My post today is about “distinctions.” And why should you care about distinctions? Because most of the problems in your life today exist because of distinctions you failed to make earlier in your life. Moreover, the way to permanently eliminate those problems from your life is to make those distinctions now.

I’ve known for a long time that the act of creating something is dependent on making distinctions. But I now also see in a way that I never did before that the effectiveness of The Lefkoe Method results from its ability to help you make distinctions you haven’t made.

Creation is an act of distinction

First let me explain what I mean by creation results from an act of distinction. I first realized this when I heard a presentation by Werner Erhard over 30 years ago. Let’s do a little thought experiment he used to make real that making a distinction is an act of creation. Really do the exercise.

Imagine your hand expanding and expanding until it fills the universe, so that there is nothing in the universe but your hand. What happens to your hand? … If you actually do this exercise you will experience your hand disappearing. Why? … Because any “thing,” in order to exist, must have a not “it.

A hand is a palm and fingers with space around it. If there were nothing but hand, it would crease to exist because it couldn’t be distinguished from everything else. In other words, any “thing” (or everything), without any distinctions, is nothing.

This is not only true for physical objects, it also is true for abstractions. In order for “up” to exist, there has to be a “down.” “Peace” requires “war.” If there were only peace all the time, the idea of peace, as distinct from war, could not exist.

So the existence of any specific thing requires the non-existence of that thing. This is what is meant by a “dualistic universe.”

Is it now clear that we create by distinguishing some “thing” from everything else?

Beliefs are caused by a failure to distinguish

Now let me explain my insight the other day when I realized that all the processes of The Lefkoe Method are based on making distinctions that had not been made earlier and most of our behavioral and emotional problems (which are caused primarily by negative beliefs and destructive conditioning) ultimately are the result of not making crucial distinctions earlier in life. Let me explain

Let’s start with the Lefkoe Belief Process. To begin with, most people have never distinguished their beliefs as the primary cause of their behavior and feelings. Moreover, when you form a belief you are not distinguishing between the events and the meaning you are giving the events; it seems to you as if you have discovered the meaning (the belief) in the world, which leads you to think the meaning is inherent in the events, which leads you to think you can “see” the meaning in the world.

A belief is eliminated for most people when they distinguish between the event and the meaning, which leads them to realize they cannot “see” the belief in the world, at which point they get that the meaning exists only in their mind and not in the world. Emotionally kinesthetic people eliminate the belief when they make a distinction between reality as the source of their feeling/belief and the meaning they gave reality as the source of their feeling/belief.

In other words, the belief got formed because we failed to make a distinction earlier in life and is eliminated today when we make that distinction. If we had made the appropriate distinction earlier between the event and the meaning we attributed to it, the belief never would have been formed.

Conditionings also are caused by a failure to distinguish

What is the role of distinctions in the Lefkoe Stimulus Process (LStimP)? Let’s use my ice cream story to explain how stimuli are conditioned to produce emotions and how the LStimP de-conditions those stimuli so that they no longer trigger those emotions.

Imagine you were being handed an ice cream cone with one hand while the other hand made a fist that looked as if it was going to hit you. What would you probably feel as you observed both the ice cream and the fist? … Probably some degree of anxiety. If this happened repeatedly, at some point the ice cream would get conditioned to produce anxiety even when there was no fist accompanying it.

A common example of this in real life is being criticized as a child by your parents, who usually got angry and yelled at you when they criticized you. The criticism as such did not produce anxiety; the meaning a child gives the yelling produced anxiety because, for children, yelling means parents are angry, which means they don’t love me any more, which means I could be abandoned, which means I could die. That is what causes the anxiety.

The principle is: anything that repeatedly accompanies something else that produces anxiety can itself easily get conditioned to produce anxiety … when we don’t distinguish between the stimulus actually causing the anxiety and the other stimulus that itself does not produce anxiety but that repeatedly accompanies something that does.

The LStimP works by making a distinction that you didn’t make earlier in life when the conditioning took place. You realize that the ice cream was never scary; the fear was caused by the fist and you now make a distinction between the two. Being criticized was never scary; the fear was caused by the meaning you gave your yelling parents and you now make a distinction between the two.

Other Lefkoe Method processes help you made distinctions

There are other Lefkoe Method processes, such as the Lefkoe Occurring Process, which dissolves the meaning we give current events, the Lefkoe De-conditioning Process, which de-conditions emotional eating, the Lefkoe Sense Process, which de-conditions a negative sense of life or sense of self, and the Lefkoe Expectation Process, which de-conditions negative expectations.

These processes work in much the same way as the Lefkoe Belief Process: they enable you to make distinctions today that hadn’t been made earlier in life. When the distinction is made, the belief, the sense, the occurring, the expectation, or the conditioning is eliminated, as are the problems they cause.

Yet more to come

A lot of research has been done in recent years that proves conclusively that the brain is plastic, meaning it can change up until death. And making new distinctions is what enables the brain to create new pathways and learn. I have a strong sense that a better understanding of “distinctions” will enable me to create additional processes to facilitate easy and permanent change.

What do you think about distinctions? Do you have any questions about why they are so important in understanding both why people get stuck and how to get them unstuck? 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

It is possible to permanently eliminate your depression.

The purpose of this post is to assure those of you who are feeling depressed (or who know anyone who is depressed) that it is possible to get rid of it totally. I was depressed for about 30 years, so much so that I thought of suicide frequently.  I haven’t felt anywhere near depressed for over 15 years.  If I can do it, you can too.

Depression is ultimately the result of feeling hopeless and helpless. It is experienced as an overwhelming sense of despair.  Unfortunately, this mental disorder is very prevalent, with estimates that almost one in six Americans will experience depression in their lifetime.  Moreover, many people whose symptoms are not serious enough to be classified as chronically depressed still experience bouts of despair that they are unable to shake for days on end.

There are some people who claim that depression is chemical and that the brain of depressed people is actually different than the brain of normal people.  A study conducted a few years ago did show that MRIs of depressed people were different from the MRIs of “normal” people.  The study went on to describe, however, how  after a few months of cognitive behavioral therapy the brains looked the same.  In other words, it is more likely that the mental state caused the changed brain state than an abnormal brain state produced depression.

Luckily, depression, like most mental problems, is the result of beliefs and conditionings, all of which can be eliminated by the Lefkoe Belief Process (LBP) and the Lefkoe Stimulus Process (LStimP).

The following is a list of some beliefs that clients with depression have identified and eliminated. Can you see that almost anyone with most of these beliefs would have to feel depressed, at least to some extent?

If someone didn’t have any of these beliefs and, instead, held their opposite—such  as “I control my life, not other people or circumstances” “My life is whatever I make it,” “I am good enough, important, and deserving”—could they possibly feel depressed?

Say each of the following beliefs out loud. If any of them resonate with you, it’s a belief you hold. Even though you may have held it since you were a child, and even if you’ve tried a number of ways to get rid of it, LBP can assist you to eliminate it.

