Mind Magic

For Christmas  I would like to share with you a story written by my 8 year old grandchild in relation to a picture she drew at the drop in centre at the new Auckland Art Gallery.  

The Love Heart Birds

 I wanted to draw a parrot standing on a log but I didn’t know how to draw it’s legs so I drew it flying.

 I thought of other things and drew hearts and then drew black around them and they became love-heart birds.

 Mummy parrot had a baby and the baby really liked the love-heart birds and thought they were funny because they had love-hearts on their tummies, and one of the love-heart birds started to think “why did we have hearts on our tummies.”

 The ones that didn’t have love hearts on their tummies were not very nice to the love-heart birds but the mummy parrot was the boss of all the birds and what she did was make every bird special.

 When she saw one love-heart bird unhappy she did a little ”birdy”  dance for him and she made him happy.

 He asked her “why do you have so many pretty colours” and the mummy bird said “I was born this way”.   You were born to be loving and kind.

 The love-heart bird said “but why do I love things when I am upset” and the mummy bird said “that if you can’t love things when you are sad you will be like every other bird and you would not be as special as every other bird because every bird has a special thing deep down inside of them”.

 “But I don’t know what my special thing is” said the love-heart bird.

 The mummy bird said “you will find it out at the right time.”   But when is the right time”.   “Any time is the right time.   “When you are sad and feeling upset you can be happy by thinking about anything.   About things that other birdies think you are awful at, or other birdies think you are silly about.   You just do what you want to do and think what you are and be VERY SPECIAL.”

 My Christmas wish for you is that you will notice how very special you are today and allow this specialness to touch another and another and another and watch it spread and grow throughout the day.

I have become fascinated with the language we use and how different words mean different things to different people.   It is surprising how often people are really saying the same thing but just using different words and how much time is taken up trying to find a commonality.

I noticed when reading a magazine the other day that the editor commented on how her father had introduced her to the thesaurus early in her life and how fascinated she had become with words as a result.   Given that my spelling leaves a lot to be desired and that words are part of my livelihood, I decided that perhaps this was something that may be worthwhile investigating.

I found it fascinating the variety of words listed under a simple word like  NOTHINGNESS.  They listed emptiness, immateriality, intangibility, pointlessness, sparseness, triviality, unimportance, vacancy, void, worthlessness and zero.   Is it any wonder therefore that sometimes communication goes a little bit astray when we focus so heavily on the words that people use and the meaning we give them.  

From my perspective NOTHINGNESS can be defined as either a positive or negative state, but I am not so sure about pointlessness, or worthlessness.   Can they be defined as a positive state?          

So I would like to suggest perhaps that you also become fascinated with the words that you use and choose words that make a difference in your life.   Words that empower rather than negate you.   Notice how such a simple thing can make such a big difference in your life

So for me, rather than LET GO, I am choosing to LET IN, and I am surprised that changing one simple word can make such a difference in my life.

I seem to have been spending a lot of my time since my last post thinking about the positive aspects of being a Quantum Activist and practicing positive emotions.

I guess for me it is all about taking up the challenge of promoting practicing positive emotions.   I am not at all sure that I know how to encourage others to join me in a group situation, or simply how to encourage others to actively remember positive experiences even if just for a moment.   But I do know that by practicing positive emotions on a regular basis the joy that I used to have seems to have returned and I have more energy.   And it’s funny really because I didn’t even know that I had lost that “joy” until I got it back.

It seems to me that to practice positive emotions effectively you need to adopt some of the same techniques I use when I teach my clients about micro pauses.   Where they learn to use self hypnosis on a regular basis to recharge their ” batteries”.   And all it takes, once awareness is achieved is 5 deep breaths to bring about a wonderful state of  deep relaxation.

So just imagine what might happen if you chose on a regular basis to utilize that micropause just like a coffee break,  but just before you opened your eyes, when you were in that deep state of relaxation,  you took a moment to remember something, no matter how small, that bought a smile to your face.  And you took the time to notice that positive feeling, maybe even to smell what it smelt like and taste what it tastes like, and for some even to hear what it heard like, and then “suck” it in.   I wonder what would change if you began to do this on a regular basis.

