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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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 negative belief free.

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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copyright ©2010-11 Morty Lefkoe

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.

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 negative belief free.

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.

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.

copyright ©2011 Morty Lefkoe

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

For many years I had asked myself the questions: What is the real source of our negative emotions? Why do so many things cause fear in our lives that aren’t inherently scary? And why do some people experience negative emotions while other people don’t in similar situations?

About eight years ago I wrote a paper for myself on the source of negative emotions. Today’s post is a summary of that paper. I think you’ll find some fascinating material here and I’m excited to get your responses and start a conversation.

* * *

What is an emotion?

An emotion is the experiential, chemical, and neuro‑physiological response a conscious being has to a stimulus. (I am concerned here only with negative emotions in human beings.)

If specific emotions were created by specific stimuli, then a particular stimulus would produce the same emotion in every person. In fact, different people have varied emotional responses to the same stimulus.

Then what does cause emotions? Except for stimuli that are explicit threats to our physical survival, 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.

A specific stimulus is a necessary condition for an emotion, but not a sufficient condition. An additional condition that has to be present is a meaning given to the meaningless stimulus—that entails either a threat to survival, or a sense of powerlessness or helplessness that is indirectly, but ultimately related to a threat to survival.

Thus for adults to experience a negative emotion, they require either (1) beliefs that cause a stimulus to be experienced as a threat to their survival or beliefs that produce a sense of powerlessness or helplessness; and/or, (2) conditioning, that occurred in childhood, that links a stimulus and an emotion together. (Phobias also are the result of conditioning, but that conditioning can occur later in life when there is a perceived threat to one’s survival.)

(If all negative emotions ultimately can be traced to a threat to one’s survival, then the ultimate source of negative emotions is the belief/perception that we are a separate creation, a thing, whose survival really is at stake. If that is the case, perhaps all positive emotions can be traced to a feeling of inclusiveness, wholeness, a lack of separation—to the recognition that who we really are is a non-dual consciousness whose survival can never be at stake.)

It is a child’s inherent dependency on others that makes it possible for him to directly experience a threat to his survival in the face of certain stimuli. Children also experience powerlessness and helplessness and these experiences are directly related to a sense that their survival is at stake.

The Cause of Specific Negative Emotions

Fear is our emotional response to something that we interpret to be a direct threat to our physical well‑being. All other negative emotions are the result of interpreting events as a threat to our mental/emotional well‑being. They are our response to something that is an indirect threat to our physical well‑being, namely, something that makes us feel powerless. Specifically, negative emotions other than fear are our response to something that is a threat to our efficacy, our “okayness,” our ability to act on our own behalf to do what is necessary to survive.

To summarize what we’ve seen thus far: the perception that something is a threat to our survival causes fear. The experience of powerlessness, the inability to take the actions necessary to survive, is the source of all the other “negative” emotions. (Guilt is the only exception, which is more directly related to fear, as explained below.)

Physical pain is a symptom of an underlying malfunction of the body. It is a sign of a dysfunctional physical/body state. It is a signal that there’s something wrong with the body, a potential threat to the survival of the body. Mental pain, which is experienced as negative emotion, is a signal there’s something wrong psychologically. It is a signal that we either are being threatened directly or that our efficacy (our ability to deal with threats) is being impaired, which results in a feeling of powerlessness.

Anger is the emotion we feel toward that which does something (or refrains from doing something) that results in our feeling powerless, helpless, and inefficacious.

Sadness, unhappiness, grief, and sorrow are emotions that result from feeling powerless in the face of not having (or not being able to have) what we want, or losing something we had.

Jealousy is the emotion we feel toward someone whom we experience as taking away from us something we want and we feel powerless to do anything about it.

Envy is the emotion we feel toward someone who has something we want—when we see ourselves as powerless to do anything to get it.

Shame is the emotion caused by a strong sense of embarrassment, unworthiness, or disgrace, which makes us feel we aren’t okay. If we aren’t okay, there is an implied impairment of our power to deal with possible threats to our survival.

Guilt is the emotion we feel as a result of a judgment we place on ourselves. When we feel guilty, we experience ourselves as “bad” because we don’t think, feel or do what we should have or could have thought, felt or done. This judgment makes us feel we aren’t okay. Guilt is a function of thinking we have done something bad.

If guilt requires the concept of bad, what is bad? For adults, beliefs determine which behaviors are good or bad. For a child, good consists of doing what parents want and approve of. Bad consists of not doing what parents want and approve of. Therefore, for a child, bad is usually associated with withdrawal of love, which, for a child, necessarily produces fear. Thus fear always underlies and is the foundation for guilt.

There is a difference between shame and guilt. Shame results from concluding: I am inherently flawed. Guilt results from concluding: I did something bad.

How fear occurs as a result of conditioned stimuli

The real cause of fear is always the perception that our physical survival is being threatened. The real cause of all other negative emotions, except guilt, is always the experience of powerlessness or inefficacy that is inherent in being a child. The real cause of guilt is the perception that our physical survival will be threatened because we are bad.

