Welcome to Issue #72 (August 16, 2001) of MIND CHATTER, the twice-monthly e-mail newsletter of Centerpointe Research Institute: Do you want to Unsubscribe?? Gasp!! (Directions are at the end of the newsletter!) http://www.centerpointe.com In This Issue: * MindQuotes * Just Let Whatever Happens Be Okay by Bill Harris * Glowing Testimonial of the Month * The Dark Side of Light Chasers Reclaiming Your Power, Creativity, Brilliance, and Dreams By Debbie Ford Book review by Scott Spencer-Wolff * Announcements *** MIND CHATTER contains articles about: *Personal and spiritual growth in general *Meditation (high and low-tech) *Recovery from emotional trauma *Mind development *Superlearning *Cutting edge methods for increasing longevity *How evolution happens in the brain *Pretty much any other subject I get excited about and want to write about. You'll find MIND CHATTER in your e-mail box once every two weeks. Questions? Comments? Criticisms? Just want to eavesdrop? We hope you will join our community and participate in our Discussion Board: http://centerpointediscussion.adhost.com/ If you aren't in the program now and would like to hear a sample, please listen to our on-line HolosyncŪ demo: http://www.centerpointe.com/demo/index.cfm Finally, if you aren't in the program already -- PLEASE JOIN! There's a RISK FREE one-year money-back guarantee and you can even pay in convenient payments on your credit card. You can join by calling 1-800-945-2741 or 503-672-7117 24 hours a day. Or, just click here: http://www.centerpointe.com/purchase/index.cfm We look forward to having you in the program! *** MindQuotes Learn to get in touch with the silence within yourself, and know that everything in life has purpose. There are no mistakes, no coincidences, all events are blessings given to us to learn from. --Elizabeth Kubler-Ross Let us put our minds together and see what life we can make for our children. --Sitting Bull Life and death are one thread, the same line viewed from different sides. --Lao-tzu Life begets life. Energy creates energy. It is by spending oneself that one becomes rich. --Sarah Bernhardt Life can only be understood backwards, but it must be lived forwards... --Soren Kierkegaard *** Just Let Whatever Happens Be Okay by Bill Harris I've had such a tremendous response to my article a couple of issues ago about the "Nine Principles" that I thought I would expand on each one in a 9 part series. These principles are one of those easy/hard things in life -- easy once you master them, seemingly impossible before you "get" them. But if you can live your life by these principles, everything flows, suffering is minimal, and what seemed to be problems melt away. The way to master each principle varies with the principle, but one way to get started is to write the principle down on a 3x5 card and take the card out of your pocket or purse and read it several times each day. Then, make a mark on the card each time you find yourself violating the principle, and a different mark each time you find yourself following it. In other words, keep score. This simple procedure makes you more aware of the principle, and leads to its being followed. Of course, first you have to be convinced that the principle is worth mastering and will actually create an improvement in your life. The reason some of these principles are hard to master is that a part of us thinks following them will actually create something worse in our life ("There's no choice. I have to do it this way!"). This is, once again, the old issue of our map of reality being constructed as it is because it offered us safety (or seemed to) during our growing up, and changing it seems unsafe, at least to the unconscious mind. So be forewarned that you might have some resistance to mastering some of these principles. Also take note that the more resistance you feel, the greater the potential benefit, since the resistance is a sign that the principle in question is a real issue for you. Also, cut yourself some slack as you embark on mastering these principles. Though they can be mastered in the twinkling of an eye, in real life they generally take some time. You will find yourself slipping up over and over. Let that be okay. You will go through several stages with each principle. Stage One is Unconscious Incompetence, where you don't follow the principle and don't even know you're not following it. Stage Two is Conscious Incompetence, which is where you probably will be after reading this article. You aren't following the principle, but you are conscious of that fact. Stage Three is Conscious Competence, where you can follow it, but only while you are paying attention to it and consciously making yourself follow it. Stage Four is where you have consciously followed the principle so consistently that you now can follow it without thinking about it. The first principle is that of "letting whatever happens be okay." The amount a person suffers in their life is directly related to how much they are resisting the fact that "things are the way they are." this has got to be one of the KEY pieces of wisdom about being human. If there is suffering or discomfort, there is resistance to the way things