has high level of self-confidence. Such a person knows that her inability to perform a specific task means nothing about her as a person.

Confidence is ultimately a function of the self-esteem beliefs we hold. For example, someone who believes I’m not good enough, I’m not capable, I’m powerless, I’m not worthy or deserving, etc. will likely have a low level of self-confidence. On the other hand, someone with the beliefs I am good enough, I am capable, I impact my reality, I’m worthy and deserving, etc. will likely have a high level of self-confidence.

In other words, your confidence in yourself as a person is the result of having positive beliefs about yourself.

How to improve your level of confidence

The way to gain confidence about specific abilities is to learn those skills and practice a lot. The way to improve our internal level of confidence that we apply to life in general is to eliminate our limiting beliefs. Every negative self-esteem-type belief we have lowers our internal level of self-confidence; every one we eliminate raises our internal level of self-confidence.

Once you understand that negative self-esteem beliefs lower your level of self-confidence and getting rid of them raises it, you will realize that the commonly-held notion that self-confidence comes from succeeding or failing at specific projects in life is a serious misunderstanding.

Even if you usually succeed at tasks as a kid, but your parents constantly tell you that you should have done better, you are likely to conclude, Nothing I do is good enough and other similar beliefs, which will lower your self-confidence. On the other hand, if you don’t succeed at tasks a lot of the time as a kid and your parents say things like: “That’s okay, no one gets it right the first time. If you keep practicing you will get better and better”—you are likely to conclude: If I keep trying I can do anything. That belief would raise your level of self-confidence. In other words, your level of self-confidence is a function of your beliefs—the meaning you give your results—not your actual results.

And if you create a bunch of positive self-esteem beliefs early in life, failures later on probably will be experienced as learning experiences or temporary set backs that have nothing to do with who you are as a person.

Some of the consequences of low self-confidenc

A low level of self-confidence can result in a host of other emotional problems, such as worrying about the opinions of others (we don’t have confidence in our own opinion), a critical “little voice” in our head that constantly criticizes almost anything we do (because nothing we do is really good enough), and stress (because we are constantly worried that what we are doing is just not good enough and we will fail.)

Low self-confidence also can result in self-defeating behavior. It can keep you from ever getting started. Or it can have you quit at the first sign of a problem. Or it can lead you to sabotage yourself when you get close to success because you feel you don’t really deserve to get what you want. Or if somehow you manage to get some of what you want, a low level of self-confidence will keep you from truly enjoying your success. The best illustration of this latter point is a study of large company CEOs done many years ago in which most of them admitted they were terrified that they would be “found out” and that everything they had achieved would be taken away from them. This fear is so common that it has been given a name: “The Imposter Syndrome.

How building confidence improves your life

Some of the benefits of increased self-confidence include: You’ll take more chances. You’ll stop procrastinating. You’ll do whatever you need to do to move your vision forward. You’ll finally start things you’ve always wanted to do and never got around to doing. It will make social activity easier. Talking to people and meeting new people will become easier and effortless. Failure and mistakes will no longer be dreaded. And you’ll do what you want without worrying about what others will think

Do you still have any questions about confidence? Is the difference clear between a lack of self-confidence and the inability to perform a specific task? Please leave your comments and questions below

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What is the relationship between financial success and personal growth?

Morty Lefkoe — Tue, 16 Aug 2011 22:58:02 +0000

The tens of millions of people who are interested in self-improvement have two different but related focuses: financial success and personal growth.

People who primarily are interested in financial success seek out products that promise to help them make more money and end up with more wealth. Such people are usually willing to pay more for their courses and webinars than for courses that only improve their emotional well-being.

People who primarily are interested in personal growth usually want to change their behavior, such as stop procrastinating, and their emotions, such as stop their anxiety and anger. People for whom this is the goal usually are willing to pay far less for such products. Some of these people, especially those who have a strong spiritual bent, even think that being spiritual precludes them from pursuing money.

So although sometimes there is an overlap between these two groups, people tend to have one focus or the other.

There is an inextricable connection

But even for the people who do pursue both goals, I’m not sure that many people interested in self-improvement are aware that there is an inextricable connection between the two areas of life.

Although financial success can be affected by many different factors—including what product or service you are offering, the quality of the offering, to what market, competition, at what price, etc.—one of the most critical factors that is often ignored but that significantly affects your financial success is your mental/emotional state.

Because my expertise is on how beliefs affect our lives, I’ll focus on the impact of beliefs, but whether the source of dysfunctional behavior and emotions are beliefs or anything else, the chance of achieving and enjoying financial success in today’s world is slim unless you are able to get rid of your dysfunctional behavior and emotions.

Let me explain why.

For many years, success in business depended on showing up every day and doing what you were told. If you did it well enough for long enough, you’d usually move up through the organization you worked for and end up with a nice pension.

Financial success requires personal growth

Today showing up and doing the “right” thing is no longer enough, whether you work for yourself or for others. More and more organizations are looking for creative, innovative, imaginative people who will figure out for themselves what needs to be done instead of waiting to be told. And if you work for yourself, then merely doing what others do, the way others do it, is unlikely to provide significant financial success.