I wonder if you would begin to notice over time that you couldn’t quite put your finger on it, and maybe you weren’t exactly sure, but perhaps, perhaps you would notice that you smiled a little more frequently.    That you began to notice other people smiling and believe it or not it felt good.

So once again I would encourage you to become a Quantum Activist.  Practice positive emotions.  Change yourself and allow the world to change simultaneously as you begin to allow a smile to become so much more a part of who you are now.

You might choose to do this individually on a regular basis, just like you would sit down and have a cup of coffee.   Savour a positive experience, “suck” it in allow it to expand and spread and begin to notice a difference in the quality of the life you live.

Or if you choose to join me on a Friday morning and allow that group positive energy to expand even more you can subscribe to my newsletter or contact me on robin@mindmagic.co.nz.

I recently attended a workshop by Amit Gaswami.   A Professor Emeritus of Quantum Physics and I liked what I heard.   I had previously come across his comments in What the Bleep Do We Know, and had watched his video The Quantum Activist (which incidentally you can get from the Auckland Library) and wanted to know more.

I liked the way he referred to me as a person.   A person who creates the world along with every other person, as long as I take responsibility for what I create.   I like the thought of a community and that you and I are all in this together and together we can make a difference.  

I like the fact that there is something that I can DO about it, as well as the way that I can BE with it.  

Do you know that most of the positive experiences that we have are not held within the storage facilities of our mind – our neural network?     That these positive emotions are not available in the same way that negative emotions are when it comes to making a decision about something.    Negative emotions quickly form part of the subconscious aspect of our mind and we respond accordingly when we are faced with a decision on how to react.  

No doubt you will agree with me that for most of us fear is that aspect of us that stops us from reaching the goals that we set.   The dreams that we have.   Or from making the changes that would impact so positively on our life, and on some level rightly so.     In some cases our survival depends upon the emotion that arises in terms of danger that may be presenting itself.    But in many cases, fear is an illusion that stops us from achieving our ambitions and goals in life.   

So just imagine what could or would happen if we were to actively focus on bringing in positive emotions, or what I call “sucking them in” – drawing them down into our neural networks, how things could change.

And just imagine what could happen or would happen if we got together in groups and started doing this together and the group energy added another dimension to the creation of neural networks, not just individually but collectively and globally what difference we could make.

So if you are interested becoming a Quantum Activist and in joining a group specifically set up to practice “sucking in” or bringing in positive emotions you might like to let me know by emailing me on robin@mindmagic.co.nz  or subscribing to my newsletter and I will keep you posted with dates and times. 

 Have you ever noticed how often we stop ourselves from being who it is that we truly are through fear.   Fear of the unknown.   Fear of what others might think.    Fear of change, or just simply fear.  

Sometimes we know exactly where it comes from, and that fear is relevant and necessary to keep us safe, but at other times it is simply something that develops over time and we are not always sure where it comes from.     Sometimes we fear not being good enough, or even that we might be better than we think.   That fear of both failure and success.

I think fear is the one common denominator that most of us share at some time in our life.   We get used to the patterns of behaviour that we adopt whether they work for us or work against us.  

Sometimes of course fear is necessary.   It is the primitive response to keep us safe – to stop us being eaten by the tiger.    But it is when we see only tigers or danger out there that fear works against us.      

I have become fascinated in my clinic recently how much benefit clients are receiving from walking through that fear to the other side, or what I call trust.   And guess what, it seems to me that on the other side of the dark, or fear, there is always light.    It just takes trust.   And when we trust the process then miracles can happen.

So I suggest that you might like to find a place where you can take a moment and dream for a little while of what might be on the other side of that fear.    Of how your life might change if you simply walked through.   To open that door that has been shut for too long.   To step through that fear into trust and notice what it on the other side     A glimpse, a thought, a feeling, an image or maybe even a colour,  or whatever.   Simply allow yourself to feel how good that feeling is and suck it in.  Right down to the core of who it is that you are.  Dream a little, or a lot, of how this feels and when you have spent as much time as seems right for you enjoying this feeling open your eyes and bring yourself back to full awareness, alert and aware of your surroundings.   

