Morty Lefkoe » meaning

Does “reality” really exist?

Morty Lefkoe — Wed, 18 Jan 2012 17:33:52 +0000

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If you asked someone, “Do things exist?” the response would probably be, “Of course things exist! The world is full of things. Everyone knows that there is physical stuff out there—that reality is tangible and real!”

But what allows any thing—a hand, a chair, or any other object—to exist? One way to discover the answer is to imagine a specific thing—say, your hand—expanding and expanding until there is nothing in the universe except the hand. What would happen to it? … Really, just take a moment and try this. You’ll be amazed at your experience … You wouldn’t see the hand anymore, would you? Why? … It would disappear because there would be nothing in the universe that was not the hand. This is a very basic concept about reality: In order for any thing to exist, there must also be not that thing.

Consider this for a moment. Can you see that any physical object is bounded by “not that object”? If an object did not have any borders—that is, if it wasn’t surrounded by “not that object”—it couldn’t be distinguished from everything else. In other words, it wouldn’t exist.

The same principle applies to nonmaterial concepts. Love and hate, peace and war, strong and weak, beautiful and ugly—these only exist and have unique attributes because they have been distinguished from each other. For example, the state of war is distinguished from peace by the presence of armed conflict. When there is no armed conflict there is peace. But if peace existed throughout the world all the time, and if the alternative (war) was unimaginable, you wouldn’t be able to distinguish peace. Peace, as a condition distinct from war, couldn’t exist.

A Universe Without Distinctions

Now imagine everything in the universe without any distinctions. It’s all just an undifferentiated whole. Can you see that there is nothing? That’s because in order for anything to exist, it must be distinguished from everything else. If no distinction is made between a specific thing and everything else, there is only an undifferentiated everything—which is another way of saying nothing.

Everything, without any distinctions, is the same as nothing. Take a moment and think about that. Until consciousness has made a distinction, nothing can possibly exist.

Therefore, the world really isn’t the way you perceive it. In fact, it isn’t any way until you perceive it that way—that is, until you distinguish it that way. You don’t even sense what’s “out there” because there’s nothing out there to be sensed. (Nothing, as we’ve seen, however, is the potential for everything before anyTHING is distinguished.) In making distinctions, we use our sensory apparatus (the five senses) as well as our perceptual framework (language, culture, and individual beliefs).

An excellent example of this point comes from a Time magazine cover story on human consciousness.

“A baby born with cataracts—an unusual but not unheard-of condition—and left untreated for as little as six months becomes permanently and irrevocably blind. If a sixty-year-old develops cataracts, an operation can restore full sight. The distinctions most of us make unconsciously and at a glance—foreground vs. background, moving vs. stationary, vertical vs. horizontal, and dozens more—are concepts that the brain has learned. It literally has to wire itself, with neurons growing out to touch and communicate with one another in an ever more sophisticated network of connections. And if those connections are not repeatedly stimulated in the first few months of life, when the brain is still in its formative period, they atrophy and die.” (Emphasis added.)

In other words, moving and stationary or vertical and horizontal are not things “out there.” Rather they are “concepts that the brain has learned” (or distinguished) as a result of having a specific sensory apparatus (and brain), without which they couldn’t be distinguished. That means they literally wouldn’t exist.

In other words, if everyone was born with cataracts (which would be normal if everyone had that condition), our reality would not possess moving and stationary, vertical and horizontal, etc.—despite the fact that we are convinced that these are inherent attributes of reality.

Is There AnyTHING Out There?

Here’s another thought exercise that will help make it clear that what we think is “out there” is largely a function of our perceptual apparatus. Imagine that beings from another galaxy arrived on earth. Imagine further that instead of human eyes they had a different “viewing sense, namely, the equivalent of an electron microscope.” When they viewed our world they might not see the solid objects we see; instead they might see atoms: electrons spinning around protons and neutrons. They might notice that almost all of what they were viewing (the atom) was empty space. So if these creatures were the inhabitants of earth, they might not even have a concept of solid matter.

Imagine further that instead of human ears, these visitors from space had a sense that picked up radio waves but did not hear “sounds” made in their presence.

And finally imagine that they had a sensory mechanism like dolphins, who “see” the echo of sound vibrations they send out.

These aliens would experience and describe a totally different universe than the physical universe we would swear exists all around us.

Our role in creating our reality can be seen in another area. Apart from our perceptual apparatus, our most important tool in making distinctions and creating our reality is language.
As Edward Sapir, a noted anthropologist, has said: “We see and hear and otherwise experience very largely as we do because the language habits of our community predispose certain choices of interpretation.

Language Determines How We Perceive Reality

Language is far more than a tool for communication. With language we categorize, distinguish, and create the universe. Ultimately, we perceive the world consistently with our language. For example, when we think in English, we perceive a world made up primarily of objects: people, trees, and houses. These objects do things or have things done to them using verbs. We literally see everything in the world in this fashion. We don’t perceive “things out there” because there really are things out there. That just happens to be our worldview, because in our language there is a subject, which acts upon an object, which exists independently of the subject. In the English language, independent entities (subjects and objects) are primary, rather than processes or relationships. That’s not true in every language.

As Ralph Strauch points out in his book The Reality Illusion: “Some languages are structured around quite different basic word- categories and relationships. They project very different pictures of the basic nature of reality as a result. The language of the Nootka Indians in the Pacific Northwest, for example, has only one principle word-category; it denotes happenings or events. A verbal form like ‘eventing’ might better describe this word-category, except that such a form doesn’t sound right in English, with its emphasis on noun forms. We might think of Nootka as composed entirely of verbs, except that they take no subjects or objects as English verbs do. The Nootka, then, perceive the world as a stream of transient events, rather than as the collection of more or less permanent objects which we see. Even something which we see clearly as a physical object, like a house, the Nootka perceive of as a long-lived temporal event. The literal English translation of the Nootka concept might be something like ‘housing occurs;’ or ‘it houses.’”

We swear things exist because we distinguish them though our particular perceptual apparatus and through our language. Change those and you dramatically change the world that you think is “out there.” There might not even be any more “things.”

Please leave your comments and questions here about today’s post. I read all posts and answer as many as Ian.

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For information about eliminating 23 of the most common limiting beliefs and conditionings—which cause eight of the most common problems in our lives including a lack of confidence—and get a separate video of the WAIR? Process, please check out: http://recreateyourlife.com/naturalconfidence.

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You are both consciousness AND a “creation”

Morty Lefkoe — Tue, 10 Jan 2012 23:50:01 +0000

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Based on surveys of my blog readers, most of you are primarily interested in changing your “creation”—in other words, you want to improve your daily life by eliminating behavioral and emotional barriers. For example, you want to stop your anxiety and be able to take actions that you are unable to take now.

Some of you, however, seem to be more interested in growing spiritually—in other words, creating an altered state of consciousness in which you experience yourself as the creator of your life.

In fact, both are crucial to a life of happiness and fulfillment. And, I’m proud to say,The Lefkoe Method enables you to work on both at the same time.

You can’t ignore either state

Unfortunately, some people focus solely on spiritual growth, to the exclusion of improving their flesh and blood “creation.” Such people can be said to be “hiding out in spirituality, in their spiritual practice.

Here’s an example of what I mean. I was talking to a new client the other day who told me that she had been meditating and working hard on her “spiritual practice” for over 10 years, and couldn’t understand why she had seen virtually no change in her concern about what others thought about her, her fear of making mistakes, her procrastination, and the negative self-talk that filled her mind almost all the time. What was she doing wrong, she asked me.

I replied that she had neglected a crucial aspect of who she is. You see, many people have experienced a non-dual state of consciousness through meditation and think that all that is “real” is a formless, eternal, consciousness. For them, physical reality and the people named Morty, Joe, etc. are not “real.” As a result, they try to ignore, to the extent possible, “reality.”

Physical reality is “real”

There are several problems with this point of view.

First, how can you expect an improvement in your “creation,” the person who acts and feels, if you ignore it and pretend it doesn’t “really” exist?

Second, it may well be true that consciousness is the source of physical reality, in other words, that physical reality is a manifestation of consciousness. But that fact does not mean that physical reality is not real.

There is an old metaphor that explains this point clearly for me. It is as if consciousness is an ocean. The ocean creates (manifests) individual, specific waves. So there really are specific waves in different locations that are different from other waves, even though each of them comes from and will shortly return to the entire ocean.

Who you ultimately are

So who you ultimately are is formless, non-dual consciousness and, at the present moment, you also have manifested as a specific creation. Moreover, and this is crucial to remember, that creation has specific beliefs and conditionings. They, in turn, determine your behavior and feelings and—by being the primary source of your occurrings—your beliefs also determine your moment-to-moment responses to events.

I remember reading a book by Jack Kornfield, a Buddhist teacher at Spirit Rock near my home in California, who spent many years meditating and following a spiritual path in Thailand and other Far East countries. He wrote how in meditative states he totally transcended his body and dissolved in white light. He spent hundreds of hours in a state in which there was no distinction between the observer and what was observed. And yet, he reported, when he came back to America to teach he had all the same relationships problems he had had before his years of meditation.

This is not to minimize the importance of a spiritual practice. Recognizing that you are the creator of your life—as people experience in the Who Am I Really? (WAIR?) Process that is part of the Lefkoe Belief Process—provides an invaluable context to living as a creation.

Recognize you are both consciousness and a creation

So what should you do to live your best life possible? Recognize you are both the creator of your life (consciousness) and a creation (the person reading this post). And because you are both, work on both. Continue to eliminate the beliefs and conditionings that determine your behavior and feelings, and also learn to stop giving meaning to daily events, which will give you the ability to create your experience of life, moment by moment.

