I have been very absorbed for several months in making a step further in my development, in my understanding of this life and in reviewing my personal goals.
I have been working on fascinating areas such as intuition development, simple living, and study of “multiple internal voices”.
Such research requires much dedication, meditation and full immersion in the subjects. During these phases I’ve not been writing because everything evolved day by day. I’ll give you some brief ideas of my developments. In near future I plan to share much more on these topics.
First of all, I’ve learn how to recognize the various aspects of my personality and how to see them as different entities living inside me. They are all “me”, but looking at them separately greatly helps my understanding of myself. Some are loud, some are quiet. Some are nice, some are nasty, and some are just what they are. The annoying chatty worrier who warns me of all possible dangers (my mother?); the hypercritical one who always has a complaint or a remark for everything; the sensitive child who in its innocence gets easily hurt; the leader who attracts others and pushes things forward; the logical thinker, or scientist, who has to explain everything with extreme rationality in every detail; the artist who wants to create and build something new and amazing everyday; the “philosopher monk”, who loves to get lost in rhetoric and thoughts in solitude and tranquility; the dark side, who represents anything that is hidden. There are many others that I am getting to know and learning to recognize and manage. They chat inside me constantly, and final result is me.
I’ve also rediscovered the pleasures of simplicity and the great relief that comes from getting rid of burdensome baggage such as any unnecessary object or material possessions. Life is complex sometimes, but this complexity is completely self-imposed. Clutter is a disease that can take you over. Spending a silly way of satisfy short lived needs. Owning much unneeded stuff, or continuously replacing what we own, is addictive and cause of much unhappiness and dissatisfaction. This is so obvious in the United States where purchasing stuff is dressed in a “helping the economy” lie, and competing for having more is a national pastime.
I have much to share with you. I might simplify the format. Perhaps making shorter posts, more frequently as new material comes to me.

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I was watching the “Bill Maher Show” on HBO last night. They were making fun of the movie “The Secret”. They were saying how the message in the movie is “you can have everything you want if you just visualize it” (hahaha, funny).

I am not really sure if that’s the message in “The Secret”. Perhaps it may appear that way to the professional comedian, or the Skeptic only looking for a weak spot to make fun of people that try to bring any sort of message that is beyond what you can see and touch. Perhaps that’s really what the movie wants you to believe. I didn’t think so, but frankly I don’t care much. Maybe I just tend to hear what I think and believe, and not everything else, so I am probably not a good judge. One thing I know though: the movie is exaggerated and makes claims that are annoyingly thrown there superficially, and not documented or explained in the appropriate manner. It is also very much targeted to people that want more “stuff”, like money or properties, making the message very commercialized and superficial. It almost makes you feel like you must want more stuff or you are not successful. Nothing further from the truth! Why do you have to care about having more money or other things? That I do not understand. How much “stuff” do you really need? Why do you have to want more money?

Regardless of the movie and its critic, visualizing by itself is not going to bring any reality to you. You can visualize until your are blue in the face, but if you don’t act than you won’t get anywhere! Hard work is still necessary! In fact, the law of attraction doesn’t bring anything unless you completely align yourself to the goals you are seeking. “Align” doesn’t mean sitting on your sofa, waiting for things to fall from the sky. It doesn’t work that way.

To make this clear, I am going to explain it as I would explain it to a skeptic, removing all the fluff that irritates skeptics so much.

You know when you desire something really bad, and when you get it you realize it is not all that great?
You know when you are so close to get where you want, and when you are almost there you panic and give up?

Well, visualization helps preventing these problems!

Visualization simply helps you tailor your desires and refine them. It is a way to form a clear idea of what your goals are, and it’s a way to experience the results of their achievement even before you even get there. It helps preventing both the disappointment after the achievement or any last minute panic attacks. It is a way to realize if a desire that you have is what you truly want, and it is a way to create a better picture of the details that you may have missed.

In other words, visualization is a way to plan and see the results before you get there. It allows you to get used to the thought of the achievement of your goals and greatly improves your determination, allowing you to move faster toward the correct direction. It also refines the goals themselves, avoiding time consuming errors.

Visualizing regularly what you want to achieve is only the first step! If you visualize regularly, you will start seeing more clearly various opportunities that, if taken, would align your life toward your goals. That’s because your goals are much clearer! Here is the key: once these opportunities appear in your life, you must take them! This means hard work! Determination! Little or no hesitation! Visualization helps in this regard because it makes you feel like you already achieved your goals, and it eliminates the hesitation that often gets in your way.