Today the world is looking for the intellectually curious, the people who are willing to take risks, who, as Seth Godin puts it, are willing to “poke the box.”

If that is what financial success requires in today’s fast-changing world—where what worked yesterday is probably not what is going to work today and certainly won’t be what works tomorrow—than your behavior and emotional state are crucial.

Beliefs that hinder financial success

What is the chance of you being innovative, taking chances, doing what makes sense to you whether others approve or not, etc. if you have even just a few of the following beliefs?

I’m not good enough.
Mistakes and failure are bad.
If I make a mistake or fail I’ll be rejected.
I’m inadequate.
I’m not important.
What makes me good enough and important is having others think well of me.
I’m not capable.
I’m not competent.
I’m powerless.

And that list of self-esteem beliefs doesn’t even include specific beliefs about money, such as:

Money is hard to get.
Money is a struggle.
There’s never enough money.

In addition to the beliefs, what if also you have been conditioned to feel fear if you are rejected, if you are criticized or judged, or if you don’t live up to the expectations of others?

People with beliefs and conditionings like these will have a hard time doing what they need to do to achieve financial success. Yes, they can learn what to do from a lot of great books and courses, but it will still be difficult to implement that really useful advice.

A client buys the house of her dreams

My wife Shelly—who is a Certified Lefkoe Method Facilitator who helps over 25 clients a week get rid of limiting beliefs—told me the following story that illustrates this point. She had a client who eliminated a few negative self-esteem beliefs and other negative beliefs about achieving financial abundance. One day she got a call from this client who wanted to share some exciting news with her. The client and three of her friends had attended a T. Harv Eker workshop, after which she had bought the summer house of her dreams.

The client attributed her new possession to what she learned in the workshop. Shelly listened and then asked the client what her friends had purchased. The client responded that they hadn’t bought anything or done anything to improve their financial condition after the workshop.

At that point Shelly pulled out the client’s file and read her some of the beliefs she had eliminated before she attended the workshop: I’m not deserving, Money is scarce and hard to get, You should always save for a rainy day, I’ll never get what I want, and I’m not important.

Shelly then asked her, “Do you think you would have spent the money and bought the summer house of your dreams if you still had the beliefs you eliminated?” The stunned silence at the other end of the phone line was the answer.

Obviously merely getting rid of limiting beliefs and conditionings is not sufficient to insure financial abundance. You have to take action. But the ability to take the type of actions required for financial success in today’s world require the ability to not be stopped by your fear of making mistakes, by what you think others may think of your behavior, or by a lack of confidence.

So if financial success is your focus—and there is nothing wrong with that focus—make sure you handle your personal growth first. It probably will give you a better chance to achieve financial success and it certainly will enable you to enjoy it more.

What do you think about the relationship between personal growth and financial success? Please write your comments below.

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For information about eliminating 23 of the most common limiting beliefs and conditionings, which cause eight of the most common problems in our lives, and get a separate video of the WAIR? Process, please check out: http://recreateyourlife.com/naturalconfidence.

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How to improve your relationships

Morty Lefkoe — Tue, 09 Aug 2011 23:21:02 +0000

I rarely give advice in my weekly blog post. I focus on the relationship between beliefs/conditioning and having the life you want to have. That is my area of real expertise.

But there is one aspect of life in which I think I am an expert, where I think I can give some very useful advice: how to improve your relationship with your significant other (spouse or steady partner). Shelly and I have created an incredible relationship and I think some of the things we do can significantly improve your relationship, although you might have to eliminate some beliefs in order to implement some of the suggestions.

The door closes

After Shelly and I had decided to get married but before the wedding, she complained about the fact that I was already leading a couple of evening seminars a week and was thinking about taking on an additional one. She said that it didn’t make sense for her to live with me if I was never going to be home to be with her. It wasn’t a threat, but the clear implication was that it made no sense to her for us to live together if I was going to be away “so often.”

I said, “I only have one demand if we are going to get married.” Now, Shelly is not someone who does well with demands, so she responded with surprise: “Excuse me!” I said, “I promise I will never cheat on you, I will never do anything I know will hurt you, and I am willing to work on myself to fix anything that is a problem in our relationship, but if we are going to be together, as of this moment you have to give up the right to leave, your commitment has to be absolute. If you are going to marry me I want your word that this is forever.”

I explained, “If we agree there we will never ‘entertain leaving,’ then we will have to find a way to make our relationship work. As long as leaving is a possibility, then there will never be a total commitment to making it work.”

Shelly was stunned. She told me later that she was terrified to make such a commitment. She had experienced the “freedom of a single life” for over 30 years. But she said that at that moment when she chose to give me the commitment it was as if a safe vault door was shut and she was on the inside. She later told me that the freedom she had experienced when she made the commitment was amazing.

In the early years of our marriage when we did argue a lot and had a lot of disagreements, this commitment that we had both made always kept us focused on finding a solution instead of thinking that we could leave if it didn’t work out.

