You feel like just getting through the day takes a tremendous amount of effort.  Yet, there’s nothing really “wrong”.

Actually, you’re living a pretty blessed life… come to think of it a really blessed life considering the situation that most people in the world are in.

The funk is tricky though.  It thrives in the shadows of awareness, surviving by keeping out of the light of consciousness.

Everybody experiences the funk, some unfortunately a lot more than others, yet surpisingly few people have educated themselves on how to overcome the funk when it arrives.

No matter what your situation, no matter how old you are, how off-course and screwed up you’ve been, you’re never too far gone to de-funkify yourself though!

You Need Awareness to Overcome the Funk

All change starts with awareness.

If you can’t feel it, you can’t change it.  So, to overcome the funk you’ve got to increase your awareness.  But that’s a pretty general thing to say, “increase your awareness”, so I’ll get more specific:

The only way the funk can persist is through unconsciousness, and to stay unconscious you’ve got to disconnect from three specific things:

1.  Your Breath

2.  Your Movements

3.  Your Energy Flow

When you de-synchronize these things, you become less conscious.  When you’re less conscious, you’ve de-synchronized these things.  It’s a two-way street.

Whenever you injure yourself, feel numbed out, depressed, ovewhelmed, anxious or agitated, you’re always out of your “zone” a little bit (or a lot).

When you’re out of your zone, you’re out-of-synch with your true rhythm, and your true rhythm always involves a seamless integration of breath, movement, energy and focused attention.

Integrating breath, momement and energy is easily accomplished through NSA entrainments and SRI exercises, however there’s more to it than that if you want to be able to recognize the patterns that lead to the funk — and master the principles that get you out of the funk all by yourself.

You’ve also got to begin to recognize your life’s rhythms and cycles, your linguistic patterns, behavior patterns and the ways that you structure and perceive things in your life.

The relationship between your behavior, structure and perceptions can be explored and mastered through the Triad of Change.  Your linguistic patterns and life’s rhythms and cycles can be understood and worked with through another model called the Seasons of Well Being.

The Seasons of Well Being:  Learn How You Create and Overcome the Funk

The Seasons of Well Being refer to distinct periods or rhythms in life that influence the way you perceive and act in the world. These periods, which appear to be universal in human experience, have predictable perceptions, actions, and developmental levels associated with them.

When you can recognize which Season of Well Being you are in and choose the behaviors that are the most appropriate for that Season, you gain the ability to get out of the funk instantaneously.

The Seasons of Well Being will be explained and the most common linguistic and behavior patterns associated with each Season will be discussed at the upcoming 4 Sacred Seasons class at the Well Being Center on Tuesday, February 28th from 6:30-8:00pm.  

Learn:

• How your linguistic patterns reflect your consciousness state and contribute to, or detract from, your physical, emotional and mental health and well being.

• How to recognize and change previously un-resourceful physical, mental and emotional patterns that increase pain, limit creativity and undermine performance.

• How to know what “Season” you are in right now, and what it will take to get from where you are to where you want to “Be”.

There is limited space for this class.  Call 831.475.2248 if you’d like to attend.

Warmly,

Dr. John

How you choose to approach your symptoms really depends on which “season” you’re in.

What do I mean by “season”?

Just as nature’s seasons dictate the best time to plant seeds or harvest crops, there are Seasons of Well Being which influence our life and healthcare choices.

These “seasons” are a multidimensional spectrum of well being (based on a model developed by Dr. Donald Epstein D.C.) which dictate predictable patterns of perception and behavior in human beings.

Understanding these seasons is especially useful when it comes to dealing with symptoms of low back pain or other bodily symptoms.  When you understand the consciousness and tendencies associated with each season, you can better approach your symptoms, stressors, health and life challenges.

The “seasons” can be described in the following way:

• Discover - A time to connect within and develop greater awareness.
• Transform – A time heighten your sense of self and break through previously limiting patterns.
• Awaken – A time to tap into the parts of your being which exist beyond your thinking mind and gain more depth, wisdom and richness in life.
• Integrate – A time to combine elements of each of the seasons to enhance your resourcefulness and progress.

This post explores the Season of Discover and explains how to reap it’s benefits…

What are Your Symptoms of Low Back Pain Asking You to Discover?

In the Season of Discover the primary focus is on restoring health and reducing or alleviating pain.

In this season, uncomfortable events, circumstances, symptoms and stressors feel like problems or disruptions that need to be “fixed”.  So, healthcare choices in this season are centered around avoidance of pain and discomfort.

The Season of Discover is characterized by suffering, disconnection, frustration and a desire to move away from symptoms.

It is also generally accompanied by a feeling of helplessness, loss or despair that the symptom or condition has not yet gone away.

Whether the symptoms or conditions are related to an injury or appeared over time (such as acute or chronic symptoms of low back pain), in the Season of Discover it feels like they are disturbing or disruptive to life.

Therefore, the goal is to get rid of them and return as quickly as possible to previous routines and actions.

It is common to seek curative treatments or therapies when in the Season of Discover.  However, the effects of those treatments are often short-lived (or they contribute to further disassociation and disconnection from the body and it’s sensations).

Why is this the case, and what can you do about it?

How to Take Advantage of the Paradox of the Season of Discover

With our non-stop lifestyles it is easy to numb out, override or ignore our symptoms.  That’s because it is conditioned human-nature to try to keep our behavior patterns the same, rather than stop, tune into our bodies and discover what they really need.

As a culture we tend to ignore or dismiss the subtle feedback coming from within us and wait until our symptoms have become very intense or uncomfortable before paying attention.

Then when our symptoms become disruptive, we try to get rid of them — still without discovering what they are really trying to communicate.

What are symptoms (such as symptoms of low back pain) really trying to communicate though?

Every situation is different, but ultimately all symptoms serve 3 functions:

1. They interrupt our existing behavior patterns.

2. They encourage us to stop and pay attention.

3. They inspire new meaning, actions, consciousness states and understanding.

In the Season of Discover we have an opportunity to learn to stop and pay attention to our symptoms in a new way.  We can then discover new meanings, actions and understandings that break our cycle of pain and suffering.

Symptoms of low back pain in men are often associated with dissatisfaction at work and financial stress, while symptoms of low back pain in women are often associated with relationship stress, for example.

This isn’t to say that mechanical tension, disc inflammation, nerve pressure and other physical patterns aren’t a big part of the picture though — because they certainly are!

The paradox though, is that in order for our physical symptoms to go away for the long-term, we have to stop trying to make them go away by anesthetizing them with drugs and palliative treatments.

Instead we must learn how to become aware of, acknowledge and accept the parts of our bodies that we were previously trying to alienate through treatment.

We must learn how to “be more present” with our bodies physically, mentally and emotionally.  We must begin to recognize how contributing factors (such as financial and relationship stress) trigger pain and tension in our physical bodies.

We must learn new strategies to connect within and release tension before it results in pain.

This does not mean that medical intervention or treatment will not be necessary, nor does it mean that by accepting our bodies as they currently are we will become stuck there.

It simply means that only through increased presence and attention, full recognition of our current body/mind condition and total acceptance of where we really are in this moment, can true progress occur.

