Morty Lefkoe » children

A father’s fear for his daughter

Morty Lefkoe — Tue, 20 Sep 2011 20:17:10 +0000

I’m writing this on the North Shore of Oahu, Hawaii, where my wife Shelly and I are visiting our 29-year-old daughter Blake.

Shortly after she arrived in Hawaii almost 11 years ago she started surfing. She now surfs waves as big as 20 feet and she has progressed to the level where there are some real risks in what she is doing.

If surfing big waves wasn’t enough, earlier this year she told us that she had started skydiving. She fell in love with jumping out of airplanes and in no time had completed her 100th jump.

Hanging out at the “Drop Zone”

Earlier today Blake took Shelly and me to the “Drop Zone,” where she jumps. Shelly was thinking about skydiving for the first time. Also, Blake wanted us to meet her friends there and see what the sport was all about. As she introduced us to them, one by one, I noticed grins on most of the faces. They seemed as happy a group of people as I had met in a long time. As I talked to them they told me how much they loved their jobs and couldn’t imagine doing anything else for a living. It might be a dangerous sport but you never would have known it from talking to people who jump out of a plane at 14,000 feet as often as 10 times a day.

After Shelly decided not to jump, we watched dozens of people float down to the ground, their colorful parachutes swaying in the breeze. At some point Blake turned to us and suggested we leave.

I said to her, “As long as we’re already here, don’t you want to jump?” Blake answered that she would love to, but had decided not to because she thought Shelly and I might be afraid of watching her.

I did feel some fear, but I told her that as long as we were already there and she wanted to do it, she should jump and we’d watch. It actually was exciting to watch her appear through the clouds and slowly float down to the ground. I was pleased Blake had learned so much in such a short period of time (such as some simple tricks in the air, packing her own parachute, etc.).

What’s really selfish?

As we were driving away Blake commented that skydiving was a selfish sport. “What do you mean?” I asked. She replied that a skydiver is doing what she wants and is not thinking about how her friends and family would feel if there was an accident. I told her that was one way to look at it. Another was that it was even more selfish to ask someone to not live the life she wants to live in order to minimize the possibility that you might have to live with the consequences of her behavior.

I also said to her: “ I can’t imagine how I would manage if something happened to you. But everything in life has some degree of risk, and it would not be okay with me for you to give up doing what you love doing and not live the life you want to live, just to remain safe for me. I’d rather deal with the consequences than have you give up living the life you want to live.”

I’m really proud that she does what she wants to do, is independent and courageous, has created a life that works for her, and considers her life “awesome.” She is truly happy and is recognized at a distance by the smile that is usually on her face.

Parents don’t want their kids to get hurt

Parents often are afraid their kids will get hurt and, because they love their children so much, they step in and try to keep them from getting hurt. Not only from physically dangerous activities like surfing or skydiving, but also as a result of their career choices, like becoming an actor or a professional athlete, where the chances of success are very slim and the chances of disappointment are great.

Parents frequently encourage their children to choose careers where, if you have the requisite skills, you are pretty much assured of getting a job with a “good” salary.

(Nowadays there are very few skills that will assure you of finding a job. Skills that virtually guaranteed you a lifetime job only a few yeas ago, such as the construction trades or manufacturing, won’t necessarily get you a job today.)

But are you really doing your children a service if they do what you want or what you think is “safe” or “practical,” if they never discover and follow their passion, if they never experience “Thank God it’s Monday,” instead of “Thank God it’s Friday”?

Follow your dreams

I’ve been telling my children since they were old enough to understand what I was saying: “Don’t ever get a ‘job.’ Figure out what you love doing, what you would be excited to do every day whether you got paid for it or not, and then find someone to pay you for doing it.”

I’ve been talking about parenting and children, but the points I have been making are just as valid for any of us as adults. If you get a “good” job that you have no interest in and you dread showing up for work every morning, you’ve wasted your life

Yes, there is always the possibility of failing at what you attempt. But if you are going to fail, wouldn’t you be better off failing while reaching for your dreams than failing while seeking something you wouldn’t have made you happy had you achieved it?