Let’s use this understanding of how emotions are caused to explain how certain stimuli directly cause emotions in children and how other, neutral stimuli become conditioned to cause emotions in adults.

When emotions are caused by conditioning, we have an emotion today whenever we are confronted with any stimuli that in the past we associated with the realcause of the emotion. Let me explain.

Pavlov’s experiments with dogs are the classic example of this conditioning process. When presented with food, the dogs salivated. Then a bell was rung just prior to presenting the dogs with food. After numerous presentations of the food with the bell, the bell was rung and no food was delivered. The dogs salivated anyway, because they had associated the bell with the food. In other words, a stimulus that normally would not produce a response does so because it becomes associated with a stimulus that inherently produces such a response.

In almost every instance of a stimulus that has been conditioned to produce fear, the stimulus itself did not cause fear in a child. The fear almost always was caused by the meaning the child gave to her parents’ behavior at the time the stimulus was present, namely, the parent’s behavior means the child will be rejected, which means it will be abandoned, which means it will die. Because children experience themselves as dependent on their parents for their literal survival, children inherently feel fear whenever their parents do anything that a child experiences as rejection or potential abandonment.

To show how childhood conditioning results in adult fear, let’s use as an example an adult who feels fear whenever he makes a mistake or even thinks about making a mistake. When did he first experience fear associated with making a mistake? Assume that as a child his parents usually got angry when he made a mistake (in other words, when he didn’t do what his parents wanted him to do). The anger (the parents’ response to his mistake) made him feel rejected, which to him meant he’d be abandoned, which to him meant he’d die. That perceived threat to his survival is the real source of the fear, not making a mistake. But because he almost always experienced fear whenever he made a mistake, making a mistake (a neutral stimulus) became conditioned to cause the fear.

Making a mistake didn’t initially cause the fear. The meaning the child read into the parents’ response is what really caused the fear. The child didn’t distinguish between what really caused the fear and an event that just happened to accompany what really caused the fear. Therefore the latter event became conditioned to cause the fear. Later in life, the conditioned event continues to cause fear even when the true cause of the fear is absent.

Phobias are the result of conditioning that can occur at any age. You can be conditioned to fear dogs, or heights, or even specific people. You had an experience (or observed someone having an experience with which you identified) with the stimulus that you interpreted to mean a physical threat to you. Now, even if the physical threat is absent, the stimulus produces the fear. Again, the neutral stimulus has been conditioned to produce the fear. It merely accompanied the fear earlier, just as Pavlov’s bell merely accompanied the food.

How the Stimuli for Anger Get Conditioned

Now let’s look at how childhood conditioning produces other emotions, where there is not a perceived threat to survival.

Let’s assume you experience anger whenever you are told what to do. Merely being told to do something does not inherently cause anger. Being told what to do has become conditioned to produce anger.

Imagine that as a child you experienced anger when you were told what to do. The real cause of the anger was not merely being told what to do. It was the powerlessness you felt because you had no ability to refuse. If you had been told what to do, but always had the option to negotiate and frequently ended up not having to do what you had been told to do, you would not have experienced anger when you were told what to do.

Being told what to do became conditioned to cause anger because you never distinguished between the real source of the anger—the powerlessness you felt when you couldn’t refuse your parent’s demands—and the demands themselves.

The same conditioning process occurs with all the other emotions, except guilt, which is more directly tied to a threat to one’s survival than to powerlessness.

Although this is far from the last word on a complicated issue, this theory does explain why fear and guilt are ultimately a function of a perceived threat to one’s survival, and why all other negative emotions are a function of powerlessness. Maybe our negative feelings won’t be quite as mysterious to us as they are now.

Please share any comments you have on these thoughts about our negative emotions.

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.

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.

To purchase DVD programs that we guarantee to eliminate eight of the most common daily problems people face, go to http://www.recreateyourlife.com/store.

copyright ©2010 Morty Lefkoe

I want to deeply thank the hundreds of you who shared intimate details about how your lives have been run by your fears and anger. Your stories were unbelievably honest and incredibly moving. They reminded me of how I described my own life in my journal years ago, just before I created the Lefkoe Belief Process (originally called the Decision Maker Process) and in the early months after I created it, before I had eliminated many beliefs.

Here are some excepts from my journal in the mid-1980s:

During the past few weeks I have been more and more upset, afraid, on edge. Nothing seems to be happening. I put articles, magazines, etc. out into the world, and nothing comes back. I am worried about money. I am troubled about the situation in which I have put my family.

It seems to be that there is something wrong with me, that no matter what I do, it will never be enough. I feel I am insufficient for the task I’ve set for myself.

Last night I was exhausted, crying when I got home, crying when I got up this morning.

I’m scared. And when I try to look and see what’s going on, my mind wanders and there’s a fog.

I just saw the thoughts: When all is said and done, I’m never going to make it. My life is not going to turn out.

