Secrets of the Millionaire Mind

Setting Your Goals - Easier Said, Easily Done

2008-07-02T07:34:00.001-07:00

The basics of setting a goal is an open secret known by top-caliber athletes, successful businessmen and businesswomen and all types of achievers in all the different fields. The basics of setting goals give you short-term and long-term motivation and focus. They help you set focus on the acquisition of required knowledge and help you to plan and organize your resources and your time so that you can get the best out of your life.
Setting clearly defined short term and long term goals will enable you to measure your progress and achieve personal satisfaction once you have successfully met your goals. Charting your progress will also enable you to actually see the stages of completion leading to the actual realization of your goals. This eliminates the feeling of a long and pointless grind towards achieving your goal. Your self-confidence and level of competence will also improve as you will be more aware of your capabilities as you complete or achieve your goals. The basics of goal settings will involve deciding what you really want to do with your personal life and what short term and long term goals you need to achieve it. Then you have to break down goals into the smaller and manageable targets that you must complete in your way to achieving your lifetime targets. Once you have your list waste no time in tackling your goals.
A good way to have a manageable list is to have a daily and weekly set of goals. By doing this you will be always in the position of going towards you life plan goals. Everyday will give you the opportunity to fulfill a certain goal giving you the feeling of accomplishment.
Here are some pointers that should be taken into consideration in setting goals and achieving them.
Attitude plays a very big role in setting and achieving your goals. You must ask yourself if any part of you or your mind holding you back towards completing your simplest goals? If there are any part of your behavior that is being a hindrance or puts your plans into disarray? If you do have problems in these areas then the immediate thing to do is to address this problem. Solutions may include a visit to a doctor or psychiatrist to control your emotions. Careers are made by good time management practice. Failing in a career is often attributed to bad time management. Careers require a lot from an individual which often makes the career the life of the individual. Plan how far do you want to go into your career.
Education is key in achieving your goals. If your goals require you to have a certain kind of degree or require a certain specialization or demand a certain skill to be developed, make plans in getting the appropriate education.
Your family should never be left out of your plans. If you are just starting out then you have to decide if you want to be a parent or when you want to be a parent. You also have to know if you really would be a good parent and how well would you relate to extended family members
Personal financial situations also play a major role in achieving your goals. Have a realistic goal on how much you really want to earn. You also must be able to create plans or stages by which you will be able to reach your earning potential.
Physically gifted individuals may be able to achieve sports related goals like being in the National Basketball association or National Football League. Determining your physical capabilities should be one of your priorities. Physical limitations could however be conquered with proper planning.
As the saying goes -'All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy', or something to that effect, is by all means true down to the last the letter. Giving yourself a little pleasure: should be included into your plans.
To start achieving your lifetime goals, set a quarter of a century plan, then break it down to 5 year plans then break it down again to 1 year plans, then 6 month plans then monthly plans, then weekly, then daily.
Then create a things-to-do list for the day.
Always review your plans and prepare for contingencies.
The basics of goal settings should not be so difficult once you get to be familiar with them.

Creating Effective and Efficient Relationships

2008-07-02T07:33:00.002-07:00

Relationships of all kinds are often perceived as very delicate things, that require extra effort to maintain. However, a relationship can also be something that can provide security and can also be long lasting despite many trials.
Building an effective and lasting relationships is a necessity for several reasons. For example in a group or organization, the well being of the people depends on how efficient and effective that group or organization works.
The group or organization is also dependent on how the members work well with the management.
An ineffective group or organization can really be very frustrating. An effective group or organization can also ask so much on their members, that sometimes the members would be having no life outside the walls of the area where they work or sacrifice the other aspects of their life just to meet deadlines. For an organization or group with this kind of scenario, relationships can be stressed or suffer from breakdown. People or other entities who depend on these groups or organization also suffer. Society is defined as a web of relationships, which requires all parties to work and contribute their share in order to achieve a common goal. Having a relationship that is good, where cooperation and respect are manifested, can make society work better. In this way each member works for the good of the whole and towards achieving a common goal. This can only be attained with effective and efficient relationships. Understanding the other parties' feeling and position creates an effective and efficient relationship. The easiest method to understand what is important to another party is to ask them what they want and listen to what they have to say. When the other party realizes this, they would feel the importance given to them
Effective and efficient relationships require parties to openly express their feelings and positions on all matters pertinent on the relationship. Assuming that the other party understands our needs and give us when we need it without asking for it is not a good practice.
Respect is the key to relationship. In order to create a more effective relationship, parties should treat each other with respect. We can show respect just by listening to the other party and by trying sincerely to understand how they function. You can also show respect to other parties by confirming that they are doing everything they can.
The opposite of respect is quick forming of judgements based on unfounded facts and prejudice. Respect is the very foundation for a great relationship. This also means respecting yourself and respecting others.
Another key area in forming an effective relationship is to tackle differences of the other party directly. Differences between parties or people are quite interesting. For example in a conversation where each party listens to the other party, you may observe that each is having two different perspectives.
Work towards a win-win solution for both parties.
This can be done when at least one party acknowledges that the relationship is important. That party would then exert more time, effort and energy to understand the other party's needs and deal with it to get it out of the way. Should they fail, it is comforting for that party to know that they tried.
Effectively listening and no pre-judging. This is important if parties are to understand each other.
Informal discussions are conducive for parties. They bring out issues and concerns comfortably. They also feel more relaxed making them think more clearly.
Developing an atmosphere where the other party can express their feelings when they need to.
When parties fail to express whatever is on their mind or their feelings, it can get in the way of building an effective relationship.
Parties should be aware that certain things exist naturally but should be controlled in any dealings in any relationship. Human nature is one. Some of these things found in a relationship also include a history of stereotyping or mistrust, blaming the other person or party for a strained relationship, excluding the other party's feelings when focusing on a task, no clear and defined objectives, roles and expectations of each party in a relationship is also unclear.
Relationships are important to anyone, addressing issues and problems right away is a must to further improve the relationship. As they say 'No man is an Island'.

Unleash Your Creative Thinking

2008-07-02T07:33:00.001-07:00

Creative Notions
People seem to have the misconception that only a select few are able to unleash a steady flow of creative genius. That is not true at all. The fact is, creativity is very much like a muscle that needs to be exercised in order to consistently give out great results. If you don't practice harnessing creative thinking, this skill will very much atrophy into inexistence. But keep working and this skill will soon come to you in a snap.
So how do you unleash your creative thinking? Well, the first thing is to become a human leech. No, we're not talking about just sucking the blood out of every living being available, we're saying that you should take in as much knowledge and learning you can find. Read everything available -- good and bad, and keep your mind open to the infinite possibilities of the universe. The more you know, the more you'll want to know, and the more your faculty of wonder will be exercised. Prepare to be amazed at little facts that add a bit of color into your life.
Focus on a creative activity everyday. Yes, it's an effort. Even doodling is a creative activity. Don't let anything hinder you. Mindlessness may be a creative activity, but for people who are just starting out to unleash a little bit of creative thinking in their lives, it is helpful and encouraging to have concrete evidence, that, "hey, what I'm doing is getting somewhere." So why don't you try it. Practice drawing for a couple of minutes each day. Bring out your old camera and start snapping photos like crazy. Keep a journal and make a point to write in it religiously. Another cool idea is to write by describing something with your five senses. Try to avoid vague adjectives like "marvelous," "amazing," and "delicious." Before you know it, you'll have built yourself a tiny portfolio, and you'll be amazed at the growth you've undertaken after amassing all those works of art. Who knows, you might actually take to liking those things you do everyday. Pretty soon those things will become a part of you and you'll be addicted to these creative exercises.
Think out of the box -- or don't. Sometimes, constraints are actually a good thing. Limitations discipline you to work within your means. It enables you to be more resourceful. Creative freedom is great, but limitations enforce discipline.
Try something new everyday and let your experiences broaden your perspective. Explore a new district in your neighborhood. Spend an afternoon in a museum to which you've never been before. Chat up someone on the bus. Open up to the people around you. As you thrust yourself out of your comfort zone more and more each day, your sense of adventure grows and so does your zest for life. Think about it. When was the last time you did something for the first time? If it's been a while, I tell you, you've been missing out on a whole lot of experiences that could've added to your growth, emotionally, mentally, physically, or spiritually. Why don't you try bungee jumping today? Not only will you learn, but you will also have plenty of stories to share, enabling you to practice your storytelling skills and making you the life of the party.
Embrace insanity. No, not to the point of practically admitting yourself into the mental ward. As John Russell once said, "Sanity calms, but madness is more interesting." Exactly! Every creative thought was once deemed insanity by other "normal" people at one time or another. Luckily, that didn't stop the creative geniuses from standing by them. The thing is, sanity or being normal confines people to think... well, normally. Withink limits. Creativity is essentially breaking through barriers. Yes, this includes the bizzarre and the downright strange. I'm not saying that you yourself should develop a creative personality. That might go haywire. An example of a creative personality would be George Washington, who often rode into battle naked, or James Joyce, who wrote "Dubliners" with beetle juice for an intense fear of ink, or Albert Einstein, who thought his cat was a spy sent by his rival (or in thinking creatively in this case, the term could probably be "archnemesis.") It's important that your creativity doesn't get you detached from the real world completely.
I hope this article has inspired you to start thinking beyond your "limits." If you follow these steps pretty soon you'll be living a life full of interesting adventures. Unleashing your creative thinking will bring about a new zest for living life.

UNLOCK YOUR SELF IMPROVEMENT POWER

2008-07-02T07:32:00.002-07:00

When we look at a certain object, a painting for example – we won’t be able to appreciate what’s in it, what is painted and what else goes with it if the painting is just an inch away from our face. But if we try to take it a little further, we’ll have a clearer vision of the whole art work.
We reach a point in our life when we are ready for change and a whole bunch of information that will help us unlock our self improvement power. Until then, something can be staring us right under our nose but we don’t see it. The only time we think of unlocking our self improvement power is when everything got worst. Take the frog principle for example –
Try placing Frog A in a pot of boiling water. What happens? He twerps! He jumps off! Why? Because he is not able to tolerate sudden change in his environment – the water’s temperature. Then try Frog B: place him in a luke warm water, then turn the gas stove on. Wait til the water reaches a certain boiling point. Frog B then thinks “Ooh… it’s a bit warm in here”.
People are like Frog B in general. Today, Anna thinks Carl hates her. Tomorrow, Patrick walks up to her and told her he hates her. Anna stays the same and doesn’t mind her what her friends says. The next day, she learned that Kim and John also abhors her. Anna doesn’t realize at once the importance and the need for self improvement until the entire community hates her.
We learn our lessons when we experience pain. We finally see the warning signs and signals when things get rough and tough. When do we realize that we need to change diets? When none of our jeans and shirts would fit us. When do we stop eating candies and chocolates? When all of our teeth has fallen off. When do we realize that we need to stop smoking? When our lungs have gone bad. When do we pray and ask for help? When we realize that we’re gonna die tomorrow.
The only time most of us ever learn about unlocking our self improvement power is when the whole world is crashing and falling apart. We think and feel this way because it is not easy to change. But change becomes more painful when we ignore it.
Change will happen, like it or hate it. At one point or another, we are all going to experience different turning points in our life – and we are all going to eventually unlock our self improvement power not because the world says so, not because our friends are nagging us, but because we realized its for our own good.
Happy people don’t just accept change, they embrace it. Now, you don’t have to feel a tremendous heat before realizing the need for self improvement. Unlocking your self improvement power means unlocking yourself up in the cage of thought that “its just the way I am”. It is such a poor excuse for people who fear and resist change. Most of us program our minds like computers.
Jen repeatedly tells everyone that she doesn’t have the guts to be around groups of people. She heard her mom, her dad, her sister, her teacher tell the same things about her to other people. Over the years, that is what Jen believes. She believes its her story. And what happens? Every time a great crowd would troop over their house, in school, and in the community – she tends to step back, shy away and lock herself up in a room. Jen didn’t only believed in her story, she lived it.
Jen has to realize that she is not what she is in her story. Instead of having her story post around her face for everyone to remember, she has to have the spirit and show people “I am an important person and I should be treated accordingly!”
Self improvement may not be everybody’s favorite word, but if we look at things in a different point of view, we might have greater chances of enjoying the whole process instead of counting the days until we are fully improved. Three sessions in a week at the gym would result to a healthier life, reading books instead of looking at porns will shape up a more profound knowledge, going out with friends and peers will help you take a step back from work and unwind. And just when you are enjoying the whole process of unlocking your self improvement power, you’ll realize that you’re beginning to take things light and become happy.

The Key to a Better Life

2008-07-02T07:32:00.001-07:00

Time management is basically about being focused. The Pareto Principle also known as the '80:20 Rule' states that 80% of efforts that are not time managed or unfocused generates only 20% of the desired output. However, 80% of the desired output can be generated using only 20% of a well time managed effort. Although the ratio '80:20' is only arbitrary, it is used to put emphasis on how much is lost or how much can be gained with time management.

Some people view time management as a list of rules that involves scheduling of appointments, goal settings, thorough planning, creating things to do lists and prioritizing. These are the core basics of time management that should be understood to develop an efficient personal time management skill. These basic skills can be fine tuned further to include the finer points of each skill that can give you that extra reserve to make the results you desire.

But there is more skills involved in time management than the core basics. Skills such as decision making, inherent abilities such as emotional intelligence and critical thinking are also essential to your personal growth.

Personal time management involves everything you do. No matter how big and no matter how small, everything counts. Each new knowledge you acquire, each new advice you consider, each new skill you develop should be taken into consideration.

Having a balanced life-style should be the key result in having personal time management. This is the main aspect that many practitioners of personal time management fail to grasp.

Time management is about getting results, not about being busy.

The six areas that personal time management seeks to improve in anyone's life are physical, intellectual, social, career, emotional and spiritual.

The physical aspect involves having a healthy body, less stress and fatigue.

The intellectual aspect involves learning and other mental growth activities.

The social aspect involves developing personal or intimate relations and being an active contributor to society.

The career aspect involves school and work.

The emotional aspect involves appropriate feelings and desires and manifesting them.

The spiritual aspect involves a personal quest for meaning.

Thoroughly planning and having a set of things to do list for each of the key areas may not be very practical, but determining which area in your life is not being giving enough attention is part of time management. Each area creates the whole you, if you are ignoring one area then you are ignoring an important part of yourself.

Personal time management should not be so daunting a task. It is a very sensible and reasonable approach in solving problems big or small.

A great way of learning time management and improving your personal life is to follow several basic activities.

One of them is to review your goals whether it be immediate or long-term goals often.

A way to do this is to keep a list that is always accessible to you.

Always determine which task is necessary or not necessary in achieving your goals and which activities are helping you maintain a balanced life style.

Each and everyone of us has a peek time and a time when we slow down, these are our natural cycles. We should be able to tell when to do the difficult tasks when we are the sharpest.

Learning to say "No". You actually see this advice often. Heed it even if it involves saying the word to family or friends.

Pat yourself at the back or just reward yourself in any manner for an effective time management result.

Try and get the cooperation from people around you who are actually benefiting from your efforts of time management.

Don't procrastinate. Attend to necessary things immediately.

Have a positive attitude and set yourself up for success. But be realistic in your approach in achieving your goals.

Have a record or journal of all your activities. This will help you get things in their proper perspective.

These are the few steps you initially take in becoming a well rounded individual.

As the say personal time management is the art and science of building a better life.

From the moment you integrate into your life time management skills, you have opened several options that can provide a broad spectrum of solutions to your personal growth. It also creates more doors for opportunities to knock on.

Leadership Exposed: Things You Thought You Knew About Leadership

2008-07-02T07:31:00.002-07:00

Much has been written about leadership: rules, pointers, styles, and biographies of inspiring leaders throughout world history. But there are certain leadership ideas that we ourselves fail to recognize and realize in the course of reading books. Here is a short list of things you thought you knew about leadership.
1. Leaders come in different flavors.
There are different types of leaders and you will probably encounter more than one type in your lifetime. Formal leaders are those we elect into positions or offices such as the senators, congressmen, and presidents of the local clubs. Informal leaders or those we look up to by virtue of their wisdom and experience such as in the case of the elders of a tribe, or our grandparents; or by virtue of their expertise and contribution on a given field such as Albert Einstein in the field of Theoretical Physics and Leonardo da Vinci in the field of the Arts. Both formal and informal leaders practice a combination of leadership styles.· Lewin’s three basic leadership styles – authoritative, participative, and delegative· Likert’s four leadership styles – exploitive authoritative, benevolent authoritative, consultative, and participative· Goleman’s six emotional leadership styles - visionary, coaching, affiliative, democratic, pacesetting, and commanding.
2. Leadership is a process of becoming.
Although certain people seem to be born with innate leadership qualities, without the right environment and exposure, they may fail to develop their full potential. So like learning how to ride a bicycle, you can also learn how to become a leader and hone your leadership abilities. Knowledge on leadership theories and skills may be formally gained by enrolling in leadership seminars, workshops, and conferences. Daily interactions with people provide the opportunity to observe and practice leadership theories. Together, formal and informal learning will help you gain leadership attitudes, gain leadership insights, and thus furthering the cycle of learning. You do not become a leader in one day and just stop. Life-long learning is important in becoming a good leader for each day brings new experiences that put your knowledge, skills, and attitude to a test.
3. Leadership starts with you.
The best way to develop leadership qualities is to apply it to your own life. As an adage goes “action speaks louder than words.” Leaders are always in the limelight. Keep in mind that your credibility as a leader depends much on your actions: your interaction with your family, friends, and co-workers; your way of managing your personal and organizational responsibilities; and even the way you talk with the newspaper vendor across the street. Repeated actions become habits. Habits in turn form a person’s character. Steven Covey’s book entitled 7 Habits of Highly Effective People provides good insights on how you can achieve personal leadership.
4. Leadership is shared.
Leadership is not the sole responsibility of one person, but rather a shared responsibility among members of an emerging team. A leader belongs to a group. Each member has responsibilities to fulfill. Formal leadership positions are merely added responsibilities aside from their responsibilities as members of the team. Effective leadership requires members to do their share of work. Starting as a mere group of individuals, members and leaders work towards the formation of an effective team. In this light, social interaction plays a major role in leadership. To learn how to work together requires a great deal of trust between and among leaders and members of an emerging team. Trust is built upon actions and not merely on words. When mutual respect exists, trust is fostered and confidence is built.
5. Leadership styles depend on the situation.
How come dictatorship works for Singapore but not in the United States of America? Aside from culture, beliefs, value system, and form of government, the current situation of a nation also affects the leadership styles used by its formal leaders. There is no rule that only one style can be used. Most of the time, leaders employ a combination of leadership styles depending on the situation. In emergency situations such as periods of war and calamity, decision-making is a matter of life and death. Thus, a nation’s leader cannot afford to consult with all departments to arrive at crucial decisions. The case is of course different in times of peace and order---different sectors and other branches of government can freely interact and participate in governance. Another case in point is in leading organizations. When the staffs are highly motivated and competent, a combination of high delegative and moderate participative styles of leadership is most appropriate. But if the staffs have low competence and low commitment, a combination of high coaching, high supporting, and high directing behavior from organizational leaders is required.
Now that you are reminded of these things, keep in mind that there are always ideas that we think we already know; concepts we take for granted, but are actually the most useful insights on leadership.

WHY IS IT IMPORTANT TO IMPROVE YOUR SELF?