I’ve always loved Helen Keller’s quote: “Life is either a daring adventure or nothing.” If you aren’t going to create your life as a daring adventure, what’s the point of being here?

Please leave your comments and questions about giving in to fear and transcending fear below.

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Can children eliminate beliefs?

Morty Lefkoe — Tue, 05 Oct 2010 23:08:03 +0000

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I am often asked: Can the Lefkoe Belief Process (LBP) be used to help children eliminate beliefs?

My answer is that it depends on the child: Is the child able to deal with the abstractions of the process? If the child can, then the LBP should work. One trick is to simplify some of the steps and use language that can be understood by a younger child. I did that when we did our study with incarcerated offenders and the LBP was effective with teens as young as 14 to 15 years old. Since then Shelly has used the LBP with several children 12 or 13 years old, who presented a wide variety of problems including ADD and ADHD.

The very youngest child who was ever successful with the LBP was my daughter Blake when she was only six years old. I am going to summarize my conversation with her at that time because you will see how easy it can be to use the LBP with young children. (By the way, you’ll see from this example how easy it can be to use the LBP with adults when you know the belief and the source of the belief.)

On many occasions, Shelly and I had taken Blake to fairs and shows where there were hundreds of people and she usually enjoyed herself at these events. One Saturday we took her to a school that was having games, face painting, and a lot of other activities for kids. We had been inside only a few minutes when Blake screamed and exclaimed, “I’m scared! I want to leave!”

“What’s wrong?” we asked her.

“I don’t know. I’m just scared. I want to leave,” she repeated.

We tried to find out what was scaring her, but she didn’t know. The closest she could come to an answer was that there were a lot of people there. I reminded her that she had never before been afraid of crowds. What was it about this crowd that was so scary? She didn’t know. When we realized that the fear wasn’t going away, we left.

When we got home I sat down with Blake and asked, “Do you remember that Mommy and Daddy talk about the work we do with people in our sessions? How we help them with things that bother them in their lives?”

“Yes.”

“Would you like me to try to help you figure out what is scaring you? You’ve never been scared of crowds before.”

“Okay,” she said solemnly.

I started to help her identify the belief. Blake named it almost immediately. “Crowds are dangerous.”

“Okay, what happened that gave you that idea?”

She didn’t pause even for a minute. “Remember when we went to the Italian street fair? Remember the lady who burned me with the cigarette?”

I certainly did remember. The fair had been mobbed; we could barely walk. We had been there for only a few minutes when Blake had screamed in pain. A woman had walked by her, swinging a lighted cigarette in her hand, and had hit Blake’s arm with it. The woman then turned around, yelled at Blake, “Watch where you’re going!” and walked away. Fortunately the burn wasn’t bad and we had stayed for another couple of hours.

“So did you decide crowds are dangerous based on your experience at that fair?”

“Yes.”

“I can see why you decided that. It made a lot of sense to conclude that. A lot of people would have said the same thing, honey. Now we’re going to play a little game. What else could explain what happened to you other than what you said? It really could be that crowds are dangerous. But what else would explain what happened?”

She wasn’t sure what I meant, so I said, “For example, that fair was dangerous, but maybe not all other fairs will be dangerous.”

She got into the spirit of the game. I gave one interpretation, then she gave one:

* That woman didn’t care if she hurt you, but other women would.

* People carrying lighted cigarettes can hurt me; people without cigarettes won’t.

* That person wasn’t careful with her cigarette, but most people would be.

* I’ll get hurt at some crowded places, not others.

* The crowd at that fair was dangerous; other crowds wouldn’t be.

* I’ll get hurt at fairs, but not other crowded places.

* People who are not careful with lighted cigarettes are dangerous, not crowds.

Blake was having fun with the alternative interpretations part of the LBP.