And find some spiritual practice, be it meditation, putting yourself in the “creator state” (an altered state of consciousness you can enter by using the WAIR? Process), or whatever else you choose. In that altered state you are able to get a valuable perspective on your life as a creation that cannot be obtained merely by working on the creation.

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Why you should be concerned about your beliefs

Morty Lefkoe — Thu, 05 Jan 2012 00:21:41 +0000

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If you have read any of the writings of the top self-help experts during the past 10 years—such as Deepak Chopra, Jack Canfield, or Joe Vitale—you’ve learned that permanent change is impossible without eliminating the beliefs that are keeping you stuck.

I agree; beliefs do have that power. But why? What gives our beliefs the power they have to determine our behavior and feelings?

There are two reasons why beliefs have the power they have—one is obvious, the other more subtle.

Our beliefs about reality ARE our reality

First, a belief is a statement about people, reality, or ourselves that feels like the truth to us. Although you might think that you would consciously agree with what you believe, in fact, it is possible to consciously disagree with something you believe.

For example, you can know intellectually that mistakes are good learning experiences and still believe that mistakes are bad. If you have that belief, you would be afraid of trying new things or allowing others to know about your mistakes, even if you consciously think that mistakes are not bad at all.

Because most of us usually act consistently with reality, we act consistently with what we think reality is, not with what reality actually is. In other words, if we believe I’m not good enough, People can’t be trusted, or Life is difficult (none of which are true)—then we will deal with reality as if these statements are the truth. As a result, they will determine what we do and how we feel.

To use one simple example, if you believe I’m not loveable, Relationships don’t work, and Men/women can’t be trusted—if that is your reality—you have virtually no chance of having a nurturing, loving long-term relationship. Get rid of those and other related beliefs and you’ve changed your reality. At which point the possibility of a nurturing, loving long-term relationships becomes possible.

Because we view reality through the filter of our beliefs, which color our perceptions, long-term fundamental change requires eliminating the beliefs that limit us. Yes, it sometimes is possible to use will power to act against our beliefs in the short run, but ultimately we will act consistently with the way we view reality.

Beliefs are the primary source of our “occurrings”

There is a second way in which beliefs determine our lives: by influencing our moment-to-moment reactions.

For about 25 years I thought that beliefs affected our behavior and feelings directly, as explained above. To some extent I still think that is true. But a couple of years ago I realized that our moment-to-moment actions and feelings are determined primarily by the meaning we unconsciously and automatically give reality, in other words, how reality occurs to us—not by what actually happens in reality.

For example, imagine a friend of yours walks in a room that you are in, notices you, and doesn’t talk to you. Most people would think: My friend is angry with me. This would be so real that most people would say to someone with them: Don’t you see that my friend is angry with me?

But all that actually happened is the friend noticed you and didn’t talk to you. That event could occur to you as: He is angry with me. And because you deal with reality based on how it occurs to you—which you are convinced is what actually happened—you would respond to your friend as if he really is angry with you. Even though his anger exists only in your mind, not in reality.

We are constantly giving meaning to events. We do it 20-40 times a day. And we are hardly ever aware of it. So our “occurrings” run our lives. And what is the relationship between our occurrings and our beliefs? Our beliefs are the primary determinant of how reality occurs to us.

The meaning we give events, which have no inherent meaning, is determined largely by our beliefs, although our moods and physical condition also play a role.

Thus our beliefs determine our lives in two ways: directly, because they are what we think reality actually is and, indirectly, by significantly influencing our occurrings, which have the biggest impact on our moment-to-moment reactions.

The bad news and the good news

As a result, the bad news is: long-term fundamental behavioral and emotional change is virtually impossible without eliminating the limiting beliefs that are running your life. The good news is: You can make massive positive changes in your life—such as taking actions you were afraid to take and ridding yourself of such negative feelings as anxiety and anger—by eliminating your limiting beliefs.

It might well be that getting rid of a bunch of limiting beliefs is the best way to reduce the negative and increase the positive in your life in 2012.

Please leave your comments and questions here about today’s post. I read all posts and answer as many as I can.

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Stop being run by your feelings

Morty Lefkoe — Wed, 21 Dec 2011 00:36:34 +0000

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At one point or another, everyone has uttered the words: “I am happy.” And: “I am upset.”

Notice what happens when you say: “I am [something].” You are describing yourself. Any words that follow the statement “I am” is your description of yourself.

Moreover, when we say, “I am [something],” it feels as if we really are that “something.” It feels as if our entire being is happy, or upset, or anxious, or any other emotion we say we are.

But is that really who we are?

Most readers of my weekly blog have eliminated at least one belief using the Lefkoe Belief Process (see http://recreateyourlife.com) where they discovered that they are not merely a “creation,” who has beliefs and feelings and who takes action, they also are the creator of that creation.

Although the creation you think you are is comprised of your beliefs and feelings and what you do, the consciousness you really are is whole and complete, for whom anything is possible and nothing is missing.

Thus, it actually is more accurate to say: My creation has feelings, but I am not my feelings. My creation has beliefs, but I am not my beliefs. My creation takes action, but I am not what I do.

This is not merely semantics

When you experience that you are your feelings, you are totally at the effect of them. They seem to pervade your entire being and there seems to be no escape from them.

When you experience that you have feelings, but they are not who you are, you make a clear distinction between “you” and “your feelings.” That enables you to get some perspective on the feelings and to place your SELF outside the feelings, so that you are no longer at their effect.

How do you do that? There is a simple way to experience that you have feelings, but are not your feelings. I’m not talking about an affirmation, where you try to convince yourself of something you don’t really believe. I’m talking about experiencing the truth of the statement.

First, use the Who Am I Really? Process, which comes at the end of the LBP, several times. You can get a link to the WAIR? Process at http://d3n3f57qjh51zc.cloudfront.net/who-am-i-really-new.mp3.

Then, when you start having some negative feelings and you notice that you are at the effect of them, remind yourself what you experienced in the WAIR? Process: “I am the creator of my life, not merely a creation.” And then remind yourself of the experience you will already have had: “I have feelings; I am not my feelings.”

When you do that, notice how the intensity of the feeling diminishes and how the feeling starts to lose its grip on you.

Try it and let me know your experience. I promise it will transform the way you experience your feelings.

Please leave your comments and questions here about today’s post. I read all posts and answer as many as I can.

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How beliefs have caused a crisis in education

Morty Lefkoe — Wed, 16 Nov 2011 22:47:28 +0000

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Few institutions in our society are subject to as much passion, dissent, and, ultimately, paralysis as education. What is the source of the crisis in education and why does it seem to be so difficult to resolve?

As readers of this blog you won’t be surprised that my answer to both these questions is beliefs. Whenever you discover dysfunctional behavior—in individuals, organizations, or institutions—you will find beliefs at the source.

To understand the role of beliefs in creating the current crisis in education, let’s look at one widely accepted belief about what education should do: The primary purpose of education is to impart a prescribed amount of information about specific subjects.

As a result of that belief, we have federal, state and local programs designed to insure that students achieve a minimum level of proficiency (in other words, a minimum amount of information acquired) according to standardized tests. We rank our country compared to other countries based on scores on standardized tests that measure this.

What happened that initially led most people to accept the belief that a good education can be measured by the amount of information acquired? To answer, we must go back in time.

Compulsory education

When compulsory education was initiated in America over a century ago, its purpose was to prepare people to work in factories. Workers needed to read and write and be able to follow instructions. What a person knew about the world remained true during a lifetime of forty-some years. The amount of new knowledge produced during adult life was minimal. It wasn’t particularly important that one learn how to think independently or creatively.

Given such an environment, it made sense to conclude that there was a certain amount of information needed to succeed in life and that the function of school was to provide that information. The belief about the importance of learning a certain amount of information while in school was not wrong when it was formed. It made perfect sense and was totally appropriate, given the circumstances. It was the logical outcome of looking at the world as it existed when the belief was formed.

In today’s world, however, “facts” are in a constant state of change.

The amount of new knowledge produced every few years is greater than all the accumulated knowledge to date. The ability to succeed in the business world today (forget succeed—the ability even to get hired!) depends not so much on the quantity of information you know and how well you can follow orders but on your ability to think and act on your own. As Alvin Toffler put it, “The illiterate of the future are not those that cannot read or write, but those that cannot learn, unlearn, and relearn.”

Today, people are not only changing jobs several times during their work lives; many of them are changing careers several times. Moreover, it has become increasingly clear that a satisfying life consists of more than business success. It requires a good sense of yourself, the ability to relate well to others, a positive sense of oneself, and lots more.

We need a new set of beliefs about education

The proposal for national standards to measure how much information has been learned in school is consistent with the existing beliefs about what education should be, but those beliefs are no longer appropriate. We need schools that operate consistently with a new sets of beliefs that are appropriate for today, one that opens the possibility for new educational strategies. There are some schools providing what is needed, but by definition they are “alternative” schools, operating outside the prevailing set of beliefs.

Let’s consider the difference between the “current” set of beliefs and a possible new one that is more appropriate for our time.

Compare the strategies resulting from different beliefs

Notice that the beliefs constituting the existing paradigm generate questions and strategies about how to achieve norms, obedience, and correct answers. The new beliefs lead to questions and strategies about how to motivate for lifelong learning, how to strengthen self-discipline, how to awaken curiosity, and how to encourage creative risk-taking in people of all ages.

Ron Miller, author of What Are Schools For?, describes the essence of this new paradigm:

Holistic educators recognize that all aspects of life are interconnected. They contend that education must be concerned with the physical, emotional, social, aesthetic/creative, and spiritual qualities of every person, as well as traditionally emphasized intellectual and vocational skills…. In our culture, education is implicitly equated with the transmission of information, particularly through written sources. But holistic educators have, for two centuries, asserted that education is an active engagement between a person and a vastly complex world. Holistic education emphasizes experience, not “Great Books” or a few “basic skills.” … Why limit students to a curriculum of academic subjects when the entire cosmos is at hand? Education, as John Dewey so eloquently argued, must not be seen as “preparation” for life—it is life! Education is growth, discovery, and a widening of horizons. This is just the opposite of traditional educational goals—discipline, order, high test scores—that aim to prepare children for the limited world which the adult generation has created.

