The secret meaning of an "Aha!" moment

We've all had them, although we may not have known that's what they're called. It's a pristine moment of clarity that makes us stop whatever we're doing and say "I get it. I really get it!" We're fascinated with these moments, whether they happen to us or to someone else. Even Oprah finds them worth writing about. She includes a feature at the end of each issue of O Magazine describing an Aha! moment of a celebrity or respected figure.

What is the foundation of an Aha! moment? What makes them different from an ordinary moment of understanding? The difference is in the quality of our thoughts and our sense of self in the moment we receive the wisdom. I was looking at the word Aha and had my own realization. The secret is hidden in the word itself.

A - Authenticity. An Aha! moment happens when you tap into your genuine self. This is your deep self who rests beneath the outer layers of personality and ego. Your authentic self is the heart of Who You Really Are. When you connect with your true self, the wisdom you receive is untainted by the surface worries and thoughts of everyday life, what some call the "monkey mind". It is the voice of your purest wisdom and when it speaks you cannot help but listen.

H - Humility. These moments are filled with the humility of recognizing the smallness of your understanding and the immensity of the greater Intelligence that surrounds us. It is that age-old paradox of knowing that you really don't know anything at all. Even in our most insightful moments, we only touch the surface of a very deep pond. Kumu Etua Lopez often tells his students, "You look into the pond and see only yourself. You don't know how deep the water is. " When you have the humility to let go of how much you know, the Aha! moment let's you glimpse deeper forces, a greater Intelligence and mysterious order that exists beyond us.

A - Awareness. An Aha! moment comes when your awareness, your attention and your presence is in the Now. Without you giving your awareness, the moment passes you by. When your Conscious Mind acknowledges a new learning, it creates immediate integration with the deep level of understanding in the Unconscious Mind and essentially reprograms your beliefs in an instant. Your conscious awareness allows the shift to occur. Ekhart Tolle in his book, The Power of Now, teaches us the power of living in the present moment. Your awareness empowers the moment and sets the roots of the learning deep into Who You Really Are.

Aha! moments become more frequent as we nurture authenticity, humility and awareness in our lives. These characteristics build a foundation of integrity that supports a life of eager anticipation for the next new experience and the next new learning. With each Aha! moment, you become more attuned to your purpose, your wisdom, and your connection in the matrix of life.

The meaning of stuckness

I still get stuck. Sometimes it sneaks up on me and I don't realize I'm stuck until I get the feeling that I'm just not doing what I really want to do. I used to think that all my training would make me invincible to stuckness. Ha! Recently I pulled my feet out of a big bog of stuckness about my business and I realized something wonderful from that experience.

What does being stuck mean? Think about it. People treat it as if it's a bad thing. Not true! Feeling stuck is actually the first step when you're making progress. It simply means that you have come to a new place in your life where you're not sure what to do or what action to take. Isn't that a good sign that you're moving forward?

When a new challenge appears, every person experiences that feeling of stuckness, however brief or long. Feeling stuck is really your Unconscious Mind, the part of you in charge of your safety (physical, emotional and mental), saying, "Oh look, here's something that I'm not sure about. I better stop here until I know how best to proceed." It's simply your Unconscious Mind letting you know that you need to learn a new skill, or to renew an old one, before you can go forward with confidence. When you respond to that internal message by taking action, the feeling goes away and progress continues. When you stop and don't take action, that's called "being stuck". It's a holding pattern set up by you to give you room to figure out a solution. The longevity of that feeling depends on you and your willingness to take action.

Taking action doesn't always happen in the physical realm. Don't think that the answer is in getting busy with tasks. That's the mistake I made (and many people make), and the feeling of stuckness did not go away. In fact it worsened! I was doing all the busy work that everyone says you're supposed to do. I made my lists of action items, called the people I needed to call, wrote and prepared materials. You name it, I was doing it. But I just kept feeling more and more stuck. I knew that I was missing an important something. How do you find out what the something is?

It's been said many times that if you change what's happening inside, the outside world will reflect your internal actions. If we are the center of our own universes, and we are...then perhaps the answer is at the source.

So, I went into action - internally. I had to connect with my Unconscious Mind and find out what was going on. Why was she stopping me from going forward? Time Line Therapy helped me find the cause of the situation, realizing that its roots were in a limiting decision I had adopted from someone about how to succeed in the business of NLP training. Self-hypnosis made it easy to forgive myself for the delay I had caused in my progress and to realize the ways that old limitation had affected other parts of my life. NLP gave me the tools to build an effective internal strategy for taking physical action with my new, empowering decision in place.