“Okay, honey,” I said, “can you see that it made sense for you to conclude when you got burned that crowds are dangerous, but that there are a lot of other explanations for what happened?”

She understood what I was saying. She nodded.

I looked directly into her eyes and asked, “Didn’t it seem, at the fair, right after you got burned, that you saw right in front of you that crowds are dangerous and that you’ll get hurt?”

“Yes, that’s what I saw.”

“Is it clear now, honey, that you didn’t see that, you only imagined that? You did see one woman burn you, but you never saw with your eyes that all crowds are dangerous. Did you?”

“I know what you mean, Daddy, I didn’t see it. I only thought it.”

I had hoped the LBP would work with Blake, but despite her ability to deal with abstractions that she had shown in many conversations we had had previously, I still wasn’t sure she’d be able to do the LBP. But she had. This was the first time I had worked with a really young child and she had used the LBP to eliminate a belief that could have negatively impacted the rest of her life. I was really excited about the possibilities, but first I had to finish with Blake.

“Do you still believe that crowds are dangerous?

“No,” she said, smiling.

“Could you imagine being in a crowd that wasn’t dangerous?”

“Yes, I could, daddy.”

P.S. The next time we went to a fair Blake experienced no fear and had a great time.

Using the LBP with children won’t always work, but you have nothing to lose if you try. And if you succeed, you’ll be saving the child from a lifetime of fear, anxiety, etc.

Please share below any comments you have on using the LBP with children.

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What could they possibly have been thinking?

Morty Lefkoe — Tue, 04 May 2010 22:54:58 +0000

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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?”

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I finally stopped bragging

Morty Lefkoe — Tue, 30 Mar 2010 17:13:57 +0000

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It took me a long time to stop bragging. About 50 years in fact.

As a child I always bragged about things that I thought would impress others. How good my grades were. Things I had done. Popular kids I hung out with. Having people think well of me was so important that I even lied just to impress others.

When I was 17 I was living in Miami Beach in an apartment with my mom. From time to time I dated girls who visited Miami Beach on vacation. One time I remember driving past my aunt’s beautiful house and saying to the girl: “That’s where I live.” I would have been embarrassed to show her an apartment building and say I lived in there. Living in the luxurious water-front house meant I was “someone special” and that’s how I wanted others to view me.

For most of my life I didn’t see my bragging as a problem. I did it and most of the people I knew did it also. It was just something that people did.

It wasn’t until I developed The Lefkoe Method about 25 years ago and started to figure out what beliefs caused which problems that I realized that bragging is actually a way to compensate for a low level of self-esteem.

Let me explain.

As I’ve written in the past, very few people escape childhood without forming a bunch of negative self-esteem beliefs. With few exceptions, parents aren’t aware how their behavior is instrumental in the beliefs their children are forming. And as I said a few weeks ago in a post about parenting, parents, being adults, generally like quiet; children are not quiet and cannot even understand why anyone would value quiet. Parents for the most part 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.

In other words, 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.

And because few parents go to parenting school and most bring their own beliefs from their childhoods with them, their reactions range from annoyance and frustration to anger and abuse, with every possibility in between. So we form negative beliefs about ourselves. (See http://mortylefkoe.com/031610)

Once we have a negative sense of ourselves, we need to find something that makes us feel good about ourselves, something that makes us feel able to survive and worthy of surviving. I call these survival strategy behaviors, because they feel to us as if we need them to survive. They are formed early in life when we accidently do something and get a positive response from parents or some other person who is important to us. That positive response makes us feel good about ourselves. After a few repetitions, we conclude: What makes me good enough and important is … being successful, or doing things for people, or my accomplishments, or having people think well of me. (See my post on survival strategies, http://www.mortylefkoe.com/how-do-beliefs-produce-%E2%80%9Cdriven%E2%80%9D-compulsive-behavior/)

What makes me good enough and important is having people think well of me is the most common survival strategy belief we’ve seen after working with over 13,000 clients in the past 25 years. And that’s why bragging is so common.

