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 Who are you? Where did that identity come from? Questions that many of us ask outloud or “in quiet.” Which is it for you? What stories will you tell your friends and children about your life? We have heard that when a person is on their dying bed they don’t usually say, “I wish I’d worked more.” They generally wish they’d been closer to loved ones, accomplished something, or learned more.
Today, Rich and I met with the widow of a friend who passed on. We were laughing over some things and yet sad over his departure. His name was Bob and his widow Margie. This actually was the first time we ever learned her name, because Bob in his endearing nature only referred to her as Sweetie.
Margie was sharing a story about how Bob felt as a young child and she has given me permission to share this story.
When Bob was about four years old, his mother no longer felt like mothering, according to his story to Margie. So, she took all her little boys and a daughter to the church. The young girl was sent to the convent and the boys to a religious military school. They never saw each other again in their youth. Bob didn’t remember that he had brothers and a sister until shortly before he died. The children were simply separated and treated like orphans.
In the place where Bob lived, there was a dog out in the yard. This dog was never allowed inside. The owners would simply throw scraps of meat and such out the door and the dog would come and greedily take whatever they gave him. There was another dog, too. That dog lived inside. It was given lots of human attention and love, and given the good bones and food inside.
Bob reflected on this, as it seemed to pertain to his life. As a young boy, he would eat with the adults. They would cook steaks and pork chops, chicken and many tasty meals. This is what they would eat. The plate that was put in front of the children contained a few slices of fried baloney. They smelled the delicious food cooking and could anticipate, but it never came to be while growing up in his youth. After watching the treatment of the animals, he realized that he was the yard dog. This was the identity he established.
Now many years went by, and Bob sought to understand. Understand life. Understand values. Understand people. In his search he came upon many wonderful teachers and organizations. He was a teacher in the Course on Miracles. We met him when he attended our NLP and Hypnotherapy Certification courses. When he entered our class, Bob was in his 60’s (that was many years ago). He was a pleasant and loving man, who always had a good word for everyone. A tall man, Bob was, who reminded me of a general in the army. I learned recently that he was in the military. This must have explained his other identity, where he stood tall and proud, and responded to what he was instructed with respect and dignity. Now, where he got his lust for life is a story I would have loved to hear.
Bob started with an identity of a yard dog and worked his way up to the identity of a dignified person. What he chose to do with his life is remarkable, honorable, loving, helpful, and inspiring. And, he never stopped learning. When he wanted to go further he looked for the guide or the teacher.
Stop for a moment and consider this: What are you doing in your life that you love? Have you conditioned yourself for the experience you want in your life with lifestyle and exercise and social activities? Are you doing what you feel your purpose is about? What do you want?
If you find yourself wishing you had something more, you can, you know. It’s just a matter of taking the first step. Many people are calling upon coaches to help them in their life’s journey. Is coaching right for you? The only way you can find out is by checking it out.
Apositiva offers coaching, counseling and hypnotherapy, NLP and EFT, and many other modalities for growth and change. Currently we have a class of students in our coaching certification class that are looking for someone to begin practicing coaching. If you want to give these learning individuals an opportunity, give us a call. We are looking for about 15 individuals who will be given an opportunity to work with their very own coach for around $35.00 per session. This will begin June 19th, 2009 and go through October 19th, 2009. It’s a limited time offer. So, if you are curious to get the life coaching experience or just tired of an old identity, call APOSITIVA at 503.525.0595 or 503.525.0594 and we’ll set you up right away.
Enthusiastically yours,
Cat
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 "Feeling you could use a little more love?"
The loving heart exercise. This is an exercise designed to fill yourself with love. Find a comfortable place to sit and relax without distraction. Close your eyes and hold your hands, cupped like a bowl, in your lap. Think of someone in your life who deeply loves you or whom you love deeply. Now, visualize this love as something tangible_ feel the dense, soft, warm love fill your cupped hands. When the love fills your hands so much that you can no longer hold it all, bring your hands toward your heart and take a deep breath. Inhale all this pure love deep into your body. Continue to breath deeply and slowly until all the love you've been holding in your hands is now in your heart being pumped out to your body. Feel the warmth of this love saturate every fiber of your being. As you bask in this feeling, say to yourself, "I am filled with love. I am love. I have value"
It's not uncommon for this exercise to result in an immediate emotional release in the form of tears. If this happens, don't be startled or embarrassed by your reaction. Continue to relax, breathe deeply and feel the love emanating from inside you.
| Cutting Through Bad Frames
| by Cat Wilson
 What is it that drives our life? Some agree that it’s the story that we live. Some psychologists and spiritual leaders will agree that we write our life every day from experience. What we do in each and every moment can change the course of our experience. Start with looking at how you view your world. What frames do you see your world in?
Recently, I was working with a client who wanted to focus on relaxing to overcome a serious health issue, which had limited them to the confines of a bed. Visiting with people in their home requires that I have others in the room, so that the person feels safe. After an hour session, working with this now relaxed and peaceful person who is trying to maintain a positive stance, one of the other family members was looking for something and came into the room yelling. “This is killing me.”
Oooooo! “Killing? Cancel! Cancel! Bad frame.” I said. This stopped them in their tracks.