If you didn’t know these comments were written by me many years ago, I’m sure you would assume they were among the many posts written last week describing the one area of your emotional life you would like to change.

Techniques That Didn’t Work For You

In your response to my question—What didn’t work to help you with your fear?—you said that most rational approaches, such as cognitive behavioral therapy, positive self-talk, and rational thinking, failed. ”Just don’t let the fear stop you” also didn’t work for most of you.

Your responses were mixed on EFT, hypnosis, and NLP. Some of you said these techniques were useful, others said they dealt only with the symptoms and never got rid of the underlying causes, which made the fear and other negative feelings come back.

Why Most Approaches To Eliminating Fear Don’t Work

I promised I would explain why the approaches that didn’t work for you couldn’t work. Here’s my answer.

Imagine a person with the beliefs: I’m not good enough, mistakes and failure are bad, I’m inadequate, I’ll never get what I want, nothing I do is good enough, life is difficult, people can’t be trusted, etc. If this is his reality, can you see that he would be afraid much of the time? …

Our beliefs have the power they do because, for us, they are our reality. And that’s why most change techniques that deal only with symptoms produce only temporary relief. If the source of your fear (and other negative emotions such as anger and general upset) is your beliefs, then the only thing that will permanently get rid of the fear is to eliminate those beliefs.

Let me give you a few more examples: Our behavior and feelings are responses to our reality. So if my reality is that relationships don’t work, that I’m not lovable, and that women can’t be trusted, then being in a relationship or even having the thought of a close romantic relationship probably would produce some level of anxiety. Why? Because in my reality relationships are unpleasant and unlikely to last.

If we perceive something as threatening us, we are hard-wired to feel some level of fear. If in our reality rejection is a threat to us, rejection will cause fear. If in our reality we will never get what we want and life is dangerous, then we are likely to live with some level of anxiety almost all the time.

In other words those things that we experience as threatening will necessarily result in fear. But what determines which events are perceived as threatening to us? Interestingly enough, it’s not what is actually out there in the world. Instead, it is our beliefs about ourselves, people and life.

Tera posted a comment on my blog that clearly explains why most approaches don’t work:

“I just wanted to point out that the Lefkoe Method is the only way I know that actually gets rid of the cause of the problems ONCE AND FOR ALL rather then all those techniques that only treat the symptoms. EFT, meditation, NLP, false forgiveness and letter writing, could drastically improve the quality of our lives, but they can’t fix the beliefs that cause the problems.”

A Modification Of This Theory

Based on what I learned in the Lefkoe Freedom Experiment earlier this year, I’d like to slightly modify what I’ve just written.

There seems to be an additional step between beliefs (and conditionings) and our behavior and feelings. Let me explain. Remember I said that beliefs get their power because they are our reality and our behavior and feelings are determined by our reality.

In essence, our beliefs and conditionings are the primary determinant for how reality “occurs” for us, or “shows up” for us. And because we usually don’t distinguish between reality and the way reality occurs for us, the “occurring” is our reality and directly determines our behavior and feelings.

Here’s how it works. Say you believe I’m not good enough, I’ll never get what I want, life will never turn out for me, and other similar beliefs. Then you lose your job or your investments severely decline in value. Given those beliefs, the events probably would occur for you as a disaster, as a hole you will never get out of, as another in the many set-backs life keeps throwing at you. (I know because this is a description of my beliefs and the way life occurred for me before I used the Lefkoe Belief Process on myself.)

But can you see that all that happened in the world is that you lost your job or your investments declined in value? With different beliefs the same events would occur for you differently, such as, here is an opportunity to get an even better job, one that will be more fulfilling, or what can this experience teach me about investing that will make me a more successful investor in the future. (How do you think “set-backs” occur for Warren Buffet, Steve Jobs, or Bill Gates?)

The problem for most of us is that we rarely, if ever, distinguish between actual events in the world and how those events occur for us. For us, the way things occur for us is our reality. And even if we did notice the difference, most of us don’t know how to realize that the occurring is only in own minds and not in the world, which would make it disappear.

To Sum Up

Ultimately, getting rid of fear and other negative emotions (and undesirable behavior such as procrastination) requires eliminating the beliefs that cause the problem. Remember, however, because events as such have no meaning, they are unable to make you feel anything. So in the short-term you can get rid of negative feelings in moments by dissolving how the world is occurring for you. When you use the Lefkoe Occurring Process to dissolve the meaning you have given events (which determines how they occur for you), all your negative feelings disappear and you are left with nothing but the meaningless events.

If you eliminate the beliefs that are the source of your fear and other negative emotions and if you learn how to dissolve your “occurring world,” I promise you will be able to create your experience of life regardless of the circumstances. An experience that is free of anxiety and anger, that is instead filled with excitement, joy, and unlimited possibilities.

Now I Have Another Question For You

It’s become clear from your posts during the past week or so that a lot of you are dissatisfied with some aspect of your life and yet you have a sense that something better is possible.

