1. Welcome to Issue #172 (May 2007) of MIND CHATTER, the e-mail newsletter of Centerpointe Research Institute: http://www.centerpointe.com. Mind Chatter is published once a month, on or about the 16th of each month. Please send Mind Chatter to a friend, and please send us your questions, comments, and suggestions. If this issue has been forwarded to you, and you'd like to subscribe to Mind Chatter, visit http://www.centerpointe.com/newsletter. To view Mind Chatter archives, visit http://www.centerpointe.com/newsletter/archives.php ................................................................................ 2. If you would like to unsubscribe, you can manage your account via the link at the end of this newsletter. (But please don't. We like you and we want you to stay.) ................................................................................ 3. In This Issue // MindQuotes (scroll to #5) // A few recommendations that may benefit you (scroll to item #6) // Feature Article Over the Top by Bill Harris, Director (scroll to item #7) // Participant Letters (scroll to #8) // Life Principles In Practice (scroll to #9) // Coach's Corner (scroll to #10) Welcome to our new feature, where each month a Centerpointe Support Coach shares their personal experiences with books that have inspired them, life-changing coaching experiences, and other information we're sure you'll find enlightening and enriching. This month, we hope you'll enjoy: What is Fear? By Rory Lee ................................................................................ 4. MIND CHATTER contains articles about: // How you create your life--and how you can stop unconsciously creating experiences and outcomes you do not want, and instead begin to create exactly what you do want // Personal and spiritual growth in general // Meditation (high--and low-tech) // Recovery from emotional trauma // Pretty much any other subject I get excited about and want to write about. After all, it's my company and my newsletter, and I can do whatever I want with it. So there. ................................................................................ 5. Mind Quotes "But I don't want to go among mad people," said Alice. "Oh, you can't help that," said the cat. "We're all mad here" -Lewis Carroll "If death meant just leaving the stage long enough to change costume and come back as a new character...Would you slow down? Or speed up?" -Chuck Palahniuk "I read and walked for miles at night along the beach, writing bad blank verse and searching endlessly for someone wonderful who would step out of the darkness and change my life. It never crossed my mind that that person could be me." -Anna Quindlen "Find ecstasy in life; the mere sense of living is joy enough." -Emily Dickinson =[MC]= ................................................................................ 6. Live long and prosper! Unless you've been living in a cave lately, you must have seen some of the recent news about the health benefits of meditation. It's everywhere... * An article published in the American Heart Association journal, Stroke, recently reported that meditation can reduce cholesterol buildup and the associated risk of heart attack and stroke. * And another study of the elderly found that meditation actually added years to their lives. * The National Institutes of Health reports that regular meditation reduces chronic pain, anxiety, high blood pressure, cholesterol, and cortisol (sometimes called "the stress hormone") production. * A University of Wisconsin-Madison study discovered meditation boosts brain function and the immune system. * A recent issue of the American Journal of Hypertension featured the results of a study showing a significant lowering of blood pressure in a group of meditators compared to a control group of people who didn't meditate. The study also reported a 23% decrease in usage of antihypertensive drugs between the group of meditators and the other group. * A Harvard study also concluded that regular meditation can reduce pain, lower blood pressure, and cut production of the stress hormone, cortisol. * The most recent study by The American Heart Association shows heart and artery health improved 69 percent in test groups practicing meditation. And this is just the beginning. Practically every time you turn around there's another study documenting and supporting fantastic health and wellness benefits of meditation. So, what's the quickest way to actually achieve these amazing benefits? If there's a downside to meditation it's this... Traditional meditation can take years, even decades to master. The Holosync Solution changes all that. Holosync uses advanced scientific technology to induce deep states of meditation virtually at the push of a button. Most regular users of Holosync report fabulous results in weeks rather than years. Try Holosync for yourself-for FREE! Click visit http://www.centerpointe.com/demo/ to get a FREE Holosync demo CD so you can see for yourself how this powerful technology can improve your life. Here's an even better idea. Go ahead and order Awakening Prologue (the first level of The Holosync Solution) and get started with the real thing. With our One-Year 100% Iron-Clad Guarantee, you can do so with no risk whatsoever. Use Holosync for up to a full year and enjoy all the powerful and lasting benefits this kind of meditation brings you. And if you decide that Holosync isn't everything we promise, simply let us know and you can return it for a full refund. It's just that simple. If you have any interest at all in increased health and vigor, increased longevity, lower blood pressure, peace of mind, and all the other great benefits of meditation, at least give Holosync a try. Remember you can get a FREE demo CD by going to +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ http://www.centerpointe.com/demo/ +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ And to learn all about the science behind Holosync, check out our extensive articles section here: ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ http://www.centerpointe.com/about/articles.php ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ =[MC]= ................................................................................ 