Love for no reason

I’ve written about this next “tip” before, so let me review it briefly and give you a link to read about it in more detail. http://www.mortylefkoe.com/love-unconditionally/#

When Shelly and I were living together, shortly before we got married, she asked me why I loved her. I answered her, “Just because I say so.”

She didn’t like this answer. She wanted to know which qualities about her made me love her. I kept insisting that I only loved her because I said so, not for any particular reason.

At some point I explained what I meant. “If I love you for specific reasons, then my love is conditioned on you being a certain way. If you stopped being that way or if you weren’t that way at a given time, I wouldn’t love you. But if I love you just because I say so, then my love is unconditional and I can and will love you no matter what you do or don’t do.” I’ve repeated this to Shelly many times during the past 30 years and I think it’s finally okay with her.

As a result of this unconditional love, whenever I haven’t feel love toward Shelly at any given moment, I realized that I was not creating it and that it was up to me to figure out why and to start creating it again. I wasn’t blaming her for anything and I wasn’t waiting for her to change in some way. That gave me complete control over the way I felt about her, in other words, there was not only nothing she had to do to make me love her, there was nothing she could do that would lead to me not loving her.

I love a lot of things that Shelly does—such as the way she supports me, the way she loves me, and the way we read each other’s minds—but I don’t love her because of those things. So I am able to love her just as much when she doesn’t do those things as when she does.

This tip alone has me able to love Shelly 24/7, 365 days a year, regardless of what she does or doesn’t do. It makes for an incredible relationship.

Create love newly every day

Closely related to the prior suggestion is the importance of creating love for each other every day. I don’t try to remember how much I loved Shelly yesterday, I just wake up and create loving her, newly, every day. The first thing I say to her every morning is: I love you. Which is usually the last thing I say to her before we go to sleep at night.

I probably tell her how much I love her at least five times a day and frequently send her Google chats or emails that say: “Just in case you forgot: I love you massively.”

I find that the very act of saying “I love you” makes it easier to create that feeling in me.

(While I was editing this post Shelly suddenly appeared in my office, walked over to me, kissed me, and then walked out. Does life get any better than that?)

Stop giving meaning to things your partner says and does

As a result of implementing the relationship suggestions I’ve made above, Shelly and I have always had a very good relationship, even when we argued a lot in the early days. But even after eliminating all the beliefs we could find about ourselves and relationships, and after living the suggestions I’ve made in this post, there were still daily things that Shelly did that resulted in me feeling frustrated or annoyed with her.

For example, when I married Shelly over 30 years ago I was a mess. I had just been divorced for a second time and was getting depressed frequently. When we argued my way of coping with my upsets was to withdraw … and not just for a few hours. I’d withdraw for a couple of days! Shelly, on the other hand, would “get off it” (in other words, let go of the upset) in an hour or so and then wonder why I was reacting to something that had ended hours or even days before.

As I used The Lefkoe Method (TLM) to eliminate beliefs and conditionings, the time it took me to let go of my upset decreased, until, like Shelly, I could get off it in an hour or so after the argument was over.

At some point we created a friendly competition to see who could get off it first, in other words, who would be the first one to let go of the upset totally and be back in relationship with the other person. I ultimately acquired the ability to do that during an argument (as opposed to after it was over). I was able to stop right in the middle of it and just smile and say: “I’m sorry that whatever I am doing is upsetting you. Is there anything I can do to resolve this? I love you.”

Here’s what’s important about what I was doing. I didn’t say these words to placate Shelly or use extreme will power while still being upset. I was able to stop the upset and then say words that were true for me.

How did I learn to do that? I started asking myself what meaning I was giving Shelly’s behavior and comments. I realized that my upset was due to the meaning I was giving her behavior, not due to what she actually said or did. And then I followed two steps to get rid of that meaning.

First I realized that Shelly’s behavior had no inherent meaning, in fact, I realized that all events in the world have no meaning. Then I asked myself if I could literally “see” the meaning I had given her actions and statements. Obviously I never could “see” the meaning I had given, I could only “see” the events.

So it became clear to me that the meaning existed only in my mind. What she was doing and saying had no inherent meaning. The only meaning was the one I had given it.

As you know if you’ve eliminated at least one belief using the Lefkoe Belief Process, events that have no meaning can’t make us feel anything. So the upset that I thought Shelly had “caused” was, in fact, caused by the meaning I had given what Shelly did and said. When that became real, the upset literally disappeared.

For example, if your partner doesn’t do something you asked her to do and then you give the event the meaning that you can’t get what you want, you will get angry. If you give the event the meaning that your partner doesn’t care about what you want, you will be hurt or upset. If you say that your partner’s behavior has no inherent meaning, you will feel nothing. You’ll probably just calmly do what you needed yourself or ask your partner again if she will do it.

And that is something you can learn to do consistently, with practice.

Try implementing these four suggestions and then use the comment section below to let us know how they affect your relationship. Great relationships really are possible.

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What barrier do you need to overcome?

