Life & Death as Explained to a Five Year Old
I write this in anticipation of being asked by a five-year-old boy about the death of my cat, Bonker. Bonker lived 16 and 3/4 years. In cat years he lived 117 years. My five-year-old friend never met Bonker, but saw pictures of him and often asked about him. Bonker died lying next to me the other day. I have been very sad since that morning. I will miss him for the rest of my life. He, however, will not miss me. He has moved on. Tomorrow, I will babysit my friend and expect to be asked about Bonker. His mother has given me permission to do my best to explain what happened to Bonker. Here’s my best explanation for a five-year-old.
My five-year-old friend has a love affair with trains. Knowing this helps me find the words he might understand.
Where did Bonker go? I could give the easy non-answer, “he went to Heaven.” But where is Heaven, and what is it like? I do not know. My friend has come to expect answers of me. So.....
Imagine that the whole, wide world is like a big train. You’ve been inside of a train. Do you remember what it looks like, what it feels like? We don’t drive this train. Who does drive a train? The conductor, of course. But who is the conductor? Some people call the conductor God. Other people call the conductor Allah or Jesus or Buddha or Shiva or Nature. Everyone is correct no matter what they call the conductor. Everyone believes something different, and everyone is correct because everyone’s belief makes him or her feel better in some way, helps him or her to make sense of life and death. So, for this Earth-sized train, the conductor also builds the train tracks. We cannot see where this train is going. It is too big, and we cannot get far enough away to see it. Like this, hold up this Thomas train to your face, right up next to your eyes. What do you see? If you pull it away from your face slowly, you will begin to see. Now, imagine that inside that huge train are a million, bizillion, gazillion, google of things – people, animals, birds, bugs, lizards, frogs, snakes, even trees, bushes, flowers and grass – each with its own tiny, little train, our bodies. Some of these trains are bigger than others, and not one of them is more important than any other. And, just as in the big, Earth train, teeming with life inside with all of those teeny, tiny little trains, so our bodies are teeming with life, with energy-filled cells, the energy that makes us alive. Some people call that a soul, higher self, Source. Now back to the train. You are the conductor of your own little train, AND you build the tracks on which your train travels inside that humongous Earth train. Each and every living thing on this Earth train builds its own track. And each track travels from one station to another. That is what we call life. When a living thing comes to the end of his or her or its track, the energy inside of that tiny, little train jumps that track, leaving behind the tiny, little train.
I believe (because it is what makes ME feel better) that the energy that jumped the track goes into what is like a train station waiting room. There, we think, if we can, about what we learned while our little train was running on our tracks and wonder about what else we can learn.
So, I think Bonker went to a place that is like a train station waiting room and will someday build a new tiny, little train and new tracks to learn new things and to give joy to more people and other living things.
Does this make sense to you?
“Nah, I just wanted to know where you put his little train.”
Sunday, August 8, 2010
Wednesday, July 28, 2010
A Different Story
(BNI-BAN Speech, July 28, 2010)The speech began with a reading of my BNI Bio: Family Info: A. Spouse: 1) Captain America 2)The Green Hornet 3) Superman. B. Children: Boy Wonder and Supergirl. C. Animals: Elsa the Lion, Underdog; Bonker the Wise One. Hobbies: Sharpening the saw; writing poetry; painting/drawing. Activities of Interest: Reading, Hypnotherapy; Hypnosis; Continuing Education. City of Residence: Los Angeles/Van Nuys; New Zealand. How Long? All of my life for some of these. My Burning Desire is to...Transesse the World. Something no one knows about me: I have a Victor Borge mind. My key to success: Loving what I do and always being open to learn new things.
The Navajo story tellers begin each story with the words, “It is said...” It is said that I was born a poor white child in a ‘burb of L.A.
Apparently, my hair made a big impression on the obstetric nurse because, when she brought me into my mother (a brunette with brown eyes), the nurse remarked, “You must’ve stayed up all night bleaching her hair!”
Mom grew up during the Great Depression and instilled in me and my 3 sisters many values especially about money.
You could guess at those values and that’s what you’ll have to do, because, as you can tell from my bio, I’m telling a new story.
T. Harv Eker, the Peak Potentials Training coach wrote, “If you think you’re worthy, you are. If you think you’re not worthy, you’re not worthy. Either way you live into the story you tell. So tell a different, more supportive story and live into that.”
And that is what I’m doing! Not the flight of fancy story of my bio, but one wherein I am the master of my ship.