7. Feature Article Over the Top How raising your personal threshold can change your life The chances are pretty high that you're reading these articles because you want to grow, to improve, to make your life better, to be happier and more fulfilled. In my own growth process, over the past thirty-eight years, I've found that the real key to growth is awareness. I've discussed awareness in previous articles, where I've noted that one is either an automatic response mechanism, or aware. The unaware person is immersed in whatever is happening. They are also immersed in what and who they are. They are unable to objectively observe what is happening because they are what is happening to them. On the other hand, the aware person can observe what is happening, as it is happening. In other words, they are aware of it. Instead of being it, they have it, and can watch it. This awareness creates more objectivity, a bit of observational distance that allows one to watch while one is having an experience, but without being consumed by it. Awareness involves noticing what is happening, as it happens. It also involves noticing how what is happening relates to the whole (the overall ecology of the situation, how it interacts with and affects everything else), as well as how it is distinct or different from the whole. The aware person also sees the potential consequences of potential responses to what is happening. To do this, you must intentionally pay attention. Paying attention increases the amount of information you have at your disposal. This improves your ability to make resourceful choices. In fact, without such awareness, a part of you decides what to do, but does so automatically, inflexibly, with limited or even no information. A person operating in this way is little more than an automatic response mechanism. Letting whatever happens be okay... We've already looked at the first of my Nine Principles for Conscious Living, the Principle of "Let Whatever Happens Be Okay", in a previous article. Applying this principle requires awareness. First, to let whatever happens be okay, you have to be aware of what is going on, so as to see that there is a choice about whether to let it be okay or not. If you are immersed in what is happening, if you are swept away by it, and therefore unaware of it, you'll very likely have trouble choosing to let it be okay. In other words, if what happens is contrary to what you would prefer, without awareness you'll be likely to automatically resist what is happening. Then, you experience the consequences of what has happened (you lost your wallet, for instance), plus the consequences of your resistance (you feel bad, and you are less able to take appropriate and effective action). The second way in which letting whatever happens be okay involves awareness may be a bit more difficult to grasp, because the biggest reason for letting whatever happens be okay is that...everything is okay. This becomes obvious as your awareness expands, which takes time and practice, and before that point the idea that it's all okay seems insane to a lot of people. So if it all doesn't seem okay to you, I guess you'll have to let that be okay, for now. Remember that letting whatever happens be okay doesn't mean that you can't act to make things be the way you would prefer. By all means, take action. Do your best. Decide how you would like things to be, and take purposeful action to make it so. However, allowing whatever happens to trigger you into bad feelings is a choice, and you don't have to do it. The second principle... Let's move on now to the second principle, The Principle of Threshold. This principle is related to principle number one, as you will see--and, as you might expect, it also involves awareness. Many years ago I became disillusioned with the typical explanation for where dysfunctional feelings and behaviors (anger, sadness, depression, anxiety, substance abuse, overeating, and so on) come from. This "common sense" explanation goes something like this: when you've been traumatized, you end up with something toxic or negative inside of you, which you have to get rid of in order to get better. If you have an anger problem, for instance, "you have a lot of anger inside" and you have to get it out. Once it's out, you'll be better. This point of view has generated approaches designed to do just that--get the bad stuff out of you. Unfortunately, these methods really don't work, except in a very short-term sense. And, there's a very good reason why these approaches don't create lasting change: there really isn't anything inside of you that you have to get out! Such approaches are called emotive therapies, and the granddaddy of them all is Dr. Arthur Janov's Primal Therapy, often referred to as Primal Scream Therapy, though Janov never