As I started to help clients eliminate this belief I discovered that I held it also. Eventually I eliminated a lot of negative self-esteem beliefs and several survival strategy beliefs, including What makes me good enough and important is having people think well of me.

After these beliefs were finally gone, I noticed one day that my bragging had stopped. I knew I was okay the way I was and I no longer need the approval of others to make me feel okay. I preferred that you like me, but your not liking me no longer meant anything about me. So I didn’t have to do or say things to get your approval anymore. A lifetime of bragging had stopped without me even noticing at first.

You might want to ask: Is every comment about one’s accomplishments “bragging”? Not necessarily. Here’s how to tell the difference between someone bragging and merely stating facts: Are the “facts” repeated frequently; does there seem to be a need on the person’s part that you really get the importance of what they are telling you; does the speaker have a lot of energy on “the facts”? If so, you probably are hearing bragging coming from people who need you to think well of them to feel good about themselves.

If the accomplishments are presented as information, something the speaker is proud of but not “invested in,” without looking for or needing a positive reaction from you, it probably isn’t bragging.

Bragging isn’t bad and it isn’t wrong. It’s merely the inevitable result of certain beliefs. It’s not the bragging you want to get rid of, it’s the beliefs that have you brag to get the approval of others to feel okay about yourself. And you can stop the bragging anytime you want by eliminating the negative self-esteem beliefs and the survival strategy beliefs that cause it.

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.

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Getting Rid of Beliefs is Not Enough

Morty Lefkoe — Tue, 23 Mar 2010 17:53:17 +0000

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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.

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Make Your Arguments a Thing of the Past

Morty Lefkoe — Tue, 02 Mar 2010 20:20:15 +0000

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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.

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.

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What is My Job As A Parent?

Morty Lefkoe — Tue, 23 Feb 2010 18:59:09 +0000

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“How many times do I have to tell you?”

“What am I ever going to do with you?”

“What’s wrong with you?”

“Don’t you ever listen?”

Imagine yourself to be a young child listening to your parents repeatedly ask you questions like these. … If you stop for a few moments, listen to these words inside your head, and experience what it feels like, you will have a clear picture of what far too many children feel every day.

But what’s even worse than the momentary hurt you probably felt as a child are the beliefs that you probably formed if your parents used words like this day after day, year after year. You’d probably conclude: There’s something wrong with me. I’m not good enough. I’m not capable. Mistakes and failure are bad.

As parents we would be horrified to discover that many of our conversations with our children result in these beliefs. Nonetheless, speaking to them this way has a significant negative impact on them, not the least of which is a negative sense of themselves due to low self-esteem.

For over 25 years we have been working with people who’ve had a wide variety of dysfunctional behavioral or emotional patterns. Some were relatively minor, such as the inability to express feelings, procrastination, and obsessing about what others thought about them. Some were serious, such as eating disorders, chronic depression or anxiety, and phobias. We’ve helped these people with the Lefkoe Belief Process^®(LBP), a technique I developed that allows people to quickly and permanently eliminate the specific beliefs that are responsible for any undesirable behavior or feeling. When the beliefs disappear, the patterns do also. (To use the LBP to eliminate one negative self-esteem belief without charge, go to: http://www.recreateyourlife.com.)

In session after session, hour after hour, we have heard thousands of clients describe the experiences they had with their parents, most of whom loved their children and meant well, that led the clients to form the beliefs they were trying to eliminate: “My mom and dad always did …, they never did …, they always said …, they never said ….”

In the parenting e-Book my wife Shelly and I co-wrote, Guide to Effective Parenting, we explain in detail how what parents do and don’t do, say and don’t say, provide their children with the experiences that the children interpret into beliefs. Those beliefs, in turn, then determine their behavior and emotions and, ultimately, their lives—for better or for worse. (For information about this e-Book, go to http://www.lefkoeinstitute.com/parenting-ebook.html.)