If, as a skeptic, you can’t accept that these opportunities are brought to you by the “universe” as a result of your visualization, just think that these opportunities would have been there anyway. Visualization just allows you to see them, and allows you to promptly respond to them with a higher degree of confidence that you wouldn’t have otherwise. That edge and that determination is what can make you much more successful, and push you further.

It is all about points of view. Don’t discount the power of visualization just because you do not believe that visualization actually changes reality. That is more of a detail. In the end it doesn’t matter!!

Remember that effectiveness is the measure of truth. Well, I know for a fact that visualizing the achievement of your goals is an effective push toward making it a reality.

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In “Emotions, Part 1” I briefly described what emotions are, why we have them, and how these emotions are generated. In this article I present a method for understanding and reprogramming unwanted triggers of emotions, working on the root cause.

Emotions are Triggered by Thoughts

First of all, please understand that emotions are always triggered by thoughts. Nothing else and nobody else has the power of making you have emotions. All emotions are the result of your thoughts, which cause your sub-conscious to let you know if these thoughts are compatible or not compatible with your belief system. For this reason, the root cause of emotions is in your thoughts and the type of emotions (good or bad) is determined by your belief system.

Trigger Situations

As creatures of habit, we tend to have recurring thoughts in recurring or given situations. I call “trigger situations”, situations that cause thoughts that trigger particular strong emotions.

Reprogramming

This knowledge allowed me to develop a simple approach to fight and eliminate unwanted emotions that cripple the ability to effectively operate during trigger situations. I call this method “Emotional Response Peprogramming” (ERP).

Here are the basic steps:

Step 1: Identification Of Trigger Situations

This first step is designed to discover what situations trigger emotional responses.

If you monitor your emotional state, you’ll realize that there are constant fluctuations. When you feel strong emotions coming forth, take note of the situation: what are you doing? Are you alone or with somebody? Where are you? Who is with you? What is the subject of the conversation, if there is one? Is there anything physical going on? Did you notice particular expressions or body language from others? If you are alone, what you doing? Are you cold, hot, hungry? Is it raining? Take note of all the details that you can identify. Write it down if you can, or take a mental note and write it down later in a journal.

After a while you’ll start noticing patterns and you’ll be able to clearly identify trigger situations for given emotional states. This knowledge tells you a long story about your belief system. You may realize things about yourself that you didn’t even consciously know. You may find, for example, that you are particularly intimidated by men or women with certain physical characteristics, or that being in presence of crowds is uncomfortable for you, and so on and so forth.

Step 2: Identification of Trigger Thoughts

Once you identified the situations that cause emotional responses, you can move to this second stage: identification of the thoughts you think during these trigger situations.

No matter what situation you are in, and no matter what you perceive with your senses, you always tell yourself a story. The story you tell yourself is your interpretation and explanation for what you are experiencing. Trigger situations don’t trigger emotions directly, but they trigger stories, or thoughts, which trigger the emotions. For this reason it is important to identify what story you tell yourself during these situations. Changing the story, changes the emotional response.

For example you may realize that when a co-worker criticizes you, you feel angry. Once you noticed it, and associated “being criticized” with “anger”, you can pay attention to what story you are telling yourself when you are being criticized. Are you telling yourself that you’ll lose your job? Are you telling yourself that the criticism you just receive is truly about you as a person, and not about something more job related? What story are you making up in your mind? Identify these stories and map them to the emotional responses.

Step 3: Reprogramming

Now that you know what thoughts cause the emotion to come forth, and what stories you tell yourself, you can do two things to change your emotional response:

1. Trigger Thoughts Reprogramming: train yourself to not bring these thoughts fourth so to avoid the trigger of emotions. To do so, you need to substitute the negative thoughts with new positive thoughts; or
2. Belief System Reprogramming: make these thoughts not bring forth bad emotions simply programming your belief system to not consider these thoughts as highly incompatible with the belief system itself.

The best approach is to do both.

Let’s take the example above; let’s say you get angry when being criticized at work, and let’s say that you desire to get rid of that emotion because you realize is getting in your way. Let’s also say that you identified that you feel anger because you are telling yourself that being criticized might expose weaknesses that could cause you to lose your job.

Trigger Thoughts Reprogramming (TTR)

First of all, realize that you are telling yourself an ugly story that has no logical foundation. In fact, criticism is often meant to be constructive and certainly is not going to cause you to lose your job; on the contrary, it tends to help you being a better employee because, if you accept it, it points our areas where you can improve.