are. Period. In order to follow this principle, what could be called "addiction" or "attachment" to things being different than they are needs to be "upgraded" to a preference. This means that when "what is" is not what you want, you do not suffer over it (get angry, sad, fearful, anxious, and so on), and your happiness and peace are therefore not controlled by forces outside of your control. You prefer things would be such and so, but you are not attached to them being that way. To the degree a person is willing and able to let whatever happens be okay, they do not suffer. People with many rules about how things are suppose to be suffer more because no matter how much care they take to protect their rules and see that they are followed by themselves and others, these rules are often violated. These rules are part of that map of reality I mentioned above that we create during childhood in order to be/feel safe in our family. In any family, you are "safer" if you follow the rules. In some families there are few rules about how things are "supposed" to be, or how people are supposed to behave. In these families, children learn to flow with and react to whatever happens with a certain amount of psychological and behavioral creativity and resiliency. In others, there are many, many rules (sometimes rules about everything). In these families, responses are more automatic and pre-programmed, which stifles the in-born ability to resiliently deal with things as they arise in a creative and authentic manner. Living "according to the rules" has a certain appeal, because you don't have to think about each situation and come up with a more creative response. Instead, you just follow the rules. It's life lived by a formula or recipe. Unfortunately, no rules can cover the nuances of each potential situation, others often don't know the correct recipe for how to behave (what's wrong with them?) and your responses become robotic and often not well suited to the situation. Worse, the more rules you have, the more often someone or some thing is always breaking them, and the more that happens the more you end up pissed off, anxious, sad, afraid, or in some other variety of suffering. If you could let it be okay when someone breaks one of your rules, you wouldn't have to suffer. (Of course they wouldn't really be rules, then, would they?) This does not mean a person cannot be goal oriented and work toward making things they way they want them to be, but the emotionally healthy person prefers the outcome they seek rather than being addicted to it. That means they work toward what they want but, whatever the outcome, they maintain their equanimity and inner peace. This approach, then, is not fatalism or disinterest in the outcome, but rather a decision not to let the outcome throw you off-center. This is the meaning of upgrading your attachments to preferences, and the meaning of the "non-attachment" spoken of in Eastern philosophy (and spoken of by Jesus Christ in other ways). The key to handling challenging thoughts, situations, and feelings is therefore not in resisting them, but rather in becoming as fully accepting of them as possible. Accept what you think and feel, and what happens around you, even if what you think and feel is uncomfortable or what is happening is not as you would have preferred. Here, then, is a KEY point. (So pay attention!) Though it looks as if our discomfort is created by the thing we don't like, or are otherwise resisting, in actual fact the discomfort we feel is 98-99% (maybe even 100%) caused by our resistance to it, and only 1-2% (or none at all?) from the thing itself. When we stop resisting, the discomfort stops also. It may look like the person, thing, event, or whatever, is creating our discomfort, but it really is our reaction to it, our unwillingness to accept it, that creates the discomfort. Everyone has had something happen in their life that they strongly resisted, but ultimately came to terms with -- a relationship that ended, for instance. At first, you go through all kinds of suffering, but at a certain point you move on and accept what has happened. At that exact moment, the suffering stops. Similarly, we've all heard of people who find out they are going to die soon from a fatal illness and who become totally peaceful about it once they accept the fact that it is happening. It's not what happens, it's our reaction to it! Through acceptance, you empower yourself to heal, transform, or release any unresolved mental or emotional material. Unless and until you can accept what you think and feel as a manifestation of reality, you will remain attached to toxic attitudes and beliefs. But by being fully present to, and accepting of, your thoughts and feelings you open the pathway for the subconscious to reorganize itself to progressively higher levels of functioning. When you sense discomfort you are sensing resistance. When you sense resistance, meet it with acceptance. Ironically, once you stop resisting, you are much more effective in creating any external change you may have a preference for (not an attachment to). This all ends up being nothing but platitudes if you don't take some kind of definite step to