So how do you take advantage of the paradox of the Season of Discover and put an end to your symptoms?  You do it through a 3-Stage process of discovery:

The 3 Stages of the Season of Discover

1. Connect with a part of your self that is disconnected either somatically, emotionally, psychologically or spiritually.

2. Notice the rhythm within the disconnection by fully being with any “charge” or polarity associated with the situation.

3. Immerse completely in any feeling of stuckness or frustration.

If connecting with a part of your self, noticing a “rhythm” and immersing yourself in stuckness or frustration just sounds like new-age mumbo-jumbo, you’re not alone.  But each of these stages can be experienced through specific processes, exercises and bodywork approaches.

Plus, each of the stages described above are universal when it comes to resolving pain and symptoms.

If you own a successful business for example, and your business suddenly begins experiencing pain/symptoms (let’s say loss of revenue), do you just ignore the problem and hope that it gets better on it’s own?  Do you try to alleviate the symptoms by borrowing money without a plan to address the underlying cause of the crisis (Hmm, there are some countries I know of who’ve been doing this)?

Of course not.  You connect with your market, the people in your organization, your vendors and suppliers.  You seek out new feedback about what’s happening.

You notice the rhythm, the trends, the polarities/challenges going on in your business and the marketplace.

You immerse completely in the frustration and stuckness.  You look for the blocks to growth so that you can address them.

In this way, you DISCOVER what’s really going on under the surface.  Then you can take appropriate and informed action going forward.  Once you’re aware of, you’ve acknowledged and accepted the situation you’re in, you can decide on your next steps.

Your body isn’t much different.

Your symptoms exist for a reason.  In the Season of Discover, it is time to actually DISCOVER what that reason is.

Are you experiencing symptoms of low back pain (or other bodily symptoms) and want to discover how to finally make a breakthrough?  If so, I suggest that you give the Reorganizational Healing approach a try.

Learn how to schedule an appointment here.

A joint study was created between the university and the Gesellschaft fur Rationaell Psychologie (GRP) to explore the phenomenon.

About four thousand students ranging in age from late teens to early twenties were studied in a research project which spanned an over twenty-year period.  What the researchers found is rather alarming.

Apparently our ability to process subtle stimuli is “decreasing at a rate of about 1 percent per year”.

On top of that “delicate sensations” are increasingly being “filtered out” of our consciousness.  Now, in order for our brains to register sensory information, “especially strong stimuli” are needed (the German translation for this literally reads “brutal thrill” stimuli).

Subtle and delicate sensations aren’t being perceived.  Instead only the “brutal thrills ” are eliciting significant response.

To account for this, German researchers noted an elevation in the gating level of a part of the brain called the RAS or reticular activating system (The RAS is the region where sensory input from the body is collected and synthesized, then sent to the higher brain for processing).

The researcher’s conclusion was that the high-intensity stimuli that the young people in the study had been subjected to since birth (keep in mind this was in the 1960′s-80′s, decades before iPad and XBox) along with a corresponding lack of appropriate nurturing and natural development, is resulting in a new type of sensory processing.

They call this new processing style the “new brain”.

The New Brain

In the new brain, sensory information below a certain level of intensity is not being registered at all because it is insufficient to cross the high RAS threshold into conscious awareness.

According to psychologist Henner Ertel:

The brain had set a new sensation threshold, so to speak, and refused to recognize sensations below this new limit, sensations that would have been unconditionally accepted before.

This new sensation threshold was not considered remarkable at first, until the 1980’s when Ertel reported a reduction in additional senses:

Suddenly all of the senses were impaired. The brain refused to take any action on a significant proportion of the stimuli.  It was getting more and more difficult to stimulate the corresponding centers in the cerebral cortex.

One example of this new sensation threshold relates to the sense of sight.

The researchers found that optical information being processed by the “new brain” is not being evaluated in the same way it had been in the past.  Twenty years ago the average subject could detect 350 different shades of a particular color, for example.  Today that number is only 130.

In another study adults were shown what are known as the “Flesher videos”, in which people were dismembered or mutilated.  They routinely experienced disgust and revulsion, and many got up and walked out of the viewing. Younger people shown the same videos however, watched without emotion and were only concerned whether or not the plot was exciting.

The GRP studies also found that the ability to distinguish sounds is declining.

For example, sixteen years ago the average German could distinguish 300,000 sounds, while today that number is only 180,000, and for many children the level is only 100,000.

The Loss of Subtlety

In the new brain, a steady input of high-level stimuli is needed to keep one from sinking into a state of sensory isolation and anxiety.  There is a tendency to avoid natural settings such as parks and other outdoor venues because they don’t offer intense enough sensory input to keep awareness functioning.

The new brain must create environments with high level stimuli to feel engaged.

In his book The Biology of Transcendence, author Joseph Chilton Pearce shares an excerpt from Dr. Harald Rau, a professor at the Institute of Medical Psychology at the University of Tubingen.  Dr. Rau says,

It is apparent that the cross-linkages [networks for sensory synthesis and associative thinking] have been reduced, and that the capacity [to screen out stimuli] has been enormously increased…Previously, an optical stimulus would be directed through various brain centers and would also activate the olfactory center, for example.  Today it appears that entire brain areas are being skipped over.  The optical stimulus goes directly and exclusively to the visual center…the stimuli are then processed faster, but the stimuli are inadequately networked [not integrated by other stimulus centers] and not enhanced by emotional input.

What does all this mean?

The German researchers claimed that people born after 1969 showed brain functioning that could tolerate extremes of dissonance and discord.  In other words, disruptive and inappropriate stimuli were processed without the individual noticing the discrepancies.

What once created a split or division of consciousness, no longer had the same effect.

We are increasingly losing the ability to distinguish subtle nuance and depth, increasing our ability to take in previously distressing stimuli without batting an eye, and losing our ability to feel.

Think about how many less musical tones an average pop-music song has, versus a piece of classical music.  Or consider the rather alarming fact that in 1950, American high school students had a working vocabulary averaging 25,000 words while today that level has dropped to about 10,000.

We are registering less sights and sounds and using less words to describe our world.  In essence we are losing our senses.  But is there a way to get them back?

Can You Reverse the Downward Spiral In Awareness?

In Minding the Body, researcher Donald Bakal explores a phenomenon known as somatic awareness, “an emergent property of the nervous system” that contributes to the “full integration of sensory information into consciousness.”

Unlike the Eastern meditation concept of mindfulness, which refers to a transcendence of our usual state of consciousness, with somatic awareness the attention is directed to one’s “bodily experience”.

The body is the vessel through which all sensations are being processed (sight, hearing, taste, touch, smell all involve physical sensory receptors).  So, it would make sense that one of the critical keys to increasing awareness and appreciating subtlety lies in the quality of one’s relationship to their physical body and its sensations.

This “quality” of relationship to one’s own body is the essence of somatic awareness, which Bakal describes as,

A dimension of bodily health that depends on both psychosocial factors outside the skin and psychobiological factors within the skin… a complex balancing act involving many factors controlled by the mind and body.  Somatic awareness is an emergent property of mind-body function that is central to the individual’s effort to balance these factors in an effort to maintain health and well-being.