Typical beliefs that underlie depression

• I’m powerless.
• I’m not good enough.
• I’m not deserving.
• I’m inadequate.
• I’m not important.
• I’m worthless.
• I’m not lovable.
• Who I am is not okay.
• I have no value.
• There’s something wrong with me.
• Happiness doesn’t last.
• It’s not safe to be myself.
• Life is hard, painful, a struggle, and stressful.
• Being responsible is a burden.
• I have to be perfect or people won’t accept me.
• I can’t have what I want.
• I don’t matter.

Ruth eliminated her life-long depression

Ruth Bonomo of Westport, CT, who used the LBP to eliminate many beliefs like these, described how she totally ended her life-long depression:

“I used to walk around enclosed in a veil of depression, fear, and self-loathing. I was always at the edge of the pit, ready to jump in and relinquish responsibility for my life and how it was turning out. I was on the verge of abandoning my family when my son became ill. After he spent several days in the hospital I realized I better get myself together; this kid needed and deserved me and I needed to be a responsible parent.

“I found Shelly Lefkoe and the Lefkoe Belief Process.  Immediately I began to shed emotional pounds. It was as if I had been running around on an exercise wheel in a hamster cage my whole life, and now I was free.

“Now I experience my emotions very differently. I’m not at the effect of them; I just have them. I get to feel all my emotions without having to worry about the pit. The most remarkable thing I’ve gained from eliminating beliefs with the Lefkoe Belief Process is self-love and acceptance. Now that I love myself, I am much less judgmental of others. I no longer worry about who I am and what people think of me. Everything is easier to deal with. The problems of life are still there, but I experience them without the drama and feeling that the world is coming to an end.”

When people are feeling depressed it feels like there is no way out and never will be.  It feels like there is not much point in doing anything because nothing will make any difference.  There isn’t even motivation to try to get better because it feels like nothing will help, like you will be stuck like this forever.

Psychotherapists have used The Lefkoe Method successfully

Margaret Carter, M.A., Family Therapist, said the following about using The Lefkoe Method to treat depression:

“I have used The Lefkoe Method numerous times in my practice for depression. In one such case the client had life-long depression and had made several prior attempts at counseling, to no avail.

“The client’s behaviors were self-destructive and self-limiting, and self-esteem was very low.

“After using The Lefkoe Method the client reported increased self-esteem, peace of mind, relief—for the first time in life—from depression, and expanded maturation and hope.

“The Lefkoe Method can be life transforming. It also meets our great need for an effective, brief therapy.”

Please forward this post to anyone you know who suffers from depression.  Let them know that they don’t need to suffer any longer.

I’d love to hear from you with your thoughts about having and getting rid of depression.  Please write your comments below.

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, 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.

Last week I pointed out that The Lefkoe Method (TLM) includes nine different processes, all of them unique methods for transforming the quality of your life.  I described two of them—the Lefkoe Belief Process and the Lefkoe Stimulus Process—in detail. (See http://www.mortylefkoe.com/lefkoe-method-part-1/)

This week I’ll tell you how the Lefkoe Sense and Expectation Processes are revolutionary methods for removing barriers to you experiencing a level of joy and fulfillment most people have given up ever achieving.

As you read the following discussion of these two additional processes that are part of TLM, I want you to remember what I claimed last week:

To the best of my knowledge there isn’t another belief-elimination process out there that is guaranteed to eliminate fundamental beliefs permanently.  Moreover, I am quite confident that no one offers as complete an arsenal of processes to help you make any change you want in your life … and have it stick.  In fact, I’m not aware of any other process that produces the results that each of these processes achieve.

Have you ever heard of anything remotely like the two processes I describe below?

The Lefkoe Sense Process

The Lefkoe Sense Process (LSP) is useful after one eliminates all the relevant beliefs one can find and still has a negative sense of something.  This “sense” usually doesn’t exist in complete sentences, like beliefs.  A “sense” typically is described in bodily feelings, colors, images, short phrases, etc.  You actually can have a negative sense of anything, such as people, life, and work, but the most common negative sense that adversely affects our lives is a negative sense of self.

Try it right now.  Close your eyes and spend a moment looking inside for your sense of yourself. … If you find words, such as “not good enough” or “not important,” that is probably the result of beliefs like I’m not good enough and I’m not important.  But keep looking: Is there a sense that exists primarily in feelings and images?  If there is and it is negative, the LSP can help you get rid of it.

It appears that a negative sense of yourself is the result of conditioning and that the LSP de-conditions that negative conditioning.  The initial conditioning usually takes place in childhood.  Events around us—usually mom’s and dad’s behavior—lead us to have a negative feeling about ourselves.  Sometimes the feeling is a direct result of their behavior—as an example, we might have a sense of ourselves as isolated or alone in the world as a result of mom and dad not paying attention to us much of the time.

Sometimes the feeling is the result of the meaning we give their behavior—as an example, feeling not acceptable as a result of giving that meaning to mom and dad not being available much of the time.

Let me explain further.  Any child in any culture recognizes certain tones of voice and facial expressions as expressing “anger,” which most children would interpret as meaning there is something wrong with me.  Why that interpretation and not: What’s wrong with my parents?  Two reasons.

First, a child knows on some level he is dependent on his parents for his very survival.  If there is something wrong with his parents, then his survival is threatened.  Better that there is something wrong with him.

Second, children think that adults—especially their parents—have all the answers to dealing with the world; children also know they know very little about how to deal with the world.  Children are always saying, “When I grow up, then I’ll be able to … (or, then I’ll know what to do).”  So if mom and dad are angry, it must be my fault; there is something wrong with me.  Before a child has words this anger can be experienced wordlessly as: pushed away, overwhelmed, not acceptable, not okay, uncomfortable, etc.

To summarize, events in your childhood and the meanings you give those events are the source of the “sense” you formed of yourself at the time and that still exists today.

As a child we looked inside and always saw this same sense of ourselves; at some point we got conditioned to experience the sense as “who we are.”  The LSP works by getting us to realize that the sense is the result of events outside ourselves or the meaning we gave to outside events, and it never was inherent in us.  We realize our sense of ourselves is not who we are.

Although getting rid of the beliefs that constitute our sense of ourselves usually will get rid of any negative sense, sometimes there will be a conditioned negative sense that requires the LSP.  In such cases a negative feeling you’ve had about yourself for a lifetime can be extinguished in a matter of minutes.

The Lefkoe Expectation Process

The other process that might be necessary to get rid of negative feelings that often overwhelm us is the Lefkoe Expectation Process (LEP).  Sometimes, after all the relevant beliefs have been eliminated, one can still expect life to be difficult, to not get what one wants, to have anxiety in certain situations, etc.  The LEP can totally eliminate those negative expectations.  Like with the LSP, you should eliminate all the relevant beliefs first, because often that will eliminate the negative expectation.  But if the expectation is still there, use this process.

