The last steps to overcoming fear
In this message … the third in our series on how to make lasting change … I’ll show you why eliminating beliefs is not always enough to get rid of your fears.
Previously we discussed …
* The fact that beliefs are at the core of almost any problem involving personal change.
Problems ranging from general anxiety, fear of failure and procrastination, to anger and stress.
* I’ve also shown you how crucially important it is to avoid working on beliefs that aren’t really the cause of your specific problem. It’s possible to waste a lot of time that way.
Today we’re going to talk about the kinds of fear that keep people from pursuing their dreams and goals, and how eliminating beliefs is not always enough to get rid of it. When it isn’t enough I’ll tell you exactly why and what to do about it.
I’ll start with an excerpt from Morty’s writing in which he tells the story of how he discovered that many negative emotions can’t be eliminated if you only get rid of beliefs
Morty’s Story
In 1996 he had a client who had eliminated over 100 beliefs. He experienced a massive shift in his life, but one major problem was still in his way. He owned a construction business in which his mother was an investor. And dealing with her almost always made him angry.
I tried and tried to help him find the beliefs that were causing the problem. But no matter how many beliefs he eliminated and how good his overall experience of life was, his anger remained as bad as ever.
At some point I finally realized that his problem wasn’t going away because beliefs were not the only cause.
He was conditioned to feel anger in response to specific events, in his case, being told what to do. So when his mother kept telling him what to do with his business he’d get extremely upset.
After I figured out his anger was conditioned, I went back to the drawing board so to speak. I came up with some steps that I thought had a chance of breaking the connection between negative emotions and the events that seem to cause them.
For example, if you feel fear every time you make a mistake or anger every time someone ignores you, it’s likely those feelings are caused by emotional conditioning in addition to beliefs.
I used this de-conditioning process with my client and he was finally able to stop getting angry at his mother whenever she intervened in the business. At long last the final area of his life needing improvement had transformed.
**********
The new process Morty created would come to be called the Lefkoe Stimulus Process and it allowed us to help people get rid of fear and other emotions when eliminating beliefs alone did not do the trick.
To help you understand how this new process helped Morty’s client, let me tell you about a somewhat infamous experiment done by John B. Watson and Rosalie Rayner with a child called Little Albert.
When Albert was 9 months old, Watson and Rayner exposed the boy to many different objects to see how he reacted.
They showed him a white rat, a white rabbit and burning newspapers to name a few. They then recorded his reactions. He showed no fear. Instead he seemed to be interested in everything they showed him.
Later, they presented a rat to him and Watson hit a metal pipe with a hammer to make a loud noise.
Of course the child cried.
Later Watson presented the child with the rat and again made the loud noise and Albert cried again.
He did this a few times.
Finally, he showed the child the rat again and this time Watson did not make the noise. Little Albert burst into tears anyway.
Here’s what Watson and Rayner recorded:
“The instant the rat was shown, the baby began to cry. Almost instantly he turned sharply to the left, fell over on So what happened? The child associated the fear to the white rat. Then when the boy saw the white rat, he instantly felt fear. This example shows how fear and other emotions can be conditioned. 1st a stimulus that does not cause fear is experienced – the white rat 2nd a stimulus that does cause fear is experienced – loud noise 3rd The two events happen over and over. The mind links the two events together so that the event that wasn’t fearful at first, has now become a trigger for fear. The principle is that anything that occurs repeatedly at the same time that something else is causing an emotion will itself get conditioned to produce the same emotion. In fact, a stimuli can even get conditioned to produce an emotion if it happens only once if the incident is traumatic enough. That’s how making mistakes, being criticized, not meeting expectations, being rejected, and a host of other situations that are not inherently scary get conditioned to produce anxiety (or some other emotion, such as anger). This process is also the primary cause of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. Here is an example from one of my clients: Jacob experienced fear whenever he was criticized or judged. I asked him when he first experience fear when being criticized or judged. He told me that when he was a child his parents would often get mad and criticize him. When Jacob reviewed the original cause of his feeling of fear, he discovered that the fear was not caused by being criticized or judged. What caused the fear was the meaning he unconsciously attributed to his parents’ threatening behavior that usually occurred when he was criticized or judged: The people he depended on for his very survival seemed to be withdrawing love. No love, no care; no care, no survival. That perception—that his survival was at stake—is what caused the fear. Being criticized or judged just happened to occur at the same time as something else that constantly caused fear. Whatever is happening when you experience fear due to your parents’ anger (because their anger is an implied threat to your survival) gets conditioned to produce the same fear. The stimulus today—making mistakes, being criticized, not living up to expectations, etc.