called it that. If you experience an emotive approach you feel wonderful afterward--temporarily--but in pretty much every case that wonderful feeling lasts just a few months. As time passes, you experience a return of the same feelings, the same behaviors, the same dysfunctions. Why this happens I will make clear in a moment. A new theory of dysfunction... I've experienced several different emotive therapies myself, and I have spoken with (and worked with) many others who have experienced them. Unfortunately, neither I, nor any of these others, experienced lasting change. Then, over the years, as I observed how emotional dysfunction falls away (and does not return) in many Holosync users, I began to frame an alternative model to describe the real reason why people exhibit dysfunctional feelings and behaviors. This alternate theory states that each person has a threshold for how much they can handle emotionally, and that this threshold is different for each person. In other words, as long as your experience stays within the bounds of that threshold--as long as your threshold is not exceeded--everything is fine, and you feel pretty good. But if input from your environment reaches a point where it is too much for you, where it pushes you up to that threshold--or, worse, over it--you feel stressed. When this happens, you use various coping mechanisms, learned during childhood, in an attempt to deal with that stress. Often one of those methods is a favorite, a first line of defense in dealing with stressful situations, while another is a fall-back. When you first become stressed, you use your favorite. If pushed further, you may go to your fall-back strategy. For instance, if your favorite is anger, that will be your first response. But if you are pushed even further, or if anger doesn't work, you might get depressed, or withdraw. Very often one of the strategies is active, while the other involves shutting down in some way. The coping hall of fame include such feelings and behaviors as anger, fear, anxiety, sadness, depression, substance abuse, overeating, smoking, alcohol, drugs, avoidance, blaming, fleeing, plus many others. It also includes some things typically thought of as healthy: exercise, talking with friends, escaping into TV or reading or movies. It also includes some things considered to be extremely unhealthy: serious psychiatric conditions such as psychosis, schizophrenia, multiple personalities, personality disorders, and so on. You can see that there is a relationship between the level of a person's threshold and the amount of input or stimulation they take in from the environment in which they find themselves. If your threshold is too low for the amount of environmental input you typically experience, you'll find yourself over your threshold quite often, and will feel stressed a lot. And, in an attempt to cope, you will exhibit certain dysfunctional feelings and behaviors. If, on the other hand, your threshold is relatively high, or you find yourself in an environment where the amount of stimulation is low compared to the level of your threshold, you'll be under your threshold and will feel pretty good. The various mental and behavioral coping mechanisms, then, are a way of dealing with a threshold that is too low for the environment in which you find yourself. When you're over your threshold, too much is happening, too much is coming at you. As a result, you feel like you either have to somehow get rid of what's building up inside, or block more from coming in. Three strategies ... All coping mechanisms, then, involve trying to block more input from coming in (fleeing, depression, avoidance, isolation, and so on) or trying to push energy out (anger, anxiety, blaming, sexual acting out, etc.) in order to get rid of the buildup. There is a third possibility: distracting yourself from what is happening (substance abuse, escaping into television, etc.). None of these strategies really work, as we will see. Why, you might wonder, do some people have a threshold that is higher or lower than that of another person? When a person suffers a significant negative emotional experience--particularly in childhood, but it could be later in life--their threshold does not mature normally. Such people (I was one of them) are left with a lower than normal threshold. It therefore takes less input before the threshold is breached and the person begins to exhibit one or more of the various dysfunctional feelings and behaviors I've already mentioned. You probably know people like this, or you may even still be such a person (though you won't be once you get deeply enough into The Holosync Solution program). Those with a very low threshold can be bothered by almost anything. Noises bother them, light bothers them, being around people often bothers them. In fact, any kind of extra stimuli, or anything going "wrong" could bother them. Some people are even bothered by the sound of rain on Holosync soundtracks, or by a now-famous bird chirping on one of the soundtracks. If one little thing goes haywire in the routine of such a person, they are pushed beyond their threshold, and begin to exhibit the coping mechanisms they've learned to use when this happens. "But I had a happy childhood." What, then, constitutes "trauma"? The trauma that causes a low threshold could be something obviously traumatic to any observer, or it could be an accumulation of experiences that, to an outside observer, may not appear to be significant at all. The trauma could be physical or sexual