Morty Lefkoe — Tue, 02 Aug 2011 23:02:43 +0000

Every six months I join about one hundred of my friends in the Transformational Leadership Council for four days. We enjoy hanging out together; we learn from each other; we support each other. The days we spend together are among the most important days of my year.

At last week’s meeting I discovered a significant barrier in my life. Actually I sort of knew it was there, but last week I saw it in a way I had never seen it before. And now, 26 years after I created The Lefkoe Method that enabled me to eliminate literally hundreds of beliefs and conditionings, I realized there were a bunch more I needed to get rid of.

My breakthrough

Let me share my breakthrough with you as many of you might personally relate to it.

My wife, Shelly, frequently tells me that I don’t say much during conversations with other people. I think I am listening and learning (I figure I learn more when I listen than when I talk), but I realized she is right: I often don’t talk even when I have something worthwhile to contribute. I also sometimes feel uncomfortable even around people I know and have a close relationship with. I hesitate to talk about my work unless I am clearly asked and the person asking shows some real interest.

I’ve known all of this, but overall my life works and I’m very happy. Because no one of these issues seemed to be a “problem,” there was nothing I needed to “work on.”

Last week I was trying to find what was getting in the way of me successfully completing an exercise. In this type of situation the most frequent barrier is a fear of failure and a wanting to look good in front of others. Those feelings had been a significant barrier for most of my life, but they had finally gotten handled some years ago when I eliminated the beliefs that caused them.

The source of my barriers

While interacting with the facilitator of this exercise I started talking about my childhood with the hope that I might find a clue to what was stopping me. I shared that my parents divorced when I was 3 and I saw my dad very little for the next 7-8 years. Then we spent a little time together until I was 15, at which time he told me he was leaving the city we lived in because, he said, “your mother drove me out of town” because she asked for more child support. He said he wasn’t going to tell me where he was going to live and that if I wanted to reach him, I could give a letter (remember “letters”) to my aunt (his sister) who would forward it to him. I didn’t see him for 20 years after that and didn’t hear from him when I graduated high school and college.

As I related this story to the facilitator I got very upset and tears were streaming down my face. I realized that I’ve felt I was not wanted or truly accepted by others. I realized that I’ve felt unseen by most people. I realized that I’ve never had a mentor or a partner in business (other than Shelly). I realized that I’ve had a very difficult time being really open with men.

The next day I sat down and made a list of beliefs I had that could explain this entire pattern of behavior, the major source of which were interactions with my father.

My limiting beliefs and sense

I can’t count on people.

People don’t want to be around me.

People aren’t interested in me and in what I care about.

If people get angry with me they will hurt me.

The way to survive is to do it all myself, to be totally self-sufficient.

I also looked at my sense of myself regarding others and found the following: alone, lonely, heaviness in my chest, on the outside looking in, sad, don’t know how to relate to others, don’t know what to say to others, can’t count on others, an outsider, people don’t want to be around me, uncomfortable around men, afraid of being hurt by others.

Can you see how all my “symptoms” can be explained by my beliefs and my sense of self regarding people?

It took me 74 years to discover the connection between several different “problem” areas of my life, no one of which seemed to need my attention. But now that I see the bigger picture, I’m no longer willing to live disconnected from people. I realize now that I have a significant barrier to having truly satisfying relationships, especially with men.

So this week I will sit myself down and eliminate these five beliefs (and any others I might find as I work on these) and de-condition the sense. I expect to enjoy my relationships a lot more and stop being afraid of people, especially men. I expect to be a much happier human being.

What about you?

What do you think about my recent breakthrough? Is there a barrier in your life that you haven’t yet identified? Please comment below.

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The Information You Asked For: What Beliefs Cause Specific Problems

Morty Lefkoe — Tue, 26 Jul 2011 19:50:37 +0000

Every week I get a few blog comments and emails asking me to help you identify the beliefs that cause specific problems. Although our training that will teach you how to eliminate beliefs once you’ve found them won’t be available for another couple of months, for those of you who have already figured out how to eliminate beliefs on your own, here are some common patterns and the beliefs that cause them—for most people, most of the time. Some people obviously don’t have all these beliefs and some people have a couple of additional beliefs.

Procrastination:

Mistakes and failure are bad.
I’m not good enough.
Change is difficult.
What makes me good enough or important is having people think well of me.
Nothing I do is good enough.
I’m not capable.
I’m not competent.
If I make a mistake or fail I’ll be rejected.
I’m a failure.
I’m stupid.
I’m not worthy.
I’m powerless.
What makes me good enough or important is doing things perfectly.
Conditioning: Fear associated with criticism and judgment.
Conditioning: Fear associated with not meeting expectations.
Conditioning: Fear associated with rejection.

Fear of rejection:

I’m not good enough.
Change is difficult.
I’m not important.
What makes me good enough/important is having people think well of me.
If I make a mistake or fail I’ll be rejected.
I’m not worthy.
Conditioning: Fear associated with criticism and judgment.
Conditioning: Fear associated with not meeting expectations.
Conditioning: Fear associated with rejection.