Shelly and I have read numerous books on parenting and have taught countless parenting workshops. Nonetheless, we still found ourselves doing some things that were interpreted negatively by our two girls when they were younger. But we finally got in the habit of asking ourselves the question after we interacted with our children: What has my child just concluded? When we think the answer is “probably something negative,” we go back to our children to apologize and reopen the discussion.

As an example, one day when our daughter Brittany was about five years old (she’s now 21!) Shelly went into the bathroom before bedtime to brush Brittany’s teeth. Our daughter flatly refused, being the independent young lady that she is. After all of Shelly’s parenting skills and tools failed, she found herself physically overpowering our daughter with one arm around her neck and one hand with the toothbrush in her mouth. After a few moments she regained her sanity and realized what she was doing. She stopped immediately and apologized to Brittany.

Shelly realized that, as important as brushing Brittany’s teeth was, far more important was what our daughter would conclude about herself and life out of that interaction if repeated consistently. A couple of possibilities include: I’m powerless or What I want doesn’t matter. (Rarely do just a few experiences lead to negative beliefs. A number of experiences usually are required before we reach specific negative conclusions about ourselves and life.)

How can we get our children to do what needs to be done (teeth that don’t get brushed do get cavities) without them forming negative beliefs about themselves? Knowing how to interact with our children in a way that facilitates a healthy self-esteem and a positive sense of life is not self-evident. There are many books and courses that provide excellent skills and tools. One of the best techniques is to ask your children what to do and give them a choice. When Brittany didn’t want to go to the bathroom to brush her teeth, we learned to ask her how she’d like to go—with Shelly leading a parade and her following (you should have seen Shelly as a drum major!), with her in my arms or on my back, or did she want to meet me there in five minutes?

Most of us think we are successful parents if we get our children to behave properly, to learn what we think they need to learn, and to be happy. The question we suggest you ask yourself is: At what cost? If you succeed in achieving what you want for your children, but they form negative self-esteem beliefs, such as, I’m not good enough or I’m not worthwhile, or negative beliefs about life, such as, Life’s difficult or I’ll never get what I want, was your behavior really “successful”? In other words, are the benefits you achieved short term with your children worth the long-term cost?

I am not saying that our children’s behavior on a daily basis, the information they acquire from us, and their happiness are not important. Of course they are. What I’m saying is that the single factor that has the greatest impact on whether or not your children achieve true happiness and satisfaction in life is a healthy self-esteem and a positive sense of life. Nothing we do, learn or feel when we’re young will have as much influence on our adult life as the fundamental beliefs we form and take into adulthood.

To make this real, let’s assume that your children have one of the two following sets of beliefs: I’m not good enough; There’s something wrong with me; I’m not deserving; I’m not loveable; I don’t matter—or: I am good enough; I’m worthwhile just because I am, not for any reason; I’m loveable; I matter.

Which set of beliefs would most likely lead to anxiety and depression? To substance abuse? To teenage pregnancy? To eating disorders? To satisfying relationships? To a productive career? To a truly satisfying life?

Given the critical importance of beliefs, what should be the primary role of parents? Influencing behavior? Teaching information? Making their children happy?—or assisting their children to form positive beliefs about themselves and life?

If you chose the latter, the best way I know of to insure that you are getting your job as a parent done is constantly to ask yourself the question: What are my children likely to conclude about themselves and life as a result of this interaction we just had? If it is a negative decision, go back, apologize and clean it up. If it is a positive decision, congratulations! You got your job done.

P.S. Several of you wrote and said I never finished the story about my argument with Shelly in my post last week. So here the end of the story: As soon as I realized that my upset really had nothing to do with her, and was the result of conditioning, I told her that, apologized for getting upset at her and withdrawing, and that was the end of it. We actually have a game when we have an argument: Who can “get off it” the fastest. More and more often I don’t get hooked at all so I don’t even have to get off it, because I never get on it.

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/LefkoeInstitute) to get my latest insights on the role of beliefs in our lives.

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Why Does The World Suffer From An Epidemic Of Low Self-Esteem?

