Wednesday, January 21, 2009

Getting The Stress You Need Part II

Last night we watched the second half of the Dr. Ryce lecture titled “Getting The Stress You Need”, (www.whyagain.com).  The focus of this half of the lecture is the idea that each time we set a goal, it remains active in our minds and whenever it gets triggered it drives our behavior, even if the goal is many years old, our life situation has changed dramatically and the goal is no longer logical.  For example if I set a goal as an eight year old for my father to love and accept me, and I was never able to achieve that to my satisfaction, then years later when someone reminds me of my father, this goal can become activated and I can behave in seemingly irrational ways in an effort to gain of the favor of the person who reminds me of my father. 

Once I set a goal in my mind, it remains active until the goal is achieved, or the goal is actively cancelled.  

The exercise in tonight’s lecture asked us to close our eyes, relax and feel the presence of love.  Then visualize a series of people and situations in our past where we may have set goals that did not get achieved and consciously cancel all those goals.  With the conscious cancelling of goals and a prayer to the higher consciousness to assist us in cancelling all un-necessary and unachieved goals, we relieve a tremendous amount of stress on our minds and bodies.

Once the unachieved goals have been cancelled and our mental and emotional resources have been freed up to handle our daily challenges, we can then frame, select, set and maintain goals which will be appropriate for each day.  When we use this technique and tool, we will choose only those goals which we can accomplish within the next day.  Then each night we will review the goals we had for the day and decide whether we accomplished them, choose to cancel them, or move them back into the category of plans or intentions which can then be elevated to a goal on another day when appropriate. 

Dr. Ryce presents a tool for the framing, setting and evaluating of our goals on a daily basis, and we reviewed the how to use this tool and the benefits of using all the parts of the tool.  Then the discussion in the group moved to review the work several members had done over the past week.  The theme that emerged for several members was the difficulty keeping the focus on ourselves when we feel a strong negative emotion, which has been triggered by the words or actions of another person.  One of the difficulties here is our need to overcome the decades of conditioning which have conspired to make us believe that others control our emotions and “Make” us feel sad, angry, shamed, guilty, afraid, etc.

We reviewed the process and observation that I can only feel the emotions which are in me, and that it is My thought which causes My emotions.  If someone treats me “disrespectfully” and I feel anger, it is because there is a part of “me” that feels “I do not” deserve to be treated with respect and I am angry about that part of Me.  What needs to be healed is the part of me, or the feelings and beliefs I hold, which believe that I don’t deserve to be treated with respect.  If I am coming from a space of Love, and I feel completely comfortable with the fact that I am lovable and worthy of respect, I will probably not even notice if someone treats me “disrespectfully”.  Or if I notice it I will not be offended and probably feel nothing more than compassion for the other person.

We come from Love, we are made of Love, we are Love!  Everything else is false.

Sunday, January 18, 2009

A Wonderful Song!

Today I heard a wonderful new song and I just could not wait to share the lyrics!

I heard the song performed by a folk music duo called Small Potatoes.  The song is called Simple Faith and is written by one of the members of the group Mustard's Retreat.  I will give you the words here, and then list the youtube address where you can hear Mustard's Retreat sing the song. In my opinion, Small Potatoes performed a much more lively and refined version of the song when I heard them today, perhaps because there is one male and one female voice in Small Potatoes and two male voices in Mustard's Retreat.  
Here is the address for Mustard's Retreat Singing Simple Faith.

Enjoy!


Simple Faith By Mustard's Retreat


Ours is a simple faith

Life is a short embrace

Heaven is in this place

Every day

Hope is the ground we till

Make each day what you will

Thankful for dreams fulfilled

Every day

No room in this heart for fear

No judgement day drawing near

Trust that inner voice you hear

Every day


Life's not a goal or race

Its about heart and faith

And living a life of grace

Every day


Ours is a simple faith

Life is a short embrace 

Heaven is in this place

Every day

Hope is the ground we till

Make each day what you will

Thankful for dreams fulfilled

Every day

Trust is an open hand

Making an honest stand

Rooted here in the land

Every day

Living the mystery

Seeking the harmony

Here between you and me

Every day

Ours is a simple faith

Life is a short embrace

Heaven is in this place

Every day


Hope is the ground we till

Make each day what you will

Thankful for dreams fulfilled

Every day



Wednesday, January 14, 2009

Mindshifters Group 1-13-2009

Tonight we watched the first half of the video titled, "Getting The Stress You Need" by Dr. Michael Ryce, (www.whyagain.com).

The essence of this talk is that the human mind can be seen as primarily a device for managing stress.  In this work the definition of stress is "The tension that is created in the human mind and body by the difference between the way things actually are, and the way one wants them to be".  If the mind is our primary way of managing stress then it makes good sense for us to understand how this system works and how it is that we are creating and relieving stress in our lives on a regular basis.  