That began with the realization that there is no separation between the mind/body biosuit we wear and the spirit or higher self. Look at the Mobius. A strip of paper on one side is written Mind and on the other is the word Spirit. When the strip is made into a circle with one twist and taped together, one can see the lack of separation. If one places the tip of a pencil or pen onto the word Mind and then pull the strip underneath the pencil tip, before long, one will come upon the word Spirit. Continuing to pull, one will return to the word Mind without ever lifting the pencil/pen.
Hypnotherapy is one perfect, quick and gentle way of supporting this understanding and of helping people achieve joy, peace, wealth and success. Success has nothing to do with what other people think it is. Success is merely accomplishing a goal or a dream. My goal this morning was to shower, dress and arrive at Marie Calendars by 11:30. I succeeded. My other goal today is to give you all an experience. Whether or not you take in that experience is YOUR responsibility. So, here it is:
Push away a little, if you will, from the table. Uncross your legs, allow your eyes to close. Allow your hands to rest on your lap while you draw your attention to your breathing. Take in three, deep in the belly breathes. The 1st is for your body. Exhaling out any physical discomfort. The 2nd is for your mind and emotions. Exhaling out any tensions, worries or concerns. The 3rd is for your spirit or higher self. Exhaling out and negatives or unsuuportive beliefs.
Now, with your mouth closed, take the tip of your tongue and touch the roof of your mouth with it. This is an anchor telling your body to relax as it is relaxed now. Release it.
At this moment, you are not hypnotized, but you are in an alpha state and probably suggestible to a certain extent. I want you to imagine, visualize, picture or pretend that you have just won the biggest super lotto in history, one billion dollars. Imagine how that feels in your body, in your mind, bring in all of your senses: is there a taste? Is there a physical sensation on your skin (goose bumps)? What can you hear in your imagination? What or whom do you see? Is there a favorite aroma or scent?
Now, if you will open your eyes and take a blank piece of paper. Touch your tongue to the roof of your mouth for a moment and start writing down all of the things you would do with your new fortune. Write as many as you can. Give yourself 2 minutes.
Try to be specific: rather than “travel” Where will you travel? Rather than buy property, Where will you buy property? I can hook you up with an excellent real estate agent! Charities? Which ones? Begin.
If you were able to fill up the page, congratulations! If not, continue now and fill up the page.
This is only a small slice of what hypnotherapy can do for you, your family and for your friends. In conjunction with many business coaches who offer information and support like, T. Harv Eker and Fabienne Fredrickson, I recognize that your early conditioning (like mine) can affect your “bottom line.” Hypnotherapy can help you change that.
(references: T. Harv Eker, Secrets of the Millionaire Mind; Fabienne Fredrickson, www.ClientAttraction.com)
The Navajo story tellers begin each story with the words, “It is said...” It is said that I was born a poor white child in a ‘burb of L.A.
Apparently, my hair made a big impression on the obstetric nurse because, when she brought me into my mother (a brunette with brown eyes), the nurse remarked, “You must’ve stayed up all night bleaching her hair!”
Mom grew up during the Great Depression and instilled in me and my 3 sisters many values especially about money.
You could guess at those values and that’s what you’ll have to do, because, as you can tell from my bio, I’m telling a new story.
T. Harv Eker, the Peak Potentials Training coach wrote, “If you think you’re worthy, you are. If you think you’re not worthy, you’re not worthy. Either way you live into the story you tell. So tell a different, more supportive story and live into that.”
And that is what I’m doing! Not the flight of fancy story of my bio, but one wherein I am the master of my ship.
That began with the realization that there is no separation between the mind/body biosuit we wear and the spirit or higher self. Look at the Mobius. A strip of paper on one side is written Mind and on the other is the word Spirit. When the strip is made into a circle with one twist and taped together, one can see the lack of separation. If one places the tip of a pencil or pen onto the word Mind and then pull the strip underneath the pencil tip, before long, one will come upon the word Spirit. Continuing to pull, one will return to the word Mind without ever lifting the pencil/pen.
Hypnotherapy is one perfect, quick and gentle way of supporting this understanding and of helping people achieve joy, peace, wealth and success. Success has nothing to do with what other people think it is. Success is merely accomplishing a goal or a dream. My goal this morning was to shower, dress and arrive at Marie Calendars by 11:30. I succeeded. My other goal today is to give you all an experience. Whether or not you take in that experience is YOUR responsibility. So, here it is:
Push away a little, if you will, from the table. Uncross your legs, allow your eyes to close. Allow your hands to rest on your lap while you draw your attention to your breathing. Take in three, deep in the belly breathes. The 1st is for your body. Exhaling out any physical discomfort. The 2nd is for your mind and emotions. Exhaling out any tensions, worries or concerns. The 3rd is for your spirit or higher self. Exhaling out and negatives or unsuuportive beliefs.
