Morty Lefkoe
By Morty Lefkoe
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Podcast Description
Discover how you can transform the quality of your life. Learn simple ways to change and make that change last. Learn how you can use simple techniques to eliminate limiting beliefs that are producing anxiety and anger. Discover how to become the person you’ve always wanted to be and live the life you’ve always wanted to live.
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Do you need positive self-esteem beliefs? | (http://www.mortylefkoe.com/wp-content/uploads/marty_lefkoe_headshots_Blog_053_201_edit_235251x3002-150x150.jpg)Many of you have contacted us after eliminating a negative belief using the Lefkoe Belief Process, asking how you can create a positive beli... | 5/22/12 | Free | View In iTunes |
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Do You Want To Create New Possibilities In Your Life? | (http://www.mortylefkoe.com/wp-content/uploads/marty_lefkoe_headshots_Blog_053_201_edit_235251x3002-150x150.jpg)Recently I wrote about how our beliefs become reality for us, determining our behavior and feelings. Because how we view reality determines... | 5/16/12 | Free | View In iTunes |
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Are you trying to get better? | (http://www.mortylefkoe.com/wp-content/uploads/marty_lefkoe_headshots_Blog_053_201_edit_235251x3002-150x150.jpg)Have you been trying to “get better”—to make a significant improvement in your life—without real success? If so, then you are one of the tens of millions of people who either are in psychotherapy or part of the personal growth movement—reading books, attending workshops, and using digital products—in an attempt to reduce your anxiety and suffering and increase your happiness. Unfortunately the success rate for these people is not very high. Although there is often some improvement, the negative self-talk, some noticeable anxiety, and an obsessive concern with the opinions of others usually continue after years of therapy and many courses. Let me offer a possible explanation Most therapies and personal growth systems assume that we all live and deal with the same objective reality, and that some of us need better thinking and/or additional skills and information to deal with it more effectively. (http://www.mortylefkoe.com/wp-content/uploads/bigstock-Deformed-Grid-Eps-3420113-300x294.jpg)I think the reason for their poor success rates is that their basic assumption is flawed: we are not all dealing with the same objective reality and our biggest problem is not our inability to deal effectively with that reality. Instead, the problem is that we are all dealing with different realities (based on our beliefs) and our problems arise primarily from our mistaken views of reality. Let me elaborate. Beliefs are statement about reality that we feel are the truth. “I am ….” “People are ….” “Life is ….” Beliefs like these describe our reality. We think it really is true that I am not good enough, or people can’t be trusted, or life is difficult. If you hold these beliefs, for you they are actual descriptions of the world you live in. The problem for you and others holding such beliefs people isn’t merely an inability to cope with the world as it really is, their real problem is that they are trying to deal effectively with a world that exists only in their mind. For example, if you believe that mistakes and failure are bad and that if I make a mistake I’ll be rejected, then that is a fact in your world. That is an accurate description of the way the world really is, for you. That view of the world will inhibit you from trying new things, it likely will make you afraid to speak in public, it will result in anxiety that you will do something wrong and get rejected, and other dysfunctional behavior. If in the “real” world mistakes and failure are only good learning experiences, if really successful people consider their “mistakes” and “failures” to be merely building blocks for later success, then people with the two beliefs just mentioned don’t need to think more effectively, to learn how to handle their emotions better, or to devise more effective business strategies—they need to change their view of reality. In other words, they need to eliminate their beliefs about mistakes and failure that constitute as aspect of their worldview. Relationship problems are usually not due to a lack of interpersonal skills Here’s another illustration of my point. Imagine that in your world, it was a fact that you were not loveable, that relationships never worked out in the long run, and that men/women couldn’t be trusted. For you, given the nature of your world, the possibility of a good, nurturing, loving long-term relationship would be slim to nil. Not because of your fears or your lack of social skills, but because your behavior in relationships is shaped totally by your view of yourself, potential mates, and relationships. Learning more interpersonal skills, better understanding your childhood influences, and learning some behaviors that make for better relationships will do little to help you have better relationships if you have the beliefs | 5/9/12 | Free | View In iTunes |
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Is There An Effective Anxiety Treatment? | (http://www.mortylefkoe.com/wp-content/uploads/marty_lefkoe_headshots_Blog_053_201_edit_235251x3002-150x150.jpg)Have you ever experienced anxiety? If you haven’t yet, the odds are good that you will at some point in your life. According to MedicineNet, anxiety is definitely a pretty common thing! In the United States, more than 60 million people will suffer from anxiety at a certain point in their lives and more than three million will have a panic disorder in the course of their lifetime. Over four million people experience general anxiety each year. Panic attacks typically begin during teenage years, from 15 to 19. (Emphasis in original.) (http://anxietybuzz.com/how-many-people-have-anxiety/ (http://anxietybuzz.com/how-many-people-have-anxiety/)) If you are one of the millions of people who already has suffered from anxiety (and I am one of them), you know how incapacitating it can be. If you haven’t yet, it’s not something to look forward to. When you experience anxiety it’s hard to focus, to make decisions, to act, and to think. All you want to do is escape, but there is no escape at the moment. (http://www.mortylefkoe.com/wp-content/uploads/bigstock-Anxiety-and-Stress-and-its-Des-20348060-300x194.jpg)Luckily there are effective anxiety treatments. There are three major approaches to anxiety treatment and several sub-categories (adapted from the Anxiety Disorders Association of America): 1. Psychotherapy · Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy (CBT) A well-established, highly effective, and lasting treatment is called cognitive-behavioral therapy, or CBT. It focuses on identifying, understanding, and changing thinking and behavior patterns. Benefits are usually seen in 12 to 16 weeks, depending on the individual. In this type of therapy the patient is actively involved in his or her own recovery, has a sense of control, and learns skills that are useful throughout life. CBT typically involves reading about the problem, keeping records between appointments, and completing homework assignments in which the treatment procedures are practiced. Patients learn skills during therapy sessions, but they must practice repeatedly to see improvement. · Exposure Therapy A form of CBT, exposure therapy is a process for reducing fear and anxiety responses. In therapy, a person is gradually exposed to a feared situation or object, learning to become less sensitive over time. This type of therapy has been found to be particularly effective for obsessive-compulsive disorder and phobias. · Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) Also known as ACT, this type of therapy uses strategies of acceptance and mindfulness (living in the moment and experiencing things without judgment), along with commitment and behavior change, as a way to cope with unwanted thoughts, feelings, and sensations. ACT imparts skills to accept these experiences, place them in a different context, develop greater clarity about personal values, and commit to needed behavior change. · Dialectical Behavioral Therapy (DBT) Integrating cognitive-behavioral techniques with concepts from Eastern meditation, dialectical behavioral therapy, or DBT, combines acceptance and change. DBT involves individual and group therapy to learn mindfulness, as well as skills for interpersonal effectiveness, tolerating distress, regulating emotions. · Interpersonal Therapy (IPT) Often referred to as IPT, interpersonal therapy is a short-term supportive psychotherapy that addresses interpersonal issues in depression in adults, adolescents, and older adults. IPT usually involves 12 to 16 one-hour weekly sessions. The initial sessions are devoted to gathering information about the nature of a person’s depression and interpersonal experience. · Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR) Under certain conditions eye movements appear to reduce the intensity of disturbing thou | 5/1/12 | Free | View In iTunes |
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Enlightenment and improvements in daily life in one package | (http://www.mortylefkoe.com/wp-content/uploads/marty_lefkoe_headshots_Blog_053_201_edit_235251x3002-150x150.jpg)I’ve written before about the fact that the Lefkoe Belief Process (one of the many processes that comprise The Lefkoe Method) has both a very practical element and a profound spiritual element. Getting rid of beliefs and conditionings changes your “creation,” in other words, it results in major changes in our daily behavior and emotions. The Who Am I Really? Process, which is an element of the Lefkoe Belief Process (LBP), enables you to enter an altered state of consciousness where you deeply experience anything is possible, there is nothing missing, and you have no limitations. I am now discovering that another one of TLM processes is more spiritual than I had realized. The practical side of the LOP (http://www.mortylefkoe.com/wp-content/uploads/bigstock-Businessman-meditating-on-gree-11897501-300x200.jpg)The Lefkoe Occurring Process (LOP) enables you to recognize that you automatically and unconsciously give meaning to events, perhaps 20-50 times a day, and usually do not distinguish between reality and that meaning, in other words, how reality occurs to you. Therefore, your “occurring”—the meaning you give reality—is experienced as reality. And because events have no inherent meaning, all of our feelings—positive and negative—are the result of our occurrings. The LOP then enables you to make a clear distinction between reality/events and meaning/occurring, and finally to dissolve your occurring. As a result you are able to deal more effectively with reality, easily get rid of negative feelings, and create your experience of life moment by moment. Obviously the LOP produces very practical results. The spiritual side of the LOP Although I have had some sense that there are spiritual elements to the LOP, I have started to realize that it is almost like a spiritual practice. A friend of mine who lived at an ashram when he was younger and who has studied many of the Eastern religions said that there are several things in common with the Eastern traditions: You learn to hold all concepts lightly. You learn to drop evaluations. You learn to drop the tendency to stick new ideas into an old slot, in other words, say that the new thing is “like that,” which keeps you from fully experiencing the new thing. You learn to climb outside of your customary way of interpreting. And you learn to jettison old identifies and ways of thinking. I’ve never described the LOP quite like that before, but I could accurately use it as a description of my process. Another person I talked recently who has being studying Taoism said that his guru taught him by using events in reality. By that he meant, he learned to stop giving meaning to things either his guru told him to do or that the guru suggested he notice. Eventually that practice enabled him to stop living in the past and future and live totally in the present. That also is one way of describing the purpose of using the LOP on a regular basis. A description of Taoism Read the following partial description of Taoism from Wikipedia: “Pu … is a metaphor for the state of wu wei … It represents a passive state of receptiveness. Pu is a symbol for a state of pure potential and perception without prejudice. In this state, Taoists believe everything is seen as it is, without preconceptions or illusion. “Pu is usually seen as keeping oneself in the primordial state of tao. It is believed to be the true nature of the mind, unburdened by knowledge or experiences. In the state of pu, there is no right or wrong, beautiful or ugly. There is only pure experience, or awareness, free from learned labels and definitions.” Interestingly, that also is one of the results of using the LOP on a regular basis: you stop judging and evaluating events; you focus on and deal with just the event itself, without any meaning. | 4/24/12 | Free | View In iTunes |
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Fear of rejection | (http://www.mortylefkoe.com/wp-content/uploads/marty_lefkoe_headshots_Blog_053_201_edit_235251x3002-150x150.jpg)If there was ever a psychological trait that was considered to be a part of human nature, it’s the fear of rejection. In the thousands of... | 4/17/12 | Free | View In iTunes |
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Stop beating yourself up | (http://www.mortylefkoe.com/wp-content/uploads/marty_lefkoe_headshots_Blog_053_201_edit_235251x3002-150x150.jpg)There’s “good news” and “bad news” about the many personal growth improvement courses. The good news is that many of them actually provide ... | 4/3/12 | Free | View In iTunes |
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Why some get angry and others fear it. | (http://www.mortylefkoe.com/wp-content/uploads/marty_lefkoe_headshots_Blog_053_201_edit_235251x3002-150x150.jpg)The first time I really allowed myself to experience my anger I fainted. I was about 36 and had successfully suppressed my anger since childhood. And there I was in a group therapy session, hitting a mat with a stick with foam wrapped around it, screaming: “Mom, I’m really angry at you.” When I started the exercise I was only mouthing empty words, but then at some point the words became real and the anger surfaced. It terrified me so much that I literally passed out on the mat. I fainted the next couple of times I tried that exercise, but eventually I was able to experience anger toward my mother that I had never allowed myself to experience. And I was able to remain in an upright position. (http://www.mortylefkoe.com/wp-content/uploads/bigstock_Angry_Person_25595405-300x225.jpg)Although there probably aren’t many people who first experienced their anger in exactly the same way I did, there are millions who are terrified of experiencing their own anger or being in the presence of the anger of others. Many people get in touch with that anger in therapy or some personal growth course, and millions never do. In addition to the fact that suppressing your anger is suppressing a part of yourself—in other words, having a part of you be unknown to you—suppressed anger has been implicated in serious illnesses, especially heart diseases. If you want to be able to experience your own anger without fear and if you want to discover why the anger of others can be so scary, read on and let me explain The Primary Source of Our Fear The primary source of our fear of anger is four specific beliefs and two conditionings. The beliefs are: Confrontation is dangerous, If I’m angry I’ll lose control, If I express anger I’ll lose love, and Anger is dangerous. And the conditionings are: fear associated with anger and fear associated with confrontation. There can be several other relevant beliefs and conditionings, but it is my experience that when these six have been eliminated, much of the fear we have of our own anger and the anger of others will be gone. The source of these six beliefs and conditionings is almost always a childhood where one or both parents frequently displayed extreme anger. (I’ll explain why some people frequently express anger in a minute.) If we are terrified by the anger of our parents as a child, the typical reaction is the six beliefs and conditionings I listed. The group therapy I described above helped me get in touch with my anger and allowed me to experience it instead of suppress it so totally that I didn’t even know I was feeling it. But my fear of anger did not disappear totally until I eliminated the five beliefs and conditionings many years later. Now what about people who aren’t afraid of anger, but who themselves are angry a lot and express that anger as verbal or physical abuse? What is the source of that? Why People Get Angry Easily Kids want affection, attention, and acknowledgment. When they repeatedly can’t get what they want, they are likely to feel powerless. Also, frequently being told: “Just do it because I said so (or because I’m the parent)” can produce the same feeling. This leads to the belief I’m powerless. This is a basic self-esteem belief that makes us feel out of control and insecure, because if we are powerless then we don’t have the ability to do what we think needs to be done. In other words, on a subconscious level we know our survival is always at stake. When we form such a belief as a child we need to find some way to deal with the ever-present anxiety it produces. As I explained in an earlier blog post (http://bit.ly/ohzdoy), when we form a negative self-esteem belief as a child we need to develop some strategy to deal with it. For example, if we conclude I’m not good enough or important, | 3/27/12 | Free | View In iTunes |
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Do your beliefs embarrass you? | (http://www.mortylefkoe.com/wp-content/uploads/marty_lefkoe_headshots_Blog_053_201_edit_235251x3002-150x150.jpg)“Everything I say to you is confidential, isn’t it?” This is one of the first questions our new clients usually ask us. The answer, of c... | 3/20/12 | Free | View In iTunes |
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Why do most of us act compulsively? | (http://www.mortylefkoe.com/wp-content/uploads/marty_lefkoe_headshots_Blog_053_201_edit_235251x3002-150x150.jpg)Why are so many of us “driven” compulsively to seek or do things that frequently aren’t in our own best self-interest? You probably aren’t surprised that my answer is: beliefs. But there is a specific type of belief that results in “driven” behavior. And it is formed in a very specific way. Let me explain. Imagine you are a young child who has created a host of negative beliefs about yourself or about life. (Very few of us escape childhood without forming a bunch of negative self-esteem beliefs. I’ve explained why in earlier blogs. http://www.mortylefkoe.com/031610/ (http://www.mortylefkoe.com/031610/); http://www.mortylefkoe.com/wonderful-parents/# (http://www.mortylefkoe.com/wonderful-parents/#)) At this point you are in school, interacting with lots of other kids and adults. It dawns on you that you are going to grow up and will have to make your own way in life. You are confronted with a real dilemma, albeit an unconscious one: “How will I make it in life if there’s something fundamentally wrong with me or the world?” Imagine the fear and anxiety you must feel when you experience these two conflicting “facts”: On one hand, you sense that you must make it on your own in life. On the other hand, you have concluded that “There’s something fundamentally wrong with me or life that will make it difficult, if not impossible, to make it on my own.” Why we need survival strategies (http://www.mortylefkoe.com/wp-content/uploads/bigstock_business_woman_with_all_office_12153590-300x200.jpg)Fear and anxiety are unpleasant and painful feelings, so children who have them try to find ways of not feeling them. In tens of thousands of sessions with clients, I and other Certified Lefkoe Method Facilitators have discovered that people have two basic ways of dealing with the unpleasant feelings that are caused by negative self-esteem beliefs: First, they use alcohol, drugs, sex, food, or other substances to cover up the feelings and numb themselves or to make themselves feel good. Second, they develop strategies that help them deal with the anxiety that stems from their negative beliefs. I call them “survival strategies” because the fear one experiences when one has negative self-esteem beliefs often makes one feel as if his survival is being threatened. When a survival strategy is formed, the child also forms a belief about that strategy: “What makes me good enough (or important, or worthwhile, etc.) is ….” A variation of that is: “The way to survive is ….” Survival strategies are based on a child’s observation of what it takes to feel good about herself, to be important, to be worthwhile, or to be able to deal with life in spite of negative self-esteem beliefs. How specific survival strategies are formed Susan’s parents placed a heavy emphasis on friendships, on what others thought of them, and on impressing people, so Susan concluded that the way to survive was to get everyone to like and approve of her. Fred formed a similar belief in a different way: When he got praise and acknowledgement from his parents he really felt good about himself, in a way he normally didn’t. So he concluded what made him good enough and important was having people think well of him. Here’s Lauren’s story: She noticed that people treated her dad with respect and admiration because he had been so successful in business and had so much money, so Lauren concluded that what made her important and good enough was being financially successful. Art lived in a community where the people who were considered important and given respect were in gangs and carried guns, so he chose that as his survival strategy. (By the way, one way to know if you have negative self-esteem beliefs is to ask yourself: What makes you good enough [or important, or worthwhile, etc.]? When you answer an | 3/13/12 | Free | View In iTunes |
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Will you die with these regrets? | (http://www.mortylefkoe.com/wp-content/uploads/marty_lefkoe_headshots_Blog_053_201_edit_235251x3002-150x150.jpg)Bonnie Ware is an Australian nurse who spent several years caring for patients in the last 12 weeks of their lives. She recorded their dying epiphanies in a blog called Inspiration and Chai (http://www.inspirationandchai.com/Regrets-of-the-Dying.html (http://www.inspirationandchai.com/Regrets-of-the-Dying.html)), which gathered so much attention that she put her observations into a book called The Top Five Regrets of the Dying. Read her original blog post and see my explanation why so many of us have these regrets. “For many years I worked in palliative care. My patients were those who had gone home to die. Some incredibly special times were shared. I was with them for the last three to twelve weeks of their lives. … (http://www.mortylefkoe.com/wp-content/uploads/bigstock_Arlington_Cemetary_Fall_Foliag_4447732-300x240.jpg)“When questioned about any regrets they had or anything they would do differently, common themes surfaced again and again. Here are the most common five:” 1. “I wish I'd had the courage to live a life true to myself, not the life others expected of me. “This was the most common regret of all. When people realise that their life is almost over and look back clearly on it, it is easy to see how many dreams have gone unfulfilled. Most people had not honoured even a half of their dreams and had to die knowing that it was due to choices they had made, or not made.” Notice that Ms. Ware said they knew they had surrendered their dreams “due to choices they had made, or not made.” And what determined their choices? Beliefs such as: It’s selfish to do what I want. I’m not worthy. I don’t deserve to have what I want. Mistakes and failure are bad. If I make a mistake or fail I’ll be rejected. What makes me good enough and important is having people think well of me. The way to survive is to do what others want me to do. I’m not good enough. 2. “I wish I hadn't worked so hard. "This came from every male patient that I nursed. They missed their children's youth and their partner's companionship. Women also spoke of this regret, but as most were from an older generation, many of the female patients had not been breadwinners. All of the men I nursed deeply regretted spending so much of their lives on the treadmill of a work existence." The behavior leading to this regret is caused by many beliefs, the most important being: What makes me good enough and important are my achievements. What makes me good enough or important is being successful. 3. “I wish I'd had the courage to express my feelings. "Many people suppressed their feelings in order to keep peace with others. As a result, they settled for a mediocre existence and never became who they were truly capable of becoming. Many developed illnesses relating to the bitterness and resentment they carried as a result." Here are some beliefs that could keep people from expressing their feelings: My feelings are not important. If I express my feelings I’ll be rejected. What makes me good enough or important is having people think well of me. Anger and conflict are dangerous. 4. “I wish I had stayed in touch with my friends. "Often they would not truly realise the full benefits of old friends until their dying weeks and it was not always possible to track them down. Many had become so caught up in their own lives that they had let golden friendships slip by over the years. There were many deep regrets about not giving friendships the time and effort that they deserved. Everyone misses their friends when they are dying." Not staying in touch with friends could be caused by such beliefs as: What makes me good enough or important are my achievements. What makes me good enough or important is being successful. You have to work hard to make money. | 3/6/12 | Free | View In iTunes |
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How to live in a state of bliss | (http://www.mortylefkoe.com/wp-content/uploads/marty_lefkoe_headshots_Blog_053_201_edit_235251x3002-150x150.jpg)The Four Agreements, by Don Miguel Ruiz, is one of the most popular personal growth books ever written. I had the pleasure of meeting him f... | 2/28/12 | Free | View In iTunes |
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It’s not your fault | (http://www.mortylefkoe.com/wp-content/uploads/marty_lefkoe_headshots_Blog_053_201_edit_235251x3002-150x150.jpg)If you’re reading this, you are probably interested in personal growth. And if you are interested in personal growth you’ve probably read a... | 2/21/12 | Free | View In iTunes |
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Beliefs determine behavior, right? Wrong. | (http://www.mortylefkoe.com/wp-content/uploads/marty_lefkoe_headshots_Blog_053_201_edit_235251x3002-150x150.jpg)For many years I thought that virtually all of our behavior and feelings were caused by beliefs. When thousands of clients found and eliminated the relevant beliefs, they saw spectacular behavioral and emotional changes. After about 12 years, however, I had a client who eliminated scores of beliefs and made many significant changes in his life, but who couldn’t get rid of the anger he felt toward his mother, who was a partner in his construction business, when she gave him advice on how to run his company. At that point I realized that beliefs weren’t the only cause of our feelings, that stimuli could be conditioned to cause emotions, such as being told what to do causing anger and not living up to expectations causing anxiety. (http://www.mortylefkoe.com/wp-content/uploads/bigstock_Thinking_man_silhouette_with_t_25125881-300x300.jpg)As time went on I realized that sometimes a sense of ourselves or a sense of life could result in feelings, as could conditioned expectations. In other words, there were several sources of emotions in addition to beliefs, although beliefs still seemed to be the major source. Occurrings are the major direct cause of feelings There I was for many years until about two years ago when I came upon the distinction between reality and how reality occurs for us, in other words, the meaning we give reality. I soon realized that the feelings that seemed to be caused by beliefs were caused indirectly by beliefs, but directly by our occurrings. Here’s an example: Assume a woman has the belief, Men are dangerous. When she sees a man and feels fear, it seems as if the belief is causing the fear. In fact, it isn’t. The belief is responsible for the woman giving the man’s presence the meaning, at that moment, that she is in danger. That immediate meaning, that “occurring,” is actually causing the feeling of fear. It is true that the meaning she gives that particular man is determined primarily by the beliefs she already had about men in general, but the feeling is still caused by the occurring. Therefore, by dissolving the occurring you could get rid of the fear at that moment without getting rid of the belief. This was a major insight for me. Although the occurring can be dissolved immediately along with the emotion it caused, if the belief was not eliminated this woman would continue to give “negative” meanings to encounters with men in the future, which would cause fear. Beliefs don’t directly cause behavior either So for the past couple of years I was clear that emotions were directly caused by occurrings and conditionings, not beliefs. But up until last week I still thought that our behavior is caused directly by beliefs. I had plenty of evidence. For example, I had seen many clients totally stop their procrastination by eliminating 16 or so beliefs. I had seen many clients start taking actions they had been afraid to take—such as doing things for the first time, approaching women, changing careers—after eliminating the relevant beliefs. What I just realized (and I need to check out further) is that there are usually thoughts just before we act, especially when we refrain from acting. It appears that those thoughts are occurrings or at least clues to our occurrings. If this is true, then, like feelings, beliefs are only the indirect cause of our behavior and our occurrings are the direct cause. If we dissolve those occurrings I suspect that we could take action without eliminating the beliefs. Let’s look at a specific behavior and see how this works. Procrastination consists of not doing things that either should be done or that we actually want to do. We have identified about 16 beliefs and conditionings that have seemed to cause this behavioral problem. How might your occurrings cause you to procrastinate? | 2/14/12 | Free | View In iTunes |