You get the point: to avoid letting the anger taking over when you are criticized, you can simply change the ugly story you are telling yourself with a good story. Instead of thinking negatively about your job security, think positively and accept that criticism should be listened to and analyzed to see if there is any truth in it. Take that “truth” as a suggestion that you can apply to be better at what you do.

Here is the reprogramming procedure based on visualization:

TTR-1: Visualize

Visualize the trigger situation that causes these negative emotions to come forth. Visualize it in all the details you can, and visualize it as bad as it gets. You can either remember an old instance of such situation, or create a new one.

For example, visualize being criticized at work.

TTR-2: Monitor

While you are visualizing, notice your thoughts. If your visualization is successful, you should start noticing the trigger thoughts forming in your mind. Notice how your thoughts seem to bring forth these bad emotions that you want to eliminate.

For example, you’ll notice that you start being worried about losing your job.

TTR-3: Reprogram Trigger Thoughts

In your mind’s eyes, smile and stay calm. Tell yourself that you are silly thinking that stuff. Push away the trigger thoughts, and substitute them with more positive ones. Think about making the best out of the situation, and learn from it, instead of freaking out about it. Make the situation fun and play with it. Master your thoughts so that the bad emotions won’t come forth.

At first this last step will seem forceful; that’s ok. It IS forceful at first! If you repeat the process several times it will eventually become second nature and the new positive thoughts will be triggered instead of the old negative ones.

For example, tell yourself to pay attention to what you are being told, and not at your job security. Listen to the criticism, and analyze it to see if there is any truth. For example imagine yourself asking questions about it, to further understand. Take it as an opportunity to learn. Imagine you getting better at your job because of listening to the criticism.

Belief System Reprogramming (BSR)

The Belief System reprogramming is similar to the trigger thoughts reprogramming, but this time instead of visualizing the trigger situation (in the example, being criticized at work) you are going to visualize what you believe the results of the trigger thoughts are going to be (losing your job), and you are going to reprogram how you are going to feel about these results even if they were to occur.

BSR-1: Visualize

Visualize the negative thoughts becoming true. Visualize it in all the details you can like if it was truly happening to you.

For example, visualize being fired.

BSR-2: Monitor

In your visualization, pay attention to how you feel. Is it scary? Do you feel lost?

BSR-3: Reprogram The Belief System

Consciously decide that the situation is not unpleasant at all, and that there are great opportunities behind it. Visualize feeling perfectly fine, having fun with the situation and even joking about it. Visualize all the things that you could do if the subject of your worries truly occurs.

For example, visualize yourself finding a better job where you are well paid and respected.

Conclusions

In this article we concentrated on how to free ourselves from strong and crippling emotional responses that we might have. However remember that emotions are there to guide us and to tell us if we are thinking thoughts in agreement with the path we chose, or if we are going out of track. Paying attention to our emotional state is an amazing tool to get to know ourselves and to stay true to our values. Emotions are like a friend, giving us real time suggestions at all times.

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What are emotions? Why do we have emotions? What are they? How are they generated? What are they for?

Science can describe in details some of the chemical reactions and electrical exchanges that the body experiences when emotions arise, but it is has not been able to explain in detail why emotions arise in the first place. While science catch up you can intuitively study the inner workings of your very nature, observing and studying yourself with what you feel and what you simply just “know”. Emotions are a wonderful way to accomplish this. Let’s explore.

The definition from Wikipedia states:

Emotion, in its most general definition, is an intense mental state that arises autonomically in the nervous system rather than through conscious effort, and evokes either a positive or negative psychological response. An emotion is often differentiated from a feeling.

This definition explains some of the chemistry involved in emotions, but it doesn’t say anything about their point of origin. It claims that it “arises autonomically in the nervous system”, but what causes it to arise?

Think about a river. You see the water coming out from a source in the mountains, but what brought the water there in the first place? That is a much more interesting question, and here is the RealitySeeds working model answer:

Emotions are a way for our sub-conscious to communicate with us without going through the five senses, and without blocking our conscious thinking; at the same time emotions can be powerful enough to be impossible to miss.

Emotions are a high priority channel of communication from the sub-conscious to the conscious, a red telephone that rings when you should listen. All emotions are sent to us by the sub-conscious. They are sent to alert us if we are thinking something that is compatible or not compatible with our belief system; in fact, paying close attention to your emotions can give you great insights on your sub-conscious and its belief system, that is your belief system.