Now, with your mouth closed, take the tip of your tongue and touch the roof of your mouth with it. This is an anchor telling your body to relax as it is relaxed now. Release it.
At this moment, you are not hypnotized, but you are in an alpha state and probably suggestible to a certain extent. I want you to imagine, visualize, picture or pretend that you have just won the biggest super lotto in history, one billion dollars. Imagine how that feels in your body, in your mind, bring in all of your senses: is there a taste? Is there a physical sensation on your skin (goose bumps)? What can you hear in your imagination? What or whom do you see? Is there a favorite aroma or scent?
Now, if you will open your eyes and take a blank piece of paper. Touch your tongue to the roof of your mouth for a moment and start writing down all of the things you would do with your new fortune. Write as many as you can. Give yourself 2 minutes.
Try to be specific: rather than “travel” Where will you travel? Rather than buy property, Where will you buy property? I can hook you up with an excellent real estate agent! Charities? Which ones? Begin.
If you were able to fill up the page, congratulations! If not, continue now and fill up the page.
This is only a small slice of what hypnotherapy can do for you, your family and for your friends. In conjunction with many business coaches who offer information and support like, T. Harv Eker and Fabienne Fredrickson, I recognize that your early conditioning (like mine) can affect your “bottom line.” Hypnotherapy can help you change that.
(references: T. Harv Eker, Secrets of the Millionaire Mind; Fabienne Fredrickson, www.ClientAttraction.com)
Saturday, May 1, 2010
Focus, Aging and Time Distortion (an NLP Perspective)
In experiencing the world, as we grow up and evolve, we each build
models of the world as we see it. This originally was a survival mechanism designed to protect us from known and unknown foes or from enemies that our elders perceived. We often forget that “the map is not the territory” and that our model comes from generalizations, distortions and deletions (Bandler and Grinder).
If you have a software program on your computer that is designed to help you with grammar and spelling, you might consider that your subconscious mind works in a similar way: your computer program underlines any suspect word (a word it does not recognize) or a phrase it believes is grammatically incorrect. Now, your subconscious mind (that part of you that responds to the world automatically) does the same thing only it goes one step further: it attempts to generalize the unknown to fit the model, throws out the unknown altogether or distorts it to fit the model. Many people have seen the exercise of reading a paragraph of seemingly nonsense words:
Aoccdrnig to rscheearch at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it deosn't mttaer in waht oredr the ltteers in a wrod are, the olny iprmoatnt tihng is taht the frist and lsat ltteer be at the rghit pclae. The rset can be a toatl mses and you can sitll raed it wouthit a porbelm. Tihs is bcuseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey lteter by istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe.
And we are able to read it because our subconscious mind creates sense out of it. You can raed tihs becuase yuor brian has seltced out the msitekas. It has generalized the unknown to the known. Or, there is the exercise of saying the color of a word when the word is printed in a different color: Green, Red, Blue, Yellow, Blue, Black, etc. In this exercise, unless one can compartementalize easily, clearly our mind distorts what we see with what we hear in our mind’s ear. Finally, we have the exercise where one is asked to count the number of Fs in a sentence:
FINISHED FILES ARE THE RESULT OF YEARS OF SCIENTIFIC STUDY COMBINED WITH THE EXPERIENCE OF YEARS.
Now count the F's in that sentence.
Count them ONLY ONCE; do not go back and count them again.
How many are there?
Because our brain pronounces the F in the word OF as a V, we tend to delete the F in that word. We simply do not see it. There are six Fs.
When we depend on these models made up by our subconscious minds we are led into living a life where our time moves very fast and faster with each year, where we are out of touch with who we are most of the time because our subconscious minds (brilliant as they are) are designed to protect us at all costs by making a map of our world. When you drive the same route to and from work or the grocery store each time, the drive seems to go very fast. Occasionally, it can go so fast that its hard to recollect the drive. You went on “automatic pilot.” The cost of this automation is the sense of self. The subconscious mind does this automatically without our conscious attention. We forget and think that the map is the territory, causing us to lose focus on what is truly important for our physical and emotional health: that which gives us juice in our life, the things that give us joy and pleasure, a purpose in life, the journey!