2008-07-02T07:31:00.001-07:00

Sometimes, when all our doubts, fears and insecurities wrap ourselves up, we always come up with the idea of “I wish I was somebody else.” More often than not, we think and believe that someone or rather, most people are better than us.- when in reality, the fact is, most people are more scared than us.
You spot a totally eye-catching girl sitting by herself at a party, casually sipping on a glass of Asti Spumanti. You think to yourself, “she looks so perfectly calm and confident.” But if you could read thru her transparent mind, you would see a bunch of clouds of thoughts and you might just be amazed that she’s thinking “are people talking about why I am seated here alone?... Why don’t guys find me attractive? …I don’t like my ankles, they look too skinny… I wish I was as intelligent as my best friend.”
We look at a young business entrepreneur and say “Wooh… what else could he ask for?” He stares at himself at the mirror and murmur to himself, “I hate my big eyes… I wonder why my friends won’t talk to me… I hope mom and dad would still work things out.”
Isn’t it funny? We look at other people, envy them for looking so outrageously perfect and wish we could trade places with them, while they look at us and thinks of the same thing. We are insecure of other people who themselves are insecure of us. We suffer from low self-esteem, lack of self-confidence and lose hope in self improvement because we are enveloped in quiet desperation.
Sometimes, you notice that you have an irritating habit like biting off your finger nails, having a foul mouth, and you – of all people, is the last to know.
I have a friend who never gets tired of talking. And in most conversations, she is the only one who seems to be interested in the things she has to say. So all of our other friends tend to avoid the circles whenever she’s around, and she doesn’t notices how badly she became socially handicapped – gradually affecting the people in her environment.
One key to self improvement is to LISTEN and TALK to a trusted friend. Find someone who you find comfort in opening up with even the most gentle topics you want to discuss. Ask questions like “do you think I am ill-mannered?”, “Do I always sound so argumentative?”, “Do I talk too loud?”, “Does my breath smell?”, “Do I ever bore you when were together?”. In this way, the other person will obviously know that you are interested in the process of self improvement. Lend her your ears for comments and criticisms and don’t give her answers like “Don’t exaggerate! That’s just the way I am!” Open up your mind and heart as well. And in return, you may want to help your friend with constructive criticism that will also help her improve her self.
One of Whitney Houston’s songs says “Learning to love yourself is the greatest love of all.” True enough. In order to love others, you must love yourself too. Remember, you cannot give what you do not have.
Before telling other people some ways on how to improve themselves, let them see that you yourself is a representation and a product of self improvement. Self improvement makes us better people, we then inspire other people, and then the rest of the world will follow.
Stop thinking of yourselves as second-rate beings. Forget the repetitive thought of “If only I was richer… if only I was thinner” and so on. Accepting your true self is the first step to self improvement. We need to stop comparing ourselves to others only to find out at the end that we’ve got 10 more reasons to envy them.
We all have our insecurities. Nobody is perfect. We always wish we had better things, better features, better body parts, etc. But life need not to be perfect for people to be happy about themselves.Self improvement and loving yourself is not a matter of shouting to the whole world that you are perfect and you are the best. It’s the virtue of acceptance and contentment. When we begin to improve ourselves, we then begin to feel contented and happy.

"Relaxing with a Mental PDA" Your 5 minutes daily program to Stress management

2008-07-02T07:30:00.004-07:00

We all have this favorite expression when it comes to being stressed out, and I wouldn't bother naming all of them since it may also vary in different languages. But when it comes down to it, I think that it is how we work or even relax, for that matter that triggers stress. Ever been stressed even when you're well relaxed and bored? I know I have.
Since Error! Hyperlink reference not valid. is unavoidable in life, it is important to find ways to decrease and prevent stressful incidents and decrease negative reactions to stress. Here are some of the things that can be done by just remembering it, since life is basically a routine to follow like brushing your teeth or eating breakfast. You can do a few of them in a longer span of time, but as they say-- every minute counts.
Managing time
Time management skills can allow you more time with your family and friends and possibly increase your performance and productivity. This will help reduce your stress.
To improve your time management:
· Save time by focusing and concentrating, delegating, and scheduling time for yourself. · Keep a record of how you spend your time, including work, family, and leisure time. · Prioritize your time by rating tasks by importance and urgency. Redirect your time to those activities that are important and meaningful to you. · Manage your commitments by not over- or undercommitting. Don't commit to what is not important to you. · Deal with procrastination by using a day planner, breaking large projects into smaller ones, and setting short-term deadlines. · Examine your beliefs to reduce conflict between what you believe and what your life is like. Build healthy coping strategies
It is important that you identify your coping strategies. One way to do this is by recording the stressful event, your reaction, and how you cope in a stress journal. With this information, you can work to change unhealthy coping strategies into healthy ones-those that help you focus on the positive and what you can change or control in your life.
Lifestyle
Some behaviors and lifestyle choices affect your stress level. They may not cause stress directly, but they can interfere with the ways your body seeks relief from stress. Try to:
· Balance personal, work, and family needs and obligations. · Have a sense of purpose in life. · Get enough sleep, since your body recovers from the stresses of the day while you are sleeping. · Eat a balanced diet for a nutritional defense against stress. · Get moderate exercise throughout the week. · Limit your consumption of alcohol. · Don't smoke.
Social support
Social support is a major factor in how we experience stress. Social support is the positive support you receive from family, friends, and the community. It is the knowledge that you are cared for, loved, esteemed, and valued. More and more research indicates a strong relationship between social support and better mental and physical health.
Changing thinking
When an event triggers negative thoughts, you may experience fear, insecurity, anxiety, depression, rage, guilt, and a sense of worthlessness or powerlessness. These emotions trigger the body's stress, just as an actual threat does. Dealing with your negative thoughts and how you see things can help reduce stress.
· Thought-stopping helps you stop a negative thought to help eliminate stress. · Disproving irrational thoughts helps you to avoid exaggerating the negative thought, anticipating the worst, and interpreting an event incorrectly. · Problem solving helps you identify all aspects of a stressful event and find ways to deal with it. · Changing your communication style helps you communicate in a way that makes your views known without making others feel put down, hostile, or intimidated. This reduces the stress that comes from poor communication. Use the assertiveness ladder to improve your communication style.
Even writers like me can get stressed even though we're just using our hands to do the talking, but having to sit for 7 or 8 hours is already stressful enough and have our own way to relieve stress. Whether you're the mail guy, the CEO, or probably the average working parent, stress is one unwanted visitor you would love to boot out of your homes, especially your life.

"Enlightenment" Your 7 days program to Positive thinking

2008-07-02T07:30:00.003-07:00

I'm sure you have a bright idea hidden somewhere in the back of your mind that you just can't wait to test out. Of course you're not the only one with the bright idea. So what motivates you to churn those creative, or even inspiring juices to its utmost flavor?
It's always best to set up a personal goal where you can accomplish the most in record time, maybe like mowing the lawn in an hour before the big game on TV. A correct and positive attitude in whatever you do will make things easier, and even enjoyable.
Here are some tips to make it through the week even if you're just sitting in your favorite couch. An idea takes time to form in your head and is always at work while you are busy sitting.
Having a bit of positive thinking can help you realize things that are never thought possible. Thinking big is indeed the American Way and that what made our country prosperous.
1. Take passionate action towards living your life by design. Talk is cheap. Action = deposits in the bank of a passionately authentic future. Without it, passion is void.
This is a perfect example where dreams are made of where you start by tinkering with your mind, then with your hands. And if the idea weakens, you can always go back to it later until you finish it.
2. Commit to yourself as well as those you love to create powerfully a life you can love. Instead of reacting, commit to creating from your heart and soul, out of love rather than fear. The American Dream will always be there, but a dream will still be a dream without motion. Be amazed as the transformation begins.
3. Recognize and embrace the thought that each moment is perfect regardless of its outcome. Every time you hit on something that may appear too extreme, why not give it a shot and see if it will work. You will be surprised to see of there are other ways to get the task done in time. If you are not pleased with the outcome, decide to use that moment to learn from and make the appropriate shift.
4. Dwell completely in a place of gratitude. Learn to utilize what you have in your hands and make use of it in the most constructive way. Slipping into neediness will become less of a habit when you repeatedly shift towards gratitude, away from poverty consciousness.
5. Use a Passion Formula of Recognize/Reevaluate/Restore in place of the Shoulda/Woulda/Coulda whirlwind. The former is based in increased knowledge and abundance while the latter focuses on scarcity and lack. As you face people or tasks that may seem harder than scaling the summit of the Himalayas, allow yourself to realize that the task is just as important as giving out orders to your subordinates. You would rather be richly passionate!
6. Keep humor at the forefront of thought, laughing at and with yourself when possible. You may find yourself quite entertaining when you loosen up! I am yet to see a comedian ever go hungry even though his jokes are as 'old as great-grandma'. Life has so much to offer to allow you to mope around in self pity. Humor is very attractive, very passionate: life-giving.
7. Believe that you are the architect of your destiny. No one can take your passionate future from you except for you! Create your life authentically. As long as there's still breath in your body, there is no end to how much you can accomplish in a lifetime. The concept of thinking big is all about enjoying your work, which would lead to celebrate a discovery that is born within your hands. Watch everything flow into place with perfect, passionate precision.
It's interesting how people get wallowed up by something trivial as learning to use a computer, when nowadays that top computer companies are manufacturing software that even the kids can do it. I don't mean to be condescending, but that's the idea of not having any positive thinking in your life-you'll just end up as a dim bulb in a dark corner. So instead of subjecting yourself to what you will be doomed for, make your path by taking the first step with a positive attitude.

"A Better You" Your 7 days program to self-improvement

2008-07-02T07:30:00.001-07:00

I seem to lost count on how many times I've read and heard of celebrity marriages failing almost left and right. Not that I care (and personally I don't), it seems strange that we often see movie and TV stars as flawless people, living the fairytale life of riches and glamour. I suppose we all have to stop sticking our heads in the clouds and face reality.
There are many ways to lose your sense of self-esteem despite of how trivial it could get. But whatever happens, we should all try not to lose our own sense of self.
So what does it take to be a cut above the rest? Here are some of the things you can think and improve on that should be enough for a week.
1. Know your purpose Are you wandering through life with little direction - hoping that you'll find happiness, health and prosperity? Identify your life purpose or mission statement and you will have your own unique compass that will lead you to your truth north every time.
This may seem tricky at first when you see yourself to be in a tight or even dead end. But there's always that little loophole to turn things around and you can make a big difference to yourself.
2. Know your values What do you value most? Make a list of your top 5 values. Some examples are security, freedom, family, spiritual development, learning. As you set your goals for 2005 - check your goals against your values. If the goal doesn't align with any of your top five values - you may want to reconsider it or revise it.
The number shouldn't discourage you, instead it should motivate you to do more than you can ever dreamed of.
3. Know your needs Unmet needs can keep you from living authentically. Take care of yourself. Do you have a need to be acknowledged, to be right, to be in control, to be loved? There are so many people who lived their lives without realizing their dreams and most of them end up being stressed or even depressed for that matter. List your top four needs and get them met before it's too late!
4. Know your passions You know who you are and what you truly enjoy in life. Obstacles like doubt and lack of enthusiasm will only hinder you, but will not derail your chance to become the person you ought to be. Express yourself and honor the people who has inspired you to become the very person you wanted to be.
5. Live from the inside out Increase your awareness of your inner wisdom by regularly reflecting in silence. Commune with nature. Breathe deeply to quiet your distracted mind. For most of us city slickers it's hard to even find the peace and quiet we want even in our own home. In my case I often just sit in a dimly lit room and play some classical music. There's sound, yes, but music does soothe the savage beast.
6. Honor your strengths What are your positive traits? What special talents do you have? List three - if you get stuck, ask those closest to you to help identify these. Are you imaginative, witty, good with your hands? Find ways to express your authentic self through your strengths. You can increase your self-confidence when you can share what you know to others.
7. Serve others When you live authentically, you may find that you develop an interconnected sense of being. When you are true to who you are, living your purpose and giving of your talents to the world around you, you give back in service what you came to share with others -your spirit - your essence. The rewards for sharing your gift with those close to you is indeed rewarding, much more if it were to be the eyes of a stranger who can appreciate what you have done to them.
Self-improvement is indeed one type of work that is worth it. It shouldn't always be within the confines of an office building, or maybe in the four corners of your own room. The difference lies within ourselves and how much we want to change for the better.

"Have One Week, Will Relax" Your 7 days program to Stress management

2008-07-02T07:29:00.004-07:00

They say there's more than one way to skin a cat. The same goes when you start tearing your hair out with all the frustration, grief, anxiety, and yes, stress. It's a state of mental conditioning that is like taking that bitter pill down your throat, causing you to lose your sense of self, and worse your sanity. Just thinking about it can drive anyone off the edge.
And they say that the proactive ones are already living off the edge.
As one stressed-out person to another, I know how it feels, and believe me there are many variants when it comes to stress. Coping with life, and carrying the problems that may or may not belong to you can scratch away the little joy and happiness that you can carry once you head out that door. You can't blame them for being like that; they have their own reasons, so much like we have our reasons to allow stress to weigh us down. They say that stress is all in the mind, well, what's bugging you anyway?
There are several ways to manage stress, and eventually remove it out of your life one of these days. So I'll try to divide it into a seven-day course for you and I promise it's not going to be too taxing on the body, as well as on the mind.
1. Acknowledge stress is goodMake stress your friend! Based on the body's natural "fight or flight" response, that burst of energy will enhance your performance at the right moment. I've yet to see a top sportsman totally relaxed before a big competition. Use stress wisely to push yourself that little bit harder when it counts most.
2. Avoid stress sneezersStressed people sneeze stress germs indiscriminately and before you know it, you are infected too!
Protect yourself by recognizing stress in others and limiting your contact with them. Or if you've got the inclination, play stress doctor and teach them how to better manage themselves.
3. Learn from the bestWhen people around are losing their head, who keeps calm? What are they doing differently? What is their attitude? What language do they use? Are they trained and experienced? Figure it out from afar or sit them down for a chat. Learn from the best stress managers and copy what they do.
4. Practice socially acceptable heavy breathingThis is something I've learned from a gym instructor: You can trick your body into relaxing by using heavy breathing. Breathe in slowly for a count of 7 then breathe out for a count of 11. Repeat the 7-11 breathing until your heart rate slows down, your sweaty palms dry off and things start to feel more normal.
5. Give stressy thoughts the red lightIt is possible to tangle yourself up in a stress knot all by yourself. "If this happens, then that might happen and then we're all up the creek!" Most of these things never happen, so why waste all that energy worrying needlessly?
Give stress thought-trains the red light and stop them in their tracks. Okay so it might go wrong - how likely is that, and what can you do to prevent it?
6. Know your trigger points and hot spotsPresentations, interviews, meetings, giving difficult feedback, tight deadlines…. My heart rate is cranking up just writing these down!
Make your own list of stress trigger points or hot spots. Be specific. Is it only presentations to a certain audience that get you worked up? Does one project cause more stress than another? Did you drink too much coffee?
Knowing what causes you stress is powerful information, as you can take action to make it less stressful. Do you need to learn some new skills? Do you need extra resources? Do you need to switch to decaf?
7. Burn the candle at one endLack of sleep, poor diet and no exercise wreaks havoc on our body and mind. Kind of obvious, but worth mentioning as it's often ignored as a stress management technique. Listen to your mother and don't burn the candle at both ends!
So having stress can be a total drag, but that should not hinder us to find the inner peace of mind that we have wanted for a long time. In any case, one could always go to the Bahamas and bask under the summer sun.

Life Mapping: A Vision of Success

2008-07-02T07:29:00.003-07:00

Success is more than economic gains, titles, and degrees. Planning for success is about mapping out all the aspects of your life. Similar to a map, you need to define the following details: origin, destination, vehicle, backpack, landmarks, and route.

Origin: Who you are

A map has a starting point. Your origin is who you are right now. Most people when asked to introduce themselves would say, “Hi, I’m Jean and I am a 17-year old, senior highschool student.” It does not tell you about who Jean is; it only tells you her present preoccupation. To gain insights about yourself, you need to look closely at your beliefs, values, and principles aside from your economic, professional, cultural, and civil status. Moreover, you can also reflect on your experiences to give you insights on your good and not-so-good traits, skills, knowledge, strengths, and weaknesses. Upon introspection, Jean realized that she was highly motivated, generous, service-oriented, but impatient. Her inclination was in the biological-medical field. Furthermore, she believed that life must serve a purpose, and that wars were destructive to human dignity.

Destination: A vision of who you want to be

“Who do want to be?” this is your vision. Now it is important that you know yourself so that you would have a clearer idea of who you want to be; and the things you want to change whether they are attitudes, habits, or points of view. If you hardly know yourself, then your vision and targets for the future would also be unclear. Your destination should cover all the aspects of your being: the physical, emotional, intellectual, and spiritual. Continuing Jean’s story, after she defined her beliefs, values, and principles in life, she decided that she wanted to have a life dedicated in serving her fellowmen.

Vehicle: Your Mission

A vehicle is the means by which you can reach your destination. It can be analogized to your mission or vocation in life. To a great extent, your mission would depend on what you know about yourself. Bases on Jean’s self-assessment, she decided that she was suited to become a doctor, and that she wanted to become one. Her chosen vocation was a medical doctor. Describing her vision-mission fully: it was to live a life dedicated to serving her fellowmen as a doctor in conflict-areas.

Travel Bag: Your knowledge, skills, and attitude

Food, drinks, medicines, and other travelling necessities are contained in a bag. Applying this concept to your life map, you also bring with you certain knowledge, skills, and attitudes. These determine your competence and help you in attaining your vision. Given such, there is a need for you to assess what knowledge, skills, and attitudes you have at present and what you need to gain along the way. This two-fold assessment will give you insights on your landmarks or measures of success. Jean realized that she needed to gain professional knowledge and skills on medicine so that she could become a doctor. She knew that she was a bit impatient with people so she realized that this was something she wanted to change.

Landmarks and Route: S.M.A.R.T. objectives

Landmarks confirm if you are on the right track while the route determines the travel time. Thus, in planning out your life, you also need to have landmarks and a route. These landmarks are your measures of success. These measures must be specific, measurable, attainable, realistic, and time bound. Thus you cannot set two major landmarks such as earning a master’s degree and a doctorate degree within a period of three years, since the minimum number of years to complete a master’s degree is two years. Going back to Jean as an example, she identified the following landmarks in her life map: completing a bachelor’s degree in biology by the age of 21; completing medicine by the age of 27; earning her specialization in infectious diseases by the age of 30; getting deployed in local public hospitals of their town by the age of 32; and serving as doctor in war-torn areas by the age of 35.

Anticipate Turns, Detours, and Potholes

The purpose of your life map is to minimize hasty and spur-of-the-moment decisions that can make you lose your way. But oftentimes our plans are modified along the way due to some inconveniences, delays, and other situations beyond our control. Like in any path, there are turns, detours, and potholes thus; we must anticipate them and adjust accordingly.

Life Mapping: A Vision of Success

2008-07-02T07:29:00.001-07:00

"What Really Makes You Tick?" 10 questions you should ask to yourself: a preparation to self-improvement

2008-07-02T07:28:00.001-07:00

Be all you can be, but it's not always in the Army. I often see myself as somewhat contented with my life the way things are, but of course it's hard to think of anything else when where are real issues to be discussed.
Still I aspire for something deeper and more meaningful.
So we're all pelted with problems. Honestly it shouldn't even bother or even hinder us to becoming all we ought to be. Aspirations as kids should continue to live within us, even though it would be short-lived or as long as we could hold on to the dream. They say you can't teach an old dog new tricks… or can they?
1. What do I really want?The question of the ages. So many things you want to do with your life and so little time to even go about during the day.
Find something that you are good at can help realize that small step towards improvement. Diligence is the key to know that it is worth it.
2. Should I really change?Today's generation has taken another level of redefining 'self', or at least that's what the kids are saying. Having an army of teenage nieces and nephews has taught me that there are far worse things that they could have had than acne or maybe even promiscuity. So how does that fit into your lifestyle?
If history has taught us one thing, it's the life that we have gone through. Try to see if partying Seventies style wouldn't appeal to the younger generation, but dancing is part of partying. Watch them applaud after showing them how to really dance than break their bones in break-dancing.
3. What's the bright side in all of this?With so much is happening around us there seem to be no room for even considering that light at the end of the tunnel. We can still see it as something positive without undergoing so much scrutiny. And if it's a train at the end of the tunnel, take it for a ride and see what makes the world go round!
4. Am I comfortable with what I'm doing?There's always the easy way and the right way when it comes to deciding what goes with which shoes, or purse, shirt and whatnot. It doesn't take a genius to see yourself as someone unique, or else we'll all be equally the same in everything we do. Variety brings in very interesting and exciting questions to be experimented.
5. Have I done enough for myself?Have you, or is there something more you want to do? Discontentment in every aspect can be dangerous in large doses, but in small amounts you'll be able to see and do stuff you could never imagine doing.
6. Am I happy at where I am today?It's an unfair question so let it be an answer! You love being a good and loving mom or dad to your kids, then take it up a notch! Your kids will love you forever. The same goes with everyday life!
7. Am I appealing to the opposite sex?So maybe I don't have an answer to that, but that doesn't mean I can't try it, though. Whether you shape-up, change the way you wear your clothes or hair, or even your attitude towards people, you should always remember it will always be for your own benefit.
8. How much could I have?I suppose in this case there is no such things on having things too much or too little, but it's more on how badly you really need it. I'd like to have lots of money, no denying that, but the question is that how much are you willing to work for it?
9. What motivates me?What motivates you? It's an answer you have to find out for yourself. There are so many things that can make everyone happy, but to choose one of the may be the hardest part. It's not like you can't have one serving of your favorite food in a buffet and that's it. Just try it piece by piece.
10. What Really Makes You Tick?So? What really makes you tick? You can be just about anything you always wanted to be, but to realize that attaining something that may seem very difficult is already giving up before you even start that journey. Always remember, that self-improvement is not just about the physical or philosophical change you have to undergo, but it's something that you really want.