There are only two types of emotions: positive and negative. Other classifications are possible but irrelevant for this discussion. When we have a positive emotion our sub-conscious is advising that our thoughts are compatible with our belief system. It is an approval, an incentive to keep going. On the other hand, when we feel a negative emotion, it means that our sub-conscious finds our thoughts something not compatible with our belief system.

Since the belief system is something that we shaped during our lifetime using our conscious thinking, emotions are a self-regulating mechanism that tries to keep our thoughts in check with the lessons we learnt and decisions we made. They keep us true to ourselves and our values, whatever these values are.

As mentioned before, our belief system is something that can be reprogrammed if we provide the sub-conscious with a good alternative. Reprogramming the belief system is a good think to do when emotions get in the way of our daily life, and create problems. In fact strong emotions toward particular situations or people can cause us to act “weird” in presence of others.

For example if past experiences programmed your belief system that is a good idea not to be friendly with strangers, you could find yourself being pervaded by negative emotions when you try to be friendly with a stranger.

To correct these kinds of potentially damaging behaviors, you can reprogram your belief system so that you don’t have to be controlled by emotions. Reprogramming your belief system is more than just “convincing yourself” of something. In fact your sub-conscious doesn’t take a simple logical explanation as a good enough reason for a change. It needs a prolonged intent, and a substitution of the old belief with a new one. It takes conscious focus and energy. The stronger the old belief, the more conscious focus it will take to reprogram it.

In “Emotions, Part 2″ I will present a method for reprogramming emotions when they are getting in your way.

Stay tuned.

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I often talk about the concept of Global Consciousness, and how we are all connected; in fact, in the RealitySeeds working model our super-consciousnesses are all interconnected.

This concept is radically different from our physical experience where we perceive ourselves as entities with a body, disconnected from everybody else. This perception of singularity is proper of the physical world, but doesn’t describe what many people think as a more complete “us” that dwells in a different dimension.

All of this could be seen as purely philosophical and impossible to prove, and I am OK with that; however, groups of scientists have been trying to prove it scientifically, and the results are very interesting and worth noticing.

I recently came across one of the best examples of this research. A group of scientists and volunteers has been working since 1998 on a research project called “Global Consciousness Project”, held at Princeton University.

This is how they describe the experiment:

We have been collecting data from a global network of random event generators since August, 1998. The network has grown to about 65 host sites around the world running custom software that reads the output of physical random number generators and records a 200-bit trial sum once every second, continuously over months and years. The data are transmitted over the internet to a server in Princeton, NJ, USA, where they are archived for later analysis.

The experiments consist of monitoring various hardware random number generators placed in 65 locations across the globe, constantly generating high quality random numbers. These random numbers are independent and for their very nature are expected to have a specific mathematically determined amount of coherence, defined as “no coherence”. Anything outside that range is considered abnormal.

During research they found that the sequences of random numbers become abnormally coherent, or abnormally anti coherent, consistently starting before extreme events such as September 11th, and in the following minutes, hours, days or even weeks.

It appears that these random number generators are somehow “sensitive” to the subtle changes of the world’s population attention, emotions or “mood”. The research team provides all the details here, and they also provide full access to the data collected and the methodology used to study it.

While the project doesn’t really prove the existence of a global consciousness, and many other explanations can be found, it certainly makes you think. It is another piece that we can add in an incredibly interesting puzzle describing, perhaps, the nature of everything.

The team of researches not only provides the data, but it also provides online tools to monitor it in real-time. The following image allegedly represents the status of the Global Consciousness coherence, which is monitored and calculated in real-time. Watch it fluctuate (works best in Firefox):

The color is based on the percentage of coherence of the random data. There are subtle variations in color so there can be a mix of green and yellow.

Blue is anti coherence, with a percentage greater than 90%
Green is no coherence, with a percentage between 40% and 90%. This is the expected range.
Yellow is a little bit of coherence, with a percentage of 10% to 40%
Orange is moderate coherence, with a percentage of 5% to 10%
Red is strong coherence, with a percentage of less than 5%

Allegedly if the color approaches an “abnormal” value such as blue, yellow, orange or red it means that something is going on in the world that bothers the status of the Global Consciousness. It is like if many people focused on a specific subject or emotion tend to change the coherence values in the random numbers generated.

During phenomena like hurricanes, terrorist attacks or other catastrophes, the global consciousness monitor should show one of these abnormal colors for several minutes, hours or days. The change in color seems to occur before the phenomenon happens, and go back to normal only after the phenomenon ended.

