Which one are you feeding?

There is an old Cherokee Legend about a grandfather and a conversation he had with his grandson.  It goes something like this:

An old Grandfather said to his grandson, who came to him with anger at a friend who had done him an injustice, “Let me tell you a story.

I too, at times, have felt a great hate for those that have taken so much, with no sorrow for what they do.

But hate wears you down, and does not hurt your enemy. It is like taking poison and wishing your enemy would die. I have struggled with these feelings many times.” He continued, “It is as if there are two wolves inside me. One is good and does no harm. He lives in harmony with all around him, and does not take offense when no offense was intended. He will only fight when it is right to do so, and in the right way.

But the other wolf, ah! He is full of anger. The littlest thing will set him into a fit of temper. He fights everyone, all the time, for no reason. He cannot think because his anger and hate are so great. It is helpless anger,for his anger will change nothing.

Sometimes, it is hard to live with these two wolves inside me, for both of them try to dominate my spirit.”

The boy looked intently into his Grandfather’s eyes and asked, “Which one wins, Grandfather?”

The Grandfather smiled and quietly said, “The one I feed.”

So which wolf are you feeding?

Do you find yourself jealous or envious of others? Do you find yourself judging others attitudes, dress or actions? Do you find yourself making negative or derogatory comments?  Are your thoughts of poverty and lack, war and violence? When things don’t go as you expect, do you find yourself saying things like “of course” or “I knew it!”

Or do you find that you’re grateful for the things that happen in your life?  Do you respect others attitudes?  Their dress?  Do you honor the choices they made along the way? When you listen to your self talk, is it positive?  Is it uplifting? Are your thoughts those of prosperity, love and kindness? And when thing don’t go as you expect, do you find yourself saying “how can I make the best of this situation?”

Which wolf you feed not only determines your outlook it also determines your outcome.  It determines whether you get what you want in life or not.  Because the wolf you feed determines your focus and your focus determines your outcome.

So, which wolf are you feeding?

Perception is projection

A little boy was overheard talking to himself as he strutted through the backyard, wearing his baseball cap and toting a ball and bat: “I’m the greatest hitter in the world,” he announced.

Then, he tossed the ball into the air, swung at it, and missed. “Strike One!” he yelled.

Undaunted, he picked up the ball and said again, “I’m the greatest hitter in the world!” He tossed the ball into the air. When it came down he swung again and missed. “Strike Two!” he cried.

The boy then paused a moment to examine his bat and ball carefully. He spit on his hands and rubbed them together. He straightened his cap and said once more, “I’m the greatest hitter in the world!” Again he tossed the ball up in the air and swung at it.

He missed. “Strike Three!”

“Wow!” he exclaimed. “I’m the greatest pitcher in the world!”

That little story has been around for quite a while and you’ve probably seen it before, but have you really thought about the significance of it? From the little boys perspective, his focus was on baseball and he knew he was the best … after all he kept reaffirming it. So, if he goes through his life with the belief, the perception, that he’s the best, he will keep having opportunities to demonstrate it.

Were those opportunities always there? From a Neuro-linguistic Programming point of view, yes. Your world is the way that it appears to you because that’s the way you believe it should be. You project out onto the world what you perceive the world to be. If you believe that people will cheat you, you’ll get cheated. If you believe that you are great, you’ll have opportunities for greatness.

There are those who think that the world is the way it is and we can either accept it or not. Some people think that only a few are blessed with “lucky breaks” and yet, if you examine the lives of those people and the beliefs they hold you’ll find their lives reflect their beliefs.

So, how do you change the pattern? How do you change your beliefs? Start by focusing on what you want. Really pay attention to what you’re after. Notice the positive aspects of it and be grateful for each occurrence.

You can also work with someone who is a skilled master practitioner of Time Line Therapy® to help you uncover and release any limiting decisions or beliefs that prevent you from getting what you want. Once you’ve released what’s holding you back, you can create the life you truly desire.

Did You Celebrate Today?

With spring in the air, now is a time for celebration of rebirth and renewal. It’s all around you, if you care to look. Nature is re-energizing herself with birth and renewed life. Are you taking the time to celebrate your own renewal?

Lao Tzu once said “A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.” So many of us begin that journey without any thought. Or, we won’t begin the journey because the destination seems so far off, so distant. After all, why try? Most of us just don’t enjoy the journey.