If this description of an alternative model for education makes sense given today’s world, what educational strategies might we use to improve the educational system? We might focus on learning how to ask the right questions and how to think, rather than on dry facts that are not seen as relevant to one’s life. We might give students more responsibility for their own learning. We might use more learning experiences outside the classroom. We might relate the information that is taught to each student’s daily life. We might blend information from different areas together into core curricula so that students learn math when they study art and grammar when they study drama.

Strategies already exist that could solve most of today’s educational problems. What’s missing are the beliefs that would allow us to accept those strategies.

Please leave your comments and questions here about today’s post. I read them all and answer as many as I can.

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

For information about eliminating 23 of the most common limiting beliefs and conditionings, which cause eight of the most common problems in our lives including a lack of confidence, and get a separate video of the WAIR? Process, please check out: http://recreateyourlife.com/naturalconfidence.

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

Is it “real” or only our meaning?

Morty Lefkoe — Tue, 25 Oct 2011 22:47:51 +0000

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We are in the process of creating a new online program specifically for people who experience a lot of stress. As part of my research I attended a lecture on stress in San Francisco last week delivered by Dr. Sian Bieland, a University of Chicago professor.

Dr. Bieland explained to the U of C alumni audience how “stressful situations” make us “choke.” She described how stress affects us and then offered us a few tips on how to alleviate or overcome stress when we experience it in business or in sports.

As I listened I had the thought: Most psychologists and personal growth gurus assume that problems (such as stressful situations) really exist “out there,” “in the world,” and then offer solutions to deal with them. I have a real problem with that approach because I don’t think that many of the so-called problems exist independent of us. (See my post, “How To Change ‘Human Nature’,” which deals with a similar topic, http://www.mortylefkoe.com/change-human-nature/#)

In other words, if there were such a thing as a stressful situation, then it would be very useful to learn how to deal with it effectively. But I contend there is no such thing as a stressful situation. Situations, as such, have no inherent meaning. And meaningless events can’t make us feel stress or anything else.

The stress we experience is the result of the meaning we give to events, not the events themselves. Change the meaning and the stress disappears.

Here are a few examples of how we attribute meaning

Assume your business fails and you have to declare bankruptcy. Most people would agree that that is a stressful situation. If you give the bankruptcy the meaning that you failed, that it means something bad about you, that you will never be able to earn enough money to support yourself and your family, etc.—then that meaning will cause considerable stress. On the other hand, if you have read the life stories of successful people (in business and other fields of endeavor) and know that most of them attribute their success today to the lessons they learned through “failure” earlier in life, your bankruptcy would occur to you as a valuable learning lesson. And if you assigned the event this meaning, you would not experience stress. Many years ago my wife Shelly and I experienced bankruptcy and foreclosure on our home. Shelly experienced tremendous fear and stress, because she gave the events the meaning I described above. I experienced no stress whatsoever, because the events occurred to me as learning opportunities.

Here’s another example: In a recent Lefkoe Occurring Course one of the participants told us how he had helped some friends whose house had burned down, destroying virtually all their possessions. The friends were devastated. But after the people whose house burned down talked for a while to their friend (who was learning how to stop giving meaning to events in our course) they realized that they had always wanted to live out of the United States, they had an idea for a new business they had always wanted to start, etc. By the time the conversation was over the couple was excited about all the possibilities they had identified and were no longer upset about the destruction of their home.

One more story: Another student in an Occurring Course wrote about how she dealt with her daughter being taken to the hospital in a lot of pain. The doctors initially had no idea what was wrong with her, so they had to give her a lot of tests. The mother kept thinking to herself, “My daughter’s pain doesn’t mean anything. It doesn’t mean she is going to die, or even that she is very sick.” When the doctors came in after many hours to tell her that her daughter would be fine, she realized that not giving her daughter’s condition any meaning enabled her to stay present with her daughter and help calm her down, rather than be hysterical as she would have been had she given negative meaning as she would have in the past.

For people who have never experienced that events have no inherent meaning, stories like these can be difficult to believe, and yet that is how life occurs to me every day and to many others who have learned how to stop giving meaning to events.

Back to my original point: Wouldn’t it be better to learn how to dissolve (or not even experience) stress than to learn how to cope with it while being overwhelmed by it?

Meaning we make up is the source of most relationship difficulties

Stress is not the only type of emotion that is the result of meaning. Almost all upsets and arguments are the result of the meaning we give the other person’s behavior.

There are many psychotherapists and relationship experts who offer excellent advice on how to minimize arguments and deal more effectively with them when they occur. But if upsets and arguments are the result of the meaning you give the behavior of others, and you can dissolve that meaning, then upsets and arguments are no longer inevitable. I’ve eliminated about 95% of them from my life since I learned to stop giving meaning to what my wife Shelly and my two daughters do and say.

Here’s a description of how someone in my last Occurring Course changed the meaning he gave some events and totally shifted his reaction to loved ones.

“On Sunday evening, I tried to call my daughter, but I got her voice mail. I tried to call my girlfriend, and I got her voice mail. I tried to call my son and I got his voice mail. It occurred to me that everyone else was somewhere having fun and I was not and that they were so busy having a good time that they didn’t have time to talk to me. I quickly noticed that it was not the truth, just my interpretation. It caused me to smile to myself as I noticed how I had made it mean that they didn’t want to talk to me. [As soon as I made that distinction] the bad feeling was gone. “

What a difference a little bit of meaning makes!

My tip of the week

Before you look for a solution to a problem that seems to exist “out there,” check and see if it really exists independently of you or whether the meaning you have given events in the world created the problem to begin with. If so, then dissolve the meaning that is causing the problem by realizing that there is a crucial difference between what actually happens in reality and the meaning you give those events that exists only in your mind. When you’ve done that, the meaning will dissolve along with the problem that the meaning had caused.

Please leave your comments and questions about dissolving problems we created to begin with, instead of coping with or handling problems that appear to be in the world.

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Why Do We Need To Create Meaning?

Morty Lefkoe — Tue, 19 Jul 2011 23:48:06 +0000

Why do we usually make up a meaning for events that have no inherent meaning? And how does that automatic, unconscious meaning-making process create problems for us?

Why we need to create meaning

As a human being, your survival is conditional—it is not guaranteed. In other words, there are some things that help insure your survival and some things that threaten your survival. As a very young child, having loving, caring parents makes us feel our survival is insured; having parents who do not love or care about us (or who we feel do not love or care about us) makes us feel our survival is threatened. As an adult having someone on a dark street stick a gun in your face and demand your money makes you feel as if your survival is threatened.

Human beings seem to have a hard-wired “meaning making” mechanism that judges almost everything: conducive to my survival or inimical to my survival—for me or against me. One of the first words that children learn, and then repeat incessantly, is “why.” We need to understand what is happening and why so we can better judge the effect it might have on our lives.

The need to discover an event’s probable impact on us leads us to look for the meaning in events that have no inherent meaning. As I’ve explained in earlier posts and as is clear to anyone who has eliminated at least one belief using the Lefkoe Belief Process, no event has an inherent meaning because any event could have a multitude of meanings and you can’t ever draw any conclusions, for sure, from any event. Meaning exists only in the mind, not in the world.

For example, if parents get angry when their children didn’t meet their expectations, most children will assign such behavior the meaning that they aren’t good enough. In fact, however, the fact that parents are angry at their child tells you nothing for certain about their child. As a result, you can’t know anything for certain about a child from the fact that his parents frequently got angry at him. In other words, the events involving the parents and children have no inherent meaning.

We create two different types of meaning

There are two fundamental types of meaning we give to events:

The first type is the meaning we give to a pattern of events, such as mom and dad being busy a lot of the time (leading to: I’m not important) or mom and dad arguing a lot and getting divorced (leading to: Relationships don’t work). These meanings become beliefs, which are generalized statements about ourselves, people and life that stay with us forever unless we find some way to eliminate the belief. Such beliefs are often variations of “I am …, or “People are …, or “Life is ….” Beliefs are statements about reality that we feel are “the truth,” thereby determining our behavior.

The second type is the meaning we give to specific events, both external (events in the world) or internal (such as thoughts, feelings, memories, physical sensations, etc.). These meanings last only as long as our focus on an event lasts. Like beliefs, such meanings are created unconsciously and automatically. The meaning we give this type of event determines how it “occurs” for us. Most of us most of the time never distinguish between actual events and how the events occur to us. We think the latter is real and therefore we deal with the “occurring” as if it is the actual reality.

In other words, if a friend walks into a room and doesn’t speak to us, and this event occurs to us as: my friend doesn’t like me, it seems to us as if the reality is my friend doesn’t like me. At which point we deal with this person as if he really doesn’t like me, when all we know for sure is that when he walked into the room he did not talk to us. In other words, because we usually don’t distinguish between an event and the meaning we give the event, we deal with the meaning as if it is what actually happened.

Ultimately, both types of meanings (beliefs and our occurrings) get substituted for reality in our mind and we don’t deal with what really is. In other words, we think our beliefs and occurrings are “the truth.”

Getting rid of these meanings

When you eliminate beliefs, you create new possibilities in your life because “your reality” has changed. The filters through which you view reality are gone. Barriers to action, such as procrastination and anxiety, have been permanently eliminated.