"Life With Woody" 10 inspirational quotes than can improve yourself

2008-07-02T07:27:00.000-07:00

It might take a little coffee or probably a few rounds of beer or any other booze you could get your hands on when it comes to relaxing after a hard day's work. Well, yeah I'm guilty about that one as well, unless I'm caught dead wearing a lampshade over my head after a few rounds of vodka… half-naked! Okay, bad example and I apologize to everyone reading this after getting nightmares about me in that state of drunken stupor.
Just don't ask how it happened, please.
But what's really interesting is that how do people go through the usual part of life when faced with vein-popping stress? I mean, the new age thing like Zen or yoga is one of the good things and it actually works. Is there room for the intellectual side of people who can actually smell the roses-in-a-can while on the move? It kind of had me thinking that there really must be something in this 'mind-over-matter' thing.
Humor is indeed the best medicine there is whenever you are. I mean anyone can pay good money to listen to a comedian just to make you wet your pants after laughing so hard. Despite of what's been happening, and to those who has gone though the ordeal, it's better to just laugh while facing the troubles with a clear mind than anger with a clouded vision. One of my favorite celebrities of all time may have to be Woody Allen. Now this is one guy who gives you the in-your-face bluntness that he pulls out with gusto, even without even trying. You can talk just about anything with a man, and he's bound to mock the subject and you'll end up laughing rather than being upset about it.
Woody Allen has this to say:
1. "Money is better than poverty, if only for financial reasons." It sounds good to me, I mean the practicality of all things does involve money but it doesn't have to take an arm and a leg to get it.
2. "I believe there is something out there watching us. Unfortunately, it's the government." 'Nuff said.
3. "There are worse things in life than death. Have you ever spent an evening with an insurance salesman?" This happens to be one of the classic ones. I mean the issue about life's little problems isn't all that bad, until 'he' shows up.
Sure, relationships can get complicated, or does have its complications that probably any author about relationships is bound to discover it soon. We follow what our heart desires, unless you're talking about the heart as in the heart that pump blood throughout your body.
4. "Love is the answer, but while you're waiting for the answer, sex raises some pretty interesting questions." And if you want more, just keep on asking!
5. "A fast word about oral contraception. I asked a girl to go to bed with me, she said 'no'." It sounds, 'practical', I think.
And when it comes to everyday life, he really knows how to make the best out of every possible scenario, and it doesn't involve a lawsuit if he strikes a nerve.
6. "Basically my wife was immature. I'd be at home in the bath and she'd come in and sink my boats." I never had a boat in my bathtub before. Just staring at it while soaking in hot water makes me seasick already.
7. "I am not afraid of death, I just don't want to be there when it happens." If it rains, it pours.
8. "I am thankful for laughter, except when milk comes out of my nose." It could get worse when you're guzzling on beer… or mouthwash, and it happened to me once!
9. "If you want to make God laugh, tell him about your plans." At least he doesn't smite us with lightning, and I'm thankful for that.
And despite of what may happen to all of us in the next ten, twenty, or even thirty years, I guess we all have to see things in a different kind of light and not just perspective. I can't seem to imagine life without any piece of wisdom that could guide us. Whether we're religious or not, it takes more courage to accept your fears and learn how to deal with them is all that matters when it comes to even just getting along.
And to sum things up, here is the last nugget of wisdom to go by… however, whenever, and wherever we may be.
10. "The talent for being happy is appreciating and liking what you have, instead of what you don't have."
Ciao!

“The Magic of Mind Power”

2008-06-25T22:19:00.000-07:00

Power shackles active minds, extinguishes the flame of
learning and kills the drive for innovation

Science and faith in the Muslim world
David Dickson
27 October 2003
Coming to terms with modern science and technology is
a major cultural challenge for all Muslim societies. A new report from
the United Nationals Development Programme has underlined the extent of
the challenge — and the steps required to meet it.
Mahathir Mohamad, who is coming to the end of a
22-year term as prime minister of Malaysia, sparked widespread criticism in the West two weeks ago with an aggressive speech to the Organisation of the Islamic Conference in which he claimed, among other things, that Jews ruled the world "by proxy". Continuing in the same vein, he later attacked the World Trade Organisation for seeking to impose a new era of"neo-colonialism" on the developing world, and accused both the United States and Israel of engaging in "state terrorism".
Mahathir’s remarks on these topics were widely
condemned. Unfortunately, the outrage that they provoked has
overshadowed the main thrust of his arguments, namely that the Muslim
world cannot prosper — or even compete with the West — through
political or military dominance. Rather, it can only achieve such goals
through the use of knowledge (or, as he put it, brain rather than
brawn). In particular, it needs to find ways of embracing modern science and technology, while at the same time seeking to ensure that the way in which it does this reinforces, rather than undermines, the religious and cultural values that underpin Islam.
Coincidentally, a similar message was made last week
in the latest edition of the Arab Human Development Report, published by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP). Entitled Building a
Knowledge Society, the report stresses the importance of building a
commitment to modern science within Islamic culture. At the same time, it points to numerous barriers that currently stand in the way of achieving this, from the relatively low level of investment by many Arab states — their average spending on research and development is about 0.2 per cent of gross national product, compared to 2.3 per cent in countries of the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development— to the difficulties in expressing scientific concepts in a
language that has changed little over many centuries (see Science
communication needs updated Arabic).
Unlike Mahathir, however, the UNDP report also
stresses the importance of creating an open social and cultural environment in which science can flourish. A healthy science base needs more than political support and strong funding; it also requires a political commitment that is sufficient to ensure that scientific ideas can be freely exchanged, both within a cultural, and between that culture and others.
As the authors of the report — based in universities
and research institutes across the Arab world — emphasize,
political instability in many Arab states has subjected scientific institutions to political pressures and power conflicts. "In managing these institutions, political loyalties take precedence over efficiency and knowledge," the authors say. "Power shackles active minds, extinguishes the flame of learning and kills the drive for innovation."
Lessons from the past Mahathir himself, like many other commentators, pointed out that this has not always been the case in the Muslim world. Indeed for many centuries, the flame of learning shone more brightly within Muslim society than almost anywhere else. Inspired by passages in the Koran that state clearly the need to encourage learning about the natural world, Muslim scientists and intellectual were responsible for a steady stream of ground-breaking ideas, from mathematics to biology.
Then things went wrong. A commitment to religious
dogma replaced a desire for the open-minded pursuit of knowledge, just
at a time when Western Europe was rediscovering its own intellectual
roots in the civilisations of Greece and Rome, laying the
intellectual groundwork for what was to become the Industrial Revolution. The more that Western technology prospered, the more determined many Islamic philosophers became in being able to offer an alternative way of life, one that challenged the fruits of modern science.
Mahathir may have taken a critique of this position
too far when he complained that one consequence was to deprive Muslim
states of the military technology they now require to face up to
aggression from Western powers (and to ask, by implication, for a
substantial increase in military research and development as a component of essential modernisation). Although it is certainly true that advanced weaponry has been a byproduct of modern science, it is misleading to argue that the linkage is necessarily a desirable one.
Nevertheless his underlying message is an important
one — namely that, in its philosophical roots, Islam has much more in
common with modern science than the policies and declarations of many
Muslim states (particularly those dominated by religious
fundamentalists) appear to imply. The message is important for the West, which needs a far better appreciation of the contemporary relevance of Muslim thinking than is generally acknowledged. And it is important within Muslim states themselves, where a commitment to critical inquiry, the central component of basic research, is a crucial weapon in the fight against fundamentalism.
Mutual understanding Of course, increasing the receptiveness of such states to modern science does not necessarily mean endorsing everything that comes with it in the West. In the past decades, the Western world has increasingly experienced problems that are created by divorcing scientific enterprise from any moral or ethical commitment, whether in the form of challenges to human dignity (as witnessed in the current debate over human cloning), or in downplaying the likely impacts of science-based technologies on natural ecological cycles (the most recent focus of the debate over genetically modified crops).
In such areas, it would be naïve to make excessive claims of what Islam has to teach the West. Indeed it sometimes seems that, in their own pursuit of modernisation, parts of the Muslim world can at times appear even blinder to the need for moderation in their espousal of modern technologies than the societies that its religious leaders criticise so vigorously. Nevertheless it remains true that, in many cases — and certainly at key historical periods — Muslim culture
has managed to maintain a dual commitment to scientific and ethical
values, including an appreciation of the natural world, in a way that the West would do well to emulate.
At the same time, it is important that Muslim
societies remain open to those ideas that are responsible for much of the vigour both of the societies and the science of the West. The authors of the UNDP report list some of these: "openness, interaction, assimilation, absorption, revision, criticism and examination". Of course, the lack of commitment to such ideals is not only to be found in Muslim societies, as indicated by recent comments made by US Lieutenant General William Boykin, who claimed that US forces in Iraq were engaged in a "spiritual battle" against Satan (comments that Mahathir himself was quick to use to back up his own case). The real challenge is how to incorporate these values into Islamic culture in a robust way; once that is achieved, and the need for adequate investment in research is recognised in political circles, science is likely to flourish with little extra support.

increase mind power

2008-06-25T21:55:00.000-07:00

MIND SCIENCE ASSOCIATION OF MALAYSIA
MSM CIRCLE SESSION – JUNE 2004
Reading – Discussion – Reflection - News
Part 1- WELCOME by Leader
OPENING SONG
ENERGY CYCLE
Part 2 – READING : Mind Power – how it affects the Universe
(Last month we focused on “MIND POWER – HOW IT AFFECTS THE BODY”)
In last month’s Reading we focused on how the power of the Mind can change things within ourselves i.e. our bodies. This month we will see how the same power of the Mind can change things outside ourselves. In Mind Science we use visualization techniques or mind pictures for such things as increasing our income, winning in sports, and finding the pet or house or car that we exactly want.
We discover in these experiences that we have the power to create what we want in our lives. We can make every moment of every day a miracle! We affect the world, and the world affects us, through the power of thoughts and images. This is so because:
- Our beliefs about ourselves and our world govern all our
experience.
- Our images are self-fulfilling prophecies.
- What we envision in life is what we get.
These statements may be some of the most important things for us to ever know – both to get the most out of our movies-of-the-mind and to get the most out of life. Learn them well and live by them, and we will find that life begins to work!
There is definitely a relationship between the pictures or images we hold in our minds and what happens in our lives. We are also learning more about the mind’s power to affect the universe from scientists and especially from research being done in the field of physics.
Through our inner images, our mind is causing what happens to us all the time. Whatever we experience in our lives – whether happy or unhappy , or good or bad – is the direct result of these images. The problem is that we are usually totally unaware of them, and so we don’t see their connection to the results they cause.
The power of mind images comes from deliberately becoming aware of the images we entertain in our minds daily and then deliberately keeping only the images of what we want to happen in our lives. In this way we are not victims of fate but become directors of our future and destiny.
From today, let us be careful of what we think or say or do because they are all based in what pictures we keep in mind constantly.
c.i.f 0604
Part 3.- DISCUSSION
There is sufficient evidence to show that Mind power affects the Universe and the world around us.
Let us now discuss on how we can apply this principle to benefit us in our daily life.
List out some of the important areas of life
From each of the areas chosen above, discuss how we can use this fantastic Mind Science principle.
Part 4. – HEALING CYCLE ( TO BE SKIPPED for Circles that are implementing the “Associate Member” program (Vancouver and Singapore).
Part 5 – “SHARING”
By designated Speaker or personal testimonies by members.
Part 6 – ANNOUNCEMENTS
CLOSING SONG
FELLOWSHIP (snacks if available )

Joe Vitale

2008-06-25T21:51:00.000-07:00

The Secret To My Success
by
Dr. Joe Vitale
(www.frogpond.com/articles/docs/jvitale02.doc)
Word Count: 1059
A reader watched my new DVD, Humbug, and was apparently impressed with it.
He emailed me this question:
"Was there one point in your life that was the turn around? I often ask people who've obviously hitched themselves to a Saturn 5 rocket the same question."
I get that question a lot.
I've been thinking about it long and hard.
I know that taking on the attitude that anything is possible is part of the answer; so is knowing the Law of Attraction and the idea that getting clear leads to preferred results; so is always saying yes to life; and so is the idea of being ruthlessly honest about your desires.
But those are mindsets I've developed over time.
They don't answer the question about the single event that changed my life.
The thing is, there's no "one point" where everything shifted for me. It was more a series of defining moments, some more memorable than others. For example:
Landing the book deal to write The AMA Complete Guide to Small Business Advertising for the American Marketing Association back in 1993, was a marker for me. I wasn't paid much money (almost none) but it was my first book deal with a traditional publisher and the project made me feel accomplished and important. It also got me more clients and more speaking engagements. (I still love the book and use it myself, though sadly it's now out of print. Some of it ended up in my new book, Hypnotic Writing .)
Recording my program, The Power of Outrageous Marketing for Nightingale-Conant in 1997, was another turning point for me, one I had longed to have for over ten years. People who knew that company and their wonderful products began to treat me like I was a deity in the marketing world. That also influenced my own sense of value. (That's also when I raised my fees. ) The program still sells like crazy today, and I'm still very proud of it. (One of my favorite sections is where I stage an interview with the great circus showman and master marketer, P.T. Barnum.)
Certain people helped me step up to a new level, as well.
Paul Hartunian changed my life. This publicity genius who once sold the Brooklyn Bridge as a PR stunt and got on Johnny Carson for it, once spent three hours over dinner in Houston telling me how to change my business. I took notes. I acted. Paul's giving was a defining moment in my career. I'll never forget him. He's one of my heros.
Mandy Evans has been a "miracles coach" in my life for more than twenty years. This wonderful author of such books as Travelling Free has always been only a phone call away. Whenever I feel stuck and ready for the next level, I call her. I love her. She helps me get clear.
Bob Proctor -- a living legend in the self-help movement -- changed my life when he politely nudged me to publish the little book I was fearful about releasing, Spiritual Marketing. That book became an Amazon bestseller twice, got me into The New York Times, and led to my rewriting it and seeing J. Wiley publish it as the now long running classic, The Attractor Factor. And of course The Attractor Factor got me into the movie The Secret, which led to my being on Larry King, eXtra TV, Time, Newsweek and...well, you get the idea.
Obviously, there's no one event that transformed me.
If you want to know more, I've written about my journey through life in such books as Adventures Within and of course The Attractor Factor. They reveal other defining moments and the people who triggered them for me.
I really wish there was a simple answer to the question of what was my turning point moment, so we could both learn from it.
But what may be better is to assume every moment is your turn around one, and act from that perspective.
Life would then take on a glow.
Backed into a corner, and forced to say something was the one thing that changed my career, I'd give credit to the Internet.
I began as an Internet skeptic in the early 1990s. I didn't believe all the hype about gold in cyberspace.
I was wrong.
I later wrote one of the first books about online marketing (CyberWriting ).
And later, when Mark Joyner urged me to let him release my first e-book (Hypnotic Writing ), I began to taste fame and fortune.
So I have to give credit to being active online as a turning point in my career. (Note I said active online. I was and am busy creating and promoting products, not waiting for the world to come to my door.)
The Internet let me take what I was doing locally and distribute it to the world.
But, as you can see, it was one of many defining moments.
Maybe the best way to wrap this up is with the following story:
I'm hearing from people from my past who saw the movie The Secret and then searched for me online. When they get to my main site , they write me and ask something like, "Are you the same Joe Vitale I worked with thirty years ago?"
One gent did that recently. Turns out we had worked at Exxon together long, long ago.
He saw me on Larry King and couldn't believe my level of success. He wrote to me saying, "I wish I had known what a gem I was hanging around back then."
I thought, what if each of us treated each other like we were gems already -- just unrecognized and maybe unpolished.
Wouldn't that single change of perspective make every moment of our lives a turning point?
As Goethe wrote, "Treat people as if they were what they ought to be, and you help them become what they are capable of being."
Dr. Joe Vitale is author of way too many books to mention, including the bestsellers "The Attractor Factor," "Life's Missing Instruction Manual" and the forthcoming head spinner: "Zero Limits." He's also one of the stars in the hit movie "The Secret." His main website is at http://www.MrFire.com. Copyright 2007, Joe Vitale. All rights reserved. For information contact FrogPond at 800.704.FROG(3764) or email Susie@FrogPond.com; http://www.FrogPond.com