Here is what the Project Team has to say about the correlation between the data coherence value and world events:

We have registered over 200 formal experiments as of mid 2005. Each is defined by a prediction that the data will depart from expectation during special times such as the celebration of New Years, shocking events like the disaster on September 11 2001, natural tragedies such as the great earthquakes in Turkey, and large-scale meditation and prayer events like the Kumbh Mela in India. The results indicate strong correlations in some cases and virtually none in others, but overall they show significant evidence that something remarkable happens when we all are drawn into a community of interest and emotion.

If you have a Google Homepage you can add the monitor on your homepage following this link: Google Widget.

I find all of this absolutely fascinating.

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Automatic writing is a form of communication with the subconscious that is performed through the use of a writing common tool. Wikipedia describes it as:

Automatic writing is the process, or product, of writing material that does not come from the conscious thoughts of the writer. The writer’s hand forms the message, and the person is unaware of what will be written. It is sometimes done in a trance state. Other times the writer is aware (not in a trance) of their surroundings but not of the actions of their writing hand.

Automatic writing is commonly done with pen and paper, but today it can also be done with a keyboard on a computer. The process is very simple once mastered, but like any other form of sub-conscious communication one must let go of judgment to experience its full potential. Consider that entire books have been supposedly written in automatic writing.

Automatic writing is used by the Spiritualists to allegedly communicate with the deceased, in Freudian psychology to study oneself and by many others to allegedly receive inspiring messages from spirit guides, angels or other supernatural entities. In fact, some believe that Automatic Writing is a way of receiving information and communicate with other dimensions of existence.

I’ll let the reader judge for himself or herself where the information produced by automatic writing is coming from. Either way, what matters is that the information received goes always through the sub-conscious, which guides the hands to form the messages on paper. If the information starts in the sub-conscious, or if it just gets channeled through it, is a personal decision. From my point of view, since you create your reality, the two things are absolutely equivalent, and both completely correct.

In the RealitySeeds working model, the sub-conscious is in constant communication with the super-conscious, which is the part of us that is in connection with the universe and the global consciousness. When you open up a channel with the sub-conscious, and the flow starts, a stream of data rushes from the super-conscious the sub-conscious. The sub-conscious is partially in control of the body, and if you let it happen, it will translate the information into automatic movements of the hand. Since your subconscious knows so well how to write, it uses that as an efficient way to bring the requested information to the conscious awareness.

Let’s examine a couple of key points a bit more in detail. First of all, note that you need to “ask for information” and “open up” to receive it. In fact nothing is going to come to you in any shape or form unless you consciously ask your sub-conscious. Your sub-conscious is like a filter that does not allow anything into your conscious awareness unless you asked for it and unless you want to receive it. If this wasn’t the case you would be bombarded with all sorts of noise that would make it very hard to consciously operate and focus on anything.

Secondly, note how I mentioned that your sub-conscious is partially in control of your body, and that it knows how to write. This might sound strange at first, but think about it: do you have to think how to move the pen and form the letters when you write anything? Or do you just focus on what you want to write and your body just does the rest almost automatically? This is the same principles that applies when you drive a car. While driving you can easily get lost in your thoughts and not have to pay attention to the movement necessary to drive. Your sub-conscious drives for you. When you write, the same thing happens. If you are an expert computer user, and you can write on a keyboard without looking at it or without thinking about it, than writing on a keyboard is also something that the sub-conscious knows how to do, and that’s why you can automatic write using a keyboard.

How to do it

There are entire how-to books on automatic writing. The fact is that in these books, out of 200 pages, 199 are about the philosophy of it, and not actual practical instructions. The actual process of automatic writing is usually described in a couple of pages, and that’s all you need to know. I’ll save you the money for any book on the subject, and give you the meat:

Using a pen.

Prepare a piece of paper and a pen in front of you. Avoid very small pieces of paper, and stick with a standard letter size, A4 or larger. Use a pen with a very light touch, something that doesn’t require a lot of pressure to clearly mark the paper. Fine tip felt pens work best, but you can use anything you want.

Decide what you want to know. Ask a question, better if open ended. Focus on the question for a few minutes. Please, save yourself time, don’t ask questions about the future! The future is not written in stone, so nothing is going to be able to tell you what’s going to happen tomorrow. Nobody can tell you the future, not even your super-conscious. The only thing that you’d get if you ask a question about the future is the description of a possible future based on current trends, but we are in the realm of probabilities, not facts.