Again, to fully make real how useful this process can be, close your eyes and ask yourself what you expect regarding some area of your life, such as your relationships, career, wealth, or life in general.  … Try it right now. …

You should come up with a description of your expectation that is not necessarily in the form of specific beliefs—for example, you might expect your relationships to never work out, to never be able to make lasting change in your life, or to never accumulate wealth. All of these expectations could be caused by beliefs, but if you still had any of them after eliminating the appropriate beliefs, the LEP could de-condition them.

Expectations are formed by assuming that the future necessarily will be like the past.  In other words, if something has happened to you repeatedly (or even once if the event is really traumatic), then you will get conditioned to assume that it will continue to happen in the future.

The LEP works by having you realize that the circumstances that had something happen in the past are never exactly the same as your future circumstances, so it never makes sense to assume that your future will be exactly the same as your past, because all the relevant circumstances are never the same.

Why These Processes Are So Valuable

If, after eliminating the appropriate beliefs, you still have negative senses or expectations as a result of conditioning, the only way I know to get rid of them is to use the Lefkoe Stimulus Process and the Lefkoe Expectation Process.  And if you don’t get rid of the conditionings, you will be stuck with negative feelings that will constantly sabotage you.  You might not need to use these two processes often, but when you do, they offer relief that nothing else can provide.

(To see the actual steps of the Lefkoe Sense and Expectation Processes, please see my blog, http://www.mortylefkoe.com/get-rid-of-negative-%E2%80%9Csenses%E2%80%9D-and-%E2%80%9Cexpectations%E2%80%9D/)

Next week’s post will describe additional processes of The Lefkoe Method that you might need to eliminate all your barriers to having the life you’ve always wanted.

Please share below any comments you have on the Lefkoe Sense Process and the Lefkoe Expectation Process.

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 negative belief free.

To purchase a DVD program that I guarantee to help you significantly improve your confidence and also eliminate the major day-to-day problems that most people face, check out http://recreateyourlife.com/naturalconfidence.

copyright © 2010 Morty Lefkoe

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

Many of you have used the Lefkoe Belief Process and found that permanently getting rid of beliefs has made a profound difference in your life.  Did you know that The Lefkoe Method includes eight other processes you can use to make significant changes in your life?

Depending on the problem you are trying to get rid of and what you are trying to accomplish, some of these other processes might be required.

Because recently readers have asked me to describe the difference between each   process and explain how each is used, I’ve decided to use my blog posts over the next few weeks to do just that.  I’ll provide a short description of each process, explain how it works, and tell you how it can be used to help you get rid of problems you face in your life daily.

This week I’ll discuss the Lefkoe Belief Process and the Lefkoe Stimulus Process. In future weeks I’ll write about the others.

To the best of my knowledge there isn’t another belief-elimination process out there that is guaranteed to eliminate fundamental beliefs permanently.  Moreover, I am quite confident that no one offers as complete an arsenal of processes to help you make any change you want in your life … and have it stick.  In fact, I’m not aware of any other process that produces the results that each of these processes achieve.

Here is a list of the processes that comprise The Lefkoe Method:

• Lefkoe Belief Process
• Lefkoe Stimulus Process
• Lefkoe Sense Process
• Lefkoe Expectation Process
• Lefkoe De-conditioning Process
• Lefkoe Occurring Process
• Lefkoe Belief Process—Possibilities
• Lefkoe Belief Process—Organizations
• Who am I really?

The Lefkoe Belief Process

The Lefkoe Belief Process (LBP), which I developed in 1975, was the first of the processes and still is the most important.  Most of our undesirable behavior and feelings ultimately can be traced to our beliefs, so being able to get rid of beliefs will make the biggest long-term difference in your life.

A belief, as I use the term, is a statement about reality that is the truth for us.  It is experienced emotionally as the truth, because it is possible to intellectually disagree with something we believe.

For example, you may believe that I’m not good enough, even though you know intellectually that that is not true.  So the way to know you have a belief is to say the words of the belief out loud and then ask yourself: Do the words feel true? Do they resonate even a little bit?  Do they feel even a little uncomfortable?

Most of our core beliefs about ourselves, people, and life are formed in the first six years of life as a result of interactions with our parents.  Beliefs about other areas of life—such as work, politics, relationships, and aspects of society—usually are formed when we encounter them.

The steps of LBP consist mainly of questions that enable you to discover that something you thought was “the truth,” something you thought you “saw” in the world, is really only “a truth,” that exists only in your mind.  When you make that distinction, the belief is transformed into merely one interpretation you gave a meaningless series of events, and the belief disappears.

Typical common negative beliefs include I’m not good enough, I’m not important, I’m powerless, People can’t be trusted, and Life is difficult.

Many day-to-day problems that we face—such as procrastination, selling ourselves short, and trying to impress others—can usually be resolved by eliminating the beliefs that cause them.

The Lefkoe Stimulus Process

Many emotions are caused by beliefs, 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 many adults, however, who experience emotions that appear to not depend on beliefs.

Very often we experience negative feelings in our life on a recurring basis, such as fear, anger, guilt, anxiety, and sadness. We experience these feelings every time specific events or circumstances occur, such as fear 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, for example, does an event that is not inherently fearful produce fear in some people and not in others?

What appears to have happened is 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).

The classic example of this was an experiment a psychologist 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.

Here is a real life example: Consider someone who experiences fear whenever he is asked to do something. When did he first experience fear associated with being asked to do something? Assume the original source of the fear was a father who always yelled, threatened, and terrified the client as a child. No matter what the client did, the father was not satisfied.

When the client reviews the cause of his feeling of fear, he discovers 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 behavior: The person he depended on for his very survival was withdrawing his love. No love, no care; no care, no survival. That is what caused the fear. Can you see that fear is not inherent in not doing things perfectly or, in fact, any other specific thing you do or do not do?

In order to help people get rid of these emotional problems I developed a new process in 1997 that I call the Lefkoe Stimulus Process (LStimP).   It is simpler to use than the LBP and usually takes only five to ten minutes to completely de-condition the stimuli that cause such emotions as fear, anxiety, anger and guilt.

The Lefkoe Stimulus Process works by helping you to realize that initially “being asked to do something” never produced fear. The original cause of the fear was the meaning you attributed to the way you were asked to do something (the anger that accompanied the request), by someone whose survival you depended on (your father). You associated “being asked to do something” with a loss of love, which ultimately you experienced as “a threat to your survival.”

When the association is broken, when you realize that you made this arbitrary association, the events that got associated (being asked to do something) will no longer cause fear. When you consciously make a distinction between what really caused the feeling initially and the events that happened to be associated with it, the associated events (current stimuli for the feeling) will no longer cause the feeling.

It is important to realize that most of our emotional problems—such as anxiety, depression, anger, and sadness—cannot be eliminated totally merely by eliminating beliefs.  You also have to use the Lefkoe Stimulus Process.

Next week’s post will describe additional processes of The Lefkoe Method that you might need to eliminate all your barriers to having the life you’ve always wanted.