Abraham on Abundance - Careers - Money - Abraham law of attraction

2008-06-25T21:47:00.000-07:00

Abraham on Abundance - Careers - Money 
How can I attract money?
Whenever you are thinking about dollars and feeling good you are attracting them unto you. Whenever you are thinking about dollars and feeling bad you are pushing dollars away from you. Dollars Tape 1991, from the 10 part series.
About responsibility...
Take responsibility for what is happening in your experience and you will find your ultimate glorious, satisfying freedom to now launch into your future all of the wonderful things you can imagine. Abraham -- A New Beginning II
Is it my obligation to live my dreams?
"Your greatest detriment to your powerful ability to create positively in your world is the negative influence from those that surround you. And when you allow it, you are creating by default.  Follow your bliss and remember that unless you feel good about yourself, you have nothing of value to offer to any other. Choose your surroundings wisely -- this is your own life.  You have that option.  In reality, you have that obligation. If you don't live your dreams.....who will?" -- Abraham-Hicks
Am I in the place of allowing?
"... are you in the place that you are allowing the desire that your environment has helped you to focus? And we say in your joy you are allowing it; in your pain you are not." -- Abraham-Hicks, Tallahassee, FL 1/15/00
What is my true career?
"Your true career is your joyful balanced life experience.  That is why you are here. There are many ways you can express yourself. Start creating from the inside out.  'I want to feel good.'  'I want to be fulfilled.'  'I want to feel my value and my purpose.'  'I want to feel my freedom.'  'I want to feel my joy.'  Confusion comes from not starting from your center. Do not start on the outside peripheral edges and try to fix things out there." Career tape AB-19
Should I sue my ex-business partner?
In most lawsuits, most people just use each other as their excuse to disconnect from the Stream. And then they just suffer until the one who is the least disconnected wins the lawsuit. But it is still an exercise, in disconnecting from Source Energy, that we think is never worth the price of the reward, no matter how great the reward of a lawsuit is. selected by Jerry and Esther Hicks From the workshop 9/27/00
How can I understand that there is not a scarcity of dollars?
In the morning when you wake up, none of you stand out on your porch frantically breathing in because you are afraid that later in the day there will be a scarcity of air. You breathe in and you breathe out and think nothing of it. What we want to get you to understand is that it is the same thing with dollars (or anything else), there is no need to go out and hold your breath in an attempt to hold on to the air in case there is a later lack. You are all MUCH closer to a financial fortune right now than you are even willing to dream about for fear that you will be disappointed if it does not come.
Abundance Abounds
In the same way that air flows easily and always to all physical beings, unless it is artificially disrupted or prevented, abundance flows to all.   Abundance of wellness, abundance of Energy, abundance of enthusiasm, abundance of joy, abundance of all that is desired flows to you at all times -- unless it is artificially disrupted or prevented.   When I am focused upon Well-being there can be no disruption or prevention. When I am focused upon joy, or love, or money or vitality, it can not be prevented.   The prevention or disruption of this dynamic, eternally offered Stream of Well-Being, can be humanly prevented or artificially disrupted in only one way.   By choosing thoughts of the absence of love, or Well-being, or abundance. By choosing thoughts of lack.   By the powerful Law of Attraction, it is not possible to think of abundance and disallow it at the same time.   By the powerful Law of Attraction, it is not possible to notice the lack of abundance and allow it at the same time.   Allowing abundance is really a very simple thing. Since it flows to me at all times -- all I have to do is let it in.   Abraham-Hicks, 10/6/96, Calendar pg. 219
How can we learn from successful people?
When you watch the replays of your Michael Jordans, or any of them...there are many of them that have talents that you are wanting to experience yourself. As you watch them, ask yourself one question: Where's his mind? What's he thinking? But most importantly, how's he feeling? What's his mood or attitude? And what you will see, again and again, is, he feels invincible. He feels sure. He has utter confidence. In other words, it's his MOOD. That's what you're wanting to practice when you're watching. Not what's his shot. Not what's his game. Not how he's moved. Not what's happening with the other players around. You're wanting to look into his eyes as the camera gets there, as much as you can, or look into his body behavior and you're wanting to ask yourself: What's his mood? What does he know, right now? What's he KNOWING, right now?   There's never a particle of uncertainty or anger or belligerence or getting even or blame or doubt or fear. It's all that other stuff, that knowing, that confidence.   Abraham-Hicks, El Paso, TX 2/17/01
Just sing out, cus you want to sing out!
When you are singing from your joy of connection, no problem.   When you are knowing your value and singing because the joy is just coming forth from you with no awareness of what anybody else thinks about what you're doing, in other words, its from a place of connection that you are expressing, everything goes well.   But if you are expressing in order to achieve your place of connection, now its backwards.   Another way of saying that is:   If I'm singing to you because I love to sing whether you're there or not, I'm more likely to be connected than if I'm trying to do a good job because I need you to approve of what I'm singing to you.   Its all about singing from the inside out rather than from the outside in.   Its about caring more about the song, than the response to the song.   Abraham-Hicks
Specifically what I want is to win the California state lottery...
Well, we have to say to you that, as the Universal Nonphysical Counsel – did that sound high enough or should we keep going? (laughter from audience) – we would far rather you selfishly intend for something to happen to you like winning the lottery than that you meddle in the lives of humanity by wishing peace on those who don't want it. (Laughter from audience.) In other words, you get to choose whatever it is you are wanting and you get to achieve vibrational harmony with it, and when you do that the Universe will deliver it to you. In fact, that's your only work. Your only work is to line up the energy within you. Now peace on earth, that is a sort of meddling, stepping on the creative toes of a lot of people. In other words, that's going beyond the boundaries of lining up the energy within you.   (snip) Because it's not any of your business what anybody else does with their thoughts. It's only your business what you do with your thoughts. (snip) The only thing that can keep you from the freedom and joy that you believe the winning of this lottery is about, to keep you from the abundance and the feeling of mobility that you seek in this physical experience, the only thing that can keep you from having all of that is focusing upon things that make you feel other than that. And the Universe cannot yield the lottery to you as long as you are feeling the dissatisfaction of where you stand. You have to feel appreciation for where you stand in order for more that will please you to be able to get in. – Abe – Kona, HI, 12/9/00 (tape B)
Which is the right way?
There is such a tendency to say, "Well, I would do it this way, and if you don't do it the way I do it, then there's something wrong with one or the other of us." And that isn't true at all. You are just approaching things in different ways, all working. Whether it seems like it or not -- you are all working toward the same ultimate goal of joy. G-12/11&12/99
How can I attract my perfect job?
Q: Can you give me any insight on attracting a right work? Abraham: Well, there are endless possibilities for you. And you have been through your work and through your awareness of downsizing and through the work that you have not liked and through the work you HAVE liked...you've set off a very powerful vibrational resume. In other words, the Universe really knows who you are and what you like to do and what you're good at and where your desires are. And as you are in a place that is vibrationally neutral...in other words, not pushing against the things you didn't like, then the Universe - IS yielding yielding to you - but you will allow the receiving of what the Universe is yielding. In other words, we want to say to you, it's not your job to figure out how, where, when, who. It's your job to know what you want to and to know how you want to feel and to trust that the Universe knows in detail everything that will please you and is yielding it to you and you'll know it when you see it. Our encouragement to you is to trust that it is coming...it ABSOLUTELY is coming. You cannot be as clear as you are in your desire and have the Universe not having ALREADY achieved and lined up circumstances and events. You just have to chill out an let it come and trust that you'll know it when you see it. And it won't be a "Yeah, maybe mmm mmm mmm mmm, yes, no, yes, no", sort of thing. It'll be a "Yes!!" It'll be a "Yes! This is what I'm wanting to do. Yes! Yes! This is it." Sacramento workshop 7/27/02 tape 4
*************************************************************** The universe is conspiring to assist you with your perfect job. We know that few of you can just quit your jobs today and start dreaming your way into success because there is this buffer of time, and the creditors would be banging on your door very quickly. So we are not saying stop all action, and start dreaming. We are saying dream a little more and act a little less. We are saying that 10 or 15 minutes of focusing and visualizing until you find the feeling place of success is the equivalent of many thousands of action hours. When you hold a thought purely--which means that you just don't contradict it--for 17 seconds, another thought that is like it joins it, and there is a lot of power in that joining. ...Because you rarely go more than 8 seconds without contradicting your thought..., you have not discovered the power of thought. Most of you have not discovered that the Universe is conspiring to assist you. You work hard from this attitude of unworthiness, from this feeling that you are not enough, from this feeling that you have to justify. You heard us as we were talking to our friend here [a member of the audience]. It was fun to talk to him, wasn't it, because he was so OBVIOUSLY off the wall. [laughter] Didn't you enjoy hearing him? Couldn't you really, really hear why he was stuck? Couldn't you hear how he wasn't going to let the wellbeing into him because he was so mad at those bad people [corporate types that downsize companies] for taking advantage of so many people? Didn't he make it really easy to see how he was kind of stuck and not allowing it to come in? It's a lot easier to hear when it's happening to someone else--especially to someone who has exaggerated it to this place. [laughter] And what we want you to begin to understand is that the Universe is responding to the way you feel. Don't think so much about what you are thinking. Don't think so much about what you have or possess. Don't think so much about how you compare with others in your possessions and actions. Instead think about how you feel. ...How you're feeling is everything. How you're feeling is your point of attraction. How you're feeling is your asking from the Universe. How you're feeling is everything that is coming to you. If you're feeling unworthy, you can work day and night, night and day, everyday and not allow the very things you want to flow because your vibration is not allowing it and the Universe cannot buck your current. How you're feeling is everything. So if we were standing in your physical shoes, we would let the contrast naturally produce the desire. It will. And when we felt a desire within us, we would look at it, we would recognize the weirdness of it, we would recognize how unfamiliar it feels to us, and then we would do what is our work. Then we would do what is *our* work. Then *I* would do what is *my* work. Then I would go to my work. I would do the work I have been born to do. I would get on my path and I would do my work. My work is before me now. Now I know how to do my work. Now I know what I am responsible for. Now I know what I will do. My work is...it's simple. My work is to take that new desire and to play with it in my mind's eye until it *feels* familiar, until it feels like the manifestation of it is the next logical step.
I feel lost about my vocation. Help me with some clarity.
When you say you're lost and confused about vocation, we think that what that is about is -   You know what you're capable of doing, You know what you can do. You know what you don't want to do   You're not all that sure what you really want to do specifically, but you do know quite a bit.   In other words,   You know how you want to feel   You know you want to be of value. You know you want it to be profitable. You know you want to make a difference. You know you would like to be heard   There is so much that you do know.   So why not talk about what you do know rather than amplify that you're lost and confused?   In other words, why not begin saying:   These are the things I do know:   I want it to be fun. I want it to be profitable. I want it to be fun like such and such. I want it to be profitable like such and such. I want it to be life-giving like such and such   In other words, You said something very powerful to us, you said, I am getting so good at this virtual reality and I'm having such a good time that I have set out to collect stuff to use in virtual reality. And we say, why not set out to collect stuff to use in virutal reality relative to vocation?   In other words, I want to be happy like that one. I want to be prosperous like that one. I want to have meaningful work like that one. I want to have hours like that one. I want to have an office like that one or a working space like that one.   In other words, its the same sort of thing, collecting the data in order to generate the vibration, in order to hold yourself in the vibrational pattern that allows the outcome. Very clear, isn't it? and easy when we put it that way.   Abraham-Hicks, Albany, NY - 10/1/02
What are the benefits of basking?
You can feel good about the flower you are looking at, or the ocean that you are looking across, or about the smile upon the face of the child. You can be focused upon something like that and be feeling utter well-being. And in that moment of that basking, you are attracting the dollars that you want, you are attracting the abundance that you want, you are attracting the mate that you want -- you are attracting whatever it is that you want. It is about vibrating and allowing, you see? Abe -- G-2/1/92 (from the Abe calendar)
I am always financially strapped, what do I?
If there is not as much money in your experience as you want, it means one thing only: The balance of your thought regarding the subject of money is tipping more to the lack of it than to the having of it. You have only to deliberately and consciously offer more thought towards money than towards the lack of it. Abraham-Hicks, G 7/20/91 B
I really want to start my own business, but don't know my first step...any advice?
As you take the time to find images in your mind that are pleasing, you will more often achieve vibrational alignment with all the things that you desire. From that alignment, you will experience more inspired ideas and assistance form others. -Well Being Cards
What makes allowing abundance difficult?
What makes allowing abundance difficult? Awareness of not enough abundance. You can't have it both ways. You cannot focus upon the absence of money and let money in. It cannot be. You have to start finding moments that feel like you think you want to feel- and savoring them. G-10/5/02- Boston, MA.
Why do I have a hard time delegating?
Most people have a hard time delegating, or even wanting to delegate, because you have been justifying your existence through your hard work, and you equate success with struggle; you equate results with struggle. And so, you sort of wear your struggle like a badge of honor. And all of that is opposite of allowing the Well-being. The only thing that ever matters in success or achievement is your achieving the things that you want to achieve. So if you are setting standards and you're feeling uncomfortable about the standards that you've set, tweak the standards back a little bit. Ratchet it back a notch. Give yourself a break. Give yourself the benefit of the doubt. Lighten up. Be easier. Go slower. Take it easy. Have more fun. Love yourself more. Laugh more. Appreciate more. All is well. You can't get it wrong. You never get it done. San Antonio, TX -- 4/20/02 Abraham quaterly quotes July 2003
'Paying the price' of success does not make me feel good.
The sooner that you decide to stop 'paying the price,' the sooner success will come to you. ....there's something that goes like this: 'If I am going to have any gain, I have to have some pain. And if I don't pay the price, the rewards won't be that great.' And do you know who wrote those rules? THOSE WHO NEEDED YOU TO WORK FOR THEM! (Laughter.) The Universe has never said that you need to struggle, because the Universe operates on Law of Attraction, and the Universe knows it can yield to you and WILL, eternally, precisely as you FEEL. The Universe is answering your MOOD -- it is that simple. -- Abe, 4/15/00
Abraham, I want to win the lottery!
People, all the time, are saying to us, "Abraham, I want to win the lottery!" Well, we know why they want to win the lottery. That is logical. We want you to win the lottery! We would like you to allow the abundance that is natural to you to flow to you. We know that money is synonymous with freedom and that, the more freedom you feel, the more your valve is open and the more of it you spread around to others, you see.  But there's not one in a million of you who has opened enough outlets for that money to flow. You say, "I want ten kajillion dollars to come to me! And we say, "What would you do with it?" And you can only tell us what you would do with a few thousand. "Oh, I'd get out of debt," you say limply. "I'd buy a new car," you say limply.  We say, "You're asking for millions and you're [only] spewing ten thousand to the borders of the Universe." In other words, there's a tremendous imbalance. You've got to blast those Energy Dollars out there. "I'd do this. I'd do this. I'd do this. I'd do THIS. I'd do THIS. I'd do THIS. I'D DO THIS!" And, in the identifying of what you would do, you open valves. You create Energy vortexes. You create a funneling sensation that literally sucks, from the boundaries of the Universe, circumstances and events that will satisfy your desire.  This is what creation is!  Abraham-Hicks Phoenix, Arizona G-04-26-94
How can I make the best of this economy?
"You are having glorious economic times and there is not a reason for it to be otherwise -- for you as individuals, or for you collectively.  But don't let what they are doing collectively affect you individually, it need not.  Begin making statements that always keep you in the receiving mode, like: I'm not affected by what's happening outside of me  I'm only affected by the alignment of energy between my desires  I'm actually benefitting by what's taking place here because I'm giving more thought to what I'm really wanting  I'm fine tuning my desires in a more powerful way  I'm pulling more energy through me than I ever have before ... and I'm more deliberately paying attention to when I'm in the receiving mode than when I am not  I'm thriving during these economic times as I've done before  I anticipate that I will thrive even more during these economic times  These are boom times for me  This has really been clarifying times for me  I am summoning more energy than I ever have before  I'm clearer about what I'm knowing  I'm in a much better place this time than at any other time  I have a strong economic back drop or platform that I am launching from  All is really well here. Law of attraction will sort everything out and we are all doing extremely well.  And, when you hear others that are expressing otherwise, sometimes it is to your advantage to stop just for a brief moment and ask, "What is their reason for perpetuating this?"  And sometimes, in many cases the answer will be, and it will be accurate when it comes forth, "They just don't know any better." In other words they haven't thought it through, it's what every body is doing.  But sometimes the answer will be, "It is to their economic advantage to do so."  And as you begin to acknowledge how many people are using this to their economic advantage you won't worry about the economy any more."  G-3/24/01 San Rafael California
I'd like to feel like a Leisure Goddess all the time!
If you could just give you're undivided attention to where you want to go and never mind where you've been and stop trying to explain to everyone why you're standing where you're standing, you would clean your vibration up so fast you would attune to the vibration of your desire so quickly and people watching you would be amazed.  They would say, "Who anointed you king of the world?  How is it that you just wave your hand and whatever you want happens?  How is it that doors open for you, that seas part for you, that you barely get an idea about something and the Universe finds a way to help you manifest it?  How is it that you were born with this golden spoon in your mouth?  How is it that you are the most blessed person that we know?" the throngs will say to you.  And you will say, "All I do is think about what I want and let that dominate my vibration. And I don't pay too much attention to where I've been because it seems irrelevant. And I pay attention to the way I feel and when I don't feel good I try to feel better by thinking thoughts that feel better. And I've just trained myself to follow the good feeling."  Tarrytown, NY 5/8/04A
What does Abraham say about tithing?
"Now, let's talk about that subject of tithing for just a moment. A lot of people ask about tithing, because they have been told that there is benefit in it. And they're usually told that by those who will receive the benefit from their tithing. In other words, "tithing is a good thing, give your money to me and your life will be better," is the general picture of tithing. The reason that tithing is beneficial is because, if you feel abundant enough that you have excess that you don't have to have, the excess is a vibration of Well-being. In other words, "I've not only got enough money for what I need, I have extra money," and so, it's that vibration of Well-being that a allows more dollars to flow. So we encourage that you tithe your clothing account, that you tithe your vacation account, that you tithe your eating-at-a-special- restaurant account. In other words, you don't have to tithe a church or a guru. Tithe yourself, but get into the attitude of excess. In other words, "not only can I meet my basic requirements, but I have excess that I can do other things with", because it's that vibration of abundance, that vibration of excess."
What is the economy anyway?
The economy is the exchange of human energy. We did not say the exchange of human activity.  The economy is the exchange of human energy, and it will expand or shrink depending upon the intent or desire of the masses.  So think about what's happening. Billions of people on this planet banging around with each other giving birth to constant new desire. And remember, ask and it is given. So the nonphysical is answering that desire and a very small percentage of you are in a place of allowing the desire to flow.  Everyone could receive it, in other words the universe has the capacity to expand to fulfill...you could all be billionaires, every one of you. Every person on the planet. Because the universe has the capacity to expand to meet that, you see.  But there are not that many that are asking. And there are even fewer that are answering. You get a sense of how this works? Abraham San Francisco, CA 2/20 & 2/21/99 Tape 3
What is the perfect creative stance?
You want appreciation. Even though you like what's happening now doesn't mean that you still don't want appreciation or greater stimulation. It just means you're not using something in your now as your excuse to not let in all those things that you've been wanting. The perfect creative stance is satisfaction where I am, and eagerness for more. San Diego, CA - 8/11/01
I want to utilize the Energy to keep my abundance.
What about creating a very obvious positive current of financial abundance?  What about getting so good at visualizing that the money flows through you easily?  What about expending money?  Giving more people work?  Giving more people opportunity?  The more you spend, the more people benefit, and the more people get in on the game and dovetail with you. Your role is to utilize the Energy.  That's why you exist. You are an Energy-flowing being, a focuser, a perceiver.  You are a Creator. There is not anything worse in all of the Universe to do than to come forth into the environment of great contrast where desire is born easily and not allow Energy to flow to your desire. That is a true squandering of life.  G-10/12/97, Rye, NY
Why does a person's second million come much faster than their first?
Once the manifestations start coming in response, it gets easier and easier and easier...   Your second million will come much faster than your first, because as you get comfortable with the feeling of the first, the second is natural. And the third and fourth.   Esther heard a very wealthy man, Ted Turner, saying, "The world is awash in money." And he knew it as he spoke it. It is his experience, everywhere he turns. He gave a billion dollars to the United Nations. Money is flowing to him and through him, more than he could ever, in this lifetime and a hundred others, figure out what to do with on a personal basis.   "The world is awash in money!" And as Esther heard him say that, she knew he knew that. And she thought, "I know that, too. He knows it so clearly, that now I know it." It was something about the intensity with which he spoke it, that, in that moment, Esther knew it. And then, for the next month, she must have said that to Jerry 5,000 times. "The world is awash in money." It was a titillating thought to her, because she, like you, had seen where so many people had pinched themselves off from Well-being, that she'd come to believe that the world was not awash in money. She had come to believe that only a few had it, and they had it stashed back there somewhere where others could not get it. She thought that there was a lopsided thing...   The world is awash in money! Do you hear what that means? It is awash in money. It is flowing for everyone. It is like Niagara Falls. And most of you are showing up with your teaspoons.   There is no shortage of anything.   Those who believe there is shortage, hold themselves over in this place where they disallow the Energy from flowing to them. And so, in their resistance, they have it not. And then they say, "I am proof that there is shortage. And that man over there that is awash in money is the reason I don't have any." He has nothing to do with your shortage. He is evidence that there is an abundance.   Excerpted from Abraham-Hicks Workshop, Seattle, WA, 5/27/00
What if I want to manifest something large and complex?
Q: The thing was, my vision was really large or is really large, and complex. And it requires a lot of time, a lot of bringing people together, a lot of putting systems in place.   
Abe: Now, we're not hearing a whole lot of pleasure from you. This feels arduous. In other words, this feels like "my long, uphill struggle on the way to my success."   
Q: Well, the thing is I don't have those things in place, and the process of putting them in place is very energetic....   
Abe: Well, maybe you're taking action too soon. Somebody's convinced you that even though your energy may not be lined up the way you want it, that if you'll just jump into action then other things will fall into place. And it's really a backwards approach to this because if you take the time to take the pleasure from the vision, then the Universe will line up the action and then it is effortless. You see, it just sort of keeps unfolding for you. It's like the next logical step–-oh, there it is; oh, there it is.   
Q: The pressure was, and I learned it from your tapes [??], that I wanted it soon.   
Abe: Why?   
Q: Because I felt like I had to have it or something like that?   
Abe: Why?   
Q: Originally I think it was I felt incomplete without it.   
Abe: Yeah, and you can't get there from there!   
Q: (Agreeing:) You can't.   
Abe: In other words, when you want something because you don't have it...   
Q: Right.   
Abe: ...do you hear what you're saying? "I want this thing that I do not have. I want this thing that I do not have."   
Q: Instead of for the pure joy of it.   
Abe: "I want this thing that I do not have." And when you say, "I want this thing. I want this thing. I want this thing because this thing is fun to think about. I want this thing because it gives me pleasure to think about it. I want this thing for the pleasure I can milk from it." We want you to reach the place where you say, "I want this thing but I don't want it to come too soon because I like using it as the focal point that keeps summoning things through me."   
Q: I started saying that today, that's great.   
Abe: "Because from the moment I started wanting this, good things started flowing. It gave me something to focus upon. It gave me a reason for life force to flow through me. It gave the Universe a reason to rendezvous me with lots of other things." In other words, "Wanting this thing is the very best thing I've ever done for myself. I'm not sure I ever want it to come to an end." And we say don't worry, it won't. (Laughter.) There will always be something more and something more. And that is the strongest point that we're wanting-–we have never before been in a group of such collective consciousness where there is such powerful intent all congealed in one focused place. We mean that. In other words, you are powerful wanters here. And the thing that we most want you to hear is that you will always be in the place of unfulfilled desire, get used to it. You will always be in the place of unfulfilled desire.   
And so what you're wanting to do is say, "How much pleasure can I get from this unfulfilled desire and do I have another unfulfilled desire lined up before this one manifests because it is the unfulfilled desire that keeps summoning life through me." We would feel sorry for any of you who said, "Everything that I've ever wanted has already manifested," and we would say then your lights must be out.   It is the not-fulfillment that keeps summoning the life through you, and you know that so clearly that you commit yourself to lifetime after lifetime after lifetime because [it] is such a delicious journey.   
Q: I have that, but what happens to me is that what I'm inspired by is large...   
Abe: Yes.   
Q: ...it takes time....   
Abe: No, it doesn't. Big manifestations come more quickly than little manifestations because there's more energy involved. It is much easier to manifest a castle than it is a button, unless you really, really, really need that button.   Abraham-Hicks, L.A., CA, 3/4/00
Why isn't the money here yet?!
So as you are moving through your day and you notice that you have more desire or need for money than you actually have money and a big bill has come so you have this conflicting feeling where you want to spend it for this but you should spend it for this and even if you do pay it where it belongs there is not enough to really go around in the way you are wanting to. And in this frustrating moment of weighing the pros and cons of your experience, you fire off a rocket of desire big time.   You've asked in a very powerful way but the answer, even though its given, is not received because you are more aware of not having enough money then you are of having enough money. In your anxiety you are not in the receiving mode, in your anger or blame or guilt you are not in the receiving mode. In your awareness of not enough money you are not in the receiving mode for enough money so more money cannot come, not right now, nothing can change.   Now, you've asked, Source Energy hears you clearly, adores you fully, understands your worthiness entirely, and answers swiftly. So the answer is not just on the way, it is given. In other words, everything is lined up; the money SHOULD be there NOW. Why isn't it! Because you're ornery. (laughter)   You're worried, you're frustrated. You've got your receiver set to a whole different channel. And so even though the circumstances are lined up, everything is there for you, you're zigging while your stuff is zagging, and you say "nobody ever answers my request." And we say oh yes, your request is fully answered but you have just been confused about step 1(asking) and step 3 (allowing).   So the key is, once you become consciously aware that you want something different than what is, you have to through the power of your mind practice until you achieve a different vibration about that subject.   Abraham-Hicks, G-12/15/01
How can I get my business to prosper in new and profound ways?
In your moving yourself up the Emotional Scale, your business will begin to prosper in new and profound ways! Your business, your relationships, your finances cannot grow beyond your emotional response--nothing can grow beyond your emotional response. Everything matches your Set-point of emotions on every subject that exists.   From the Quarterly Journal Jul/Aug/Sep 2004
What is the basis of success?
Therein lies the basis of anyone's success: How much do I practice thoughts that bring me joy, and how much do I practice thoughts that bring me pain? San Francisco, CA -- 3/8/03
Is debt a bad thing?
Debt is not a bad thing. The largest corporations in the world are operating under huge debt--much more debt than you would even ever want to contemplate. And if debt were to evaporate from your world economy, your world economy would collapse. And so it's time to stop feeling negative about debt. Debt is not a bad thing. It's a promise of the future.
In a competitive situation where one person wins the trophy means the other person loses it...how can each of them receive what they want?
By recognizing that there are many and unlimited trophies. Of course, when you are putting yourself in competition and there is only one trophy, you are putting yourself automatically in a situation of knowing that only one will win the trophy. The one who is clearest...the one who is wanting most...and the one who is believing most...will win it! Competition can be an advantage to assist you in stimulating your clarity of what you are wanting and to stimulate or enhance your wanting...and, for that reason...it is good! But...we would encourage you not to put yourself in competition where there is only one trophy but instead to see this world filled with enough abundance so that all who seek may achieve whatever they are wanting. AB-3 Law of Deliberate Creation
Am I really the boss of me?
There isn't anything that I cannot be or do or have, and I have a huge Nonphysical staff that's ready to assist me, and I'm ready. G-1/12/97, Boca Raton, FL
Are some jobs more joyful than others?
There is no high work and low work. There are just opportunities to focus. You can feel as fulfilled and satisfied in any task as in any other. You are on the leading edge of thought, and Source is flowing through you- no matter what your endeavour is. You can be joyful in any endeavour that you decide to allow the Energy to flow. Boca Raton, FL - 12/7/02
To work hard or to not work hard is the question --- NOT!
But you see, you have more choices than you are giving us here. In other words, you have the choice of going to Octoberfest and giving yourself a break, and reminding yourself that you deserve a little time off and that life is about the process and that you never get it done and that life is supposed to be fun and that you deserve a little refreshment and that the refreshment will put you in a better place of clarity to achieve AND YOU ALSO HAVE THE OPTION OF not going to Octoberfest, of staying and working and feeling proud of your work and exhilarated in the motion forward and happy that you took the time.   In other words, you've got the choice of going to Octoberfest and being happy or miserable and you've got the choice of not going and being happy or miserable.  
 And what we are wanting to say in a way that you can hear it is: THE ACTION IS IRRELEVANT. It's how YOU DECIDE to FEEL within the action that you have chosen that matters, you see.   We see so many people that work really really hard and feel resentful of how hard they are working and get nowhere from their hard work. And we see people who are working really hard who believe that they are supposed to work hard and feel proud of working hard, who achieve from working hard. And we see people who don't work hard at all, who feel really guilty about not working hard at all who don't make anything happen because they feel so guilty about not working hard at all. And we see people not working hard at all who understand that it doesn't take hard work, who thrive in their not working hard at all.   
THE ACTION IS IRRELEVANT. Its the way you've lined up your energy around the action.   If someone has convinced you that it takes really-really hard work and lots of concentration and struggle in order to really succeed, but they've convinced you that hard work and struggle will give you success, then you better work really-really hard and if you are willing to work really-really hard, you can find your success.   But we promise you, YOU DO NOT HAVE TO work hard and struggle in order to have success UNLESS you believe you have to work hard and struggle in order to have success.   Its all about your personal alignment of energy.
On work and play
Abraham: As the virtuous being that you want to be, do you really think that it is better to work or to play?   Audience: PLAY!!!!!   Abraham: Really? You really think that?   You think that now... You think that now because we have influenced you to ... but ... now think about your children. So, it's Saturday morning and you have a long list of things that need to be done AND this is the only opportunity AND they want to play.   Do you want them to play or do you want them to do their chores, WHICH is a virtuous thing?   And how do you counsel them, Do you say 'Kids, PLAY!' or do you say 'Kids, we've got some things that need to be done and when we get our work done then we can play." What is it folks? In other words, YOU CAN'T KID US, WE READ YOUR ENERGY!!!!!   You DO think that work is more virtuous and that play is more frivolous, and while you want to give yourselves permission to play, you've been programmed to believe that play is only when the work is done...   And we're wanting you to realize whether you call it play or work ... let's not call it play or work anymore, let's call it satisfaction, let's call it meaningful experience, let's call it joyous moments in time, let's call it mining opportunities to feel good.   ---   We think it's the differentiation between my free time and my bondage time that is at issue here.   Abraham-Hicks, Cinn, Ohio -- 9/23/02 - Side 2