abuse, or extreme emotional abuse. It could be a loss of a parent or other loved one. It could be the experience of a huge societal convulsion, such as war or famine, or some other disaster. Some trauma isn't so obvious, at least to the casual observer. Often people come to Centerpointe who exhibit signs of a low threshold, but they tell us they had a typical, happy childhood. They have no memories of traumatic events. When a person clearly exhibits symptoms of a low threshold, however, there has to be a reason. Consider that, to a small child, what appear to be insignificant events could still be traumatic. Consider a four or five-year-old child whose mother is worried about paying the bills and putting food on the table. Or, this same mother might be worried that her husband is being unfaithful. Or, she learns that she has a serious disease. In some way, she has a significant worry. As a result, she may be so preoccupied with her worries that when her child shows up with a picture he's made, for instance, or needs attention for some other reason, the mother may be too distracted to pay attention. The child may interpret this inattention in a variety of ways, all of which are traumatic for him. Perhaps he interprets her lack of interest as evidence that she doesn't care about him, or that she thinks he isn't a good artist, or just not good in general. She may not even notice that her child is bothered by her lack of interest. An accumulation of such events, none of which are intentional, can cause a low threshold. The same could be said for a death in the family, or a divorce, or even a move to a new neighborhood. Many studies have confirmed that the earlier in life a child experiences such events, the greater the damage. Infants who fail to bond with their mother during infancy, for whatever reason, have the lowest thresholds of all. Some people may have a genetic predisposition to having a lower threshold, to being more fragile, to being more sensitive to stress. Dr. Al Siebert, author of The Survivor Personality, and a world-famous expert on human resiliency, and has noted that one's threshold can be affected by both nature and nurture. The point is that all people have a threshold for what they can deal with, and that dysfunctional feelings and behaviors happen when we are over our threshold, whatever it is, and disappear when we are under it. And, a traumatic childhood contributes to the creation of a lower-than-normal threshold. There is, however, something you can do about this, as we will see. Your threshold is not set in stone, and it can be changed. What do YOU do when you're "over the top"? Let's look at how people handle being pushed over their threshold. Responses fall into three main categories. Some people are more explosive, using anger or activity as if to push something out of their system. This can, in some cases, come out as healthy creativity. Artists, as you probably know, have a reputation for being a little bit nuts, and many great artists are people who have channeled overwhelm into creative expression instead of into tantrums, though many do both. A second approach is to reduce the amount of stimulation coming in. This could mean isolating oneself, shutting down, or in some other way minimizing or reducing outside stimuli. Depression is one such coping mechanism, where as much input as possible is shut off or deflected. In depression the pupils of the eyes constrict in order to take in less light, the person breathes less, may lose their appetite, and wants to be alone. In more benign cases, the person may be closed to new ideas, because any small amount of new information can upset the apple cart. A third approach is to distract oneself, through any manner of ways, some unhealthy, such as drugs and alcohol, overeating, overindulging in sex, and so on, and some that are considered healthy, such as reading, TV, and other escapist pursuits. If it's true that the cause of dysfunctional feelings and behaviors is a low threshold, then the obvious remedy is to raise that threshold higher. Anything else is just a treatment of the symptoms, without addressing the real root cause. Though in some cases it may be appropriate to address the symptoms, especially if a person is in great distress, the real solution is to deal with the root cause: a threshold that is too low to handle the input being received from the environment. This is one reason why meditating with Holosync is so powerful in changing a person's experience of life. Holosync raises your threshold for what you can handle, and as this happens, it takes an increasing amount of stimulation to push you to the point where that threshold is exceeded. Since dysfunctional feelings and behaviors only occur when you are over your threshold, as it becomes more difficult to reach that threshold, such feelings and behaviors appear less and less often. After someone with a low threshold has used Holosync for a while, they begin to notice that people and situations that previously bothered them aren't affecting them in the same way. Eventually, their threshold reaches a more normal level, and their reactions to the world are more like those of "normal" people. Then, as such people continue to use Holosync, progressing through the deeper levels of the program, their threshold continues to increase. Eventually, they find that their threshold is actually higher than that of most other people. This is what happened to me. I used to be the one with the low threshold. I was always reacting to