put it into practice. One thing that helps, of course, is using the Centerpointe program for meditation every day. Stimulating the brain with Holosync creates the kind of expanded awareness that makes it easier to let whatever happens be okay. One of the characteristics of someone who has been in the program a while is that very little can move her off center. The second thing you can do is the 3x5 card exercise I described earlier. As you begin to pay attention to your response to what is happening, it will become more and more clear to you that you create your own suffering and that it does NOT come from your environment. This will make it more and more difficult to keep creating the suffering you've so far been attached to. When this happens, a whole new world opens up for you, and believe me, you will like it! So get out that 3x5 card and start using it. And keep using the program. Be well. Bill Harris, Director *** Glowing Testimonial of the Month Bill, I tried to reply to a topic on your website regarding sleep but the page wouldn't turn over so I figured that I would copy and paste my reply in an email to you. I hope you or at least someone in the program get this. I am a huge fan of your technology and am indulging myself in the program life a pig eats food. I hope to be your number one supporter and representative. I firmly believe that your program has done wonders for me and I look forward to my progress (although I am working on being patient, taking my time, and allowing everything to sink in to my innermost being). To me, this stuff is God-sent and I feel like it was a divine thing that I went to your website, checked out the demo, ordered the demo, ordered the cd's, and am now listening to the program on a very regular basis. I can't wait to let you know all the results I have experienced already and I hope that you are as excited as I am about my progress. Thank you so very much and here is a copy of my earlier writing: "I have always been one to sleep ungodly amounts as I have generally lead a life of depression. Once when I was a baby, my nanny put me down for a nap and I didn't wake up until the next morning. When I was in college, I had a brief period of time between the end of my last class and the start of gymnastics practice. Many times, I would be so exhausted that I would want to nap during this break and have an extremely difficult time getting motivated to wake up and hit the gym. I have lost many jobs due to my inability to wake up in the morning for work. When I had my baby, I was exhausted ALL the time. Since I began listening the these holosync tapes, I have been going to bed at about midnight at the latest and waking up at approximately 9:00a.m. every morning (give or take an hour or two depending on the day) with an energetic desire to start the day! I generally do not take naps during the day anymore but I make sure that I take time out for my daily meditation to alleviate the day's stress. I only recently ordered and received the Cd's and tapes and only have been listening to them for a few days now. I repeatedly listened to the introductory tape for almost a month before I had the money to make the package order. After my initial visit to the centerpointe website (in which I visited by an invitation in the mail) that this program was what I needed in my life!! I knew that I was going to be willing to do whatever it took to get the money together and be devoted to listening to the soundtracks on a regular, daily basis. I now almost feel that my life is dependent on my progress in this program because nothing else has worked so profoundly as the cleansing, washing, rejuvenating, reorganizing, refreshing, and beneficial effects of the holosync technology. At least not with such an ability to have a way to "escape" this world at the touch of your fingertips. Thanks Bill." Sincerely, Sarah F. Seattle, Washington ** Hi! Bill, I always read your articles in Mind Chatter but I rarely write to you. This time I thought that I would like to share something of my own experience because you struck so many chords in me this time.(Don't you nearly always!) If anyone is thinking of quitting, I hope that they will read this first. I knew when I was very young that I was DEFINITELY NOT O.K. By the time I was in my early twenties and a very inexperienced mother, I knew that I had to do something about it if I were not to ruin my children's lives. I didn't know where to begin and as far as I knew there was no one to help me. This was in the Dark Ages you understand, um, about 1950. I was in Malaya and utterly bereft. I had no birth family of my own since I was ten years old and my husband's family was in England and, anyway, although kindly, they weren't the kind of people who knew how to deal with someone who was definitely in need of deep counselling - so being in Malaya didn't make much difference to that situation. My childhood had been less than ideal and I was terrified of becoming an abusive mother I knew there were other kinds of mothers, my childhood friends had them - but how did I become one? This wasn't the first question I had asked myself but it marked the beginning of my unremitting quest to become