With the internal action complete, I was able to turn my "busy work" into effective efforts that propel me forward toward my goals. I feel great about the direction of my business and the progress I'm making to grow it the way I want it to be. The challenge has been met, I learned a lot about myself and about the process we humans use to achieve our goals. This world is set up to present us with challenges so that we can apply what we've learned, test it and refine it, and then improve our results. So the next time you feel stuck, say "Thank you, Unconscious Mind!" and take action inward for your true life's progress.

Unexpected Reminders

During a break from my own training schedule, I coached and assisted at my mentor's prestigious Master Practitioner NLP training. As always, it is a amazing process to watch students transform themselves and their skills. I've known no other means to achieve such a deep and lasting level of results so quickly. In the midst of this training, I had an unexpected reminder that is still sending ripples into my life.

It was near the middle of the training. I was preparing to break a board that represented achieving my goals and, on the reverse side, breaking through the limitations I had placed on myself. I held my board and focused my intention while my assistant positioned the cement blocks where the board would be placed. I handed her my board and she gently set the board on the blocks, an inch on each side overlapping the edges of the blocks. As she adjusted the board's position one last time, it suddenly popped and split into two halves, dropping with a clatter to the floor.

The look on her face was priceless. I'm sure mine mirrored hers. We stood there stunned for a moment, voiced our surprise, and then she apologized profusely for causing the board to break. In the first moments, I admit I was a little irked because I had really wanted to break that board. The things I had listed on it had been ongoing challenges for me and I was eager for this symbolic break through.

In the next breath, the emotion was gone and in its place was an intense curiosity about what had just happened. I had handled that board for several days, carrying it with me to class, writing on it, rapping it with my knuckles and otherwise proving its structural integrity. I had seen no cracks in the board during its time with me. How was it that it just broke like that? Was it just a coincidence? An unfortunate timing of events?

The answer came through the lips of my assistant as we talked about the incident the next day. "Maybe it just means you don't have to do it all by yourself anymore," she said casually as we were observing students during a hypnosis exercise. It was an Ah-ha moment. Pristine. Crystal clear in a heart beat.

The goals and limitations I wrote on the board had been about my business and the tasks that needed my attention in order for it to continue running smoothly. The symbolic meaning of that board breaking without my touch (but every bit of my intention) was so obvious that I laughed instantly. So incredibly obvious... and yet so incredibly unconscious until she spoke the words aloud.

That day's learning continues to bubble to the surface more than a month afterward. Not only did I gain the insight to develop a talented support team, but I was reminded of the delight I felt when I was a student long ago, learning to open the doorway between my Conscious Mind and Unconscious Mind, learning to integrate their intentions and communicate each one's distinctive wisdoms. I savored, once again, the joy of being a life-long student to the art of human development.

The secret of the past

It's been a busy few months. I wanted to grab this opportunity to share something with you that I discovered accidentally. This little secret gave me a leap forward in my personal evolution and it has helped many of my clients change their lives. If you embrace this and make it true for yourself, you'll experience the same freedom and relief.

The secret is....the past is just a story. It's a tale we tell over and over again to remember and record what "really" happened. Funny thing is, if you ask two people who were in the same event what "really" happened, they'll both tell you a different story. That's because there is no true past. There are just lots of stories about the past.

So, if the past is just a story, what would happen if we just told a new story? What would happen if we imagined it the way we wanted it to be?

Let me give you an example. I experienced childhood abuse at the hands of a family member. For many years, my story about the past was of the horror, outrage and injustice that was done to me. It's true that I felt that way and I had a right to tell that story. It's also true that there is another story about what happened to me.

This new story feels a whole lot better. What really happened to me is that I found myself in a very difficult and challenging place at a young age. That experience defined many aspects of Who I Am today. It taught me how to follow my heart and fight for my right to a great life. I learned skills of survival, perseverance, intuitiveness, and courage. I discovered my passion for self-growth, and an accountability to my reason for being here on this planet. I also was gifted with a fierce determination to have the most amazing life I could make for myself. That's the "true" story of what happened to me as a child. I LOVE that story!

Now, when I float back over my past, I see the things that happened and I notice the Me that was forming in those times. I see the budding of my sense of self-worth when I stepped forward and confronted my abuser. I see the emergence of my independent spirit and courage to meet challenges with focus and intention in the times I felt alone and unprepared to deal with the situation. I became my own best ally and champion. What more power and healing can a human wish for than to direct your own destiny? The learning is in the journey, in each moment.