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You are not your feelings | (http://www.mortylefkoe.com/wp-content/uploads/marty_lefkoe_headshots_Blog_053_201_edit_235251x300-150x150.jpg)How many times have you heard yourself say: I’m upset, or I’m angry, or I’m happy? If you are typical, many times a day. But stop for a moment and consider what you are actually saying. You are saying “I am …. (some specific emotion).” Whether you mean to or not, you are defining yourself as being your emotions. Actually, when you are in the grip of a strong emotion, it really feels all encompassing, as if there is no part of “you” that isn’t that emotion. In fact, sometimes a negative emotion so feels like who we are that we resist letting go of it even when we dislike having the feeling. In other words, often we seem to want to hold on to feelings because it seems as if giving up the feeling is like giving up part of ourselves. Take a moment and remember a time when you felt angry at someone and you knew on some level that the person really hadn’t done anything so terrible and that you ought to let go of the anger. Take a moment and really make the incident real. … Do you remember that some part of you didn’t want to let go of the anger, as if you’d be losing some part of yourself if the emotion were to stop? (http://www.mortylefkoe.com/wp-content/uploads/bigstock_Expressive_Eggs_2569793-300x150.jpg)It also can be difficult to let go of an emotion when it feels as if the emotion is validating the meaning we’ve given an event. It can feel to us as if letting go of the emotion will invalidate that meaning and letting go of the meaning will invalidate the feeling (which is who we feel we are). An example of this would be someone who doesn’t do something for us that he promised to do. We might give that event the meaning that I can’t count on people and I have to do everything myself, which likely would lead us to feel angry. It feels to us as if it really is true that we can’t count on people. So the anger justifies the meaning we gave the event (which has no inherent meaning). At the same time the meaning justifies the feeling, so we might resist letting go of the meaning we made up. But is that actually true? Are we our emotions? If we really are our emotions, then when an emotion disappeared, we should disappear … but we don’t. Let me explain this outrageous statement: If we say we are anything specific, and that thing disappears, then logically we would have to disappear. But we don’t disappear when our emotions disappear. Not only do emotions fade away automatically after a period of time, it also is possible to stop emotions on the spot by getting rid of the two things that cause them: stimuli that have been conditioned and our occurrings, in other words, the meaning we give events moment-to-moment. As I’ve explained in several posts, we unconsciously and automatically give meaning to meaningless events all day long. Because events that have no inherent meaning can’t cause us to have feelings, the feelings we have must come from the meaning we give the events. And by dissolving the meaning—in other words, how events occur for us—we can dissolve all the negative feelings that arise from the meaning. So if the emotions we have usually dissipate on their own after a while and if our emotions are primarily the result of meaning we give events and we can dissolve most emotions merely by dissolving the meaning that gave rise to them, can you get that it is more accurate to say we “have” emotions, but are not our emotions? The two best ways to get rid of negative emotions are to dissolve the conditionings and the occurrings that cause the feelings. But if you don’t know how to do that, however, it still is possible to lessen the impact emotions have on you. How? By noticing when you feel swept up by a strong negative emotion that “you” are observing your feeling. And the “you” that is doing the observing is | 2/7/12 | Free | View In iTunes |
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How the Lefkoe Institute can serve you | (http://www.mortylefkoe.com/wp-content/uploads/marty_lefkoe_headshots_Blog_053_201_edit_235251x3002-150x150.jpg)Can I eliminate beliefs on my own? Do you have Certified Lefkoe Method Facilitators in my area? How do beliefs differ from occurrings? Now that over 100,000 people from over 60 countries have eliminated at least one belief using the Lefkoe Belief Process, we get calls all day long from every corner of the globe. We are asked these and similar questions about the Lefkoe Institute’s products and services that are designed to free you from your limitations and enable you to create the life you’ve always wanted to live. Although we are happy to talk to you directly and personally answer all your questions, I thought it would be useful to describe in a blog post all the products and services we offer and how they differ from each other. This post will help you decide which of our products or services will best help you reach your goals and give you some suggestions on where to begin. Please don’t hesitate to call us at 415-884-0552 if you still have any questions. The sources of our problems The Lefkoe Method (TLM) consists of several processes that we use to help clients eliminate limiting beliefs and de-condition stimuli that result in negative emotions. Here is a short description of the major processes. The most significant source of our self-imposed limitations is our beliefs. Our core beliefs about ourselves, people and life are formed in the first five or six years of life through interactions with our primary caretakers, usually our parents. Other beliefs can be formed at any point in our lives and determine our behavior and influence our feelings. All of these beliefs can be eliminated with the Lefkoe Belief Process. Our emotional life is the result both of beliefs and conditionings. Emotions can result from conditioned events, such as fear that is caused by criticism, or anger caused by being told what to do. Such conditionings can be de-conditioned with the Lefkoe Stimulus Process. Our feeling sense of ourselves (such as heavy, overwhelming, and despair) can be the result of a conditioned sense of self, which can be de-conditioned by the Lefkoe Sense Process. And we can have feelings resulting from our expectations, such as expecting disaster when we try something new. Such negative expectations can be eliminated with the Lefkoe Expectation Process. On a moment-to-moment basis, our reactions are determined mainly by our “occurrings,” which are the meaning we give to events that have no inherent meaning. To use the example I’ve used before, imagine a friend of yours comes into a room, sees you, and doesn’t say hello. To many of us it would seem as if what actually happened in reality was our friend was angry with us. In fact, all that happened is that our friend saw us and did not say hello. That event has no inherent meaning. That he is angry with us is how the event occurs to us. Beliefs are generalized statements about ourselves, people and life that serve as a filter through which we view reality all the time. Our “occurrings,” on the other hand, are the meaning we give specific events as they happen moment-to-moment. The Lefkoe Occurring Process teaches you how to distinguish between events and how events occur for us, and then how to dissolve the occurring. The Lefkoe Method (http://www.mortylefkoe.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_thumb.jpg)The Lefkoe Method consists of all the processes we have created, most of which I’ve described above. For more details about these processes and a few others, designed mainly for organizations, please see a series of four blog posts I wrote in 2010. http://www.mortylefkoe.com/lefkoe-method-part-1/# (http://www.mortylefkoe.com/lefkoe-method-part-1/). http://www.mortylefkoe.com/rid-negative-senses/# (http://www.mortylefkoe.com/rid-negative-senses/#). http://www.mortylefkoe.com/well-being-tlm-part/# (http://www.mortylefkoe.com/well-being-tlm-part/#). | 1/31/12 | Free | View In iTunes |
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Does “reality” really exist? | (http://www.mortylefkoe.com/wp-content/uploads/marty_lefkoe_headshots_Blog_053_201_edit_235251x3002-150x150.jpg)If you asked someone, “Do things exist?” the response would probably be, “Of course things exist! The world is full of things. Everyone know... | 1/18/12 | Free | View In iTunes |
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You are both consciousness AND a “creation” | (http://www.mortylefkoe.com/wp-content/uploads/marty_lefkoe_headshots_Blog_053_201_edit_235251x3002-150x150.jpg)Based on surveys of my blog readers, most of you are primarily interested in changing your “creation”—in other words, you want to improve yo... | 1/10/12 | Free | View In iTunes |
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Why you should be concerned about your beliefs | (http://www.mortylefkoe.com/wp-content/uploads/marty_lefkoe_headshots_Blog_053_201_edit_235251x3002-150x150.jpg)If you have read any of the writings of the top self-help experts during the past 10 years—such as Deepak Chopra, Jack Canfield, or Joe Vitale—you’ve learned that permanent change is impossible without eliminating the beliefs that are keeping you stuck. I agree; beliefs do have that power. But why? What gives our beliefs the power they have to determine our behavior and feelings? There are two reasons why beliefs have the power they have—one is obvious, the other more subtle. Our beliefs about reality ARE our reality First, a belief is a statement about people, reality, or ourselves that feels like the truth to us. Although you might think that you would consciously agree with what you believe, in fact, it is possible to consciously disagree with something you believe. (http://www.mortylefkoe.com/wp-content/uploads/bigstock_Using_a_squeegee_to_clear_the__165550101-300x200.jpg)For example, you can know intellectually that mistakes are good learning experiences and still believe that mistakes are bad. If you have that belief, you would be afraid of trying new things or allowing others to know about your mistakes, even if you consciously think that mistakes are not bad at all. Because most of us usually act consistently with reality, we act consistently with what we think reality is, not with what reality actually is. In other words, if we believe I’m not good enough, People can’t be trusted, or Life is difficult (none of which are true)—then we will deal with reality as if these statements are the truth. As a result, they will determine what we do and how we feel. To use one simple example, if you believe I’m not loveable, Relationships don’t work, and Men/women can’t be trusted—if that is your reality—you have virtually no chance of having a nurturing, loving long-term relationship. Get rid of those and other related beliefs and you’ve changed your reality. At which point the possibility of a nurturing, loving long-term relationships becomes possible. Because we view reality through the filter of our beliefs, which color our perceptions, long-term fundamental change requires eliminating the beliefs that limit us. Yes, it sometimes is possible to use will power to act against our beliefs in the short run, but ultimately we will act consistently with the way we view reality. Beliefs are the primary source of our “occurrings” There is a second way in which beliefs determine our lives: by influencing our moment-to-moment reactions. For about 25 years I thought that beliefs affected our behavior and feelings directly, as explained above. To some extent I still think that is true. But a couple of years ago I realized that our moment-to-moment actions and feelings are determined primarily by the meaning we unconsciously and automatically give reality, in other words, how reality occurs to us—not by what actually happens in reality. For example, imagine a friend of yours walks in a room that you are in, notices you, and doesn’t talk to you. Most people would think: My friend is angry with me. This would be so real that most people would say to someone with them: Don’t you see that my friend is angry with me? But all that actually happened is the friend noticed you and didn’t talk to you. That event could occur to you as: He is angry with me. And because you deal with reality based on how it occurs to you—which you are convinced is what actually happened—you would respond to your friend as if he really is angry with you. Even though his anger exists only in your mind, not in reality. We are constantly giving meaning to events. We do it 20-40 times a day. And we are hardly ever aware of it. So our “occurrings” run our lives. And what is the relationship between our occurrings and our beliefs? Our beliefs are the primary determi | 1/4/12 | Free | View In iTunes |
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Can you permanently eliminate a belief in minutes? | (http://www.mortylefkoe.com/wp-content/uploads/marty_lefkoe_headshots_Blog_053_201_edit_235251x3001-150x150.jpg)About 30% of the people who used the Lefkoe Belief Process (LBP) to eliminate a belief told us in a survey that they thought the belief had not been eliminated. We were surprised at that statistic because well over 90% of the people we work with directly eliminate a belief. Why were so many not successful when they used the online process? After spending a lot of time researching the issue we finally discovered that over 90% of the people who used the on-line process actually did eliminate a belief. The problem was that a large number of people who did eliminate a belief still thought that the LBP hadn’t worked. They had a hard time believing they had done what they just did. This skepticism has produced a big marketing problem for the Lefkoe Institute since its inception 27 years ago. An awful lot of people just don’t believe it is possible to do what we promise to do. What makes The Lefkoe Method unique (http://www.mortylefkoe.com/wp-content/uploads/bigstock_figure-_w_Question_Mark_3993056-300x300.jpg)Our unique distinction is that we can help people quickly and permanently eliminate all the relevant beliefs and conditionings that cause virtually any behavioral or emotional problem in their lives. But most people have the belief: Change is difficult, takes a long time, and requires a lot of reinforcement. So telling people what we offer usually results in people expressing skepticism about our claim. Even when people actually eliminate a belief, they sometimes have a hard time acknowledging that it really has been eliminated. Four ways to know that a belief really is gone I’d like to suggest four questions you can ask to determine if any belief-elimination process you are using really works. 1. Does the belief you want to get rid of go away and stay away? You can know a belief is eliminated right after an exercise because the words of the belief no longer feel true; the words feel as if they have no meaning. That’s not the same as having an insight that has you conclude the belief must be gone because it no longer makes sense to hold the belief or because the belief doesn’t feel as true as it did before. In this type of situation it can seem as if the belief is really gone, but it really isn’t. Another way to check is to say the words of the belief several days later. Do they feel true, uncomfortable? Do they resonate with you? Or do the words still feel meaningless? With no energy or discomfort? If you still feel as if the belief is gone several days later, it probably is. 2. Did you get rid of some undesirable behavior or feeling after eliminating all the relevant beliefs? Ultimately you don’t care about eliminating beliefs. Eliminating beliefs is a means to an end. The true test to know that beliefs are gone is if the problem that the beliefs caused is gone. Because most problems usually are caused by a number of beliefs, you have to eliminate at least 8-10 beliefs to know that any given problem is gone, which then is proof that the beliefs must also be gone. For example, procrastination is caused by 16 beliefs. A good test that the 16 beliefs have been eliminated is to see if your procrastination disappears and doesn’t come back. (Actually it is caused by 13 beliefs and three conditionings, but conditioning is not really relevant in this discussion.) On the other hand, you cannot determine if any given belief is gone by checking to see if your problem is gone. Hardly ever will getting rid of just one or two beliefs eliminate a problem. Because there isn’t always any noticeable change in your behavior or emotions as a result of eliminating one or two beliefs, the absence of change is not proof that you still have the belief. 3. Did you get a guarantee that the beliefs will not come back AND the problem that the beliefs cause will not come back | 12/27/11 | Free | View In iTunes |
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Stop being run by your feelings | (http://www.mortylefkoe.com/wp-content/uploads/marty_lefkoe_headshots_Blog_053_201_edit_235251x3002-150x150.jpg)At one point or another, everyone has uttered the words: “I am happy.” And: “I am upset.” Notice what happens when you say: “I am [somet... | 12/20/11 | Free | View In iTunes |
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Let’s play a game: dissolve meaning | (http://www.mortylefkoe.com/wp-content/uploads/morty-lefkoe-blog-post-photo1-150x150.jpg)This week I am going to tell you about an easy-to-play game that will enable you to banish negativity and victimhood from your life. If you actually play the game... | 12/13/11 | Free | View In iTunes |
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Are Your Beliefs Dumbing You Down? | (http://www.mortylefkoe.com/wp-content/uploads/marty_lefkoe_headshots_Blog_053_201_edit_235251x300-150x150.jpg)This week, for the very first time in the three years I’ve been writing this blog, I am devoting the entire space to reprinting an article wr... | 12/6/11 | Free | View In iTunes |
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If you’re confused, this should help | (http://www.mortylefkoe.com/wp-content/uploads/marty_lefkoe_headshots_Blog_053_201_edit_235251x300-150x150.jpg)The question frequently arises: How can I tell the difference between three related phenomena: * the meaning we automatically and unconsc... | 11/29/11 | Free | View In iTunes |
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You are weird | (http://www.mortylefkoe.com/wp-content/uploads/marty_lefkoe_headshots_Blog_053_201_edit_235251x3002-150x150.jpg)All of you who read my blog posts and who signed up on my website to eliminate a limiting belief are "weird," according to best-selling author and popular blogger Seth Godin. Why would he apply that term to you? Seth uses the term “weird” to describe anyone who is not “normal,” in other words, people who express their uniqueness and who don’t try to fit in with what “most people” are doing. (http://www.mortylefkoe.com/wp-content/uploads/bigstock_Entrepreneur_Outsider_Or_Just_12972001-300x174.jpg)What makes YOU weird? Most “normal” people are not interested in personal growth. You—who are on my mailing list and reading this blog post—are a distinct minority. Because you want more out of life … because you are willing to spend your time, energy, and money to create a better life for yourself. Most “normal” people do not have this awareness and commitment. Interestingly enough, many of the people who come to us to help them eliminate beliefs are normal. Thousands of clients who come to us to get rid of their fear of public speaking only want to get rid of that specific practical problem. Most of them deny they have any problems at all in their lives other than their public speaking fear. They have no interest in personal growth. They are normal. Seth’s newest book, We Are All Weird, makes the point that there are getting to be fewer and fewer “normal” people in the world, in other words, people who aspire to be just like everyone else. More and more people are beginning to express their unique selves, which are weird to the normal people. We want to hang out in "tribes" And as people get interested in being their authentic selves, they also want to hang out with others who are weird in the same way they are weird, in “tribes” as Seth puts it. So if you are weird because you are interested in living the best life you can possible live, because you are willing to put in the effort to overcome the barriers to having a life that truly works, and because you are unwilling to put up with merely getting by—then, first, I want to acknowledge you for that weirdness. You are part of a relatively small group of people on this planet. And, second, I would like to support you. I have created a page on Facebook that over 1,400 of you weirdoes who are devoted to personal transformation already have joined. I put a link there to my blog posts each week as well as other information that I think would be valuable. I intend to make even more useful material available in the future. You can post comments and questions there and have other members of your tribe respond. In addition, I have offered to answer any question posted on that site pertaining to personal growth. If you would like to converse with people who have a similar commitment to personal growth, be given information that will contribute to that growth, and have a chance to get your questions answered, please join your fellow tribe members at http://facebook.com/recreateyourlife (http://facebook.com/recreateyourlife). As one of the weirdoes who has committed his life to helping others get rid of the barriers in their lives that keep them from the lives they want to live, I look forward to interacting with you there Please leave your comments and questions about how I can support your personal journey to a life free from unnecessary limitations. If you found this post useful, please tell your friends and followers by using the buttons at the top of this post. If you haven’t yet eliminated at least one of your limiting self-esteem beliefs using the Lefkoe Belief Process, go to http://www.recreateyourlife.com/free (http://www.recreateyourlife.com/free) where you can eliminate one negative belief free. For information about eliminating 23 of the most common limiting beliefs and conditionings, | 10/18/11 | Free | View In iTunes |
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It took me 26 years | (http://www.mortylefkoe.com/wp-content/uploads/marty_lefkoe_headshots_Blog_053_201_edit_235251x3002-150x150.jpg)Today (Monday) is a holiday and I’m sitting in my office writing this on my MAC. No one else is around and the phones are pretty quiet. ... | 10/11/11 | Free | View In iTunes |
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Are they really stupid? | (http://www.mortylefkoe.com/wp-content/uploads/marty_lefkoe_headshots_Blog_053_201_edit_235251x3002-150x150.jpg)Rare is the day when we don’t think that someone’s behavior or emotional reaction makes absolutely no sense at all. One day it might be a g... | 10/4/11 | Free | View In iTunes |
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Your happiness depends on knowing the difference between beliefs and occurrings | (http://www.mortylefkoe.com/wp-content/uploads/marty_lefkoe_headshots_Blog_053_201_edit_235251x3002-150x150.jpg) About two years ago I realized that the failure to make a distinction between reality and how reality occurs to us is the source of many problems in our life. As I’ve learned more about this distinction I’ve written several posts about it, which led to a lot of comments from you. Perhaps the most common questions I’ve received ask: Both beliefs and occurrings seem to be meaning we give to meaningless events. What is the difference between them? Why is the difference important. (http://www.mortylefkoe.com/wp-content/uploads/bigstock_Happy_person_in_a_sad_pessimis_6949327-300x264.jpg)In today’s post I’ll answer these questions and explain how our happiness depends on understanding the difference between them. There is a crucial difference between a belief and an occurring Beliefs are the meaning we give (usually) to a series of events. Beliefs are broad generalizations, for example, I am …. People are …. Life is …. A belief is a statement about reality that we feel and act is the truth, although it is possible to intellectually disagree with something we believe. Once formed, beliefs continue to exist and affect our behavior, feelings and perceptions forever, unless we are able to eliminate the belief. We view life through the filter of our beliefs. Our occurrings, on the other hand, are the meaning we give to an event in reality, in other words, how reality occurs to us at a given moment. Each occurring is a distinct meaning that usually lasts only a short time and then fades away by itself when we stop thinking about the event. An example of an occurring is your boss asking you a question and it occurring to you as she doesn’t trust me, she doesn’t like me, or I’m going to get fired. That is the meaning you have given to the boss’s question. In reality all that happened is that she asked you a question. Contrast that occurring—the meaning you gave to that specific event—to beliefs that act as a filter through which we view all events, such as No one trusts me. No one likes me. I can’t keep a job. Why occurrings are so important Usually we don’t distinguish between reality and how reality occurs for us (our occurring), so we think the meaning we give reality IS reality. Because we think our occurring IS reality, we interact with our occurring, not reality. For example, losing our job is a fact in reality, seeing it as a disaster or a great opportunity are two possible ways the event can occur for you. You can “see” that you no longer have a job. You can’t “see” that the job loss is a disaster or an opportunity. If your job loss occurred to you as a disaster, you would try to deal with “a disaster,” instead of with a job loss, which probably would have you feel and behave differently The simple distinction between beliefs and occurrings Can you see that beliefs are broad generalizations that filter your view of all events, while occurrings are “one time” meanings you give to specific events that do not affect the meaning you give to similar events in the future? Your long-held beliefs are NOT occurrings. Occurrings require, by definition, an event, either in your mind or in the world. An occurring is how an event occurs for you. If there is no event, there is no occurring. Is it now clear that beliefs and occurrings are two totally different phenomena? There is a relationship between them, however, in that beliefs are the major source of our occurrings. In other words, how a meaningless event occurs for us is determined mainly by our beliefs. (Other determining factors can include our mood, physical condition, and stage of development [see almost any of Ken Wilber’s books for details on stages of development]) Change your beliefs and you can change how events show up for you. For example, if you believe, People are st | 9/27/11 | Free | View In iTunes |
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How can we serve you? | (http://www.mortylefkoe.com/wp-content/uploads/marty_lefkoe_headshots_Blog_053_201_edit_235251x300_thumb2.jpg) I am committed to making the Lefkoe Institute as helpful to you as possible. To that end I’ve created a number of products and services desig... | 9/7/11 | Free | View In iTunes |
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How to build your self-confidence | (http://www.mortylefkoe.com/wp-content/uploads/morty-lefkoe-blog-post-photo1-150x150.jpg)NOTE: One of the most frequent questions I get is about what causes a low level of self-confidence and what can be done to improve it. To answer those questions I... | 8/30/11 | Free | View In iTunes |