And I wonder what would happen if you took this feeling and thought of it frequently over the next few days just for a few moments at a time.   Sucked it in.   Savoured the moment and then let time and space connect with exactly what is right for you now. 

This is being held in Rotorua on the 18th-19th June 2011 at the Kingsgate Hotel, Rotorua and I am one of a number of speakers that will be presenting over the course of the weekend.   Interested parties are welcome to register at www.conference@nzanlp.org.nz.

I will be speaking on The Power of Intention.

It has opened up for me a host of questions that are both fascinating and open ended  in their possibilities.

I am intrigued by questions that arise such as:  

What happens in the space between thought or intention and the outcome?    Is it top down or bottom up as is so elequently described by Amit Goswami in his DVD Quantum Activist.

Could hypnotherapy be seen as a space between the thought and the outcome?     A space between imagination and reality.   And if this is the case at what point does imagination and reality cross over and become one and the same?

Is the therapist the mirror or the reflection and if this is the case what part does the reality of the therapist have to play in the outcome of the session?

How do we quantify the space between the intention, the thought, and the reality of the outcome?   Or by quantifying the space do we simply loose the magic of the moment and unlimited potential.

I first became interested in the Power of Intention when I read Lynne McTaggart’s books the Field, and “The Intention Experiment”.  It changed my way of working with clients as I began to understand that the stories we tell, are simply the stories that we live by and that we can rewrite those stories and reclaim our life.   

And if you are interested in these two books I am sure you will be interested in her latest book ”The Bond” – connecting through the space between us, which you might also like to check out.

Simple really in its belief.   The power of Intention.    So I ask you to imagine what it would feel like if you could walk through your fear to the other side of that fear and allowed yourself to experience feel how wonderful it would feel.   Enjoy the magic of the moment, suck it in, saturate your memory banks with the joy of it and then I ask?   Would it make a difference in your life if you took a moment, just one moment, to do this whenever you thought about it, to saturate your memory with the joy of it?    I wonder how the story that you tell now would be different from the story you used to tell?

So dream a little.     Allow the space between the dream that you dream as you drift off to sleep and the reality that you create to begin to merge into a new story, and a new way of being.   And so be it.

Sometimes when I sit at my computer to type a story arises and I thought I would like to share this one with you.

Once upon a time a long time ago in a foreign land the light changed.    From darkness light began to emerge.   Hesitant at first and then as if warmed by the sun it began to grow.   A greater light than it had ever been before, and held within that light was a sound, a tone, a frequency a harmony.

Some of that darkness did not know what to do with that sound, with the light, and began to tremble and hold on in case the sound, reflected in the light held something that it did not know how to comprehend.   It trembled with the thought of the light and the sound and yet it knew in some small way that it was simply a journey to so much more than it had ever been before.   

It was as if in that light, unconsciousness was now beginning to become conscious.    The darkness was beginning to become light, and the sound was beginning to reverberate through all aspects of its being.   Connecting, joining, merging, and changing everything it knew.     All aspects of its wholeness.    A letting go, a slight tremble and then as the light began to shine the darkness knew that the light held so much more and it began to change.  

A new lightness began to emerge, a new sound, a depth, a width, a tone,  a band of frequency new and not as mysterious as first conceived because it had always been there, hidden at first under cover of the dark waiting to emerge once again into light.

And it was so much fun, so much lighter; a new way of being, a new way of seeing, a new way of thinking, as change began to become so much more familiar and the sound reverberated deeply throughout everything now.

So I invite you to begin to allow your sound to emerge, similar and yet different than before as you begin to shine your light and allow that change to be part of who you are now.

“Before you go to sleep at night imagine what it would be like to have exactly what it is that you want and go to sleep with that feeling of having what it is that you want.”

“Imagine what could happen if every morning before you got out of bed you allowed yourself to feel exactly what it would feel like if you had exactly what it was you were dreaming of at that moment in time.   I wonder how different your life would be. “  

I am giving a talk on The Power of Intent at the NZANLP/NZAPH joint National Hypnotherapy/NLP conference on the 18th to 19th June in Rotorua, and on a trip to White Island over the weekend I got to experience just what can happen when we utilize that power of intent.   