So in order to serve you best, please take a minute to post a comment below telling me how my team and I can best help you increase your love, happiness, success, and fulfillment in your life.

copyright ©2010 Morty Lefkoe

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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 recently 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 work 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. 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.

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.)

Answering the question: “I have spanked my children for their disobedience, and it didn’t seem to help. Does this approach fail with some children?”, Dobson replied:

“The spanking may be too gentle. If it doesn’t hurt, it doesn’t motivate a child to avoid the consequence next time. A slap with the hand on the bottom of a multi-diapered thirty-month-old is not a deterrent to anything. Be sure the child gets the message — while being careful not to go too far.” (Emphasis added.) (Complete Marriage and Family Home Reference Guide)

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. 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. A recent survey in the UK showed that seven out of 10 parents used corporal punishment on their children.

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.”

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 clients have stopped their chronic anxiety, eating disorders, needing the approval of others, lack of confidence, etc. by eliminating the childhood beliefs that cause 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 you were disciplined by your parents. … 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 don’t get caught? … 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, but there is no learning involved. If they 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.

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. They hate the question “why?” because they usually don’t have an answer. If their children disobey, it’s okay for them to punish their children until they “cry.” Their justification: “How can we possibly get our kids to do what we want if we can’t spank them or yell at them?”

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?”

If you find this post useful, please click on the Digg button below, which will make tens of thousands of people aware of it. Thanks for helping us to help others.

We are now turning these weekly blog posts into podcasts. Sign up for the RSS feed to get 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.

Please share my blog posts by providing a link from your own website or blog to http://mortylefkoe.com.

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Remember last December I wrote that I was about to have a breakthrough? Well, I did.

On February 16, 2010 nineteen people and I began the Lefkoe Freedom Experiment (LFE). Before we started I promised the participants:

“You will learn how to transform the way you experience your life. No matter what the circumstances. Twenty-four hours a day, 365 days a year.”

Actually, I had never taught anyone to do that before, but I like to promise things I’ve never done before. That’s the exciting part: Figuring out how to do things after I’ve promised to do them.

The LFE was created after I noticed (and blogged about in three posts last December) that most people usually are not aware of the distinction between reality and how reality occurs for them. And because we are not aware of this distinction, we act as if the way reality occurs for us is the way reality “really is,” which is rarely true.

So the LFE was designed to determine if we could notice that distinction all the time and, even more importantly, dissolve the way reality occurs for us and be left with nothing but reality. Or as some gurus describe it, live totally in the present, without the past and future intruding.

We succeeded brilliantly! We met in a webinar for an hour once a week for ten weeks. Virtually everyone in the class who did their weekly assignment ended the experiment able to easily notice the distinction between “reality” and the way reality occurred for them at any given moment, and then quickly and easily dissolve the “occurring,” so that they were left either with only reality (without any meaning) or with a positive “occurring” that they choose.

Let me give you an example. Your investments lose a lot of their value. That is reality. That might occur for you as “a disaster, years of savings and struggle down the drain, how will we ever recoup our losses, etc.” That “occurring” would seem like “a fact,” “the way it really is,” and would result in you feeling upset, despondent, anxious, sad, etc. If you dissolve the “occurring” and observe only the reality—namely, the decline in value of your investment—the negative feelings would disappear. At which point you would have a choice to deal with “reality” and determine what you can learn from the experience and what you are going to do to replace the money. Or you even could create a positive meaning, such as “This is an opportunity to realize that my happiness is not dependent on material things and to grow as a spiritual being.” Giving that meaning to the events would result in positive feelings, such as pleasure and satisfaction.

Here are some more details of what we learned.

At any given moment we might have positive or negative emotions—joy and excitement, or anger, sadness, anxiety, and upset. Because events in reality have no inherent meaning (we have this profound realization when we eliminate a belief using the Lefkoe Belief Process), the events themselves can’t cause the emotion. What does?

The meaning we have given the events. And that meaning results in reality occurring for us in a specific way. So dissolving the meaning/the occurring immediately eliminates the feelings it caused.

Imagine that! Being able to eliminate any negative feeling you have in just moments by being able to eliminate the meaning you gave the events. This means that if you are in the middle of an argument with your relationship partner and you are getting angry, all you have to do is identify what meaning you are giving the situation and eliminate it, and the anger will stop.

“You’ve got to be kidding,” I hear many of you thinking. “Do you really expect me to believe this?” Yes, I do. I know many of you are skeptical. “I’ve heard outrageous claims before but this is just too much.” Nonetheless, I personally have now done this many times and several people in the experiment did it also.

As Michael Scheibe, one of the participants put it: “The tools I learned in this experiment have transformed how I experience my life on a daily basis.

“Previous things that used to frequently upset me no longer do because through this course I truly got that my experience of life comes from the meaning I’m giving everything in the moment, and that meaning is not the same as what’s actually happening in the real world, and now I can also change that meaning whenever I want to something else I’d enjoy more.”

