The concept of “living in the Now” has become popularised in recent years through the books of people such as Eckhart Tolle and Byron Katie. They tell us how important it is to live in the present moment and not to get distracted by fears (which are future projections) and hurts (which are perceptions of events in the past). If we can just stay focused in the present, we’ll discover true freedom and the end of suffering.
Well how many of us have got it right to actually do this? What seems to happen is that we become focused in the moment, and then suddenly the phone rings and it’s someone with bad news. Then where does our precious “Now” go to? It vanishes, and suddenly we’re back in psychological time and we’re suffering – except that now instead of just the bad news to cope with, we’re also beating ourselves up for being so easily thrown out of “The Now”. Read More
I’ve started work on a new web site for hypnosis enthusiasts – www.hypnotechniques.com. This is where I’ll be posting articles on the theory, practice, and techniques involved in hypnosis and hypnotherapy. It’s still early days, but I’m hoping this site will become quite a resource. Contributions are welcome ( I don’t want to have to do all the work ! )
Before you began reading this sentence, while you are reading the sentence, and after the sentence is finished being read, awareness is here. Can you see the futility of seeking present awareness? It is what is, what is awake, what is simply being right now.
If you’re looking for Enlightenment, this article on Awareness by Scott Kiloby will help put an end to the search. Read the complete article.
We all have goals and dreams – things we’d love to achieve in our lives. But have you ever wondered whether some of those dreams are really what you’re meant to do in life or whether they are simply fantasies?
At a Passion Test workshop recently someone asked me that very question. Say, for example, you dream of becoming a renowned concert pianist. Is this a worthy goal or is it an ego-based delusion?
Well, here’s a test you can do to help you identify what’s behind your dreams and goals.
Step 1: Extracting the Value
Every goal you set for yourself will be inspired by a higher-level value or emotional state of being. We all do things because of how they make us feel, right? So this feeling is the true motivation of your actions – and it’s going to tell you a lot about whether your goals are worthy of pursuing. To access this value, you simply ask the following question repeatedly until the answers start repeating: ‘When you have what you’re looking for, what will that get you?’
You’ll end up with high-level Values like happiness, fulfillment, security, and inspiration.
Step 2: Testing the Value
Once you have the Value you’re trying to elicit, you need to test whether you can get the same Value without achieving success in your goal. In other words, are you dependent on a physical outcome in order to achieve the desired emotional state. Why do we need to do this? Because a dream is only worthy if it’s done for its own sake and is not an attempt to buy happiness or some other state of being (remember all that about staying in The Now).
The way to test this is simply to ask, ‘Suppose you never achieve goal, will you still be able to be Value?’ (Replace Value with the particular state of being that’s motivating your goal, for example ‘happy’).
Let’s look at some examples.
Example: “I want to write and publish successful novels”
Step 1: Extracting the Value
When you have written and published this novel, what will that get you?
‘An audience, fame.’
And when you have an audience and fame, what will that get you?
‘Money.’
And when you have money, what will that get you?
‘I’ll be able to do the things I love.’
And when you are doing the things you love, what will that get you?
‘I’ll be inspired, at ease.’
When you are inspired and at ease, what will that get you?
‘Happiness’
So the Value here is happiness, with the flavour of inspiration and ease.
Step 2: Testing the Value
Suppose you’re never able to write and publish those novels. Can you still be happy?
‘I don’t think so. It would be difficult.’
So this tells us that the person is wanting to buy happiness by writing novel. They are dependent on a physical outcome in order to achieve an emotional state. They don’t actually want to write novels because it’s their deep purpose and joy, so this goal is an ego fantasy.
Let’s try something else:
Example: “I want to be a renowned concert pianist”
Step 1: Extracting the Value
When you are a renowned concert pianist, what will that get you?
‘The joy of performing in front of large numbers of people, the excitement of performance, the knowledge that I’m creating a moving experience for people.’
When you are experiencing the excitement of performing in front of large numbers of people, and you’re creating a moving experience for them, what does this get you?
‘Joy and inspiration – I’ll be living my purpose.’