Abundance money management

2008-06-25T21:38:00.001-07:00

START WITH PRAYER
The issue of money is the most talked about subject in the Bible. There are over 2,000 verses on this subject. God is pointing out to us that money is a serious contender for our thoughts, concerns, wants, etc. Eventually, money no longer becomes a means to a goal but the goal itself. This is why many couples find themselves torn apart over the family’s financial situation – it can become a consuming fire. Because money is probably the number one contender for our thoughts, hopes, fears, etc., financial difficulties can seriously affect our relationship with God. It definitely affects our relationships with others.
1 Tim 6:10 – “For the love of money is a root of all sorts of evil, and some by longing for it have wandered away from the faith and pierced themselves with many griefs.”
James 1:9-11 – “9 But the brother of humble circumstances is to glory in his high position; 10 and the rich man is to glory in his humiliation, because like flowering grass he will pass away. 11 For the sun rises with a scorching wind and withers the grass; and its flower falls off and the beauty of its appearance is destroyed; so too the rich man in the midst of his pursuits will fade away.”
Definition of Success – the continued achievement of God-given goals.
Financial Planning – the predetermined use of financial resources in order to accomplish those goals and objectives.
Matthew 25:14-30
14"For it is just like a man about to go on a journey, who called his own slaves and entrusted his possessions to them.
15"To one he gave five talents, to another, two, and to another, one, each according to his own ability; and he went on his journey.
16"Immediately the one who had received the five talents went and traded with them, and gained five more talents.
17"In the same manner the one who had received the two talents gained two more.
18"But he who received the one talent went away, and dug a hole in the ground and hid his master's money.
19"Now after a long time the master of those slaves came and settled accounts with them. 20"The one who had received the five talents came up and brought five more talents, saying, 'Master, you entrusted five talents to me. See, I have gained five more talents.'
21"His master said to him, 'Well done, good and faithful slave. You were faithful with a few things, I will put you in charge of many things; enter into the joy of your master.'
22"Also the one who had received the two talents came up and said, 'Master, you entrusted two talents to me. See, I have gained two more talents.'
23"His master said to him, 'Well done, good and faithful slave. You were faithful with a few things, I will put you in charge of many things; enter into the joy of your master.'
24"And the one also who had received the one talent came up and said, 'Master, I knew you to be a hard man, reaping where you did not sow and gathering where you scattered no seed.
25'And I was afraid, and went away and hid your talent in the ground. See, you have what is yours.'
26"But his master answered and said to him, 'You wicked, lazy slave, you knew that I reap where I did not sow and gather where I scattered no seed.
27'Then you ought to have put my money in the bank, and on my arrival I would have received my money back with interest.
28'Therefore take away the talent from him, and give it to the one who has the ten talents.'
29"For to everyone who has, more shall be given, and he will have an abundance; but from the one who does not have, even what he does have shall be taken away.
30"Throw out the worthless slave into the outer darkness; in that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.
Four (4) Biblical Principles of Money Management
God owns it all. He has the right to all that He wants whenever He chooses to have it.
I, as a steward, have responsibilities over that which God has entrusted to me, but God, as owner, has rights because it is all His.
Because God owns it all, every spending decision that I make becomes a spiritual decision.
We cannot fake stewardship. (God owns it all and is all knowing, all seeing.)
We are in a growth process. God uses the money and material possessions He has entrusted to us as a tool, a test and a testimony.
11 Not that I speak from want, for I have learned to be content in whatever circumstances I am. 12 I know how to get along with humble means, and I also know how to live in prosperity; in any and every circumstance I have learned the secret of being filled and going hungry, both of having abundance and suffering need. 13 I can do all things through Him who strengthens me. Philippians 4:11-13
God can use my use of the resources He has entrusted to me as a testimony to the world. My attitude as a Christian toward my financial situation is the testimony.
11"Therefore if you have not been faithful in the use of unrighteous wealth, who will entrust the true riches to you? 12"And if you have not been faithful in the use of that which is another's, who will give you that which is your own? Luke 16:11-12
3. The amount is never important. How you handle what you have been entrusted with is important, though. Whatever God chooses to entrust you with, hold with an open hand, allowing Him to entrust you with more if he so chooses, or allowing Him to take whatever He wants. Remember, it is all His anyway.
Faith requires action. (refer back to Matthew 25:24-30) Accumulating financial resources should never be an end in itself. Resources are accumulated only to use them to accomplish some purpose, goal or objective. Asking the questions, “What are you trying to accomplish?” when spending money helps to focus the decision on real objectives.
Guaranteed Financial Success
God owns it all.
Money is never an end in itself, but is merely a resource used to accomplish other goals and objectives. If it becomes your focus, you are doomed to disappointment, because it was never intended by our Creator to be anything more than a resource.
Spend less than you earn and do it for a long time, and you will be financially successful. (Get rich slowly). Only true discretionary place to cut spending is in lifestyle. Accumulation of financial resources merely requires patience and self-discipline, both of which are fruits of the Spirit. Galatians 5:22
In order to meet long term goals, those goals must take priority over your short term goals – delayed gratification.
Financial Planning Overview
All of us have limited resources.
Consequently, there are more alternative uses of money available than money available.
Today’s decisions determine destiny (a dollar spent is gone forever and can never be used again).
The longer the term of perspective, the better is the decision making.
Short Range Objectives
Given away.
Spent to support a lifestyle.
Used for repayment of debt.
Used to meet tax applications.
Accumulated or saved. (for the long term)
Objectives 1 and 5 are productive in nature. Objectives 2 through 4 are consumptive by their very nature.
There are just two (2) factors necessary to determine how to allocate the money I have among the five (5) short range objectives listed above:
The commitments I already have.
My priorities.
A commitment must be top priority.
Long Range Objectives
Financial independence.
College education for children.
Paying off debt.
Major lifestyle desires.
Major charitable giving.
Owning your own business.
If you can define and quantify these long term goals, then you will have answered the question, how much is enough?
Avoiding The Most Common Mistakes
Be careful not to reduce or eliminate an expense this year that would be more costly, perhaps, next year.
God is pleased to give you creative ways to reduce your expenses when you come to Him humbly asking for His guidance and wisdom. “But if any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask of God, who gives to all generously and without reproach, and it will be given to him.” James 1:5
Biggest Financial Mistakes
A consumptive lifestyle – simply spending more than you can afford, or spending more than you should, given your other goals and priorities.
Lack of a budget.
Occurs in buying and selling automobiles. The cheapest car anyone can ever own is always the car they presently own, unless it is sold and the proceeds reinvested in a lower priced car; and the longer the car is driven, the cheaper it becomes to operate.
When you use debt to fund a consumptive lifestyle, not only do you have the consumptive lifestyle working against you financially, but you also have the additional burden of the debt working against you financially. Both should be avoided like the plague.
The only absolute way to avoid the use of debt, in the first place, is to have a financial plan prepared at the beginning of the year that does not allow for the use of debt and that through self-discipline you will stick to.