something, but after a few years of Holosync use I eventually became someone who could deal with an incredible amount of input and still keep my internal balance and equanimity. The same thing will happen to you as you continue to move through the program, and I have to say that having lived both ways, I highly recommend having a high threshold. When your threshold is high, anger, depression, anxiety, substance abuse, and all kinds of other coping mechanisms fall away, and I can tell you that the world is a lot more fun without them. How you "do" overwhelm. So, you might wonder, what happens when you're pushed over your threshold? What do you do inside that's different? Why is the experience of being over your threshold different from being under your threshold? You know by now that my point of view is that you are creating your experience, whatever it is, so there must be something you do once you reach your threshold that changes your experience from "life is okay" to "life is overwhelming." You may recall my assertion that what you experience in life is a direct result of how you focus your mind. Keeping that in mind, you'll notice that when you are under your threshold, you are, for the most part, focusing on (making internal representations of) what you want. Consciously or unconsciously, you're making internal pictures of and otherwise thinking about what you want. When you do this, things go pretty well and you feel pretty good. However, once you've been pushed over your threshold, something very interesting begins to happen: you begin to focus on what you don't want. You begin to think about and make pictures of what you want to avoid, what you're worried about, what you're afraid of. Two things happen when you do this: you tend to create or attract whatever you're focusing on (unfortunately, in this case, what you don't want), and you feel bad. In fact, from the point of view of what you do inside, the only way you can feel bad is to focus on what you don't want. So your threshold is really nothing more than the point at which you switch from focusing on what you want to what you don't want. When you're below your threshold, you focus on what you want, you tend to get it (depending on how much you focus on it, how much feeling you add, and whether or not you take action), and for the most part you feel pretty good. When you're over your threshold, you focus on what you're afraid of, what you're worried about, what you want to avoid. When you do this you get bad results (as with focusing on what you don't want, your mind, being a powerful goal-seeking mechanism, figures out how to create or attract what you're focusing on), and you feel bad--angry, sad, anxious, fearful, confused, depressed, and so on. Being over your threshold, then, is something you do, not something that happens to you, or is thrust upon you. It's also something you can decide not to do. Creating your life on autopilot... Most people are operating their mind automatically and unconsciously, as I have said many times before. This means that when they're under their threshold, they're unconsciously and automatically focusing on what they want, at least most of the time, and when they're over their threshold, they're unconsciously and automatically focusing on what they don't want. But you can learn to be conscious of how you focus your mind, which means that if you do find yourself over your threshold, you can decide to change your focus to what you do want. It's not as if you're a victim of your threshold and that once you're over it, you have no choice but to feel bad and create dysfunction. It's only when you live unconsciously that you're likely to do this. So there are two solutions to the threshold problem: the first is to raise your threshold, which you can do through Holosync (there are other ways to do this, but Holosync is a very fast and reliable way). And if, despite raising it higher and higher, you still find yourself over it once in a while, you can be conscious enough to continue to focus on what you want, even though the tendency is to want to focus on what you don't want. To tie this into the first principle, "Let Whatever Happens Be Okay", you could say that when you reach your threshold you begin to not let whatever happens be okay, and you do that by focusing on what you don't want. Isn't that what you do when you resist something? You focus on it (i.e., make internal representations of it), with the intention that you don't want it. And, as I've said, you then feel bad, because whenever you focus on what you don't want, it creates bad feelings. Focusing on what you don't want and resisting, then, are really the same thing, and if you're operating unconsciously, you'll begin to do this whenever you go over your threshold. So if you do go over your threshold, you can still feel good--if you consciously and intentionally focus on what you want. In effect, this means that no matter what happens, you can feel good, if you operate your brain consciously and choose what you focus on, which, with some practice, you can do. Your threshold, then, could be described as the point at which you begin to not let whatever happens be okay, and the way you do that is to begin to focus on what you don't want. This means that the reason you feel bad when you're over your threshold isn't because you're over your threshold, per se, but because at that point you've automatically begun focusing on what you don't want. "Wow, this feels intense!" In a previous article I discussed