Somatic awareness offers a way to reverse the downward spiral in awareness.  I’ll explain…

The New Indifference

The researchers at GRP feel that over the past twenty-five years the brain of the average individual has undergone significant changes in its organization. Human beings can now take in very powerful stimuli that are discordant, senseless, or contradictory without being bothered.

Trend researcher Gert Gerken has labeled the ability to ignore this type of stimuli “the new indifference.”

To remain indifferent, one must stay disconnected from the sensations that their body is experiencing (the RAS gating level must remain high so the higher brain doesn’t register the sensations).

To reduce indifference, then, one must increase awareness of the sensations that their body is experiencing (lower the RAS gating level) and find a way to to register those previously ignored sensations in their higher brain.

In my experience working with thousands of people with varying degrees of this “new indifference” over the past sixteen years, I can say emphatically, “Yes, it is possible to reverse this downward spiral of awareness.” and furthermore, “It is possible to dramatically increase awareness, enhance connection and expand the ability to distinguish and appreciate subtle nuance and depth in our lives.”

How Can We Teach Our New Brains Old Tricks that Help Us Thrive in Our Modern World?

The research claims that our brains are now processing more intense levels of information but less of it reaches our consciousness.

If you were born before 1949, you have what the researchers call “old-brain” reactions.  You are calibrated to notice disruptive or inappropriate stimuli in what would otherwise be a harmonious perceptual process and react to it.

This explains why so many people over the age of sixty are often triggered into a fight-or-flight reaction by the same stimuli that a twenty year old doesn’t even notice!

So now the problem is two-fold:  The old brain’s preference for harmony and it’s higher sensitivity triggers a nearly constant fight-or-flight state.  The new brain’s lack of subtle awareness and need for intense and disruptive stimuli create a flat affect, loss of enjoyment of “the simple things” and diminishing aesthetic levels.

How then, does one enhance awareness and decrease indifference without being constantly overwhelmed by our modern world?

The following are two of the modalities that we offer at the Well Being Center specifically designed for creating changes in somatic awareness and sensory-motor strategies internally, in your brain and nervous system:

1. Spinal Entrainment/Network Spinal Analysis

2. Somato Respiratory Integration

The following tips and ideas are from Thomas Poplawski, a Waldorf educator.  In conclusion, they include simple yet impactful things that you can do for your children and yourself to create awareness-enhancing changes externally, in your surrounding environment:

1. Unplug. Keep your child’s life free of television, videos, computer games, and movies until at least the age of ten, and then be very careful about what and how much they experience. For most families this is an exceedingly radial recommendation, because we are addicted to the media. The oft-heard justification that there are many educational programs on television and that computers can foster learning is something like the alcoholic citing the nutritional aspects of beer. Content is only a small part of the problem with electronic media. For young adults, exploration of the possibilities of media and computers my be desirable, but in the formative years when the brain is developing it is anathema. Recent research clearly shows that a child exposed to such media fails to develop neurologically in a normal and healthy way. There are many good books on this issue, for example, Jerry Mander’s Four Arguments for the Elimination of Television and Jane Healy’s Endangered Minds: Why Our Children Can’t Think and What We Can Do About It.

2. Slow down your lifestyle and give family life the time it needs and deserves. The concept of “quality time” has been largely discredited. It is now increasingly clear that in family life “quantity time” is crucial. We need to spend more time with our children in a regular, consistent, unhurried way. We need to sit down to dinner as a family every day (and to linger at the table), spend time in the evenings relaxing and doing things together, go out on weekend family outings, and so on. Jon Kabat-Zinn’s book Mindful Parenting includes helpful ideas in this direction.

3. Give your child many and regular experiences of nature.  Find a place for nature in your family life. This means frequent and regular activities in the outdoors for you and your child. Take your infant out in the baby carriage for walks; play outdoors with your toddler, rain or shine; and go hiking, canoeing, and camping with your older child. Bring nature into the home with a seasonal festival table like the one found in the Waldorf classroom, on which are placed things from nature that reflect the special quality of the season. Use bouquets of flowers, twigs, and grasses to decorate your home. Grow an indoor and/or an outdoor garden. Get a pet.

4. Bring in the arts into your home, and do so without the aid of electronics. Every Waldorf first-grader learns to play the recorder, but parents – even those without musical experience – can also learn to play this lovely instrument. The informal family concerts that can then take place will provide memories cherished for life. Sing every day, ideally without radio or taped accompaniment. Paint, draw, and do beeswax or clay modeling with your child. Take art, dance, or even eurythmy classes yourself. Hang artwork on your walls; take the family to classical and other acoustic concerts, dance performances, and museums.

Recently somebody asked me how the care we provide at the Well Being Center deals with “physical” injuries.  They wanted a more detailed explanation about how our very low force approach can create such profound physical (as well as mental and emotional) changes.  This post is an edited version of my communication to them:

Based partly on research by neurosurgeon Alf Breig (refer to his 1978 book Adverse Mechanical Tension in the Central Nervous System) the developer of NSA/SRI, Donny Epstein, noted that tractioning of the spinal cord tissues – including the meningeal sheath/dural attachments at the occiput through the lower cervical spine and sacrum/coccyx- can contribute to multiple cord tension or “phasic” distortions (changes in tensegrity, oscillation and range of motion) in the spinal cord, nerve roots and associated structures.

These physical tension patterns appear to be related to adaptive physiological, biochemical, and emotional defense strategies which can occur during stress or injury.

As the spinal cord is tractioned during reactive fight/flight behavior or injury, the sensory, motor and trophic (growth) functions of nerves can be significantly altered and cell membranes (and neuropeptide receptors on them) can theoretically be distorted.

Read Molecules of Emotion by Candace Pert and Biology of Belief by Bruce Lipton for more on the psychoimmunoendocrine network and it’s relationship to body structures/tissue tension and the expression of emotion and consciousness.

When the spinal cord is tractioned during the fight/flight reaction, it is estimated that around 1,200 physical/physiological changes occur, including a reduction of blood to certain cortical (higher brain) regions, and an increase in blood to the limbic system (area of brain associated with emotional reaction) and large muscle groups involved in protection/survival behavior.

Connective/soft tissues and muscle tissues can lose flexibility and elasticity, and areas of the spine can become more restricted.  Also, an increase or loss of muscle tone, decreased range of motion and ligamentous tension may occur.  This type of tension is called “passive” tension (based on Panjabi’s model of “Subsytems”).  Passive tension occurs when energy in unable to be fully dissipated through ligaments, discs, and connective tissue structures.

What is interesting about disc inflammation and disc conditions (we’ve seen hundreds of situations involving disc inflammation and irritation over the past 17 years) is that in the scientific literature there appears to be no linear correlation between disc height, inflammation levels or vertebral condition and physical symptoms.

Some people have significant spinal changes such as degeneration, with no symptoms, while others have significant symptoms with no visible degeneration.

One study in The Lumbar Spine (The Lumbar Spine, James Weinstein and Sam Wiesel, eds., WB Saunders Co,Philadelphia, 1990) found that in 85% of back pain cases the pain can’t be directly attributed to a physical condition (like a bulging or inflamed disc).

So what is going on?