O.K. I knew that my emotional reactions were unreliable but I had a good and intelligent mind. Guess what it came up with? It decided that I would take each situation with my children as it came up. I would then decide what would be the kindest and best way to deal with it. Having decided, I would follow that way until the situation was resolved. It was all I had. As the years went by, I learnt a little here and a little there. Each step was hard won and there was no help from my husband who was as emotionally crippled as I was myself. But I couldn't give up! My children were the stake in this so very difficult situation and I simply couldn't let them down because NO ONE especially not me was going to treat them as I had been treated. The going was tough - but I still managed to have a lot of fun along the way. However, it wasn't until I hit my mid-forties and came to Canada that I began to get some help. I couldn't believe how much there was 'out there'. Vancouver in the 70s was still slap bang in the middle of the Human Potential Movement. It was like having been starving and suddenly having a banquet set before me. I dived right in. I was scared but determined to become 'normal'. Like so many others, I plunged into every thing I thought would help. Funnily enough, although I learnt of things I had never dreamed existed, I still didn't make all that much headway - at least, I didn't think I did and it was still to be some twenty years more before I came up for air and realized that just about EVERYTHING had changed. It didn't matter that so much of the change had been painful it had been a great adventure. Of course, I still had miles to go - I just didn't know how many. But now, when I found myself in what you call 'overwhelm' I knew that going through it and coming out the other side was worth the pain, the fear, the effort. Eventually, I became a very old (chronologically speaking) grandmother, I ought to have been a Great Grandmother according to my chronological age - but there you are, life doesn't always give us what we want. This ushered in a new phase of learning to love and to learn yet more.. When my grandson was about five months old, I decided to write him a book for his 25th birthday. I wrote it in letter form so that I could write about whatever was interesting me at the time. Little did I know that this would lead me into a phase of some of the most interesting questions of my life. I found myself not merely discussing my interests but questioning every belief both obvious and not so obvious that I could bring to consciousness. This turned into a fascinating journey: a journey that was not simply intellectual by any means. You wouldn't believe (or perhaps you would) the places I got to. But the biggest surprise of all was that the pain had gone from my quest to know (and love) myself, my world and my universe. A twinge here and there perhaps but over all it was just a fascinating journey - and I hadn't even found Centerpointe yet. Well, Bill, as you will no doubt know, it doesn't matter how far or how long one has journeyed there is still as far to go as one can manage. By the time I found Centerpointe I had reached a place where I didn't know where to turn next to give myself a push to the next level - whatever that turned out to be. I had realized that looking for answers 'out there' has definite limitations. Now there was only one place to go and that was inside. No, I didn't become a hermit or turn away from life, I bought the first part of The End'. That was only last year. I have just completed CD3 of the second level. I have had no great insights - just little ones along the way. Parts of me that no longer serve me come up from time to time and I now have a way to deal with them. If it were not for Centerpointe and its meditation programme, I really don't know what would keep me going. The discipline of five days a week, which is what I have settled on, is my grounding for this period of my life. If things go as I expect, I shall have finished "The End" long before I have reached the end of my life - and there will still be "...miles to go before I sleep". Believe me, the unexamined life is definitely NOT worth living and Centerpointe and all it has to offer is a truly tremendous help in the examination of this maturer phase of my life. Thank you, Bill. I'm glad you were born when you were so that I could find you and what you have to offer so that I could find a way to keep going with my lifelong quest for love and learning. Gratefully yours, Barbara Y. ** A very sick friend of mine came home during the weekend. Sick means she has only one kidney and the other one is gradually letting go and she also has cancer in the stomach but I have yet to see a more vibrant personality. Anyway the last time she visited she seemed tense and I made her sit down and listen to the first tape you sent me. She got out of it very calm and very peaceful. This time she saw my tapes near my bed but I said she should wait before she goes home to listen to them which she finally did. Before long she was fast asleep. She did not get up for almost two hours while the children went on making a lot of noise around her. When