positive, negative, and neutral intensity. Let's look at the idea of threshold in those terms. When you're over your threshold, it feels intense. This intensity is negative if you begin to focus on what you don't want, but it's neutral intensity, and possibly even positive intensity, if you focus on what you want at those times. But because you're over your threshold, one way or another, whatever you are feeling is going to be intense. That's what being over threshold is all about: intensity. But whether it's negative or neutral, or even positive, is up to you, and depends on how you focus your mind. If you're operating unconsciously and automatically when events push you over your threshold, you'll automatically focus on what you don't want, and, as a result, you'll experience the effects of doing that, including some or all of the various dysfunctional feelings and behaviors I've already mentioned, and many others I haven't. And, though treating the symptoms of such dysfunctional feelings and behaviors may create temporary relief, symptom-oriented treatments don't solve the underlying problem. That being the case, the problem (certain dysfunctional feelings and behaviors) will keep returning in your life, over and over. The two treatments that really work are raising your threshold, and learning to deal with being over threshold--if it happens--in a conscious way, by continuing to focus your mind on what you want, and at the same time, adopting what I've called the witness perspective. This is where you watch whatever is happening with curiosity, and with no agenda. When you look at things from the witness perspective, the goings-on of the mind take on a different tone. From that perspective, everything is okay. There's nowhere to go, nothing to get, and nothing to want or not want. In fact, the whole problem of focusing on what you want or focusing on what you don't want disappears. Even if you are focusing on what you want, you're not involved, at least in the sense of being attached to the outcome. You're just watching, curious to see what will happen, but not attached to what may or may not happen. More awareness... As I said earlier, all of this is ultimately about awareness. It's important, then, in mastering this idea of threshold, to be aware of, to pay attention to, a few things. First, begin to notice when you're over your threshold. Since up to this point you haven't been looking at your experience in terms of threshold, you've probably never really consciously noticed what it's like to be under your threshold, approaching your threshold, at your threshold, or over your threshold. It's important that you begin to notice these things. How can you tell when you are approaching your threshold? As you approach your threshold you will probably begin to feel a bit of chaos coming on, internally. You might begin to feel a bit stressed. You might notice yourself focusing a bit more on what you don't want about the situation, whether it's what you're feeling or what is happening around you. When you actually reach your threshold, you're definitely feeling internal chaos, and you very probably are focusing on what you don't want. You might also pay attention to what your body feels like as you approach your threshold, as you reach it, and as you go over it. Notice any pictures you make in your head. Notice what thoughts you think. Become an expert at noticing everything you do in these various stages of the threshold experience. You've all heard about higher consciousness or expanded awareness, and probably thought it was some high metaphysical state, some sort of blissed-out trance. Expanded awareness, though it is an amazing place to be, is actually much more mundane, much more here and now. The Zen Buddhists saym "Before enlightenment, chop wood and carry water. After enlightenment, chop wood and carry water." Being more aware has to do with these little, moment-by-moment, everyday events, and your ability to watch them from another perspective. So instead of waiting for profound spiritual visions, look to the day-to-day events happening in you and around you, because this is where it's happening. Every moment is an opportunity to be more aware of who you are and how you're creating everything that's happening. Once you do this, you can begin to decide, consciously and intentionally, to change what you're doing, if it isn't resourceful, to something that is resourceful. You can make pictures of and have thoughts about what you want, which puts your mind to work creating or attracting it. You can change your feelings to more positive feelings and feel happy and peaceful right now, in the moment, regardless of what is happening around you. Play with this, and see what happens. Then, just for fun, find out what happens when you step out of the whole thing, and just watch, without intervening. Be an awareness scientist. Experiment with your mind and with your conscious awareness and see what happens. You might also try this while listening to Holosync. Some of you get pushed over your threshold while listening to Holosync, so if that happens, experiment with your response. I promise you that adopting these new perspectives are the gateway to the happiness, inner peace, and fulfillment you've been seeking. It's right there inside of you, and awareness is the key that opens the door. Bill. =[MC]= ................................................................................ 