Please share below any comments you have on the Lefkoe Belief Process and the Lefkoe Stimulus Process.

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 negative belief free.

To purchase a DVD program that I guarantee to help you significantly improve your confidence and also eliminate the major day-to-day problems that most people face, check out http://recreateyourlife.com/naturalconfidence.

copyright © 2010 Morty Lefkoe

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

When I wrote my blog post on August 17 about how my new de-conditioning process would stop emotional eating, I made a few statements that I’ve since discovered just aren’t true.

So this post will correct those mistakes and bring you up to date on what I am currently doing to help people stop emotional eating for good.

My single biggest error was in stating, “I finally realized that almost all emotional eating involves both types [classical and operant] of conditioning.” In fact, I’m now pretty sure that neither of these types of conditioning is involved.

Conditioning is still the primary cause of eating when you aren’t really hungry; I’m still convinced that most emotional eating is the result of conditioning that is set off by triggers and rewards.  However, the conditioning involved seems to be a unique type that doesn’t fit the description of either of the two major types that psychologists are familiar with.

In this post I’ll describe what this unique type of conditioning is and how it is formed.  I’ll also explain when beliefs are and are not involved in emotional eating, which I was not clear about earlier.

Conditioning of eating happens in one of two ways.  The first and most common is when you have some negative feeling or experience and then just happen to eat and experience a “pleasurable distraction.” In other words, when you eat you experience a pleasurable feeling instead of a negative feeling and you also have a distraction from the negative feeling.  After (unconsciously) noticing many times that eating provides a pleasurable distraction in that situation, you get conditioned to eat whenever that situation occurs in the future.

The second way conditioning happens is when you want a “reward,” such as wanting to feel good or comfortable, or to celebrate. You eat and then discover that you are experiencing the reward you want; after numerous connections between eating and the “reward,” eating gets conditioned to occur whenever you desire one of the rewards.

I call this process “conditioning” because the behavior (eating) is experienced as compulsive, as driven. Eating happens automatically and requires considerable will power to stop.

Why does eating get conditioned so often and not other behaviors?

Why do so many people condition eating and not some other behavior?  The answer is simple.  There are no other “pleasurable distractions” that naturally occur three times a day.

Imagine that one of your triggers occurs frequently in your life, such as negative feelings, boredom, loneliness, or feeling unlovable.  Imagine further that you go to a movie several times a day and you notice over and over that the movie almost always provides a pleasurable distraction from the negative experience.  Can you see that going to the movies would eventually become a conditioned response to your negative triggers?

In other words, eating is the most common response to our triggers only because we normally eat more often than anything else that provides a pleasurable distraction.

I had thought that the Lefkoe De-conditioning Process (LDP) was effective with emotional eating because it de-conditioned classical and operant conditioning.  I still think the LDP can be effective with operant conditioning, but the reason it is so effective with emotional eating is it also de-conditions the unique type of conditioning involved in emotional eating.  (The Lefkoe Stimulus Process is effective with classical conditioning.)

Moreover, although the basic elements of the LDP haven’t changed recently, I make some small change in the Process from time to time, because I keep learning something new with each client.  Luckily, even the earlier versions of the LDP worked to help my clients de-condition eating in response to their triggers and rewards.

The role of beliefs

Here’s another mistake I made in my last blog post about emotional eating.  I had thought, because getting rid of beliefs never stopped emotional eating and because de-conditioning did with most clients, beliefs had nothing to do with emotional eating.  That was a logical fallacy on my part.  Just because beliefs are not the sole cause of emotional eating doesn’t necessarily mean they can’t be a partial cause for some people.

I now think that conditioning is almost always involved, but beliefs also can be involved for some people.

Here’s the way it looks to me now.  Most people with an emotional eating problem have been conditioned to eat in response to various triggers and rewards.  This is true regardless of the client’s environment as a child.

However, if someone has grown up in an environment in which one’s parents have an eating problem and they talk frequently about dieting, losing weight, being too heavy, being “good” on days they stay on their diet and “bad “ on days when they do not, and “good” foods and “bad” foods, then such people are likely to form a bunch of beliefs that result in food and eating being a constant issue in their lives … in addition to the conditioning.

Here is a list of a few of the beliefs one of my clients identified and eliminated: If I can’t eat “bad” foods, I’m missing out.  “Bad” foods make you fat.  To lose weight you can’t eat anything “bad.” The way to keep food from running my life (like it did my mom’s) is to eat whatever I want to eat.

Can you see how such beliefs probably would lead to emotional eating? Beliefs like these would have to be eliminated before one’s emotional eating would stop completely.  I’ve been able to help clients with the type of belief eliminate their relevant eating beliefs using the Lefkoe Belief Process.

I want to distinguish between beliefs that directly lead to emotional eating (like those just discussed) and those that lead to triggers that lead to emotional eating. The beliefs listed above would directly lead to emotional eating.  Beliefs also can lead to negative feelings (such as anxiety, anger and upset), feeling sorry for oneself (a sense of victimization), feeling unlovable, etc.  These conditions then can become triggers for emotional eating.  But these beliefs do not have to be eliminated before emotional eating can be totally stopped.

Not all beliefs have to be eliminated

Why are these beliefs different? Because if the LDP unhooks these triggers from emotional eating, it becomes possible to deal with the triggers with behaviors other than emotional eating, such as talking to friends, listening to music, exercising, reading a book, or any activity one truly enjoys.  Although these activities have always existed as possible ways to deal with the triggers that emotional eaters have, they are rarely chosen as alternatives because eating already has been conditioned to occur immediately (unless stopped by will power) following the presence of the trigger.  Once eating has become de-conditioned and is no longer a compulsive behavior, you then have the time to calmly find another activity that will provide a “pleasurable distraction.”

Why has it been so difficult to stop emotional eating?

So many of you with an emotional eating problem have tried so many diets and pills and eating programs that you are now skeptical that anything can help you.  That conclusion is understandable.  You have been disappointed so many times.  It would make sense to now believe that people’s claims about emotional eating solutions just don’t work.

But if you now understand the role of conditioning, you understand that diets—which consist of eating something different and eating less than you normally would eat—work only to the extent you are using will power to overcome the compulsion to eat more than the diets permit, whenever triggers or the desire for rewards are present.

And even though pills can affect your appetite or change how you process food internally, they cannot stop the compulsion to eat more than you are hungry for in response to triggers and rewards.  Only de-conditioning can do that permanently.

As long as I stay on the cutting edge in creating effective solutions for the problems we face in life, I’ll make mistakes from time to time.  Luckily I eliminated the belief Mistakes are bad a long time ago, so mistakes are no longer the problem they used to be for me.  In fact, I now see them as great learning opportunities.

What makes my work so fulfilling is that the more I learn, the more there is to learn.  And the new learning sometimes overturns the old learning. Life doesn’t get much better than that!

If you’d like more information about emotional eating or how the Lefkoe De-conditioning Process works to stop it, please read my free Special Report, “How To Stop Emotional Eating For Good,” at http://eatingreport.com.