Neurosurgeon Alf Breig found that excessive spinal cord traction in the cervical spine can significantly increase cord tension in the lumbar spine.  It appears that global spinal cord tension can be created when any of the attachment areas of the meningeal sheath are under stress/tension.  (Imagine holding one end of a rubber band in each hand and then pulling your hands apart.  The tension created is distributed throughout the entire band).

Stress in the form of physical, mental, emotional and chemical irritants can contribute to fight/flight physiology and spinal cord traction/tension.  When cord tension increases, the spine is less flexible, certain areas may become more easily injured, disc herniation and inflammation might be more likely to occur.

All body tissues when under tension change “tone”.  Basically, the vibrational or oscillatory state of cells as it turns out, appears to be related to an acoustic wave phenomenon.  A type of nervous system communication is thought to occur through the tissues as pulsations and undulations known as soliton waves.

Soliton waves are a non-linear form of communication (sound waves) that appear to propagate through nerve tissues.  They appear to be one of the many ways that the holographic/liquid-crystalline (check out the research of Dr. Mae Won Ho) matrix of the body shares information.

Network Spinal Analysis practitioners work with the physical structures of the body, however we do it using very low force applications at specific areas called Spinal Gateways (areas highly receptive to touch).

You can apply more force or less force when you’re working with the body, but using more force doesn’t mean you are being more “physical” than someone using a lighter force application.

You can choose to ignore the subtle-energy, emotional, psychological elements involved in a person’s symptom pattern or condition and just focus on the physical, but that doesn’t mean those other elements aren’t contributing factors.

If you’re in pain, just changing your mindset and hoping the pain will magically go away isn’t likely going to work long term.  It takes an integrated approach – we call this the “Seasons of Well Being“, which is a change in interior consciousness and outward behavior – to affect real reorganizational and integrally informed change .

There is a time to discover the energy, rhythm, beliefs and emotions related to your physical condition.  There is a time to take action and change your behavior.  There is also a time to just be in gratitude and receive the gifts of the symptom or condition.

It is not about right or wrong – you have to look at the consciousness, timing, behaviors, structures and perceptions all at once if you want a true holistic picture.

As soon as you just look at a part of the body without considering all the interior and exterior aspects, you’re actually using a “restorative” approach – allopathic in nature – and calling it holistic.  Holistic takes into consideration all aspects of being, not just the physical symptom or condition.

Somato Respiratory Integration is an approach that we teach that is focused on integrating the somatic-physical-subjective experience (Read Donald Bakal’s book Minding the Body for an in-depth understanding of somatic awareness).

If you have a suspected disc protrusion and inflammation at L5/S1 for example (even if it becomes verified on MRI), the protrusion is not necessarily the “cause” of your pain.

Inflammation is part of a immuno-neurological-emotional system response, which is a reactive cascade of protective and stabilizing mechanisms.  However, inflammation also appears to be related to emotion, and an inability to adequately move energy through the tissues.  Tissue range of motion and emotional expression appear to be intrinsically linked (more on this in a future post).

You can take herbs, use ice or ant-inflammatories to reduce inflammation (all can be very helpful at times), however your internal emotional experience – one that you might have deemed a non-physical experience – is actually a physically-based phenomenon which has an impact on inflammation in your body.

When we view the human body as a dynamic “far-from-equilibrium” system that is continually regenerating itself, instead of as a purely physical structure that mostly stays the same, and we more deeply investigate the connections between the mind and body, we begin to see new possibilities for creating change on the physical, emotional, mental and even spiritual levels.

I will follow-up this post up with additional posts that delve deeper into some of the topics I’ve touched on here.  Feel free to ask questions or leave comments.

Christina and I just returned from a week with Tony Robbins.  We were at an intimate relationship program that he and his wife held in Cabo San Lucas, and I was providing Network Care for him during the program.  It was a transformational event and I want to share one of the many powerful distinctions that I brought home with me.

It’s a model Tony calls “State, Story, Strategy”, and here’s my version of it:

1. State

Your “state” refers to your physiology. Your entire biochemical/electrical/energetic system both affects and is affected by your state in any given moment. A lousy state is associated with low energy, fatigue, irritation, anger, frustration etc. A resourceful state is associated with a sense of triumph, peace, freedom, joy etc.

2. Story

American writer Muriel Ruckesyser said -

“The Universe is made up of stories, not of atoms.”

Your “story” refers to the meaning that you give to something.  Although most events and circumstances are outside of your control, there is one thing that you always have control over – what something means to you.

3. Strategy

Your “strategy” is your approach to doing something.  Strategy is vitally important because even if you do all of the “right” things, a mediocre strategy is still going to get you poor results.

State, story and strategy go together.

When your story is that you are the perpetual victim, your state changes.  Your tailbone tucks, your shoulders round, your energy drops.  Your strategy becomes that of a victim:  Avoid, blame, wish, hope etc.

But what if your story is that you have been “chosen”?

Steve Jobs had this story. He was adopted, and one day as a child he was crying because a kid had told him that his real parents had rejected him.  His adopted parents said to him, “Steve, you weren’t rejected you were chosen.”  It became a story that shaped his life.

What if your story is that life is a “battlefield”?  What state would you have to be in most of the time?  What strategy would you primarily use in life?

If your story is that being “loving” means acting nice, quiet, non-confrontational, sweet and gentle and your partner’s story is that being “loving” means being in-your-face, passionate and fiery, what do you think might happen?

How to Use State, Story and Strategy to Transcend Your Conditioning and Dramatically Improve Your Life

We interpret other people’s states based on our stories about what those states mean, then we come up with strategies for how to interact with them.

For most people, the whole process is happening unconsciously.  People react to the moment based on their blueprint – their story of the world, their state at that moment, and their conditioned strategy for that situation.

One of the keys to freeing yourself from your conditioning so you can live a more conscious and connected life, is to bring this entire state, story, strategy relationship to the forefront of your awareness and utilize it (Notice that it follows the process Discover, Transform and Awaken).

Here’s a powerful approach to doing it:

1. Wake Up! (Discover)

Get real, get honest, get clear. This means discovering the state that you are you really in and fully owning it.

Donny Epstein’s formula for waking up and discovering your state is: A.A.A. = Awareness, Acknowledgement, Acceptance.

You must first become aware of /experience your state fully without trying to change it.  Then, you must acknowledge where you’re at and what you’re really feeling.  Finally, you must accept what you’re experiencing fully, without trying to change it in that moment.

By doing this, you connect to yourself in a powerful, clear and authentic way.  With no struggle or effort to be somewhere, something, or somebody else, you can finally get “real”.  Transformation starts with getting real.

2. Raise Your Standard. (Transition between Discover-Transform)

Once you’ve A.A.A’d, there’s another step.  Tony Robbin’s calls it Decide, Commit, Resolve.

The process is simple.  First you make a decision:  You will no longer allow yourself to continue living the way you’ve been living.  The old story has go to go.  Then, you decide to raise your game.  You commit to set a higher standard and step up to it.  Finally, you resolve to do whatever it takes (yes WHATEVER it takes) to sustain and/or surpass that standard.

3. Breakthrough (Transform)

Once you’ve woken up, decided, committed and resolved to live a higher standard, it’s time to do something about it.  Tony calls this “taking massive action”.  Massive action is what creates breakthroughs.

