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January 25, 2011

Can you ‘Change Your Life in 7 Days’? (Part 5/8)

Filed under: Life Coaching — Tags: , , , , — urbandeva @ 9:53 pm

(Click here to read part 1/8.)

(Click here to read part 2/8.)

(Click here to read part 3/8.)

(Click here to read part 4/8.)

Day Four: Dreamsetting

Discover what you truly want and make your dreams come true


To be fair, today’s chapter was — for the main part — an inspiring read. Considering I paid one pence (plus £2.79 delivery) for the book on Amazon (UK) Marketplace, this section gave good Bang for my Cent.

Ignoring the ever-growing list of mind-programming techniques which preface each day’s chapter — and, quite frankly, still make me shudder — this section included lots of tidbits and exercises to help you Dream Big. He’s still couching every last sentence in NLP techniques and, at times, comes across more excitable than a Labrador puppy — Well done! You’re going to have a great day! Everything’s going to be amazing! People who overuse exclamation marks should be lined up and beat over the head with them! — but I can overlook that if there’s something worth digging out and sharing with others. One example is the following statement which values the ‘process’ as much as the end ‘product’:

Three Steps to a Wonderful Life

There are essentially only three things you need to have a wonderful life:

  1. A clear direction (your Dream)
  2. A well-aligned compass (your Values)
  3. Milestones you can visit along the way to your ultimate destination (your Goals)

For our purposes, we can think about it like this:

When you pursue your goals guided by your values in the context of your dreams, miracles happen!

Methinks there’s a *tad* more to living a wonderful life than the above three points… still, values are important. (And if I start picking holes in the many overly-simplistic statements McKenna makes, I’ll be here forever more.)

I’ve seen a lot of folk lose sight of their innermost values while Chasing the Ace. McKenna illustrates this with an example of a motivational speaker who encouraged his audience to devote twenty-four hours a day to the pursuit of their financial goals. ‘If your family doesn’t understand,’ he said, ‘get a new family.’ Apparently, his fourth wife sat smiling and nodding at the back of the room. Like McKenna says, what good is a successful career if it’s at the cost of your marriage and you hardly ever see your children?

Now, this may be painfully obvious to many, but I’m currently watching a friend of mine run themselves into the ground just to earn a good salary. Doesn’t matter they don’t have a life, that their relationship is suffering, just so long as they’re bringing home a decent wedge of bacon. But we’re not defined by how much we earn, or the area we live in, or the car we drive.

I used to do the same — convince myself I was happy with my lot just because I earned a good wage, took lots of holidays, could eat out wherever I wanted, buy ‘stuff’ whenever I wanted. But inside, I was rotting. I wasn’t using my innate qualities, gifts and talents. I hated myself and resented anyone else who had the courage to follow their dreams, taking tiny swipes out of other writers with sly remarks and insidious put-downs.

Took me a long time to realise I possessed everything I needed inside to escape my depressive morass and live my dream out into the world. In my case, I started writing — writing, writing, writing. I quickly went from blogging to freelance writing to being a published author. Now, I write about all the things I most enjoy in life. Funny thing is, the more I write, the more doors it opens, the more wonderful opportunities come my way, which gives me more to write about… and on it goes. Best part is, I get to share in those experiences with my friends and loved ones. Don’t get me wrong, it’s not all plain sailing and there are days I don’t even have a pot to piss in — but it’s a hell of a lot better than my previous desperate existence.

Although McKenna provides questions and strategies to help elicit your innermost dreams, I’ve found one of the best ways of accessing them is by imagining what you’d do if money were no object and everyone supported, encouraged, and offered to help you realise them (dreams). Whether it’s achievable or realistic is not the point at this stage — the point is to just allow yourself to dream and to allow the dream to unfold however it wants. Because, as strange as this may sound, you’d be surprised how few people permit themselves the beauty and freedom of dreaming once they ‘grow up’…

‘Don’t ask what the world needs – ask what makes you come alive and then go and do that. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive.’ – Howard Martin

(Click here to read part 6/8 – Healthy Foundations)

UD ~

(To read more about how Thea transformed her life from the bottom-up and inside out, buy her inspiring book here.)

January 24, 2011

Can you ‘Change Your Life in 7 Days’? (Part 4/8)

Filed under: Life Coaching — Tags: , , , , , — urbandeva @ 2:54 pm

(Click here to read part 1/8.)

(Click here to read part 2/8.)

(Click here to read part 3/8.)

Day Three: The Power of a Positive Perspective

The Art of Reframing

Before each chapter, McKenna runs through a (steadily increasing) checklist of things to do to get you feeling all positive and revved up about the day ahead. Included in the preface for today’s chapter was the following:

“Think about the rest of the day ahead, feeling and imagining things going perfectly, going the way you want them to go. See what you’ll see, hear what you’ll hear and feel how good it feels.

Congratulations! You have just programmed yourself to have a great day.”