Once I was working with a client who was experiencing health problems, career challenges and a lot of emotional blocks that kept her from being happy. I noticed that she kept telling the same wounding stories over and over, as if to keep herself from forgetting. It dawned on me that she was the only person in the room who could verify the facts of her tale. If she's her own "Keeper of the Facts" about her past, couldn't she just rewrite them in her head? Who would know or care that she created a new story for herself? A story that helped her heal, find peace and satisfaction in her career, and release the misery. Believe me, the misery has no attachment to sticking around. She's the one who has the attachment to the miserable "facts".

In truth, "facts" are just a selective story, too. We gather selective data (facts) and interpret it to understand their meaning. We can only gather facts based on where our attention is. Facts don't exist at all unless someone pays attention to them enough to write them down and keep a record. And even then...EVEN then, they're just one little bit of data someone gathered and while they were gathering that data they missed millions of other bits of data that were present in the exact same moment. It's the nature of a quantum universe.

So what's the truth about the past? It's the story you choose to write in your thoughts. It should be the story that helps you be happy in the NOW and moves you forward with joyous intention into the future. After all, the future, too, is just a story waiting to be written.

Opening to Channel

It has always intrigued me, but I was nervous. I have a healthy caution about dabbling in the spirit world without some knowledge. I started digging. I wanted to get a sense of what was being said and what quality the messages were. Some highly publicized voices are Seth, Ramtha, and Abraham to name a few. There are many, many more. Some impressed me with their insightful messages. Others seemed to offer nothing profound and in fact seemed a bit self-serving. Quality and consistency of the message became my markers of a good guide and I felt more confident about the whole thing. I could feel when the message was vibing at a high level.

I picked up a book called Opening to Channel, by Sanaya Roman and Duane Packer. Good stuff. I did my first channeling session today. I think I might have made contact and I'm looking forward to more.

The coolest thing I got from the reading was that the Earth is magnetically coded for a specific purpose, and all those who are born of this planet have within them the same coding. In fact, according to my Guide, every planet supporting life is coded to produce a specific end result. Earth, according to the impressions I received today, is coded to create beings who live in compassion and forgiveness. When I asked for some examples of other types of planet codings, I got the impression that there was no way at this time to show me as I wanted, for it would just be too alien. Perhaps when my abilities to understand improve, then I'll get a better explanation. I thought it was an intriguing concept.

Your beliefs drive your life

"In order to believe in something you must first agree with it."
(Quoted from 8,789 Words of Wisdom by Barbara Ann Kipfer)

This quote stirred up a memory for me. A good part of my Master-level NLP education focused on beliefs and values. Your beliefs drive everything! Beliefs and values determine how we spend your time, energy, money, the quality of our relationships and everything else in our lives. We all have two levels of beliefs: our conscious beliefs and our deeper, underlying unconscious ones. The conscious beliefs are obvious to you; it's the unconscious ones that show up in all of those troubled areas in your life. And what's weird is that you may think you believe in one thing (prosperity is a good example), but really - based on the results you're getting in your life - you really, at a deeper unconscious level, believe something else (money is evil).

So here's the deal. In order to change what's happening in your life - whether it's struggling with relationships, hating your job, or being financially challenged - you have to discover your deep values and beliefs and create new ones that will get the results you want. The truth is, you literally can't do something unless you believe it. If deep inside you think that money is evil, you will not allow yourself to have money.

Given that beliefs run your life, wouldn't it be great to know what your beliefs are? And better yet, be able to change and believe those things that will make your life great?

People say "That's just the way I am", as if you can't change your beliefs. Actually, it's something we do all the time, every day. What do I mean? New information creates new beliefs. Say a new story comes on TV about a politician you voted for who just got caught embezzeling state funds. That new information makes you stop and re-evaluate what you thought about the guy (your old belief). You then add the new information to what you knew before and, most likely, change your agreement with yourself that he was a good person to represent you. You now believe he's a crook and you decide not to support that politician in the next election (your new belief). That's how quickly and easily you can change. New information is the key.

And notice that the new belief drives the actions you take from this point forward. You'll probably share you new opinions with someone. You may find yourself researching other candidates who you could vote for in the next election. You could feel outraged enough to join a political action group to weed out corruption in government. At the very least, when voting day comes you'll cast your vote a different direction.