Morty Lefkoe — Tue, 14 Jul 2009 16:55:44 +0000

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Mike had become a wealthy entrepreneur, but he had a hard time enjoying his business success because it seemed that every minute he wasn’t solving a business problem he was worried about what others thought of him and what he could do to get their approval.

Janet probably had as many good ideas as Mike, but because she was plagued with procrastination, she was nowhere near as successful.

Roger always talked about his dream of doing something on his own, but he just didn’t have the confidence to leave his safe (and boring) job.

And finally there was Marlene, who complained of bouts of anxiety that seemed to come over her without warning and paralyze her.

Stories like these from our clients go on forever. We’ve heard tens of thousands of them. It seems as if no one really escapes.

Escapes what? … Having a low sense of self-esteem, a negative sense of oneself, a little voice in one’s head that is constantly critical of oneself.

Common Myths About Self-esteem

Before I explain why so many people have low self-esteem, let me first dispel a few common myths about self-esteem.

First, people who are described as “full of themselves,” or who have “too much self-esteem,” are people with low self-esteem who are trying to convince themselves and others of a worth they don’t experience. Low self-esteem is the result of negative self-esteem beliefs, such as I’m not good enough, I’m not important, I’m not worthy or deserving, and I’m not capable. People with high self-esteem don’t need to convince anyone of their worth; they know they are good enough and important and don’t need anyone’s approval to experience being okay.

Second, low self-esteem is not limited to the “losers” in life. A survey that makes this point crystal clear reported than many CEOs of billion dollar companies had the fear that “someday I’ll be found out and they’ll take it all away from me.” It is possible to be successful by conventional standards (plenty of money, a good job or your own company, selling your artistic endeavors, achieving whatever you set out to achieve) and still have low self-esteem. In such cases the low self-esteem shows up as a critical “little voice” in your head that criticizes much of what you achieve, as a feeling that you don’t deserve your success, or as a fear of rejection, or a need to get others’ approval. All of these things that undercut the enjoyment you get from your success are the result of low self-esteem.

Third, not all people with low self-esteem are unable to function well. How well you are able to function depends not only on self-esteem beliefs, but also on what other beliefs you hold. In a study the Lefkoe Institute did with incarcerated teens and adults a few years ago, we discovered that those subjects had the same negative self-esteem beliefs as the CEOs we saw in our private practice. The difference was that the CEOs believed that what made them good enough or important is being successful (by society’s standards), while the people in jail believed that what made them good enough or important was getting away with things others couldn’t do, or being part of a gang, or not accepting anyone else’s rules.

Why Is Low Self-Esteem So Common?

The question that is probably occurring to most of you right now is: Why do so many people have negative self-esteem beliefs? Why has almost every one of the 13,000 clients we’ve talked to had the belief, I’m not good enough?

As I’ve described in previous blog posts, almost all of our self-esteem beliefs, positive or negative, are formed in the first six years of life as the result of interactions we have with our primary caretakers, almost always our parents.

Any yet most parents love their children and want the best for their children. So what goes wrong?

To begin with, most parents are not aware that children are forming beliefs about themselves based on their interactions with their parents, which usually doesn’t appear to be at all harmful.

But even when parents are aware of this, they can have a hard time stopping their inappropriate behavior because they are rarely aware of the conflict between what they as parents want and what children are able to understand and do at various ages.

Parents, being adults, generally like quiet; children are not quiet and cannot even understand why anyone would value quiet.

Parents for the most part 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.

In other words, 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.

If we expect children to “do things right,” we have to explain what “right” is. And we may need to explain something many times to a child under the age of six or seven before they really get it. And, finally, there are some concepts that young children are just incapable of grasping.

The question is not, Do children frequently “disobey” their parents? Children are developmentally incapable to 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.
And because few parents go to parenting school and most bring their own beliefs from their childhoods with them, their reactions range from annoyance and frustration to anger and abuse, with every possibility in between.

What Is The Question Young Children Ask All Day Long?