Take the pen, and put it on the paper in a writing position. Keep your arm, shoulder and body relaxed and free to move. Start scribbling to get the pen moving, and start writing whatever comes to mind. Don’t look at the paper, at the pen or at what you are writing. Look ahead, or on some focal point. Some people watch TV or read a book while automatic writing. You shouldn’t stop and think, you should just let it come. Pick up the paste, and don’t pause. Slowly detach yourself from what is being written, and just keep on writing. Eventually you should get to a point where you do not even know what is being written. Your hands will seem to be just writing, automatically. You may or may not have a sense for the content of your writing. Don’t worry either way. Just keep going. It takes practice to completely detach yourself from the process as you do when you are driving a car. Let your mind wonder, and keep on going. Keep relaxed.

The most important thing to make this work is to NOT analyze what is being written. Even if you are aware of the content of the writing, do not think about it. Do not analyze it. Do not correct it. Do not pay any attention to it. Sometimes you’ll write without space between words, and that’s ok. Let it happen in the way that seems most natural, and keep your mind off it as much as possible.

When you stop writing I suggest you put the piece of paper somewhere, and let it sit for a day or so, and go back to it later. You will be amazed on the things that you wrote.

Keep practicing. You’ll get more and more detached from the writing, and the quality of the messages will get better and better.

When the writing stops, put the pen down and read the writing if you are curious. Put it aside and read it again the next day. You will probably need to transcribe it. When you do, do not correct it. Leave it untouched. You may find subtle messages on the content weeks or months later, and it would be a shame to lose it.

Using a keyboard.

The process with a keyboard is exactly the same as pen and paper. As described, just think of a question and open up for information to come. Keeping your hands and shoulder relaxed, start typing what comes to mind. Slowly start paying less and less attention to what you are writing, until you are writing automatically without paying any attention to it.

The most important thing to do when using a keyboard for automatic writing is to never go back and edit anything as you are typing. You can do that later if you want. Avoid ever pressing the BACKSPACE or the DEL key; just keep typing even if you are somewhat aware of mistakes that you made. If you are vaguely aware of what you are writing, and you think you are injecting typos or other errors, you may be amazed to find out later that you actually wrote something completely different than you thought, and that there are far less errors that you assumed.

Further reading:

There are many interesting articles if you are interested in going deeper. One that I like is titled “Automatic Writing” in the Visual Arts, which explores a slightly different approach. It is about “automatic drawing”, more than automatic writing.

Another article about automatic writing can be found here. I don’t agree with some of the things mentioned, but I’ll let you form your own judgment on it, and it is a good additional reading on the subject.

Have fun with this, and if you come up with some interesting writings, PLEASE post them here in a comment. I’d love to read it, and other readers will too.

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Most people that become enlightened by the concept that thoughts ultimately create and manifests reality, sooner or later start questioning the concept and temporarily withdrawal with doubts. One of the most common doubts has to do with the nature of competition.

The quetion I hear most often is: “people often compete with others for a first place, and they truly think they will win. If they manifest reality with their thoughts, how is that often they lose? Why don’t they all win?” I like to call this the “American Idol” doubt, in reference to a popular American TV show where amateur singers compete to become famous.

If you watch the show you’ll see how lots of people are absolutely convinced they will win the competition and become the next “American Idol”. Sometimes these people sing so badly that you just can’t believe they would even participate to the show, and they end up with the obvious result of being humiliated on national TV.

If their thoughts create their reality, how is that they do not win?

Here is the answer: they created that reality! In fact, they created a reality where they have to compete for a first place. They created a reality where there can be only one winner, and they created the reality where being that winner is very difficult. Even if they are convinced that they will win, they first and foremost created a reality where that is not guaranteed. They created a reality that has some rules, and they operate under these rules.

Think about it. Lots of singers become famous without going to American Idol. They just become famous because they work hard, they keep thinking about singing, they love singing, they focus on it, they keep studying and trying, and they take all the opportunities they can along the way. They set in motion the law of attraction, they believe and they accept once they receive. The people that make it on their own simply do it. They don’t create a competition; they get there in other ways. The competition on American Idol is for people that are unsure. They want to find a way to do quickly what might take much time, skills and effort.

Some people create reality with competitions because they give to a jury the power to decide if they are successful or not, or if they are good or not good at something. Other people are simply good at what they do, and they just do it. They do not need a jury. They measure themselves in other ways. Competing for something may help some, but keeps others behind. It’s a challenge that is fun for these who compete, and that is unnecessary for these who win naturally.

Sometimes it is necessary to compete to get somewhere, but that’s also a situation that you created or co-created with others participating in the competition.