Of course, our subconscious minds do many more things without our conscious knowledge or permission. It can keep us awake all night worrying about something we cannot affect right away. It can distort our perception of time. Remember the last time you took a trip to a new place or somewhere you haven’t been for a long time? Going there probably felt like a long time, but returning, time seems to fly by even though it was the same distance. Certainly, time itself is an invention of our minds, isn’t it. It truly does not exist outside of our minds though we love to think so! On January 17, 1994, Northridge and the surrounding areas experienced a large earthquake. Exactly one year later, January 17, 1995, Kobe, Japan experienced a large earthquake. Of course, we in Los Angeles at the exact time of the Kobe earthquake, experienced the date as January 16, 1995! So, where does time exist?
Now, many of us, as we grow older, experience time speeding up, quickening so to speak. Why is that? Is it because any unit of time represents a smaller portion of our total experience? When I was three years old, I remember feeling that the two weeks before Christmas was like forever! Now three and a half months seems like two weeks! Can you believe its already May? I believe this ratio idea is part of the explanation. Here is the other part: when one feels time passing very quickly, it has more to do with one’s lack of connection with one’s higher self and purpose, with living in the map. [With the exception of when you’re having fun and time seems to pass very quickly. This is a misnomer. Time doesn’t pass quickly in that instance, it is simply outside of your awareness.]
It is said that a watched pot doesn’t boil. This can easily be translated to a watched clock doesn’t move! If we are bored, time doesn’t move at all, it seems. So, our perception of time passing is dependent on what we are doing. Aside from those times when we are having fun and time is outside of our awareness, our brains look for evidence of our beliefs or values or for the map we have manufactured, and the focus, then, is on the past or on the future in a misguided attempt to protect us. If the subconscious mind can identify the “map,” it goes on “automatic Pilot.” However, in those moments when you are in touch with your mission, with your goals, with your purpose, with the journey, time slows down to normal. This is when you are in touch with NOW.
Here is one way to consciousness of Now (paraphrased from Echart Tolle):
Focus first on your breathing. Take three deep in the belly breaths. Then, while you continue breathing normally, focus on the inside of your body parts: the muscles in your shoulders,
your arms,
your hands and fingers,
your chest,
lungs,
heart,
stomach,
your thighs,
your shins,
your ankles,
your feet.
Next become the observer of your own thoughts. Say to yourself
in your mind now, “I wonder what my next thought will be.”
And listen for it.
Listen for any emotions associated with those thoughts without labeling or judgment.
Hold onto this moment as long as you can,
focus on what thought will come to you and do not judge that one doesn’t.
Finally, observe the transformation inside of you,
the decrease in tension,
the fact that time has slowed down but does not crawl,
and imagine experiencing this every day as you go about the business of being the best you,
enjoying the life and freedom you were meant to enjoy.
Ten minutes a day
will give you a minimum of 59 hours a year of real time.
Real time in which you will find your mission, your purpose if you have not yet done so.
Time to hold the space for it to grow and mature.
This is the purview of hypnotherapy.
In hypnosis, you will experience this kind of NOWness as well as when you meditate in a way similar to what I've shown you here today. The difference is this: hypnotherapy is focused on helping you make the changes you specify to those models you have formed through identifications, associations and habit. It works with both consciousness and sub-consciousness to modify the associations you have built up over the years. And as you work through those associations, you will find it easier and easier to connect with your higher self.
models of the world as we see it. This originally was a survival mechanism designed to protect us from known and unknown foes or from enemies that our elders perceived. We often forget that “the map is not the territory” and that our model comes from generalizations, distortions and deletions (Bandler and Grinder).
If you have a software program on your computer that is designed to help you with grammar and spelling, you might consider that your subconscious mind works in a similar way: your computer program underlines any suspect word (a word it does not recognize) or a phrase it believes is grammatically incorrect. Now, your subconscious mind (that part of you that responds to the world automatically) does the same thing only it goes one step further: it attempts to generalize the unknown to fit the model, throws out the unknown altogether or distorts it to fit the model. Many people have seen the exercise of reading a paragraph of seemingly nonsense words:
Aoccdrnig to rscheearch at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it deosn't mttaer in waht oredr the ltteers in a wrod are, the olny iprmoatnt tihng is taht the frist and lsat ltteer be at the rghit pclae. The rset can be a toatl mses and you can sitll raed it wouthit a porbelm. Tihs is bcuseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey lteter by istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe.
And we are able to read it because our subconscious mind creates sense out of it. You can raed tihs becuase yuor brian has seltced out the msitekas. It has generalized the unknown to the known. Or, there is the exercise of saying the color of a word when the word is printed in a different color: Green, Red, Blue, Yellow, Blue, Black, etc. In this exercise, unless one can compartementalize easily, clearly our mind distorts what we see with what we hear in our mind’s ear. Finally, we have the exercise where one is asked to count the number of Fs in a sentence:
FINISHED FILES ARE THE RESULT OF YEARS OF SCIENTIFIC STUDY COMBINED WITH THE EXPERIENCE OF YEARS.