To create a breakthrough you’ve got to be in a resourceful and connected state.  You might call it a “victorious” state.  Feel your power, your desire, and your passion and do something NOW!  Have the conversation, make the phone call, do whatever you’ve put off doing for too long.

Massive action reinforces your new state, while at the same time anchoring your new story and dissolving the old one.

4. Unleash Your Passion (Awaken)

Once you’ve dissolved your attachments to your old stories, rules and identity, it’s time to create new rituals that reinforce your connection to your authentic self and your deeper passion and purpose.

If you’ve been lowering your standards and living well below who you really are – whether it’s been because of your conditioned story, your habitual states of being, or a lousy strategy – massive action will have liberated a tremendous amount of energy for you to use to create a new life.

You’ll most likely need a new strategy to anchor your new story and help you sustain a more passionate and resourceful state.  The great news is, most of the time you don’t even have to come up with your own strategies!

There are tons of formulas for success in virtually every area you can think of.  Most people’s story and state just don’t allow them to find and follow the success formulas.

Get a mentor, read a how-to book, sign up for a course, do whatever it takes to create or adopt that new strategy for living the life you were born to live!

Find out more about how the Discover, Transform, Awaken process at the Well Being Center can change your life.

For the first time since the launch of the WBC site I haven’t even written a new blog post in over 2 weeks!  So, I thought I’d post a quick update:

October was a great month.  We celebrated with a jack-o-lantern carving party, and a bunch of people from the Well Being Center community showed up to scoop out pumpkin “guts” and share food and fun.  You can see pictures on our WBC Facebook page.

The next day a crew of Well Being Center practice members and I got together and transformed the back yard of a community member who’d gone through some significant health challenges.  You can see pictures on our WBC Facebook Page.

In October, we also co-sponsored the OM Festival which featured Girish and Donna DeLory.

As it turns out…we’ve just decided to hold a special, very intimate concert with Girish at the Well Being Center on December 10th 7-9pm (psst…it’s not even on the calendar because we can only fit about 25 people in the room.)

It’s $20 in advance or $24 the night-of, but it’ll be full the night-of, so get your spot from Michelle immediately if you want to come.

This last week I was asked to go to LA and work with Tony Robbins during one of his Unleash the Power Within events.

Oprah was at the event, and did a firewalk with Tony.  I was in line a little bit behind her during the walk (I’m sure you’ll see her whole experience on OWN shortly.  If you watch her network – you might even see my mug!).

It was Oprah’s first firewalk, so she was pretty darn scared before, and excited afterward.

It was a great experience being there for it, because I watched how full-out Oprah played.  Just a reminder – the way you show up in life is what determines the kind of life you have.

In LA I was invited to do some more work with Tony at a program next week.  So, Christina and I will be out of the office from the 14-17th (Dr. Nanilea will be available Wed. the 16th in the AM hours only).

When we return from Mexico, we’ll be coming up on the Transformational Gate Program in San Francisco Dec. 2-4th.  If  you’re under our care, you can still participate!

Christina and I will be working at the Gate program with Donny Epstein, our mentor/developer of NSA/SRI).  The Gate is amazing, life-changing and inspiring on every level.  If you can get there…get there.

So as always, lots going on and many, many opportunities to create magic moments and deeper well being.

Warmly,

John

Do you want to change or improve something in your life?  I’ll share some advice for one of the fastest and most effective ways to change anything – I call it “exponential learning”.

I’ve got friend visiting me from out of the country.  He’s extremely successful financially – he’s financially “free” on a level most people will never experience.  At this point my friend travels the world having fun and looking for opportunities to help people by creating new businesses, and adding value wherever he goes.

This past week I’ve spent as much time as possible with this guy (before he’s off on his next adventure).  We’ve hung out every day and our conversations have routinely continued through the night into the wee hours of the morning.

Sure it’s the least amount of sleep I‘ve had in a long time, but I can say with certainty that my entire life will be transformed because of our interactions this week.  I’d describe this week as a period of exponential learning.

Exponential learning is what happens when you are immersed in an environment where you entrain (get in-synch with) the mindset, the physiology and the consciousness of another individual.

When you entrain with successful people who are physically, mentally, emotionally and spiritually congruent in an area of life, you learn exponentially from them because you’re not just learning concepts, facts and figures – you’re learning how they connect and combine things in a unique way.

You’re learning how they synthesize things – how they assess things, how they decide what things “mean” to them.  The truth is, you don’t store facts in single isolated containers in your brain.  You create complicated networks connecting different facts and figures together.

By spending time with people who have mastery in areas of life that you want to improve, you begin to entrain to their way of connecting facts and figures. When you proactively engage with them, ask them questions, and encourage them to point out your own blind spots, this exponential learning is accelerated and you learn even more quickly!

You learn what drives them, what motivates them, what scares them.  You learn their habits and processes – and at the same time you learn what drives and motivate YOU, what scares YOU, what your habits and processes are.

Most of all, you learn how your current way of connecting facts and figures has created the outcomes that you’ve been experiencing in your life.If you want to change something and you don’t want to take the long slog of the “linear learning” route (where facts, figures and concepts are hopefully mentally “understood”) here’s what you can do:

1. Find a mentor.

Think about who you know, who’s already masterful at doing what you want to do, and ask if you can hang out with them.  I don’t think a day is enough of an immersion, a week is much better, but do what you can.

2. Bare your soul.

Put your need for significance aside.  Get over yourself.  Say goodbye to your ego and LISTEN.  Exponential learning only happens when you get into the state of the “beginner’s mind” and embrace how little you really know.  Open yourself to the wisdom that you’re about to receive.  After all, if you really “knew”, you’d be in their position already wouldn’t you?

3. Ask questions and invite observations.

You want to reveal your blindspots.  It takes awareness to transform something.  We’re all like fish in water when it comes to certain areas of our lives – we’re so “in it” that we often can’t tell where we really are.  An outside observer will quickly point out patterns, habits and tendencies that were completely outside of our awareness.  Once we can find them, we can change them.

4. Embrace the pain.

It’s going to hurt when your blindspots are pointed out.  It’s supposed to hurt!  Living at a  lower standard than we’re capable of doesn’t ever feel good.  Use that pain as leverage to make the changes that you need to make to get from where you are to where you want to be.

5. Adopt radically different behaviors.

Do you want radically different results than what you’ve been getting?  If so, you’re going to need to adopt some radically different behaviors, create some radically different structures and engage in radically different ways of thinking.  Find out what your mentor reads, what they watch and listen to, and what they do every day.  Start doing that

6. Expect to be scared.

Conditioned patterns are a like well-traveled paths through a jungle.  It’s much easier to stay on them than to take out a machete and start hacking your way through the tangle of vines on either side of you.  That takes work!  So most people just stay on the same familiar path they’ve always travelled.

When you deviate from the conditioned path, you’re going to be in new territory which will get scary.  That’s because it’s unfamiliar and you’ll be uncertain.  Because of this you’ll find yourself scurrying back to the familiar path at times – only because it feels safer.  We all do this.