And yet, it’s the little successes along the way that make all the difference.

If you think about it, any journey is a set of small goals that lead to the end result, the finish line.

Take a marathon for example. It’s 26.2 miles. Yet, without training, running 26.2 miles would be difficult at best. Even with training, you still have to take the first step.

What if you were to celebrate each success? Celebrate that you got up the first day to run. Really relish that you completed it. Enjoy that you made it to 2 miles, 4, 8, 10 and 12. Really enjoy every little success.

We’re not talking about having a full blown party with cake, champagne and company. Rather a small moment of joy in your accomplishment. We got that praise when we were kids, didn’t we? When we took our first step, someone was there to cheer us on, to say “good job!” And, if they weren’t we cheered ourselves on, didn’t we?

Since your unconscious mind is like a five to seven year old child, doesn’t it make sense that you would give it encouragement? After all, your unconscious mind is responsible for so much of what you do, isn’t it?

And what about the end goal, the finish line. What do you do then? Isn’t that when celebrating makes all the difference? After all, if you don’t take a moment to celebrate the big wins, what’s the point? It would be like running the 26.2 miles and having no one there to celebrate you.

So, take a moment right now to celebrate the joys in your life. Be grateful for who you are and what you’ve accomplished.

Do You Have Potential?

Do you have potential?  It’s a loaded question, isn’t it?  Everyone has potential.  The real question is are you living up to your potential? Or is something holding you back?

In Neuro-Linguistic Programming, we say that people have all the resources they need to succeed.  There are no unresourceful people, only unresourceful states.  What this means is that we all have everything we need to live up to our potential and live the life we truly desire.  The challenge is that sometimes we aren’t able to tap into our potential because of our mental and emotional state.

Unfortunately, when we have unresolved “stuff” or unresolved emotions that we’ve held on to, these emotions contribute to our unresourceful state.  In fact, many times they create the unresourceful state.

Consider for a moment a time when you had a disproportionate response to some comment, look or action that you later regretted.  You may have even asked your self “where did that come from?”  Yet, knowing that you have other options didn’t stop that emotional outburst, did it?

From an NLP standpoint, the outburst was probably related to a negative anchor, a trigger tied to an intense emotion.  We all have them. Many people get emotional at the sight of their countries flag for example.  From an NLP standpoint, the solution would be to collapse the negative anchor.

In Time Line Therapy®, we know that we can resolve emotional issues and release blockages by releasing the negative emotions that we hold, by taking the emotional charge off of our past.  When the past is cleared and the blockages removed, the result is a resourceful state. And, when you’re in a resourceful state, you can live up to your potential.

To learn more about how you can release issues that are holding you back so that you can live your true potential, talk to a Master Practitioner about a Personal Breakthrough.  Call The New You Academy at (888) 505-1399 today.

Did You Ask?

Once upon a time, there was a young man who was having some issues and needed some help. Believing in the power of the mind, he decided to see a Practitioner of Neuro-Linguistic Programming.  The practitioner and the young man worked together for a while and then the practitioner sent him home saying, “You can expect to notice a difference in a couple of days.  If not, give me a call.”

The young man went home and, not noticing any difference, called the practitioner back.  After listening for a few moments, the practitioner asked the young man to ask his unconscious mind if it had started working on the problem.

The young man was silent for a while, then said “I’m not getting anything.”

“Think about it and call me back tomorrow,” the practitioner told him.

The next day, when the young man called, he told the practitioner.  “Nothing has changed.  I’m still got the problem and my unconscious hasn’t said a word!”

“Really?” the practitioner replied, “nothing at all?”

“Well, I did have a weird dream, but I can’t see how it’s related,” the young man said.

“Tell me about it,” the practitioner requested.

“Well, I’m sitting on my porch relaxing when this little boy comes up to me.  He’s about six years old and he seems familiar.  Anyway, he’s really excited and he says ‘I can solve your problem!  I can solve your problem!’  Then he just walked away.  That’s it.”

“What did you say?” the practitioner asked.

“Nothing!  I didn’t know what to say,” the young man told him.

“When you see the boy again tonight, I suggest that you ask him if he’s solved the problem.  Then call me in the morning.”

The next day, the young man again called the practitioner.  “I had the same dream again last night,” he said.

“And?” the practitioner asked, “did you ask him if he’d solved the problem?”