8. Participant Letters Thank you for the invitation to write about my experiences with Holosync. I am about to start the third cd of Purification Level 3 [The eighth level of the Holosync(R) Solution]. This is the thirty-seventh month of daily sitting in meditation, focusing on my breath, listening for an hour (usually between one and two a.m. as I am a light sleeper). Sitting listening to Holosync is much better than tossing and turning in bed. I have missed daily sitting only about 5-6 times since I started.. I switch to the next level of Holosync every other full moon, spending +/-60 days on each cd. The only resistance I have experienced is when I impatiently shorten the recomended 14 day listening to The Dive to less than that--anywhere from one to seven days usually before moving into Track Two: Immersion--I experience some anxiety usually expressed as unnecessary worry and general grumpiness for a week or so. Usually the second month of listening to each cd has been much better with my mind becoming much calmer sooner. Sometimes the feeling of contentment is so blissful that I take off the earphones when the hour is up and continue to sit in silence. As far as personal changes go, friends who have known me for years say I seem much calmer and less stressed and much happier than before I started Holosync.. I agree with their assessment and would add that I also feel much more peaceful with whatever happens each day and am much less anxious and worried about the future. I have long been a student of Buddhism and the Yoga Sutra of Pantanjali and find that Holosync has helped to regularize my meditation practice and has greatly helped to still my mind. I intend to continue my practice and to order the next two levels. The only real difficulty I have had is when I try to explain what I am doing to others who are not inclined toward meditation. It's like trying to explain the benefits of fasting to my neighbor, a professional chef. His response was "why would anyone not want to eat?". So I do not discuss it with anyone who is not on a similar path. I write to you in hopes others who may be on a similar path might want to share their experiences with Holosync. I also want to thank Bill and everyone involved in bringing this valuable tecnology to the public. I think many more people could benefit from this. --Joe I am a relative "newbie" to Holosync Solution and the Centerpointe Research folks. I've just begun Awakening Prologue (week 3 of the full 1-hour meditation) and have felt like (and said to my husband) "The search is over!" I appreciate the support materials and the extra CDs very much. and I fully intend to go the distance with all the levels. (By then I'll be 66!!) Bill, we are about the same age and share similar experiences from the 60's and 70's, except your search bore fruit! I am so blessed to have "found" Centerpointe and Holosync, and I truly do feel like a very long search is over. I'm home. But, the point of the email: I was very impressed with the Coaches' Corner piece by Dede Marsh! How powerful and simple the asking oneself questions to get past a blockage!! I noted them all and now have a tremendous new tool in my life! Thank you, Dede! I am a "retired" nurse, and for the past 4 years have been taking care of my dad who has Alzheimer's Disease. I've begun having him listen to The Dive, and will progress him to the full 1 hour, if I can get him to cooperate, that is. I'll keep you posted on any noticable changes that occur with him. I have an open mind about it, and great hope. --Cindy I just wanted to take a moment to share my appreciation both in your organising these interviews and in sharing Holosync with the world. I have been on your program for 3.5 mths now and I am profoundly grateful for attracting both a resource that is enabling me to develop way beyond what I anticipated when I was asking for it, and a bevy of people who are extraordinary in their concern and consideration for others. I have loved your approach since I was first introduced to you in your letters. Your compassion and your dedication and your consideration and your attention to detail around these themes warm my heart Bill... ....Truly..it is the most incredible experience in learning to access the power within you, isn't it..and I'm profoundly grateful to recognise my own through allowing your wealth of wisdom into my world. The additional shared experiences of your precious friends has accelerated my growth substantially. I wish you well as you continue to create your own magnificent adventure Bill --Roz =[MC]= ................................................................................ 9. Life Principles In Practice // But what about love? Real love is not part of duality, and it is not part of subject/object. The typical way of thinking about love is that there is something separate from you, the object, and you, the subject, either love it or don't love it. This kind of love is part of the world of separation and clinging to other supposedly separate things. This always ends in suffering of some kind. Either you don't get the object of your love, and you suffer, or you do get it, but since everything comes into being and passes away, you ultimately lose it and suffer over that loss. But if you realize who you really are, if you know that you are the going on of it all, in the infinitely forever now, and there is nowhere to go, nothing to get, and nothing to fear, then everything is love. Not subject/object dualistic love, but just transcendent love, beyond opposites. This is love without an object, since there really are no objects, no