Concern with the approval of others:

Mistakes and failure are bad.
I’m not good enough.
Change is difficult.
I’m not important.
What makes me good enough/important is having people think well of me.
I’m not worthy
If I make a mistake or fail I’ll be rejected.
Conditioning: Fear associated with criticism and judgment.
Conditioning: Fear associated with not meeting expectations.
Conditioning: Fear associated with rejection.

Notice that some of the beliefs are the same for all three problems and some are different. We have found that certain basic negative self-esteem beliefs seem to underlie almost any pattern. And then each behavioral or emotional problem has its own unique beliefs.

Problems with careers, abundance, and relationships have additional beliefs in those specific areas.

You’ll also notice in the above lists that all three patterns include conditioning. As I’ve explained in prior blog posts, most behavioral and emotional problems are caused primarily by beliefs, but in many cases by conditioning also. For example, most people are conditioned to feel some level of anxiety if they are criticized, if they don’t live up to expectations, or if they are rejected. These conditionings have to be de-conditioned before many problems can be totally eliminated. For more information about conditioning, please see http://www.mortylefkoe.com/032310/.

For more information about how to identify the beliefs underlying any given problem, see my blog post: http://www.mortylefkoe.com/find-beliefs-underlying/.

If there are any other specific topics you would like me to write about, please let me know by leaving a comment below. I’ll do my best to write about any topic that a number of you request.

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Why Do We Need To Create Meaning?

Morty Lefkoe — Tue, 19 Jul 2011 23:48:06 +0000

Why do we usually make up a meaning for events that have no inherent meaning? And how does that automatic, unconscious meaning-making process create problems for us?

Why we need to create meaning

As a human being, your survival is conditional—it is not guaranteed. In other words, there are some things that help insure your survival and some things that threaten your survival. As a very young child, having loving, caring parents makes us feel our survival is insured; having parents who do not love or care about us (or who we feel do not love or care about us) makes us feel our survival is threatened. As an adult having someone on a dark street stick a gun in your face and demand your money makes you feel as if your survival is threatened.

Human beings seem to have a hard-wired “meaning making” mechanism that judges almost everything: conducive to my survival or inimical to my survival—for me or against me. One of the first words that children learn, and then repeat incessantly, is “why.” We need to understand what is happening and why so we can better judge the effect it might have on our lives.

The need to discover an event’s probable impact on us leads us to look for the meaning in events that have no inherent meaning. As I’ve explained in earlier posts and as is clear to anyone who has eliminated at least one belief using the Lefkoe Belief Process, no event has an inherent meaning because any event could have a multitude of meanings and you can’t ever draw any conclusions, for sure, from any event. Meaning exists only in the mind, not in the world.

For example, if parents get angry when their children didn’t meet their expectations, most children will assign such behavior the meaning that they aren’t good enough. In fact, however, the fact that parents are angry at their child tells you nothing for certain about their child. As a result, you can’t know anything for certain about a child from the fact that his parents frequently got angry at him. In other words, the events involving the parents and children have no inherent meaning.

We create two different types of meaning

There are two fundamental types of meaning we give to events:

The first type is the meaning we give to a pattern of events, such as mom and dad being busy a lot of the time (leading to: I’m not important) or mom and dad arguing a lot and getting divorced (leading to: Relationships don’t work). These meanings become beliefs, which are generalized statements about ourselves, people and life that stay with us forever unless we find some way to eliminate the belief. Such beliefs are often variations of “I am …, or “People are …, or “Life is ….” Beliefs are statements about reality that we feel are “the truth,” thereby determining our behavior.

The second type is the meaning we give to specific events, both external (events in the world) or internal (such as thoughts, feelings, memories, physical sensations, etc.). These meanings last only as long as our focus on an event lasts. Like beliefs, such meanings are created unconsciously and automatically. The meaning we give this type of event determines how it “occurs” for us. Most of us most of the time never distinguish between actual events and how the events occur to us. We think the latter is real and therefore we deal with the “occurring” as if it is the actual reality.

In other words, if a friend walks into a room and doesn’t speak to us, and this event occurs to us as: my friend doesn’t like me, it seems to us as if the reality is my friend doesn’t like me. At which point we deal with this person as if he really doesn’t like me, when all we know for sure is that when he walked into the room he did not talk to us. In other words, because we usually don’t distinguish between an event and the meaning we give the event, we deal with the meaning as if it is what actually happened.

Ultimately, both types of meanings (beliefs and our occurrings) get substituted for reality in our mind and we don’t deal with what really is. In other words, we think our beliefs and occurrings are “the truth.”

Getting rid of these meanings

When you eliminate beliefs, you create new possibilities in your life because “your reality” has changed. The filters through which you view reality are gone. Barriers to action, such as procrastination and anxiety, have been permanently eliminated.