Now, not wishing to cause offence to any McKennites out there, but while this may work on the majority of the herd, those of us who’ve unplugged from The Matrix beg to differ. What I find implicit in the above statement is fear, insecurity, and a lack of trust. It says, “I don’t trust Life; therefore, I’ll attempt in my myopic, ego-centric way to control it, get it to do as its told and to go my way because the omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent All Seeing Eye that I am, knows what’s best for me in the Grand Scheme of Life.”

The last line in particular really grates: “You have just programmed yourself…” Oh, purleease. What teeny-tiny ego really believes they can control the direction Life takes? Let’s put it another way: think back to when you was a child and your parents/caregivers told you to do something that was in your best interest and for your Own Good. Now, being the perfectly flawed human beings they were, sometimes their advice was for the best (even if it didn’t feel that way at the time) and sometimes it wasn’t.

Those individuals who go on to achieve a certain level of ego maturity as they grow older, understand Life can be a bit like that at times. Life often puts us in situations we’d really rather avoid, throws down challenges that stop us in our tracks, and places seemingly insurmountable obstacles before us. Left to our own devices, we’d likely never choose 99.9% of such scenarios. But Life does. Why? Because whether we like it or not, at some strange, twisted, warped level (that’s how it often feels to me), Life knows what’s best for us. I appreciate that’s a bitter pill to swallow, but that’s what I believe. I’m not saying I necessarily agree with or even like it, especially when it involves tragedy, illness, and loss (I doubt those moments ever make sense to any genuinely loving and compassionate heart); but ever so occasionally, on deep, honest reflection, often begrudgingly and with a little Grace, I may catch a glimpse of the method in the madness.

The deep aspect of consciousness that originally gave rise to our ego is omniscient, omnipotent and omnipresent. It sees past, present and future, because it all exists right now, in this moment. So, no — I don’t believe you can ‘programme’ (ugh, hate that term) yourself to have a great day because… in fact (climbs on High Horse), just pause for a moment and think about those last two words — ‘great day.’ How do you even know what a ‘great day’ looks like? The likelihood is, you’ll be basing it on previous ‘great days.’ Is that what you want your life to be? A re-run of previous ‘great days’? Don’t you want your life to be mind-blowingly magnificent in ways you could never, ever have imagined? Or are you happy with more of the same?

Thing with ideas such as this is they don’t take into account the glitches in The Matrix; the coincidences, synchronicities — the ghost in the machine. The wave particle which, when observed, doesn’t behave the way it’s expected. Or what I prefer to call ‘fate’ — those fated, fateful circumstances there’s no getting away from, no matter how positively framed our outlook. I believe what ultimately matters, is how we choose to respond in such situations.

Speaking for myself, I’d rather surrender to each day and hope I have it in me to meet it with as much curiosity, courage, compassion, dignity, and grace as I can muster. When I awaken in the morning, the best way I can imagine framing it is with an open heart and mind, polished off with a deep breath and a Bring It On.

(Click here to read part 5/8 – Dreamsetting)

UD ~

(To read how Thea transformed her life from the bottom-up and inside out, buy her inspiring book here.)

January 23, 2011

Can you ‘Change Your Life in 7 Days’? (Part 3/8)

Filed under: Life Coaching — Tags: , , , , , , , , — urbandeva @ 9:05 pm

(Click here to read part 1/8.)

(Click here to read part 2/8.)

Day Two: A User’s Manual for Your Brain

Master your emotions and release your full potential


I’m doomed.

I think this brainwashing malarkey may be working after all. Having said that, I was already determined to shake things up this year. Before starting this book I was regularly using visualisation techniques during my nightly 4 mile power-walk. I think the old skool term for it is daydreaming. Marching along, iPod blaring, I’ve been running through scenarios and situations I want to experience. Only, I run over and over and over the same situations. But then, I have been prone to obsessive compulsive behaviour from time-to-time.

The idea for one particular scenario arrived all-of-a-sudden-one-day without any prior thought. My initial response was, “Meee? No way. I’d never be able to do that. Not in a million years.” Two years later, however, it’s hatched, grown legs and stalks me on a daily basis. Last Friday it reached critical mass when I finally gave in to its incessant daily pecking and started making phone calls, sending emails, just to get the damn thing off my back. In short, a dream has worn me down. Seems it’s settled on me as a host and come Hell or High Water, it will be manifest as a physical reality. Scary thing is, things are now happening…

This has caused me to wonder about one of the ideas discussed in a favourite lecture of mine by spiritual philosopher Alan Watts entitled, Do You Do It or Does It Do You? The idea, from Buddhism, is called interdependent origination — also known as pratītyasamutpāda. Rather than one event being the cause of another, the idea is that both events arise at the same time interdependently of one another.

For example, a woman decides she wants a baby. She shacks up with someone, is impregnated and, if all goes well, a baby arrives nine months later. In the west, we would say she intended to have the child; therefore, her intention caused the creation of that child. The theory behind pratītyasamutpāda, however, says at the same time the woman decided she wanted a baby, a new life intended to manifest in human form and chose her as its mother, thereby causing the desire she felt in wanting to get pregnant. (Do keep up.) This concept messes with our western way of thinking which typically moves in a linear, cause and effect direction. Personally, it makes a lot of sense to me.