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What is the relationship between financial success and personal growth? | (http://www.mortylefkoe.com/wp-content/uploads/morty-lefkoe-blog-post-photo1-150x150.jpg)The tens of millions of people who are interested in self-improvement have two different but related focuses: financial success and personal growth. People who primarily are interested in financial success seek out products that promise to help them make more money and end up with more wealth. Such people are usually willing to pay more for their courses and webinars than for courses that only improve their emotional well-being. (http://www.mortylefkoe.com/wp-content/uploads/bigstock_Choice_54478601-300x222.jpg)People who primarily are interested in personal growth usually want to change their behavior, such as stop procrastinating, and their emotions, such as stop their anxiety and anger. People for whom this is the goal usually are willing to pay far less for such products. Some of these people, especially those who have a strong spiritual bent, even think that being spiritual precludes them from pursuing money. So although sometimes there is an overlap between these two groups, people tend to have one focus or the other. There is an inextricable connection But even for the people who do pursue both goals, I’m not sure that many people interested in self-improvement are aware that there is an inextricable connection between the two areas of life. Although financial success can be affected by many different factors—including what product or service you are offering, the quality of the offering, to what market, competition, at what price, etc.—one of the most critical factors that is often ignored but that significantly affects your financial success is your mental/emotional state. Because my expertise is on how beliefs affect our lives, I’ll focus on the impact of beliefs, but whether the source of dysfunctional behavior and emotions are beliefs or anything else, the chance of achieving and enjoying financial success in today’s world is slim unless you are able to get rid of your dysfunctional behavior and emotions. Let me explain why. For many years, success in business depended on showing up every day and doing what you were told. If you did it well enough for long enough, you’d usually move up through the organization you worked for and end up with a nice pension. Financial success requires personal growth Today showing up and doing the “right” thing is no longer enough, whether you work for yourself or for others. More and more organizations are looking for creative, innovative, imaginative people who will figure out for themselves what needs to be done instead of waiting to be told. And if you work for yourself, then merely doing what others do, the way others do it, is unlikely to provide significant financial success. Today the world is looking for the intellectually curious, the people who are willing to take risks, who, as Seth Godin puts it, are willing to “poke the box.” If that is what financial success requires in today’s fast-changing world—where what worked yesterday is probably not what is going to work today and certainly won’t be what works tomorrow—than your behavior and emotional state are crucial. Beliefs that hinder financial success What is the chance of you being innovative, taking chances, doing what makes sense to you whether others approve or not, etc. if you have even just a few of the following beliefs? * I’m not good enough. * Mistakes and failure are bad. * If I make a mistake or fail I’ll be rejected. * I’m inadequate. * I’m not important. * What makes me good enough and important is having others think well of me. * I’m not capable. * I’m not competent. * I’m powerless. And that list of self-esteem beliefs doesn’t even include specific beliefs about money, such as: * Money is hard to get. * Money is a struggle. * There’s never enough money. In addition to the beliefs, | 8/16/11 | Free | View In iTunes |
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How to improve your relationships | (http://www.mortylefkoe.com/wp-content/uploads/morty-lefkoe-blog-post-photo1-150x150.jpg)I rarely give advice in my weekly blog post. I focus on the relationship between beliefs/conditioning and having the life you want to have. That is my area of re... | 8/9/11 | Free | View In iTunes |
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What barrier do you need to overcome? | (http://www.mortylefkoe.com/wp-content/uploads/morty-lefkoe-blog-post-photo1-150x150.jpg)Every six months I join about one hundred of my friends in the Transformational Leadership Council for four days. We enjoy hanging out together; we learn from each other; we support each other. The days we spend together are among the most important days of my year. At last week’s meeting I discovered a significant barrier in my life. Actually I sort of knew it was there, but last week I saw it in a way I had never seen it before. And now, 26 years after I created The Lefkoe Method that enabled me to eliminate literally hundreds of beliefs and conditionings, I realized there were a bunch more I needed to get rid of. My breakthrough Let me share my breakthrough with you as many of you might personally relate to it. My wife, Shelly, frequently tells me that I don’t say much during conversations with other people. I think I am listening and learning (I figure I learn more when I listen than when I talk), but I realized she is right: I often don’t talk even when I have something worthwhile to contribute. I also sometimes feel uncomfortable even around people I know and have a close relationship with. I hesitate to talk about my work unless I am clearly asked and the person asking shows some real interest. I’ve known all of this, but overall my life works and I’m very happy. Because no one of these issues seemed to be a “problem,” there was nothing I needed to “work on.” Last week I was trying to find what was getting in the way of me successfully completing an exercise. In this type of situation the most frequent barrier is a fear of failure and a wanting to look good in front of others. Those feelings had been a significant barrier for most of my life, but they had finally gotten handled some years ago when I eliminated the beliefs that caused them. The source of my barriers (http://www.mortylefkoe.com/wp-content/uploads/bigstock_Two_Men_Hugging_1676711-300x199.jpg)While interacting with the facilitator of this exercise I started talking about my childhood with the hope that I might find a clue to what was stopping me. I shared that my parents divorced when I was 3 and I saw my dad very little for the next 7-8 years. Then we spent a little time together until I was 15, at which time he told me he was leaving the city we lived in because, he said, “your mother drove me out of town” because she asked for more child support. He said he wasn’t going to tell me where he was going to live and that if I wanted to reach him, I could give a letter (remember “letters”) to my aunt (his sister) who would forward it to him. I didn’t see him for 20 years after that and didn’t hear from him when I graduated high school and college. As I related this story to the facilitator I got very upset and tears were streaming down my face. I realized that I’ve felt I was not wanted or truly accepted by others. I realized that I’ve felt unseen by most people. I realized that I’ve never had a mentor or a partner in business (other than Shelly). I realized that I’ve had a very difficult time being really open with men. The next day I sat down and made a list of beliefs I had that could explain this entire pattern of behavior, the major source of which were interactions with my father. My limiting beliefs and sense I can’t count on people. People don’t want to be around me. People aren’t interested in me and in what I care about. If people get angry with me they will hurt me. The way to survive is to do it all myself, to be totally self-sufficient. I also looked at my sense of myself regarding others and found the following: alone, lonely, heaviness in my chest, on the outside looking in, sad, don’t know how to relate to others, don’t know what to say to others, can’t count on others, an outsider, people don’t want to be around me, uncomfortable around men, afraid of being hurt by others. | 8/2/11 | Free | View In iTunes |
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The Information You Asked For: What Beliefs Cause Specific Problems | (http://www.mortylefkoe.com/wp-content/uploads/morty-lefkoe-blog-post-photo1-150x150.jpg)Every week I get a few blog comments and emails asking me to help you identify the beliefs that cause specific problems. Although our training that will teach you how to eliminate beliefs once you’ve found them won’t be available for another couple of months, for those of you who have already figured out how to eliminate beliefs on your own, here are some common patterns and the beliefs that cause them—for most people, most of the time. Some people obviously don’t have all these beliefs and some people have a couple of additional beliefs. (http://www.mortylefkoe.com/wp-content/uploads/bigstock_Fix_It_D_84702461-300x300.jpg) Procrastination: * Mistakes and failure are bad. * I'm not good enough. * Change is difficult. * What makes me good enough or important is having people think well of me. * Nothing I do is good enough. * I'm not capable. * I'm not competent. * If I make a mistake or fail I'll be rejected. * I'm a failure. * I’m stupid. * I'm not worthy. * I'm powerless. * What makes me good enough or important is doing things perfectly. * Conditioning: Fear associated with criticism and judgment. * Conditioning: Fear associated with not meeting expectations. * Conditioning: Fear associated with rejection. Fear of rejection: * I'm not good enough. * Change is difficult. * I'm not important. * What makes me good enough/important is having people think well of me. * If I make a mistake or fail I'll be rejected. * I’m not worthy. * Conditioning: Fear associated with criticism and judgment. * Conditioning: Fear associated with not meeting expectations. * Conditioning: Fear associated with rejection. Concern with the approval of others: * Mistakes and failure are bad. * I'm not good enough. * Change is difficult. * I'm not important. * What makes me good enough/important is having people think well of me. * I’m not worthy * If I make a mistake or fail I’ll be rejected. * Conditioning: Fear associated with criticism and judgment. * Conditioning: Fear associated with not meeting expectations. * Conditioning: Fear associated with rejection. Notice that some of the beliefs are the same for all three problems and some are different. We have found that certain basic negative self-esteem beliefs seem to underlie almost any pattern. And then each behavioral or emotional problem has its own unique beliefs. Problems with careers, abundance, and relationships have additional beliefs in those specific areas. You’ll also notice in the above lists that all three patterns include conditioning. As I’ve explained in prior blog posts, most behavioral and emotional problems are caused primarily by beliefs, but in many cases by conditioning also. For example, most people are conditioned to feel some level of anxiety if they are criticized, if they don’t live up to expectations, or if they are rejected. These conditionings have to be de-conditioned before many problems can be totally eliminated. For more information about conditioning, please see http://www.mortylefkoe.com/032310/. For more information about how to identify the beliefs underlying any given problem, see my blog post: http://www.mortylefkoe.com/find-beliefs-underlying/. If there are any other specific topics you would like me to write about, please let me know by leaving a comment below. I’ll do my best to write about any topic that a number of you request. If you haven’t yet eliminated at least one of your limiting self-esteem beliefs using the Lefkoe Belief Process, go to http://www.recreateyourlife.com/free where you can eliminate one negative belief free. For information about eliminating 23 of the most common limiting beliefs and conditionings, which cause eight of the most common problems in our lives, | 7/26/11 | Free | View In iTunes |
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Why Do We Need To Create Meaning? | (http://www.mortylefkoe.com/wp-content/uploads/morty-lefkoe-blog-post-photo_thumb.jpg) Why do we usually make up a meaning for events that have no inherent meaning? And how does that automatic, unconscious meaning-making process create problems for ... | 7/19/11 | Free | View In iTunes |
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Eliminate The Fear That Stops You | (http://www.mortylefkoe.com/wp-content/uploads/morty-lefkoe-blog-post-photo_thumb.jpg)Have you ever told yourself that you were going to do something—something you really wanted to do—and then just never get around to it? If you are, you are like millions of others and Seth Godin’s new book is about you. I read his newest book, Poke the Box, a few months ago and it’s just the right book for our times. It probably will become his 13th best-seller. You need to take action If you’ve read any of his earlier books or his daily blog (which I devour as soon as it arrives in my inbox), you know that Seth is passionate about innovation and change. And, he stresses repeatedly, if you want to produce something new and change anything, you have to start and you have to “ship,” in other words, create a product or service and then make it available. In other words, get an idea for somethin(http://www.mortylefkoe.com/wp-content/uploads/Photo-for-071211-blog-post-overcome-fear-300x200.jpg)g new that people will find valuable and willing to pay for and then stay with it until it’s ready to ship. But everyone knows that. Do we need another book that repeats that obvious truth? He is talking about business, but the point he is making applies to all of us, all the time, outside of business. Life is about making things happen, not just thinking about what we would like to make happen. The reason we need Seth’s book is that, despite the fact that the need to start and ship (the need to move forward in life) is obvious, most people don’t do it. Seth correctly says that the major reason is fear of failure. We are afraid to make mistakes and to fail. And anytime you are trying something new, something that hasn’t been proven to work before, there is always the possibility of a mistake or failure. Why do we all fear failure? Seth spends most of his latest book encouraging people to overcome this fear and giving them tips on how to do it. I totally agree with Seth that what is needed most in this world is innovation that is turned into products and services and then shipped. I also agree that fear of mistakes and failure is the biggest barrier to people doing this. But I have a slight disagreement about why so many people are afraid. Yes, we do have a reptilian brain where the only thing that counts is our survival. That’s why anything we perceive as threatening our survival will produce the emotion of fear. But what determines what we perceive to be a threat to our survival? If you are a regularly reader of my posts, you won’t be surprised when I say the answer is beliefs. In this case, two specific beliefs. What makes people fear mistakes and failure are two beliefs that most people seem to have: Mistakes and failure are bad and If I make a mistake or fail I’ll be rejected. If you think it is bad to make a mistake or fail and that you will be rejected if you do either of these two things, you will experience fear and, in far too many cases, the fear will inhibit action. The source of the “fear of failure” beliefs Why are these two beliefs so common? Well, let’s take a look at how they were formed. Most parents never take parenting classes on learning how to be an effective parent and most parents bring their own “baggage” with them to the job of parenting. Moreover, most parents have unreasonable expectations for their children. For example, most parents expect toddlers to come when called, sit still, not make too much noise, and do what they are told to do. All of these things are virtually impossible for a toddler. How do parents respond when their expectations are not met? In the best of cases with mild annoyance and frustration—in the worst of cases with physical abuse. The reaction of most parents is in-between these two extremes. Most parents get angry and repeat the phrases that have become clichés in our society: “How many times do I have to tell you?” “Don’t you ever listen? | 7/12/11 | Free | View In iTunes |
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Change your life by changing your brain | (http://www.mortylefkoe.com/wp-content/uploads/marty_lefkoe_headshots_053_2-01_edit_235-150x150.jpg)Most of the time we are only interested in attaining results and we don’t really care about detailed explanations for how we got those results. But som... | 6/28/11 | Free | View In iTunes |
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How Making Distinctions Can Change Your Life | (http://www.mortylefkoe.com/wp-content/uploads/marty_lefkoe_headshots_053_2-01_edit_235-150x150.jpg)My post today is about “distinctions.” And why should you care about distinctions? Because most of the problems in your life today exist because of dis... | 6/22/11 | Free | View In iTunes |
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Attract Money Now | (http://www.mortylefkoe.com/wp-content/uploads/marty_lefkoe_headshots_053_2-01_edit_235-150x150.jpg)If you are a reader of my weekly blog, you probably are interested primarily in * personal/spiritual growth, by which I mean improving the quality of your life and/or becoming more spiritual, * achieving more success, by which I mean earning more money or having an abundance of wealth in your life. Negative, limiting beliefs are a barrier to both goals, but I usually tend to write more about the first goal. Today I want to focus more on the second one. (http://www.mortylefkoe.com/wp-content/uploads/bigstock_Money_5164563-150x150.jpg)Over the weekend I read a book by Joe Vitale, a friend of mine and one of the people I love spending time with at our twice-a-year Transformational Leadership Council meetings. Because he has written a lot about the Law of Attraction and was one of the teachers in The Secret, I expected his book, Attract Money Now, to focus mainly on how to attract money merely by having positive emotions about abundance. As I’ve written before, I think there is something to the Law of Attraction, but I don’t think that merely focusing on something, with emotion, is enough to have it show up in your life. So I was pleasantly surprised. I not only enjoyed reading the short (160 pages) book, I think it just might be the best book I’ve ever read on exactly what you need to do to create abundance in your life. The first step is getting rid of negative, limiting beliefs As you might imagine, if I liked the book so much Joe must talk of the importance of beliefs, which he does. The first of the seven steps to financial abundance that he describes is “Alter How You Think.” He writes, “Limiting beliefs are like thieves in the night. The first step to attracting money is to change your thoughts and address these underlying limiting beliefs.” (Emphasis added.) Although he doesn’t mention the Lefkoe Belief Process in that chapter, he does list my work as a reference in the back of the book. By the way, one of the reasons we no longer promote a package of abundance beliefs is that getting rid of limiting beliefs is necessary, but not sufficient, to achieving abundance in your life. We like to guarantee results and we couldn’t guarantee that you would increase your wealth merely by eliminating the five beliefs in the package, so we withdrew it. We now provide it only on request and after explaining that it doesn’t carry a guarantee like our other automated programs. Joe also recognizes that eliminating beliefs is not enough, so he presents six other crucial steps. One of these other steps explains that one way to change your mindset about money is to give without any expectation of return. Such action implies a mindset of abundance. Being afraid to give implies a mindset of scarcity. And your mindset is crucial to achieving financial abundance. In Step 4 Joe points out the importance of asking for help, both from the universe and from specific people. He urges people to form or join a Mastermind Group, which is a group of several people with varying backgrounds who meet regularly to support each other. In fact, he was so convincing that I decided that I would either join one or form one of my own by the end of this month. Why “adding” emotion to your images of the future is important The way he described another one of the steps gave me an insight I had never had before. He, like so many others, talks about the importance of imagining the desired result and making it as emotionally real as possible. When others have told me this before, it sounded a little “airy fairy” and I couldn’t see why adding emotion to a vision would help make it come true. But Joe makes the point that “You are telling your mind to pay attention to the avenues and opportunities that will help you meet these goals. Does this mean these opportunities don’t exist. No. | 6/7/11 | Free | View In iTunes |
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Did You Have Wonderful Parents? | (http://www.mortylefkoe.com/wp-content/uploads/marty_lefkoe_headshots_053_2-01_edit_235-150x150.jpg)Perhaps the single most common question I get from people who are using the Lefkoe Belief Process to eliminate beliefs is: “Why do you say that all of our self-esteem beliefs were formed in early interactions with our parents? I had great parents. My beliefs about myself weren’t formed until later in life.” I wrote a post last year explaining why parents are almost always the source of our self-esteem beliefs. http://www.mortylefkoe.com/031610/ (http://www.mortylefkoe.com/031610/). But there are additional reasons why people might think their parents’ behavior has nothing to do with their beliefs that I didn’t cover in that post. (http://www.mortylefkoe.com/wp-content/uploads/bigstock_family_of_four_sunset_762892-300x225.jpg)To begin with, the beliefs you form in childhood as a result of interactions with your parents are not always the result of “bad” or abusive behavior. Negative self-esteem beliefs can be formed just as easily when parents withdraw from their children as when they yell at or punish their children. And withdrawing is not as obviously “bad” as punishment. Other parental behavior that causes negative self-esteem beliefs is anything that results in you feeling guilty—because you think you’ve treated your parents badly. What type of person must you be to treat your parents badly? … I’m not good enough. I’m bad. I’m not deserving. Imagine that you don’t do what your parents want you to do and their response makes you feel guilty, because they do so many wonderful things for you and you won’t do what they want you to do for them. If you then get yelled at, spanked, or punished, you might well experience your parents’ behavior as appropriate—not as “negative behavior.” I remember one client who told me early on that his parents were wonderful people who never did anything that could have led to negative beliefs. Shortly afterwards he mentioned that he was spanked on a regular basis. When I said that the spanking might well have been the source of several of his beliefs, he protested and replied: “But I was bad. I deserved to be spanked. My parents didn’t do anything wrong.” In cultures where parents aren’t around a lot, where fathers have little to do with child rearing, where physical punishment is common, and where comparisons with others and negative criticism are the norm, you might well think that your childhood was “normal,” and could not possibly be the source of negative beliefs. Although your childhood might have been “typical,” it certainly was not “normal.” To learn several other reasons why 99% of our self-esteem beliefs are formed in childhood as a result of interactions with our parents, see my earlier blog post if you haven’t already read it. And if you are a parent, read it again to learn what not to do to keep your children from forming the negative beliefs you probably formed in your childhood. http://www.mortylefkoe.com/031610/ (http://www.mortylefkoe.com/031610/). I’d love to hear from you with your thoughts about the source of your beliefs. Please write your comments below. For information about Shelly Lefkoe’s excellent course on parenting, which is based upon her 20 years of experience as a Certified Lefkoe Method Facilitator, and that helps parents raise children with a minimum of negative limiting beliefs, please go to: http://parentingthelefkoeway.com (http://parentingthelefkoeway.com). If you haven’t yet eliminated at least one of your limiting self-esteem beliefs using the Lefkoe Belief Process, go to http://www.recreateyourlife.com/free (http://www.recreateyourlife.com/free) where you can eliminate one negative belief free. For information about eliminating 23 of the most common limiting beliefs and conditionings, which cause eight of the most common problems in our lives, please | 5/24/11 | Free | View In iTunes |
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Are You Happy With Who You Turned Out To Be? | (http://www.mortylefkoe.com/wp-content/uploads/marty_lefkoe_headshots_053_2-01_edit_235-150x150.jpg)For most of my life I didn’t want to be me. I was so unhappy with my life that being almost anyone else would have been preferable to being me. For many years I wanted to be Fred Astaire, because I loved the joyful, bright sense of life he projected, an experience that I rarely felt. Today is my birthday and I am 74 years young. I feel and look at least a decade younger than my chronological age. And today I am happy to be me and wouldn’t consider being anyone else. What is the source of this dramatic shift? Getting rid of all the beliefs and conditionings that led me to be depressed and unhappy most of the time. And then learning how to stop giving meaning to the daily events in my life. Today I experience myself as the creator of my life almost all the time and I’ve stopped giving meaning to events most of the time, which has almost totally eliminated stress from my life. I’ve stopped seeking; I know I’m already there. I feel anything is possible and that I have no limitations. I experience virtually all my circumstances as okay just the way they are. Why am sharing this with you? Because what I did to reach this state is available to you too. Anyone (including you, yes, even you!) can experience a sense of wholeness, feeling totally okay with the way you are, and that you are the creator of your life. It doesn’t have to take a lot of time and it isn’t very expensive. Please don’t give up your dream of a life of joy and success. I was about as low as you can get and I’ve now reached a state of total satisfaction with my life. You can too. Don’t wait until your 74th birthday to be truly happy with your life. I’d love to hear from you with your thoughts about overcoming all your barriers and living a life of true bliss. Please write your comments below. If you haven’t yet eliminated at least one of your limiting self-esteem beliefs using the Lefkoe Belief Process, go to http://www.recreateyourlife.com/free (http://www.recreateyourlife.com/free) where you can eliminate one negative belief free. For information about eliminating 23 of the most common limiting beliefs and conditionings, which cause eight of the most common problems in our lives, please check out: http://recreateyourlife.com/naturalconfidence (http://recreateyourlife.com/naturalconfidence). These weekly blog posts also exist as podcasts. Sign up for the RSS feed or at iTunes to get the podcasts sent to you weekly. Copyright © 2011 Morty Lefkoe | 5/17/11 | Free | View In iTunes |
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How To Change “Human Nature” | (http://www.mortylefkoe.com/wp-content/uploads/marty_lefkoe_headshots_053_2-01_edit_235-150x150.jpg)Are you bothered by a psychological problem that you aren’t even trying to get rid of because you think it’s “human nature” and can’t be eliminated? If so, you aren’t alone. For example, Seth Godin recently published his 13th book, Poke the Box, that explains most people’s failure to take action by claiming that people have to overcome their natural resistance in order to take action. His Domino Project also published a book by Steve Pressfield, Do the Work, that also emphasized how resistance is the single biggest barrier to creativity and innovation, and it includes tips on how to fight this demon that lurks within each of us. (http://www.mortylefkoe.com/wp-content/uploads/bigstock_Danger_Sign_4802988-300x210.jpg)There are a number of psychological traits that are so common that most people consider them to be inherent in human beings. Don’t all people experience: * resistance to change? * fear of making a mistake or failing? * fear of rejection? * a concern with the opinion of others? * anger if you don’t get your way? It is understandable that few people seek help to deal with these feelings. So many people have them that they are considered to be part of being human. In fact, however, they are not inherent in human nature at all. All these psychological responses are the result of beliefs and conditioning formed early in our lives. Thus, all can be totally eliminated when the relevant beliefs and conditionings are eliminated. The beliefs and conditionings that cause these psychological responses First let me list some of the beliefs and conditionings that cause the psychological responses listed above; then I’ll explain why they are so common as to be considered “human nature.” * I’m not good enough. * I’m inadequate. * I’m not capable. * I’m not competent. * Nothing I do is good enough. * Mistakes and failure are bad. * If I make a mistake I’ll be rejected. * What makes me good enough and important is having others think well of me. * What makes me good enough and important is doing things perfectly. * I’m powerless. * I can’t make it on my own. * The way to be in control is to have things be exactly the way I want them to be. In addition to these beliefs, many people have been conditioned to feel some level of fear * whenever they are rejected, * when they don’t live up to the expectations of others, or * when they are criticized or judged. These conditionings also contribute to the common psychological responses listed above. Imagine someone to have these beliefs and to experience fear whenever these three situations occur. Doesn’t it seem obvious that they probably would have some if not all of the psychological traits listed above? Now imagine that tens of millions of people had these beliefs and conditionings. Wouldn’t it seem reasonable to assume that everyone was just born with them? The source of these beliefs and conditionings Now let’s take a look at why these psychological responses (and the beliefs and conditionings that cause them) are so common. The basic beliefs that underlie these common psychological traits were almost always formed in childhood, in our interactions with our parents. Here’s how it happens. As little kids we are always asking “why?”. Sometimes we ask our parents to explain things to us, and sometimes we ask ourselves, “Why am I being treated like this? Why is my life like this?” We answer these questions for ourselves (unconsciously) during the first few years of life. Because our parents are the people who we spend most of our waking hours with, they are involved in most of the experiences that lead to our fundamental beliefs. And what are those experiences in most households? Parents, being adults, generally like quiet; children are not quiet and cannot even understand why an | 5/10/11 | Free | View In iTunes |