a millionaire mind

2008-06-25T21:33:00.000-07:00

PROSPERITY
'DON'T BELIEVE A WORD I SAY.'
Why would I suggest that? Because I can only come from my own experience. Meaning that nothing I say is inherently true or false, right or wrong. It's just my experience.
The principles I teach in my seminars have totally transformed my life, and have now transformed the lives for over four years now. And if you learn these principles, and more importantly use them, they can transform your life too.
SO WHAT IS MY EXPERIENCE?
I began designing programs based on the 'inner' game of money and success and when we combined the inner game (the toolbox) with the outer game (the tools), virtually everybody's results went through the roof!
And that's what you're going to 'learn': how to blend the inner game with the outer game to achieve total success.
Josh Billings put it this way; 'It's not what we don't know that prevents us from succeeding, it's what we know that just ain't so that is our greatest obstacle.'
LEARNING TO UNLEARN
Therefore, it’s not only about 'learning,' it's also about 'unlearning!' It's important to realize that your old ways of thinking and being have gotten you exactly where you are right now. If you're really rich and really happy, fine. But if you're not, I'd invite you to consider some possibilities that may not fit into what you 'think' is right.
One of my favorite stories is a perfect example of how most people search for answers in life, but when the answers don't fit with their old ways of thinking they simply ignore them and continue searching.
A man who is walking along a cliff all of a sudden loses his balance, slips and falls off, but he has the presence of mind to grab on to the ledge. He's hanging there for dear life. He's hanging and hanging and finally calls out, 'Is there anybody up there that can help me? There's no answer. He keeps calling and calling and finally this big bellowing voice calls back, 'This is God. I can help you. Just let go and trust.' Next thing you hear, 'Is there anybody else up there that can help me?'
Whether it's by 'learning' or 'unlearning', if you're ready to develop a 'millionaire mind' and move quickly towards true wealth and happiness in your life, then read on.
Why many people tend to 'blow up' their successes.
The meaning and power of the acronym 'TFAR'.
Why not having enough money is never, ever a problem.
I explained earlier that people exposed to the same "outer world" wealth creation tools produce different results. When I began to add processes to help people develop their "inner world," the way they think and feel about wealth, virtually everyone's results went through the roof.
I want to challenge you with an idea:
YOUR OLD WAYS OF THINKING AND BEING HAVE GOTTEN YOU EXACTLY WHERE YOU ARE RIGHT NOW.
If you're really rich and really happy, fine. But if you're not, I'd invite you to consider some possibilities that may not fit into what you "think" is right.
PEOPLE WHO BLOW UP THEIR SUCCESSES
I once saw a multi-millionaire do a demonstration that changed my life.
The man held two deflated balloons, one substantially larger than the other. He explained that in this demonstration "air" represented money and each balloon represented a different person. He then proceeded to blow up (put money into) the smaller balloon (person). He maxed it out at about 6 inches.
He then blew air, (money) into the larger balloon (person) and maxed it out at about 12 inches. He then asked, "What's the difference between these two "people"? The obvious answer was that "the bigger balloon (person) can hold a lot more air (money) than the smaller balloon (person) without busting.
This demonstration hit me right between the eyes. I had just "blown up" my fourth business in a row and was in the midst of looking for a new "right" opportunity. Once again, I was searching outside myself for the answer. I had never even considered that maybe "I" was part of the problem.
The lesson was clear: "your wealth can only grow to the extent you do!"
If you keep putting more 'money' into a small 'person', they will quickly go bust! I got it and then could barely look at myself in the mirror for a week!
Have you heard of people who have "blown up" financially? Who have had big money and lost it? Or have had sweet opportunities go sour on them?
Now you know the real cause. On the outside it looks like bad luck, a downturn in economy, a lousy partner, whatever...
On the inside, however, it's a whole other situation. If you do come into some big money, when you're not ready on the inside, your wealth will be short-lived. Chances are good you will lose it.
Most people do not have the "internal capacity" to create, hold and manage, large amounts of money and success and the increased challenges that go with it. That's the primary reason they don't have it.
THE MEANING AND POWER OF THE ACRONYM 'TFAR'
"The Roots Create The Fruits"
Imagine a tree. Let's suppose this tree represents the tree of life. On this tree there are fruits. In real life our fruits are called our results. So we look at the fruits (our results) and we don't like them. We think there's not enough of them or they're too small or they don't taste good.
So what do we do? Most of us put even more attention and focus on the fruits; our results. But what is it that actually creates those particular fruits? It's the seeds and the roots that create those fruits. It's what's under the ground that creates what's above the ground. It's the invisible that creates the visible. Meaning that if you want to change the fruits, you will first have to change the roots.
In order to change your roots, let me introduce you to a very important formula. This formula is so critical that understanding it can change your life! It is called the Process of Manifestation:
T-> F-> A-> R Thoughts, Feelings, Actions, Results
Thoughts lead to Feelings.
Feelings lead to Actions.
Actions lead to Results.
If you want to change your results, your "Fruits", your will need to change your thoughts, your "roots."
This will help you understand why...
NOT HAVING ENOUGH MONEY IS NEVER, EVER A PROBLEM!
Not having enough money is a RESULT! If a problem exists, it's in your thinking and how that thinking manifests through feelings and actions to produce your results.
SO WHAT DO YOU DO?
I'm known for saying "Give me five minutes and I can predict your financial future for the rest of your life."
How? In a short conversation, I can identify what's called your money and success "blueprint." Each of us has a personal money and success blueprint already ingrained in our subconscious mind and this blueprint will determine your financial destiny.
So what is a blueprint? Consider the blueprint for a house. The blueprint is a preset plan or design for that particular home.
In the same way, your "money blueprint" is simply a preset program or way of being in relation to money. And through the TFAR formula, your blueprint manifests your financial reality.
In the next installment of the Secret Psychology of Wealth newsletter, we'll look in more depth into the following topics:
How your Money Blueprint is formed.
What the 3 primary methods of conditioning are.
What is your Money Blueprint set for?
We discovered that people have a subconscious capacity for financial success which often results in their "blowing" wealth or wealth building opportunities: in short, your wealth can only "grow" to the extent that you do.
Further, we discovered the LAW OF MANIFESTATION and the acronym, TFAR, which means that your Thoughts (core beliefs - subconscious) lead to Feelings which lead to Actions which produce your Results. And naturally from this we can see that a lack of money is never a "problem," it's a result of conditioned and largely automatic thinking.
This carries us to today's topic which will help you determine the source of your subconscious thoughts, namely your personal money and success blueprint.
HOW YOUR MONEY BLUEPRINT IS FORMED.
As I mentioned last week, your "money blueprint' is simply a preset program or way of being in relation to money.
Your financial blueprint consists of your thoughts, feelings and actions in the arena of money. Notice that these are based in your "inner" world, and that they lead to your results, which are based in your outer world.
So how do you get your money blueprint? The answer is simple.
Your financial blueprint consists primarily of the "programming" you received in your past, especially as a young child.
Who were the primary sources of this conditioning? They were parents, siblings, friends, authority figures, teachers, religious leaders, media, and your culture to name a few. Take culture. Isn't it true that certain cultures have a certain way of thinking and dealing with money while in other cultures it's completely different?
Do you think a child comes out of the womb with those ways of being? No. The child is "taught" how to think about and act in relation to money. The same holds true for you. You were "taught" how to think about and handle money, whether you realized it at the time or not. Then you take this conditioning with you and run on it for the rest of your life.
WHAT ARE THE 3 PRIMARY METHODS OF CONDITIONING
Verbal programming; what you "heard" when you were young.
Modeling; what you "saw" when you were young.
Specific Incidents: what you "experienced" when you were young.
VERBAL PROGRAMMING
Lets begin with "verbal" programming. What did you hear about money, wealth and rich people when you were growing up?
Did you ever hear phrases like:
Money is the root of all evil.
Save your money for a rainy day.
Rich people are greedy.
You have to work hard to make money.
Money doesn't grow on trees.
You can't be rich and spiritual.
What am I made of.... money?
Money doesn't buy happiness.
Money talks.
The rich get richer and the poor get poorer.
That's not for people like us.
And the "infamous"... we can't afford it.
Most statements like these that you heard when you were young, are still with you in your subconscious mind and are running your financial life.
An example of the power of verbal conditioning came at the expense of one of our seminar participants. Stephen never had a problem "earning" money, His challenge was "keeping" it. At the time he came to the course he was earning over $800,000 a year and had been doing so for the past 9 years.
Yet he was still barely scraping by. Somehow he would manage to spend it, lend it or lose all his money by making poor investments. Regardless of why, his net worth was exactly zero!
At the "Millionaire Mind Intensive" he shared that when he was growing up, his mom used to always say, "Rich people are greedy. They make their money off the sweat of the poor. You should have just enough to get by. After that you're being a pig."
It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out what is going on inside Stephen's subconscious mind. It's no wonder he's broke.
He was verbally conditioned to believe that rich people are greedy. Therefore, his mind linked up "rich" and greedy or "bad."
Since he doesn't want to be "bad," subconsciously he can't be rich.
But he loves his mom very much and doesn't want her to disapprove of him. Obviously, based on her beliefs, if he got rich she wouldn't approve. Therefore the only thing to do was to get rid of any excess money!
Now you would think that in choosing between being rich or being approved of, most people would take rich. Not a chance! The mind just doesn't work that way. Sure it's logical. But in a choice between logic and emotion, emotion just about always wins.
Anyway, back to our story. In less than 10 minutes at the course, using several extremely effective processes, we completely rewired the money files in Stephen's mind. In only two years, he went from being broke to being a millionaire.
MODELING
The second way we are conditioned is called modeling. What were your parents or guardians like in the arena of money when you were growing up? Did one or both of them manage their money well or did they mismanage it; were they spenders or savers; were they shrewd investors or non-investors; did money come easily in your family or was it a struggle; was money a source of joy in your household or the cause of bitter arguments?
Why is all this important? Have you heard the saying "monkey see monkey do?" Well, humans aren't far behind. As kids, we learn just about everything by modeling.
Although most of us would hate to admit it, as the old saying goes, "The apple doesn't fall too far from the tree."
It reminds me of a story about a woman who prepares a ham for dinner by cutting off both ends. Her bewildered husband asks why she cuts off the ends. She replies, "That's how my mom cooked it." Well it just so happened that her mom was coming for dinner that night. So they asked mom why she cut off the ends of the ham. Mom replies, "That's how my mom cooked it." So they decide to call grandma on the phone and ask why she cut off the ends of the ham. Her answer? "Because my pan was too small!"
SPECIFIC INCIDENTS
The third primary way we are conditioned is by specific incidents. What did you experience when you were young around money, wealth, and rich people. These experiences are extremely important because they shape the beliefs or I should say, illusions, you now live by.
For example, we had a woman who was an operating room nurse, attend one of our Millionaire Mind Intensives. She made an excellent income but shared that somehow she always spent all of her money. When we dug a little deeper, she revealed that when she was eleven years old, she remembers being at a Chinese food restaurant with her parents and her sister. Her mom and dad were having a bitter argument about money, (as usual). Her dad was standing up, screaming and hitting his fist on the table. She remembers him turning red, then blue, then falling to the floor with a heart attack. She was on the swim team and had CPR training which she administered, but to no avail. Her father died in her arms.
And so from that day forth she linked money and pain. It's no wonder then, as an adult, she gets rid of all her money to try and get rid of her pain.
It's also interesting to note that she was a nurse. The reason why? She was still trying to save her dad!
At the course, we performed a little of our magic on her and today she's well on the way to becoming financially free. She's also not a nurse any more. Not that she didn't enjoy it. Just that she was doing it for the wrong reason. Instead, she's now a financial planner, helping people, one on one, understand how their past programming runs every aspect of their lives.
WHAT IS YOUR MONEY BLUEPRINT SET FOR
So now for the million dollar question. What is your current money and success blueprint subconsciously set for? Are you set for success, mediocrity or for financial failure? Are you programmed for struggle or ease around money? Are you set for working hard for your money or being in balance?
Are you conditioned for having a consistent or inconsistent income; first you have it, then you don't, then you have it, then you don't. It might appear as though the reasons for these drastic fluctuations come from the outside world as in, "I got a great paying job but then the company folded, then I started my own business and things were booming but the market dried up, my next business was doing great but then my partner left," etc, etc, etc. I've said it before and I'll say it again, regardless of how things appear on the outside, everything that happens in your physical reality, comes from the "inside." Inconsistent income is nothing more than a conditioned program.
So how can you tell what your personal money and success blueprint is set for? One of the simplest ways is to look at your results. Look at the "fruits;" that will tell you what "roots" have been planted.
Look at your bank account. Look at your income. Look at your net worth. Look at your consistency. Look at whether you're a spender or a saver. Look at your success with investments. Look at your business success. Look at your relationships that involve money. Is money a struggle? Do you work hard for your money? Do you own a business or do you have a job? Do you stick with one thing for a long time or do you jump around a lot?
Your blueprint is like a thermostat. If the temperature in the room is 72 degrees, chances are good the thermostat is set for 72!
Fortunately or unfortunately, your personal money and success blueprint will tend to stay with you for rest of your life, unless you identify it and change it.
If you're sincerely INTERESTED IN RECONDITIONING YOURSELF FOR AUTOMATIC SUCCESS, that's exactly what we do in our Millionaire Mind Intensive workshop.
At this program we actually identify your personal money and success blueprint and using several extremely powerful processes we change your blueprint right on the spot. This event has transformed the lives of thousands of people and it can easily change your life too.
INSIDE THE MIND OF THE WEALTHY
Most of what we've done so far is lay the groundwork for your understanding of the mechanics of wealth. Next is where the "rubber hits the road" and you'll discover the following:
How to become Successful Automatically.
Discover the importance of Rich Thinking.
Practice thinking Rich.
We discussed the fact that your Money Blueprint is created largely during childhood and represents the basic behavioral programming you took on during that time. We also talked about the three major ways you were conditioned: Verbal programming, by Modelling, and through Specific Incidences.
From that point it becomes easy to see that your present financial conditions are the perfect barometer for determining your present conditioning. You're programmed to automatically achieve exactly what you've got now. If that's a lot--great; if not…well that can be changed.
Which leads us to today's first topic:
HOW TO BECOME SUCCESSFUL AUTOMATICALLY.
Becoming automatically successful means changing your present programming which may not be set for success and replacing it with programming that is. If you're set to struggle for wealth because you are programmed to believe wealth only comes from struggle and hard work, you can then change your beliefs to make money "easy," to make yourself a "money & success magnet."
But before you can change your programming you need to become self "aware." The first element of all change is "awareness." Become "conscious." Watch yourself. Observe your thoughts, your beliefs, your fears, your habits, your actions, your inactions. Put yourself under a microscope. Study yourself.
It's funny. As intelligent human beings we think that we live our lives based on "choice." This is not usually the case. If we are truly enlightened we might make a few present moment choices during the average day, but for the most part, we're like robots, running on automatic, ruled by our past conditioning and old habits.
That's where awareness, or consciousness, comes in. Consciousness is observing yourself and your thought processes so you can live from true choice in the present moment rather than programming from the past. So you can live from who you are today rather than who you were yesterday. So you can respond wisely to situations rather than react wildly.
Once you are "conscious" you can see your programming for what it is; simply a recording of information you received and believed in the past, when you were too young to know any better. You can see that this conditioning is not who you are but who you "learned" to be.
You can see that you are not the "recording" but the "recorder." You are not the "contents" in the glass, but the "glass" itself. You can see that you started off "empty", with a clean slate, and were filled up with other people's beliefs.
Again, beliefs are not true or false or right or wrong, they are merely opinions that have been passed down from generation to generation to you. Knowing this, you can choose to release any thought, belief or way of being that is not supportive to your wealth and replace it with one that is.
You can adopt new beliefs; rich beliefs. Remember, thoughts lead to feelings which lead to actions which lead to results. You can choose to think and act like rich people do and therefore create the results that rich people create.
DISCOVER THE IMPORTANCE OF RICH THINKING.
Rich people have a way of thinking that is different from poor and middle class people. They think differently about money, wealth, themselves, other people, and life. We're going to examine some of the differences between how rich people think and how poor or middle class people think.
By doing so, you will have some alternative beliefs in the files of your mind from which to choose. In this way, you can catch yourself thinking as poor people do and quickly switch over to how rich people think. Remember, beliefs are not right, wrong, true or false, they're just past opinions which can be changed on your command. The fact is, you can CHOOSE to think in ways that will support you instead of ways that don't.
A few caveats: first, in no way, shape or form do I mean to degrade poor people or be without compassion for their position. I do not believe rich people are "better" than the poor, they're just richer. At the same time, I want to make certain you get the most from this so I'm going to make the distinctions between the rich and poor as extreme as possible.
Second, when I refer to rich, poor and middle class "people" what I am referring to is their "mentalities"; how they think and how they act.
Third, I will be generalizing "big time." I understand not "all" rich and not "all" poor people are the way I'm describing them. Again, my objective is to make sure you understand the principles being taught here. Don't bother figuring out whether you agree or disagree with every word. Just use what pertains to you. (My guess is it's more than you might want to admit.)
Fourth, for the most part, I will not be referring to the "middle class" specifically. The reason for this is that usually middle class people have somewhat of a mix of both the rich and poor mentalities. Again, just see where you fit in on the scale and if you want to create a lot more financial success, think more like the "rich."
Fifth, several of the principles in this section appear to have more to do with habits and actions than ways of thinking. Remember the process of manifestation, which states that our actions come from our feelings which come from our thoughts. Therefore, every "rich" action is preceded by a "rich" way of thinking.
PRACTICE THINKING RICH
Sixth, each "rich" way of thinking will be reinforced by a "Declaration" at the end of the section.
Declarations are simply statements you say aloud. They are extremely valuable because everything is energy and each declaration carries its own energy and vibrational frequency.
When you state the declaration aloud, its energy vibrates through your body and into your "being". This is a way you can transform your cells of memory, your conditioning, your beliefs, and eventually your habits and actions.
State your declaration each morning and evening. Declaring into a mirror will accelerate the process.
I understand you might perceive "Declarations" to be a bit "hokey". Maybe so, but they work. Regardless, I'd rather be "hokey and rich" than "cool and broke". How about you?
Finally, the concepts you are about to learn are simple but profound. They make real changes for real people in the real world. How do I know? We get thousands of letters and emails each year telling us how each and every one of these principles has transformed people's lives. If you learn them, and use them, they will transform your life too.
So here's an opportunity to Think Rich right now. Say the following Declaration out loud to yourself (into a mirror is ideal):
"TO CHANGE MY OUTER WORLD,I MUST FIRST CHANGE MY INNER WORLD."
HOW YOU DO ANYTHING IS HOW YOU DO EVERYTHING
So how did you do? Did you say the declaration out loud? Did you embrace it as a new idea worthy of your consideration? Or did you decide to continue reading and ignore the practice as being "not for me?"
Naturally, saying declarations alone is not sufficient to totally replace your current programming, but it's a valuable step. More importantly, your willingness to embrace this time tested and proven process is the key to your general willingness to embrace any changes that will help you achieve what you truly deserve--unlimited abundance!
In the next Secret Psychology of Wealth we will be looking at 3 specific ways in which the rich think differently than the poor. In fact, as a head start, below are the three declarations we will conclude with next week:
I create the exact amount of my wealth!
My goal is to create extreme wealth and abundance!
I commit to being rich!
Today I will explain three more "rich" ways of thinking and will conclude each with one of the following Declarations:
I think big! I choose to serve a massive amount of people!
I am bigger than any problem.
I see the opportunities in everything.
We introduced three primary ways that the rich think differently than the poor. And to begin the process of manifesting change in your life I offered you three "Attitudes of Wealth" affirmations to say daily.
In brief I pointed out that rich people take complete responsibility for their lives. They understand that they're not victims but are in fact the architects of their own failure and success.
Secondly, we revealed that rich people "play" the money "game" to win while the poor generally play the money game "not to lose." The poor generally are focused on just paying the bills, having a few "comforts" and getting by month to month. So that's what the universe continues to send them, just enough to get by.
Finally, we clarified that rich people are committed to being rich and that is why they manifest wealth. Unless you are committed both consciously and unconsciously to achieving wealth, you will experience real world results which reflect your degree of commitment.
So, are you ready to round this series off with three more insights into the Millionaire Mind? Lets go!
RICH PEOPLE THINK BIG.Poor people think small.
We once had a trainer teaching at one of our seminars who went from a net worth of $250 thousand to over $600 million in only 3 years. When asked his secret he said, "Everything changed the day I began to think big."
In my book, SpeedWealth, I discuss the "Law of Income" which states that "you will be paid in direct proportion to the value you deliver according to the market place."
Another way of understanding this is to answer the following question: How many people do you actually serve or affect?
For instance in my business, some trainers enjoy speaking to groups of 20, others are comfortable with 100, others like an audience of 500, still others want 5000 people or more in attendance. Is there is a difference in income between these trainers? You bet there is.
Who are you? How do you want to live your life? How do you want to play the game? Do you want to play in the big leagues or in little league, in the majors or the minors? Will you play big or play small? It's your choice.
The truth is most people choose to play small. Why?
First, fear. They're scared to death of either failure or success.
Second is unworthiness. They feel small. They don't feel they're good enough or important enough to make a big difference.
But hear this. It's not about you. It's about living your mission. It's about living true to your purpose. It's about adding your piece of the puzzle to the world. It's about serving others.
Most of us are so stuck in our egos that everything revolves around "me, me and more me." But again, it's not about you, it's about adding value to other people's lives.
Buckminster Fuller said, "The purpose of our lives is to add value to the people of this generation and those that follow."
The goal is to share your gifts and value with as many people as possible.
To paraphrase Nelson Mandela, "The world doesn't need more people, playing small."
It's your choice. One road leads to being broke and miserable, the other leads to money, meaning, and fulfillment.
It's time to stop hiding out and start stepping out. It's time to stop needing and start leading. It's time to start being the star that you are. It's time to share your gifts and value in a BIG way.
There could be thousands or even millions of people counting on you. Are you up to the challenge for our society and our children's sake? Let's hope so.
DECLARATION #4:
I THINK BIG! I CHOOSE TO SERVEA MASSIVE NUMBER OF PEOPLE!
RICH PEOPLE ARE BIGGER THAN THEIR PROBLEMS.Poor people are smaller than their problems.
Getting rich is not a stroll in the park. It's a journey that is full of obstacles, twists, and detours. The simple fact is, success is messy. The road is fraught with pitfalls and that's why most people don't take it. They don't want the hassles, the headaches and the responsibilities. In short, they don't want the problems.
Therein lies one of the biggest differences between rich people and poor people. Rich and successful people are bigger than their problems while poor and unsuccessful people are smaller than their problems.
Poor people will do almost anything to avoid anything that looks like it could be a problem. They back away from challenges. The irony is that in their quest to make sure they don't have problems, they have the biggest problem of all... they're broke and miserable. The secret to success is not to try to avoid or shrink your problems; it's to grow yourself so you're bigger than any problem.
Imagine a "level 2" character person looking at a "level 5" problem. Would this problem appear to be big or small? The answer is that from a "level 2" perspective, a "level 5" problem would seem BIG.
Now imagine a "level 8" person looking at the same "level 5" problem. From this person's perspective, is this problem big or small? Magically the identical problem is now a SMALL problem.
And for a "level 10" person, it's NO problem at all. It's just an everyday occurrence, like getting dressed or brushing your teeth.
Whether you are rich or poor, playing big or playing small, problems do not go away. If you're breathing, you will always have so-called "problems."
What's important to realize is that the size of the problem is never the real issue. What matters is the size of you!
Remember, your wealth can only grow to the extent that you do! The idea is to grow yourself to a place where you can overcome any problems that get in your way of creating wealth and keeping it once you have it.
Rich people do not back away from problems, do not avoid problems and do not complain about problems. Rich people are financial warriors and when a warrior is confronted with a challenge they shout: BRING IT ON!
The bottom line is that if you become a master at handling problems, what can stop you from creating wealth? The answer is NOTHING!
DECLARATIONS #5:
I AM BIGGER THAN ANY PROBLEM.
RICH PEOPLE FOCUS ON OPPORTUNITIES.Poor people focus on problems.
Rich people see potential growth. Poor people see potential loss.
Rich people focus on the rewards. Poor people focus on the risks.
It's the age-old question, is the glass half empty or half full? We're not merely talking about "positive thinking" here, we're talking about a habitual way of seeing the world.
Poor people come from fear. Their minds are constantly scanning for what's wrong or what could go wrong in any situation. Their primary mindset is "What if it doesn't work?" or, more bluntly, "It won't work."
Rich people, as we discussed earlier, take responsibility for creating their life and come from the mindset, "It will work because I'll make it work."
In the financial world, as in most other arenas, risk is directly proportionate to reward; generally, the higher the reward, the higher the risk. People with rich mentalities are willing to take that risk.
Rich people expect to succeed. They have confidence in their abilities, they have confidence in their creativity and they believe that should the "doo-doo hit the fan", they can always make their money back or succeed in another way.
On the other hand, poor people expect to fail. They lack confidence in themselves and in their abilities, and should things not work out, they believe it would be catastrophic.
I hate to admit it, but I believe there's also a certain element of "luck" associated with getting rich or for that matter being successful at anything.
How many times have you heard of a guy who plops some money down on a piece of land in the "boonies" and 10 years later, somebody decides they want to build a strip mall or office building on it?
So, was this a brilliant business move or sheer luck? My guess is that it's probably a bit of both.
The point, however, is that no luck or for that matter, anything else worthwhile, will come your way unless you take some form of ACTION.
You have to do something, buy something, or start something in order to succeed financially. You have to see opportunities for profit all around you instead of focusing on ways of losing money.
In Part 5 of this series I explained a universal law which states, "whatever you focus on expands". Focus on problems and that's all you'll get. Focus on opportunities and you will soon discover them everywhere you look!
DECLARATIONS #6:
I SEE THE OPPORTUNITIES IN EVERYTHING.
ONLY THE BEGINNING
I hope you have enjoyed this introduction to the Secret Psychology of Wealth. We've covered a lot of ground.
However, this should only be the beginning for you.
This would be an excellent time to review the previous emails. You will find a great deal more on a second pass than on the first read through.
However, unlike in my soon to be released book, because of the format of these emails I have not gone into the depth on any topic that I feel it deserves.
I suspect you can see that having a weakness in even one of these rich attitudes can be your financial "Achilles" heel. The same holds true for the other rich ways of thinking I reveal in my book.