Just know that your conditioned path is not safer.  That familiar path is the long slog of linear learning.  It’s the sure route to the land of “someday” – you know, the day that never arrives.  You just keep trudging and hoping on that path.

7. Celebrate your growth.

As you start changing behaviors and creating new pathways, you’ll start experiencing different outcomes.  When you recognize that you’re getting different and better results, celebrate them.  Call up your mentor and tell them what you’re doing, feeling, noticing.

They’ll be thrilled, and then because you’re applying what you’ve learned and you’re in a peak state of excitement, they’re more likely to slip you another bit of wisdom that will help you grow even faster (Note:  It will most likely be in the form of pointing out another blind spot that will quickly turn your gloating into humility – like how you could have exponentially increased your recent result if you’d known about xyz!)

Want to know how to accelerate the exponential learning process even more? Learn about the tools, and technologies of transformation that we offer at the Well Being Center.

We’ll mentor and guide you, point out your blind spots and help you to grow, excel and create progress at an unprecedented level.

If you have a desire to grow and a willingness to diverge from the conditioned path, then the exponential learning process that you’ll experience at the Well Being Center will absolutely transform your life.

It’s “primitive” because it is linked to the ancient parts of your brain, the reptilian brain or brainstem (I’ll call it your “lizard brain”) and your spinal cord.  This lizard brain is associated with knee-jerk reactions that function in a habitual, patterned way.

Short-sighted and unable to alter either inherited or learned patterns of behavior, your lizard brain is your survival system.

Less evolved than your limbic system (the part of your brain associated with emotion) and your cerebral cortex (the part of your brain that gives you the ability to observe your sensory experiences including pain, and interpret what they “mean”), your ancient brain is wired for swift decisions unimpeded by emotions or any other considerations that might interfere with a quick reaction in an emergency.

Beneath your awareness, your lizard brain handles numerous decisions about your well being including the mobilization of all systems for your body’s defense.

Why Pain Is a Good Thing

The ability to feel pain is a good thing.

Acute pain alerts you that you’re injured and that you need to change your behavior to avoid further damage and ensure your survival.  Chronic pain alerts you when you’ve failed to change your behavior at the onset of an injury, and informs you of an underlying damaging situation that hasn’t been resolved.

A rare condition called congenital analgesia results in the inability to feel pain at all.  People with this disorder are so ill-equipped for everyday life that they must be closely monitored at all times.  They can bite off the tip of their tongue, or put themselves in mortal danger and not even know there’s a problem.

So the truth is you want pain, you just don’t want it when it’s inconvenient or disruptive to your life.  That’s the paradox with pain:  We want to have pain when we need it, but when we have it we usually think we don’t need it.

You Can Help Pain Work For You

Pain can actually be a powerful catalyst for improving your life.

When you’re in pain your body has already gotten your attention, but most likely that attention is focused on what’s “wrong” (that’s what your lizard brain does best).

When pain disrupts our lives, we usually want to find out what’s wrong so we can fix it quickly and get on with the show.  We want to get back to our “normal” lives as soon as possible.

The problem with our lizard brains though, is that they have no vision for the future.  They have no creativity.  They can’t see new options or possibilities.

Our lizard brains by themselves can’t come up with new life-strategies in response to the disruptions that pain causes, which is why so many people stay mired in chronic pain cycles and just keep doing the same things over and over to try to “manage” their pain.

Without the assistance of your higher brain, your lizard brain only has limited options.  It can react, but it can’t process subtle feedback about your emotional experience, it can’t investigate the physical, mental and emotional factors that might be contributing to the pain, it can’t question why you are behaving the way you are or decide what to do next.

Until you find a way to engage your higher brain, you’re unable to adopt a perspective that can turn the disruption that the pain has caused you into positive change.

How to Engage Your “Higher” Brain

Fortunately there are ways to engage your higher brain and turn your pain into a transformational force.

Here are the 3 fundamental steps:

1. Cultivate Awareness – If you can’t find it you can’t fix it.

Pain thrives in an unaware/sub-conscious environment.  When you try to ignore the part of your body that’s in pain, or numb it out with drugs instead of paying attention and changing your behavior accordingly, the pain will usually persist.

Because the ancient parts of your brain that initiate fight-or-flight reactions don’t have the ability to process and derive meaning from the subtle sensory cues within your body (they specialize in preparing you for defensive action, and in the process actually reduce your subtle awareness) it often becomes difficult to cultivate the awareness within to break the pain cycle.  But you can do it.

To become more aware of the part of your body that is in pain, start by placing your hands on the painful area and focusing your attention on the specific location, quality and features of it.

Gently breathe in through your nose and out through your mouth and seek to momentarily suspend your “story” about it (why you think the pain is there, what you think is wrong etc.)  Do this by focusing solely on the noticeable characteristics of the area;  Is it hot, cool, rigid, taught, numb?

Do you see a color, shape or texture (like a fiery red sphere or black amorphous blob).  Do you sense or even hear a vibration, tone or sound?   Take note of the physical characteristics and qualities of that part of your body, as well as any visual or auditory feedback.

Just the act of placing your full attention on a painful area begins to engage your higher brain.  This focused attention is the foundation for new awareness.

2. Acknowledge What You Discover – “As-Is” it.

Acknowledge the pain by keeping your attention on the area, touching it, and breathing gently while observing it “as it is” without trying to change it, improve it or “fix” it.

Herein lies a paradox:  In order to change your pain you must first fully associate with it with no agenda to change it.

This might be the most challenging step in the process, especially when you desperately want the pain gone.  But until you stop trying to make your pain something different than it is, you haven’t really acknowledged it.

Acknowledgement is recognizing the existence or the truth of something, and it is a crucial step in engaging your higher brain.

To acknowledge, just name your experience.  You might say out loud “it really hurts right here”, “I hurt right here”, or  “I am in so much pain right here”, for example.  You might also just whimper, groan, scream or cry if necessary – whichever feels more authentic.

Sometimes the area that’s in pain feels like a void when you touch it, as if your awareness just can’t penetrate the area.  It that’s the case, just acknowledge it with a statement such as “right here I feel disconnected”.

Keep your focused attention on the painful area with the goal of simply “being with it” as it is and continue to acknowledge what you notice.  This requires a level of presence to the interior sensations in your body that requires the assistance of your higher brain.

3. Accept Your Experience – Stop protesting and get “real”.

In fight-or-flight mode your higher brain centers are essentially “hijacked” by your reptilian brain, and you temporarily lose your ability to pay attention within and make holistic decisions from a more global perspective.

But once your higher brain centers are engaged you naturally begin to make associations between your symptoms, subjective feelings and behaviors, allowing you to discover new pathways and possibilities for creating progress.

Accepting your experience as it is sounds simple enough, but a lot of people get tripped up here.

That’s because when we’re in pain we usually don’t want to accept it – we want it gone!

“You mean you want me to accept that I am immobilized with pain and can’t go to work?  I HAVE TO go to work!  Who else is going to pay the bills?  I’m supporting an entire family.  They’re all counting on me.  You want me to accept this?  You’re nuts.  There’s no way I’m going to accept this.  I’ll find a way out. I’ll find a way to get this fixed even if it requires drastic measures.  Whatever it takes, I’ll do it.  I’ve got to perform.  I’m not going to get stuck living like this.  I don’t have the luxury of just laying around and wallowing in my pain. I need to get on with things.  I’m not going to become useless.  I’ve got plans.”