If my audacious claim really is true (and it is), you can understand why I think what we learned can totally transform how people experience their lives.

There is one caveat. Because how something occurs for us is primarily the result of prior beliefs and conditionings, as long as they continue to exist similar situations will continue to occur for us the same way. Ultimately, in order to be able to prevent negative occurrings, we have to eliminate the beliefs and conditionings that cause them.

We probably will offer another webinar like the last one shortly. Most of the participants in the experiment thought that the group participation was very helpful in being able to produce the result, but not absolutely necessary. So I need to find a way to teach the Lefkoe Occurring Process to everyone who wants the benefits it has to offer at a price everyone can afford, which means I’ll have to find a way to offer a training on CDs or DVDs, without group participation and without me having to be personally involved in every training. And because the weekly practice is so crucial, I need to find a way to get people to practice if they are not going to be showing up for a webinar with me weekly, where I am going to be asking about their weekly practice.

But we will find a way and it won’t be long before tens of thousands of people are able to dissolve negative feelings like anger, anxiety and unhappiness as they occur. Finding a way to help people do that is a goal worth getting out of bed for every morning.

If you find this post useful, please click on the Digg button below, which will make tens of thousands of people aware of it. Thanks for helping us to help others.

We are now turning these weekly blog posts into podcasts. Sign up for the RSS feed to get 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.

Please share my blog posts by providing a link from your own website or blog to http://mortylefkoe.com.

To purchase DVD programs that we guarantee to eliminate eight of the most common daily problems people face, go to http://www.recreateyourlife.com/store.

Follow me on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/mortylefkoe and join our fan page on Facebook (http://www.facebook.com/recreateyourlife) where I answer your questions about the role of beliefs in our lives.

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copyright ©2010 Morty Lefkoe

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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.

So if you want to discover why our anger is so scary that we need to hide it, even from ourselves, and if we want to be able to experience anger without fear, read on and let me explain how we can do that.

The Primary Source of Our Fear

The primary source of our fear of anger is three specific beliefs and two conditionings. The beliefs are: Confrontation is dangerous, If I’m angry I’ll lose control, and Anger is dangerous. And the conditionings are: fear associated with anger and fear associated with confrontation. There can be a several others relevant beliefs and conditionings, but it is my experience that when these five have been eliminated, most of the fear we have of our own anger and the anger of others will be gone.

The source of these five 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 five 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 several 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?

People Who 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” 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 a blog post last year (http://www.mortylefkoe.com/how-do-beliefs-produce-%E2%80%9Cdriven%E2%80%9D-compulsive-behavior/), 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.

Think about this for a moment. Imagine you needed to have everything be exactly the way you wanted in order to feel in control. And if things weren’t exactly the way you wanted them to be—or if someone didn’t listen to you—you would feel 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?

You’d feel lots of anger, probably rage. You would be angry at 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.

If you find this post useful, please click on the Digg button below, which will make tens of thousands of people aware of it. Thanks for helping us to help others.

We are now turning these weekly blog posts into podcasts. Sign up for the RSS feed to get 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.

Please share my blog posts by providing a link from your own website or blog to http://mortylefkoe.com.

To purchase DVD programs that we guarantee to eliminate eight of the most common daily problems people face, go to http://www.recreateyourlife.com/store.

Follow me on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/mortylefkoe and join our fan page on Facebook (http://www.facebook.com/recreateyourlife) where I answer your questions about the role of beliefs in our lives.

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copyright ©2010 Morty Lefkoe

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Because many emotions are caused by beliefs, getting rid of the relevant beliefs can frequently eradicate negative emotions. For example, the belief that “Dogs are dangerous” will result in an emotion of fear when confronting a dog. The belief “People can’t be trusted” will result in a feeling of suspicion around people. When the beliefs are eliminated, the emotions usually will be also. There are, however, emotions in adults that appear to be caused by something in addition to beliefs.  Getting rid of beliefs is not enough.

Let me explain the source of these negative emotions, such as fear and anger, and what you need to do to stop them from occurring.

During the first few years after I developed the Lefkoe Belief Process (LBP) to eliminate limiting beliefs, clients were able to make radical changes in their behavior by eliminating the beliefs that caused the behavior. Frequently, there also were meaningful emotional changes. We started noticing, however, that sometimes a client would continue to have a trace of a specific emotion such as anger or fear, even after eliminating all the beliefs we could find that seemed to be relevant. We usually assumed that there was another belief we hadn’t yet discovered, but eventually would.

Eventually we realized that, although some emotions are the direct result of beliefs, many are the result of conditioning in addition to beliefs. When that is the case, the LBP will not eliminate the conditioning. (You do, however, have to use the LBP to eliminate any relevant beliefs before de-conditioning can be effective in stopping the negative emotion. If you haven’t yet experienced eliminating a belief with the LBP, go to http://www.recreateyourlife.com to try it free.)