When you dissolve the meaning/occurring you give events moment by moment, you are better able to deal with the situation (if it needs dealing with) because you are clear on the difference between the event to be dealt with and the meaning that exists only in your mind. So you are able to see more possibilities for solving a problem. Moreover, because meaningless events cannot cause feelings, most of our negative emotions, such as anxiety and anger, come from the meaning you give events. By dissolving the meaning, you simultaneously dissolve the negative feelings.

Dissolve beliefs and occurrings by making a distinction

As I pointed out in an earlier blog post, we think our beliefs and the meaning we give events moment by moment are true because of a distinction we failed to make earlier, namely between the event(s) and the meaning we assign the event(s). Therefore, the way to eliminate or dissolve beliefs and current meanings is to make the distinction we did not make earlier. When we are able to make that distinction, the belief and the current meaning/occurring disappear.

When people are told they can eliminate beliefs, some respond: But won’t that force me to do things that might be dangerous, for example, if I eliminate the belief life is dangerous, won’t that make me oblivious to some real dangers. The answer is no. Eliminating beliefs does not make you do anything. It only offers new possibilities, from which you can freely choose.

A similar thing happens when I tell people that they can learn to stop giving meaning to events. One person asked: Won’t that lead to people becoming sociopaths? What he meant was: if your have no feelings, won’t you stop caring about other people? Won’t you lose all sense of morality? Again, the answer is no.

Not giving an arbitrary meaning to moment-to-moment events does not affect your values at all. You can still value human life and have a desire to alleviate the suffering of others.

In addition, you do not need meaning to get you to take action. If you lose your job, you don’t need to assume it means that you will not be able to pay your bills, that you will lose your home, that you will never get another job, etc. in order to start looking for a new job. In fact, you will be better able to create strategies for finding a new job if you are not overwhelmed with the fear that would result from such occurrings.

How can I decide what to do without any meaning?

But if nature built a meaning-making mechanism into us because we need to know if what we encounter in reality is conducive to or threatens our survival, how will we be able to survive if we stop making meaning?

There is a significant difference between making reasonable assumptions that we know are assumptions and that we continually check for accuracy, and unknowingly giving meaning to an event and then thinking that the way the event occurred to us is what actually happened. We can never be better off by being blind to what actually is.

Automatic meaning-making might be useful in a world where real danger lurks beneath every bush, where a saber-tooth tiger might jump out at you at any moment. In such a world, we need to automatically give meaning to events and respond without conscious thought. We are better being safe than sorry and assuming the worst will probably save our lives at some point.

But we no longer live in a world where we need automatic, unconscious meaning. In virtually every situation we have the time to carefully think about events and consciously determine their most likely meaning—all the while realizing that our consciously-created meanings are provisional and need to be checked for usefulness from time to time. We know they are our best guesses at that time and do not mistake them for the truth.

In today’s modern world, thinking your beliefs and occurrings are “the truth” can never be useful. So eliminate your limiting beliefs and learn how to stop automatically giving meaning to current events. You’ll be surprised at how much happier and more successful you will become.

What do you think about our biological need to create meaning and how not giving meaning to events enables us to have a better life? I’d love to read your comments and questions.

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.

Change your life by changing your brain

Morty Lefkoe — Tue, 28 Jun 2011 23:33:32 +0000

Most of the time we are only interested in attaining results and we don’t really care about detailed explanations for how we got those results. But sometimes knowing precisely how we achieved specific results enables us to have more control over producing those results consistently. I think I’ve just figured out how one of my processes works as well as it does.

I’ve told you on several occasions how most of us don’t make a distinction between reality and the meaning we give it, and then deal with the meaning (that exists only in our mind) instead of what is actually happening in the world.

A simple example is someone you know walking in a room and not saying hello to you. That is all that actually happened. But most of us would give it a meaning like, he is angry with me or she doesn’t like me any more. And here’s the real problem: we think that the meaning actually occurred, as if we can see it, when, in fact, it’s only in our mind.

I’ve explained to you that the Lefkoe Occurring Process (LOP) enables us to make a clear distinction between the reality and the meaning, and then quickly and easily to dissolve the meaning, so we can clearly see and deal with the events/reality.

The new field of neuroplasticity

I’ve never known how the LOP worked; I only knew that it did. After learning about a intriguing new area of science called brain plasticity I think I now understand how the LOP works so well.

Until the past 20 years or so, most scientists were convinced that the brain developed for the first few years of life, growing new connections and then stopped and could no longer be changed. In a fascinating book, The Brain That Changes Itself, Norman Doidge, M.D., points out: “The common wisdom was that after childhood the brain changed only when it began the long process of decline; that when brain cells failed to develop property, or were injured, or died, they could not be replaced.

He tells of meeting scientists who in the past few decades had made “a series of unexpected discoveries. They showed that the brain changed its very structure with each different activity it performed, perfecting its circuit so it was better suited to the task at hand. … They began to call this fundamental brain property “neuroplasticity.”

At this point Doidge’s book gets really exciting because it enabled me to create a theory as to why the LOP works so well. Doidge discusses the work of Donald O. Hebb, a Canadian behavioral psychologist, who in 1949 proposed “that when two neurons fire at the same time repeatedly (or when one fires, causing another to fire), chemical changes occur in both, so that the two tend to connect more strongly. Hebb’s concept—actually proposed by Freud sixty years before—was neatly summarized by neuroscientist Carla Shatz: ‘Neurons that fire together wire together.’ Hebb’s theory thus argued that neuronal structure can be altered by experience.” (Emphasis added.)

How the LOP actually changes how the brain works

In other words, I suspect that there are parts of the brain that add meaning to events and that our perceptions of the world normally pass though those parts of the brain. By repeatedly dissolving the meaning we have given events, we are able to create a new neural circuit in the brain that bypasses those parts of the brain so that we are able to view our perception of events without meaning.

Many of the people in my Lefkoe Occurring Courses (including me) are able by the end of the course to stop giving meaning to most events and are able to dissolve any meaning we do give in a matter of moments. How did we achieve that result? We practiced dissolving the meaning we had automatically given to events hundreds of times. Somehow that repetition created a new circuit that bypassed the meaning-giving part of the brain.

I am excited about finding some neuroscientists who I can partner with to check the brains of a bunch of people before taking my Occurring Course and then again after, so we can see exactly what changes in the brain and where. (I’d also love to see what changes in the brain at the moment a belief is permanently eliminated!)

If you’d like to learn more about the upcoming Lefkoe Occurring Course, please go to http://occurringcourse.com.

Dissolving meaning enables unconditional love

Parenthetically, when I tell people that with practice they can stop giving meaning to most events, I am often asked: But what about positive emotions, like love? If you don’t give meaning to what people do, won’t you stop loving them?

Actually, just the opposite is true. Many of us want to give our family unconditional love, but even when we intend to do that, the meaning we give our spouse’s, our parents’, and our children’s behavior often leads to annoyance, frustration and even anger. At that moment we are not experiencing or expressing unconditional love, even if we intend to express unconditional love. When we are angry at someone our love is experienced as conditioned on them not doing the type of things they are doing at that moment, which we are annoyed or angry with.

But when you have laid down new neural pathways that bypass meaning, you are actually able to love unconditionally. My wife Shelly has remarked that in the past year or so (since just after I started offering the Lefkoe Occurring Course, which I took as a participant in the beginning) she has experienced a whole new level of love from me. I don’t think I love her any more, but I no longer get annoyed at little things she does and says, so I am able to express and she is able to experience my unconditional love. The same is true with my two daughters.

For information about how to create love “for no reason,” please see my blog post, http://www.mortylefkoe.com/012610.

What do you think about neuroplasticity? What do you think about my claim that by not giving meaning to the behavior of your loved ones you are able to express unconditional love? I’d love to read your comments and questions.

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.

How Making Distinctions Can Change Your Life

Morty Lefkoe — Wed, 22 Jun 2011 23:37:35 +0000

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.

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.

Are You Happy With Who You Turned Out To Be?

Morty Lefkoe — Tue, 17 May 2011 19:36:38 +0000

For most of my life I didn’t want to be me. I was so unhappy with my life that being almost anyone else would have been preferable to being me. For many years I wanted to be Fred Astaire, because I loved the joyful, bright sense of life he projected, an experience that I rarely felt.

Today is my birthday and I am 74 years young. I feel and look at least a decade younger than my chronological age. And today I am happy to be me and wouldn’t consider being anyone else.

What is the source of this dramatic shift?

Getting rid of all the beliefs and conditionings that led me to be depressed and unhappy most of the time. And then learning how to stop giving meaning to the daily events in my life. Today I experience myself as the creator of my life almost all the time and I’ve stopped giving meaning to events most of the time, which has almost totally eliminated stress from my life. I’ve stopped seeking; I know I’m already there. I feel anything is possible and that I have no limitations. I experience virtually all my circumstances as okay just the way they are.

Why am sharing this with you?

Because what I did to reach this state is available to you too. Anyone (including you, yes, even you!) can experience a sense of wholeness, feeling totally okay with the way you are, and that you are the creator of your life. It doesn’t have to take a lot of time and it isn’t very expensive.

Please don’t give up your dream of a life of joy and success. I was about as low as you can get and I’ve now reached a state of total satisfaction with my life. You can too. Don’t wait until your 74^th birthday to be truly happy with your life.

I’d love to hear from you with your thoughts about overcoming all your barriers and living a life of true bliss. Please write your comments below.

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.

How You Can Eliminate Beliefs For Good

Morty Lefkoe — Tue, 22 Mar 2011 22:32:17 +0000

Most of the techniques that proclaim to permanently eliminate long-held beliefs don’t work. Why? And what do the successful techniques do that make them successful?

In order to understand precisely what it takes to get rid of beliefs, you need to understand how we form beliefs.

Because our survival as human beings is always at stake (even though our spiritual being is eternal), we have a built in survival mechanism that has us constantly asking about everything we encounter: Good for me or bad for me? Conducive to my survival or inimical to my survival? In other words, we are constantly appraising everything we come in contact with and asking (unconsciously): What does this mean?