Anyway, as usual I digress. McKenna shared an exercise in today’s chapter which, as a writer, I really rather like — a natty tactic to help silence the Inner Critic:

1)      Stop for a moment and talk to yourself in your critical voice, saying all those nasty things in that unpleasant tone.

2)      Now, notice where you make that voice. Does it seem to be coming from inside your head or outside? Is it at the front, the sides or the back?

3)      Extend your arm and stick out your thumb.

4)      Wherever the critical voice was, move it down your arm to the tip of your thumb, so it’s now speaking to you from there.

5)      Next, slow it down and change the tone of it. Make it sound sexy, or speed it up so it sounds like Mickey Mouse.

It sounds much less threatening like that, doesn’t it?

Good eh?

(Click here to read part 4/8 — The Power of a Positive Perspective)

UD ~

Read how Thea transformed her life in her inspiring book here.)

January 22, 2011

Can you ‘Change Your Life in 7 Days’? (Part 2/8)

Filed under: Life Coaching — Tags: , , , , — urbandeva @ 4:00 pm

(Click here to read part 1/8.)

Day One: Who Are You, Really?

Discover your true potential and become the person you really want to be

I have a confession to make — I’d already listened to the Mind CD a couple of days ago. Good job really, as I spent the entire 29 minutes in a fit of giggles. Really, I must take these things more seriously. Thing is, on the CD McKenna sounds like a bad Barry White impersonator. I’m not sure what they’re trying to achieve with the effects, but if you don’t set the volume quite right it borders on the disturbing. Knowing what to expect, however, made things a lot easier today.

Anyway, today’s Key Lesson is:

The reason you are not yet living the life of your dreams is that you are wasting so much of your time and energy hiding your negative self-image from the world.

Before I elaborate on the above statement, I’d like to say a couple of things about McKenna’s approach in the book. Those familiar with NLP (Neuro-Linguistic Programming) will spot McKenna’s use of these techniques from the outset: the subtle highlighting of particular words, the use of positive ‘framing’ etc. Basic, but essentially powerful stuff. I won’t go into the ins and outs of NLP here; suffice to say, there are many useful techniques which would enhance your effectiveness in the world if you began implementing them today. The most successful, most influential, most inspired individuals employ these techniques naturally. The founders of NLP studied the underlying patterns of behaviour and thought in outstanding people and, from their findings, devised the system which would come to be known as NLP. Anyway, enough on that.

The book is accessible and written in a easily digestible manner. Much of what he says makes sense and his approachable style means you can start making positive, proactive changes today. If you’re new to this stuff, I can see no harm in picking it up and having a go.

However, I’ve been in this field long enough to know it takes much more to transform your life than traditional positive thinking — something McKenna himself acknowledges. As he says, imagination and habit are far more powerful than logic and willpower will ever be. But from what I’ve read and heard so far, the book and CD will help dust off your imagination and get you thinking about what you want your life to look and feel like.

Only thing is, and I hate to be the bearer of Bad News, you must then bring those daydreams and visions down to the grounded, grit-level of daily life. There’s more to it than Descarte’s  ”I think; therefore, I am” dictum would have us believe. We are not just our thoughts, but our actions also. And that’s where most people fail. Imagining what you want your life to look like is the easy part. Seeing it through to a tangible reality, is where the majority fail.

When they start the visualisation process, imagining what they want their life to look like, a lot of folk focus on the material stuff — the house, the car, the relationship. White Noise, I call it. White Noise which, ultimately, won’t make you happy and bring feelings of contentedness and fulfilment. Now, you can argue with me, tell me a new car would bring untold happiness to your life. But I stand firm in telling you that that’s ego-based fantasy crap. When it comes to transformation, you’ve got to start from the inside-out.

You are imbued with innate talents, gifts, and qualities wholly unique to you. Yes, there may be other writers, poets, dancers — but they will never interpret a dance the way you will, write a book or poem the way you would. In fact, no-one else in all of time will be able to do what you do, the way you can do it. If you don’t act upon and live out whatever is climbing the walls within you; if you don’t share those talents, those qualities, your uniquely bestowed gifts with the world, they will be lost — forever.

Worse still, they’ll rot inside, eat you up, and be projected outwardly as jealousies, insecurities, and resentment towards those who do have the courage, patience, and wherewithal to pursue their grandest dreams and creative talents.  The unearthing of this innermost authentic self is what McKenna encourages with his initial questions and simple exercises. Another way I encourage individuals to tap into their innermost, authentic self is to start recording their nightly dreams. Journalling, too — reflecting on those moments and experiences when we felt most vital, most alive, before someone came along and shat upon us from a great height with their negativity, disapproval, and scorn.

So yes, dream. Begin with the End in Mind. Imagine it in glorious Technicolor. But as my fella often reminds me when I get too ahead of myself, Next Steps. Concentrate on your Next Steps. After all, you don’t go from being a couch potato today to completing a Marathon tomorrow. Talking/imagining is fun; but Doing gets Done.

(Click here to read part 3/8 — A User’s Manual for Your Brain)

UD ~

Read how Thea transformed her life in her inspiring book here.

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