Remember why we are here in the physical world: we are here to grow, to learn and to understand. We create the rules and situations, and than we dwell in them to learn from it and create more of it. We create pain and pleasure. We create joy and sorrow. We create life and death. This physical world is a creation, a playground of experiences and learning opportunities, a place to learn and teach. Competition is something that we made up as a way to progress and build on each other’s achievements. You don’t have to compete, but you can if you want to.

Another example of competition is what I like to call “the president case”. Many people want to be president, but there is only one presidential chair. Who created that reality? If it is in your perception, you did! If you are attempting to be president, you are responsible for the competition you have to endure to get to the top, and you created it in a way that only one can make it.

I know what you are saying. You don’t consciously know you created all of this, right? In fact, you probably didn’t. You created it by default, subconsciously. You did it by default because you didn’t know that you could have influence in such things. Things are what they are you thought, and you can only go along. I am here to tell you that it is not true. Things are what you want them to be. No more, no less.

If you can’t convince yourself of it, don’t get stuck on it! It is not effective. Change point of view for a moment. Remember the discussion about nature of reality? Remember how to understand reality you need to be able to switch points of view and observe the object of your attention from different angles, and pick the most effective one? Here is an effective angle: you don’t know you created that reality because it is the result of the co-creation of many individuals, who directed their thoughts in different but similar directions. The result was the system you see in front of you. You are a co-creator of it, of course, and as such you play by its rules that you created and accepted. If you weren’t the co-creator of it, you wouldn’t be part of it. You can only understand and be part of things and realities that you co-created. Nothing else exists in your sphere of perception. Once something enters your sphere of perception, you are co-creating and attracting it with your thoughts.

To conclude, it is very possible to be creators of a reality where you lose, even if you really want to win, or if you think that you will win. When that happens, you are simply living the reality based on the rules that you created with your thoughts, together with others that participate in the same competition with you. If you were focused only on the goal, you would get there. Instead, you decided to compete for that goal, which shifts the focus on the possibility of losing, making it often so.

The rules that you create and in which you operate are unbreakable, until you change them. You, as creator, can manifest a cage and rules that would put you into that cage. Then, you can go in it when you follow these rules. Suffering and rotting in that cage is your right, if you make that decision, consciously or unconsciously. It is in your power and in perfect respect of your free will.

You foremost create the rules of the game, and than you learn by operating under them, till you decide to change them. How many rules you create is up to you. You create, or co-create the game and its rules, no matter what they are and no matter if you know you are doing it or not.

My suggestion is that you internalize this truth, so that you can start to consciously drive that manifestation process toward what you consciously truly want.

I like it, stumble it!

Thoughts become things, as explained by Mike Dooley in this good presentation of the concepts:

I’d like for the reader to pay attention to one detail: it takes time for reality to manifest, and that’s a good thing! That time is called “time buffer“, and protects our experience in the physical world.

In fact, our mind changes all the time and the time buffer allows us to live in a somewhat stable world. If things manifested immediately as we think them, we would be in trouble and we wouldn’t be able to freely think. Nothing would stay still. It would be like a strange confusing dream, completely under the immediate influence of our mind.

The time it takes for thoughts to become reality is the time that it takes for these thoughts to enter our memory as dominant, to be picked up by the super-conscious, and finally for the law of attraction machine to be set in motion and create the conditions to manifest that reality in a manner that keeps our reality experience stable.

When you visualize and desire, keep doing it until something happens. That “something” is the first sign that the Law of Attraction has been working for you in the direction of your desires. Take any small sign and opportunity that present in front of you to go toward the realization of your desires, and keep reinforcing these desires. It might take time, but it will happen. Every time!

I like it, stumble it!

During sleep, we usually pass through five phases. These stages progress in a cycle from stage 1 to stage 5 (REM), then the cycle starts over again with stage 1.

We spend almost 50% of our total sleep time in stage 2, about 20 percent in REM sleep, and the remaining 30 percent in the other stages. Infants, by contrast, spend about half of their sleep time in REM sleep.

The phases of sleep are often studied observing brain waves, which are fluctuations of electrical activity that can be measured by electrodes.

Stage 1

This is a light sleep stage, sometimes describes as referred to as somnolence, or “drowsy sleep”. During this stage we drift in and out of sleep and can be awakened easily. Our brain starts generating theta waves (4-8 Hz), and our eyes move slowly and muscle activity slows down.