THE SECRET LIFE OF THE WRITER

2008-06-25T21:27:00.002-07:00

by Wera Sæther

Where, how and in whose life is this secret hiding?
I do not know the meaning, or intention, of the title that I - and others - have been invited into. My not-knowing refers to the individual words of the title and to the phrase as a whole. My eyes, then, are of suspicion. What kind of clothes are these, and what kind of emperor is taking my innocence for granted?
My unknowing - of suspicion and questions - is may be somewhat dry. There´s a time for harsh doubt, and another time for the wanderer who rejoices in what she´s finding, and finding, and finding again, in the wilderness and the dark.
After a minor ordeal of questions, I´ll move on to a more childlike, immediate and maybe ”juicy” place. After having been - in the context of this text - on the road with my camera for a while, I´ll invite you into my darkroom. No other place is secret in quite the same way. It´s exhausting always, and seminal sometimes. And it´s, of course, not what the editor of a literary magazine expects to be named as ´the secret life of a writer´.
This darkroom, my darkroom is a real darkroom, the one for b&w photographs. It´s not a metaphor for a special phase in the process of literary writing. But it does have effects that may be literary sometimes.
I keep a piece of writing paper near the tray for chemicals.
What is it that one knower knows, and not another;
how does it happen; and who can know it really does happen?
When you really know, you don´t even know that you do;
it is it that knows you.
1
A minor massacre of a title
The Threshold, or: What is a Secret?
In my mother tongue Norwegian, the noun for secret is immense, the adjective a little bit less so. You enter the secret and remain within it. After you´ve left it, it remains within you. It´s so much bigger than you, it´s a house. It may be a shelter and it may be exposure to shaking truth. Shelter and nakedness, both.
This noun is hemmelighet. It feels, to me at least, so much more secret than the English secret.
Hemmelighet may be, first of all, a word for children. Children keep and share secrets. That´s what early bonds are made from. Those same bonds are exposed to the possibility of betrayal. Betrayal is exactly this, betrayal of secret(s). This is so for the child. Some say it´s the case for nations as well. A spy betrays his/her nation´s secret. The Norwegian Quislings did so during WW2.
When a spouse betrays his/her partner, it´s mostly for another intimacy. The body then is the secret ”taken” from the other spouse and given to a stranger. Sex and secret are intertwined on more levels than one.
The title of this essay - that I´m obeying - was not invented by me. It could not have been so. It really is complex, difficult and intriguing. It may be misleading, too. It could tempt an essayist to take for granted what this writer/essayist certainly cannot take for granted. Before entering a house of possible secrets, I´m standing at the threshold of the title with questions, wide-open.
I approach the title, word by word, using my associative mind and some handbooks. My German etymology book tells us that Geheimnis, German for secret, belongs to the home. (Heim means home) My Latin book tell us that secretum means separate. The secret is somewhere else, or elsewhere.
The home, of course, is another place as compared with all other places, and the universe. It´s the place inhabited by very few, who eat and sleep there. There is a line and a limit, an inside and an outside. The associations are spatial.
Secret is also a political term. Some very few people are within the tower of political secrets, most are outside. Very few know the nuclear secrets. Those who know have the ultimate power. Should they practice it even more totally than they do now, by intimidating us and holding us all as hostages, we, the uninitiated, would have no secrets and no life any more. Neither would those who now have the ultimate power.
Seen from quite another - and very quiet - angle, the secret belongs to those few who have been desiring Truth and, in some specific ways, renouncing the world painfully and patiently for years, not without joy with no limits, on the path to (esoteric) wisdom that empowers, endlessly so, from within.
In the free-floating mood and mindset of our times, in this openly brutalised society, with much less borders than before, with much darker darkness and much less decency as well, a search for the secret, is intriguing. Our capitalist culture is at its very core perversively tolerant.
Is there an elsewhere still? Does anything at all exist which is not, as a matter of principle, open to all and at all times?
In other cultures, what is secret has always been and still is close to the blood. Men shared blood and were initiated into each others´ secret, or into being (part of) the same secret. Only males did this.
In 1992, I lived for some weeks in an extended family with two HIV-infected members in Kigali in Rwanda. My Rwandan family told me about the secrets of the Rwandans. Only within the enclosure would secrets be spoken.
The traditional King´s might was based upon his knowledge of the royal secret, known only by him, the King, and one other witness. Should the King die, this witness would pass the secret on to the next King. The secret knowledge constituted the very power of the King. The colonizers, of course, despised such a tradition and repressed the old ways of the royal court and the people. As we all know, the people later on killed their own neighbours. Those who were systematically killed in 1994, the Tutsi, were those who used to own the oldest secrets.
It was no secret to anybody in 1994 who were Tutsi at the hour of the genocidal killings.
Secret life
What is described as secret by the title of this essay, is ”(part of ) the life of the writer”. It could also have been her dying, or death(s). The writer´s death(s) may have more to do with her creation of literary texts than her life.
How biological is this life that is wanted? Life is (in the) body. It is where the organism breathes and can bleed. The life of the body, or the body, tout court, cannot be written. The body can be conceived, born, it can make love, be in pain, be reduced by diseases and die.
Is it this very same organism that also writes, or is it another? Is the writer´s life, secret or not, in the body, in the text - or elsewhere?
In unknown and quite mysterious ways, the very same body that has been conceived and can conceive, and that will certainly die in a non-metaphorical way one day, can also produce literary texts. Same eyes, same hands. It is also true to say that it is another body that writes the texts.
It is by the same body, or by an undefinable space of desire and freedom within this ordinary body, that the writer writes.
This may be a metaphysical perspective. It certainly is mine.
Secret, to whom?
A secret is not simply unknown or unconscious. A secret can be known, hidden and revealed. How is another issue. Somebody knows the secret, fully or partly. Can one person´s knowledge constitute a secret? Can a secret really be between less than two? I may not know who else knows the secret. This very unknowing may belong to the very category of a certain secret, at least in the universe of religious or other initiation rituals.
I will reveal parts of my own ”secret life of the writer” as I stumble on in this text. So far, I´m only exploring a certain topography of secrets and lives. To whom is ”the secret life of the writer” secret, or a secret? To the writer herself? But can there be another to know this secret if the writer does not? Does the text know it?
Is it the literary critic who knows the secret (life) of the writer?
How many lives can one writer have?
The writer is in the process of making/writing/producing her text. There, and there only, is her privileged place. Is she, though in thinner air, so to speak, also outside of the privileged intensity, pain included, of being the person who writes?
Am I a writer also when I speak, sleep or make love, i.e. when I have no intention at all to make sentences, chapters or the silences within those sentences and chapters? Is a writer eo ipso always a writer? I´m not now trying to distinguish between those who are and those who are not writers. I simply try to see as I stumble and tremble if the writer always wears the clothes, or/and the nakedness, of a writer.
I am not the child shouting that she knows when the writer is a writer. I am only whispering that I do not know. Is there another space, a non-writer´s space within the writer. Does this depend upon how this particular writer is a writer.
I only write about the writer whose ultimate act is writing. But, then, who can know? Does the writer know? Self-conceit is almost omnipresent always.
I assume a certain topography of existence is taken for granted by the title of this essay. A writer is a writer sometimes, and something else at other times. He, the inventor of the title, may even have had fantasies about the energy and drama of the illicit and secret in the writer´s emotional or (private) daily life.
To repeat the question: Is there another than the writer in the writer? There is the other of the text. But the text is not in the writer. The text is crossing the threshold.
2
The text
The text as secret life
The writer, in the context of my text, writes literary texts that can be read by others. They may not be written in order to be read. But they are not written and then burnt. I do not, however, mean to say that a person who burns what (s)he has written could not be named a writer.
A text or a book is a public object. It belongs to anybody. It may be said to belong to itself. It certainly does not belong to its author anymore. There should be no narcissism, as the text is another. Of course there is narcissism, as attachment is an emotional fact almost always and detachment is a long, long road.
Still, the text belongs to everybody and to literature.
My use of the concepts of secret and of life is long since blurred. If the text is the secret life of its author, then life is no biological concept any more and there is no knower of the secret, as the text is not (fully) known by its author. For that very reason, I limit myself to introducing this perspective. There is no bigger and more secret secret in the life of the writer than the text that does not belong to her and that transcends her. The text is within, in the wind of the spirit, and without, in the universe of mirroring, abuses and negligence. There is no protected space for this secret. It is exposed to jackals and to silence.
To speak with Bengali mystics ”its address is in the wind”.
Examples
Most of the time I do not write. But I write always. ”My address” is in writing. I have no outside when I write. I have no other life in that second. It´s full and ”one” - like meditation. It´s meditative work. For a while I forget the rest. I am just that. I rewrite and rewrite. I may be humming. But I do not think. I have been thinking before and I will think again as I read what I´ve been writing.
Writing is another exposure (to the unexpeced and uncontrolled) than thinking. The thinker has clothes on, the writer has none, or just a few. The road of writing is steeper than the road of thinking. There are surprises.
Twice in my quite recent experience of writing there´s been major surprises within the process of writing - that always implies many small surprises.
Summer 1997: I was working on a novel to be called ”Son of Dust”. I had a privileged month of enjoying ”a writing retreat”, in Umbria, Italy. Going there, I carried the characters of the novel inside of me. The novel´s story had long since been thought out: An old widower Anton is obsessed by a plane crash that happened in the woods - in the real world - not far away from his home when he had just become a father. The plane carried 28 Jewish children who had been selected to come to Norway to eat and to play in 1949. One child, Isaac, survived the crash. (This is quite important Norwegian post-war history, probably connected to the special relationship between the State of Israel and Labour Party post- WW2 Norway.)
My character, Anton, plans to go and find the metallic remains of the plane fifty years after the plane crashed. At the very beginning of Anton´s secret plan and path, the character Rosa happens in the author´s mind and in the story, like the explosion of secret energy and more. Rosa and her secret(s) had been no secret to anyone before. ”She” did not exist before bursting out from an unknown place in the author. She then became the juice of the story, the burning point, so to speak. The very axis.
It belongs to the story of the literary creation that the author then ran into the sunflower meadows of Umbria in utter bewilderment. All of a sudden, her story had become another.
From which territory of the author´s secret life did the character Rosa burst forth?
Fall 2000: I was working on a children´s novel. It had long since been thought out, with its main characters and structure of events. The details, history and energy of the secret (a photograph) that a child would be carrying from Kolkata (Calcutta) to Varanasi (Banaras) by train had been in the imagination of the author for a while.
The protagonist, Sara, eleven year old, is travelling by Himgiri Express on her own. But, of course, never alone, as this is India. She is travelling to find ”the smallest child”, shown on the photograph, and who may be an unknown brother. She carries her secret quietly and shares the ordinary, funny and dramatic moments of the train journey with the others in the compartment.
All of a sudden, Sara hears a strong but quiet song in the omnipresent noise of the train. It´s a blind woman singing in order to beg. The blind woman is accompanied by a girl child who is her daughter. Sara is totally surprised and absorbed by the presence and face of this girl who has her own age. In the author´s draft of the novel, Sara´s ”twin” did not exist. The barefoot girl´s name is Uma.
The character Uma then changed the rhythm and the rasa, as Indians would call it, of the novel as such.
Rasa means juice, mood, colour and all. Rasa is what Indian art is all about.
The event of Uma was more than liberating. I, the author, was not only my own controlling mind any more. It was as if I had been found by another. I then became Sara from another angle. I became Uma and her blind mother. I was this interwovenness and the energy and the joy of it.
This is joy complete. When ”it” happens, it transforms the text. It makes the bond between author-and-text even more intimate and mysterious. It is deeply spiritual. It cannot be ordered but happens in its own time.
What connection does this have to secret life. Maybe none. The reader of my novels will most probably not feel or know in other ways that Rosa or Uma came to happen in other ways than the other characters. But they carry, for their author, another secret.
It is easy for me to distinguish between the parts of a story that happen in the ”ordinary” way and those that happen extraordinarily. Rosa, Uma and the other surprises belong to another level of secret, initiation or freedom. The experience/event could be translated like this: there is more, another ”ocean”, within ”me” than I used to know.
3
Towards the dark
Self-presentation/biography
I live near the woods and the sea, in a country where people used to be poor and modest, at the end, or the edge, of the continent of Europe. Beyond us, the ocean and the Arctic.
I live and write in a time when souls sell themselves with little shyness on a marketplace that knows no limit. In me, there used to be a simple joy at belonging to this place called Norway and this particular history of resistance.
But the resistance to power is long gone. The woods still are there. The part of nature in our, the Norwegians´, collective soul is vibrant still. But a new Norwegian self-image, mirrored by money, has exploded. It´s vulgar and makes me think of post-nuclear explosion mentality in India. The Indian elite was overtly enthusiastic at their sudden visible ”might” (to destroy).
I´m a post WW2 child born to parents who fled from Gestapo to be rescued by ”neutral” Sweden. My family soon came back to Norway and I grew up as a child in the shadow of an immense cement factory. It marked my senses and my political and cognitive perspectives as well. Any huge factory anywhere in the world sends my senses straight back to childhood. The smoke and the dust are accessible within me always.
The plane crash of the above-mentioned novel happened in ”my” woods. I was 4 years old then. The crash was on everybody´s lips and it happened in my mind and emotions: children who came to our land to eat had suddenly died. They had become ours by having been chosen to come to us and they became even more ours by their sudden death.
A stranger was rare back then. A plane was quite rare as well.
Nothing carried secrets like strangers did. And I was always waiting.
Self-presentation/art
The dark I´m inviting my reader into is the dark of the darkroom. I go there with my sorrows sometimes. I´m then enveloped by a quiet darkness with no intruder. It´s like having an extra layer of skin. But it´s also being more naked. I mostly go there to make prints.
By now I´ve left suspicion and the dissection of the title behind. I´m on my way inwards and am becoming more simple. The territory I´m on is mine, but it´s also unknown. I´m inviting you into my home. Remember home, Heimat in German and hjem in Norwegian has an etymological connection to HEMMELIGHET that means secret.
My first book, published in 1973, was a collection of poetry. My last collection of poetry was out in 1989. Since then very few poems have been written by me. At the time of the last one, I had taken up photography. It was modest and unambitious. I was playing with silver, light, time and faces. I had been seduced into it by friends and had no technical fascination at all. I remember resisting the camera as an object. I also resisted the darkroom as a technical arrangement and a special kind of knowledge. But the silence and the secret of the darkroom soon became a strong attraction.
Photography for me had to do with the surreal, the strange constellations and contradictions that can be contained within one frame, from the very beginning. It had and has to do with catching the invisible by being fully there.
Presence of being is the method.
What is it that I want to touch with my eye? The invisible. Or, the structure and mood of the invisible in the invisible.
Writing has to do with catching and holding the unheard (of).
I´m waiting for the poetry of poems to come back. It may never fully happen. The poet has sought shelter in the continous time of novels. The rasa may be the same, but not the genre. Different forms of art have different inherent modalities of time.
The photograph, this creature that is caught in a 1/60 second or less, belongs to another dimension of time than the novel. It´s much closer to the poem. Its raw material, which is light and silver, is presence as well.
I´m mostly out there, faway from my woods, when it happens, often in what is sometimes called ”the global South”. I´m far away from my ordinary home in that other home of movement, wind – and other people´s hospitality. The readers of my books know little about this. Is it my secret life?
If it is, my secret life does not unfold itself within my home, but on the road. And later on, of course, in the darkroom.
With whom do I share it?
The readers of my books do know that I´m sometimes travelling far, as I write travel books and documentaries also. But they cannot know how it feels. And they do not know the dangers, play, patience and rare ecstatic joy of catching ”it” by my Leica.
I never know in that split second if I´ve caught it. I cannot see it happening on the silver of the film. It´s hidden. Sometimes I wait, trembling, to see.
Having rescued my films from possible thieves and my own negligence as I travel, I´m always nervous after my arrival back to Norway:
Is ”it” there or did I miss it or damage it as I wandered?
The photograph as secret
Words are omnipresent, images as well. There´s almost nowhere to hide from them. But when I put my Leica to my eye, what is there, in front of me, has never been seen, not by me, not by anyone else, before. It´s new. It´s as if I´m being seen by the unseen in that split second. I´m porous almost. I am not the old ”I”, controlled, controlling and controllable. I´m out there, in there, wider. When it fully and really happens, then it´s nothing but self-forgetting joy.
Joy is where ”I” is not any more. Or, maybe, ”I” is, but for a split second – which may remain with me for a long time – it´s so much wider.
I do not forget about the light, or the structure of forms, or the focusing. The disciplined thought processes do stay on. Still, I am at the receiving end. Though it´s hard, sometimes harsh, work to do photography, it´s first of all a gift of time. I receive time. Is it another time, or the same time as ordinary time?
And is it because time was the raw material of my mind´s doubt and groping when I was sixteen and my father died very slowly that I was to be, much later on, seduced by the work and the effects of the camera, I who have no technical fascination whatsoever? I have been absorbed by the question of time since my conscious mind´s beginning.
I have had to swallow more technical camels than one. They have been huge and difficult to endure. The connections to explore as long as I live are: photography and time, photography and death, photography and grace.
There´s nothing more secret than a photograph. It cannot be spoken. I, who was there and did the complex act of choosing frame, angle, shutter-speed, focussing, in addition to having already chosen the time and place in history, geography and more, do not know fully what I do. I have chosen. But I cannot know what. I know that most (male?) photographers want to control it all. I am not with them. I may be a child. I do what I do - technically - as best I can. But I do not know what I do. I cannot grasp the constellation of light, silver, my Leica with my mood and my mind. I know that what I do is not all there is. I am at the receiving end - and often trembling. It´s not because of any immediate danger. I do not choose wars. People´s ordinary life on the edge is a drama in itself.
With my Leica, I am at the edge too. I´m exposed. Or, more truly, I´m - via my eye - mingling with what I see. There is no distance.
A Sheep and a Romanian Girl
In January 1991, during the war in the Gulf, my mother died in my home. Before dying she wanted to be photographed. She danced to East European Jewish klezmer music and I photographed her then. After she died, I decided to have her bedroom changed into a darkroom.
Two months later I travelled for a month in Romania with two dear writer friends, Ana Blandiana and Romulus Rusan. We spent Easter in a village in Maramures, near the border to the Ukraine. I was invited into another time, old and undamaged by the Ceaucescu regime, as the region was quite far away from the capital of Bucuresti and the frenzy of crazy dictatorship. I was photographing the Easter rituals. The result became a certain documentation but not much more than that.
We then left the village and I do remember a market place. Yes, I remember a man and a woman, a couple, selling sheep. They wanted to be photographed and even suggested to pay me for it. A very funny picture was the result, a proud village couple with their pride, in addition to the animals, exposed.
What I do not remember at all is much more important. My negative is a proof. My memory is nothing.
Once back in Oslo I studied my contact prints. There was one negative different from the others. This one negative is esthetically, maybe even metaphysically, different from the rest. That particular photograph, a quotation from time and beyond-time, is with me like an extra fragment of heart still.
There´s a sheep. Yes, the sheep is in focus, and there´s a slightly blurred young girl, maybe eleven, twelve, or even fourteen. The sheep looks like it´s seeing the photographer, the girl does not. Her gaze is secretive. Her clothes tell us about Maramures. Because of her clothes and the presence of the sheep, I may know the photograph was ”caught” there, at that Saturday market in a town in Maramures, and not somewhere else. I remember nothing. I have not seen the girl and the sheep. My memory is never perfect. But this memory blankness is different.
I assume I saw the sheep and the girl differently from how I saw the rest. My camera saw them, or what my Indian friends would say, my third eye. This photograph is a secret, in the sense of ungraspable, to the photographer herself. Nothing is closer to her than it is.
There is another moment, or morning in March 2000, that I remember well. All that is in me remembers it. I did not ”catch” it. I laid down my camera that morning, in a village in Birbhum in Bengal. I had spent the night with a family there. The eleven year old daughter took my hand. She and I walked in the village. We met a woman, the girl´s cousin. The woman said: come with me. So we did, Uma, the eleven year old, and I. The woman took us to a hut. It was hers. The children of the village gathered there. Some entered the hut with us, others stood watching and waiting. All of a sudden I understood what it all was about. An egg. The woman had found or bought or borrowed an egg. It was all for me. There was no other egg. She boiled it and found me some salt. She gave the egg to me to eat. I ate it in front of all those who watched. I was the guest, the sudden ”god” who had appeared on their ground.
An egg will never be the same any more. This is my ”secret life”. Is it of the writer?
The darkroom: intimate and unknown
My home has five ”foci”: the kitchen table, the fireplace, the bed, the Macintosh – and the darkroom. The darkroom is where the flat´s bedroom used to be. No doubt, this room – architecturally – is the most secret place in my home. Though it is open always, very few are invited into it. Guests may know it´s there. But few know what it represents. Some say: it´s big! It´s not. But for a moderate downtown apartment in Oslo it may well be big.
Over the last ten years I´ve spent many hours there – to work, to meditate, to seek shelter, my hands doing their old simple and routine movements, with attention, and maybe my eyes full of tears. The darkroom is the best place for grief.
Grief may be private but also connected to having tavelled far, and then, all of a sudden, the place that once welcomed me, in Rwanda, in India, is not there any more. Genocide. Cyclone. Floods. It´s gone. What I photograped then, has vanished. Many of my negatives ”point” towards what´s now gone.
As I write this, an immense earthquake has just devastated the Kuch region of Gujarat in India. I´ve never been to Kuch. But my bond to India is strong. The places of the poor are more vulnerable than ever before. Wefts of culture disappear with the hands and eyes that are buried in the rubble.
In a way this is also ”my secret”. I´ve seen places on this planet in other ways, from other angles, in other nuances of light and shadow than the people I live among in Norway.
The darkroom is a place to digest and integrate the ”knowing” of this otherness.
There is a desire for another knowledge in me. This desire is strong and has taken me far: to songs of esoteric (marfati) knowledge sung by Muslim women on a sand island in the Brahmaputra and to devotional songs in rural and Hindu West Bengal. How to know here, in consumerist Norway, what I´ve seen there? How to carry fruitfully the knowledge originating from other sources?
The darkroom is a place for digestion. It may be seminal also. Another rhythm, no information at all, only from the negatives. The protection of darkness. The mood of concentration. In the darkroom, new insights may move me towards new constellations of form, also for texts.
To work over the trays in the darkroom is exhausting on the level of the tissue almost. I´m certainly being poisoned by the chemicals. I know this working method is old-fashioned, that a much quicker method is digital. But I want the way of the hands. I want the craft.
I may go to the darkroom with different intentions. Sometimes I must produce prints for an exhibition. Sometimes I need to see from another angle in respect to a manuscript. I then choose the darkroom for another perspective. I see in the darkness, sometimes with a piece of paper for writing near the tray for developing the print.
I´m absorbed by the secrets of the darkroom process. So many forms of time are involved. A photograph ”quotes” (John Berger) from appearances in a specific place and epoch. The technical object of the camera has its own range of time, of shutter speed. I bring the secret of my ”quotations” back to Oslo. I see the negatives with my Oslo mood and time, as I dive into the time(s) of the other places and faces. The girl and the sheep are so close to me so far away in the time of another and almost-gone culture. My dying dancing mother is right there.
In the darkroom there are the technical demands of time, exposure, precise time for the print in each tray, the time for washing of the paper print, the time for drying of the paper print, the time for pressing of the print etc. All of this together means it´s very slow.
The mind/heart of the artisan must adapt to slowness.
Secret/revelation
I may now have revealed part of a secret. I´ve used the opportunity to become (more) conscious of my karma yogic path, as my Bengali friends would have put it. The path has to do with what cannot be seen, said or written. The path is – path.
Is photography a more secret act than writing?
The sentence and the chapter can become mine in ways the photograph never can. There is always something alien in a photograph. I do not grasp its processes. I may feel desire, awe, laughter or utter sorrow watching even my own photographs. I feel homesick as well. I become more vulnerable. I am there as well. In Bengal. In Maramures. I am not only in me.
There´s no limit to what can hurt people, animals and trees in the places where I´ve carried my Leica. Yes, I´m there as well. And that may well be my secret life.