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Why Do People Have Prejudice? | (http://www.mortylefkoe.com/wp-content/uploads/marty_lefkoe_headshots_053_2-01_edit_235-150x150.jpg)Just as we in 21st Century America look back at cultural practices of years gone by with a combination of repulsion and amazement, future generations probably will look back at the prejudice that runs rampant in the world today with similar reactions. Just as it is almost impossible for us to understand the Roman thinking that feeding people to lions is a spectator sport, in a few years people will try to understand why millions of otherwise sane individuals would consider some people “less than” others because of the color of their skin, their ethnicity, or their sexual preference. (http://www.mortylefkoe.com/wp-content/uploads/bigstock_Discrimination_Creative_Concep_cropped-300x187.jpg)Rather than wait for future generations to try to figure out what made the widespread prejudice possible in the early days of the 21st century, let me offer one possible explanation while we are living in the middle of it. All attitudes are the result of beliefs Because our beliefs are the primary determinant of what we do and feel, and even what we perceive, all prejudice can be traced to beliefs. People who are convinced that African-Americans, or Muslims, or gays are not as good as them (usually white heterosexual Americans) are expressing their beliefs about those people. (Actually, many people in those groups have similar feelings about white heterosexual Americans.) A belief is a statement about reality that we experience as the truth. It is a fact about reality for the person who holds the belief. So when we hold a belief about something, we are convinced that we know the truth about that something. But, in fact, no belief describes the truth about reality. Without exception, all beliefs are nothing more than arbitrary interpretations of actual events in reality. Physical objects and events certainly occur in the world, but the meaning we give the events exists only in our minds, not in the world. How prejudicial beliefs are formed A few years ago Leeza Gibbons devoted the entire hour of her daytime talk show to an investigation of the causes and cures for prejudice. I had been on the show before talking about how beliefs cause most of our thoughts, feelings, and behavior, so she asked me to come back to discuss the relationship between beliefs and racial prejudice. Before the show we went into the audience looking for a volunteer who would acknowledge having prejudice and who also would like to get rid of it if possible. We found Chad, a young man in his mid-20s, who said that he was “prejudice against any ethnic group, the way they act and the things that they do.” After getting rid the primary belief that caused that feeling before the show started, he announced during the show to a nationwide audience that the feeling he had when he started, he didn’t have any more. Let me tell you about the conversation I had with Chad before the Leeza show went on the air. When we started the conversation he had told me that he felt that members of ethnic minorities, especially African-Americans, couldn’t be trusted. So I asked him: “What do you believe about these people that would have you not trust them?” He answered: “Blacks are dangerous.” (He used the word “Blacks”; I used the word “African-American.” Moreover, there probably were additional beliefs, but this was one the most relevant.) I replied: “It’s clear that anyone with your belief would feel the way you do. But you didn’t have that belief when you were a year or so old. What happened that led you to that conclusion?” “When I was 10 my dad took us to the gun cabinet and said we had his permission to kill a Black if he stepped on our property. Areas where Blacks lived were very dangerous—a lot of crime and killing. The news was full of it. Most of our friends had the same negative attitudes about Blacks. | 5/2/11 | Free | View In iTunes |
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Stop Worrying About What Others Think | (http://www.mortylefkoe.com/wp-content/uploads/marty_lefkoe_headshots_053_2-01_edit_235-150x150.jpg)One of the most devastating problems people have is so common that nearly everybody views it as “human nature.” Few people even try to get rid of the problem because they assume everyone has it; it’s part of the “human condition.” What is this problem? Worrying about what others think and doing things just to get people’s approval. How you know if you have the problem (http://www.mortylefkoe.com/wp-content/uploads/bigstock_Female_Caucasia_Employee_Bitin_4383623B.jpg)How do you know if you are one of the tens of millions of people who have this problem? Do you often walk away from people thinking, “Did I say the right thing”; did I offend someone”; “should I have said or asked …”? Do you frequently hear that “little voice” in your head saying: “What will they think?”? Do you often feel you need to be a certain way and you can’t just be yourself? Although these thoughts and behaviors seem to be a much a part of who we are, in fact, however, you can eradicate these thoughts and behaviors forever. How? By eliminating the beliefs that cause them. Although this problem can be caused by different beliefs in different people, there is one specific belief that anyone with this problem almost certainly has: “What makes me good enough is having people think well of me.” How this belief is formed and why it is so common Today, I’m going to tell you how this belief is formed, why so many people have it (maybe even you) and how getting rid of this belief will transform your life. Early in life many of us form negative beliefs about ourselves like “I’m not good enough.” (Almost every one of the 14,000 clients we’ve had from almost 60 countries around the world has had this belief.) Because most parents expect children to do things that are unrealistic for their age (such as be neat and quiet and come when called at the age of three or four), and because most parents get frustrated, annoyed or angry when their children don’t do what they’re told, most children conclude “there must be something wrong with me” when mom and dad are upset with me so often, or I’m not good enough. Because our beliefs about ourselves are usually formed during the first six years of life, most of us already have this belief when we leave our homes and go out into the world of teachers, other kids, school, etc. Obviously a belief like this would make us think as we start school: “How will I get people to like me and how will I make it in the world if I’m not good enough?” And those thoughts, in turn, would lead to us feeling “not okay” about ourselves and anxious to some extent. The belief gets formed And then one day a solution appears. We do something that our parents (or perhaps a teacher or coach) like and they give us a very positive response. How does that make us feel? Happy and very good about ourselves. The first few times that happens we feel good but don’t make anything of it. And then after this progression of events occurs a few times we conclude: If I didn’t feel good about myself, and then after getting praise and/or positive attention I do feel good about myself, what that means is: “What makes me good enough or important is having people think well of me.” Survival strategy beliefs This is a very special type of belief. It is a belief that tells us what needs to happen in order to experience being okay. And when it doesn’t happen we don’t feel very good about ourselves. Well, if we don’t experience being good enough the way we are and we need something outside ourselves to become good enough, how often would we want that outside something to occur? All the time! Anytime anyone doesn’t like us, rejects us, or thinks poorly of us, we have lost our “survival strategy,” our method for making us feel good about ourselves. At that | 4/26/11 | Free | View In iTunes |
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How To Find The Beliefs Underlying Your Problems | (http://www.mortylefkoe.com/wp-content/uploads/marty_lefkoe_headshots_053_2-01_edit_234-150x150.jpg) Many of you have written to me saying you understand how to eliminate a belief, but you don’t know how to find the specific beliefs that c... | 4/19/11 | Free | View In iTunes |
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You Can Get Rid Of Your Depression | (http://www.mortylefkoe.com/wp-content/uploads/marty_lefkoe_headshots_053_2-01_edit_235-150x150.jpg)It is possible to permanently eliminate your depression. The purpose of this post is to assure those of you who are feeling depressed (or who know anyone who is depressed) that it is possible to get rid of it totally. I was depressed for about 30 years, so much so that I thought of suicide frequently. I haven’t felt anywhere near depressed for over 15 years. If I can do it, you can too. (http://www.mortylefkoe.com/wp-content/uploads/bigstock_Sunny_Days_Ahead_Sign_4313446-300x164.jpg)Depression is ultimately the result of feeling hopeless and helpless. It is experienced as an overwhelming sense of despair. Unfortunately, this mental disorder is very prevalent, with estimates that almost one in six Americans will experience depression in their lifetime. Moreover, many people whose symptoms are not serious enough to be classified as chronically depressed still experience bouts of despair that they are unable to shake for days on end. There are some people who claim that depression is chemical and that the brain of depressed people is actually different than the brain of normal people. A study conducted a few years ago did show that MRIs of depressed people were different from the MRIs of “normal” people. The study went on to describe, however, how after a few months of cognitive behavioral therapy the brains looked the same. In other words, it is more likely that the mental state caused the changed brain state than an abnormal brain state produced depression. Luckily, depression, like most mental problems, is the result of beliefs and conditionings, all of which can be eliminated by the Lefkoe Belief Process (LBP) and the Lefkoe Stimulus Process (LStimP). The following is a list of some beliefs that clients with depression have identified and eliminated. Can you see that almost anyone with most of these beliefs would have to feel depressed, at least to some extent? If someone didn't have any of these beliefs and, instead, held their opposite—such as "I control my life, not other people or circumstances" “My life is whatever I make it,” “I am good enough, important, and deserving”—could they possibly feel depressed? Say each of the following beliefs out loud. If any of them resonate with you, it's a belief you hold. Even though you may have held it since you were a child, and even if you've tried a number of ways to get rid of it, LBP can assist you to eliminate it. Typical beliefs that underlie depression * I'm powerless. * I'm not good enough. * I'm not deserving. * I'm inadequate. * I'm not important. * I'm worthless. * I'm not lovable. * Who I am is not okay. * I have no value. * There's something wrong with me. * Happiness doesn't last. * It's not safe to be myself. * Life is hard, painful, a struggle, and stressful. * Being responsible is a burden. * I have to be perfect or people won't accept me. * I can't have what I want. * I don’t matter. Ruth eliminated her life-long depression Ruth Bonomo of Westport, CT, who used the LBP to eliminate many beliefs like these, described how she totally ended her life-long depression: "I used to walk around enclosed in a veil of depression, fear, and self-loathing. I was always at the edge of the pit, ready to jump in and relinquish responsibility for my life and how it was turning out. I was on the verge of abandoning my family when my son became ill. After he spent several days in the hospital I realized I better get myself together; this kid needed and deserved me and I needed to be a responsible parent. "I found Shelly Lefkoe and the Lefkoe Belief Process. Immediately I began to shed emotional pounds. It was as if I had been running around on an exercise wheel in a hamster cage my whole life, and now I was free. | 4/12/11 | Free | View In iTunes |
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Why Do We Have Moods? | (http://www.mortylefkoe.com/wp-content/uploads/marty_lefkoe_headshots_053_2-01_edit_235-150x150.jpg)Usually in my weekly posts I present some information that I think will be useful to you, something I’ve learned that I want to pass on to you. This week I want to reverse that process: I’d like your collective wisdom to educate me and everyone else who reads my blog. The topic is moods. (http://www.mortylefkoe.com/wp-content/uploads/bigstock_Nine_Vector_Smilies_5512848-262x300.jpg)This mental state first became an issue in my occurring courses (http://occurringcourse.com)where the participants and I were trying to identify all the factors that seemed to influence how reality “occurred” for us, in other words, what determined the meaning we gave events as we experienced them, moment by moment? We realized that probably the major source of our occurrings (http://occurringcourse.com)was our beliefs and conditionings. Other relevant sources included our physical condition and our “moods.” But when we tried to state specifically what we meant by a mood and where our moods came from, we were stumped. After a lot of thinking and a bunch of research, I came up with a few ideas, which I’d like to share with you in this post. But instead of ending with my conclusion, I’m going to end with a request that you take a look at what I’ve presented and then tell me and my readers what you think, and let’s see if our collective thinking can figure out what moods really are, where they come from, and how to change them if they are negative. What do the experts say? I checked to see what Wikipedia had to say. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mood_(psychology (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mood)) “A mood is a relatively long lasting emotional state. Moods differ from emotions in that they are less specific, less intense, and less likely to be triggered by a particular stimulus or event. “Moods generally have either a positive or negative valence. In other words, people typically speak of being in a good mood or a bad mood. Unlike acute, emotional feelings like fear and surprise, moods often last for hours or days. “Mood also differs from temperament or personality traits which are even longer lasting. Nevertheless, personality traits such as optimism and neuroticism predispose certain types of moods. Long term disturbances of mood such as depression and bipolar disorder are considered mood disorders. Mood is an internal, subjective state, but it often can be inferred from posture and other behaviors.” Some of my thinking Moods seem to be like emotions in some respects and different in other respects. They both can be positive or negative. Moods tend to last longer than emotions. Usually emotions are set off by a specific stimulus (in the case of stimulus conditionings) or by the meaning we give specific events at the time (in other words, our occurrings (http://occurringcourse.com)). I’m not sure what creates our moods. A mood colors one’s perception and behavior. It is like a filter through which one views reality. Therefore it can affect the meaning you give to an event, which determines how events occur to us. Although our occurring can influence the mood we are in, it seems more common that moods affect our occurrings. I said earlier that our physical condition, such as being in pain or being tired, can affect our occurring. It also can affect our mood. In an earlier blog post on emotions I wrote: “Sadness, unhappiness, grief and sorrow are emotions that result from feeling powerless in the face of not having (or not being able to have) what we want, or losing what we had.” (http://www.mortylefkoe.com/why-negative-emotions/ (../why-negative-emotions/)) Now that I think about it, these four emotions have many of the characteristics of moods. Could moods be affected by the same principles that determine emotions? (In that earlier post I explained the source of our negative em | 4/5/11 | Free | View In iTunes |
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Don’t Just Reduce Your Problem, Eliminate It | (http://www.mortylefkoe.com/wp-content/uploads/marty_lefkoe_headshots_053_2-01_edit_211-150x150.jpg)A friend of mine who has been a teacher in, and a student of, the personal growth business for over 25 years called me the other day for help. He see... | 3/29/11 | Free | View In iTunes |
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How You Can Eliminate Beliefs For Good | (http://www.mortylefkoe.com/wp-content/uploads/marty_lefkoe_headshots_053_2-01_edit_235-150x150.jpg)Most of the techniques that proclaim to permanently eliminate long-held beliefs don’t work. Why? And what do the successful techniques do that make th... | 3/22/11 | Free | View In iTunes |
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What Do YOU Want To Know About Occurring? | (http://www.mortylefkoe.com/wp-content/uploads/marty_lefkoe_headshots_053_2-01_edit_21-150x150.jpg)I have a question to ask you but before I ask, I’d like to give you some background. First, you, along with tens of thousands of others who have used The Lefkoe Method, have sent me many hundreds of testimonials about the incredible results you’ve gotten from eliminating one of the common beliefs on the free program, from one of our DVD or streaming video programs, or from one-on-one sessions. Thanks for taking the time to do that. We at Lefkoe Institute are inspired each day by your messages. (http://www.mortylefkoe.com/wp-content/uploads/bigstock_Oak_Tree_Beauty_2755748-300x300.jpg)But some of the most profound testimonials we’ve received have come from people who’ve taken one of the four courses we’ve offered on how to dissolve your occurrings. If you’ve been following my blog for a while, you’ve read one of my posts about how the single most powerful thing you can do to improve the quality of your life is to learn how to dissolve your occurrings. If you don’t know much about it, check out this short (12 minute) video that will explain it in detail. http://occurringcourse.com/occurring-works/ (http://occurringcourse.com/occurring-works/) Essentially, you and I give meaning to events as they happen (which is how they “occur” for us) and don’t realize that there is a difference between the actual events and the occurring. For example, our spouse asks us: Did you do so-and-so for me? That is the actual event, in other words, what actually happened. For many of us, however, it would occur as either: He/she doesn’t trust me to do what he/she has asked. Or, why won’t he/she get off my back and leave me alone! Or, why should I do it; why doesn’t he/she do it him/herself? Etc. And because we don’t distinguish between reality and our occurrings, we assume that our occurrings are reality and we respond as if they are. I’ve learned so much during the past four courses about why we have occurrings, how to distinguish between them and reality, four different techniques to dissolve them quickly and easily, why it is more difficult to dissolve them when you have strong emotions, how to be able to do that when in the grip of strong emotions, why the testimonials from people in the occurring courses seem to be more profound than people who’ve only eliminated beliefs, etc. Please tell me what you would like to know about occurring? I’ll either write a blog post or make a short video that answers the most commonly asked questions. P.S. Thanks to the 80+ people who commented on my last blog post. Thanks for taking the time to provide a thoughtful response and for your suggestions. We are looking into how to implement some of the most popular recommendations. We will definitely offer a training in the next few months to teach you how to eliminate a belief once you’ve identified it. If you haven’t yet eliminated at least one of your limiting self-esteem beliefs using the Lefkoe Belief Process, go to http://www.recreateyourlife.com/free (http://www.recreateyourlife.com/free ) where you can eliminate one negative belief free. For information about eliminating 23 of the most common limiting beliefs and conditionings, which cause eight of the most common problems in our lives, please checkout: http://recreateyourlife.com/naturalconfidence (http://recreateyourlife.com/naturalconfidence). These weekly blog posts also exist as podcasts. Sign up for the RSS feed or at iTunes to get the podcasts sent to you weekly. copyright © 2011 Morty Lefkoe | 3/15/11 | Free | View In iTunes |
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What Should I Do With The Rest Of My Life? | (http://www.mortylefkoe.com/wp-content/uploads/marty_lefkoe_headshots_053_2-01_edit_2-150x150.jpg)I’ve always been the youngest person doing whatever I was doing. I was just 16 when I graduated high school. I was working on Wall Street as a securitie... | 3/8/11 | Free | View In iTunes |
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How To Create A Better Relationship | (http://www.mortylefkoe.com/wp-content/uploads/marty_lefkoe_headshots_053_2-01_edit_28-150x150.jpg)Are you one of the millions of people who have been unable to find a loving, fulfilling, and exciting relationship? I am convinced that everyone can have the relationship of his dreams if he got rid of the beliefs that get in the way. I speak from experience because I had two marriages that failed because of my limiting self-esteem and relationship beliefs. After eliminating them I found and married Shelly, to whom I will be married 30 years in just a few months. People who know us are inspired by the incredible relationship we have. (http://www.mortylefkoe.com/wp-content/uploads/bigstock_Portrait_Of_A_Happy_Couple_Smi_4049739-300x200.jpg)People can have several different types of relationship problems. Either they can’t find one (and they hate the dating game), or they had one and it failed (leading to a lot of emotional pain and upset), or they are still in one that just doesn’t work or isn’t nurturing (leading to constant unhappiness, frustration, and anger). There is a fourth possibility that is even worse: being in a relationship that doesn’t really work and assuming that this is the best a relationship can possibly be. That leads to constant dissatisfaction, but no hope for improvement because people in this situation don’t think anything better is possible. We’ve been asked many times to create a package of beliefs and conditionings that would help people in each one of these situations. Unfortunately, because each relationship is so different, the beliefs and conditionings involved also can be different, so a generic DVD program for the “average” person is impossible (at least at the moment, because nothing is ever really impossible in the long run). I can, however, describe the type of beliefs and conditionings involved in different types of relationship problems. To begin with, negative self-esteem beliefs are usually involved in all of them, apart from the specific beliefs and conditionings related to specific problems. So beliefs like I’m not good enough, I’m not important, I’m powerless, I’m not deserving, etc. are a partial cause of almost any relationship problem. Here are some of the beliefs that our clients, who have had a wide variety of relationship problems, have shared with us. If you are having a hard time forming a relationship, you probably believe: Relationships are difficult. This can exist in various forms, such as Relationships don’t work, relationships require a lot of effort, etc. You probably believe men/women can’t be trusted. Other common beliefs are: There are no good men/women left out there. Marriage is suffocating. I’ll lose myself in a relationship. Men are jerks/selfish/dangerous/ have all the power/cheat. One self-esteem belief that is very applicable to relationship problems is I’m unlovable. All of the beliefs that cause a lack of confidence (see the list in the Natural Confidence program [http://recreateyourlife.com/naturalconfidence (http://recreateyourlife.com/naturalconfidence)]) could be relevant in this situation. And there is at least one conditioning applicable to this situation: fear associated with rejection. If you’re just left a failed relationship, you are likely to have concluded a bunch of negative beliefs about yourself and your former partner (which you probably hold as applicable to an entire gender) based on the specific problems you had in the relationship. You also ought to check out the beliefs involved in feeling like a victim, which include: Life is difficult, I’ll never get what I want, Things never work out for me, People can’t be trusted, and I can’t count on others. If you are in a relationship that doesn’t work but you stay in it, you probably have many of the beliefs already mentioned, in addition to: This is all I deserve. I’ll never find anything better. I can’t make it o | 3/1/11 | Free | View In iTunes |
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Do You Need Training To Use The Lefkoe Method? | (http://www.mortylefkoe.com/wp-content/uploads/marty_lefkoe_headshots_053_2-01_edit_235-150x150.jpg)Are you one of the people who figured out how to use the Lefkoe Belief Process (LBP) after eliminating a few beliefs on http://recreateyourlife.com/free (http://recreateyourlife.com/free) where we offer three beliefs for free? Many people are able to eliminate beliefs by themselves after going through the LBP a few times, whereas others are unable to do it themselves if they’ve never received training even after eliminating 20-30 beliefs. Once you’ve figured out what belief you want to eliminate, going through the steps of the LBP can be relatively easy for some people. The steps are the same in most cases, although the source and alternative interpretations are different for survival strategy beliefs. So if you are able to find the source of your beliefs and come up with valid alternative interpretations (which can be different for different beliefs), you might be able to get rid of many beliefs on your own. (http://www.mortylefkoe.com/wp-content/uploads/bigstock_Group_Of_Adults_Studying_39153512-150x150.jpg) The biggest problem in using the LBP is figuring out which beliefs are the source of different problems. (And, of course, many problems also are caused by conditioning, which can require you to use several other processes that are part of The Lefkoe Method [TLM] in order to eliminate those problems totally.) This ability to quickly learn how to get rid of the beliefs that cause many of your day-to-day problems is a significant distinction between the LBP and almost every form of psychotherapy. You Can’t Conduct Psychotherapy On Yourself It is virtually impossible to conduct a psychotherapy session on yourself, regardless of which type of psychotherapy you choose to use. And instead of a weekend training to learn how to use the LBP with others, you need several years of school and many hours of practice and observation before you can be effective as a psychotherapist. It is because the steps of the LBP are relatively simple once you know the belief you want to eliminate that we have been able to put that Process on DVDs and streaming video. And because certain problems usually have the same beliefs and conditionings, we have been able to create DVDs and streaming video programs to get rid of entire problems in addition to eliminating an assortment of random beliefs. Using TLM successfully probably requires less communication skills than most forms of psychotherapy. A Lefkoe Method facilitator must be able to administer TLM effectively and that usually does take some training, skill, and practice, but if the processes are presented correctly, they will work regardless of the rapport the facilitator has established with the client. That is one reason why the various processes in TLM can be effective in a DVD or interactive web program. On the other hand, most forms of psychotherapy require a high degree of trust, relationship, rapport, etc. between the therapist and the client, and often the better the rapport, the more effective the session. In TLM the process is more important than the facilitator, whereas in most other therapies the opposite is true. This is not to say that no rapport or trust is required for Lefkoe Method faciliators, because if they are totally absent, people may not feel comfortable working with the facilitator. Also, a LM facilitator with a high degree of training and insight is likely to figure out the source of a given problem that another facilitator might not even recognize. Finally, a client is more likely to be totally open with a facilitator she trusts, which can make a difference in the outcome of a session. Everyone Helps Everyone Else My vision is for millions of people to learn how to use the LBP and the other processes that comprise The Lefkoe Method early in life so they can use them on themselves and to help others. | 2/23/11 | Free | View In iTunes |