she finally did get up there was a strange smile on her face. She has always been afraid of death and never talks about it. This time, she gets out of her sleep, gets up and the first thing she said was "there is heaven out there and lots of wonderful people". I starred at her while she collected her things and went out of the door smiling away. She has been smiling since. She refuses to talk about it because she says I will not understand!! Parin P. Toronto, Ontario *** The Dark Side of Light Chasers Reclaiming Your Power, Creativity, Brilliance, and Dreams By Debbie Ford Reviewed by Scott Spencer-Wolff To learn more about this book, or to purchase, click here: http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1573227358/wwwcenterpoincom It's a common Centerpointe theme. "I'm not OK and I want your soundtracks to fix me." "Well," we might ask, "What's not OK about you?" This immediately prompts a litany of self-complaints ranging from "I'm too fat" to "I'm too angry." "HmmmŠ" we say. "InterestingŠ" And then at least for me I begin to try and share why being this way or that has an 'up' side. How does being depressed have an 'up' side? It keeps us safe. It allows us a mode to be very sensitive of people and their space, which often gives us a little edge of awareness on what is going on. How does being angry have an 'up' side? Anger is another form of passion, and reflects the fact that we are able to be passionate about things. Change is only possible when we have enough passion to really ignite a fire under ourselves to bring about transformation. We know the shadow by many names: alter ego, the devil, our lower self, the dark twin, repressed self, the id. Carl Jung once said that the shadow "is the person you would rather not be." We are frightened of the power of the shadow inside of us. "What you don't own, owns you," quotes Ford of a friend. This is a powerful realization. Ownership not only requires acknowledgement, but acceptance. That person "you would rather not be" is latent inside of us. It has power, much the way an operating system determines the functionality of our computers. It is part of the setting of the jewel of ourselves. Even sublimating the dark side casts a shadow, according to Ford. Rather than reject the seemingly undesirable parts of ourselves, Ford offers advice on how to confront and ultimately embrace our shadows. "Instead of trying to suppress our shadows, we need to unconceal [sic], own and embrace the very things we are most afraid of facing," writes author Debbie Ford. She continues, "By 'own', I mean acknowledge that a quality belongs to you. "It is the shadow that holds the clues," says the spiritual teacher and author Lazaris. "The shadow also holds the secret of change, change that can affect you on a cellular level, change that can affect your very DNA." Our shadows hold the essence of who we are. They hold our most treasured gifts. By facing these aspects of ourselves, we become free to experience our glorious totality: the good and the bad, the dark and the light. It is by embracing all of who we are that we earn the freedom to choose what we do in this world. As long as we keep hiding, masquerading, and projecting what is inside us, we have no freedom to be and no freedom to choose." This is a powerful concept. A concept which does not come easily to a culture taught from youth that it's important to be nice, sweet, kind and 'good'. We don't culturally place the same value on being 'real', genuine or honest, unless that honesty is framed in a very tight paradigm comfortable for other people. "Don't rock the boat" is a deeply imbedded mantra. Debbie Ford believes that we each hold within us a trace of every human characteristic that exists, the capacity for every human emotion. When we are born we have the potential to express this entire spectrum of characteristics. We have unlimited potential to be fully human. The anxiety of our families, educational system and culture send strong signals about which characteristics are good or valued and bad (punishable). Tied to these signals is our human need for love and acceptance. The generally unspoken (although not always so) signals that love, acceptance and recognition will be withheld if we allow the "bad" characteristics to surface are clear. When certain impulses arise, we deny them instead of confronting them, giving them a healthy voice, then letting them go. It is to these feelings that Ford turns our attention, these parts of our selves that don't fit the personae we have created for the rest of the world. The result is clear. We sublimate huge portions of our selves. We deny feelings, stuff them down . . .and then later act surprised when this pressure cooker begins to boil. Ms. Ford shows us the effects of living in the dark, of keeping all our supposedly unsavory impulses under wraps. We find ourselves disproportionately frustrated and angry at the selfishness of friends, the rudeness of clerks, the bad driving of people on the highway, the laziness of coworkers, the arrogance of the homeless, etc., etc. When we are unable to reconcile similar impulses in ourselves, Ford explains, we waste our own energy judging others