High Paying Keywords List

2008-06-25T21:17:00.000-07:00

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Hume’s Theory of Causal Relations

2008-06-25T21:11:00.000-07:00

by :
Mark Lindner

In An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding, David Hume addresses the fundamental question, “What are the limits of our understanding?” He reasons his way to the conclusion that all matters of fact are founded on the relation of Cause and Effect. The Oxford Dictionary of Philosophy defines causation as “one of the central problem areas of metaphysics. Causation is the relation between two events that holds when, given that one occurs, it produces, or brings forth, or determines, or necessitates the second; equally we say that once the first has happened the second must happen or that the second follows from the first.”1 Just what is this relation of cause and effect? My purpose in this essay is to explain Hume’s theory of causal relations. I will briefly lay out his argument up till the conclusion in Sect. IV Part I that all matters of fact are founded on the relation of cause and effect and then will explicate his theory from there. For the purpose of this essay I will assume that the arguments leading up to the causal relation theory are valid, sound and correct. It is my intention to accept Hume’s theory of causal relations.
In Section II of the Enquiry Hume claims that all perceptions of the mind can be divided into two classes, “which are distinguished by their different degrees of force and vivacity. The less forcible and lively are commonly denominated THOUGHTS or IDEAS.”2 The more lively perceptions are called IMPRESSIONS. Thoughts are what we are conscious of when we reflect on the more lively impressions and “the most lively thought is still inferior to the dullest sensation.”3 Hume provides us with two arguments to show that this is so. His first shows that when we analyze any thought, however simple or complex, we will find that it can be reduced to simple ideas that arose from, or “were copied from a precedent feeling or sentiment.”4 His second claims that someone without a specific functioning sense organ would not have the corresponding ideas. Thus, a blind man can have no notion of colors, or a deaf man of sounds; no impressions, no subsequent corresponding ideas. Hume claims to have shown that contra Descartes, there are no ‘clear and distinct’ ideas. He says that “all ideas, especially abstract ideas, are naturally faint and obscure.”5 In Sect. III, he states that there seems to be some sort of universal principle, which binds together or associates simple ideas into compound ones. He claims that there are three principles of connection among ideas. These are “namely, Resemblance, Contiguity in time or place, and Cause or Effect.”6 In Sect. IV Part I, Hume divides the objects of human reason into two kinds, Relations of Ideas, and Matters of Fact. Relations of ideas are those which are intuitively or demonstratively certain, such as geometry, algebra and arithmetic. Matters of fact are different, in that the contrary of every matter of fact is possible. The mind is able to conceive of a matter of fact and its opposite equally well with no contradiction. Thus, Hume asks, “what is the nature of that evidence, which assures us of any real existence and matter of fact, beyond the present testimony of our senses, or the records of our memory?”7 Hume postulates that all reasoning about matters of fact is founded on the relation of cause and effect. So, again, just what is this relation of cause and effect?
Ask a man why he believes any matter of fact, and his reply will be another fact. A connection of some sort is constantly supposed between the first fact and the one that is inferred from it. How do we arrive at the knowledge of cause and effect? Hume proposes a general proposition that without exception, knowledge of the cause and effect relation is not discernable by a priori reasoning, contra Leibniz, Spinoza and Descartes; but that it arises from our experience of particular objects or events that are ‘constantly conjoined.’ “Two events A and B are constantly conjoined if whenever one occurs the other does.”8
Let’s do a thought experiment. Ask someone to imagine that they are brought all of a sudden into this world. They would believe themselves capable of inferring the effect of some cause, such as that one billiard ball would confer motion upon another; such is the strength of custom or habit of mind. Present someone with some object or event that they’ve never before experienced and ask them to tell you what the effect would be. They must imagine or invent some event to serve as the effect; “and it is plain that this invention must be entirely arbitrary.”9 “The effect is totally different from the cause, and consequently can never be discovered in it.”10 Thus, the supposed connection that we infer between the cause and the effect is similarly arbitrary. Since every effect is a separate event from its cause and can not be found in the cause, every a priori conception of the effect must be entirely arbitrary. Without the aid of observation and experience we strive in vain to infer any cause or effect. As to what the causes of our general causes or scientific laws are, Hume says that “these ultimate springs and principles are totally shut up from human curiosity and enquiry.”11
Have we gotten anywhere besides generating more questions? When we asked, “What is the nature of our reasoning concerning matters of fact?” we answered that they are founded on the cause and effect relation. When we asked, “What is the nature of our reasoning about that relation?” we replied, experience. Now we must ask “What is the basis of our conclusions from experience?” Hume claims that “even after we have experience of the operations of cause and effect, our conclusions from that experience are not founded on reasoning, or any process of the understanding.”12
It must be admitted that nature has kept her secrets from us. We have been allowed the knowledge of a few superficial qualities of objects, but the powers and principles, which underlie the laws of nature, are kept from us. Even though we are ignorant of these powers, whenever we encounter like sensible qualities we always presume like secret powers, that is, we expect like effects. What power of thought gives us this presumption? Certainly, past experience gives us direct and certain information about objects or events at that specific time at which we were observing them. But why do we extend this experience to future times and similarly appearing circumstances? We have two propositions here which are not the same. “I have found that such an object has always been attended with such an effect, and I foresee, that other objects, which are, in appearance, similar, will be attended with similar effects.”13 Hume insists that the second proposition is always inferred from the first. But by what chain of reasoning is this inference made? It is certainly not intuitive. It is not a contradiction that the course of nature as we have experienced it so far might change. An object, like one that we have preciously encountered, may have different effects than what we would normally infer based on previous experience. This claim is certainly intelligible. Hume claims that “whatever is intelligible, and can be distinctly conceived, implies no contradiction, and can never be proved false by any demonstrative argument or abstract reasoning a priori.”14 So far, we have argued that (1) all reasoning concerning existence is founded on the cause and effect relationship; (2) all of our knowledge concerning that relationship is founded on experience; and that (3) all our experiential conclusions are based on the supposition that the future will conform to the past. Now, when we try to prove this supposition by probable arguments, or by arguments regarding existence, we find ourselves in a vicious circle. Hume concludes that “from causes, which appear similar, we expect similar effects. This is the sum of all our experimental conclusions.”15
But, as long as there is any suspicion that nature may change, the past can be no rule for the future, and thus, experience becomes useless. It can give rise to no inference. The ignorant, and even infants, can learn the effects of causes through experience. But if you say it is through some process of reason, please tell us what it is. Do not hesitate or say that it is abstruse, since clearly it must be accessible to a mere infant. Clearly then, it is not reasoning that allows us to suppose the future will resemble the past, or that similarly appearing causes will have similar effects.
Let us try another thought experiment. Imagine that a person with a full faculty of reason and reflection, but no experience, were to be brought suddenly into the world. She would certainly observe a continual sequence of objects, and events following one from another, but she would not be able, at first, to reach the idea of cause and effect through any process of reason. The conjunction of seeming causes and effects might be arbitrary and casual with no reason to infer the existence of the effect from the appearance of the cause. Imagine now that she has acquired more experience, living a long and attentive life, observing many similar events and objects to be constantly conjoined. What is the consequence of all this experience? She immediately infers the existence of one object from the experience of the other. But, through all her experience, she has acquired no idea of the secret power by which one entails the other. There must be some principle by which she forms these cause and effect conclusions.
Hume’s answer is that this principle is just a custom or habit of mind. When two objects are constantly conjoined, we come by habit alone to expect one from the appearance of the other. This explains why it is that we can draw an inference from a thousand occurrences that we are unable to draw from only one, when there is nothing in the thousand that is not in the one. “All inferences from experience, therefore, are effects of custom, not of reasoning.”16 This view is a type of projectivism. “Projectivism denotes any view which sees us as similarly projecting upon the world what are in fact modifications of our own minds.”17 For Hume, the causal order of events is a projection of our own mental habits in the way they follow from one another.
In Section VII of the Enquiry, entitled “Of the Idea of Necessary Connexion,” Hume is no longer interested in our knowledge of casual relationships. Here he is concerned with an analytical or definitional account of causality. Apart from how we know whether causal relationships exist in the world, what is causality? “It appears, that, in single instances of the operation of bodies, we never can, by our utmost scrutiny, discover any thing but one event following another; without being able to comprehend any force or power, by which the cause operates, or any connexion between it and its supposed effect.” “All events seem entirely loose and separate. One event follows another; but we never can observe any tie between them. They seem conjoined, but never connected.” “We then call the one object, Cause; the other, Effect. We suppose, that there is some connexion between them; some power in the one, by which it infallibly produces the other, and operates with the greatest certainty and strongest necessity.”18
Hume brings us back to the difference between one instance and a repetition of instances. He claims that the only difference is that after a repetition of instances the mind is carried by habit to expect the usual connecting attendant cause or effect. We feel this transition of the imagination in our minds. It is from this transition that we form the idea of a necessary connection. How did we get connection from constant conjunction? By no means than other that we now feel these events to be connected in the imagination.
Hume is now ready to define causation. In fact, he gives us two definitions which has led to controversy as to how he should be interpreted. The first definition goes as follows:
“Similar objects are always conjoined with similar. Of this we have experience. Suitably to this experience, therefore, we may define a cause to be an object, followed by another, and where all objects similar to the first are followed by objects similar to the second.”19
The second definition goes this way:
“The appearance of a cause always conveys the mind, by a customary transition, to the idea of the effect. Of this we also have experience. We may, therefore, suitably to this experience, form another definition of cause; and call it, an object followed by another, and whose appearance always conveys the thought to that other.”20
Hume illustrates both definitions with the same example of the vibration of this string is the cause of this particular sound. We mean either, that this vibration is followed by this sound and similar vibrations have been followed by similar sounds; or, that this vibration is followed by this sound, and that when the one appears, the mind anticipates the senses and forms an idea of the other. “We may consider the relation of cause and effect in either of these two lights; but beyond these, we have no idea of it.”21
These definitions are to some extent loose and ambiguous. Hume shifts back and forth between speaking of causes and effects as ‘objects’ and as ‘events.’ In both definitions he speaks of them as ‘objects.’ But leading up to the definitions he uses ‘event(s)’ repeatedly.
“It is more accurate to regard causes and effects as events than as objects. We can speak of the objects themselves as causes only in a derivative sense, based on the consideration that events are generally changes in objects. For example, we can say that one billiard ball – a certain object – is “the cause” of motion in another, insofar as it is that ball which, by hitting the other, causes the motion. It is obvious, nevertheless, that the cause is not just the ball as such, but its collision with the other ball, which is itself an event. It is even more obvious that the effect is not the other ball itself, but rather that ball’s movement following from the collision, which is also an event.”22
I maintain that Hume’s own position was that causes and effects are events rather than objects. If one looks carefully at the Enquiry and A Treatise of Human Nature, one finds that ‘event’ talk clearly outnumbers ‘object’ talk. Even if he was looser than he should have been and used ‘object’ in the definitions, I believe that he would maintain that ‘event’ talk is proper to the cause and effect relation.
In this essay I have tried to elucidate Hume’s theory of causal relations. His conclusion is that we have a custom or habit of mind that lets us infer a cause and effect relationship. I have laid out his argument showing that all matters of fact are founded on the relation of cause and effect. I then explicated his theory by showing that all reasoning concerning existence is founded on the cause and effect relationship; all of our knowledge concerning that relationship is founded on experience; and that all our experiential conclusions are based on the supposition that the future will conform to the past. So it is only from a custom or habit of mind that this supposition arises.
I fully agree with Hume on this matter of causal relations. There may actually be, that is ontologically exist, cause and effect relations. But, we as finite creatures, shielded from nature, supposing there to be some secret power by which an effect follows from a cause, can never know if this is the case, or assuming that it is, which cause and effect relationships actually do exist.
Bibliography
Hume, David, An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding in Cahn, Steven M., ed. Classics of Western Philosophy, Fourth Edition. Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Company, 1995.
Blackburn, Simon, The Oxford Dictionary of Philosophy, New York: Oxford University Press, 1996.
Dicker, George, Hume’s Epistemology and Metaphysics: An Introduction, New York: Routledge, 1998.
1 The Oxford Dictionary of Philosophy, p. 59.
2 Hume, David, An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding, p. 838.
3 ibid., p. 838.
4 ibid., p. 839.
5 ibid., p. 840.
6 ibid., p. 841.
7 ibid., p. 842.
8 The Oxford Dictionary of Philosophy, p. 78.
9 Hume, David, An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding, p. 844.
10 ibid., p. 844.
11 ibid., p. 845.
12 ibid., p. 846.
13 ibid., p. 847.
14 ibid., p. 847.
15 ibid., p. 849.
16 ibid., p. 852.
17 The Oxford Dictionary of Philosophy, p. 305.
18 Hume, David, An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding, p. 867-868.
19 ibid., p. 869.
20 ibid., p. 869.
21 ibid., p. 869.
22 Dicker, George, Hume’s Epistemology and Metaphysics: An Introduction, p. 112.

7 Ways For Developing Self-Esteem

2008-05-31T04:48:00.001-07:00

Developing self-esteem is hard work and changes don't happen overnight. People with low self-esteem don't feel good about themselves, they are not happy with their life the way it is. But you can change and give a different direction to your life right now. You just have to decide to do that. Just think about your life for a moment.

How many times in your life have you had a thought that the "problem" you faced was impossible to solve, but you took care of it?

How many times did you think that there was no way to get that job and now you even have a better one?

How many times did you feel too shy to go to talk to that beautiful Lady on a party and now you have 2 gorgeous children and can't wait to attend their baseball game on the weekend with your wonderful wife who happened to be the same Lady?

We are all human beings with our frustrations, challenges and situations to take care of. Without those we would not call our existence LIFE. Developing healthy self-esteem is crucial to feel good about yourself.

What's important is that you have to accept and understand the reality which is to have ups and downs emotionally in life and by overcoming the obstacles will provide you with that amazing feeling that you have accomplished something. It does not matter what happens to you the point is your approach, your behavior toward the experience. You can look every single situation as an opportunity to prosper.

The point of life is not eliminating the challenges, but embracing them and to grow with them. In the following you can find 7 ways to develop your self-esteem and boost your confidence to live a happy, prosperous life:

1. MAKE DECISION TO BE SUCCESSFUL. If you don't take this step you can't go any further. If you don't want to change there is no way to change.

2. CREATE A PLAN. Set a goal what you would like to accomplish and go for it. Do something every day to get closer to your final achievement. It does not matter how small it is follow through your plan and do it. Be flexible though. There are times you have to accommodate your plan to the circumstances. But you have to do something every day to achieve success.

3. FOCUS. Every single fiber of your body and brain has to focus on the subject no matter what you do. Concentration is an indispensable part of high self-esteem.

4. PERSISTENCE. Many people can start something, but really few would finish it. So finish it. And never, ever give up.

5. SMILE probably has the strongest effect on people. Practice often.

6. POSITIVE AFFIRMATIONS can "re-wire" your brain and get you back on track when you feel tired or lost.

7. POSITIVE THINKING. Put the idea into your mind that no matter what kind of situations you will face, what sort of obstacles will come up you can take care of them. You are a genius who will solve the problem and turn it into an amazing opportunity.

We all try new things and make mistakes. This is life, Ladies and Gentlemen. The more you fail the sharper your "mental tools" going to be next time to overcome similar challenges.

And remember when you make a mistake you don't fail; you just learn how not to do it.

By Zoltan Roth