A few years ago I developed a process I call the Lefkoe Stimulus Process (LStP). It is specifically designed to eliminate the emotions that are caused by conditioned stimuli. It is simpler to use than the basic LBP and usually takes only five minutes to completely eliminate the stimuli for such emotions as fear, anxiety, anger and guilt.

How Associations Early In Life Cause Negative Emotions Later In Life

Very often we are plagued by repeated negative feelings in our life, such as fear, anger, guilt, anxiety, and sadness. We experience these feelings every time specific events or circumstances occur, such as anxiety whenever we make a mistake or someone gets angry at us, or anger whenever we are asked to do something. In many cases the events that stimulate the feeling in us do not produce the same feeling in others, and vice versa. Why does an event that is not inherently fearful produce fear (or some other emotion) in some people and not in others?

Let me explain: The classic example of this situation was an experiment a physiologist named Pavlov conducted with dogs. When presented with food, the dogs salivated. Then a bell was rung just prior to presenting the dogs with food. After numerous presentations of the food with the bell, the bell was rung and no food was delivered. The dogs salivated anyway, because they had associated the bell with the food. In other words, a neutral stimulus that normally would not produce a response does so because it gets associated with a stimulus that does produce a response. In other words, the neutral stimulus gets conditioned.

Here’s an example I use with my clients that will make the process of conditioning very clear.  Imagine that 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? … 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 was no fist, only ice cream, why would you feel anxious?  Because the ice cream cone got conditioned to produce fear.  The ice cream just happened to be there every time you got scared by the fist.

The principle is that 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 situations that are not inherently scary get conditioned to produce anxiety (or some other emotion, such as anger).  This process is also the primary cause of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.

Here is a real life example: Consider one of my clients who experienced fear whenever he was asked to do something.  I asked him when did he first experience fear associated with being asked to do something? He told me that when he was a child his father frequently got angry and yelled at him whenever he didn’t do what his father demanded of him. When my client reviewed the original cause of his feeling of fear, he discovered that the fear was not inherent in being asked to do something.

What caused the fear was the meaning he unconsciously attributed to his father’s threatening behavior that usually occurred when he was asked to do something: The person he depended on for his very survival seemed to be withdrawing his love. No love, no care; no care, no survival. That perception—that his survival was at stake—is what caused the fear. Being told to do things just happened to occur at the same time as something else that constantly caused fear.

Whatever is going on when you experience fear due to your parents’ anger (because their anger is an implied threat to your survival) gets conditioned to produce the same fear. The stimulus today—making mistakes, being criticized, not living up to expectations, etc.—is not, itself, scary.

How The Lefkoe Stimulus Process Works

The Lefkoe Stimulus Process works by assisting you to make a distinction between the original real cause of the emotion and the events that just happened to be occurring at the time.  Once that distinction is made, the conditioning is extinguished.  It’s as if you could say to Pavlov’s dogs: “Hey dogs, you can’t eat the bell.  It just happened to be ringing whenever you got food.”  If the dogs could understand that distinction they would no longer salivate at the sound of the bell.  But while dogs can’t make that distinction, humans can. And when they do, de-conditioning occurs.  Using the Lefkoe Stimulus Process and the LBP you can easily get rid of the anxiety, anger, and other negative emotions that plague you.

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

Please share my blog posts with anyone you think might be interested (as long as you tell people where they came from) and provide a link from your own website or blog.   http://mortylefkoe.com.

To purchase DVD programs that we guarantee to eliminate eight of the most common daily problems people face, go to http://www.recreateyourlife.com/store.

Follow me on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/mortylefkoe and join our fan page on Facebook (http://www.facebook.com/recreateyourlife) where I answer your questions about the role of beliefs in our lives.

Finally, to receive notice of new blog posts, please fill out the following form.

copyright ©2010 Morty Lefkoe

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

Did I ever tell you about the time I gave myself an award for “‘Getting Off It’ the Fastest”?

Well, I’m going to tell you right now because I think it will make a profound difference in your relationships with people, especially your loved ones.

When I married Shelly almost 29 years ago I was a mess.  I had just been divorced for a second time and was getting depressed frequently.  When we argued, which happened frequently, my way of coping with upset was to withdraw … for a couple of days!  Shelly, on the other hand, would “get off it” (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 could let go of the upset totally and be back in relationship with the other person first. I ultimately acquired the ability to do that during an argument (as opposed to after it was over) and being 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 actually 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.  And then I used two steps of the Lefkoe Belief Process to get rid of that meaning.

First I figured out two or three other meanings for whatever Shelly had done or said, other than the one I have given it.  If it had other valid meanings, the one I had couldn’t be “the truth.” 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.

So I realized 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 become real, the upset literally disappeared.

So how did I get the award?  I created the reward myself and printed it out after a very special day. She had gotten angry at something I had said and done, and before I ever reacted to her, I asked myself: What does Shelly’s reaction to me really mean?  When I answered, nothing, I had no reaction to her anger at all.  None.  And then I said what I had been saying when I had gotten off it during an argument (but his time it was before the argument ever started), “I can see how you could get upset by what I did and said.  And if you are angry, that’s okay.  And I love you.” And I said it with a smile.