“Yes!” said the young man, “it was just like the first night.  I was sitting on the porch relaxing when the little boy came up and said ‘I can solve your problem! I can solve your problem!’ and turned to walk away.  Before he got too far, I asked him if he’d solved the problem or even started working on it.   ‘No,’ he replied.  ‘No one’s asked me.’”

Like the young man in the story, all too often, we want our unconscious mind to do something for us and yet we never ask or we never ask directly.  For example, if you say to your unconscious mind “Can you tell me where you were born?” it will likely answer “Yes.”  If someone asked you that question, you might deduce that they really want to know the location, not whether you are capable of telling them the location.

The same is true of solving problems.  If you ask your unconscious mind if it can solve a problem, it is likely to say “Yes” and not take action.  Not because it’s not capable, but because you didn’t ask it to take action.  One of the techniques we use in Neuro-Linguistic Programming when we talk directly to the unconscious mind is to ask a series of four questions:

• Do you know how to solve the problem?  This question is designed to determine whether or not the unconscious mind has the information required to solve the problem.
• Can you solve the problem? Here we are trying to determine whether or not the unconscious is capable of solving the problem.  This indicates whether or not the unconscious has all the tools necessary to solve the problem.
• Will you solve the problem?  In this question, we are asking if there is something that would prevent the unconscious from solving the problem.  If the answer here is “no”, it indicates that there’s some benefit, from an unconscious point of view, for having the problem.
• Will you start solving the problem now? Without asking the unconscious to start solving the problem, it’s likely that it won’t.  At this point, your unconscious will have told you that it knows how to solve the problem, that it’s capable of solving the problem and that, if asked, it will solve the problem.  So, this question is designed to get agreement from your unconscious mind that it will start solving the problem now.

To make sure that the unconscious mind has gotten the message, a practitioner will generally tell your unconscious mind to start solving the problem, ensuring that the message has been received.

For most people, this series of questions results in near immediate relief.  For example, if you’ve got pain and you know why you’ve got pain, there’s generally no need to hold on to the pain.  Why not ask your unconscious mind to get rid of the pain?

If you’d like to learn more about how you can talk directly to you unconscious mind to resolve an issue you or someone you know might be facing, please contact The New You Academy at (888) 505-1399 to talk to a Master Practitioner today.

Are you deluded?

Looking back over your life, have there been times when you something you thought was not for you turned out to be a missed opportunity?  Were there times when you made the wrong choice?

You are where you are today as a result of the choices you’ve had and the decisions you’ve made along the way.  Those decisions you made cloud what you see and what you don’t see.  They determine whether or not you see opportunities.

It’s because of those decisions, you may not be able to see an opportunity when it’s right in front of you.  It’s also the reason that you might be deluded into thinking that an opportunity is not an opportunity at all.  In hypnosis, we might call that a negative hallucination, meaning that you can’t see what’s right in front of you.

This trait is neither good nor bad.  It’s just a characteristic that you have based on your beliefs.  The question is, does this behavior serve you?  Is it helping you to achieve what you want in life?

Through Time Line Therapy®, you can re-evaluate the decisions you’ve made.  This will allow you to change your beliefs and become aware of new opportunities and opportunities that you missed along the way. It will also give you the ability to see what you’ve missed.

Of course, you can do it on your own … simply make a decision to always take advantage of those opportunities when they come, which may or may not be the best thing to do.  A more appropriate choice might be to trust your intuition and allow it to guide you.

Do you trust your intuition enough to let it guide you?

For more information on Time Line Therapy® and Hypnosis, contact The New You Academy at (888) 505-1399 to talk to a Master Practitioner.

Are you a closet smoker?

“I’m nervous,” Molly said as she sat down and smoothed out her skirt.  “No one knows I’m here.  No one knows I do this.”

Molly, like so many people today, is a closet smoker.  She had quit, stopped cold turkey.  Then, one day, the stress of her job got to her and she picked up a cigarette.

“Originally, I started smoking when I was 17. My sister got me started.  It wasn’t pleasant.  In fact, I started coughing after the first puff, and again after the second.  But I wanted to hang out with my sister and her friends because it was cool.  I went from one cigarette to more than a pack a day in short order.

When I got married and found out I was pregnant, I decided to quit because I didn’t want to harm my kids.  It wasn’t easy and I really wanted a cigarette, but I stuck with it.