Please share any comments below that you have regarding this post discussing emotional eating.

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

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

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

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.

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copyright ©2010 Morty Lefkoe

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Most of the behavioral or emotional problems we want to get rid of are relatively simple to deal with.  We procrastinate.  We worry all the time about what people think of us.  We lack confidence. Using The Lefkoe Method you can find and eliminate the beliefs and conditionings that cause these problems.  As a result, the problems will disappear.

Unfortunately overeating and weighing too much are not as simple.  This problem is much more difficult to get rid of than most because it consists of from six to eight (or even more) sub-problems, each of which has to be handled before the real problem is solved.

Let me explain.

Some people gain weight because they eat a lot of unhealthy fattening foods and do very little exercise.  That’s relatively simple to handle.  Eat more healthily and get more exercise.  If there are beliefs and conditionings that inhibit those two activities, get rid of them and you’ll start eating more healthy foods and exercising.

But for many people, the real problem is eating when they aren’t really hungry. If they would stop eating when they feel full and only eat when they are really hungry, the eating/weight problem would disappear.  This is my ultimate goal for my clients, not losing weight. Because if most people with a normal metabolism and with a healthy diet eat only when hungry, they will not gain weight.

So the question then becomes, why do people eat when they aren’t hungry?

There can be many reasons, including:

• It is a way to take a break from work; it’s a diversion.
• It is a way to reward yourself when you feel no one else or nothing else will.
• It is a way to experience love and acceptance.
• It is a way to keep unpleasant feelings down—such as anxiety, anger, upset, and sadness.
• It is a way to feel good, comforted, happy, secure, centered, at home.
• It is a way to feel comfortable in social situations where everyone else is eating.
• It is a way to remove yourself from the dating game and from sex.  In other words, if you feel uncomfortable in romantic relationships and/or in sexual relationships, one way to avoid them is to get very heavy to discourage the opposite sex. In fact, although being significantly overweight might discourage some people from a romantic or sexual relationship, it obviously does not discourage a great many.
• It is a response to childhood deprivation. If there wasn’t enough food to eat—if you didn’t eat the food right away it would be gone and you wouldn’t be able to eat at all—you can get conditioned to eat whenever you see food whether you are hungry or not.
• If I work hard and accomplish a lot I’m entitled to whatever I want, including anything I want to eat.
• You’re going to go on a diet and will be depriving yourself of food for a while.
• The food tastes really good, which makes you feel good.

If your eating/weight problem is the result of eating when you aren’t hungry, then you need to determine which “needs” your eating is fulfilling.  Then you can treat each of these needs as a separate undesirable behavior pattern. From there you can find and eliminate the beliefs that cause it.

In addition to having to get rid of a lot of beliefs, self-esteem and otherwise, eating/weight problems also involve a lot of conditioning.

Classical Conditioning

I discussed one type of conditioning and a process we have for de-conditioning in my blog post on May 5, 2009.  In this type of conditioning, which psychologists call “classical conditioning,” something that normally doesn’t cause an emotional response gets conditioned to do so.

Here’s an example I use with my clients that will make this type 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.  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 the fist scared you.

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).  The Lefkoe Stimulus Process is a very effective method to use with classical conditioning.

Operant Conditioning

There is another type of conditioning that is especially relevant in eating/weight issues.  It results from continually rewarding or punishing specific behavior, thereby conditioning that behavior.  Psychologists call this “operant conditioning.”

For example, if every time you got upset as a child your mom gave you food to make you feel better, you could get conditioned to eat whenever you got upset.

Or, if your parents continually rewarded you for special things you did as a child by giving you a special meal with the food you really liked, you could get conditioned to eat whenever you wanted to feel acknowledged for something you did.

The Lefkoe De-conditioning Process is very effective with operant conditioning.

The Source Of One of the Sub-problems

Let’s examine one of the eating/weight sub-problems in a little more detail to see how it is the result of beliefs and operant conditioning.

Assume that whenever you feel alone, rejected, unloved, etc. you eat, whether you are hungry or not.  You might believe I’m unlovable, I don’t fit in, Food is love, I’m alone in the world, Eating is the way to be loved, and If someone gives you food it means he loves you.  There can be many others, but this gives you an idea of the type of beliefs that could cause a behavior pattern like this.

The operant conditioning involved here is eating in order to feel loved.  This could have occurred early in life if your parents fed you as an expression of their love.  This conditioning is more likely to be found in Jewish and Italian families.

Resolving eating/weight issues is especially tricky because you need to continue eating after the problem is gone.  You can’t stop it completely like you can stop alcohol and drugs.  Nevertheless, if you eliminate all the relevant beliefs and conditionings for all the sub-problems, an eating/weight problem can become nothing more than an unpleasant memory in your past.

To see a short video from someone who totally handled his emotional eating problems, click here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F3tjZqDtBs8

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

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Often when I start to explain to someone how the Lefkoe Belief Process (LBP) works, they quickly respond, “Oh, you’re just doing Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy (CBT)!”

Although the LBP is similar in some ways to CBT (of which there are several variations), there are more things that are different than the same.  (Because I am not trained in CBT, I have no first hand knowledge of it.  But several people who are certified in CBT and who also are familiar with the LBP have helped me make the following distinctions between the two.)

First, some versions of CBT attempt to change beliefs by challenging the validity of the evidence that the client uses to support them. However, the “evidence” that people offer for a belief usually is not the actual reason they believe it. The evidence people offer usually consists of recent observations that appear to substantiate the belief. The real source of one’s fundamental beliefs, the LBP contends, is interpretations of circumstances earlier in life. Core beliefs about one’s self and life are usually formed in childhood. After a belief has been formed, however, one acts consistently with it, thereby producing “current evidence” for the already-existing belief.

Because the evidence one presents to validate one’s beliefs usually is a consequence of the beliefs, not its source, challenging the validity of that evidence may not be the most effective way to eliminate beliefs.

Second, CBT tries to show clients that their thinking is illogical, broad generalizations, self-defeating, etc.  The LBP makes no attempt to get clients to see that a current belief is wrong or not true, to see it as illogical, to accept that it does not make sense, or to reject it as self-defeating. The LBP actually validates people for forming the belief earlier in life by assisting them to realize that most people probably would have made a similar interpretation under similar circumstances. It insures that people realize that their belief actually is one valid interpretation of their earlier circumstances.

CBT attempts to get clients to realize their beliefs don’t make sense and are self-defeating; therefore they should give them up. The LBP assists people to eliminate beliefs by getting them to realize that they form beliefs by giving/attributing meaning to events that have no inherent meaning, after which they think they can “see” that meaning inherent in the events.  When clients realize they really can’t see the belief (the meaning) in the world, that it exists and has only ever existed in their minds, and when they realize the feeling of the belief was not caused by something outside of them, but by the meaning they gave the events, the belief is eradicated.