—is not, in itself, the real cause of the fear. Once you make a distinction between the real cause of the emotion when it first occurred and the events that just happened to be occurring at the time, the conditioning is extinguished. When you are able to make this distinction, you can easily get rid of the anxiety, anger, and other negative emotions that keep you from living the life you’ve always wanted for yourself. I want to let you know that I’ve truly enjoyed sharing this information with you. I want the work I do to make a difference in people’s lives and I’m grateful for all the positive comments I’m getting from people who are using the information I’m providing to make their lives better. I share those comments with the entire staff at Lefkoe Institute because it reminds all of us why we do what we do every day. And that’s why I’m going to be offering you a program that will allow me to share much more with you. The program is called Natural Confidence because it helps you banish the core beliefs and conditionings that keep you from having the confidence that small children are born with. If you watch children learn to walk, you’ll notice that no matter how many times they fall, they get back up and try again. Unfortunately many of us stop doing that when we grow up. If we have to try something even a few times—not to speak of the hundreds of times that small children try—we just give up. But what if you could recapture that innocence you had as a child? Imagine what it would be like to get rid of fear of failure, fear of rejection and fear of criticism. Imagine what it would feel like to move through life without limiting beliefs and conditionings keeping you from your dreams. Well, that’s what I offer you in my program. Remember how I told you how easy it is to work on beliefs that won’t make a difference in your life? Well, every belief you eliminate in this program is included because we discovered over years of working with thousands of clients that these are the core beliefs that impair confidence and lead to anxiety and fear of failure. Thousands of people have told us that when they eliminated these 19 beliefs they experienced improved confidence, improved self-esteem, reduced stress and the elimination of fears that had held them back. The program also gives you a process to easily get into the Who Am I Really? state that you experienced at the end of the free belief. You can use this short process whenever you wish, to profoundly experience that anything is possible and that you have no limitations. And finally, at the end of the program I lead you through four de-conditioning exercises that help you banish common fears, such as fear of rejection and criticism and fear of not meeting the expectations of others. When you finish the program you’ll feel exhilarated and will start a new life free of the most common barriers to freedom and fulfillment. This program also comes with some very special bonuses that can transform your life… Bonus #1 “Bust Your Abundance Beliefs” Program Would you like to breakthrough the barriers to having abundance in your life? Would you like to worry less about money and have the confidence that you can get what you need in today’s troubled economy? If so, then you’ll love “Bust Your Abundance Beliefs”—a program that helps you eliminate five beliefs that can keep you from having inner and outer wealth. When these beliefs are gone, you’ll have dissolved the barriers to having the abundance mindset—a key factor needed to produce wealth in your life. Bonus #2 How To Find The Source Of Your Beliefs This video training teaches you the eleven principles that facilitators in our live programs learn to help people like you find the specific events that lead to a belief. Once you know these principles you’ll be much more effective in finding the source of your own beliefs so you can eliminate them and transform your life for good. Bonus #3 Take “Who Am I Really?” Much Deeper Three transformative audio meditations that take you much deeper into the peace of mind, satisfaction and sense of freedom that only the “Who Am I Really?” Process can bring. You’ll see reality and how you create it in ways you’ve never thought of before. In the past only our private clients and trainees who paid thousands of dollars were able to experience these meditations.. Bonus #4 Guide Your Life And Your Business Without Goals In this audio Morty Lefkoe, Paul Scheele, Rick Warren and Michelle James discuss how to create greater success in your life by abandoning goals. Instead the concept of dynamic steering—used by many Fortune 500 companies—allows you to take advantage of what emerges day to day to achieve what you want in life. Bonus #5 Recording of Live Webinar Training – Natural Confidence Tune Up With Shelly Lefkoe In this program Shelly Lefkoe helps you get everything you can out of the Natural Confidence program. The recording is included in the member’s area. These are time-limited bonuses you can only get if you order Natural Confidence by Wednesday, May 31st at 11:59pm Pacific Time. After that you can still get this awesome program… just without the bonuses. You can get Natural Confidence with the extra bonuses starting tomorrow morning by 5am Pacific Time. I’ll also be sending you an email tomorrow morning to remind you when Natural Confidence + New Bonuses is available. Again, thank you so much for letting me share my life’s work with you. And I hope to see you inside the program.