instead of empathizing. But most important, we deny ourselves the power and freedom of living authentically. Only by owning every aspect of yourself can you achieve harmony and "let your own light shine," she explains. "The purpose of doing shadow work, is to become whole. To end our suffering. To stop hiding ourselves from ourselves. Once we do this we can stop hiding ourselves from the rest of the world." I don't think it's difficult to then understand how powerfully this releases energy which heretofore has been necessary for masking our shadow self, and allows that energy to be used to realize and further our dreams and goals. Like shedding a lot of weight, we feel an emotional and spiritual energy we may not have felt for many years. Correspondingly our "fear factor" goes down as we lose our concern of being "unmasked" and we can espouse the attitude best summed up by my favorite Werner Erhardt quote, "Just because what's so is so, it's also 'so what'?" As threatening as shadow work may seem, personal transformation is not possible with out it. Debbie Ford's offers a step-by-step introductory guidebook in beginning this process and offers the reader enough immediate success with this venture to wet the appetite to continue this work in a more personalized, focused milieu. "When we constantly lie to ourselves it's difficult to believe in ourselves." Writes Ms. Ford. Through this very readable book -- and the helpful, easy exercises Ford outlines -- this book provides a very workable introduction to the shadow side of our selves. It is not the definitive word on the subject, nor does it claim to be. It is a beginning. "It is only when we have the courage to face things exactly as they are, without any self-deception or illusion, that a light will develop out of events, by which the path to success may be recognized." (From the Introduction, Quoted from the I Ching, Hexagram 5 Waiting) To learn more about this book, or to purchase, click here: http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/ 1573227358/wwwcenterpoincom *** Announcements: 1. Our retreat at beautiful Breitenbush Hot Springs in the foothills of Oregon's Cascade Mountains starts Monday and is...OVER. It was absolutely wonderful and 50+ people had some amazing breakthroughs, probably in some of the same areas YOU would like a breakthrough in. Our next retreat will be at Glen Ivy Hot Springs, and if you sign up now you won't be left out. The dates are March 5-11, 2002. I don't know how this happens, but every retreat seems to be better than the last. If you want 6 months of growth in 5 short days, be at the next one! Sign up for our Spring 2002 Retreat, but only if you want a dramatic transformation in your life. Click here for more information: http://www.centerpointe.com/retreats/ Or, call us between 9:30 and 5:00 Pacific time, M-F, at 1-800-945-2741 or 503-672-7117. 2. Welcome to all new Mind Chatter subscribers and new participants sent to us by my good friend Jack Canfield, author of the Chicken Soup for the Soul books, from the various email newsletters of Daily Inbox.com, from Bob Scheinfeld's Invisible Path, and from Paul Sheele and Pete Bissonette's Learning Strategies Corporation, and Hale Dwoskin's Sedona Training Associates. You will be so glad you joined this program! Please send your comments, questions, and suggestions about Mind Chatter to me at mindchatter@centerpointe.com. Also be sure to visit our Discussion Forum on the web site to meet other people in the program, ask questions, discuss all and every personal growth topic, or just to eavesdrop. http://centerpointediscussion.adhost.com/ 3. NOW UP AND RUNNING!! A "Participant's Only" section of the Centerpointe web site where you can: Order deeper levels, headphones, and other products on-line Just go to http://www.centerpointe.com and click on "Participants". (You CANNOT log on to this section with your Discussion Forum log-on -- there is a different log on for this new section of the site. Just follow the instructions after clicking on "Participants.") 1. From centerpointe.com...click on participants 2. Click on "Participant's Only" Registration... link 3. Enter (your current) THIS Email address. 4. Click on Search 5. Verify info and click "next" 6. Select and Fill in your alias, password and hint 7. Verify info and click "next" 8. Go back to the Log-in page 9. Log-in with the email and the password you just created And that's all there is to it!!!! Still to come to the Participants Only section: * Find the answers to most questions about your account with us ("What credit card did I use when I ordered? Did you get my affirmation tape? When will my Awakening Level 3 be recorded? When was it shipped? How can I track it? How many payments do I have left? etc. etc. etc") * More articles about personal growth, Holosync, etc. * Other surprises! We'll let you know when more of this section is ready! *** Archives of previous editions of Mind Chatter Monthly can be found at: http://www.centerpointe.com/news/archives/ *** UNSUBSCRIBE DIRECTIONS: To unsubscribe click on the link below: OR: send an e-mail FROM the address you want unsubscribed TO: MIND-CHATTER-SIGNOFF-REQUEST@news.centerpointe.com