Hint. It’s only one word.

Yes, it’s “Why?”.

Children know that they don’t have the answers (kids are always saying, “When I grow up, then I’ll be able to….). Children think their parents (because they are adults) know everything and have all the answers.

It’s as if the child thinks to herself, “If my parents don’t like what I do a lot of the time and are unhappy with me, they must have a good reason. I guess I’m not good enough to have their approval.” Or, “If I can’t get their attention, I guess I’m not important.” Or, “If I always have to do what they want me to do and rarely get to do what I want, I guess I’m powerless.”

In other words, children form their beliefs about themselves trying to make sense of their parents’ behavior, statements, tone of voice, and facial expressions … every waking minute.

It is important to emphasize here that rarely will just a few parental actions or statements lead children to form beliefs, positive or negative. It is only when something is done or said many times that a child forms a belief. It’s as if children say to themselves, “Why does this keep happening? Oh, now I know what it means.”

Parental Clichés Lead To Low Self-Esteem

Some of the phrases parents commonly use have become clichés in our society:

“How many times do I have to tell you?”
“Don’t you ever listen?”
“What’s wrong with you?”
“Are you just clumsy/stupid?”

What would it mean to a child aged two to six or seven to hear those phrases uttered repeatedly in anger or frustration?

Thirteen thousand clients have told us:

I’m not good enough. Mistakes are bad. I’m not capable or competent. I’m inadequate.

Do you understand now why so many of us have low self-esteem, which shows up in so many obvious and subtle ways, including worrying about what people think of us, being afraid to take risks, having a little voice in our head that keeps telling us that what we do isn’t good enough, etc.?

Thanks for reading my blog. I really would appreciate your comments and questions. Please feel free to share my blog posts with anyone you think might be interested as long as you tell people where it came from.

If you haven’t yet eliminated 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 such belief free.

To purchase an on-line interactive program where you can eliminate 19 beliefs, go to http://www.recreateyourlife.com/sales.html.

Follow me on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/mortylefkoe and join our fan page on Facebook (http://www.facebook.com/home.php#/pages/The-Lefkoe-Institute/54781675766?ref=ts) to get my latest insights on the role of beliefs in our lives.

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Do You Really Want Your Child to Always be Well-Behaved?

Morty Lefkoe — Tue, 09 Jun 2009 21:48:51 +0000

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Remember the last time you heard a parent say: “My kids are wonderful. They always obey me.” Or, “They never talk back.” Or, “They are never a problem.” Did you sigh with envy and say, “Oh, I wish my kids were like that”? Think again. What would children have to believe about themselves to always obey, never talk back, or never be a problem?

I started out as a typical parent who sometimes envied those parents with “perfect” children. Then when my first daughter was about three, I developed the Lefkoe Belief Process (LBP), a technique that assists people to identify the specific beliefs that are responsible for any dysfunctional behavioral or emotional problem.

Examples of such problems include anxiety, concern with what others think of us, procrastination, lack of confidence, stress, self-criticism, and relationships that don’t work. After the beliefs are identified, the LBP enables people to quickly and permanently eliminate them. When the beliefs disappear, the problems do also.

What We’ve Learned From Our Clients

In working directly with over 13,000 clients we have seen how the beliefs we form in childhood determine how our lives turn out in almost every respect. And, most importantly, how the beliefs that lead to “good behavior” as a child are not necessarily the best beliefs to have later in life.

Most of us would be thrilled if we called our child and told her dinner was ready and we found her sitting at the table seconds later. But what would she have to believe if she was totally immersed in playing when we called and she immediately dropped what she was doing to come to dinner? She would have to consider what we want to be more important than what she wants, which might result from such beliefs as What I want doesn’t matter and I’m not important.

The biggest problem many of us have with our younger children is getting them into the car when we have to leave the house. A child who was always ready to leave would bring joy to any parent’s heart. But, again, what beliefs would a child have to have to always act that way? In addition to the two just named, another belief might be The way to be accepted is to make people happy, to never upset them.