“What do you mean?” the person said to me with a mystified expression.
“The words we use can be more powerful than you know,” I replied. “They can affect others around you, too, by just being in a comfortable state and taking those statements in on a deeper level than you may be aware of.”
This is referred to as a consensus trance. This is when you trust, love, respect someone and they say something. Whether it be a belief or a statement, it slides right on in, where perspective is creating your story. You can use hypnotherapy to undo a bad trance and make a new frame to fit how you would rather be.
In your life do you ever find yourself making harsh statements like this? What are they? Would you be open to changing them now?
Why is this important? Because we learn when we are little from our parents and teachers and everyone in our culture, These people speak with the best of intentions. Yet many of those people may not have considered what were saying. When we are stressed, we tend not to think as well, and may create sayings that take on a life of their own. Richard Dawkins, a British biologist, introduced the term “meme” about thirty years ago. A meme is a unit of cultural information that is created with an idea expressed for an object or a concept. According to Dr. Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, psychologist who wrote the book “Flow,” a meme is “any permanent pattern of matter or information produced by an act of human intentionality.” Memes are initially shaped by the mind, but they then turn around and begin to shape minds.The Latin mememic is related to “Mimic” which is what we do as children to learn. Once a meme is created it tends to take on a life of it’s own… sometimes not so resourceful.
When we repeatedly say that we’re tired or that someone is a pain, we tend to attract this physical experience. One student of ours was always using complaints of how their significant other was giving them a pain in their head. Frequently they would come late to class due to a migraine headache. We worked over a period of 150 hours in class with them, and eventually this person figured out that every time they used unresourceful statements they would get sick.
Since it was a lifelong habit, this person accepted coaching to get what they said they really wanted. They eventually realized they’d need to make a change to a new habit. So, I asked the student to make a new and more resourceful list to replace the old one and carry it around for a while until it became natural. Here is the list of phrases they chose.
I am living life fully.
My mind is happy and healthy.
I am wealthy in body, mind, and spirit… the rest will follow.
I have plenty of good air, water and rain to renew me.
Keep Portland weird.
It’s amazing how good you can feel when you have a more resourceful frame of mind. Take time to assess some of your common phrases and notice what you are putting out to the universe. If it’s not literally what you want, then reconsider and change the words to reflect what you do want. If you get stuck, call us and we can help you get more centered using hypnotherapy, neuro-linguistic programming, emotional freedom technique, or one of the most popular means these days – coaching. Make a new frame to fit how you would rather be.
| | Upcoming Workshops & Events
Essential Hypno Skills
Begins Summer: Jul. 24th / Fall: Sept. 25th
Advanced Hypno/NLP
Begins Oct. 23rd
Coaching Certification
Begins Oct. 16-18
Practitioner & Masters
Ongoing
Classes, Workshops & Events - Portland
Essential Skills - Summer
Begins July 24th, Fall Sept. 25th
Advanced Hypno / NLP
Begins Oct. 23rd
Coaching Certification
Begins Oct. 16-18th
Mindmapping
Oct. 23rd
NLP, Primer, Practitioner & Masters
Ongoing Modules
Testimonials
Good words from Apositiva Student in Clinical Hypnotherapy / NLP Certification Class:
Excuses Begone:
Thanks! And thanks again for the time you spent with me.
I feel really good about everything we have learned.
Thanks again for everything,
Allen
Cat & Rich;
I absolutely think that you both have done such a remarkable job teaching me all of the valuable skills that I will need to suceed. Some of the techniques I gravitate to more than others and I realize that I need to practice all the techniques so that my tool box has only the sharpest of tools in it. I feel very blessed to have been guided to your magical place and to have met you both so with all my heart.
Thank You so very much.
With a smile in my heart
Jean
More good words from students in Clinical Hypnotherapy / NLP Certification Class
Sweet Ones,
I adore you both and would love to have a relationship outside the class. I am limited to times to get together since I live in Eugene, but I plan on coming up for the NGH meetings and maybe we can get together sometimes after class. Brenda adores both of you also and she might be available more often. She is well worth knowing and you both are. But whatever the tides bear, you are both in my heart and I plan to water that seed and grow it as much as I can. I look forward to seeing at least in class this next weekend.
Love and Light, Pat
Good Words from the NLP Certification Class
GOOD PRACTICE!!!
And thanks to all you good people and my daring to practice "Swish" with Alison. I practiced it today at Kaiser with a client. He reported that his black and white image floated away and he said that he felt empowered. Thus so did I feel empowered, appreciating all of the great learning and practicing we are doing.
Be well,
Rhena
New Class?
We have been giving some serious thought to offering Introductory Classes in How to Use Emotional Freedom Technique (EFT) for Self Relief. To make this more accessible we plan for this to be a series of evening group sessions for a small fee or possibly a love offering.
Please email
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or call (503)525-0595 for questions and to us to offer your thoughts on this class.
| SUMMER SPECIAL
"Buy two sessions, get one free." Coaching, Counseling, Hypnotherapy, NLP, EFT, Sessions Good through August 31st, 2009.
www.apositiva.com 503.525.0595 | |