Here's the problem. Believe it or not, your beliefs act as filters that prevent new information from coming in. That's why people get so frustrated about changing beliefs. It sometimes takes outside help to see what you can't see, a new perspective. Hypnosis is one way I help my clients. It allows us to bypass the conscious barrier and install new information at the deep levels where the unconscious beliefs live. I also use a questioning process (called quantum linguistics) that help me wiggle through the belief filters and find new handle holds that allow you to create the new beliefs you want.

If you don't like what's happening in your life, find a way to discover your beliefs and values. Start with a specific area of your life. Ask yourself, "What's important to me about X?" Write down all of the answers that come to you. Then, ask yourself again, "What's important to me about X?" Again, write down any new answers. Then repeat the question a third time and write down all of the answers you get. You may be surprised at what you discover. Send me an email and let me know how it goes!

You have to take action in order to change your beliefs.

A kazillion intuitive realities

The intuitive world within us is our unique reality. A brief definition of reality would be to say that it represents a set of laws that govern our ability to interact with the external world. The physical world has it's rules and patterns, most of which have been measured, studied and documented by science. The intuitive world also has its own rules and patterns.

We each have an intuitive reality that is uniquely our own. It is made up primarily of two things: 1) the common knowledge and understandings we share as human beings, what Carl Jung would call the collective unconscious; and, 2) the learnings we have gathered from our personal experiences.

The collective unconscious is where we all begin, the stuff we were born knowing without anyone having to really teach us. Each one of us is cut from the same universal fabric and therefore we all share its common threads, patterns and textures. What's interesting is that this fabric is a dynamic thing. As we change, new threads are added that represent our new discoveries. As new humans are born, they naturally inherit the qualities of that expanded universal fabric. For example, have you noticed that young children today seem to understand intuitively how to use computers? It's as if our collective unconscious expanded over the last 15 years to include a knowing about computers and their role in our lives. Today's children are born with the expanded awareness and they don't even realize it. It is only we who were born before the innovations who recognize the difference in reality.

Sometimes I think of the collective unconscious as our "spandex factor", the potential we have within to stretch our imaginations. The more humans witness new discoveries, the more they and their children can imagine even greater things. Our human awareness expands along with the discoveries we make as a society.

The other aspect of our intuitive reality comes from our own personal experiences. These create the laws and patterns we have in our own lives. As we go through life, we experience things and we make decisions about what those experiences mean. For example, if someone pulled my hair when I was six, I decided what I was going to think about that experience. Maybe I decided something very specific such as "that girl really doesn't like me", or maybe I generalized to something broader, "nobody likes me at all". Little decisions like that get tucked away inside of our intuitive self and we begin operating based on that assumption. This happens every moment of every day. We continue having experiences and making decisions about them, and soon we have created an entire reality that becomes our day to day life. As we do, we stop seeing anything that doesn't fit our expectations and we become fixed in our beliefs about what is "real" and what isn't.

Imagine how many realities there are out there! In NLP (Neuro-linguistic Programming), we call that a person's model of the world. And what we've learned is that every single human being has a unique reality inside them that is more real to them than anything else in the universe.We cannot change another person's reality; only they can do that.

One of the most fascinating things about my work as a hypnotherapist is that I get to peek inside the realities of my clients. In doing so, I have expanded my own reality and I have learned that so much more is possible than I ever dreamed when I was limited to my own model of the world. There are more ways to expand your reality than I can possibly list here. I hope you'll find one...or two....or however many it takes to awaken your intuitive self to more than it knew before.

Side note.... I like the way Michael Harner describes the idea of realities and their truths in his book, The Way of the Shaman. He speaks of the Ordinary State of Consciousness (OSC) and the Shamanic State of Consciousness (SSC). In one "reality", the person experiences something as real while in the other that same something would be called a myth or fantasy. Ordinary things like trees and water look one way in the OSC, but when experienced in the Shamanic State of Consciousness they appear as energy or light, or even as speaking entities who are aware and who possess power. Isn't this true for other realities, too? Think back to the last dream you had. Isn't it true that odd things happen in dreams and you accept them completely at the time because dream realities are different than the Ordinary State of Consciousness? Then there's the reality that happens at a family gathering, where we all seem to slip into some other regressive state of being that doesn't reflect the truer selves we live day to day. Reality truly is relative to our state of consciousness, or what could be called our intuitive self.

A new start

I didn't realize how long it's been since I've written until I popped in today and saw the last Post date. Yikes! Time flies.

Much has happened since the last entry in 2004. Consider this a new start.