Then, my kids grew up and I went back to work.  Everything was fine for a while.  I was even OK being around my coworkers at work that smoke. Then hard times hit, and a bunch of people were laid off and I found myself doing more and more work and one day, I just had to have a cigarette to help me relax. It was like an old friend.  It just felt so good, so right … at least for a few moments.  Then one cigarette turned in to two, then a dozen.”

Does Molly’s story sound familiar?  She hid her habit from her family and friends.  After all, they all believed she’d quit.

“I couldn’t tell anyone.  I couldn’t let me kids down or my husband.  And my friends who’d supported me when I quit the first time … what would they say if they knew?”

Of course, Molly’s tale is no different than that of other closet smokers except in the details.  Molly, like so many others, hid her habit out of shame, fear and guilt.  She didn’t feel that she could reach out to her family to get help without suffering their disappointment, shame or rage.

There are a number of different methods Molly might use to quit including Nicorette and Chantix, most of which have their side effects or might reveal her secret.  There are also a few techniques that Molly can use on her own to kick the habit.

• Exercise: a good workout program will help battle stress, reduce depression and improve mood.  It will also elevate metabolism helping to keep weight off.
• Diet: Cigarettes contain up to 25% sugar as part of the tobacco preparation process.  Fruits and vegetables will replace the sugar in of the cigarettes without causing your body to want more sugar.

Of course, if Molly doesn’t feel up to the task, which is quite likely given that she’s keeping it a secret, there are other options.  For example, there are support groups for smokers and closet smokers designed to help her slowly and carefully quit.

One of the other, more effective options that Molly might choose is Hypnosis.  Using progressive states of relaxation, a hypnotherapist can talk directly to Molly’s unconscious mind and appeal to its highest prime directive to preserve the body.  It’s a matter of letting the unconscious know of the dangers of smoking, what nicotine is and how it harms the body.  In just a few hours, Molly can be a non-smoker free of cravings, withdrawals, weight gain and side effects.

The challenge is that sometimes, triggers such as stress can cause the unconscious to revert back to what it believes will solve the problem; in this case, cigarettes.  Fortunately, using Time Line Therapy®, Molly can eliminate the triggers that caused her to start smoking again.

Time Line Therapy® allows Molly eliminate the stress that originally caused her to start smoking again.  In addition, Molly can let go of any other issues that might cause her to start smoking again ensuring that she never is tempted to smoke again.

The benefit of using Hypnosis and Time Line Therapy® is that in just a few hours, Molly can switch from being a closet smoker to a non-smoker without issues.  So, for those closet smokers out there, there’s hope.  Whether you want to keep your secret or not, you can become a non-smoker with or without the support of those you are keeping the secret from.

To learn more about how Hypnosis and Time Line Therapy® can help you quit smoking, please contact The New You Academy at (888) 505-1399 for more information.

It’s all in your mind!

Do you trust your gut?  Do you follow your instincts? Or, do you rely on facts and what you know to be true?

It’s an interesting question, isn’t it?  After all, how often has something happened and you’ve said “I knew it!” or “I had a feeling …”

If you’re one of those folks who needs facts, it’s interesting to note that the “gut feelings” and “intuition” actually have some basis in scientific reality.

Let’s start with the accepted fact that your mind is the most magnificent computer ever conceived.  It performs thousands of operations per second and many of them simultaneously.  Consider for a moment that you’re reading this while still breathing. Your heart is pumping, your eyes are working, you’re thinking thoughts.  You may be listening to music or performing some other action.

Much of what you do is unconscious.  In fact, your unconscious represents about 80 – 90% of your mind.  It’s the part of you that’s responsible for beating your heart and every other bodily function.

According to Hungarian Biologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi in the Book “Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience”, we receive about 2 million bits of information each second.  If we were to try to process all of that information consciously, we would go insane.  Instead, our conscious mind deletes, distorts and generalizes that information down to a reasonable 134 bits per second.  Fortunately, our unconscious mind stores all of it.

So consider for a moment a situation where you are faced with a group of “facts” and your conscious mind is telling you to move in one direction and your gut is telling you to move in another direction.  Given that your unconscious and conscious minds are working on the same problem, one with more data than the other, doesn’t it make sense that your gut would be right?