When you dissolve the meaning/occurring you give events moment by moment, you are better able to deal with the situation (if it needs dealing with) because you are clear on the difference between the event to be dealt with and the meaning that exists only in your mind. So you are able to see more possibilities for solving a problem. Moreover, because meaningless events cannot cause feelings, most of our negative emotions, such as anxiety and anger, come from the meaning you give events. By dissolving the meaning, you simultaneously dissolve the negative feelings.

Dissolve beliefs and occurrings by making a distinction

As I pointed out in an earlier blog post, we think our beliefs and the meaning we give events moment by moment are true because of a distinction we failed to make earlier, namely between the event(s) and the meaning we assign the event(s). Therefore, the way to eliminate or dissolve beliefs and current meanings is to make the distinction we did not make earlier. When we are able to make that distinction, the belief and the current meaning/occurring disappear.

When people are told they can eliminate beliefs, some respond: But won’t that force me to do things that might be dangerous, for example, if I eliminate the belief life is dangerous, won’t that make me oblivious to some real dangers. The answer is no. Eliminating beliefs does not make you do anything. It only offers new possibilities, from which you can freely choose.

A similar thing happens when I tell people that they can learn to stop giving meaning to events. One person asked: Won’t that lead to people becoming sociopaths? What he meant was: if your have no feelings, won’t you stop caring about other people? Won’t you lose all sense of morality? Again, the answer is no.

Not giving an arbitrary meaning to moment-to-moment events does not affect your values at all. You can still value human life and have a desire to alleviate the suffering of others.

In addition, you do not need meaning to get you to take action. If you lose your job, you don’t need to assume it means that you will not be able to pay your bills, that you will lose your home, that you will never get another job, etc. in order to start looking for a new job. In fact, you will be better able to create strategies for finding a new job if you are not overwhelmed with the fear that would result from such occurrings.

How can I decide what to do without any meaning?

But if nature built a meaning-making mechanism into us because we need to know if what we encounter in reality is conducive to or threatens our survival, how will we be able to survive if we stop making meaning?

There is a significant difference between making reasonable assumptions that we know are assumptions and that we continually check for accuracy, and unknowingly giving meaning to an event and then thinking that the way the event occurred to us is what actually happened. We can never be better off by being blind to what actually is.

Automatic meaning-making might be useful in a world where real danger lurks beneath every bush, where a saber-tooth tiger might jump out at you at any moment. In such a world, we need to automatically give meaning to events and respond without conscious thought. We are better being safe than sorry and assuming the worst will probably save our lives at some point.

But we no longer live in a world where we need automatic, unconscious meaning. In virtually every situation we have the time to carefully think about events and consciously determine their most likely meaning—all the while realizing that our consciously-created meanings are provisional and need to be checked for usefulness from time to time. We know they are our best guesses at that time and do not mistake them for the truth.

In today’s modern world, thinking your beliefs and occurrings are “the truth” can never be useful. So eliminate your limiting beliefs and learn how to stop automatically giving meaning to current events. You’ll be surprised at how much happier and more successful you will become.

What do you think about our biological need to create meaning and how not giving meaning to events enables us to have a better life? I’d love to read your comments and questions.

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Eliminate The Fear That Stops You

Morty Lefkoe — Wed, 13 Jul 2011 00:58:12 +0000

Have you ever told yourself that you were going to do something—something you really wanted to do—and then just never get around to it? If you are, you are like millions of others and Seth Godin’s new book is about you.

I read his newest book, Poke the Box, a few months ago and it’s just the right book for our times. It probably will become his 13^th best-seller.

You need to take action

If you’ve read any of his earlier books or his daily blog (which I devour as soon as it arrives in my inbox), you know that Seth is passionate about innovation and change. And, he stresses repeatedly, if you want to produce something new and change anything, you have to start and you have to “ship,” in other words, create a product or service and then make it available.

In other words, get an idea for something new that people will find valuable and willing to pay for and then stay with it until it’s ready to ship. But everyone knows that. Do we need another book that repeats that obvious truth?

He is talking about business, but the point he is making applies to all of us, all the time, outside of business. Life is about making things happen, not just thinking about what we would like to make happen.

The reason we need Seth’s book is that, despite the fact that the need to start and ship (the need to move forward in life) is obvious, most people don’t do it.

Seth correctly says that the major reason is fear of failure. We are afraid to make mistakes and to fail. And anytime you are trying something new, something that hasn’t been proven to work before, there is always the possibility of a mistake or failure.

Why do we all fear failure?

Seth spends most of his latest book encouraging people to overcome this fear and giving them tips on how to do it.

I totally agree with Seth that what is needed most in this world is innovation that is turned into products and services and then shipped. I also agree that fear of mistakes and failure is the biggest barrier to people doing this.

But I have a slight disagreement about why so many people are afraid. Yes, we do have a reptilian brain where the only thing that counts is our survival. That’s why anything we perceive as threatening our survival will produce the emotion of fear.

But what determines what we perceive to be a threat to our survival? If you are a regularly reader of my posts, you won’t be surprised when I say the answer is beliefs. In this case, two specific beliefs.