People awakened from stage 1 sleep often remember fragmented visual images. Many experience sudden muscle contractions called Hypnic Myoclonia or Hypnic Jerks, often preceded by a sensation of starting to fall. These sudden movements are similar to the “jump” we make when startled. Some people also experience Hypnagogic Hallucinations, or, Hypnagogic Sensations, which describe the vivid dream-like auditory, visual, or tactile sensations that can be experienced in a Hypnagogic or Hypnopompic state. These sensations can be accompanied by sleep paralysis, the sensation that the body is temporarily paralyzed after waking or before falling asleep.

Stage 2

Our eye movements stop and our brain become slower, with occasional bursts of rapid waves called sleep spindles (12–16 Hz). In stage 2 our conscious awareness of the external environment disappears. This stage occupies 45–55% of total sleep.

Stage 3

Extremely slow brain waves called delta waves - also called delta rhythms (.5–4 Hz) - begin to appear, interspersed with smaller, faster waves. Stage 3 is considered part of slow-wave sleep (SWS) and functions primarily as a transition into stage four. Overall it occupies 3–8% of total sleep time.

Stage 4

The brain produces delta waves almost exclusively. It is very difficult to wake someone during stages 3 and 4, which together are called “deep sleep”. Stage 4 predominates the first third of the night and accounts for 10–15% of total sleep time. There is no significant eye movement or muscle activity. People awakened during deep sleep do not adjust immediately and often feel groggy and disoriented for several minutes after they wake up.

Some children experience bedwetting, night terrors, or sleepwalking during deep sleep.

Stage 5, or REM sleep

Our breathing becomes more rapid, irregular, and shallow, our eyes jerk rapidly in various directions, and our limb muscles become temporarily paralyzed. Our heart rate increases, our blood pressure rises, and males develop penile erections. People awaken during REM sleep, often easily remember dreams.

This stage is often associated with dreaming, however, dreams can also occur during sleep onset (hypnogogia) and during all stages of Non-REM sleep

The first REM sleep period usually occurs about 70 to 90 minutes after we fall asleep. A complete sleep cycle takes 90 to 110 minutes on average. The first sleep cycles each night contain relatively short REM periods and long periods of deep sleep (stages 3 and 4). As the night progresses, REM sleep periods increase in length while deep sleep decreases. By morning, people spend nearly all their sleep time in stages 1, 2, and REM.

People awakened after sleeping more than a few minutes are usually unable to recall the last few minutes before they fell asleep. This sleep-related form of amnesia is the reason people often forget telephone calls or conversations they’ve had in the middle of the night. It also explains why we often do not remember our alarms ringing in the morning if we go right back to sleep after turning them off.

I like it, stumble it!

The English language is full of idioms that tend to attract unwanted reality manifestations. Some of the idioms are so predominant in the language that it becomes very difficult to escape them. Substitutions are possible and I recommend that you either avoid using negative idioms, or that you substitute these with something more positive, containing possibly a positive affirmation.

Some examples:

“I am sick”.

When you say this, you are claiming that your whole self is sick, and that you are identifying your whole self with illness. Illness is not a state of being, but is a temporary condition. A better approach would be saying “I do not feel well”. In fact saying “I do not feel well” focuses on feeling well, not feeling sick. Your subconscious doesn’t understand negatives, so the phrase is understood by your subconscious as if you said “I feel well”, which helps making it so.

“I am desperate”

Again, when you say this, you are identifying yourself with desperation. You become desperation in your mind’s eyes, and this is usually a gross exaggeration that, if you keep repeating, could actually push you closer to “desperation”. Substitute that expression with “I am not happy”, which focuses on happiness.

“I wish I was rich”

This one focuses on the lack of wealth. There are no negatives in this phrase, and your subconscious understands it and takes it literally. Repeating your wish for richness doesn’t help making it so. On the other hand, it has the tendency of making it worse, because you are focused on the lack of money, which increases that lack. On the other hand you could say “I am at the beginning of a higher financial success”. This phrase focuses on the fact that you are doing OK, and that on you are on your path of making it even better. You are focusing on a goal, without complaining for the present. It is a much better expression which function as a powerful affirmation.

“I am fat”

Is that all you are? Your whole existence is being fat? I don’t think so… I think that saying “I am working on loosing weight” touches the same concept and directs your energies toward a better goal. The goal is “loosing weight”, and not “being fat”.

“I am weak”

I’d say that may you are not strong enough. I am sure in some moment of your life you felt very strong. That’s what you have to focus on, not the temporary lack of strength.

Conclusion

You get the point. Try to catch yourself using negative expressions, and try to get into the habit of using positive ones. They will set in motion the law of attraction toward the results that you truly want to achieve, and not toward the opposite.

I like it, stumble it!