others. In reality, the witness is love. When you are firmly established in the witness, in non-dual awareness, which means you see the map created by the mind for what it is: just a map. All there is is love, and you just watch with awe and love as the universe spins along, doing its thing, as you. // The home of genius ideas It's so important to trust the unconscious part of your mind, the part that is able to perceive things in a holistic way. This is the part of you that grows your hair, that moves your muscles, that does literally billions of interrelated things all at once. This is also the part of you that geniuses tap into when they get key ideas, such as Einstein's Theory or Relativity, or Newton's realization about gravity. These brilliant eureka moments do not come from analysis and linear thinking, they come from allowing the unconscious part of you to process the question. Later, they may use the linear mind to figure out the mathematical equations to prove what they intuitively realized, but that's it. Another way to look at enlightenment is that it is being totally in touch with that part of yourself, without the fog and distortion of reality of the conceptual mind. Please, have a conceptual mind. Have a Map of Reality. Use concepts all you want. But stop mistaking them for reality, and stop believing that the linear, narrow focused mind can in any way grasp a multi-dimensional universe. =[MC]= ................................................................................ 10. Coach's Corner Welcome to our new feature, where each month a Centerpointe Support Coach shares their personal experiences with books the have inspired them, life-changing coaching experiences, and other information we're sure you'll find enlightening and enriching. This month, enjoy: What is Fear? by Rory Lee Rory Lee has been a support coach at Centerpointe for 3 years and a participant in the Holosync Solution for almost 6 years. His experience with the program as well as his ongoing personal growth work have made him a well-respected member of the support team. He is also an avid outdoors man and is currently in training to climb Mount Hood in Oregon to support the American Lung Association. It is my hope that all of us on this path of personal discovery can begin to consider fear in a new light--as a teacher of acceptance. Fear is simply a judgment. When we experiment with fear, we are freed to find out everything first hand, experientially. This opens us up to possibility and acceptance. When the energy I associate with fear comes up, I ask myself, "What am I really afraid of?" Perhaps it is going without, or being inconvenienced. Or maybe it comes down to someone finding out about my perceived imperfections, or no longer having my own carefully constructed story to repeat. Fear is a concept as are the thoughts that create it. The mind uses fear to stop us from abandoning aspects of ourselves with which we identify. Fear itself is not real, but the energy it represents leads us to believe that it is real and that this energy is to be avoided. However, upon deeper examination of this energy we discover what we're really trying to avoid are aspects of ourselves being changed. These aspects are the carefully protected concepts of who we think we are. Fear is ego-centered and relates to our conditioning, whether that conditioning is functional or dysfunctional. Consciously, we want change, but unconsciously it frightens us. Our unconscious minds say, "What, me change? This is who I am." The belief that some part of the self is being threatened and is in danger of being lost leads to an unconscious reaction to hold on, even if this change is something we consciously want. We believe that we must remove the threat to feel safe. Each of us experiences fear, but rather than avoid it, I suggest exploring it. Why explore fear? Why not! It's been the motivation behind much of what we do, how we do it, and the time we do it in, so why continue to avoid it? We run from the fear generated by the ego out of self-preservation. So, who would we be if we did not have the concept of the self to identify with? Fear feeds on our memories of the past and projections of the future. Fear exists because we identify with the body. When you can experience fear in the body without labeling it, you can move toward the changes the unconscious mind resists. Fear won't go away simply by continuing to lash out at it. It's an illusion created by a thought of something we don't want to happen. To learn about fear, we must be willing to step inside of it and experience it as it is without trying to change it. The more we are exposed to it, the more opportunities we have to get familiar with it. In the end, it is just energy, there for us to explore and experience. If we always bail out and avoid fear, the ego has done its job. Bailing strengthens the ego's confidence that we'll continue to avoid those uncomfortable situations that ultimately provide the impetus for change. If, instead, we stop trying to figure it out and just watch -- if we experience the neutral energy it is -- we can then take the opportunity to accept and learn from it. For me, this has taken a lot practice, but I've found that fear has so much to teach when I am open to the lesson. Holosync meditation can give the awareness necessary to approach fear and be 'the what' that has always been there. Fear is not what your thoughts may have warned you against. Consider fear to be a blessing of self-discovery. Enjoy! =[MC]= =//=