A key concept in this talk is the idea that we have two lenses in our minds, one lens over intention and one lens over perception.  Each lens can have only one of three possible filters set at any one time.  At any given time, the lens over intention must be set to either the filter of Hostility, the filter of  Fear, or the filter of Love.  It is important to know that the only time I will be seeing the world accurately is when the filter over my intentions is set to Love.  Any time the filter over my intentions is set to fear or hostility I will be seeing a distorted and inaccurate view.  So it is important for me to monitor my internal feelings and actively work to reset the filters over my intentions and my perceptions to Love on a regular basis.

Another key concept in this talk is the idea that our intentions can be many, varied and contradictory and they do not determine our behavior.  It is only when I choose an intention from among the many I may have, and elevate it to the level off a goal that it begins to organize my perceptions, thoughts, and actions, and determines my behavior.  So if I have a thought that I would like to attend the Mindshifters group, and a thought that I would like to go to a movie, and a thought that I need to get some paperwork done at home, all of these can be said to be intentions.  When it is time to go to the group, or attend the movie, or do the paperwork, one of these intentions gets elevated to the level of a goal and my perceptions and thoughts work to show me how to do the behaviors which accomplish the chosen goal.  Soon, I am either sitting in the group, or sitting in the movie, or working on my paperwork.

Since my goals are always chosen from my intentions and the quality of my intentions is determined by the filter which is set over the lens of intention and perception, it becomes even more important to monitor the filter I have set and continuously choose to reset my filters to Love.  If the filter over my intentions is set to Love, I will see positive, creative and Loving ways to interact with the world and this will give me positive, creative and Loving intentions to choose from when I select a goal.  

The quality of my intentions determines the quality of my goals.  My goals determine my behavior.  If I want my behavior to be positive, creative and Loving, I need to be vigilant about my intentions and the way I am perceiving the world.

In the discussion during the group tonight a fundamental theme emerged again.  This is the theme of understanding that I am the one who creates my emotions with my thoughts, and that I don't cause the emotions of anyone else.  Some of our members have been working on taking responsibility for causing their own emotions and this is helping them detach from some of the unproductive patterns in their relationships.  However, while they are able to see that their partner does not make them angry, they still want to blame themselves for making their partner angry.  

It is very difficult to change the life-long conditioning of our culture which makes us want to blame others for what we feel, and accept the blame of others for what they feel.  This is one of the most important points of all in understanding ourselves and how our mind/body energy system works. 

 "If I am in pain, I am in error!"  

Tonight we tried to help ourselves remember that, "If someone else is in pain, someone else is in error!"  In this situation we do not do them any favors if we try to change the way they are feeling, or accept blame for their feelings.  The most productive thing we can do in this situation is hold a space of love for them and for ourselves. 

The basis of the work we are doing is that when anything that is less than Love gets exposed to the energy of Love, it is healed and transformed.  So if I can generate the energy of love and hold to that for myself and the other person/people whenever someone around me is angry, sad, confused, hurt, or blaming, I will be doing the best possible thing for all of us.

We discussed how each of us has a device which helps us know when we need to change what we are doing.  This is our emotional center and whenever our emotional center is sending us strong, negative, or confusing signals we know we need to stop and change what WE are doing, because WE are causing ourselves unnecessary pain.

We come from Love, we are made of Love, we are Love.  Everything else is false.


Tuesday, January 13, 2009

A new movie from Dr. Wayne Dyer

Dear Friends,

I got an email today letting me know of the release of Wayne Dyer's new movie.  If you click on the title of this blog it will take you there.  Or you can go to www.ambitiontomeaning.com.  

They are releasing this movie the same way they released the movie, The Secret.  So if you get on this website today or tomorrow, you will be able to view the movie for free, one time through.

After that, it will  cost you five dollars to view it online.  I have watched the first hour and it is solid material.  The popularity was so strong that the server malfunctioned and they had to extend the deadline until tomorrow night at midnight.

Enjoy!

Dr.  Tim

Friday, January 09, 2009

Check out TED.com

I want to be sure everyone knows about www.ted.com.  TED stands for Technology, Entertainment, and Design, and is a think tank for just about any subject related to those three broad categories.  On this website I have watched wonderful lectures on everything from "The real difference between liberals and conservatives.", to the life of the giant redwood trees.  I highly recommend this site for a place to find stimulating and soul affirming lectures that average about twenty minutes each.  It is free and it is fabulous!

Dr. Ryce talks a great deal about the power of our thoughts to either place dis-integrative energy into our system, or to place healing and integrative energy into our energy system.  Dr. Ryce was talking in the video we watched last Tuesday, about how we are creating the aging and death in our bodies/energy systems, by creating negative realities, and how it may actually be possible to reverse that process by using the tools he presents.  Dr. Ryce also knows the value of eating a living, "raw" diet, which provides the energy and nutrients we need to get and  stay healthy, and makes it part of the intensives he holds at his retreat center in Missouri.

In the talk by Dean Ornish on healing, he focuses on some amazing statistics and results they are getting in reversing "chronic" diseases by simply changing people's diets.  When I watched this talk, all I could think about was how amazing and powerful these results are, while only paying attention to half of the equation.  Just think about how these results would be amplified if these patients were also doing the emotional/energy work that people like Dr. Ryce talk about. [Clicking the title link to this article will take you to the video on healing, by Dean Ornish.]