And when you’re joyful and inspired, living your purpose, what will that get you?
‘Pure joy and gratitude, pure inspiration. ‘
So the Values here are joy, gratitude and inspiration.
Step 2: Testing the Value
Just suppose you’re never, ever able to be a renowned concert pianist – will you still be able to feel joyful and inspired and grateful in your life?
‘Yes. I enjoy playing piano regardless of the size of the audience. I can still feel that joy and inspiration if I’m playing for one person or just for myself. It would be great, though, to play to thousands of people. That would really turn me on.’
In this example, the person is not dependent on a physical outcome to achieve their desired emotional state of feeling joyful, inspired, and grateful. They recognize that they have access to these feelings already, so their work as a musician is done for the joy of it. Of course, they will be paid for their work, but it’s not the primary motive, it’s simply the natural energy exchange for the work they love doing.
Conclusion
Many of us make the mistake of thinking that by having something or doing something we’ll achieve a lasting state of being. In fact, the creation process begins with being and flows to doing and having – when you are happy (a state of being), you will do things and have things that reflect this happiness.
So look carefully to see whether your desire is an attempt to reverse this order, in other words to try to achieve a state of being by having something or doing something. If you take away the having or the doing, can you still achieve that same state? If not, you need to check your motives.
Want to do The Passion Test and get clarity on your goals?
I present The Passion Test in workshops and individual sessions. Let’s work together to find out what you really want and how to get it. It all begins with finding clarity on your true purpose.
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Inspired Coaching & Hypnosis – expert coaching and hypnotherapy in Cape Town.
How I really feel about weight-loss products
If I had one piece of advice for anyone struggling with weight and food issues it’s this – stop with the $%## diets already! You know they don’t work. It breaks my heart to see good people going out there and spending small fortunes on herbal potions and weird slimming shakes and all they’re doing is just setting themselves up for more disappointment.
Sorry if this sounds a bit harsh but I feel quite strongly about this. I see quite a few clients with food issues and in 99.99% percent of the cases the only way to stop the inappropriate eating is to find out the emotional need that the food is trying to fill. Get this, guys – IT’S NOT ABOUT THE FOOD! You can write that in big letters and pin it to your computer so you can know to give yourself a break when another diet fails. It’s not about the food, and it’s not about your weak willpower. You have amazing willpower, after all these years of struggle you’ve built that willpower muscle until it has superhuman strength … but here’s the thing – it’s all for nothing, because emotions are much stronger than the conscious mind and its puny willpower.
So give yourself a break here as well. When you find that the magic herbal potion and weird slimming shake don’t work, don’t beat yourself up. It’s not about you, it’s about what’s deeper than you. Come and see me or another therapist and let’s do some real work on this. Or just save your money and dump the expensive diets and be happy the way you are . Ultimately that’s where we’re going anyway – to be happy with yourself. So just go there. If you need some help, get it from a trained therapist, not from some snake-oil salesman peddling disappointment. There, I’ve said it. Let those herbal potion people come sue me if they want to!
“It’s not about the food”
- Russel Brownlee
I’ve just got hold of a really cool piece of software (Neuroprogrammer 2) that enables me to make my own hypnosis recordings. I can add binaural beats and other clever things to subtly tweak the listener’s brainwaves and help them drift deeper and deeeeeper…
So my plan is to begin offering these as freebies to clients and website visitors. And the first one has just gone live on this site! Here’s the link – free 10-minute relaxation mp3.
I’ve just added a range of self-hypnosis recordings to this site for clients who want to work on their own. The power of self-hypnosis is sometimes underestimated, so here’s a bit of background about hypnosis and self-hypnosis:
We’re all hypnotists!
Hypnosis is not a special state that can only be induced by a professional hypnotist. Without knowing it, we naturally go in and out of trance many times in a normal day. When you sit at your desk and daydream for a few moments – that’s trance! When you’re driving somewhere and you realize you’ve been on autopilot and can’t recall anything about the route you’ve just travelled – that’s also trance. And most people slip very nicely into trance when they come home in the evening and sit down in front of the television.