As children we want to know why mom and dad (on whom our lives depend) are angry with us, or why they aren’t around when we want them, or why we can never seem to please them. For most kids between the ages of two and six, the answers to these three questions usually are: Mistakes and failure are bad. I’m not important. I’m not good enough.

Here’s how the beliefs are formed

After asking ourselves: What do these events mean?—we then “make up” one possible meaning. And then we “attribute” that meaning to the events, after which it seems as if the meaning is inherent in the events. In other words, it then seems to us as if we discovered the meaning in the events.

Because the overwhelming majority of people are “visual”—in other words, they know reality based on what they can “see”—they know their beliefs are true because they think they can see them in the world. Once you think you can see something, logic will never talk you out of what you think you have seen “out there.”

Let’s apply what I’ve just explained about how beliefs are formed to the most common belief people have, I’m not good enough. Mom and dad want quiet. Young kids are rarely quiet. Mom and dad want the house to be neat. Kids are rarely neat. Mom and dad want to serve dinner when it’s ready and leave the house when they are ready to leave the house. Kids are busy playing and doing what they want to do; mealtime and leaving the house are not always a priority for them. As a result, many times each day children do not live up to their parents’ expectations.

At best parents respond with annoyance and frustration, expressed in facial expressions, a tone of voice, and comments like: “What’s wrong with you?” “How many times do I have to tell you?” “Don’t you ever listen?” (At worst, parents use physical abuse and other punishments.)

When a child asks herself, what does it mean that she is not doing what her parents want repeatedly and what do her parents’ responses mean, the answer 99% of all children give is: I’m not good enough. (My associates and I have talked to well over 13,000 clients who have told us this.)

If she actually were not good enough, her parents’ responses to her behavior would make sense. In other words, this belief is a reasonable interpretation of mom and dad’s response to her when she is a very young child.

Here is the important part: Once she gives this meaning to the events, it seems to her as if her meaning (her belief) is inherent in the events—as if when she looks at the events she is discovering the meaning “out there” in the world. Once that happens, her belief about the way the world is becomes an entrenched “fact.”

Most of the techniques designed to get rid of beliefs never deal with how the belief got formed and what a belief actually is: A statement about reality that it seems you saw in reality. And because you think you saw your beliefs, you will hold on to them—despite understanding logically that the belief isn’t true and despite understanding that it is self-defeating to continue to hold on to the belief. It is virtually impossible to not believe something you think you “saw.”

How to get rid of the belief

So how can you eliminate the belief quickly, easily, and permanently? Here are the simple steps.

Take a look at a given belief and realize it is one “valid” interpretation of your experiences. And then realize that there are other possible interpretations that hadn’t occurred to you at the time you formed the belief, but, nevertheless, could just as easily account for the events. At which point you realize your belief is “a truth” and not “the truth.”

Then the crucial part comes: Put yourself back into the events that led to the belief and, as you look at them, ask yourself: Doesn’t it seem as if I can “see” [the belief]? The answer for visual people will always be: “Yes. And you would have seen it too if you had been there.”

Then ask yourself: Did I really “see” it? Because if you really saw it, you would be able to describe it: color, shape, location, etc. When you realize that you can’t describe it, you immediately realize that, in fact, you never really “saw” the belief. You only saw events, but the meaning of the events—in other works, the beliefs you formed about the events—existed only in your mind.

At this point, for most visual people, the belief is gone. It existed and resisted being extinguished because you thought you had seen it. As soon as you realize you never saw it, that it existed only in your mind, it is no longer something you thought you discovered and saw in the world; it is only one interpretation of many possible interpretations that has existed only in your mind.

As the final clincher, ask yourself if the events that led to the formation of the belief have any inherent meaning. Did they have any meaning before you give them a meaning? By that I mean, can you draw any conclusion for sure from these events? You will quickly realize that the events that led to your belief have many different possible meanings; there is no one meaning that is inherently true. So, while the events might have had consequences at the time they happened, they have no inherent meaning. Any meaning exists only in your mind, not in the world.

At that point, for predominantly visual people, the belief is permanently gone.

Emotionally kinesthetic people are slightly different

The scenario is slightly different for those people who are not visual, who are primarily emotionally kinesthetic. If you are one of these people, you don’t know reality primarily based on what you see, but based on what you feel. If you feel something a lot, it must be true. Why would you be having a feeling over and over if there weren’t something in the world causing it?

These people—when asked: Didn’t it seem as if you saw [your belief]?—answer: “I don’t know what you mean by seeing it; I felt it.”

Here’s how to get rid of a belief if this describes how you function. Ask yourself if the events that caused the belief made you feel [the words of the belief]. The answer will be, yes

Then remind yourself that you had said earlier that the events had no inherent meaning and ask yourself: Is it possible for events that have no inherent meaning to make you feel anything? The answer, of course, is no. So if the events that seemed to have caused the feeling didn’t cause the feeling, what did?

The answer is simple: the meaning you had previously given the events. In other words, the feeling is the result of the belief you had formed. If you had given the events a different meaning, that different meaning would have produced a different feeling. The way to prove this is to imagine the earlier events, observing them as a participant, and then giving the events one of the alternative interpretations you had given the events earlier in the process.

When you do that the “feeling of the belief” is gone.

It becomes clear that having the feeling of the belief repeatedly tells you nothing about the validity of the feeling, because the feeling was not caused by events in the world. It was caused totally by you, by the meaning you already had given the events.

When you say the words of the belief at that point, they will sound meaningless and silly. The belief will be gone.

To summarize: Beliefs are statements about reality that we feel are the truth, that are facts about the world. We are convinced our beliefs are true because we think we saw them in the world and because we felt them so often that they must be true (or else why would we have felt them so often?). Once we realize we never saw the beliefs in the world, that they were only in our mind, and that the feelings we had repeatedly were only because of meanings we gave meaningless events—the beliefs will be gone forever.

Getting rid of beliefs quickly, easily, and permanently is actually very easy when you understand how beliefs are formed and what it takes to eliminate a belief. And now you understand that.

We are in the process of creating an on-line training where you can become proficient in each of the steps of the Lefkoe Belief Process for eliminating beliefs. If you are interested in receiving advance notification, please let me know.

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Increase Your Happiness With One Distinction

Morty Lefkoe — Tue, 01 Feb 2011 22:41:32 +0000

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

Do you know the difference between beliefs and occurrings? They are totally different phenomena. And you need to be able to eliminate both of them to have a truly satisfying life.

Do you usually make a distinction between reality and how reality occurs for you?
Very few people even realize there is a difference between the two, which leads them to deal with a “reality” that exists only in their mind.

Do you know why the ability to make that distinction is crucial to having a truly happy life? Most people have no idea.

I was preparing a handout for the new Lefkoe Occurring Course starting February 1 that discussed these three issues and I realized that the information in the handout would be useful to all the readers of my blog. So I am reprinting most of the handout below.

Definitions

Reality: What actually happens in the world. What you know through your five senses, especially what you can see or hear. What you would capture on a video recording.

Occurring: The meaning you give to events in reality. Usually we don’t distinguish between reality and how reality occurs for us (our occurring), so we think the meaning we give reality IS reality. For example, losing our job is a fact in reality, that it is a disaster or a great opportunity are two possible ways the event can occur for you. You can “see” that you no longer have a job. You can’t “see” that the job loss is a disaster or an opportunity.

No meaning: Events in reality have no inherent meaning. In other words, you can’t draw any inferences or make any predictions, for sure, as a result of observing any events. When you do the Lefkoe Belief Process you experience clearly that mom’s and dad’s behavior had no inherent meaning, that the way they treated you meant nothing about you.

Distinctions

The difference between a belief and an occurring and why that difference is important: Beliefs are the meaning we give to a series of events. The meaning usually is a statement about ourselves, people or life. A belief is a statement about reality that we feel and act is the truth (it is possible to intellectually disagree with something we believe). Beliefs are generalizations, for example, I am …. People are …. Life is …. Once formed, beliefs continue to exist and affect our behavior, feelings and perceptions forever, unless we are able to eliminate the belief.

Our occurrings are the meaning we give to a specific event. Each occurring is a distinct experience that usually lasts only a short time and then fades away by itself when we stop thinking about the event. An example of an occurring is your boss asking you a question and it occurring to you as she doesn’t trust you or she doesn’t like you or you’re going to get fired. That is the meaning you have given to the boss’s question. In reality all that happened is that she asked you a question.

Your long-standing beliefs are not occurrings. Occurrings require, by definition, an event. An occurring is how an event occurs for you. If there is no event, there is no occurring.

So beliefs and occurrings are two totally different phenomena. There is a relationship between them, however, in that beliefs are the major source of our occurrings. In other words, how a meaningless event occurs for us is determined mainly by our beliefs. Change your beliefs and how events show up for you will be different. For example, if you believe, People are stupid, they will occur for you that way. Eliminate that belief and your occurring probably will change.

But because each is a distinct phenomenon, it is possible to dissolve an occurring without eliminating any beliefs. If you don’t eliminate the beliefs that are causing a occurring, you are likely to continue to have the same occurring when similar events happen in your life.

The reason this distinction between reality and our occurrings is so important is that most people rarely distinguish between them, thereby acting as if their occurring IS reality. In other words, we rarely deal with what is actually in the world; we deal with the meaning we have given what is in the world, a meaning that exists only in our own mind.

Reality can’t cause feelings: Because events have no inherent meaning, they are unable to make you feel anything. What produces your feelings (apart from some conditioning) is the meaning you give to events.