A third element that distinguishes the LBP from some versions of CBT is that CBT tries to get the client to agree to act consistently with an alternative belief to test its possible validity. In other works, homework is an integral part of CBT; there is nothing a client has to do between sessions with LBP. Because the current belief is totally eliminated by using the LBP during the session, one has no need to try to change one’s behavior when one goes back “into life”; one’s behavior changes naturally and effortlessly once the belief is gone.

A fourth distinction between the LBP and many cognitive approaches is that the latter frequently give clients tools that they are expected to use to think more rationally in order to act more rationally in the face of strong emotions such as fear, anger, depression, hostility, etc. The LBP is used by a facilitator (either a live person, or an on-line or DVD program) to assist clients to eliminate the beliefs that cause such emotions. When these emotions stop after the beliefs (and conditionings) that give rise to them are eliminated, clients no longer need a tool to deal with them more effectively.

Fifth, The Lefkoe Method includes other processes other than the LBP when appropriate.  For example, the Lefkoe Stimulus Process facilitates de-conditioning the stimuli for negative emotions, which has nothing to do with beliefs or illogical thoughts. In order to get rid of the fear of public speaking, for instance, one has to extinguish the conditioned stimuli that have become associated with fear, such as facing criticism, or feeling that one is not meeting expectations, that one is being judged, or that one is being rejected.

And in last week’s blog post I described the Lefkoe Sense Process and the Lefkoe Expectation Process, which de-condition negative senses and expectations.  To the best of my knowledge CBT does not deal with conditioning directly.

Finally, there is no explicit spiritual element in CBT.  As far as I am concerned, the “Who Am I Really?” Process, which helps you shift your identity from an ego—the sum total of your beliefs and their manifestation—to the source of the ego, is a crucial element of the LBP and is as important as getting rid of beliefs.

The Lefkoe Method, which includes the LBP and several other processes, accomplishes two distinct things with clients:

1. It helps people make fundamental changes in who they think they are, namely, their beliefs and the way those beliefs manifest in their behavior and feelings, by eliminating beliefs and de-conditioning stimuli, senses, and expectations.
2. It helps people make a distinction between themselves as the sum total of their beliefs and how they manifest, and themselves as the creator of those beliefs, and, therefore, of their lives.

Because CBT is the most researched psychotherapy (and is considered the “gold standard”), I am excited to announce a research study we are about to start.  Conducted by a major university, the study will compare the results of using our Natural Confidence DVD program, which contains 23 self-esteem beliefs and conditionings, with 10 hours of private CBT sessions.  The study will measure  changes in self-esteem, self-confidence, and stress.  Stay tuned for the results.

Thanks for reading my blog. I really 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 they came from.

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

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

In my post on May 5, 2009, I described the Lefkoe Stimulus Process (LStP), the most important process other than the Lefkoe Belief Process that we use to help people get rid of unwanted behavior and emotional problems.

This process de-conditions common events that have been conditioned to cause fear and other negative emotions.  To get rid of almost any emotional problem, you will have to get rid of beliefs and conditionings.

There are two additional processes I’ve created to help clients eliminate problems in their lives that can be very valuable: the Lefkoe Sense Process (LSP) and the Lefkoe Expectation Process (LEP).  I’ve never heard of anything that can do what these two processes do as quickly and effectively.

The LSP is useful after one eliminates all the relevant beliefs one can find and still has a negative sense of something.  It usually doesn’t exist in words.  It is a “sense” that typically is described in bodily feelings, colors, images, etc.  You actually can have a negative sense of anything, such as people, life, and work, but the most common negative sense that needs to be eliminated is one of self.

Try it right now.  Close your eyes and look inside for your sense of yourself. … If you find words, such as “not good enough” or “not important,” that is probably the result of beliefs like I’m not good enough and I’m not important.  But keep looking: Is there a sense that doesn’t exit in words?  If there is and it is negative, the LSP can help you get rid of it.

I’m going to provide the steps of the LSP below with a caveat: Using it will produce virtually no change unless you eliminate all the relevant beliefs first.  If there is still a negative sense after getting rid of all the limiting beliefs, then this process will get rid of it.

Finally, before presenting the entire LSP, let me explain Step 3, which says: “Is it real to you that your current sense of yourself was caused by those [childhood] events and the meaning you gave those events?”

Let me explain why this is true.  Any child in any culture recognizes certain facial expressions as “angry,” which most children would interpret as meaning there is something wrong with me.  Why that interpretation and not, what’s wrong with my parents?  Two reasons.

First, a child knows on some level he is dependent on his parents for his very survival.  If there is something wrong with his parents, then his survival is threatened.  Better there is something wrong with him.

Second, children think adults, especially their parents, have all the answers to dealing with the world and children know they know very little about how to deal with the world.  Children are always saying, “When I grow up, then I’ll be able to … (or then I’ll know what to do).”  So if mom and dad are angry, it must be my fault; there is something wrong with me.  Before a child has words this can be experienced wordlessly as: pushed away, black, overwhelmed, not acceptable, etc.

If you don’t get what you want a lot of the time, you might feel powerless even before there are any words for that feeling.  If mom and dad aren’t around a lot of the time when you want them, you might feel alone.

To summarize, events in your childhood and the meanings you give those events are the source of the “sense” you formed of yourself at the time and that still exists today.

Steps of the Lefkoe Sense Process (LSP)

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

Client’s description of sense: _______________________________________.

2. What are the events when you were a young child that first caused ________________________________? [describe the sense using client’s exact words] [The events are almost always interactions with parents early in life.]

3. Is it real to you that your current sense of yourself was caused by those events and the meaning you gave those events? [The answer should be, yes.]  NOTE: Even though usually events have no inherent meaning for adults, they do for children who are dependent on their parents (or other adults) for their very survival.

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

5. To make this distinction real, if earlier in life the circumstances that originally caused the ___________________________ had been different, [describe the sense using client’s exact words] if_______________________________ [state the opposite of what actually happened]           had happened instead, would you have had the _________________________________________________________then? [describe the sense using client’s exact words] If you didn’t have it then, would you have it now? [The answer should be, no.]

6.  Close your eyes and look inside.   Do you still experience yourself as ________________________? [The answer should be,no.]                                            [describe the sense using client’s exact words]

Note:  Sometimes the entire negative sense will be gone at the end of the process.  If only some aspects of the sense have been eliminated, do the process again with whatever words describing the sense still feel true to the client.  There may be a different source for what remains.

Copyright © 1997-2009 Morty Lefkoe

The other process that can be very useful is the Lefkoe Expectation Process (LEP).  Sometimes after all the relevant beliefs have been eliminated one still expects life to be difficult, to not get what one wants, to have anxiety in certain situations, etc.  This process can eliminate those negative expectations.  Like with the LSP, you should eliminate all the relevant beliefs first, because often that will eliminate the negative expectation.  But if the expectation is still there, use this process.

Here are the steps of the LEP.

Steps of the Lefkoe Expectation Process (LEP)

To be used to eliminate negative expectations about some area or issue.