It was fine when I left Auckland for Whakatane on Friday night with a group of fellow trampers from WOPS, but as the evening closed in it began to rain, and it got worse and worse until it was bucketing down and it certainly didn’t look too good for our trip by boat to White Island the next day.   If Saturday didn’t work out we still had Sunday and so although dissapointed we all firmly believed that the weather would improve and we would get to White Island.    

Next morning saw us tramping in the pouring train through the bush up to the lookout where we had a clear view of the sea conditions and they didn’t look very promising.   However the wind was predicted to drop and hopefully the rain would soon pass over.   We walked along the wharf and took a look at the boat we would be travelling to White Island in and it certainly looked sturdy enough and comfortable enough for our journey the next day.   

Before we went to bed that night we all smilingly affirmed our belief that we would be going to White Island the next morning as the wind was dropping and the rain had stopped.   Imagine therefore our disappointment when we heard that the tour had been cancelled because the Harbour Master had closed the bar, and the tour to White Island was off.     We were all naturally diappointed and other options, including tramping certainly didn’t have the same appeal.

But this wasn’t the end of the storey and there was something else.   And in this instance what unfolded was the WOW factor.   Nine of us in three helicpoters took a short flight across to the Island.   There was a plumb of smoke rising from the island just as we arrived and the photo shots were exquisite.   We donned hard hats and were given gas masks and proceeded round the island.   It was an amazing experience and as we flew back around the rim of the crater and looked down into the crater lake we all knew without a word of doubt that what eventuated was so much more that what we had anticipated and so much more than we could have experienced if the trip had unfolded as we expected.   

What we came to understand from that journey to White Island, was that sometimes it is in the letting go of the details, that allows something even more beneficial to occur than you might have imaged at the time.  The magic of the power of intent expressed in the most perfect way.

As we landed back at the airport we couldn’t help sharing our take on the “Power of Intention”.    If you truely desire something, when it is taken away there is always something else in its place.   The power is in the intent, and not in the details.   So dream your dreams, and allow them to unfold in what is for you the most perfect way.

Well here I am back in Auckland and I must admit that I did enjoy those wonderful sunny Autumn days we had last week and not so sure I am ready for more rain yet.   I understand we have had a wonderful summer but I guess I have missed most of it.

 
I have just spent some time at the Litchenberg Institute in Germany singing my heart out or more exactly utilizing two distinct tones to bring my mind and body into what I call harmonic resonance.   And wow, when I experienced it, I knew it in every pore of my body.   Not that I am a classical singer like many who train at the institute, or a classical musician, but someone who has come to understand the harmonic relationship between my voice and my body.   To experience that alchemical relationship between the sound and my body, for me is  truly magic.   

You might ask why I would bother going all that way when singing is not my career, nor that of a classical musician, but I have come to understand as a hypnotherapist that the sounds people hear, the sounds of other peoples voices, have a much greater impact on them than they realize.      

 
Many conversations are emotionally loaded, and for those who are sensitive to others emotions, it is sometimes difficult to deal with.    So part of my journey, as someone who used to be so extremely sensitive to others emotions, has been the journey into sound, and in particular the sound of my voice.     Part of my journey into sound has been the desire to utilize my voice in a way that allows others to find their voice and maximize their potential.    

I am continually amazed at the access hypnotherapy gives us to the window of our mind.   That part of us that knows so much more than we are consciously aware of.   That part – the unconscious or subconsciousmind – which when harnessed can bring about such change.

But what do I mean when I talk about soul retrieval, and what does that have to do with hypnosis.    So much of what we do is conditioned by our past, the rules that we adopt to fit into the culture we live in, the family we grow up in, or the friends we have.   And no matter how much we try and analyse why we continue to repeat the same mistakes over and over again, we still do.

Soul retrival utilizes Spirit guides and Power Animals to assist you in your journey into the past to heal old wounds.   Similar in way to the journey you might ask a shaman to do for you, only you do it yourself.   A powerful way to make change, to heal situations that have left you feeling fractured.   A way that gets to those parts of usually difficult to access. 

I love the way that new aspects of something that goes back for so many years, such as hypnosis. can continually come up with new aspects of old ways to help us on our journey into the fullness of who it is that we truely are.   Wonderfully positively us.