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What You Don’t Know You Don’t Know | (http://www.mortylefkoe.com/wp-content/uploads/marty_lefkoe_headshots_053_2-01_edit_235-150x150.jpg) There are things you don’t know that you don’t know. And that fact, perhaps more than any other single thing, is keeping you from having the be... | 2/16/11 | Free | View In iTunes |
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The Best Way To Increase Choice In Your Life | (http://www.mortylefkoe.com/wp-content/uploads/marty_lefkoe_headshots_053_2-01_edit_231-150x150.jpg) Very often in the middle of a session with a client I have a realization and then think: I’ll bet my readers would find this interesting. So, here’s what happened during a session last week. A client was trying to eliminate the belief, The way to survive is to be numb. He told me that the source of his belief was the fact that when he was a kid his mom spanked him if he exhibited strong positive or negative feelings. In other words, if he was too exuberant or if he cried or if he got angry, he got spanked. So he concluded early on that the way to survive is to quiet himself down inside and not allow himself to feel or express any strong emotion. (http://www.mortylefkoe.com/wp-content/uploads/bigstock_Doors_To_The_New_World__5762768-150x150.jpg) But after finding the source of the belief he suddenly got stuck. This client had had no difficulty in eliminating other beliefs earlier in the session, but all of a sudden he seemed to be having real problems eliminating this one. At some point the client said: “If I let go of this belief then I’ll have to experience my emotions, and that is too scary.” In other words, this client had beliefs and conditionings that had him be afraid of strong emotions, especially anger. Such beliefs and conditionings included: Anger is dangerous. Experiencing my feelings is dangerous. Fear associated with experiencing my feelings. His “survival strategy” to deal with this fear was to go numb, after which he concluded, The way to survive is to be numb. By going numb (unconscious), he didn’t have to feel strong emotions, which he felt were so threatening (because every time he expressed strong emotions as a child it felt as if his mother was withdrawing her love). What he started to feel in the middle of eliminating this belief was, if I let go of this belief, I will start to feel strong emotions and that is dangerous. My mistake First of all, I had made a mistake in not having him eliminate all the beliefs and conditionings that caused the fear of strong feelings before helping him to eliminate this survival strategy belief. He had eliminated a few of them, but we should have eliminated all of them. Generally you should eliminate all the beliefs underlying a survival strategy belief before attempting to eliminate the survival strategy belief. If we had done that, he would no longer have been afraid of strong emotions and he wouldn’t have been afraid to let go of this belief. Eliminating beliefs provides choice, not required behavior But apart from this error on my part, what I realized was he didn’t understand that eliminating a belief would not cause him to act in a certain way, it would only give him a choice. He wouldn’t have to express strong feelings, but he would be able to if he chose to. In other words, eliminating beliefs opens up possibilities for us—it gives us a choice—but does not require any specific action. Let me explain. Many people have the belief, What makes me good enough or important is taking care of others. That belief will have you frequently put others first and not do what you should do to take care of yourself. Because you have concluded that your self-esteem is dependent on taking care of others, you do that out of need, not out of choice. When this belief is eliminated, you are not prevented from taking care of others, you just have a choice about doing it. You can do it when you wish and not do it when it isn’t appropriate. Getting rid of the belief gives you a choice, it does not require any specific behavior on your part. Ultimately, one of the most desirable things to possess in life is choice. To have choice in what we do and think and feel is a goal we all have. Beliefs and conditionings can often prevent choice because they frequently dictate specific thoughts, feelings, and behaviors. | 2/9/11 | Free | View In iTunes |
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Increase Your Happiness With One Distinction | (http://www.mortylefkoe.com/wp-content/uploads/marty_lefkoe_headshots_053_2-01_edit_229-150x150.jpg) Do you know the difference between beliefs and occurrings? They are totally different phenomena. And you need to be able to eliminate both of th... | 2/1/11 | Free | View In iTunes |
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Get The Law of Attraction To Work For You | (http://www.mortylefkoe.com/wp-content/uploads/marty_lefkoe_headshots_053_2-01_edit_235-150x150.jpg) This past week I was attending my bi-annual meeting of the Transformational Leadership Council in New Orleans. At one point I was talking to Paul Scheele of Learning Strategies about the important distinction between inspiration, which comes from who we really are (consciousness, the “creator”) and intention, which comes from who we think we are (the ego, the “creation”). (See my recent blog post where I discuss this distinction in detail: http://www.mortylefkoe.com/create-happiness/ (http://www.mortylefkoe.com/create-happiness/).) (http://www.mortylefkoe.com/wp-content/uploads/Morty-and-Paul-at-TLC-150x150.jpg) In the middle of the conversation I had a thought that might explain why the Law of Attraction works sometimes and not other times. When you are inspired to do something (inspirations are created out of nothing, “just because”), the creator that you really are will help to manifest that inspiration. The “universe” will support you. On the other hand, when your ego sets an intention (intentions are shaped and limited by our prior beliefs), you generally will not be supported by who you really are, by consciousness, by the “universe.” In other words, consciousness will help to manifest the visions it inspired to begin with. And the ego will have to work hard to bring its intentions to fruition. What I am suggesting is that the Law of Attraction is nothing more that consciousness manifesting its own creations (namely your inspirations). The “Law” is not applicable to intentions it did not create. Obviously it is possible to achieve ego-created intentions with effective strategies and actions, but you will not have the Law of Attraction’s support in the same way as you would if you were focused on implementing an inspiration. Take a look in your own life. Think about the times that the Law of Attraction seemed to be working, when merely thinking about something seemed to be enough for it to manifest. And then think about the times that you struggled to get something you wanted. Was the goal you were striving to achieve a function of an intention or an inspiration? Does this distinction explain when the LOA works for you and when it doesn’t? Tell me and my readers your stories. For information about my next Lefkoe Occurring Course, where you learn how to use the Lefkoe Occurring Process to automatically dissolve your occurrings and your negative feelings, please check out: http://occurringcourse.com/discover (http://www.occurringcourse.com/discover/). For information about eliminating 23 of the most common limiting beliefs and conditionings, please checkout: http://recreateyourlife.com/naturalconfidence (http://recreateyourlife.com/naturalconfidence). These weekly blog posts also exist as podcasts. Sign up for the RSS feed or at iTunes to get the podcasts sent to you weekly. If you haven’t yet eliminated at least one of your limiting self-esteem beliefs using the Lefkoe Belief Process, go to http://www.recreateyourlife.com/free (http://www.recreateyourlife.com/free) where you can eliminate one negative belief free. copyright © 2011 Morty Lefkoe | 1/25/11 | Free | View In iTunes |
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You Can Create Your Own Happiness | (http://www.mortylefkoe.com/wp-content/uploads/marty_lefkoe_headshots_053_2-01_edit_235-150x150.jpg) What if there was one principle about human feelings that would enable you to control your own experience of life? Well, there is, and here is the principle: The meaning you give to what happens to you totally determines your reaction to what happens to you. One meaning can lead to upset and suffering; another meaning of the same event can lead to excitement, challenge, and happiness. (http://www.mortylefkoe.com/wp-content/uploads/Photo-for-011811-blog-post-meaning-happiness-300x200.jpg)Take a moment and think about this. … Because events in the world have no inherent meaning, when you give meaning to events it seems as if your meaning (how the event is occurring to you) is what is actually happening. In fact, however, your occurring exists only in your mind. This very important principle is relevant in two ways. Our meaning creates our beliefs First, all of our beliefs about ourselves, others, and life itself are nothing more than the meaning we have given to meaningless events. I’m not good enough is the meaning we have given to parental criticism or dissatisfaction with what we do as a child. Relationships are difficult is the meaning we have given to our parents arguing all the time or to our first couple of unpleasant relationships. Life is difficult is the meaning we have given to difficult childhood experiences where we and our family struggled a lot. Etc. So our anxiety, procrastination, concern with the opinion of others, lack of confidence, difficulties in relationships, stress, etc. are all primarily the result of beliefs: the meanings we gave earlier in our lives to meaningless events. (Conditionings also play a role.) Our meaning determines how reality occurs to us Second, the meaning we give events determines how they occur for us at the moment. One meaning can lead to a positive occurring; another meaning can lead to a negative occurring. Unfortunately, most of the time most of us never distinguish between what is actually happening and the meaning we are giving what is happening. For example, your boss asks you a question. If you give it the meaning that your boss is dissatisfied with you, you likely will feel anxious or angry. If you give the same question the meaning that your boss is just trying to get some information, you will feel calm and provide the information. Another example: Your spouse asks you to do something. If you give it the meaning that he is asking because he doesn’t trust you to do it on your own, you will be angry or upset. If you give it the meaning that she is just telling you what she wants, then you probably will feel nothing at all. Meanings that turn into beliefs are generalizations about ourselves, people, and life that stay with us forever, unless we eliminate them. Meanings that determine how an event occurs for us disappear as soon as we stop thinking about the event. When people eliminate all the beliefs that cause a given behavioral or emotional problem, the problem disappears. People who have done this have reported profound changes in their lives. And yet the changes reported by people who have learned how to dissolve their negative occurrings and be left either with just the unvarnished facts or a positive occurring are even more profound. Here are just a few stories from people in recent Lefkoe Occurring Courses to show how powerful it is to be able to control the meaning you give events. “Occurrings dissolve instantly” I've found that almost all of my occurrings dissolve instantly this week, that there was nothing to really stop and work through except for the one incident above. I feel much lighter emotionally now and a LOT less reactive - I find myself looking at situations fairly dispassionately now with a little bit of curiousity as to what may be going on. LOVE IT!! --Renee Maxfield | 1/18/11 | Free | View In iTunes |
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Would You Like To Be Able To Love Unconditionally? | (http://www.mortylefkoe.com/wp-content/uploads/marty_lefkoe_headshots_053_2-01_edit_235-150x150.jpg)Early last year a good friend and colleague, Marci Shimoff, contacted me and told me she was writing a new book to be titled, Love For No Reason. She said she had read a post I had written about my unconditional love for my wife, Shelly. Marci asked if she could interview me for the book and use what I had written. Of course I agreed. Her book has just been published and I want to strongly recommend that you read it, because she explains, in a way that I had never thought of, how to create a life of unconditional love. Because I’ve been able to love unconditionally, I know how incredible that experience is, so anything you can do to have that experience yourself is worth doing. http://www.thelovebook.com (http://www.thelovebook.com/) The book opens with an inspiring story about love for no reason that sets the tone for the entire book. I was hooked from the start. (http://www.mortylefkoe.com/wp-content/uploads/Photo-for-011111-blog-post-love-for-no-reason-227x300.jpg) Early on Marci uses part of her interview with me, where I described my experience of unconditional love. When I married my wife, Shelly, almost twenty-nine years ago, she asked me why I loved her. I answered, “Just because I do.” She didn’t like this answer. She wanted to know which qualities about her made me love her. But I kept insisting that I simply loved her, not for any particularly reason. I explained: “If I love you for specific reasons, then my love is conditioned on you being a certain way. If you stop being that way or you aren’t that way at a given time, I may not love you. But if I love you ‘just because,’ then my love is unconditional and I can and will love you no matter what you do or don’t do.” If I don’t feel love toward Shelly at any given moment, I realize that I’m not experiencing love inside myself and that it’s up to me to figure out why and to start experiencing it again. I’m not blaming her for anything and I’m not waiting for her to change in some way. This gives me complete control over the way I feel about her. In other words, there’s nothing she has to do to make me love her, and there’s nothing she can do that will lead me to not love her. Marci’s book is filled with many inspiring stories about love and she also offers some useful tips regarding what it takes to learn to love unconditionally. For example, she points out that you need to be able to experience self-love before you can truly love another. Almost all of us carry around this same underlying belief of “I’m not good enough”—or some variation of how we are flawed or inadequate. Yours might be “I’m not smart enough,” “I’m not worthy,” or “I’m not loveable.” It really doesn’t matter which edition of the “I’m not Okay” manual you have, when you don’t love yourself, you hold yourself back from receiving life’s richest experience: Love for No Reason. It’s like having a winning lottery ticket and not showing up to claim the millions.” Marci describes a meeting she attended with the Dalai Lama, who radiates love for no reason: Just sitting within ten feet of this great spiritual master was transformational. His presence was incredibly calming, bathing the entire room in an aura of quiet, unconditional love. The Dalai Lama graciously welcomed us to the meeting, and before taking our questions, he shared a few words that put us instantly at ease. He said that whether he is addressing the president of a nation or a homeless person on the street makes no difference to him, because he treats everyone the same. “Differences in religious beliefs, politics, social status, and position are all secondary,” the Dalai Lama explained. “When we look at someone with compassion, we are able to see beyond those secondary differences and connect to the primary essence | 1/11/11 | Free | View In iTunes |
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What Drives You: “Intention” or “Inspiration”? | (http://www.mortylefkoe.com/wp-content/uploads/marty_lefkoe_headshots_053_2-01_edit_225-150x150.jpg) Everyone knows that success in life is a function of your “intention.” Right? I just read an excellent blog post by Joe Vitale (http://blog.mrfire.com/why-i-gave-up-intentions (http://blog.mrfire.com/why-i-gave-up-intentions)) that challenges this point of view. Joe’s perspective makes a lot of sense to me and, because New Year’s Resolutions are usually all about our intentions, I thought I would use my first blog post of the new year to take a fresh look at this topic. Joe questions the value of intention (http://www.mortylefkoe.com/wp-content/uploads/Photo-for-010310-blog-post-inspiration-253x300.jpg) Joe makes this point: “Today I realize that most intentions are limitations. Intentions come from your ego and can actually limit what is possible for you to receive.” He goes on to explain: STAGE ONE: In the first stage you are a victim. We’re all born into it and most of us stay there. With coaching or the right books or the right movies, you one day break free. STAGE TWO: In the next stage you realize you have more power than you ever thought before. In this stage intentions are fun and exciting and useful. You aim your life where you want it to go. It’s exhilarating to manifest things like new cars or a new house or anything else you can imagine. But there’s a stage after that. STAGE THREE: In the third stage you realize you have choice but you don’t have control. You realize you don’t have all power. This is where you surrender. This is where you can receive inspiration from something greater than your ego awareness. I was filmed for two more movies last week. One of them is all about letting go to inspiration. For me, I want inspiration. When it comes, that becomes my new intention. But the intention comes from inspiration, not from limitation. The intention comes from the Divine, not my pipsqueak ego. In short, when I receive an inspiration to do something, it becomes my intention. So I still believe in intentions, but not those of the ego, but those of the Divine. A distinction between intention and inspiration Joe made an important distinction between inspiration, which comes from who we really are (the “creator”) and intention, which comes from who we think we are (the ego, the “creation”). Because our creation is pretty much run by our already-existing beliefs and conditionings, our intentions are not really freely chosen. Our intentions are determined by our past, or, to be more precise, the meaning we gave past experiences. In other words, our intentions are limited by our beliefs. We can’t intend to achieve more than our beliefs will allow. Inspirations, on the other hand, are created out of nothing. Inspirations don’t depend on anything and they are not limited by our beliefs. If you were asked: What is the source of any goal you might have—and you explain why you have the goal, you probably have an intention that is a function of your beliefs. If your answer is, “just because” or “why not” or “just because I said so,” you probably have an inspiration that was created independent of your beliefs. As soon as I realized the power of The Lefkoe Method (TLM) about 25 years ago to make a profound difference in the world, I said to myself: I intend to spend the rest of my life using TLM to make a difference in as many lives as possible. A worthwhile intention, isn’t it? But when I first created this intention about 25 years ago it mattered to me. I used it to define who I was. It became my identity. I had to do it. It was a better way to spend my time than how most other people spent their time. The world needed what I had to offer. My intention became an inspiration And then about 10 years ago there was a shift from: I need to do it, to: I choose to do it. And I would be okay if I didn’t do it. The world didn’t need me; it wou | 1/4/11 | Free | View In iTunes |
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How To Keep Your New Year’s Resolutions. Guaranteed! | (http://www.mortylefkoe.com/wp-content/uploads/marty_lefkoe_headshots_053_2-01_edit_235-150x150.jpg) Did you keep your New Year’s resolutions last year? … What about the year before? … If you are like most people, you worked on them through the middle of January and by early February you had forgotten you ever made them. Or, perhaps after several years of failure, you stopped making New Year’s resolutions at all. Why don’t we do the things that we say we are going to do? Things we really want to do? Things that truly would benefit our lives? The answer is simple. Our behavior is not the result of our desires or even our commitments. It is the result of our beliefs and conditioning. And if there is a conflict between our beliefs/conditioning and our commitments/desires, the beliefs/conditioning usually will win. (http://www.mortylefkoe.com/wp-content/uploads/Photo-for-122110-blog-post-new-years-resolutions-200x300.jpg)Let me give you a few examples. I’m going to stop procrastinating A few years ago I had a friend named Johnny whose problem was that he procrastinated a lot of the time. He almost always left work projects go until the last minute. As a result, he was anxious much of the time and sometimes he would turn projects in late, which resulted in an upset boss. At some point he decided he must change, so he made a New Year’s resolution to stop procrastinating the next year. Because he was really committed, he did everything he could to insure his success. * He prioritized his activities, assuming that it would help him focus on the most important projects. * He made a schedule that helped him allot time during the month for work on the projects. * He put up reminders in prominent places. * He created rewards to give himself when he finished a project—a special dinner or a new item of clothing. * He asked his friends to support him. And yet—despite this detailed strategy for keeping his resolution—by early February he called to tell me the problem was as bad as ever. I put on my “Lefkoe Method Facilitator” hat and asked Johnny what thoughts he had when he was about to do what he knew he should do at work, just before he put it off and did something else instead. He gave me the following list. * What I do might not be good enough. * People might judge my work badly. * I feel uncomfortable when I think about doing the project. Can you see that these thoughts and feelings were keeping him from acting? That most people with those thoughts and feelings probably would procrastinate, especially with important projects? After a short discussion we found a number of beliefs that were causing the thoughts and feelings, including these three: * I’m not good enough. * What makes me good enough is having others think well of me. * Mistakes and failure are bad. These beliefs (and several others) led to the thoughts and feelings that caused Johnny’s procrastination. After I helped him get rid of the beliefs, the procrastination stopped … totally. If you resolve to stop procrastination, eliminate all of the relevant beliefs and your New Year’s resolution will finally manifest. I’m going to find a great relationship this year Here’s another story that will explain why it can be so difficult to stick with our New Year’s resolutions. Years ago I had a friend, Jennifer, who really wanted a great romantic relationship. In fact, it was all she could talk about. But she either went months at a time without any relationship at all, or she would get into disastrous relationships that didn’t last more than a couple of months and then ended with a lot of upset. One year she made a New Year’s resolution to create a great guy in the coming year. She made a list of all the qualities she wanted, visualized what he looked like, and imagined spending time with him as he did all the things she imagined this great guy would do. | 12/21/10 | Free | View In iTunes |
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The Causes And Cure For Overeating | (http://www.mortylefkoe.com/wp-content/uploads/marty_lefkoe_headshots_053_2-01_edit_235-150x150.jpg) The more we work with clients who have a problem of overeating, the more convinced I am that we have come up with an effective solution to a major health crisis. Over 70% of American adults are either overweight or obese. That is a disastrous situation for those people who have an eating/weight problem and a serious crisis for society as a whole. As more and more clients de-condition eating as the compulsive response to emotional triggers and as I better understand the role of beliefs in overeating, it is clear that a long-term solution to overeating now exists that does not involve dieting, drugs, or will power. These are all attempts to deal with the symptoms of the problem. Our approach is to deal with and eliminate the cause. So 25 years after creating the Lefkoe Belief Process we now have all the processes we need to help millions of people totally stop their overeating problem. I don’t yet know how to create a DVD that will do the job, but hopefully I will figure out a way eventually. In the meantime, we can help people in one-on-one phone and Skype sessions. (http://www.mortylefkoe.com/wp-content/uploads/Photo-for-121410-blog-post-new-eating-blog-150x150.jpg)I’ve written an eBook that describes the true causes of overeating and presents an effective solution. The eBook is free and is available at http://emotionaleatingreport.com (http://emotionaleatingreport.com). In addition, because this issue is so crucial and affects so many people, and because we have a real solution to the problem, I intend to create a new blog that I will post to weekly that will focus solely on the causes and cure for overeating problems. It will be shorter than my blog at http://mortylefkoe.com (http://mortylefkoe.com/) and may include reviews of books that I think might be useful, comments on news items involving food and weight, case histories from clients I am working with, new insights I have about the problem, etc. If you or a friend or a loved one have an eating/food/weight problem, please take a look at the free eBook and at the same time sign up to get the blog weekly. You can see the existing posts and sign up at http://emotionaleatingreport.com/blog/ (http://emotionaleatingreport.com/blog/). Please share below your thoughts and questions on my decision to write an emotional eating weekly blog. These weekly blog posts also exist as podcasts. Sign up for the RSS feed or at iTunes to get the podcasts sent to you weekly. If you haven’t yet eliminated at least one of your limiting self-esteem beliefs using the Lefkoe Belief Process, go to http://www.recreateyourlife.com/free (http://www.recreateyourlife.com/free) where you can eliminate one negative belief free. To purchase a DVD program that I guarantee to help you significantly improve your confidence and also eliminate the major day-to-day problems that most people face, check out http://recreateyourlife.com/naturalconfidence (http://recreateyourlife.com/naturalconfidence). copyright © 2010 Morty Lefkoe | 12/14/10 | Free | View In iTunes |
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Are Your Beliefs Making You Ill? | (http://www.mortylefkoe.com/wp-content/uploads/marty_lefkoe_headshots_053_2-01_edit_235-150x150.jpg) The Placebo Effect One of the best proofs that beliefs have a powerful impact on our health has existed for years right under the n... | 12/7/10 | Free | View In iTunes |