1. What is your expectation about _____________________________________?[Insert the area or issue, for example, self, life, relationships, or career

2. ___________________________________________________________        [Insert the expectation given by the client.]

3.  What happened early in your life that might have led you to this expectation?  [Note: The client usually will say: I expect … to happen in the future because it happened many times in the past.]

4.  An expectation is nothing more than assuming the future will be like the past.  Can you see that your expectation made sense given the many experiences you had that were similar to what you now expect? [The answer should be, yes.] Can you see that your expectation is a function of those specific circumstances? [The answer should be, yes.]

5.  If the circumstances in the past had been different, would you still have had the same expectation? [The answer should be: Of course not.]

6.  Describe the differences between your earlier circumstances and today’s circumstances. [If the client has difficulty in doing this, you can assist.  One crucial difference is that the client has The Lefkoe Method available now and a lot of beliefs the client had then he does not hold today.  Also, in most cases the “earlier circumstances” occurred when the client was a child; now she’s an adult.]

7.  Can you see that today’s circumstances are very different from the earlier circumstances that led to your expectation? [Summarize the current circumstances that the client has just stated in #6 above.] [The answer should be, yes.]

8.  Don’t tell me what you want, what you wish for, or how you’d like it to be.  If expectations for the future are based on current circumstances, tell me what any reasonable person would expect in the future given your circumstances today, namely ________________________________________. [Restate what the client stated in #6 above.]                                                                                              [The answer will be a different expectation.]

9.  Close your eyes and look inside.   What do you expect about ___________________________ right now? [Insert the answer from #1 above]                                                                                                             [The client will describe a new, positive expectation.]

Copyright © 2001-2009 Morty Lefkoe

Thanks for reading my blog. I really 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 they came from.

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, 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

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

Last fall I conducted a one-hour tele-seminar in which I answered questions I had been sent about beliefs.  I thought I would devote this week’s blog post to answering a few of the most common questions I received.

Question: Once you have eliminated a belief, what does one need to do to move forward and leave their dysfunctional behavior patterns behind?

Answer: In a word, nothing.  Once you have eliminated all the beliefs (there is rarely only one) that cause any given behavioral or emotional problem, the problem just dissolves and there is nothing more you have to do.

Question: How critical is it to identify the origin of a belief correctly, and how accurately does one need to identify it?

Answer: Our experience is that you do need to find the real source of a belief in order for the Lefkoe Belief Process (LBP) to be effective in eliminating the belief.  For example, if you think the source of a belief is experiences you had in school, when the real source is interactions with your parents, the belief might not be eliminated.  Why?

Remember that in the process you are asked: Imagine being a child and observing the events that led to the belief.  Doesn’t it seem as if you can see (the belief)?

For the belief to go away for visual people, you need to get that what you’ve spent a lifetime thinking you saw in those events, you never really did see. If you truly can see something, then it really is there.  The trick is to realize that you didn’t see what you thought you saw.  The belief (in other words, the meaning you gave the events) exists only in your mind, not out there in the world to be seen.

If you mistakenly choose other events that aren’t really the source, you still will think you saw (the belief) in interactions with your parents and the belief will still be there.

For people who are predominantly emotionally kinesthetic and “felt” the belief instead of seeing it, they need to get that the events didn’t make them feel (the belief); it was the meaning they gave those events. Again, if you have the wrong source, this part of the LBP might not work.

More often than not, a belief is formed from the meaning we give to a pattern of events, such as the way mom and dad reacted when you didn’t live up to their expectations or the fact that mom and dad weren’t around very much.  Not the one time you remember dad yelling or mom not being home one afternoon.

There is no way to know for sure if you have found the “real” source of a belief.  One test is whether or not it feels true for you that a repeated pattern of events led you to form the belief. Another is that you need to be able to answer yes to the question: Wouldn’t most people have formed the belief you did in those same circumstances?

In other words, the events must be a logical source for a given belief.

Question: When going through the process of eliminating beliefs, I have a hard time with the concept of ‘seeing’ the belief.  I usually don’t think I saw it; it’s more like I felt it.  So sometimes beliefs don’t go away because I don’t get it.  Is there a way around this?

Answer: I provided part of the answer to this question in my answer to the prior question.

Emotionally kinesthetic people generally do not “see” the belief in the situations that led to the belief being formed, they “felt” it.

The end of the Lefkoe Belief Process has a section specifically for people who are kinesthetic, so if you don’t think you saw the belief, just skip that question and go to the next step of the Process (the events that led you to form the belief have no meaning) and then finish the Process.  If you complete the LBP, the belief will be eliminated.

Question: How do you apply the technique [Lefkoe Belief Process] on your own?

Answer: Most people cannot do it by themselves; a few can. Try it; it might work for you.

There are at least three reasons most people can’t do it.

First, without a lot of training it is hard for most people to identify all the beliefs and conditionings that cause any given problem.  And if you don’t find and eliminate all of them, the problem might lessen, but not be eliminated totally.

Second, even when you know the belief you want to eliminate, it can be tricky to find alternate interpretations for certain beliefs and sources.

Third, most problems can be eliminated by eliminating the beliefs and conditionings that cause it.  From time to time it is necessary to use additional processes that eliminate negative “senses” (of oneself, life, etc.) that were conditioned early in life or negative expectations, where one is conditioned to expect negative things to occur.  You need to be trained to use those processes.

After helping thousands of people eliminate tens of thousands of beliefs, I find that I am able to walk myself through the LBP or the Lefkoe Stimulus Process (to eliminate conditionings) some of the time, but when I discover a new problem and I’m not sure what beliefs or conditionings cause it, I still need a trained Lefkoe Method facilitator to help me.

Question: Is it possible for limiting beliefs to have not originated with your parents?  Is it possible for limiting beliefs to have formed in adulthood, say after romantic disappointment?  If so, how does one locate the source of the limiting belief?

Answer: Almost all negative self-esteem beliefs are formed through interactions with parents during the first five or six years of life.  We form many other beliefs later in life when we encounter new situations.

We form beliefs about school in school, politics as we start reading and hearing about it, and romantic relationships as we start having them.

How do you find the source of beliefs formed later in life?  Training and a lot of experience.

Question: I think the biggest belief I have that keeps me from transformation is that I can’t do it – I don’t have what it takes to follow though.

Answer: That’s possible, but this is an example of how it can be tricky to identify all the relevant beliefs that cause a problem.

You might believe I don’t have what it takes to follow through, but what beliefs would you have to have to have formed that one?  Probably many, including I’m not good enough, Nothing I do is good enough, I’m inadequate, I’m powerless, and I’m not capable.

In other words, there are probably a bunch of beliefs that led you to not follow through, and now you believe you can’t follow through.  You have to find and get rid of all those earlier beliefs too.

Question: One of the biggest roadblocks is identifying the core belief that is holding me back.  I come up with a lot of peripheral beliefs.  What is the best way to determine what is the core belief that needs to be changed?