Some Specific Consequences As an Adult

What are the long-term consequences of such beliefs? One of our clients, Joan, always did what her parents wanted when she was a kid. Her parents described her as “the perfect child.” Two of the beliefs that made her compliant as a child were What I want doesn’t matter and I’m not important. As an adult these same beliefs led to passive behavior and a sense of victimization. Larry, another client, had concluded early in life: The way to be accepted is to make people happy, to never upset them. His problem as an adult was an obsession with what others thought of him and a fear of expressing his own opinions.

In session after session we have heard thousands of clients describe the experiences they had with their parents that resulted in the beliefs they were trying to eliminate as an adult: “My mom and dad always did …, they never did …, they always said …, they never said ….”

In my book, Re-create Your Life: Transforming Yourself and Your World, I explain in detail how what parents do and don’t do, say and don’t say, provide their children with the experiences that the children interpret into beliefs. As I began to see how our behavior as parents led to our children forming beliefs that then determined the rest of their lives, I began to question the long-range implications of having children “obey.”

Short Term Benefits versus Long Term Costs

Maybe getting children to behave is good for us as parents, but not necessarily good for our children. It might make our lives easier but what does it do to them? My wife Shelly and I asked ourselves the question: If we succeed in getting our children to do what we want, and, as a result of our interactions with our children, they form negative self-esteem beliefs, such as, I’m not good enough or I’m not worthwhile, or other negative beliefs, such as, What I want doesn’t matter or I’ll never get what I want, is what we achieved short term with our children worth the long-term cost?

I’m not saying that our children’s behavior on a daily basis is not important. Of course it is. There are some things that children need to do for their health and well-being and there are some things children need to do for our well-being. We clearly would be remiss as parents if we took a totally hands-off attitude and allowed our children to do whatever they wanted. So we need to learn parenting skills that enable us to influence our children’s behavior when necessary, without leading to negative conclusions.

A Parenting Tip

For example, instead of calling our children just when we are about to sit down to dinner or two minutes before we are about to leave the house, expecting them to drop whatever they are doing because our schedule requires their presence, we can give our children ample warning. Fifteen minutes before we will need them we can ask them what they are doing, acknowledge that it probably is very important to them, and then ask them if they can complete whatever they’re doing in fifteen minutes because dinner will be ready, we will be leaving the house, etc. If we treat them with dignity and respect what is important to them, the odds are good they will respect our needs, without forming any negative beliefs about themselves.

And that is the crucial point. The single factor that has the greatest impact on whether or not our children achieve happiness and true satisfaction in life is a healthy self-esteem, a positive sense of life, and other positive beliefs.

To make this real, let’s assume that your child has one of the two following sets of beliefs: I’m not good enough; There’s something wrong with me; I’m not deserving; I don’t matter; I’m powerless—or : I am good enough; I’m worthwhile just because I am, not for any reason; I am worthy and deserving; I matter; Life is whatever I make it.

Which Set of Beliefs Would Lead to a Good Life?

Which set of beliefs would most likely lead to anxiety and depression? To substance abuse? To satisfying relationships? To a productive career? To a truly satisfying life?

Given that fact, what do you think that the major role of parents should be? Getting children to behave, or assisting them to create positive decisions about themselves and life?

If you chose the latter, the best way I know to insure that you are getting your job as a parent done is constantly to ask yourself the question: What is my child likely to conclude about himself and life as a result of this interaction we just had? If it is a positive belief, congratulations! You got your job done. If it is a negative one, go back, apologize and clean it up.

After we’ve changed our focus as parents, from getting our children to obey, to assisting them to create a positive attitude about themselves and life, we may no longer consider the ultimate parenting accolade to be: “Your child is so well-behaved.” We may come to prefer: “Your child has such a positive attitude about herself and life.”

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

To purchase an on-line interactive program where you can eliminate 19 limiting beliefs, go to http://www.recreateyourlife.com/sales.html.

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