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How To Be More Effective At Work: TLM Part 4 | (http://www.mortylefkoe.com/wp-content/uploads/marty_lefkoe_headshots_053_2-01_edit_235-150x150.jpg) In addition to the seven processes that can help free individuals from their limitations (which I’ve described in the last three blog posts), The Lefkoe Method has two additional processes that were designed specifically for use in organizations. If you use them in your own firm, you will be more successful. If you use them at a company where you work, you will become a more effective and valuable employee. The Lefkoe Belief Process-Possibilities The first process, the Lefkoe Belief Process-Possibilities, was created when I discovered during my years as a management consultant that employees on every level in every organization were sabotaging themselves and their organizations with many beliefs that started with the words: We (I) can’t …. (http://www.mortylefkoe.com/wp-content/uploads/Photo-for-113010-blog-post-organization-processes-TLM-p4-150x150.jpg)Almost everyone in every organization—whether it be non-profit, for profit, or governmental—has a number of beliefs about what can’t be done and what must be done. Based on my experience I contend that these beliefs are an organization’s biggest barrier to innovation. In fact, they are probably the single biggest problem organizations face. * “We can’t out-source that job.” * “We can’t find the type of employees we need.” * “I can’t get the support I need.” * “We can’t possibly finish the project as quickly as the customer wants.” * “We can’t afford to do that.” * “That suggestion is crazy. It can’t possibly work.” Sound familiar? If you work in an organization it is unlikely you get through an entire day without hearing, We (I) can’t …, at least once. And if the right someone (or lots of someones) believes something “can’t be done,” then the chances are slim to nil that it will get done. Either this type of belief will stop a new initiative cold, or, if the organization manages to get it off the ground, the people with the belief will have a hard time supporting it, which will lead to the belief becoming a self-fulfilling prophesy. When I first discovered the widespread prevalence of this type of belief, I realized that the Lefkoe Belief Process (LBP) could easily eliminate it. The problem was that it was impractical to train everyone in an organization to use the LBP. It would take much too much time. So I had to revise the Process so that anyone could learn to do it very quickly. At some point I realized that if you were eliminating a belief whose source was not childhood and that was always the same—namely, something hadn’t worked before—I could create an easy-to-learn-and-use variation of the LBP that only eliminated We (I) can’t ... beliefs. I call this process the Lefkoe Belief Process-Possibilities because when you eliminate a We (I) can’t … belief you create possibilities that literally didn’t exist before. The LBP-P can eliminate a belief in less than five minute and can be taught to groups of people in only an hour or so. For more details about the LBP-P, including the actual steps of the Process, please visit http://www.mortylefkoe.com/get-rid-of-the-belief-%E2%80%9Ci-can%E2%80%99t-%E2%80%A6%E2%80%9D/ (../get-rid-of-the-belief-%E2%80%9Ci-can%E2%80%99t-%E2%80%A6%E2%80%9D/). Changing the culture of an organization Right after I created the LBP in 1985 my associates and I did a lot of management consulting work. One of the most exciting assignments we had was helping many of the newly-formed telephone companies that had just split off from AT&T to create a new customer-driven culture. For about a hundred years AT&T had a culture that was focused on internal measurements for improvement. Because the company had a monopoly and customers had no place else to go, it didn’t focus much on what customers wanted. AT&T gave them what it thought they needed. | 11/30/10 | Free | View In iTunes |
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This Way To Well-being: TLM Part 3 | (http://www.mortylefkoe.com/wp-content/uploads/marty_lefkoe_headshots_053_2-01_edit_235-251x300.jpg) The Lefkoe Occurring Process (LOP) and the Lefkoe De-conditioning Process (LDP) are the two newest processes that constitute The Lefkoe Method (TLM). I’ve mentioned them before in other posts; today I will summarize each of them and describe how each offers a unique benefit not found in any other process in TLM or, to the best of my knowledge, in any psychotherapeutic or personal growth technique. I also will describe the Who Am I Really? (WAIR?) Process, which helps you enter an altered state of consciousness. (http://www.mortylefkoe.com/wp-content/uploads/Photo-for-112210-blog-post-TLM-part3-300x200.jpg)The Lefkoe Occurring Process Our beliefs are the meaning we gave to a series of events in the past, which we now feel is “the truth.” For us, a belief is an accurate description of reality, which gives it the power to influence our thoughts, feelings, and behavior. We also give meaning to reality moment by moment and the meaning we give events determines how reality “occurs” for us. For example, someone you know walks into a crowded room and doesn’t say hello to you. That is a fact. It may occur to you, however, that she doesn’t like you, or that she is being rude, or that she didn’t see you. All of these “occurrings” are possible meanings for her behavior—that exist only in your mind. But here’s the problem. For most of us the way the world occurs for us is our reality, because we never distinguish between the two. And because the way we think reality “is” determines our thinking, our feelings, the possibilities available for our actions, etc., for most of us most of the time our responses to “reality” are really responses to our occurrings. Because our emotions are usually the result of our occurrings and not reality itself (because events have no inherent meaning, they usually cannot cause feelings), the ability to dissolve our occurrings enables us to eliminate most negative emotions at will. Unlike beliefs, which once formed become our reality forever (unless they are eliminated), our occurrings are only the meaning we have given transient events and then disappear either immediately or shortly after the events are gone. As a result current occurrings rarely affect us in the future. The single best, easiest, and fastest way to control your experience of life is to consistently make a distinction between reality and how reality occurs for you, and then to dissolve the occurring, so you are left with nothing but the facts of reality. For more details on “occurring,” see a short video I made that visually explains how we create occurrings and how we can dissolve them: http://occurringcourse.com/how-occurring-works/ (http://occurringcourse.com/how-occurring-works/). See also a blog post devoted entirely to this topic: http://www.mortylefkoe.com/create-experience-life/ (http://www.mortylefkoe.com/create-experience-life/). Although eliminating beliefs and conditionings can make a profound difference in how you experience your life, you will gain more minute-by-minute control over it using the Lefkoe Occurring Process. (For information about the next course where I teach participants how to use it, see http://www.occurringcourse.com/discover/ (http://www.occurringcourse.com/discover/).) The Lefkoe De-conditioning Process This process has the potential to be used in a wide variety of problems, but it was created for and currently is only used for eating problems. I discovered after years of trying to help people stop their overeating by eliminating beliefs that that approach was insufficient. I had known all about “classical” conditioning, in which a stimulus is conditioned to produce a behavioral or emotional response. So rejection or making a mistake can be conditioned to produce anxiety. Or being told what to do can be conditioned to produ | 11/23/10 | Free | View In iTunes |
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Get Rid of Negative Senses and Expectations: TLM Part 2 | (http://www.mortylefkoe.com/wp-content/uploads/marty_lefkoe_headshots_053_2-01_edit_235-251x300.jpg) Last week I pointed out that The Lefkoe Method (TLM) includes nine different processes, all of them unique methods for transforming the quality of your life. I described two of them—the Lefkoe Belief Process and the Lefkoe Stimulus Process—in detail. (See http://www.mortylefkoe.com/lefkoe-method-part-1/ (http://www.mortylefkoe.com/lefkoe-method-part-1/)) This week I’ll tell you how the Lefkoe Sense and Expectation Processes are revolutionary methods for removing barriers to you experiencing a level of joy and fulfillment most people have given up ever achieving. (http://www.mortylefkoe.com/wp-content/uploads/Photo-for-111610-blog-post-LSP-and-LEP-300x199.jpg)As you read the following discussion of these two additional processes that are part of TLM, I want you to remember what I claimed last week: To the best of my knowledge there isn’t another belief-elimination process out there that is guaranteed to eliminate fundamental beliefs permanently. Moreover, I am quite confident that no one offers as complete an arsenal of processes to help you make any change you want in your life … and have it stick. In fact, I’m not aware of any other process that produces the results that each of these processes achieve. Have you ever heard of anything remotely like the two processes I describe below? The Lefkoe Sense Process The Lefkoe Sense Process (LSP) is useful after one eliminates all the relevant beliefs one can find and still has a negative sense of something. This “sense” usually doesn’t exist in complete sentences, like beliefs. A “sense” typically is described in bodily feelings, colors, images, short phrases, etc. You actually can have a negative sense of anything, such as people, life, and work, but the most common negative sense that adversely affects our lives is a negative sense of self. Try it right now. Close your eyes and spend a moment looking inside for your sense of yourself. … If you find words, such as “not good enough” or “not important,” that is probably the result of beliefs like I’m not good enough and I’m not important. But keep looking: Is there a sense that exists primarily in feelings and images? If there is and it is negative, the LSP can help you get rid of it. It appears that a negative sense of yourself is the result of conditioning and that the LSP de-conditions that negative conditioning. The initial conditioning usually takes place in childhood. Events around us—usually mom’s and dad’s behavior—lead us to have a negative feeling about ourselves. Sometimes the feeling is a direct result of their behavior—as an example, we might have a sense of ourselves as isolated or alone in the world as a result of mom and dad not paying attention to us much of the time. Sometimes the feeling is the result of the meaning we give their behavior—as an example, feeling not acceptable as a result of giving that meaning to mom and dad not being available much of the time. Let me explain further. Any child in any culture recognizes certain tones of voice and facial expressions as expressing “anger,” which most children would interpret as meaning there is something wrong with me. Why that interpretation and not: What’s wrong with my parents? Two reasons. First, a child knows on some level he is dependent on his parents for his very survival. If there is something wrong with his parents, then his survival is threatened. Better that there is something wrong with him. Second, children think that adults—especially their parents—have all the answers to dealing with the world; children also know they know very little about how to deal with the world. Children are always saying, “When I grow up, then I’ll be able to … (or, then I’ll know what to do).” So if mom and dad are angry, it must be my fault; there is somet | 11/16/10 | Free | View In iTunes |
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How Can I Use The Lefkoe Method? Part 1 | (http://www.mortylefkoe.com/wp-content/uploads/marty_lefkoe_headshots_053_2-01_edit_235-251x300.jpg) Many of you have used the Lefkoe Belief Process and found that permanently getting rid of beliefs has made a profound difference in your life. Did you know that The Lefkoe Method includes eight other processes you can use to make significant changes in your life? Depending on the problem you are trying to get rid of and what you are trying to accomplish, some of these other processes might be required. Because recently readers have asked me to describe the difference between each process and explain how each is used, I’ve decided to use my blog posts over the next few weeks to do just that. I’ll provide a short description of each process, explain how it works, and tell you how it can be used to help you get rid of problems you face in your life daily. This week I’ll discuss the Lefkoe Belief Process and the Lefkoe Stimulus Process. In future weeks I’ll write about the others. To the best of my knowledge there isn’t another belief-elimination process out there that is guaranteed to eliminate fundamental beliefs permanently. Moreover, I am quite confident that no one offers as complete an arsenal of processes to help you make any change you want in your life … and have it stick. In fact, I’m not aware of any other process that produces the results that each of these processes achieve. Here is a list of the processes that comprise The Lefkoe Method: * Lefkoe Belief Process * Lefkoe Stimulus Process * Lefkoe Sense Process * Lefkoe Expectation Process * Lefkoe De-conditioning Process * Lefkoe Occurring Process * Lefkoe Belief Process—Possibilities * Lefkoe Belief Process—Organizations * Who am I really? The Lefkoe Belief Process The Lefkoe Belief Process (LBP), which I developed in 1975, was the first of the processes and still is the most important. Most of our undesirable behavior and feelings ultimately can be traced to our beliefs, so being able to get rid of beliefs will make the biggest long-term difference in your life. A belief, as I use the term, is a statement about reality that is the truth for us. It is experienced emotionally as the truth, because it is possible to intellectually disagree with something we believe. For example, you may believe that I’m not good enough, even though you know intellectually that that is not true. So the way to know you have a belief is to say the words of the belief out loud and then ask yourself: Do the words feel true? Do they resonate even a little bit? Do they feel even a little uncomfortable? Most of our core beliefs about ourselves, people, and life are formed in the first six years of life as a result of interactions with our parents. Beliefs about other areas of life—such as work, politics, relationships, and aspects of society—usually are formed when we encounter them. The steps of LBP consist mainly of questions that enable you to discover that something you thought was “the truth,” something you thought you “saw” in the world, is really only “a truth,” that exists only in your mind. When you make that distinction, the belief is transformed into merely one interpretation you gave a meaningless series of events, and the belief disappears. Typical common negative beliefs include I’m not good enough, I’m not important, I’m powerless, People can’t be trusted, and Life is difficult. Many day-to-day problems that we face—such as procrastination, selling ourselves short, and trying to impress others—can usually be resolved by eliminating the beliefs that cause them. The Lefkoe Stimulus Process Many emotions are caused by beliefs, for example, the belief that Dogs are dangerous will result in an emotion of fear when confronting a dog. The belief People can't be trusted will result in the feeling of suspicion around people. When the beliefs are eliminated, the emotions usually will be also. | 11/9/10 | Free | View In iTunes |
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Don’t ever give up hope | (http://www.mortylefkoe.com/wp-content/uploads/marty_lefkoe_headshots_053_2-01_edit_235-251x300.jpg) For most of my life I didn’t want to be me. In fact, I was so unhappy being me that I wanted to be someone else. When I was in my twenties I w... | 11/2/10 | Free | View In iTunes |
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Are you a victim? | (http://www.mortylefkoe.com/wp-content/uploads/marty_lefkoe_headshots_053_2-01_edit_235-150x150.jpg) We all know people who are “victims”—people who view their lives through the filter: “It’s not my fault. They (or it) did it to me.” When you understand what the feeling of victimization really is, where it comes from, and how it affects people, you will discover it is even more widespread and debilitating than you might think. The primary source of feeling like a victim is the feeling of powerlessness and, because we don’t like feeling that we are powerless, we tend to blame someone or something for causing that feeling. So we feel that we are a victim of circumstances or other people’s actions and we can’t do anything about it. Being a victim is experiencing yourself at the effect of something outside yourself. (http://www.mortylefkoe.com/wp-content/uploads/Photo-for-102610-blog-post-victim-271x300.jpg) Photo credit: jillallyn Thus the single most important belief responsible for the feeling of victimization is I’m powerless. Other beliefs that could underlie this feeling include: I’ll never get what I want, People can’t be trusted, and Life is difficult. Why feeling victimized is so debilitating The reason feeling victimized is so debilitating is that it undermines your ability to do anything about your situation. If you are having difficulties in any area of your life, such as relationships or money, and you experience yourself as powerful and in control of your life, you can devise a strategy to improve your situation. And if one solution doesn’t work, you can learn from your experience and try again. But if you have a victim mentality—in other words, if you feel powerless to affect your circumstances—you are likely to feel that the world is “doing it” to you and that there is nothing you can do about it. That’s why this is one of the most devastating problems you can have: If you have any other problem, but see yourself as responsible for your situation, you have the ability to look for and implement a solution. If you have the problem of feeling victimized by life or other people, you are less likely to look for and implement a solution because you feel you can’t do anything about your situation. Most victims can be identified by their conversation, which consists of a lot of “woe is me” and “it’s not my fault” language. However, there also is the “stoic” victim. Such people do not complain and keep a “stiff upper lip,” but underneath they experience a sense of victimization. Such people frequently don’t even let themselves know how they are feeling. So victims are not just people who speak their victimization, but also those who have that experience underneath a veneer of confidence and “Everything’s okay; really it is.” Typical characteristics of victims Here are a few other important characteristics of victims: * People who are victims usually don’t see that the only thing in common between all the people and situations they think they have been victimized by is themselves. * Victims usually are people you can’t depend on, because they deny responsibility for their actions. They are quick to blame other people and situations for anything that doesn’t work in their lives. * Victims don’t have resilience, which is the ability to quickly bounce back after being knocked down. * Victims generally are passive. * Victims are usually angry at the people or events they think have “done them wrong,” and underneath the feeling of anger is almost always the feeling of powerlessness. * Successful people are rarely victims. One might be able to be a victim and still make money in rare cases, but usually it would be difficult for victims to be successful. To be successful you need to learn from your mistakes and try again. Victims are, by definition, people who do not acknowledge responsible for their | 10/26/10 | Free | View In iTunes |
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What is the relationship between personal and organizational transformation? | (http://www.mortylefkoe.com/wp-content/uploads/marty_lefkoe_headshots_053_2-01_edit_235-150x150.jpg) I wrote about three types of organizational change in my book, Re-create Your Life, many years ago. Let me draw from several passages in that bo... | 10/19/10 | Free | View In iTunes |
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What’s the difference between change and transformation? | (http://www.mortylefkoe.com/wp-content/uploads/marty_lefkoe_headshots_053_2-01_edit_235-150x150.jpg) If you’re reading this blog post you probably are interested in transformation. But I suspect that what you mean by transformation is very diffe... | 10/12/10 | Free | View In iTunes |
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Can children eliminate beliefs? | (http://www.mortylefkoe.com/wp-content/uploads/marty_lefkoe_headshots_053_2-01_edit_235-150x150.jpg) I am often asked: Can the Lefkoe Belief Process (LBP) be used to help children eliminate beliefs? My answer is that it depends on the child: Is the child able to deal with the abstractions of the process? If the child can, then the LBP should work. One trick is to simplify some of the steps and use language that can be understood by a younger child. I did that when we did our study with incarcerated offenders and the LBP was effective with teens as young as 14 to 15 years old. Since then Shelly has used the LBP with several children 12 or 13 years old, who presented a wide variety of problems including ADD and ADHD. The very youngest child who was ever successful with the LBP was my daughter Blake when she was only six years old. I am going to summarize my conversation with her at that time because you will see how easy it can be to use the LBP with young children. (By the way, you’ll see from this example how easy it can be to use the LBP with adults when you know the belief and the source of the belief.) On many occasions, Shelly and I had taken Blake to fairs and shows where there were hundreds of people and she usually enjoyed herself at these events. One Saturday we took her to a school that was having games, face painting, and a lot of other activities for kids. We had been inside only a few minutes when Blake screamed and exclaimed, “I’m scared! I want to leave!” “What’s wrong?” we asked her. “I don’t know. I’m just scared. I want to leave,” she repeated. We tried to find out what was scaring her, but she didn’t know. The closest she could come to an answer was that there were a lot of people there. I reminded her that she had never before been afraid of crowds. What was it about this crowd that was so scary? She didn’t know. When we realized that the fear wasn’t going away, we left. When we got home I sat down with Blake and asked, “Do you remember that Mommy and Daddy talk about the work we do with people in our sessions? How we help them with things that bother them in their lives?” “Yes.” “Would you like me to try to help you figure out what is scaring you? You’ve never been scared of crowds before.” “Okay,” she said solemnly. I started to help her identify the belief. Blake named it almost immediately. “Crowds are dangerous.” “Okay, what happened that gave you that idea?” She didn’t pause even for a minute. “Remember when we went to the Italian street fair? Remember the lady who burned me with the cigarette?” I certainly did remember. The fair had been mobbed; we could barely walk. We had been there for only a few minutes when Blake had screamed in pain. A woman had walked by her, swinging a lighted cigarette in her hand, and had hit Blake’s arm with it. The woman then turned around, yelled at Blake, “Watch where you’re going!” and walked away. Fortunately the burn wasn’t bad and we had stayed for another couple of hours. “So did you decide crowds are dangerous based on your experience at that fair?” “Yes.” “I can see why you decided that. It made a lot of sense to conclude that. A lot of people would have said the same thing, honey. Now we’re going to play a little game. What else could explain what happened to you other than what you said? It really could be that crowds are dangerous. But what else would explain what happened?” She wasn’t sure what I meant, so I said, “For example, that fair was dangerous, but maybe not all other fairs will be dangerous." She got into the spirit of the game. I gave one interpretation, then she gave one: * That woman didn’t care if she hurt you, but other women would. * People carrying lighted cigarettes can hurt me; people without cigarettes won’t. * That person wasn’t careful with her cigarette, but most people would be. * I’ll get hurt at some crow | 10/5/10 | Free | View In iTunes |
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Proof: Three Scientific Studies Prove The Lefkoe Method Works | (http://www.mortylefkoe.com/wp-content/uploads/marty_lefkoe_headshots_053_2-01_edit_235-150x150.jpg) We are almost ready to submit an article to a major peer-reviewed journal based on a just-completed independent university study of The Lefkoe M... | 9/28/10 | Free | View In iTunes |
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Can you create your experience of life? | (http://www.mortylefkoe.com/wp-content/uploads/marty_lefkoe_headshots_053_2-01_edit_235-150x150.jpg) I’m beginning to think that the ability to dissolve our “occurrings” is almost as important to living a happy and successful life as the ability to eliminate beliefs. Late last year I wrote several posts about the important distinction between reality and how reality occurs for us. Few people are aware of this distinction and even fewer are able to continually make this distinction throughout the day and then dissolve all their “occurrings.” Let me briefly explain what I mean by the distinction between reality and how it “occurs” for us for those of you who haven’t read my earlier posts (see December 15, 22, 29, 2009) or seen my video explanation (http://occurringcourse.com/how-occurring-works (http://occurringcourse.com/how-occurring-works/)/). An example of “reality” is losing your job. One possible “occurring” for that reality is a sense of victimization, a sense of disaster. This occurring would result in feelings of despair and helplessness. A different occurring might be: Being fired is an opportunity to discover what I really want to do with my life and then do it. This occurring would result in feeling challenged and excited. Neither occurring is the same as the literal event. Earlier this year I offered a tele-seminar during which I taught 20 participants how to easily and continuously make the distinction between reality and how it occurs for us. They also learned how to quickly dissolve how reality was occurring for them, so that they were left with nothing but reality. How we experience our lives moment-to-moment is largely the result of how events and people occur for us. So the ability to dissolve that occurring gives us the power to create our experience of life. To make this clear, let me quote some of the participants in my current course who are mastering the art of dissolving their occurrings. Here’s one: I've also noticed that I no longer feel the need to defend my position when criticized or when faced with someone whose point of view is different from my own. I can listen to what is being said, without feeling as if one person is wrong and the other is right. The dissolving [of my occurrings] is instantaneous in most of these situations. I feel as if this makes it possible for me to genuinely learn from the other person's perspective, where in the past, I'd have shut out what he or she had to say, focusing only on defending my point of view. Here’s another: One very positive thing to report: When I [dissolve my occurring] … the effect is very profound. I feel very relaxed. My thinking is clearer. … Using the occurring process to identify what's going on helps a great deal. I feel more energetic and clear-headed. I feel more present and "in the moment." And finally: Petty arguments are decreasing because I am dissolving the occurring before it gets blown out of proportion. As a result I am feeling more confident and calmer throughout the day. I am also pointing out the reality in situations my oldest son is going through and he is beginning to grasp what I'm saying. How you benefit from dissolving your occurring There are several important advantages to being able to realize that how an event is occurring for you is the result of the meaning you are giving reality and is not reality itself, and then being able to dissolve the occurring. First, because all negative feelings come from the meaning we have assigned meaningless events, by dissolving our occurring (meaning) we can totally eliminate negative feelings quickly on the spot. As someone shared in my course: Some things are dissolving either instantly or very quickly; I’ve noticed that more and more, that pleasantly calm, neutral feeling is becoming my default setting. Second, because how reality occurs for us is how we think reality really is, it determines our behavior. If we think someone is | 9/8/10 | Free | View In iTunes |