Answer: As far as we are concerned, there is no “the core belief.”  There are almost always many core (self-esteem) beliefs and many other beliefs causing the problem you want to get rid of.

NOTE: We’re offering another tele-seminar answering your questions about beliefs on August 13, from 6:00-7:00 Pacific Time.  For information and to submit a question, please click on https://www2.gotomeeting.com/register/357775698
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 limiting 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/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.

It is possible to get rid of your stress.

“Yeah, sure,” you might say. “And how exactly am I supposed to get rid of all the stressful things in my life?”

Here’s how I answered that question for myself.

I was filled with anxiety for most of my life. I worried about what people thought of me, I was worried about not having enough money, and I worried about my mother who was having a difficult time after divorcing my father when I was three. If worry causes stress, I was overwhelmed with stress from the time I was a child.

My way of dealing with the “things that were causing stress in my life” could be summed up in the phrase I uttered at least several times a day for the first 20 years of my life: “I can’t wait until I grow up and then I’ll be able to ….” My life was always focused on changing my circumstances some day so that the anxiety would go away and I would be happy.

After many years of therapy, workshops, and self-help books the stress had lessened somewhat, and I was coping with my difficult circumstances better, but I was still trying to change what was happening in my life to gain happiness. I noticed that I was now in my 40s and I still hadn’t managed to change things enough to make me happy and relieve my constant stress.

It was only after I started using a belief-eliminating process I had created that I realized that the stress was not coming from what was happening, but from the meaning I was placing on what was happening. Once I was able to change the meaning, the stress literally disappeared.

For example, before I married my current wife Shelly (to whom I have now been married for 26 glorious years), I had been married twice before. Neither relationship worked very well or lasted very long. Most of my married life with these two women was very stressful. At the time, I blamed my wives and said all I needed to do was to find the right woman, in other words, change my circumstances.

So I tried it for the third time, hopefully with the “right” woman. Unfortunately, right after we got married I noticed the stress was still there.

About that time I started looking for and eliminating the beliefs that were causing the problems in my life. One problem was that I was incredibly needy. I actually believed that I couldn’t survive without a woman in my life who loved me. That belief led me to place so much pressure on my wives that our relationships were constantly stressful. Once I eliminated that belief and a bunch of others (most importantly, what makes me good enough and important is having people like me and think well of me), the neediness stopped. And when the neediness stopped, and when a bunch of negative beliefs about myself were gone and I realized I was loveable and worthy of being loved, my relationship with my current wife transformed.

The same person and the same circumstances, but instead of trying to get my sense of okeyness from my marriage, I brought my sense of okeyness to my marriage. It made all the difference in the world. And the stress was gone.

I’m reminded of a news story I read in the mid-1990s when a lot of middle-level managers were losing their jobs. The article interviewed a number of these out-of-work people. Some of them were very stressed, worrying about making ends meet. Some of them, however, were very happy and seemed to exhibit no stress at all.

People in this latter group experienced being fired as an opportunity to do something they had always wanted to do and had never done because they were “stuck” in their jobs. They either created one-person consulting firms, opened some type of retail store, or went back to school and changed professions entirely.

If losing your job means you will never find another way to make money, you will be stressed. If losing your job means you can now do something even more nurturing and satisfying, you will be excited about the same event.

You see, events don’t have any inherent meaning. Circumstances don’t mean anything until you give them a meaning … and one meaning can be stressful while another might be enlivening. Stress is caused by the meaning we give to events-which in turn is caused by our negative beliefs and feelings about ourselves, people, and the world we live in. The beliefs can easily be eliminated with the Lefkoe Belief Process (LBP) and the feelings with the Lefkoe Stimulus Process (LStimP).

Imagine that you are about to undertake an important project and have the beliefs: “I don’t think I can do it. I think I will fail and failure is bad” How do you feel? … You’d feel stress-and would blame the project for causing the stress. Now imagine the same project, but this time you have the beliefs: “I’m competent. I know I’ll do a great job. And if I don’t my results don’t mean anything about who I am.” How do you feel now? … Notice that the project is no longer causing stress.

The following is a list of some beliefs that clients complaining of stress have identified and eliminated. Can you see that anyone with beliefs such as these probably would experience stress?

Say each of the following beliefs out loud. If any of them resonate with you, it’s probably a belief you hold. Even though you may have held it since you were a child, and even if you’ve tried a number of ways to get rid of it, you can get rid of it using the right approach. I had many of these myself and eradicated them all.

“If I fail it means I’m stupid.”
“I’m not competent.”
“I’m not good enough.”
“Nothing I do is good enough.”
“I’ll never get what I want.”
“Mistakes are bad.”
“If I make a mistake it means I’m bad and stupid.”
“Life is difficult.”
“People can’t be trusted.”
“I’m powerless.”
“I have no control over my life.”
“I don’t measure up.”
“The unknown is scary.”
“If I do something wrong, something terrible will happen.”

Assume that you didn’t have these or any other related beliefs. Imagine, instead, that you believed, “There is no such thing as failure; everything is merely a learning experience.” And, “I’m fine just the way I am; I don’t have to do anything to be okay and accepted by others.” Would you still be likely to experience as much stress as you do now?

Most of the techniques commonly used to deal with stress focus on how to better cope with stress after we experience it. For example, meditation, deep breathing, and visualizations can sometimes alleviate it for the moment. Our work, on the other hand, assists people to totally eliminate their stress (or not even get it in the first place) by getting rid of the beliefs that cause it.

One client, a psychotherapist who lived with constant stress, described how the Lefkoe Belief Process helped her overcome it.

“At my first session with Shelly Lefkoe I told her: ‘I’m overwhelmed. I’m confused. Scattered. I’m not focused. All over the place. I can’t organize. Frightened by competition. It keeps me from being successful. There is an emptiness I have to fill. I feel anxious and stressed all the time.’

“Shelly helped me eliminate a number of beliefs, after which my life changed dramatically. Today I have a grounded sense of confidence. I enjoy life more. I feel better about who I am. I now believe I am worthy of being taken seriously. Unlike what my mother used to say, ‘No one could take you seriously,’ I know I have much to offer people.

“The emptiness is gone. I have an inner joy. I accept what I can do and have confidence that I can do it. It doesn’t matter what others are doing. The other guy is not such a threat anymore. Finally, I have a sense of poise in the world that I lacked before. I used to be seen as this naive, wimpy type. I don’t think that’s what I project any more. I project a stronger image. I’m someone I’m happy to be. The anxiety and stress are gone.”

As I said when I started this post, it is possible to get rid of your stress. I’ve done it and I know a lot of others who have too. Change the meaning you are giving to the events in your life by changing your beliefs, and you, too, will see your stress melt away like ice cream on a hot summer day.

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 belief free.

Tags: beliefs, BlogDesk, changing beliefs, eliminate beliefs, eliminating beliefs, fear of public speaking, motivation, personal change, personal growth, power of beliefs, produce change, psychotherapy, solving problems

Tags: stress, worry, worrying