What makes people fear mistakes and failure are two beliefs that most people seem to have: Mistakes and failure are bad and If I make a mistake or fail I’ll be rejected. If you think it is bad to make a mistake or fail and that you will be rejected if you do either of these two things, you will experience fear and, in far too many cases, the fear will inhibit action.

The source of the “fear of failure” beliefs

Why are these two beliefs so common? Well, let’s take a look at how they were formed. Most parents never take parenting classes on learning how to be an effective parent and most parents bring their own “baggage” with them to the job of parenting. Moreover, most parents have unreasonable expectations for their children. For example, most parents expect toddlers to come when called, sit still, not make too much noise, and do what they are told to do. All of these things are virtually impossible for a toddler.

How do parents respond when their expectations are not met? In the best of cases with mild annoyance and frustration—in the worst of cases with physical abuse. The reaction of most parents is in-between these two extremes. Most parents get angry and repeat the phrases that have become clichés in our society: “How many times do I have to tell you?” “Don’t you ever listen?” “Why can’t you do what I tell you?” “What’s wrong with you?” Many of our clients tell us about their parents’ “look.”

What meaning does a four-to-six-year-old give to his parents’ response? I’m not doing what my parents want. I don’t seem to be able to give them what they want. I’m making mistakes and failing. And because mom and dad are angry, that must be bad. And because it feels like my parents don’t love me when they are angry at me and it feels like they are withdrawing from me, it feels like I’m being rejected.

Yes, most schools also create an environment in which these two beliefs are likely to be formed. Unfortunately most kids have already created these beliefs at home before the age of six, before they ever got to school.

How do I know this? Because my associates and I have helped over 13,000 clients eliminate the beliefs that cause most of the problems in their lives and most of these clients have had these two beliefs about mistakes and failure. And the type of parenting behavior I described above is the source of the beliefs for almost all of them.

That’s the bad news. Here’s the good news.

Beliefs like these can be quickly and permanently eliminated. And what I’ve discovered from my work with clients is that as soon as these two beliefs are eliminated (sometimes a few other core beliefs are required), the fear of failure literally disappears. Forever.

So maybe the best way to create a world in which most people are willing to “poke the box”—to create a new idea, then start work on it and then ship it—is to help millions of people get rid of the beliefs that are preventing such behavior.

Steps of a process to eliminate the beliefs

Here are the steps of a modified version of the Lefkoe Belief Process^® that will enable most people to eliminate these two beliefs about mistakes and failure (and most other beliefs) permanently. (Literally tens of thousands of people have gotten rid of these beliefs using this process.) Just ask someone these questions and allow them to answer. I’ll provide the answers that most people with the belief, Mistakes and failure are bad, have given.

Step 1: What is the belief?

Mistakes and failure are bad.

Step 2: What is the source of the belief? What happened (usually before the age of six if it’s a self-esteem belief) that led to this belief being formed?

Mom and dad were critical of me when I didn’t do what they wanted, when they wanted, or the way they wanted. They said things like: “Can’t you do anything right?” “When are you going to learn?” Sometimes they’d just look and sound disappointed and sometimes they got angry and yelled.

Step 3: Can you see that, although the meaning you gave the events (your belief) is one logically valid interpretation, there are three of four others? Name a few other possible meanings for my behavior and mom and dad’s reaction to it.

Mom and dad’s annoyance at me when I didn’t live up to their expectations could have several meanings: Mom and dad thought mistakes and failure were bad, but they were wrong. Mistakes and failure were bad in my house; they might not have been bad in other households. Mom and dad didn’t understand that mistakes and failure can be great learning experiences and aren’t bad at all. Mom and dad got annoyed at me, not because mistakes and failure are bad, but because they had unreasonable expectations of me as a young child.

Step 4: After helping find several other interpretations, ask: Can you see that your interpretation (your belief) is not the truth, it is only a truth, one possible interpretation of several that explain the events? The answer usually will be, yes.

Yes. It is only a truth.

Step 5: Imagine being present during the earlier events where your belief was formed. Doesn’t it seem as if you can see [the words of the belief]? The answer usually will be, yes.

I did see it.

Step 6. Can you really “see” [the words of the belief]? If you can really “see” it, tell me what it looks like, the shape, color, and location?

I can’t see it. The belief was only in my mind, not in the world.

Step 7. Can you get that, although there certainly were consequences of mom and dad’s comments and behavior, it had no meaning? In other words, you don’t know anything for sure about mistakes and failure merely from how your parents responded to your behavior as a child, do you?

No, I don’t. The childhood events have no inherent meaning. Only the meaning I gave them.

Step 8. Say the words of the belief. … Does this statement still feel like the truth? The answer usually will be, no.

The belief is gone.

As always, don’t take my word for what I claim. I urge you to try the exercises I present in my posts so you can discover for yourself that they work and result in profound changes in people. To see the steps of this process in action and to eliminate the belief, Mistakes and failure are bad, yourself, please go to: http://recreateyourlife.com/free/mistakes.php.

Try this and then let me know what results you produced. Tell me if your fear of taking action disappears.