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What should I do to get what I want? | (http://www.mortylefkoe.com/wp-content/uploads/marty_lefkoe_headshots_053_2-01_edit_235-150x150.jpg) Thank you very much for the overwhelming response to my request last week for blog topics. The questions that seem to have universal appeal I will answer in my weekly blog. Comments and questions that deal with specific personal issues I will respond to directly as soon as possible. This week I will answer a question I hear frequently in various forms: What should I do to get what I want? To begin with, there is no single “right” way to accomplish anything. What works for some people, won’t necessarily work for others. And what is effective today, won’t necessarily be effective tomorrow. Personal qualities determine success One common technique people use to figure out how to achieve their goals is to copy the behavior of successful people. Unfortunately, more often than not that technique doesn’t work. Why? Because successful people are successful because of who they are, not merely what they do. Obviously they do things, but their doing is a function of their being, not a function of “rules for success.” So what “are” successful people? In Success Built to Last, by Jerry Porras, Stewart Emery, and Mark Thompson, a must-read book about what is in common among over 200 “enduringly successful people,” the authors offer a definition of success based on what these people told them: “ … a life and work that brings personal fulfillment and lasting relationships and makes a difference in the world in which they live.” I like what the book’s authors say about the conventional definition of success: “Folks who chase a fantastic but vain hope for fame, wealth, and power—for its own sake—may even achieve it, only to become miserable and pathetic people. … we think that the current definition of success is a potentially toxic prescription for your life and work. It is a description that makes you feel more like a failure than a success if it’s the standard against which all meaning in your life is measured.” Let me quote a few more passages from this book that describe these enduringly successful people so you can discover who these people are, rather than what they do. These people “insist that success may never come without a compelling personal commitment to something you care about and would be willing to do, with or without counting on wealth, fame, power, or public acceptance as an outcome.” “What you do must matter deeply to you …. It’s something that you’re so passionate about that you lose all track of time when you do it. … In fact, you could not be paid to not do it.” Another essential element is “a highly developed sense of accountability, audacity, passion, and responsible optimism. … Steve Jobs told us in an interview back before his famous ad campaign: Enduringly successful people ‘think different.’” (Emphasis added.) They welcome failure One of the most important qualities of these enduringly successful people is that they “drone on endlessly about learning from their mistakes. … Every experience teaches something. They don’t use a weakness or a setback to distrust themselves. … The question is not whether or not they won this round, but what do they do with the feedback. … [They] find it irresistible to try, fail, improve; they try again, fail again, and get even better.” (Emphasis added.) Although these people probably worked more hours a day than most people are willing to, they were not successful because they worked harder than others or even because they knew better than others what to do. They operated out of their passion and commitment to make a difference. They didn’t care what others thought. They courted failure as a way to learn what to do better the next time. What these people have in common is an absence of the negative beliefs that would cause them to fear failure and ne | 8/31/10 | Free | View In iTunes |
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What topic do you want me to write on? | (http://www.mortylefkoe.com/wp-content/uploads/marty_lefkoe_headshots_053_2-01_edit_235-150x150.jpg) Every week I sit down at my computer and ask myself: What should I write about that would be useful for you, my readers? I usually choose a topic based on * what I think you would like to learn, * what I think would be useful for you to learn, * my own experiences that I think you will find useful, * general things about TLM that I think will be useful, etc. I also want my posts to be consistent with our mission: To significantly improve the quality of life on the planet by having people recreate their lives and live as the unlimited possibilities they are. My posts average about 1200 words and are written over the course of 3-4 days. I usually write a draft on Thursday or Friday and then make at least 5-10 complete edits over the next few days, posting on Tuesday. I spend about two to three hours total each week writing my blog post, except on complicated subjects like last’s week post on emotional eating, when I spent about five hours. This week I want to devote this space to asking you if there is any specific topic that you would like me to write about. What would you like to know that would make a real difference in your life? Obviously anything I write about will be in the framework of The Lefkoe Method. To see what topics I’ve covered already, here is a link to a table of contents for all of my posts thus far. If you’ve just started visiting my blog, there are a lot of really interesting posts from the past couple of years that are worth reading. I’ve included links in case you missed any of them or would like to revisit any that look interesting to you. http://www.mortylefkoe.com/table-of-contents/ Please tell me in the comments section below what you would like me to write about in the future. These weekly blog posts also exist as podcasts. Sign up for the RSS feed or at iTunes to get the podcasts sent to you weekly. If you haven’t yet eliminated at least one of your limiting self-esteem beliefs using the Lefkoe Belief Process, go to http://www.recreateyourlife.com/free (http://www.recreateyourlife.com/free) where you can eliminate one limiting belief free. Would you like to eliminate the core beliefs that keep you from having all the success you desire? Click here (http://recreateyourlife.com/store/natural-confidence.php). http://recreateyourlife.com/store/natural-confidence.php (http://recreateyourlife.com/store/natural-confidence.php) copyright © 2010 Morty Lefkoe | 8/24/10 | Free | View In iTunes |
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How to stop emotional eating (and other compulsive behavior problems) for good | (http://www.mortylefkoe.com/wp-content/uploads/marty_lefkoe_headshots_053_2-01_edit_235-150x150.jpg) When I first started helping clients whose major complaint was emotional eating—eating for emotional reasons when they really weren’t hungry—I assumed that the problem was caused by beliefs and conditioning, like most other behavioral or emotional problems. But when all the beliefs and conditionings that appeared to be relevant had been eliminated, the problem usually was as bad as ever. At which point I went back to the drawing board. I knew all about “classical” conditioning, in which a stimulus is conditioned to produce a behavioral or emotional response. So rejection or making a mistake can be conditioned to produce anxiety. Or being told what to do can be conditioned to produce anger. This type of conditioning was demonstrated by Pavlov’s dogs who were conditioned to salivate by the ringing of a bell. The Lefkoe Stimulus Process can easily de-condition this type of conditioning. But that type of conditioning didn’t seem relevant for emotional eating, which involves a behavior that seems compulsive. There is another type of conditioning called “operant” conditioning. This type of conditioning is the result of rewarding or punishing a behavior. As a result you become conditioned to act in a certain way in order to achieve the “reward” or avoid the punishment. Merely desiring the reward results in the behavior. In an earlier blog post about eating (October 13, 2009) I pointed out: "… if every time you got upset as a child your mom gave you food to make you feel better, you could get conditioned to eat whenever you got upset in order to feel better. "Or, if your parents continually rewarded you for special things you did as a child by giving you a special meal with the food you really liked, you could get conditioned to eat whenever you wanted to feel acknowledged for something you did." I finally realized that almost all emotional eating involves both types of conditioning. So in order to help people with an emotional eating problem, I had to create a process that would easily, quickly, and permanently de-condition both “classical” and “operant” conditioning. I started working on a process in 1997 and it took six revisions over the next 11 years before I finally had something that worked in most situations. I call it the Lefkoe De-conditioning Process (LDP) and I’ll describe how it works in a minute. The reason it took so long is that I wasn’t working with many individual clients and, even more importantly, the problems presented by the clients I did have didn’t need operant de-conditioning. Then toward the end of last year a friend asked me to help him with his eating problem. I decided then to figure out how to permanently eliminate emotional eating, not just for him, but for others as well. So I worked with him and a few additional clients. Much to my surprise, in most cases there were very few beliefs involved. Their emotional eating was caused primarily by a combination of classical and operant conditioning. No wonder emotional eating has been so hard to stop and will power is so useless in the long run! Consider this: first someone with an emotional eating problem conditions eating to produce emotional “rewards” (relieving anxiety or any other negative feeling, feeling loved, a sense of celebration, feeling calm, etc). In other words, the mere act of eating automatically results in emotional rewards. This classical conditioning would make it difficult enough to stop over-eating. Then the problem is intensified by operant conditioning, where the behavior is conditioned to occur whenever there is a desire for the “reward.” In other words, merely desiring one of the emotional rewards (such as feeling loved, a sense of celebration, or feeling calm) will result in emotional eating, because you’ve learned that you’ll get this feeling each time you eat. | 8/17/10 | Free | View In iTunes |
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Why am I afraid to express love? | After posting on my blog a couple of weeks ago about how I felt totally safe to experience and express the love I felt for people at the Transformational Leadership Council meeting, but not most of the time away from TLC, I received the following comment: If you are the creator of the Natural Confidence program and I’m assuming you removed all the beliefs and conditionings on that program, then how could you not feel as safe expressing your love with anyone you run into? Please explain. Thank you. Here was my reply. I’ve not only eliminated all the beliefs on that program, I’ve eliminated a couple of hundred more. But each issue or problem in our lives is caused by a different set of beliefs and conditionings. And so while I’ve gotten rid of my depression and my neediness and my concern with the opinion of others, etc., I have still not handled every issue in my life. And not feeling safe to express love all the time is one of the issues I still have to work on. And I plan to see what beliefs are causing that in the next week or so and getting this issue handled. Thanks for asking. Regards, Morty I did work on this issue as I said I would and here is what I discovered. I couldn’t find any relevant beliefs, but I did find two different types of conditioning. Here’s how I identified the first one. There is some low level of anxiety when I feel people are “not there” when I talk to them, when I feel they are not “fully present,” or when I don’t feel fully accepted. The source of this conditioning was how my mom frequently acted when I was a kid. She divorced when I was only three and struggled being a single mom with no money. As a result of her constant stress and anxiety, and her frequent hysterical outbursts, I had a sense that she wasn’t really “with me” much of the time we were together and frequently felt rejected. Feeling that my mom was not fully present or was rejecting me when I was very young meant to me that she didn’t love me, which meant I could be abandoned, which meant I would die, which caused my the anxiety. So people not being fully present with me or withdrawn from me got conditioned to cause anxiety. I eliminated this conditioning with the Lefkoe Stimulus Process. The second conditioning required me to use a different process, the Lefkoe De-conditioning Process. This conditioning arose as follows: Because I felt fear when it seemed my mother seemed to be withdrawn from me, I shut down my body and my feelings to keep from feeling anxiety in that situation. Because the anxiety diminished when I shut down, shutting down became a conditioned response. In other words, when a behavior is rewarded (in this case, the anxiety stopped), the behavior gets conditioned. In order to not feel fear when I feel people are not fully present around me, or when I don’t feel safe around them for any reason, my body and emotions shut down. I eliminated this conditioning with the Lefkoe De-conditioning Process. I think the issue is handled, but I’ll watch carefully over the next few weeks. If there are any traces of the old behavior pattern, I’ll look to see what beliefs or other conditioning might still exist. I am really looking forward to being able to “be myself” and experience and express my love for people without regard to how other people are acting. For more details on the first type of conditioning please see two earlier blog posts, on 050509 and 032310. Please share any comments you have on these thoughts on my difficulties experiencing and expressing love in certain types of situations and how I dealt with that problem. These weekly blog posts also exist as podcasts. Sign up for the RSS feed or at iTunes to get the podcasts sent to you weekly. If you haven’t yet eliminated at least one of your limiting self-esteem beliefs using the Lefkoe Belief Process, go to http://www.recreateyourlife.com/free | 8/10/10 | Free | View In iTunes |
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Why we have negative emotions … and what to do about them | (http://www.mortylefkoe.com/wp-content/uploads/marty_lefkoe_headshots_053_2-01_edit_225.jpg) For many years I had asked myself the questions: What is the real source of our negative emotions? Why do so many things cause fear in our lives that aren’t inherently scary? And why do some people experience negative emotions while other people don’t in similar situations? About eight years ago I wrote a paper for myself on the source of negative emotions. Today’s post is a summary of that paper. I think you’ll find some fascinating material here and I’m excited to get your responses and start a conversation. * * * What is an emotion? An emotion is the experiential, chemical, and neuro‑physiological response a conscious being has to a stimulus. (I am concerned here only with negative emotions in human beings.) If specific emotions were created by specific stimuli, then a particular stimulus would produce the same emotion in every person. In fact, different people have varied emotional responses to the same stimulus. Then what does cause emotions? Except for stimuli that are explicit threats to our physical survival, stimuli themselves do not have inherent meaning for adults. The meaning adults give to events is what triggers emotions. On the other hand, certain events can have inherent meaning for children. A specific stimulus is a necessary condition for an emotion, but not a sufficient condition. An additional condition that has to be present is a meaning given to the meaningless stimulus—that entails either a threat to survival, or a sense of powerlessness or helplessness that is indirectly, but ultimately related to a threat to survival. Thus for adults to experience a negative emotion, they require either (1) beliefs that cause a stimulus to be experienced as a threat to their survival or beliefs that produce a sense of powerlessness or helplessness; and/or, (2) conditioning, that occurred in childhood, that links a stimulus and an emotion together. (Phobias also are the result of conditioning, but that conditioning can occur later in life when there is a perceived threat to one’s survival.) (If all negative emotions ultimately can be traced to a threat to one’s survival, then the ultimate source of negative emotions is the belief/perception that we are a separate creation, a thing, whose survival really is at stake. If that is the case, perhaps all positive emotions can be traced to a feeling of inclusiveness, wholeness, a lack of separation—to the recognition that who we really are is a non-dual consciousness whose survival can never be at stake.) It is a child’s inherent dependency on others that makes it possible for him to directly experience a threat to his survival in the face of certain stimuli. Children also experience powerlessness and helplessness and these experiences are directly related to a sense that their survival is at stake. The Cause of Specific Negative Emotions Fear is our emotional response to something that we interpret to be a direct threat to our physical well‑being. All other negative emotions are the result of interpreting events as a threat to our mental/emotional well‑being. They are our response to something that is an indirect threat to our physical well‑being, namely, something that makes us feel powerless. Specifically, negative emotions other than fear are our response to something that is a threat to our efficacy, our “okayness,” our ability to act on our own behalf to do what is necessary to survive. To summarize what we’ve seen thus far: the perception that something is a threat to our survival causes fear. The experience of powerlessness, the inability to take the actions necessary to survive, is the source of all the other “negative” emotions. (Guilt is the only exception, which is more directly related to fear, as explained below.) Physical pain is a symptom of an underlying malfunction of the body. It is a sign of a dysfunctional physical/body s | 8/3/10 | Free | View In iTunes |
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What I just learned will transform my life … and yours | (http://www.mortylefkoe.com/wp-content/uploads/marty_lefkoe_headshots_053_2-01_edit_224.jpg) I’m writing this from New Mexico just before I leave my bi-annual meeting of the Transformational Leadership Council (TLC). Jack Canfield, the co-author of... | 7/27/10 | Free | View In iTunes |
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What do you want a lot of that will hurt you when you get it? | (http://www.mortylefkoe.com/wp-content/uploads/marty_lefkoe_headshots_053_2-01_edit_223.jpg) What do you desperately desire, that the more you get, the harder it will be to achieve your goals in life? Answers. Let me explain. It seems that nothing would make most of us happier than getting the answer to our questions, such as how to improve our relationships, how to make more money, and how to get anything else we want in life. But answers are a type of belief. They are a solution to a problem, the way to do or get something. And like all beliefs, answers are “a truth,” not “the truth.” Like all beliefs, answers are limiting, whereas questions are constantly pointing us in the right direction. In fact, answers actually prevent learning and change. Questions make them possible. Why? … Learning and changing are relatively easy—when we don’t think we already have the answers. Most children naturally and effortlessly acquire such complicated skills as learning how to speak and read. For children, learning is a not a difficult task. As we grow older something happens in most of us that severely hinders our learning: we think we already know the truth—we already have the answer. To make this assertion real, consider this: What do you ask a lot of when you don’t know how to do something? ... You ask questions, right? What happens to the questions when you discover how to do it? … They stop, don’t they? If you think you already know the right way to do something, how open are you to learning a better way? ... You aren’t, are you? The history of corporate icons, such as GM and Lehman Brothers, is filled with stories of companies that thought they knew how to succeed, that were convinced they had the answer for how to succeed—and that failed while still proclaiming they were doing the right thing. You see there is no “right” way to do anything at all times under all conditions. There is only the best strategy for the moment. And as circumstances change, the best way to deal with them changes also. That gives us a clue to an alternative for “answers.” Instead of trying to find the “right” way to do or achieve anything, look for the best way at the moment. And then keep asking the same question regularly. If your reality doesn’t change much, the best way of dealing with it probably won’t change much either. But when reality changes enough, the best way of dealing with it will change, and the old answer will no longer be a good one. This is why in a world that is changing rapidly strategies developed early in the year at a corporate retreat usually become inappropriate long before the end of the year. The same principle is true for individuals who are constantly looking for answers for how to achieve their goals. What worked yesterday or what worked for someone else, won’t necessarily work today or for you. Don’t ever settle for the “answer.” Always hold your answers as working hypotheses, subject to constant checking and actual revisions when necessary. Live out of questions and observe what emerges. I promise you will be more successful than if you operate out of answers derived from what worked for you yesterday or what worked for someone else. Please share any comments you have on these thoughts on why answers prevent new learning and actually can inhibit our ability to get what we want in life. These weekly blog posts also exist as podcasts. Sign up for the RSS feed or at iTunes to get the podcasts sent to you weekly. If you haven’t yet eliminated at least one of your limiting self-esteem beliefs using the Lefkoe Belief Process, go to http://www.recreateyourlife.com/free (http://www.recreateyourlife.com/free) where you can eliminate one limiting belief free. To purchase DVD programs that we guarantee to eliminate eight of the most common daily problems people face, go to http://www.recreateyourlife.com/store (http://www.recreateyourlife.com/store). copyright © 2010 Morty Lefkoe | 7/20/10 | Free | View In iTunes |
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How to eliminate suffering and get enlightened | (http://www.mortylefkoe.com/wp-content/uploads/marty_lefkoe_headshots_053_2-01_edit_222.jpg) There are two fundamentally different ways in which we can experience ourselves. First, the way most of us usually experience ourselves: as a creation—a separate entity distinct from other entities, whose survival is always at stake. Some people call this the ego. Second, as the creator of that creation—as consciousness, as Self, as non-dual awareness, as that which has always existed and always will exist. The creation is experienced as an entity that is either “good enough” or “not good enough.” The creator, consciousness, Self is not experienced as someThing; rather it is a state of consciousness in which one experiences oneself as whole and complete, with nothing missing. On the other hand, because the creation is something specific, there is always something it is not, in other words, there is always something missing. What is enlightenment? Enlightenment consists of distinguishing yourself and then experiencing (as distinct from understanding) that you already are the creator, Self, consciousness—not merely the creation—it’s just that most people haven’t experienced it yet. Therefore, transformation or enlightenment is not a place to get to; you are already there. And transformation or enlightenment is nothing more than (continually) creating that experience for yourself. Why we need self-esteem If we are going to experience ourselves as a creation, we need a high level of self-esteem. Why? Because when we experience ourselves as someThing whose survival is always at stake, we need to believe I’m able to survive (good enough, important, capable), and worthy of surviving. (Nathaniel Branden was the first person I know to point this out.) And a high level of self-esteem is more conducive to our survival than a low level of self-esteem. But when you distinguish yourself as the creator of the creation (which you can easily experience with the “Who Am I Really?” Process), then a paradox occurs: you no longer need a high level of self-esteem (because your survival is no longer in question) and you experience yourself as whole and complete, as okay just the way you are, with nothing missing, anything is possible, and no limitations—which “feels like” a high level of self-esteem. Although it is possible to change the creation (by eliminating our beliefs about ourselves, which changes how we act and feel)—the very fact of experiencing ourselves as a creation will necessarily result in experiencing something missing, some limitations, and, as the Buddha said: some degree of suffering. Some suffering seems to be inherent in the experience of ourselves as a creation, an entity whose survival is always at stake. Let me explain why. If some things are good for us (conducive to our survival), then other things are bad for us (a threat to our survival). And when we encounter anything that we consider to be a threat to our survival, we feel anxiety and suffer. Depending on our beliefs and who we think are, we can be threatened by people who are angry at us, not being liked by people, making mistakes, not reaching our goals—in other words, by anything that we consider “bad.” In other words, when anything we consider ourselves to be (a good parent, a hard worker, a sexy person) is threatened, we feel anxiety because we think who we are is in danger of extinction. When we experience ourselves as a creation with a low level of self-esteem, our lives become about acquiring self-esteem. We create survival strategies—which are substitutes for self-esteem—that run our lives, such as having people think well of us, taking care of others, or doing things perfectly. We think these survival strategies will make us good enough or important. Unfortunately, it’s an endless quest because they never really work, although they can ameliorate anxiety for the moment. The Lefkoe Method has two purposes | 7/13/10 | Free | View In iTunes |
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You Create Your Experience of Reality | (http://www.mortylefkoe.com/wp-content/uploads/marty_lefkoe_headshots_053_2-01_edit_221-150x150.jpg) When you realize that you never saw your beliefs in the world, that you only saw events that had no inherent meaning, it becomes clear that you create your beliefs—and, ultimately, reality as you experience it. Thus, everything we say is “out there”—other than what we sense (in other words, what we touch, see, hear, smell, or taste)—is a distinction we create that exists only in our mind. Creation is the act of making distinctions For example, you walk down the street and think you actually see “men” and “women,” when you actually only perceive what we have defined as individual human beings. You describe these human beings as “men” or “women,” but you have never actually seen “men” or “women”; they are only abstractions you have distinguished and imposed on reality. If you were to arbitrarily distinguish people into those taller and those shorter than six feet, you would eventually walk down the street and think you are seeing “shorties” and “tallies” as clearly as you now see men and women. In Alternate Realities, Lawrence LeShan gives a simple example: Consider how we make classes of things. “Surely,” we say, “we do not create classes. We take them as we find them ‘out there,’ male and female, animal, vegetable, and mineral. . . . We are not creating anything. We are observing things and learning their relationships.” Why then, asked one philosopher, has no one made a class of red, juicy, edible things and included meat and cherries in it? Or a class of tall, dark-haired men and women with no earlobes? It becomes clear, as we look at LeShan’s example, that we help create and maintain the reality we perceive and react to. So nothing is until you make it so. But once you do, it must be. You can no longer not see men and women. (I once had the following printed on a t-shirt: “It isn’t until it is, and then it must be.” Can you imagine me trying to explain what I meant by that phrase to everyone who read it and asked me?) Here is a vivid example. In The Experts Speak by Christopher Cerf and Victor Navasky, hundreds of experts are cited who were limited in their ability to see anything outside their existing beliefs. The following is just one of the beliefs that was generally accepted as “the truth” and that determined the believer’s behavior at the time. Cerf and Navasky tell of how in the 1850s, a Hungarian doctor and professor of obstetrics, Ignaz Semmelweis, ordered his interns at the Viennese Lying-In Hospital to wash their hands after performing autopsies and before examining new mothers. The death rate plummeted from 22 out of 200 to two out of 200, prompting the following reaction from one of Europe’s most respected medical practitioners: It may be that it [Semmelweis’s procedure] does contain a few good principles, but its scrupulous application has presented such difficulties that it would be necessary, in Paris for instance, to place in quarantine the personnel of a hospital the great part of a year, and that, moreover, to obtain results that remain entirely problematical.” (Dr. Charles Dubois, Parisian obstetrician, in a memo to the French Academy, on September 23, 1858.) Semmeiweis’ superiors shared Dubois’ opinion; when the Hungarian physician insisted on defending his theories, they forced him to resign his post on the faculty. Today this example seems ridiculous. Doesn’t everyone know that proper hygiene is a lifesaving factor in hospitals? We tend to view this as an objective reality—as a fact. But Dubois and his colleagues were operating out of a different worldview, from a different set of beliefs. Semmelweis’s theory did not fit with their beliefs about hospital care, and therefore it was not and could not be the truth for them. The only thing that is “true” is that which you make true by definition. You cre | 7/6/10 | Free | View In iTunes |