So beliefs (which are meaning you have given to a series of events) can result in feelings, such as anger resulting from the beliefs, I’m powerless and What makes me powerful (in control) is having things exactly the way I want them. When people don’t do what you want them to do you feel powerless and then feel anger at the people who didn’t do what you wanted them to do. If you didn’t have these two beliefs, you’d either ignore the people who aren’t doing what you want or you’d ask again, giving reasons for what you want.

The meaning you give specific events—your occurrings—also result in feelings. If you don’t get something you want and you give it the meaning: I can’t get what I want and I never will, you will get upset. If you give it the meaning: I haven’t gotten what I want yet, so what do I have to do to get it?—you will feel challenged and excited. Therefore, dissolving your occurrings enables you to simultaneously dissolve negative feelings, such as anxiety, anger, and upset.

Please let me know if these definitions and distinctions are clear and if they are useful. I look forward to hearing from you.

For information about my next Lefkoe Occurring Course, where you learn how to use the Lefkoe Occurring Process to automatically dissolve your occurrings and your negative feelings, please check out: http://occurringcourse.com/discover.

For information about eliminating 23 of the most common limiting beliefs and conditionings, please checkout: 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.

You Can Create Your Own Happiness

Morty Lefkoe — Tue, 18 Jan 2011 18:11:46 +0000

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What if there was one principle about human feelings that would enable you to control your own experience of life?

Well, there is, and here is the principle: The meaning you give to what happens to you totally determines your reaction to what happens to you. One meaning can lead to upset and suffering; another meaning of the same event can lead to excitement, challenge, and happiness.

Take a moment and think about this. … Because events in the world have no inherent meaning, when you give meaning to events it seems as if your meaning (how the event is occurring to you) is what is actually happening. In fact, however, your occurring exists only in your mind.

This very important principle is relevant in two ways.

Our meaning creates our beliefs

First, all of our beliefs about ourselves, others, and life itself are nothing more than the meaning we have given to meaningless events. I’m not good enough is the meaning we have given to parental criticism or dissatisfaction with what we do as a child. Relationships are difficult is the meaning we have given to our parents arguing all the time or to our first couple of unpleasant relationships. Life is difficult is the meaning we have given to difficult childhood experiences where we and our family struggled a lot. Etc.

So our anxiety, procrastination, concern with the opinion of others, lack of confidence, difficulties in relationships, stress, etc. are all primarily the result of beliefs: the meanings we gave earlier in our lives to meaningless events. (Conditionings also play a role.)

Our meaning determines how reality occurs to us

Second, the meaning we give events determines how they occur for us at the moment. One meaning can lead to a positive occurring; another meaning can lead to a negative occurring. Unfortunately, most of the time most of us never distinguish between what is actually happening and the meaning we are giving what is happening.

For example, your boss asks you a question. If you give it the meaning that your boss is dissatisfied with you, you likely will feel anxious or angry. If you give the same question the meaning that your boss is just trying to get some information, you will feel calm and provide the information.

Another example: Your spouse asks you to do something. If you give it the meaning that he is asking because he doesn’t trust you to do it on your own, you will be angry or upset. If you give it the meaning that she is just telling you what she wants, then you probably will feel nothing at all.

Meanings that turn into beliefs are generalizations about ourselves, people, and life that stay with us forever, unless we eliminate them. Meanings that determine how an event occurs for us disappear as soon as we stop thinking about the event.

When people eliminate all the beliefs that cause a given behavioral or emotional problem, the problem disappears. People who have done this have reported profound changes in their lives. And yet the changes reported by people who have learned how to dissolve their negative occurrings and be left either with just the unvarnished facts or a positive occurring are even more profound.

Here are just a few stories from people in recent Lefkoe Occurring Courses to show how powerful it is to be able to control the meaning you give events.

“Occurrings dissolve instantly”

I’ve found that almost all of my occurrings dissolve instantly this week, that there was nothing to really stop and work through except for the one incident above. I feel much lighter emotionally now and a LOT less reactive – I find myself looking at situations fairly dispassionately now with a little bit of curiousity as to what may be going on. LOVE IT!!

–Renee Maxfield

“I’ve continued to shift my occurrings fairly quickly”

This week I’ve continued to shift my occurrings fairly quickly. If something happens that triggers a negative feeling, I’m able to distinguish that it is due to my occurring. I then look at alternate meanings, preferably positive ones, and am able to shift to feeling pretty neutral or sometimes more positive. Practicing this technique definitely puts me into the creator space, where I know that I’m creating my reality at every moment.

–Raechel Morgan

“In the past I would have been angry. This time, nothing.”

I experience negative occurrings less frequently now and those that do arise are often removed with little or no conscious effort. Here are some examples from this week’s experiences.

My body is shocked by an unexpected loud noise caused by someone dropping a heavy object. In the past I would have been angry. This time, nothing. No occurring. No emotion. Just awareness of the noise and the bodily sensation. Pleased by this I take the chance to put in place a positive occurring – I’m getting good at this.

I’m about to buy the latest igadget when the occurring that is pushing me to do so, the sense that it is a must have, just dissolves leaving me easily able to make the more reasonable decision to not buy. (The ability to dissolve occurrings and the habit of dissolving ones that aren’t useful provide great protection against increasingly sophisticated and manipulative marketing strategies)

–Robert Macfarlane

“It has made my life a lot easier”

So much has happened with my husband and our relationship. He is very negative about everything and is feeling powerless. His eyes are going bad and his walking is very bad as well. He feels his control is gone. [He just turned 91.] The more powerless he feels the more control he needs over me and everything happening to us. My occurring is always that he thinks I am dumb or can’t do anything right when he berates me or tells me what to do all day long.   Then I remember what he is going through and he doesn’t mean it to hurt me. He need to feels some control. Then I feel better and know it’s not me. All day long different things happen and I think what is the occurring and it is always negative. Then I think of other interpretations and the feeling disappears. It has made my life a lot easier and happier. Thank you Morty.

–Hilda Fogel

You can learn to do what these people have done. Learn how to control the meaning you give to meaningless events and you control your experience of life.

Please share below your thoughts and questions on how, by changing the meaning you give events, you can control your experience of life.

For information about my next Lefkoe Occurring Course, where you learn how to use the Lefkoe Occurring Process to dissolve your occurrings and your negative feelings, please check out: http://occurringcourse.com/discover.

For information about eliminating 19 of the most common limiting beliefs and conditionings, please checkout: 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.

How to get rid of your fears

Morty Lefkoe — Tue, 18 May 2010 17:48:26 +0000

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Techniques That Didn’t Work For You

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

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

Why Most Approaches To Eliminating Fear Don’t Work

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

A Modification Of This Theory

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

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

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

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

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

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

To Sum Up

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

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

Now I Have Another Question For You

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

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

What could they possibly have been thinking?

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

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

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

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

Corporal Punishment Doesn’t Work

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Now you may be thinking, I don’t spank my child and I don’t know any parents who do; it isn’t really that common anymore. In fact, it is a lot more common than you might imagine. According to the Center for Effective Discipline, in the 2006-2007 school year, 223,190 school children in the U.S. were subjected to physical punishment. A recent survey in the UK showed that seven out of 10 parents used corporal punishment on their children.

Yelling Also Can Be Abusive

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

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

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

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

Shouldn’t Children Be Disciplined If They Don’t Obey?

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

Research has shown that spanking and browbeating sometimes can work to produce immediately compliance, but there is no learning involved. If they really worked to permanently change behavior you’d only have to use them once or perhaps a few times. It’s weird to me that parents justify hitting and yelling as a way to get their children to listen, and then keep doing it over and over because their children don’t listen! That reminds me of the old saying: Insanity consists of doing the same thing over and over expecting to get a different result.

Do We Really “Own” Our Children?

Many parents feel they are legally and morally justified in forcing their children to do whatever they arbitrarily decide they want their children to do, just because they are the parents. They hate the question “why?” because they usually don’t have an answer. If their children disobey, it’s okay for them to punish their children until they “cry.” Their justification: “How can we possibly get our kids to do what we want if we can’t spank them or yell at them?”

If a master’s absolute dominion over his slaves was justified by the argument that the slaves were “owned” by their masters, isn’t that the implicit argument that justifies punishing children? (Obviously, parents don’t consciously think that about their children, but think about it for a moment, isn’t that the implicit assumption out of which most parents operate? Don’t they think: “Who are you to tell me how to parent? They are ‘my’ children.”)

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

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

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

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Make Your Arguments a Thing of the Past

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

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

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

When I married Shelly almost 29 years ago I was a mess. I had just been divorced for a second time and was getting depressed frequently. When we argued, which happened frequently, my way of coping with upset was to withdraw … for a couple of days! Shelly, on the other hand, would “get off it” (let go of the upset) in an hour or so and then wonder why I was reacting to something that had ended hours or even days before.

As I used The Lefkoe Method (TLM) to eliminate beliefs and conditionings, the time it took me to let go of my upset decreased until, like Shelly, I could get off it in an hour or so after the argument was over.

At some point we created a friendly competition to see who could get off it first, in other words, who could let go of the upset totally and be back in relationship with the other person first. I ultimately acquired the ability to do that during an argument (as opposed to after it was over) and being able to stop right in the middle of it and just smile and say: “I’m sorry that whatever I am doing is upsetting you. Is there anything I can do to resolve this? I love you.”

Here’s what’s important about what I was doing. I didn’t say these words to placate Shelly or use extreme will power while still being upset. I actually was able to stop the upset and then say words that were true for me.

How did I learn to do that? I started asking myself what meaning I was giving Shelly’s behavior and comments. And then I used two steps of the Lefkoe Belief Process to get rid of that meaning.

First I figured out two or three other meanings for whatever Shelly had done or said, other than the one I have given it. If it had other valid meanings, the one I had couldn’t be “the truth.” Then I asked myself if I could literally “see” the meaning I had given her actions and statements. Obviously I never could “see” the meaning I had given.