It’s very hard to argue with someone who is not arguing back.  She calmed down in a matter of minutes.  Later that day I asked Shelly to give me the award I had created for getting off it the fastest ever … a time that could never be beaten … because I never got on it to begin with.

Remember, events have no inherent meaning, so nothing your loved one (or anyone else) does can upset you or make you angry. (If this isn’t real for you, eliminate a couple of limiting beliefs without charge at http://recreateyourlife.com and it will become real).  What produces the upset or anger is the meaning you make up to explain why the other person did what they did.

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 could have many different meanings and, in fact, has no inherent meaning, you will feel nothing.  You probably will just calmly do it yourself or ask your partner again if she will do it.

And that is something you can learn to do with practice (and, obviously, the more beliefs and conditionings you eliminate, the easier it is to do).

I haven’t always been able to do that since that day, but I do most of the time with Shelly and I even learned how to do it with my daughter Brittany when she was 14 (she’s now 21 and in college).

I had always had a very close relationship with Brittany. She would tell me what she was thinking and feeling quite often. I usually visited Brittany after she came home from school and asked her how her day went and we had a nice chat.  When she reached 13-14 years old, she changed.  I joke that she was captured by aliens who left one of their own in her place, because my daughter couldn’t not possibly have acted the way my daughter acted between the ages of 13 and 18-19.  (In fact this is a natural part of a child’s development.)

At any rate, by the time she was a freshman in high school she had started getting angry at me frequently, telling me I was annoying (and worse), saying she didn’t feel like talking, and asking me to leave her room.

Although I would comply, I would leave upset.  Why upset?  Because the meaning I was giving her behavior was she was ruining our relationship (which was very important to me), that she was angry with me, that I couldn’t talk to her any more, etc.  If that’s what her behavior meant, that was upsetting to me.

I asked myself, what else could it mean?  She was individuating, as she should be doing. She had a problem with one of her teachers.  Her hormones were raging.  She had some difficulties with friends during the day.  Etc.  Did I ever “see” that something fundamental had happened to “ruin” our relationship?  That I wouldn’t ever be able to talk to her the way we had in the past? No, I didn’t see that.  I only saw her behavior, which could have many different meanings other than the one I had given it.

So one day, as a result of doing the type of thinking I just described, I didn’t get upset.  I merely got up and left the room without saying a word.  And after I left the room and closed her door, I said: “Honey, I hear a daughter who loves her dad very much and who’s probably having a hard day.  Sorry about that. I love you too sweetheart.”

As I walked away I heard a shoe bounce off the door.  Ten minutes later she came out of her room, threw her arms around me, kissed me, and apologized for being shitty.

She acted that badly and worse hundreds of times over the next 4-5 years but for the most part I was able to react without reacting.  And it led to an incredibly close bond being formed between us.  She knew I loved her unconditionally and would always be there for her because I didn’t withdraw my love when she treated me badly.

It probably will take practice to give a different meaning to someone else’s behavior, but when you do, arguments will become a thing of the past.  Relationships will improve dramatically.  And the quality of your life will skyrocket.  And you’ll be able to create your own “Get off it the fastest” award.

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.

Please feel free to share my blog posts with anyone you think might be interested (as long as you tell people where they came from) and to provide a link from your own website or blog.  http://mortylefkoe.com

To purchase DVD programs that we guarantee to eliminate eight of the most common daily problems people face, go to http://www.recreateyourlife.com/store.

Follow me on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/mortylefkoe and join our fan page on Facebook (http://www.facebook.com/LefkoeInstitute) to get my latest insights on the role of beliefs in our lives.

Finally, to receive notice of new blog posts, please fill out the following form.

copyright ©2010 Morty Lefkoe

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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 you to answer 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, attitudes, and feelings—all of which are within your power to change.

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.”

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.” (Italics added.)

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. ”

Mistakes

“The emotional downfall for most players is mistakes,” according to Loehr.  “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.”  (Italics added.)

It might be possible to “train emotionally,” but ultimately emotions are the result of beliefs and conditionings.  Eliminate the beliefs and conditionings 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.

What happens physiologically when you think you’ve made a mistake?  Too much negative energy, which gets translated into being too excited, too angry, 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 belief 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.”  (Italics added.)

Nothing is inherently stressful.  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 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 different levels of stress.

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

Control your mind, improve your game.  It really is possible.

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.

Please feel free to share my blog posts with anyone you think might be interested (as long as you tell people where they came from) and to provide a link from your own website or blog.

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.

To purchase DVD programs that we guarantee to eliminate eight of the most common daily problems people face, go to http://www.recreateyourlife.com/store.

Follow me on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/mortylefkoe and join our fan page on Facebook (http://www.facebook.com/LefkoeInstitute) to get my latest insights on the role of beliefs in our lives.

Finally, to receive notice of new blog posts, please fill out the following form.