It’s the same reason why, when faced with a difficult problem, it’s often better to “sleep on it” and allow your unconscious mind to sift through all of the data and present you with a solution.  It may feel like the answer just “came to you” or now that you are seeing everything in a new, fresh light, everything makes sense.  The truth is that your unconscious has laid everything out for you.

Of course, if you’re not in the habit of trusting your gut, it might take a little bit of work for you unconscious mind to want to provide you with “gut feelings”.  You might have to make a conscious effort to check with your gut.   Start small and develop your intuition muscles by asking little questions like “Is the chicken or fish better tonight?” the next time you’re at a restaurant.  Once you’ve gotten used to trusting your unconscious mind, you can then expand your focus.

By the way, if you don’t get a gut feeling or an intuition about something, it could be because there’s not enough information to make a determination.  It could also be because you are not asking the right question.  The important thing is to trust your unconscious mind.

If you haven’t already, you’ll find your unconscious mind an incredible ally in helping you achieve your goals and staying happy and healthy.  If you need more information on how you can work with your unconscious mind, feel free to contact The New You Academy at (888) 505-1399.  We are here to help.

I Wanna Win!

Have you ever heard the phrase “Winning isn’t everything … it’s the only thing!”  It’s a loose quote from UCLA Bruins football coach Henry Russell (“Red”) Sanders.  Is it true for you?

When it comes to success, being number one might be the only thing for you or it might not.  The real question is how important is it for you?

Avis, the rental car agency, made a whole campaign out of being #2 … you remember, “We’re #2.  We try harder!” Is being #2 OK with you?  If you’re an athlete, being the best is probably very important to you.  It means more endorsements and recognition.

If you’re capable of being the best and you’re not operating at your best, the question is why not?  What’s holding you back?

The answer is very personal and it might surprise you.  You are likely holding back because of something you’re holding on to from your past and it’s something you caused.

Right about now, you’re probably thinking “Whoa!  Wait a minute!  Something I caused?”  As hard as that may be to accept, it’s true.  You see if you accept responsibility for the creation of the block that’s holding you back, then you can “un-create” it, or more appropriately, recreate the situation in a manner that supports you.

While it might be useful to go back and examine every traumatic or impactful experience in your life, it’s not necessary.  The content is not important.  It’s the emotional “charge” that you’re holding on to and the decisions you made based on that experience that are important.

Using a blend of Neuro-Linguistic Programming and Time Line Therapy®, you can easily remove any blocks that you’re holding on to, reframe those issues into positive, uplifting experiences and create the future you desire.  And, you can do it without reliving every experience, or even knowing, consciously what experiences you need to work on.

If you’re not a master practitioner, or you don’t have the time to talk to one, ask yourself “What one thing can I do right now that will help me increase my success?”  Whatever answer comes up, trust it and work with it.

On the other hand, if you’re ready to spend a few hours talking to master practitioner to achieve the success you desire, call The New You Academy at (888) 505-1399 today to schedule a free consultation.

How do you know?

Do you bite your nails?  Smoke? Swear?  Maybe you have some other bad habit you’d like to get rid of.

How do you you know when it’s time to do whatever it is that you do?  For example, how do you know when it’s time to bite your nails?

You might say, “I don’t know, I always bite them!”  While you know that’s not true, it’s a lot easier than stopping to figure it out.  And, yet, in figuring it out, you’ve almost solved the problem.

You see, defining the problem is half the battle.  Once you’ve described the problem in detail, once you know exactly what’s going on, you can easily take the next steps to solve it.

Take nail biting for example.  Once you realize that it’s the feel of your nails, the way they rub against your skin, that causes you to want to bite them, then you can stop the behavior.  Many people are able to stop a behavior using will power.  Others are not.  For those folks, Neuro-Linguistic Programming provides the “Swish” pattern to change the behavior.

The “Swish” pattern replaces one behavior with another.  You do this by working directly with the unconscious mind to change the behavior and the response to the trigger, or the thing that sets off the habit.  The trigger is the answer to the question, “how do you know”.

So, if the trigger for you is the feel of your nails on the skin of your fingers, which causes you to raise your fingers to your mouth, you might want to substitute it for raising your fingers to run them through your hair.  Using NLP, you would literally switch the two actions at a unconscious level making the action of running your fingers through hair a natural action.

To learn more about how NLP can help you get over a habit, contact The New You Academy at (888) 505-1399 for more information.