So I realized the meaning existed only in my mind. What she was doing and saying had no inherent meaning. The only meaning was the one I had given it.

As you know if you’ve eliminated at least one belief using the Lefkoe Belief Process, events that have no meaning can’t make us feel anything. So the upset that I thought Shelly had “caused” was, in fact, caused by the meaning I had given what Shelly did and said. When that become real, the upset literally disappeared.

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

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

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

For example, if your partner doesn’t do something you asked her to do and then you give the event the meaning that you can’t get what you want, you will get angry. If you give the event the meaning that your partner doesn’t care about what you want, you will be hurt or upset. If you say that your partner’s behavior could have many different meanings and, in fact, has no inherent meaning, you will feel nothing. You probably will just calmly do it yourself or ask your partner again if she will do it.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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How the Lefkoe Belief Process works, Part 1

Morty Lefkoe — Wed, 03 Feb 2010 06:58:52 +0000

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Many of you who have eliminated at least one belief using the Lefkoe Belief Process have asked me for more details on how it actually works.

In order to provide you with a relatively complete answer (it would take me several days to teach you how to use it effectively), I’ve written a two-part post.

The Lefkoe Belief Process (LBP) begins with the client describing an undesirable pattern of behavior or feelings that he has been trying unsuccessfully to change. Feeling patterns could include fear, hostility, shyness, anxiety, depression, or worrying about what people think of you. Behavioral patterns could include phobias, relationships that never seem to work, violence, procrastination, unwillingness to confront people, an inability to express our feelings, sexual dysfunction, or anti-social behavior.

One client presented the following undesirable pattern: “I can do enough to get by, but I don’t apply myself completely to one thing. I always feel as though I haven’t done enough, both at home and at work. Wherever I am, I should be someplace else, doing something else. I never do a good enough job. Sometimes I’m satisfied with what I do, but I never have a sense of a real completion. Never any rest.”

I responded by pointing out that people frequently explain their behavior by pointing to a cause other than themselves, such as their spouse, their boss, the economy, or some other “circumstances.” I requested that the client assume that the source of our behavior and feelings is our beliefs, not anything in reality. Many clients already agree that their beliefs have this power, but agreement is not required for the LBP to be effective. One must, however, be willing accept that idea for the duration of the session.

Finding a Belief

I then asked the client what he believed, at the moment, that logically could account for the current, undesirable pattern that he just had just presented to me. This step is not the same as asking the client “why” he acts as he does. Most people either will say they have no idea why they do what they do, or they will come up with a multitude of reasons. A client’s “story,” interpretations, and analysis are not at all relevant in the LBP. This step is designed to elicit one or more beliefs (that he probably was not conscious of before the LBP began) that logically would manifest as his undesirable pattern.

One belief that this client discovered is I’m not good enough. This belief at least partially explains why he never had a sense of doing a good job, of really being satisfied with whatever he did. In other words, the pattern is the result of the belief(s), and it would be virtually impossible to permanently change the pattern as long as the belief(s) existed. (There were several other beliefs and all of them had to be eliminated before the pattern disappeared totally.)

The Source of Beliefs

Once the belief is identified, the client is asked to say the words of the belief out loud to confirm that he actually does hold this belief. Then, the client is asked to look for the earliest circumstances or events that led him to form the belief. Fundamental beliefs about life and about oneself—for example, self-esteem-type beliefs—usually are formed before the age of six. For the most part they are based on interactions with our parents and other primary caretakers, if any. Beliefs in other areas of life, such as work and society, are formed at the time those areas of life are encountered.

Although the client usually can identify the relevant early events in five or ten minutes, at times he spends as much as half an hour recalling various events from his childhood. At some point he identifies the pattern of events that led him to form the belief in question. My experience with over 13,000 clients indicates that beliefs rarely are formed based on only one or two events. Usually a great many similar events are required.

When I asked this particular client the source of his belief, he described a childhood in which his mother was always telling him what to do and what not to do. Nothing he ever did was good enough for her. He never received any praise and was criticized a lot.

Don’t Invalidate a Client’s Beliefs

The next step is to have the client realize that his current belief was, in fact, a reasonable interpretation of his childhood circumstances and that most children probably would have reached a similar conclusion, given their experience and knowledge at that time in their life. Our beliefs are almost always a reasonable explanation for the events we observe at the time we observe them. Thus the client is never told that his beliefs are irrational or wrong.

Other Interpretations

The client then is asked to make up some additional interpretations of, or meanings for, the same earlier circumstances, which he hadn’t thought of at the time. In other words, the client as a child observed his mother doing and saying various things over a long period of time. The meaning he gave to the events was I’m not good enough. What the client is asked to do in the session is make up additional meanings or interpretations of his mother’s behavior.

To continue the illustration we’ve been using, other reasonable interpretations of his mother’s behavior could include:

· My mother thought I wasn’t good enough, but she was wrong.

· I wasn’t good enough as a child, but I might be when I grow up.

· I wasn’t good enough by my mother’s standards, but I might be by the standards of others.

· My mother is a very critical person and would act that way with everyone, whether they were good enough or not.

· My mother’s behavior with me had nothing to do with whether I was good enough or not; it was a function of my mother’s beliefs from her childhood.

· My mother’s behavior with me had nothing to do with whether I was good enough or not; it was a function of my mother’s parenting style.

Each of these statements is as reasonable a meaning for his mother’s behavior as the one he came up with as a child. The point here is not to convince the client that his belief is unreasonable, he just needs to realize that there are many different meanings, each one of which is logically consistent with the events he experienced.

Did You See It In The World?

Next the client was asked if, when he formed the belief as a child, it seemed as if he could see in the world that I’m not good enough. Because it feels as if we “discovered” or “viewed” our beliefs in the world, the answer is always, yes. It seemed to the client that every time his mother criticized him or failed to praise something he was proud of, he could “see” that he wasn’t good enough. He was so certain that his belief was out in the world to be seen that he said to me, “If you were there in my house, you would have seen it too.”

The distinction you want the client to make is between the events of his childhood, which have no inherent meaning, and the meaning he attributed to the events. The principles that underlie this distinction are: Events have no inherent meaning. There’s no meaning in the world. All meaning is in our minds. All beliefs are merely the meaning we assign to events.

The way to get the client to make that distinction is to then ask: “Is it clear, right now, that you never saw the belief in the world?”

In other words, you want the client to realize that he never did see that I’m not good enough. All he really saw was his mother’s statements and behaviors. I’m not good enough was only one interpretation of the events he actually did see.

After the client realized that he never really did see his belief in the world, I asked: “If you didn’t see I’m not good enough in the world, where has it been all these years?” He pointed to his head and replied: “In my mind.”

At this point I asked the client, did the events that led you to form the belief have a meaning before you gave them a meaning? Do they have an inherent meaning? It usually takes a short conversation before most clients really understand that events have no inherent meaning, that all meaning is in our mind.

TO BE CONTINUED NEXT WEEK

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The Conversation Continues: How Things Occur For Us, Part 2

Morty Lefkoe — Tue, 22 Dec 2009 17:38:25 +0000

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Thanks for the fantastic response to my blog post that offered my initial thoughts on how reality “occurs” for us. I’ve never received so many responses so quickly on a post. Although I suspect I will be pondering this issue for a long time to come, because there has been so much interest in this topic I thought I’d bring you up to date on my current thinking.

I’m currently on vacation in Florida with my wife Shelly and two daughters, Blake and Brittany. Britt came from St. Louis where she is a junior at Washington University and Blake flew in from the Solomon Islands where she had been island-hopping in the South Pacific and surfing. Nothing makes me happier than being with my three girls. Even though I’m allowing myself to get some much-needed rest, my mind won’t stop thinking about the subject of last week’s blog post.

I still have as many questions as answers, but because so many of you said you were interested in my thought processes as I struggled with the distinction, “how things occur for us,” I thought I’d devote my Christmas post to a quick recap of my thoughts since last week.

We always create a meaning for the events we confront; that meaning then becomes how the events occur for us. We then think how events occur for us is an accurate description of reality. It is not. It is merely the meaning we have placed over reality. It is the filter through which we view reality and it determines how we actually experience reality.

For example, imagine you get fired from a job. That event either can occur for you as a terrible catastrophe or as an amazing opportunity. Your behavior and feelings from then on will be determined by how the event occurs for you—not by the event itself.

Another good example of how the same person or event can occur differently for different people is Shelly’s dad who just turned 90. Most of the family is upset around him when he’s telling people what to do and getting annoyed at almost anything they do. At those times he occurs to most of the family as a controlling, irritating, cranky person. He used to occur that way for me also. But after years of practice, his behavior finally has no meaning to me. He says what he says (such as telling me “how to drive” or giving me detailed directions on how to get to a place I’ve driven to at least 100 times) and I respond, “Thanks dad. Okay.”

The nature of a situation, apart from any prior beliefs, can have an important effect on how something occurs for us. For example, at his 90^th birthday party the other evening he was happy, loving, grateful for the people who attended, appreciative for the party, and nothing seemed to bother him throughout the evening. How people occurred for him that evening was different from how they usually occurred for him.

What determines the meanings we create? Every old meaning we have ever created (old beliefs) affects every new meaning we create, although certain beliefs can have a greater influence than others at any given moment. For example, the belief People can’t be trusted would affect how you feel about and how you deal with all people; the belief John is out to get me would have a significant impact on how John occurs for you and relatively little on how other people occur for you.

Cultural beliefs and organizational beliefs also are relevant, such as It’s important to respect our elders in Asian countries and The best way to make money is our industry is having better design/lower prices/more distribution outlets/etc. in various companies.

I think the meanings we create about people and events as an adult are formed instantaneously and automatically. The moment you sense something in reality (through one or more of your five senses), you silently ask yourself: What does this mean? And the answer you give yourself is the meaning you have created, which then becomes how that “something in reality” occurs for you.