What do you think about how our fear of failure beliefs stops us from acting? I’d love to read your comments and questions.

These weekly blog posts also exist as podcasts. Sign up for the RSS feed or at iTunes to get the podcasts sent to you weekly.

(This post is an edited version of a post I wrote for Amex Open Forum on March 18, 2011.)

Change your life by changing your brain

Morty Lefkoe — Tue, 28 Jun 2011 23:33:32 +0000

Most of the time we are only interested in attaining results and we don’t really care about detailed explanations for how we got those results. But sometimes knowing precisely how we achieved specific results enables us to have more control over producing those results consistently. I think I’ve just figured out how one of my processes works as well as it does.

I’ve told you on several occasions how most of us don’t make a distinction between reality and the meaning we give it, and then deal with the meaning (that exists only in our mind) instead of what is actually happening in the world.

A simple example is someone you know walking in a room and not saying hello to you. That is all that actually happened. But most of us would give it a meaning like, he is angry with me or she doesn’t like me any more. And here’s the real problem: we think that the meaning actually occurred, as if we can see it, when, in fact, it’s only in our mind.

I’ve explained to you that the Lefkoe Occurring Process (LOP) enables us to make a clear distinction between the reality and the meaning, and then quickly and easily to dissolve the meaning, so we can clearly see and deal with the events/reality.

The new field of neuroplasticity

I’ve never known how the LOP worked; I only knew that it did. After learning about a intriguing new area of science called brain plasticity I think I now understand how the LOP works so well.

Until the past 20 years or so, most scientists were convinced that the brain developed for the first few years of life, growing new connections and then stopped and could no longer be changed. In a fascinating book, The Brain That Changes Itself, Norman Doidge, M.D., points out: “The common wisdom was that after childhood the brain changed only when it began the long process of decline; that when brain cells failed to develop property, or were injured, or died, they could not be replaced.

He tells of meeting scientists who in the past few decades had made “a series of unexpected discoveries. They showed that the brain changed its very structure with each different activity it performed, perfecting its circuit so it was better suited to the task at hand. … They began to call this fundamental brain property “neuroplasticity.”

At this point Doidge’s book gets really exciting because it enabled me to create a theory as to why the LOP works so well. Doidge discusses the work of Donald O. Hebb, a Canadian behavioral psychologist, who in 1949 proposed “that when two neurons fire at the same time repeatedly (or when one fires, causing another to fire), chemical changes occur in both, so that the two tend to connect more strongly. Hebb’s concept—actually proposed by Freud sixty years before—was neatly summarized by neuroscientist Carla Shatz: ‘Neurons that fire together wire together.’ Hebb’s theory thus argued that neuronal structure can be altered by experience.” (Emphasis added.)

How the LOP actually changes how the brain works

In other words, I suspect that there are parts of the brain that add meaning to events and that our perceptions of the world normally pass though those parts of the brain. By repeatedly dissolving the meaning we have given events, we are able to create a new neural circuit in the brain that bypasses those parts of the brain so that we are able to view our perception of events without meaning.

Many of the people in my Lefkoe Occurring Courses (including me) are able by the end of the course to stop giving meaning to most events and are able to dissolve any meaning we do give in a matter of moments. How did we achieve that result? We practiced dissolving the meaning we had automatically given to events hundreds of times. Somehow that repetition created a new circuit that bypassed the meaning-giving part of the brain.

I am excited about finding some neuroscientists who I can partner with to check the brains of a bunch of people before taking my Occurring Course and then again after, so we can see exactly what changes in the brain and where. (I’d also love to see what changes in the brain at the moment a belief is permanently eliminated!)

If you’d like to learn more about the upcoming Lefkoe Occurring Course, please go to http://occurringcourse.com.

Dissolving meaning enables unconditional love

Parenthetically, when I tell people that with practice they can stop giving meaning to most events, I am often asked: But what about positive emotions, like love? If you don’t give meaning to what people do, won’t you stop loving them?

Actually, just the opposite is true. Many of us want to give our family unconditional love, but even when we intend to do that, the meaning we give our spouse’s, our parents’, and our children’s behavior often leads to annoyance, frustration and even anger. At that moment we are not experiencing or expressing unconditional love, even if we intend to express unconditional love. When we are angry at someone our love is experienced as conditioned on them not doing the type of things they are doing at that moment, which we are annoyed or angry with.

But when you have laid down new neural pathways that bypass meaning, you are actually able to love unconditionally. My wife Shelly has remarked that in the past year or so (since just after I started offering the Lefkoe Occurring Course, which I took as a participant in the beginning) she has experienced a whole new level of love from me. I don’t think I love her any more, but I no longer get annoyed at little things she does and says, so I am able to express and she is able to experience my unconditional love. The same is true with my two daughters.

For information about how to create love “for no reason,” please see my blog post, http://www.mortylefkoe.com/012610.

What do you think about neuroplasticity? What do you think about my claim that by not giving meaning to the behavior of your loved ones you are able to express unconditional love? I’d love to read your comments and questions.

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