These are common reactions to pain.  However, accepting your situation doesn’t mean you’re going to get stuck in your experience!

Acceptance is simply a person’s agreement to experience a situation (often a negative or uncomfortable situation) without attempting to change it, protest, or exit.  Once fully accepted, the situation typically begins to feel dramatically different.

To accept your pain all you have to do is stop protesting what is, hold the part of your body that hurts with presence and compassion and say something like, “I fully accept that this is where I’m at right now.”

While you are touching the painful part of your body you might also say something like, “I fully accept you.  I fully accept this experience.  I am paying attention.  I am here now.”

Then What?

Somewhere in the process of placing focused awareness on, acknowledging and accepting your pain, a discovery typically occurs.  It might come in the form of an insight or realization, a sudden wave of emotion such as grief or anger, or a deep sense of connection to your inner-self that you haven’t felt for a long time.

When your higher brain centers are activated and focused attention is put on painful areas in this way, new awareness and meaning can arise that contribute to “reorganizational” changes in your mind and body.

Previously inaccessible energy and information that was stored as tension can then become a source of fuel for necessary changes.

Sometimes that “fuel” manifests as a flood of emotion.  Other times it shows up as a sense of increased peace or ease that uplifts and inspires us.  It can even show up as a physical detoxification, or a spontaneous shaking or shuddering of the body.

When you connect to yourself through focused attention on your body, there’s a realness and an authenticity that emerges from your higher brain-engagement that begins to inform your decisions going forward.

Do you need more rest?  Do you need more movement?  Do you need to cry?  Do you need to stretch that part of your body?  Do you need express your anger or upset about something?  Do you need to see a professional?

The answers to these questions come from higher brain awareness.  Somewhere within you already know what to do, you just have to tap into the part of you that can get you moving in the right direction.

If you’re in pain try the 3 steps (and consider forwarding this post to someone you know who’s struggling with chronic pain).  If it feels like the steps aren’t “working”, be sure to acknowledge that you’re feeling like they’re not working in the process.  You might say, “I feel like this isn’t working”, “It feels like this will never work” or “I feel like this pain is never going to end.”

Your goal is NOT to go through this process to make the pain go away.  Your goal is to connect within, engage your higher brain and gain insight into what needs to happen for the pain to resolve.

The more empowered and resourceful a person is, the harder it can sometimes be for them to accept the powerless feeling that often accompanies pain.  It takes embracing the paradox of pain and becoming aware of, acknowledging and accepting the situation as-it-is for true change to happen.

Learn more about natural and holistic tools for pain relief and mental, emotional and spiritual transformation.

My oldest daughter just began her journey in that melting pot of hormonal, emotional and intellectual discovery that we collectively call “highschool”.

She is making new friends, engaging in new activities and finding out more about who she is and who she wants to be.  And in the process I am finding myself observing my role as her father more closely than ever.

What role do I really want to play in her development from a girl to a woman?  How much “control” do I really have in this development?  How strict or lenient should I be as the inevitable questioning of rules and testing of boundaries begins?

I decided to read Mary Pipher Ph.D’s book Reviving Ophelia, Saving the Selves of Adolescent Girls, (Alright, I’ll be perfectly honest – I didn’t “decide” to read this 1994 classic, my wife actually handed me the book and said “read these sections”).

In Reviving Ophelia, Pipher notes an interesting and relevant observation by psychologists who study what kinds of families produce what kinds of children.  These psychologists have focused on two broad dimensions:

1. Affection/Acceptance

At one end of the spectrum are parents who are accepting, responsive and child-centered, and at the other end of the spectrum are parents who are rejecting, unresponsive and parent-centered.

2.  Control

At one end of the spectrum are parents who are undemanding and low in control, and at the other end of the spectrum are parents who are demanding and high in control.

These two dimensions of Affection and Control interact to produce very different outcomes for teenagers:

1.  Low-Control and Low-Acceptance

Parents with low-control and low-acceptance produce teenagers with a variety of problems, including delinquency and chemical dependency.

2.  High-Control and Low-Acceptance

Parents with high-control and low-acceptance (authoritarian parents) produce teenagers who are socially inadequate and lacking in confidence.

3.  Low-Control and High-Acceptance

Parents with low-control and high-acceptance (indulgent parents) produce teenagers with high impulsivity, low responsibility and low independence.

4.  High-Control and High-Acceptance

Parents with high-control and high-acceptance (strict but loving parents) produce teenagers who are independent, confident and socially responsible.

According to this research, the ideal family is “one in which the message children receive from parents is:  We love you, but you must do as we say.”  This passage in the book not only answered my questions, it backed them up with data.  High-control and high-acceptance is the way.

But it’s not only parental control and acceptance that makes the difference in a teenage girl’s life.  Of course, they’ve got learn to accept themselves.  Pipher encourages teen girls to find a quiet place and ask themselves the following questions:

• How do I feel right now?
• What do I think?
• What are my values?
• How would I describe myself to myself?
• How do I see myself in the future?
• What kind of work do I like?
• When do I feel most myself?
• How have I changed since I entered puberty?
• What kinds of people do I respect?
• How am I similar to and different from my mother?
• How am I similar and different to my father?
• What goals do I have for myself as a person?
• What are my strengths and weaknesses?
• What would I be proud of on my deathbed?

If you have a teenager, you can drop any of these questions into a conversation to stimulate her/him to to start thinking differently.  Come to think of it, whether you’re a boy, girl, man or a woman why not ask yourself these questions right now?

Personal development guru Anthony Robbins has long proclaimed that “The quality of your life is directly proportional to the quality of the questions you ask”.  Do you know what kind of questions your teenagers are asking themselves on a regular basis?

If you don’t, then it is your job to find out.  It’s also your job to introduce new sets of questions to them, which require them to access different pathways of thought and feeling.

New ways of thinking and feeling lead to new patterns of behavior.  New patterns of behavior and new ways of thinking and feeling also emerge not just from asking and answering questions, but through learning to connect to the physical body and becoming congruent with the breath, energy and movement patterns that essentially make up the “subconscious” mind.

Over the past fifteen years in practice I’ve worked with hundreds of teenagers – both boys and girls – and found that often some of the biggest changes come not from talking, but from increasing their level of body or “somatic awareness”.

When teens are aware of and connected to their bodies, breath, and energy patterns, their biology becomes a louder and more influential guide than the cultural paradigm around them.  Teens who have the ability to tune into themselves and be present with what their body is really wanting or needing, possess a valuable and transformational “counter-peer- pressure” life-strategy.

To learn more about the tools we use at the Well Being Center to increase somatic awareness and cultivate depth, presence and connection to oneself and increased passion and purpose in life, visit wellbeingcenter.com.

I went to an amazing concert on Saturday night.  It was Deva Premal and Miten at the Palace of Fine Arts in San Francisco.  It was a magical event and I felt that the story of how I ended up there was worth telling because it illustrates so clearly how the Universe supports “unconflicted behavior” with seemingly magical outcomes.