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How Our Language Determines Our Reality | (http://www.mortylefkoe.com/wp-content/uploads/marty_lefkoe_headshots_053_2-01_edit_218-150x150.jpg) Last week I explained how we live in a dualistic universe in which for any “thing” or concept to exist, we must distinguish between it and a not... | 6/8/10 | Free | View In iTunes |
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Some Thoughts on Manifesting | (http://www.mortylefkoe.com/wp-content/uploads/marty_lefkoe_headshots_053_2-01_edit_217-150x150.jpg) Most of my blog posts present material I have a clear point of view on, such as how beliefs are formed, how they can be eliminated and how they determine our thoughts, feelings, and behavior. I don’t hold these as “the truth,” but as effective and useful “a truths.” A few posts—like the ones I wrote last December on occurring—present some half-formed ideas I am thinking about and trying to work through. This post on some thoughts on manifesting is like that. Let me start with two ideas I’ve been fascinated about for a few years. Here is the first idea: If you asked someone, “Do things exist?” the response would probably be, “Of course things exist! The world is full of things. Doesn’t everyone know that there is physical stuff out there—that reality is tangible and real?” But what allows any thing—a hand, a chair, or any other object—to exist? One way to answer is to imagine a specific thing—say, a hand. What if the hand expands and keeps expanding until there is nothing in the universe except the hand. What would happen to it? … Really try to imagine this. … You wouldn’t see the hand anymore. But why? It would disappear because there would be nothing in the universe that was not the hand. This thought exercise illuminates a very basic concept about reality: We live in a dualistic universe. In order for any thing to exist, there must also be not that thing. Consider this for a moment. Can you see that any physical object is bounded by “not that object”? If an object did not have any borders— that is, if it wasn’t surrounded by “not that object”—it couldn’t be distinguished from everything else. In other words, it wouldn’t exist. The same principle also applies to nonmaterial concepts. Love and hate, peace and war, strong and weak, beautiful and ugly—these only exist and have unique attributes because they have been distinguished from each other. For example, the state of war is distinguished from peace by the presence of armed conflict. When there is no armed conflict there is peace. But if armed conflict existed throughout the world all the time, and if the alternative (peace) was unimaginable, you wouldn’t be able to distinguish war from any other state. War, as a condition distinct from peace, couldn’t exist. Now imagine the universe without any distinctions. It’s just an undifferentiated whole. Can you see that there would be nothing? That’s because in order for anything to exist, it must be distinguished from everything else. If no distinction is made between a specific thing and everything else, there is only an undifferentiated everything—which is another way of saying nothing. Everything, without any distinctions, is the same as nothing. Physicist Fred Allen Wolf once said that “the world is only a potential and not present without you or me to observe it.” I would suggest that what physical reality really requires is consciousness to make distinctions. In making distinctions, we use our sensory apparatus (the five senses) as well as our perceptual framework (language, culture, paradigms, and individual beliefs). But the world isn’t really the way you perceive it. It isn’t any way until you perceive it that way—that is, until you distinguish it that way. In fact, you don’t even sense what’s “out there:’ because there’s nothing out there to be sensed. (Nothing, as we’ve seen, however, is the potential for everything to be distinguished.) An example comes from a Time magazine cover story on human consciousness. "A baby born with cataracts—an unusual but not unheard-of condition—and left untreated for as little as six months becomes permanently and irrevocably blind. If a sixty-year-old develops cataracts, an operation can restore full sight. The distinctions most of us make unconsciously and at a glance | 6/1/10 | Free | View In iTunes |
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How to get rid of your fears | (http://www.mortylefkoe.com/wp-content/uploads/marty_lefkoe_headshots_053_2-01_edit_216-150x150.jpg) I want to deeply thank the hundreds of you who shared intimate details about how your lives have been run by your fears and anger. Your stories were unbelievably honest and incredibly moving. They reminded me of how I described my own life in my journal years ago, just before I created the Lefkoe Belief Process (originally called the Decision Maker Process) and in the early months after I created it, before I had eliminated many beliefs. Here are some excepts from my journal in the mid-1980s: During the past few weeks I have been more and more upset, afraid, on edge. Nothing seems to be happening. I put articles, magazines, etc. out into the world, and nothing comes back. I am worried about money. I am troubled about the situation in which I have put my family. It seems to be that there is something wrong with me, that no matter what I do, it will never be enough. I feel I am insufficient for the task I've set for myself. Last night I was exhausted, crying when I got home, crying when I got up this morning. I'm scared. And when I try to look and see what's going on, my mind wanders and there's a fog. I just saw the thoughts: When all is said and done, I'm never going to make it. My life is not going to turn out. If you didn’t know these comments were written by me many years ago, I’m sure you would assume they were among the many posts written last week describing the one area of your emotional life you would like to change. Techniques That Didn’t Work For You In your response to my question—What didn’t work to help you with your fear?—you said that most rational approaches, such as cognitive behavioral therapy, positive self-talk, and rational thinking, failed. ”Just don’t let the fear stop you” also didn’t work for most of you. Your responses were mixed on EFT, hypnosis, and NLP. Some of you said these techniques were useful, others said they dealt only with the symptoms and never got rid of the underlying causes, which made the fear and other negative feelings come back. Why Most Approaches To Eliminating Fear Don’t Work I promised I would explain why the approaches that didn’t work for you couldn’t work. Here’s my answer. Imagine a person with the beliefs: I’m not good enough, mistakes and failure are bad, I’m inadequate, I’ll never get what I want, nothing I do is good enough, life is difficult, people can’t be trusted, etc. If this is his reality, can you see that he would be afraid much of the time? … Our beliefs have the power they do because, for us, they are our reality. And that’s why most change techniques that deal only with symptoms produce only temporary relief. If the source of your fear (and other negative emotions such as anger and general upset) is your beliefs, then the only thing that will permanently get rid of the fear is to eliminate those beliefs. Let me give you a few more examples: Our behavior and feelings are responses to our reality. So if my reality is that relationships don’t work, that I’m not lovable, and that women can’t be trusted, then being in a relationship or even having the thought of a close romantic relationship probably would produce some level of anxiety. Why? Because in my reality relationships are unpleasant and unlikely to last. If we perceive something as threatening us, we are hard-wired to feel some level of fear. If in our reality rejection is a threat to us, rejection will cause fear. If in our reality we will never get what we want and life is dangerous, then we are likely to live with some level of anxiety almost all the time. In other words those things that we experience as threatening will necessarily result in fear. But what determines which events are perceived as threatening to us? Interestingly enough, it’s not what is actually out there in the world. Instead, it is our beliefs about ourselves, people | 5/18/10 | Free | View In iTunes |
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What could they possibly have been thinking? | (http://www.mortylefkoe.com/wp-content/uploads/mortylefkoeblogphoto_thumb1.gif) There was a time in America when some people were treated as property, forced to do whatever other people wanted, abused without any ability to respond, and unable to obtain their freedom. Such behavior was legal and considered appropriate by the people practicing it. When we look at the people who exhibited that behavior we think with repulsion, “What could they possibly have been thinking?” I’m not referring to slavery 150 years ago. I’m referring to the abuse heaped upon millions of children daily by well-meaning parents who don’t realize the long-term damage being done by spanking and other forms of punishment. Corporal Punishment Doesn’t Work (http://www.mortylefkoe.com/wp-content/uploads/Photomotherthreateningch_thumb.gif) Research has shown that corporal (physical) punishment not only doesn’t stop the behavior it was intended to stop, it produces a host of negative consequences. These studies have linked corporal punishment to adverse physical, psychological and educational outcomes. Researcher Elizabeth Gershoff, Ph.D., in a 2002 meta-analytic study that combined 60 years of research on corporal punishment, found that the only positive outcome of corporal punishment was immediate compliance; however, corporal punishment was associated with less long-term compliance. Corporal punishment was linked with nine other negative outcomes, including increased rates of aggression, delinquency, mental health problems, problems in relationships with their parents, and likelihood of being physically abused. Time recently described a new study published in Pediatrics that confirms the results of many earlier studies, “As five-year-olds, the children who had been spanked were more likely than the non-spanked to be defiant, demand immediate satisfaction of their wants and needs, become frustrated easily, have temper tantrums and lash out physically against other people or animals.” (Emphasis added.) We’ve discovered from our work with over 13,000 clients that most self-esteem beliefs are formed from interactions with parents during the first six years of life. Spanking produces the dysfunctional behavior described in the studies quoted above because it leads to such beliefs as: I’m powerless. I’m bad. I deserve to be punished. There’s something wrong with me. The way to be safe is to have power over others. Violence is an acceptable way to handle disagreements. The way to keep from being punished is to not get caught. I’m not good enough. Despite all the evidence showing the negative consequences of spanking, many people still argue that it is a useful and appropriate tool for parents. One such person is Dr. James Dobson, a psychologist who Time called “the nation’s most influential evangelical leader.” He argues "[P]ain is a marvelous purifier. . . It is not necessary to beat the child into submission; a little bit of pain goes a long way for a young child. However, the spanking should be of sufficient magnitude to cause the child to cry genuinely." (Emphasis added.) (From his book, Dare to Discipline, pages 6 and 7.) (http://www.mortylefkoe.com/wp-content/uploads/PhotochildcryingiStock_00_thumb.gif) Answering the question: “I have spanked my children for their disobedience, and it didn't seem to help. Does this approach fail with some children?”, Dobson replied: “The spanking may be too gentle. If it doesn't hurt, it doesn't motivate a child to avoid the consequence next time. A slap with the hand on the bottom of a multi-diapered thirty-month-old is not a deterrent to anything. Be sure the child gets the message — while being careful not to go too far.” (Emphasis added.) (Complete Marriage and Family Home Reference Guide) Now you may be thinking, I don’t spank my child and I don’t know any parents who do; it isn’t really that common anymore. In fact, it is a lot more common than you mig | 5/4/10 | Free | View In iTunes |
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It worked. Brilliantly. | (http://www.mortylefkoe.com/wp-content/uploads/marty_lefkoe_headshots_053_2-01_edit_213-150x150.jpg) Remember last December I wrote that I was about to have a breakthrough? Well, I did. On February 16, 2010 nineteen people and I began the Lefkoe Freedom Experiment (LFE). Before we started I promised the participants: “You will learn how to transform the way you experience your life. No matter what the circumstances. Twenty-four hours a day, 365 days a year.” Actually, I had never taught anyone to do that before, but I like to promise things I’ve never done before. That’s the exciting part: Figuring out how to do things after I’ve promised to do them. The LFE was created after I noticed (and blogged about in three posts last December) that most people usually are not aware of the distinction between reality and how reality occurs for them. And because we are not aware of this distinction, we act as if the way reality occurs for us is the way reality “really is,” which is rarely true. So the LFE was designed to determine if we could notice that distinction all the time and, even more importantly, dissolve the way reality occurs for us and be left with nothing but reality. Or as some gurus describe it, live totally in the present, without the past and future intruding. We succeeded brilliantly! We met in a webinar for an hour once a week for ten weeks. Virtually everyone in the class who did their weekly assignment ended the experiment able to easily notice the distinction between “reality” and the way reality occurred for them at any given moment, and then quickly and easily dissolve the “occurring,” so that they were left either with only reality (without any meaning) or with a positive “occurring” that they choose. Let me give you an example. Your investments lose a lot of their value. That is reality. That might occur for you as “a disaster, years of savings and struggle down the drain, how will we ever recoup our losses, etc.” That “occurring” would seem like “a fact,” “the way it really is,” and would result in you feeling upset, despondent, anxious, sad, etc. If you dissolve the “occurring” and observe only the reality—namely, the decline in value of your investment—the negative feelings would disappear. At which point you would have a choice to deal with “reality” and determine what you can learn from the experience and what you are going to do to replace the money. Or you even could create a positive meaning, such as “This is an opportunity to realize that my happiness is not dependent on material things and to grow as a spiritual being.” Giving that meaning to the events would result in positive feelings, such as pleasure and satisfaction. Here are some more details of what we learned. At any given moment we might have positive or negative emotions—joy and excitement, or anger, sadness, anxiety, and upset. Because events in reality have no inherent meaning (we have this profound realization when we eliminate a belief using the Lefkoe Belief Process), the events themselves can’t cause the emotion. What does? The meaning we have given the events. And that meaning results in reality occurring for us in a specific way. So dissolving the meaning/the occurring immediately eliminates the feelings it caused. Imagine that! Being able to eliminate any negative feeling you have in just moments by being able to eliminate the meaning you gave the events. This means that if you are in the middle of an argument with your relationship partner and you are getting angry, all you have to do is identify what meaning you are giving the situation and eliminate it, and the anger will stop. “You’ve got to be kidding,” I hear many of you thinking. “Do you really expect me to believe this?” Yes, I do. I know many of you are skeptical. “I’ve heard outrageous claims before but this is just too much.” Nonetheless, I personally have now done this many time | 4/27/10 | Free | View In iTunes |
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How can I help you? | (http://www.mortylefkoe.com/wp-content/uploads/marty_lefkoe_headshots_053_2-01_edit_212-150x150.jpg) People like you and I can make profound and lasting changes in our lives, if we have the right knowledge and support. To insure that you have re... | 4/20/10 | Free | View In iTunes |
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How to control anger | (http://www.mortylefkoe.com/wp-content/uploads/marty_lefkoe_headshots_053_2-01_edit_210-150x150.jpg) The first time I really allowed myself to experience my anger I fainted. I was about 36 and had successfully suppressed my anger since childhood. And there I was in a group therapy session, hitting a mat with a stick with foam wrapped around it, screaming: “Mom, I’m really angry at you.” When I started the exercise I was only mouthing empty words, but then at some point the words became real and the anger surfaced. It terrified me so much that I literally passed out on the mat. I fainted the next couple of times I tried that exercise, but eventually I was able to experience anger toward my mother that I had never allowed myself to experience. And I was able to remain in an upright position. Although there probably aren’t many people who first experienced their anger in exactly the same way I did, there are millions who are terrified of experiencing their own anger or being in the presence of the anger of others. Many people get in touch with that anger in therapy or some personal growth course, and millions never do. In addition to the fact that suppressing your anger is suppressing a part of yourself—in other words, having a part of you be unknown to you—suppressed anger has been implicated in serious illnesses, especially heart diseases. So if you want to discover why our anger is so scary that we need to hide it, even from ourselves, and if we want to be able to experience anger without fear, read on and let me explain how we can do that. The Primary Source of Our Fear The primary source of our fear of anger is three specific beliefs and two conditionings. The beliefs are: Confrontation is dangerous, If I’m angry I’ll lose control, and Anger is dangerous. And the conditionings are: fear associated with anger and fear associated with confrontation. There can be a several others relevant beliefs and conditionings, but it is my experience that when these five have been eliminated, most of the fear we have of our own anger and the anger of others will be gone. The source of these five beliefs and conditionings is almost always a childhood where one or both parents frequently displayed extreme anger. (I’ll explain why some people frequently express anger in a minute.) If we are terrified by the anger of our parents as a child, the typical reaction is the five beliefs and conditionings I listed. The group therapy I described above helped me get in touch with my anger and allowed me to experience it instead of suppress it so totally that I didn’t even know I was feeling it. But my fear of anger did not disappear totally until I eliminated the five beliefs and conditionings several years later. Now what about people who aren’t afraid of anger, but who themselves are angry a lot and express that anger as verbal or physical abuse? What is the source of that? People Who Get Angry Easily Kids want affection, attention, and acknowledgment. When they repeatedly can’t get what they want, they are likely to feel powerless. Also, frequently being told: “Just do it because I said so” can produce the same feeling. This leads to the belief I’m powerless. This is a basic self-esteem belief that makes us feel out of control and insecure, because if we are powerless then we don’t have the ability to do what we think needs to be done. In other words, on a subconscious level we know our survival is always at stake. When we form such a belief as a child we need to find some way to deal with the ever-present anxiety it produces. As I explained in a blog post last year (http://www.mortylefkoe.com/how-do-beliefs-produce-%E2%80%9Cdriven%E2%80%9D-compulsive-behavior/ (http://www.mortylefkoe.com/how-do-beliefs-produce-%E2%80%9Cdriven%E2%80%9D-compulsive-behavior/)), when we form a negative self-esteem belief as a child we need to develop some strategy to deal with it. For example, | 4/14/10 | Free | View In iTunes |
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How to build confidence | (http://www.mortylefkoe.com/wp-content/uploads/marty_lefkoe_headshots_053_2-01_edit_29-150x150.jpg) Most of us would like to improve our level of confidence. But why? How does a low level of confidence affect us and what changes in our lives when we gain confidence? What is confidence anyway? Where does it come from? Why do some people have more of it than others? As someone who has helped literally thousands of people build more confidence, I think I am qualified to answer these questions. (By the way, I had very little self-confidence for most of my life but now I consistently experience a high level of confidence.) What is confidence? Confidence actually exists on a continuum, ranging from a very low to a very high belief in our own abilities, a sense we can handle whatever life throws at us. Very few people are totally lacking in confidence and very few feel confident that they can handle almost anything. So the issue for most people is where they currently are on the continuum and how they can improve their confidence. It is important to distinguish between confidence about being able to perform a specific task (such as fly a plane or speak a foreign language) and confidence in yourself. One might not be confident about being able to perform a specific task even though they have high level of self-confidence. Such a person knows that her inability to perform a specific task means nothing about her as a person. How to improve your level of confidence The way to gain confidence about specific abilities is to learn those skills and practice a lot. The way to improve our internal level of confidence that we apply to life in general is to eliminate our limiting beliefs. Every negative belief we have lowers our internal level of self-confidence, beliefs such as I’m not good enough, I’m inadequate, I’m powerless, I’m not capable, Nothing I do is good enough, and I’m not worthy. Once you understand that a lot of negative self-esteem beliefs lowers your level of self-confidence and getting rid of them raises it, you will understand the myth that self-confidence comes from succeeding or failing at specific projects in life. If you succeed at tasks as a kid and your parents constantly tell you that you should have done better, you are likely to conclude, Nothing I do is good enough and other similar beliefs that will lower your self-confidence. On the other hand, if you don’t succeed at tasks a lot of the time as a kid and your parents say things like: “That’s okay, no one gets it right the first time. If you keep practicing you will get better and better”—you are likely to conclude: If I keep trying I can do anything. That belief would raise your level of self-confidence. In other words, your level of self-confidence is a function of your beliefs, not your practical results. And if you already have a bunch of positive self-esteem beliefs, failures later in life probably will be experienced as temporary set backs that have nothing to do with who you are as a person. Some of the consequences of low self-confidence A low level of self-confidence can result in a host of other emotional problems, such as procrastination (we are afraid we won’t do a good job so we keep putting things off), worrying about the opinions of others (we don’t have confidence in our own opinion), a critical “little voice” in our head that constantly criticizes almost anything we do (because nothing we do is really good enough), and stress (because we are constantly worried that what we are doing is just not good enough). Low self-confidence also can result in self-defeating behavior. It can keep you from ever getting started. Or it can have you quit at the first sign of a problem. Or it can lead you to sabotage yourself when you get close to success because you feel you don’t really deserve to get what you want. Or if somehow you manage to get some of what you want, | 4/6/10 | Free | View In iTunes |
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I finally stopped bragging | (http://www.mortylefkoe.com/wp-content/uploads/marty_lefkoe_headshots_053_2-01_edit_28-150x150.jpg) It took me a long time to stop bragging. About 50 years in fact. As a child I always bragged about things that I thought would impress others. How good my grades were. Things I had done. Popular kids I hung out with. Having people think well of me was so important that I even lied just to impress others. When I was 17 I was living in Miami Beach in an apartment with my mom. From time to time I dated girls who visited Miami Beach on vacation. One time I remember driving past my aunt’s beautiful house and saying to the girl: “That’s where I live.” I would have been embarrassed to show her an apartment building and say I lived in there. Living in the luxurious water-front house meant I was “someone special” and that’s how I wanted others to view me. For most of my life I didn’t see my bragging as a problem. I did it and most of the people I knew did it also. It was just something that people did. It wasn’t until I developed The Lefkoe Method about 25 years ago and started to figure out what beliefs caused which problems that I realized that bragging is actually a way to compensate for a low level of self-esteem. Let me explain. As I’ve written in the past, very few people escape childhood without forming a bunch of negative self-esteem beliefs. With few exceptions, parents aren’t aware how their behavior is instrumental in the beliefs their children are forming. And as I said a few weeks ago in a post about parenting, parents, being adults, generally like quiet; children are not quiet and cannot even understand why anyone would value quiet. Parents for the most part want their house to be neat; young children don’t even understand the concept of “neat.” Parents want to sit down for dinner when it is ready and before it gets cold; children are almost always doing something that is far more important to them and don’t want to stop doing it when their parents call them. In other words, parents usually want their children to do things that they are developmentally incapable of doing. They want their young children to act like little adults, which they cannot possibly do. The question is not, Do children frequently “disobey” their parents? Children are developmentally incapable to living up to most parents’ expectations. The only question is how parents react when their children are not doing what the parents want them to do. And because few parents go to parenting school and most bring their own beliefs from their childhoods with them, their reactions range from annoyance and frustration to anger and abuse, with every possibility in between. So we form negative beliefs about ourselves. (See http://mortylefkoe.com/031610 (http://mortylefkoe.com/031610)) Once we have a negative sense of ourselves, we need to find something that makes us feel good about ourselves, something that makes us feel able to survive and worthy of surviving. I call these survival strategy behaviors, because they feel to us as if we need them to survive. They are formed early in life when we accidently do something and get a positive response from parents or some other person who is important to us. That positive response makes us feel good about ourselves. After a few repetitions, we conclude: What makes me good enough and important is … being successful, or doing things for people, or my accomplishments, or having people think well of me. (See my post on survival strategies, http://www.mortylefkoe.com/how-do-beliefs-produce-%E2%80%9Cdriven%E2%80%9D-compulsive-behavior/ (http://www.mortylefkoe.com/how-do-beliefs-produce-%E2%80%9Cdriven%E2%80%9D-compulsive-behavior)) What makes me good enough and important is having people think well of me is the most common survival strategy belief we’ve seen after working with over 13,000 clients in the past 25 years. And that’s why b | 3/30/10 | Free | View In iTunes |
| Total: 92 Episodes |
Customer Reviews
Thought Provoking!
I love Morty's work, and used to read his blogs. They were often too long for me to find the time to sit down and read, but now I can easily sync his podcast to my ipod and listen to it as I jog to work. Thank you Morty!
Life changing stuff!
The Lefkoe Belief Process has, by far, been the most rapid belief change method I have ever used. The experience that I had using the process has been life changing. I highly recommend using this technique and hope you will seek out the Lefkoes if you would like to find a solution to any problems you might have.
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