Copyright © 2009 Morty Lefkoe

Would you like to get rid of the anxiety or anger you feel much of the time?

Because many emotions are caused by beliefs, getting rid of the beliefs can frequently eradicate negative emotions. For example, the belief that “Dogs are dangerous” will result in an emotion of fear when confronting a dog. The belief “People can’t be trusted” will result in the feeling of suspicion around people. When the beliefs are eliminated, the emotions usually will be also. There are, however, emotions in adults that appear to be caused by something in addition to beliefs.  Getting rid of beliefs is not enough.

Let me explain the source of these negative emotions, such as fear and anger, and what you need to do to stop them from occurring.

During the first few years after I developed the Lefkoe Belief Process (LBP) to eliminate limiting beliefs, clients were able to make radical changes in their behavior by eradicating the beliefs that caused the behavior. Frequently, there also were meaningful emotional changes. We started noticing, however, that sometimes a client would continue to have a trace of a specific emotion such as anger or fear, even after eliminating all the beliefs we could find that seemed to be relevant. We usually assumed that there was another belief we hadn’t yet discovered, but eventually would.

Eventually we realized that, although some emotions are the direct result of beliefs, many are responses that appear to be the result of conditioning and unrelated to beliefs. When that is the case, the Lefkoe Belief Process is not sufficient to eliminate the conditioning. (You do, however, have to use the LBP to eliminate any relevant beliefs before de-conditioning can be effective in stopping the negative emotion. If you haven’t yet experienced eliminating a belief with the LBP, go to http://www.recreateyourlife.com to try it free.)

A few years ago we developed a process we call the Lefkoe Stimulus Process (LStP). It is specifically designed to eliminate the emotions that are caused by conditioned stimuli. It is simpler to use than the LBP and usually takes only five minutes to completely eliminate the stimuli for such emotions as fear, anxiety, anger and guilt.

How Associations Early In Life Cause Negative Emotions Later In Life

Very often we are plagued by repeated negative feelings in our life, such as fear, anger, guilt,anxiety, and sadness. We experience these feelings every time specific events or circumstances occur, such as anxiety whenever we make a mistake or someone gets angry at us, or guilt whenever we are asked to do something. In many cases the events that stimulate the feeling in us do not produce the same feeling in others, and vice versa. Why does an event that is not inherently fearful produce fear (or some other emotion) in some people and not in others?

Let me explain: The classic example of this situation was an experiment a physiologist named Pavlov conducted with dogs. When presented with food, the dogs salivated. Then a bell was rung just prior to presenting the dogs with food. After numerous presentations of the food with the bell, the bell was rung and no food was delivered. The dogs salivated anyway, because they had associated the bell with the food. In other words, a stimulus that normally would not produce a response does so because it gets associated with a stimulus that does produce a response. In other words, the stimulus gets conditioned.

Here’s an example I use with my clients that will make this very clear.  Imagine that 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? … 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 was 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.  Something was scaring you (the fist) and ice cream just happened to be there every time you got scared by the fist.

The principle is that 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 (or some other emotion, such as anger).

Here is a real life example: Consider one of my clients who experienced fear whenever he was asked to do something. When did he first experience fear associated with being asked to do something? His father usually got angry and yelled at him whenever he didn’t do what his father demanded of him as a child. When my client reviewed the original cause of the feeling of fear, he discovered that the fear was not inherent in merely being asked to do something.

What caused the fear was the meaning he unconsciously attributed to his father’s threatening behavior that usually occurred when he was asked to do something: The person he depended on for his very survival seemed to be withdrawing his love. No love, no care; no care, no survival. That perception—that his survival was at stake—is what caused the fear. Being told to do things just happened to occur at the same time as something else that constantly caused fear.

Whatever is going on when you experience fear due to your parents’ anger (because their anger is an implied threat to your survival) gets conditioned to produce the same fear. The stimulus today—making mistakes, being criticized, not living up to expectations, etc.—is  not, itself, scary.

How The Lefkoe Stimulus Process Works

The Lefkoe Stimulus Process works by assisting the client to make a distinction between the original real cause of the emotion and the events that just happened to be occurring at the time.  Once that distinction is made, the conditioning is extinguished.  It’s as if you could say to Pavlov’s dogs: “Hey dogs, you can’t eat the bell.  It just happened to be ringing whenever you got food.”  If the dogs could understand that distinction they would no longer salivate at the sound of the bell.  But while dogs can’t make that distinction, humans can. And when they do, de-conditioning occurs.  You really can get rid of the anxiety, anger, and other negative emotions that plague us.

If you haven’t yet enjoyed the experience of eliminating at least one of your limiting self-esteem beliefs using The Lefkoe Method, go to http://www.recreateyourlife.com/free where you can eliminate one crippling belief free.

Thanks for reading my blog. Comments and questions are welcomed.

Follow me on Twitter at http://twitter.com/mortylefkoe and join our fan page on Facebook (The Lefkoe Institute) to get our latest insights on the role of beliefs in our lives.