Why do we do that? Here’s my hypothesis: Because we usually experience ourselves as a creation (and not as the creator/consciousness) whose survival is always at stake, we need to know if what we are encountering is “for us” or “against us,” conducive to our survival or inimical to our survival.

My thoughts above are one possible description of how and why things occur for us the way they do. I think it is possible, however, to interrupt this automatic meaning-creating process and give “no meaning” to what we are confronting in reality. Consciously making real that the person or event has no inherent meaning removes (or does it minimize?) the filter you’ve placed over the reality in front of you. I think this is what people mean when they advise “living in the moment” and not the past or the future (which is the realm of beliefs, conditionings, and expectations).

Because our need for meaning stems from experiencing ourselves as a creation whose survival is always at stake, one very good way to eliminate our need for meaning is to experience ourselves as the creator of that creation.

One way to make it easier to make real for yourself that the “reality” you are confronting has no inherent meaning is to use the Who Am I Really? (WAIR?) Process to distinguish yourself as the creator of the meaning and not the sum total of the meanings.

After using that Process you can notice the meaning you’ve just automatically created and then make a critical distinction between yourself as the creator of the meaning and the creation experiencing the meaning.

Your ability to distinguish yourself as the creator/consciousness also can be enhanced by using the WAIR? Process repeatedly, so that you get used to making and then experiencing that distinction. (That is why I strongly recommend you use that Process after eliminating each belief on our various belief-elimination programs.)

But the question still remains: Is it possible to transcend all your beliefs and really live as if you are the creator and the reality you are interacting with has no inherent meaning under all circumstances, or can we do that only under some circumstances? And if only under some circumstances, what are they? At the moment, I’m not sure.

Perhaps the best way to summarize how I see this issue at the moment is by updating something I wrote last week:

Our behavior and feelings are determined primarily by how things occur for us, which ultimately seems to be nothing more than the meaning we are giving any particular person or situation at the moment. Moreover, we seem to be predisposed to automatically create a given meaning by all of our prior beliefs and conditionings. However, by making a distinction between ourselves as the creator and ourselves as the creation for whom something is occurring, and by recognizing that the “reality” we are confronting has no inherent meaning, I think we can change how that reality occurs for us under certain circumstances. And I think we can train ourselves to do it more effectively, more often.

Stay tuned. More to come.

I really appreciate all your contributions this past week. I got some real valuable insights from your blog comments. I’m looking forward to hearing from you during the next couple of weeks as I pursue this investigation. I’m really interested in what you think about the phenomenon of “occurring” and the blog posts describing my journey.

I’d like to take this opportunity to wish Happy Holidays to all of you from all of us at the Lefkoe Institute: Shelly, Karen, Rodney, Liz, and myself. It’s been a very exciting year for us. It took us 24 years for 13,000 people to experience our work and in this past year alone we had over 100,0000 people visit our web site and 39,000 eliminate at least one belief. Our goal is to have at least 200,000 people experience the Lefkoe Belief Process and the WAIR? Process by this time next year.

All of us wish you a wonderful year filled with new and exciting possibilities.

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.

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

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

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Answers to questions about beliefs, Part 2

Morty Lefkoe — Tue, 06 Oct 2009 17:40:47 +0000

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Here are my answers to a bunch of new questions I’ve been asked repeatedly about beliefs.

1. Once you understand that you can’t see beliefs in the world and that events have no inherent meaning, why do you have to go though the process time after time to eliminate additional beliefs?

Remember, a belief is a statement about reality you think is true. And most people, because they are visual, think it is true because they think they saw it in the world. Even though you know in principle that all meaning is in your mind and you can’t really see any of your beliefs in the world, all your reminding beliefs still exist because you still think you saw them earlier in life.

For example, even though it might now be real that you never saw I’m not good enough in the world, that all you saw were parents who were angry when you didn’t met their expectations, you can still think you saw I’m not important when your parents weren’t around.

Each belief exists independently for you as something you think you saw in the world (or, if you are emotionally kinesthetic, you think something in the world caused you to feel the belief). You have to eliminate each belief separately.

2. Why do you hold the belief that beliefs are difficult for a person to find?

They aren’t necessarily hard to find. And for someone who has had a lot of training and experience looking for the beliefs that cause any given problem, they can be relatively easy to find. It’s just that most people are not used to looking for the relevant beliefs for different problems, so most people do not know how to do it.

3. Why do I have a difficult time eliminating beliefs even after I’ve identified them?

Eliminating beliefs is not difficult when you are trained in a process that is effective at eliminating beliefs. Many of the techniques that claim to eliminate beliefs don’t really get rid of them, so the beliefs show up again later. Although it isn’t difficult to use the Lefkoe Belief Process to eliminate beliefs, you do have to learn how to use it. And if you don’t go through each step properly, the belief won’t go away.

4. Why do we seem to have more negative beliefs about ourselves than positive ones?

I’m not sure that we do. We generally are only aware of the negative ones that produce problems in our lives. But we have thousands of others that are either neutral or that lead to positive results.

5. How do you know the difference between a “belief” versus your intuition telling you something?

It can be difficult to know the difference. Here’s one tip that might be useful: If the feeling (of danger or whatever) occurs continuously, then it is probably the result of a belief or conditioning. Beliefs and conditionings affect us all the time and we would probably have the same reaction in similar situations.

If the feeling rarely occurs in similar situations, then it likely is intuition. Just remember, however, intuition isn’t accurate all the time.

6. Even when there is physical evidence that a belief you picked up as an adult is valid, how can you let go of the powerful emotion?

The emotion probably is the result of the belief, so when the belief has been eliminated, the feeling will be gone. Moreover, there is never physical evidence that a belief is true. There are events and then there is the meaning we give the events. The events are “valid”—in other words, they are out there in the world; the meaning (the belief) is always in our mind.

7. I’ve done your program (the beliefs seem to be gone), but the beliefs come back and are still there. How can I get rid of them?

For visual people, who know reality because they see it, beliefs rarely if ever come back. For emotionally kinesthetic people, who operate more out of feelings, beliefs do come back from time to time, but with much less intensity. Just use the Lefkoe Belief Process again and, for most people, that should be enough to get rid of them forever. For some people some beliefs might some back again, but the third time is usually sufficient to eliminate them permanently.

I’m working on developing a new process that will be more effective with emotionally kinesthetic people so the beliefs will stay gone the first time.

8. How do you identify the belief that is running our lives? Are certain survival strategies generated by certain beliefs?

First, there is no single “the belief” that is running our life. There are many. So we don’t look for the beliefs that “run our lives”; we look for the beliefs that cause specific problems in our lives, such as procrastination, anxiety, relationship difficulties, and worrying about what others think of us.

See my earlier blog post (August 8, 2009) that offers a few tips on how to find the beliefs that cause specific problems.

See my earlier blog post (May 26, 2009) that deals with survival strategy beliefs.

9. How do you know if you have a belief that may be holding you back from something that you want?

If you are unable to change your behavior or your feelings despite repeated attempts, the odds are what you want to change is being caused by beliefs and conditionings. If you are able to do what you want and change when you want to, you are unlikely to have limiting beliefs in that area of your life keeping you stuck.

10. Can you change your existing beliefs by reading articles about beliefs?

I’d hesitate to say that anything is impossible, but it is highly unlikely that reading articles about beliefs will eliminate them. In fact, it is highly unlikely that thinking about the steps of the Lefkoe Belief Process will eliminate a belief. You need to do the Process and make each step real for yourself. You need to get you never saw a specific belief in the world and that the events you did see have no inherent meaning.

As I said in answer to an earlier question, merely understanding that all meaning is in our minds will not make all beliefs go away. Understanding is nice, but it won’t eliminate beliefs.

11. Why do feelings of self-loathing reappear after I feel like I’ve dealt with and made peace with myself when I’m overwhelmed and frustrated?

Because “dealing with” and “making peace with myself” does not make beliefs go away. So whenever you get in a stressful situation, the beliefs that are still there get reactivated and you feel self-loathing. If you get rid of the beliefs that cause the self-loathing, the feeling will not come back again.

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.

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

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

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Leave the past in the past

Morty Lefkoe — Tue, 19 May 2009 18:29:13 +0000

Many psychotherapists tell us that our current difficulties are a direct result of our childhoods. As a result many people “blame” their parents for any upsets or suffering they experience as adults.

When you eliminate a belief using the Lefkoe Belief Process it becomes quite clear that what happened to you as a child has no impact at all on you as an adult. What runs your life today is the meaning you are giving those childhood events.

This is not merely a semantic difference. If your life were controlled by childhood events, you would never be able to get free of those events because the events did occur and there’s nothing you can do to have them not have occurred.

Moreover, if your upsets and suffering today really were a function of what mom and dad did and said to you as a child, then in a very real sense your problems today would be their “fault.” And if that were the case, it would make sense to “blame” them for your difficulties today.

On the other hand, if your life today is a function of the meaning you gave those events, meaning you now hold as beliefs, then you can change that meaning at any time and become totally free of your childhood.

Take a moment and reread the last paragraph. When you really get it, your life will transform.

And if your feelings and behavior are the result of beliefs (and conditionings) you formed in childhood, beliefs and conditionings that easily can be eliminated as an adult, then fault and blame become irrelevant.

Your parents acted the way they did because of their beliefs, just as you act the way you do because of your beliefs. Sure, it would have been nice if they had had some parenting training and had eliminated a bunch of beliefs that would have enabled them to be better parents. But—no matter what happened during your childhood interactions with your parents—you can have your life today be whatever you want it to be.

So we need to stop blaming our parents for what doesn’t work in our lives, eliminate the beliefs that are causing our upsets and suffering today, and then go out and create the lives we want.

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.

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

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