At the end of the post I share the 5 Keys to Creating Unconflicted Behavior that I’ve discovered along my journey.

At the Palace of Fine Arts

Unconflicted behavior is a term that Joseph Chilton-Pearce used to describe the state “wherein heart and mind-brain resonate in synchronicity, opening us to levels of possibility beyond the ordinary.”

Unconflicted behavior is “the zone”, the state of total inner-congruence and peace from which effortless manifestation always arises.

In SRI terms, unconflicted behavior is most associated with the Stage 8 experience — an emptiness and freedom where the inner and outer world are totally synchronized, a consciousness where the only thoughts that arise are ones that are congruent with what is already manifesting — so everything feels perfectly timed and orchestrated.

In regards to the concert, a friend of ours had an extra ticket and a couple weeks ago she called my wife and offered it to her.  I was also invited, but I wasn’t thrilled at the prospect of sitting by myself somewhere in the back of the theater since all of the tickets up front had already been sold out.

So I declined the offer, deciding that I’d just stay home.

Then, the morning of the concert I suddenly had a change of mind.

What had I been thinking?  This was going to be an amazing event.  I love these artists and I play their music all the time at the Well Being Center, plus my wife was going to have to drive the hour up to San Francisco and back, so I’d get to be right next to her for the drive.

It was decided, I was going.

I hopped online to buy a ticket.  Yep, the concert was sold out.  “No problem” I thought, “I am going”. I was 100% certain.

I emailed Deva Premal and Miten’s administrator through their website.  I got an apologetic reply, no more seats were available.  “No problem” I thought.  “I am going”

The next step, of course Craigslist.  Two tickets were available but upon calling, one had been sold and the other had been promised to someone.  No problem, I was still going.  Unconflicted behavior had set in.

I decided I’d just go to SF and find a way to get in once I was at the venue.  Someone would be selling a ticket outside or I’d find the right person to talk to and work something out.

The theater has a thousand seats, surely something would come up.  I was going, and that was that.

About thirty seconds after I’d made the decision to go even without a ticket, the phone rang.  It was the woman from Craigslist.  She had just received a call from the original buyer who had backed out at the last minute.

The ticket was now mine if wanted it.  “But of course” I thought.

I made arrangements to meet the woman at an exit just off highway 280 on my way up to the city.  It was a quick exchange, cash for the ticket.  I didn’t even bother to look at the seat, isle or row number.

She had told me that the seat was right up front, but I wasn’t concerned.  It was the only ticket available and I was certain it would be perfect.

When we got to San Francisco we met our friend for dinner and then headed to the venue where we presented our tickets at the door and made our way to our seats.

As we entered the lobby our friend said to my wife, “By the way, you’re in seat A-8 and I’m in A-10″. My wife turned to me and asked, “Where are you honey?  I’m going to miss being next to you.”

I fumbled in my pocket for the ticket stub that I hadn’t even looked at up until now.  “Uh…A-6″ I replied.

“Are you serious?” she said.

You see, in the Palace of Fine Arts, the seats are a bit different.  Odd numbers are on the left side of the theater and even numbers are on the right.  Therefore A6 and A8 are literally RIGHT NEXT TO EACH OTHER in the very first row!

In a sold out theater with a thousand seats, I had purchased the only ticket I could find anywhere, which turned out to be the seat in the front row right next to my wife.

Now that’s just plain awesome!

Our Seats Together (Click to enlarge photo)

My wife and I were ecstatic to be together.  Of all of the possible realities that could have occurred that evening, I had dialed in the one that had put us together in the front row.

“You can’t get rid of me” I said.  “I’m always going to find a way to be right here beside you, even if I don’t know how I’m going to get there myself!”

The evening was magical and amazing, we couldn’t stop smiling and shaking our heads at how blessed we are and how beautifully and perfectly this life is orchestrated.

From the front row

Honestly, I wasn’t at all surprised that we ended up right next to each other though.

This is exactly how unconflicted behavior works, and I’ve become more and more accustomed to it over the years as I’ve learned to tap into it on a regular basis.

Curious about how to create unconflicted behavior in your own life?  Here are 5 keys that I’ve discovered routinely help me access a state of certainty and “knowing”:

5 Keys to Creating Unconflicted Behavior:

1.  Decide what you want

Make your decision but stay unattached to the details, the “how” you are going to get where you want to go.

The key to unconflicted behavior is entering a state of “knowing” that you’re going to get a certain outcome.  You don’t need to know how it’s going to happen.  You just need to know with absolute certainty that it is going to happen.

2.  Eliminate doubt

Unconflicted behavior is fearless.  All of your focus must be on what you want, with no doubt that it won’t work out.  With unconflcted behavior there is no “backup plan” just in case you fail.  There is no hesitation.  There is no wondering if or “hoping” things will work out.

If you’ve ever done a firewalk, there is a moment when you decide to step out onto the twelve hundred degree coals.  A feeling comes over you and you just “know” that it is your time.  That congruence, that unconflicted behavior is what keeps you from being burnt.

When you focus on the feeling of certainty and knowing and leave no room for anything else, there’s no room for doubt.  If any inkling of a doubt does creep in, acknowledge that you somehow dropped out of the “knowing” state and you need to find that certainty again before you continue on.

3.  Stay in action

Unconflicted behavior feels effortless, but significant action must still be taken in most cases to get where you want to go.  Once you’ve decided what you want and you’re in a state of knowing that it is going to happen, you need to keep moving in what feels like the right direction.

Sometimes doing nothing is exactly what’s needed (you’ll know this if you’re truly in the “knowing” state) but most of the time you just need to keep moving and keep doing what feels right at the time.

The great thing about unconflicted behavior is that when you’re in that zone, it doesn’t matter which direction you go — all you have to do is perpetuate that zone through your actions.

4.  Remain flexible

Unconflicted behavior is about total flexibility.  When you’re in the zone of certainty and knowing, you always find a way forward because you have left yourself no other option, yet at the same time you are flexible as conditions change.

Imagine a tightrope walker 40 stories above the city on a one-inch wide wire.  The only way out is by putting one foot in front of the other and adapting to the wind conditions as they change.  The tightrope walker knows only one thing for sure — he’s going to make it across.

The flexibility to deal with everything that presents itself between the two ends of the wire are critical to survival.  The same goes for the survival of your desired outcome.

5.  Be grateful

Unconflicted behavior is authentic.  It comes from your essence.

When you are grateful there is no striving or pushing to make something happen.  Gratitude helps you tap into the “knowing” state where effortless manifestation occurs because it requires that you drop your agenda and appreciate “what is”.

And “what is” is exactly what must be accepted and celebrated in order for effortless manifestation to occur.

Some of the most powerful and predictable tools that I’ve found to promote unconflicted behavior are NSA and SRI, which are both available through the Well Being Center.

Another more recently developed tool called the Triad of Change is proving to be incredibly helpful in creating more periods of unconflicted behavior in my life as well.

I’m pretty excited about it, so I’ve decided to teach a free two hour workshop on the Triad of Change on Saturday September 24th from 10am-12noon at the Well Being Center. I’d love to see you there!

And if you have an amazing story of unconflicted behavior to share, I’d love to hear it.