Now count the F's in that sentence.
Count them ONLY ONCE; do not go back and count them again.
How many are there?
Because our brain pronounces the F in the word OF as a V, we tend to delete the F in that word. We simply do not see it. There are six Fs.
When we depend on these models made up by our subconscious minds we are led into living a life where our time moves very fast and faster with each year, where we are out of touch with who we are most of the time because our subconscious minds (brilliant as they are) are designed to protect us at all costs by making a map of our world. When you drive the same route to and from work or the grocery store each time, the drive seems to go very fast. Occasionally, it can go so fast that its hard to recollect the drive. You went on “automatic pilot.” The cost of this automation is the sense of self. The subconscious mind does this automatically without our conscious attention. We forget and think that the map is the territory, causing us to lose focus on what is truly important for our physical and emotional health: that which gives us juice in our life, the things that give us joy and pleasure, a purpose in life, the journey!
Of course, our subconscious minds do many more things without our conscious knowledge or permission. It can keep us awake all night worrying about something we cannot affect right away. It can distort our perception of time. Remember the last time you took a trip to a new place or somewhere you haven’t been for a long time? Going there probably felt like a long time, but returning, time seems to fly by even though it was the same distance. Certainly, time itself is an invention of our minds, isn’t it. It truly does not exist outside of our minds though we love to think so! On January 17, 1994, Northridge and the surrounding areas experienced a large earthquake. Exactly one year later, January 17, 1995, Kobe, Japan experienced a large earthquake. Of course, we in Los Angeles at the exact time of the Kobe earthquake, experienced the date as January 16, 1995! So, where does time exist?
Now, many of us, as we grow older, experience time speeding up, quickening so to speak. Why is that? Is it because any unit of time represents a smaller portion of our total experience? When I was three years old, I remember feeling that the two weeks before Christmas was like forever! Now three and a half months seems like two weeks! Can you believe its already May? I believe this ratio idea is part of the explanation. Here is the other part: when one feels time passing very quickly, it has more to do with one’s lack of connection with one’s higher self and purpose, with living in the map. [With the exception of when you’re having fun and time seems to pass very quickly. This is a misnomer. Time doesn’t pass quickly in that instance, it is simply outside of your awareness.]
It is said that a watched pot doesn’t boil. This can easily be translated to a watched clock doesn’t move! If we are bored, time doesn’t move at all, it seems. So, our perception of time passing is dependent on what we are doing. Aside from those times when we are having fun and time is outside of our awareness, our brains look for evidence of our beliefs or values or for the map we have manufactured, and the focus, then, is on the past or on the future in a misguided attempt to protect us. If the subconscious mind can identify the “map,” it goes on “automatic Pilot.” However, in those moments when you are in touch with your mission, with your goals, with your purpose, with the journey, time slows down to normal. This is when you are in touch with NOW.
Here is one way to consciousness of Now (paraphrased from Echart Tolle):
Focus first on your breathing. Take three deep in the belly breaths. Then, while you continue breathing normally, focus on the inside of your body parts: the muscles in your shoulders,
your arms,
your hands and fingers,
your chest,
lungs,
heart,
stomach,
your thighs,
your shins,
your ankles,
your feet.
Next become the observer of your own thoughts. Say to yourself
in your mind now, “I wonder what my next thought will be.”
And listen for it.
Listen for any emotions associated with those thoughts without labeling or judgment.
Hold onto this moment as long as you can,
focus on what thought will come to you and do not judge that one doesn’t.
Finally, observe the transformation inside of you,
the decrease in tension,
the fact that time has slowed down but does not crawl,
and imagine experiencing this every day as you go about the business of being the best you,
enjoying the life and freedom you were meant to enjoy.
Ten minutes a day
will give you a minimum of 59 hours a year of real time.
Real time in which you will find your mission, your purpose if you have not yet done so.
Time to hold the space for it to grow and mature.
This is the purview of hypnotherapy.
In hypnosis, you will experience this kind of NOWness as well as when you meditate in a way similar to what I've shown you here today. The difference is this: hypnotherapy is focused on helping you make the changes you specify to those models you have formed through identifications, associations and habit. It works with both consciousness and sub-consciousness to modify the associations you have built up over the years. And as you work through those associations, you will find it easier and easier to connect with your higher self.
Tuesday, March 16, 2010
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)