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Have you ever wondered what the underlying Values behind your dreams and ambitions might be? The Values are the things that motivate us at the deepest level, often without us being consciously aware of them. When we know our Values we can define our Vision – a powerful statement describing our true purpose in life.
If you want to discover more about your true purpose, join me for a half-day workshop on Saturday 28 November. We’ll begin by doing The Passion Test, a simple but powerful system for discovering what’s most important in your life. As a bonus, I’ve added an extra process called The Vision Spiral to help you create a powerful life purpose statement. This will really get you focused!
For more information, check out the Workshops page.
Passion Test Workshop details:
Workshop: The Passion Test
Date: Saturday 28 November
Time: 10 a.m. – 2 p.m.
Cost: R390
Venue: Folio Books, Main Rd Rondebosch/Newlands.
In a conversation recently an ecologically-minded young woman told me of her doubt over having children. She wanted children, but it didn’t seem right to have them when the world was already so full of people. They would only add to the burden of the world and consume more of a dwindling supply of resources. It was quite a dilemma for her, and perhaps she is not alone in feeling this way.
How can we satisfy our own desires and the desires of the planet when they seem to be so much in conflict these days? Those who care about the environment feel real pain at what is happening. All evidence says the world needs fewer people, not more. And it needs the people who consume without regard for the future to stop doing what they are doing. We know what is good for the world, we are sure we know. It does not occur to us that this ‘knowing’, and the pain it causes us, are part of the problem.
Separation
In order for us to see the world as needing saving from the ignorant people, the greedy people, we need to view ourselves as separate from both those people and the earth itself. It does not occur to us that our willingness to sacrifice ourselves to save the planet is itself a form of violence. We see the world as out there, in distress, as something that needs fixing. It gives us a sense of identity to know that we know what the planet needs. But really, how do we know?
Could it perhaps be that we and the earth are not separate at all, that what we love the earth also loves? How terrible to think that the world might require us to deny the love that seeks to come through us. This thought is based on separation, and it places us on the same side as the speculators and developers who are plundering the earth in their own way. We are not different to them. If we see ourselves as different then we are simply affirming how similar we are – all of us lost in the same dream of separation.
Ending the war within
The world needs fewer people. Is that true? Perhaps it might be more true to say that the world needs fewer people who are at war in themselves. The planet can handle any number of people who understand that the greatest thing they can do for it is to allow love to come forth in the way that love chooses. If it wants to appear in the form of a child, let it do so. If it wants to come through as some great project, something that excites and inspires you, then it is the world itself that brings it forth. It is not your job to refuse it because you think you know what the world needs. You don’t.
All you will have to let you know you are right is a feeling of expansiveness and inspiration that flows up from the heart when you contemplate a particular action. If you feel this, then your project is a blessing to the world because it is no different to the world. If it feels like duty, like a closing down, then it is simply ego trying to tell the world it knows what’s best. And, quite simply, it doesn’t.
I was walking to the shops the other day and suddenly it struck me that there was no purpose to this walking beyond the walking itself. When I set out my intent was to go and get some groceries – this was my purpose. But while ambling along by the banks of the Liesbeeck river, for a brief moment the story of my getting to the shops ceased and there was just the walking. No other story, just walking. And there was no other purpose in the world. Just this, what’s happening now, in this moment.
I’ve been writing quite a bit on this site about life purpose as something to be found, but now it seems that in fact there is nothing to be found. Your true purpose is whatever you are being or doing right now. As you read this your purpose is to sit and read. Or more precisely, one might say the reading is simply happening, you are not doing anything. There’s absolutely nothing beyond this reading, because anything that would be beyond it is a projection out of the Now into a past or future. A projection into one more story, one more fiction.
So now I will define true purpose as who you are when the stories about yourself have ceased. It is the life that lives through you, as you. How do you get to this? Stop the struggle, stop trying to make things happen when they’re just not happening. I’m glad I can blog about this so I can come back and remind myself when I forget (which happens often!).
There’s a quote from the Conversations with God series that comes to mind:
“There is nothing you have to be or do except what you are being or doing right now.”
