“You do not have to answer the telephone. You do not have to obey. You can, if you choose, totally ignore the telephone bell.” ~Maxwell Maltz

I was talking with someone the other day who was frustrated because they often let their emotions run amok within their mind, and once they got focused on a disturbing situation, they just couldn’t shake it.  It affected all facets of their life — it seemed to “bleed” into every part of their life, to the point where it was significantly disruptive.  I think more frustration was coming from the fact that they seemed to almost “instinctively”  jump into this aggravated mindset, with little required stimulus.  They were looking for some way to disrupt this somewhat “automatic” response to find some inner peace and let it go.

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Join me for this week’s interview on Monday, April 29 at 12 PM Central!

To listen to the interview, click HERE! I will be welcoming Holli Kenley to my radio show this week!

I always enjoy when I have the opportunity to welcome someone back to my show!  Today, I welcome back Holli Kenley, to talk about her newest book, titled, Mountain Air: Relapsing and Finding the Way Back… One Breath at a Time.  This book is Holli’s personal memoir which details her descent into relapse and her powerful recovering journey.  At the same time, she provides her readers with the tools to resurface from any type of relapse, to reclaim their healing truths, and to breathe in life again…fully and freely.

As Holli writes, ‘Don’t stay too long in the shame-filled grounds of relapse.  Fertile soil awaits your return and your recovering.’

In her book, Holli shares her 5 Healing Steps Out of Relapse:

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“Every criticism, judgment, diagnosis, and expression of anger is the tragic expression of an unmet need.” ~Marshall Rosenberg

Although it was a while ago, I still remember it pretty vividly; I was walking from the terminal at the airport downstairs to catch my shuttle to my hotel, when I heard a woman absolutely screaming at the top of her lungs at her cell phone (or more accurately, the person on the other end of the phone call on the cell phone).

She was screaming — literally screaming at this poor person who happened to field her call at what must have been a credit card company.  Apparently, for whatever reason, this woman’s credit card was declined, and so she was “stuck” at the airport with no apparent way to get out of there.  Well, at least that’s what she was screaming to the person at the other end of the line.

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On Monday I went out to eat at a local restaurant with my family.  When we got to the restaurant, I saw the news channel reporting the events that had unfolded in Boston during the marathon.  My wife and I were unaware of the situation until then, and then my seven-year-old daughter Brianna started in with the questions.  Have you ever been in that situation, trying to explain the rationale for why people would consider doing such terrible things to defenseless and innocent people, to a child?

While I was trying to process it all, I started to wonder — I started to wonder what it was like for those terrified runners, who, on top of running a 26.2 mile race, have to deal with all of that.  I started to wonder what it was like for the innocent bystanders who may or may not have been affected by the tragedy.  I began to wonder and ask the larger questions, even out loud.  I asked, “Why do people feel they need to do this sort of thing?  Why?”

I don’t like to hear bad news, and I don’t enjoy watching the repeated video footage of the bomb going off again and again and again.  I even said so much to my wife.  I also told her that while I understand the need to inform people of the event, I would prefer that the news refrains from making such a big deal of it, simply because sometimes the people who do these sorts of thing get a kick out of seeing the amount of panic it causes and how much attention it generates.

But most of all, I just wish we could live in a world free of hate and cruelty to others.  I just wish we could all get along, and for heavens sake, if you are someone who feels that life has gotten so horrible, and if you are someone who feels that drastic measures are necessary, then please by all means carry out the drastic measures on yourself and yourself only, and leave other innocent people out of it.  My goodness…What compels someone to act in a way that can tear apart families and forever change people’s lives?  For what reason?  I wonder…

I once read that one of the things that sets humans apart from other animals is the large brains that humans possess, and that the reason for the evolution of the large brain was because it gave us the ability to “read minds.”  By reading minds and “wondering” what it would be like to walk a mile in someone else’s shoes, we could develop empathy, and be well on our way to greatness.

Well, I’m at a loss, still two days later.  While I am filled with empathy, and while I am still wondering what it must be like, among other things, for a set of parents to have their eight-year-old son lose his life and have a six-year-old daughter lose her leg, simply because they were in the wrong place at the wrong time in a horrible twist of fate, I am also filled with deep sadness about how “not great” we humans can be sometimes.

Why we still continue to perpetuate anger, fear, hate, and selfishness is something I hope one day I won’t have to wonder about anymore.

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This spring has been super busy for me.  Let me just start by saying I am usually busy, but this spring has been just so especially busy.  It seems like I have a million things that I know I absolutely have to do, and then there are those things (like writing) that I don’t have to do, but I absolutely love to do them, and they fuel my fire to come back and engage in the madness once again.

Have you ever been in that position?  Where you know there are things you have to commit your time to, but the number of items keeps going up and up?  I’ve been looking for ways to decrease the time I spend on the mundane and unnecessary.  One of the things I did was start really looking through my emails and unsubscribing from lists that are no longer relevant to me.  I am not exaggerating when I say that I probably spent a good half hour of time per day sifting through (and just deleting) emails from my inbox, which I knew I had no desire to read.  To be honest, either the messages don’t resonate with me or I no longer need to hear it.  In some other cases, the only time I hear from some is when they want me to buy something from them or buy a product they are pushing, and I don’t need that right now either.

Even after I looked at ways I could minimize unnecessary tasks, I still stare at the list of what seems like a “million” things to do.  One night, it all hit me, and I confess that I felt horrible until I got it right the next day.  I am just glad it only took less than twenty-four hours to rectify the situation, but upset that it even required rectifying in the first place.

It was around eight at night, and my girls were in bed.  Ava, who is four and doesn’t have school, will come back out, on occasion, and ask if she can sit with me for a while and watch television.  While I am not a big television watcher (especially as of late — no time!), I love gathering her up and on to my lap to watch something that she enjoys.  Well, this particular night was one of those occasions, where she came out and wanted to sit with me.

The problem was that I had already settled in to do my work.  I was digging in, and I had a list of about four items that I felt I absolutely had to complete before I went to bed that night.  There was a hard deadline — no flex at all.  Ava came to me and asked if she could stay up with me.  I said to her, “Ava, I have work to do tonight.  You can stay up with me, but I have to work.”

She grabbed some of her “Barbie” dolls and started playing with them a bit, and then she asked me, “When you’re done with work, can we play?” 

I said, “I have lots of work to do.  I won’t be able to play for a long time.”  I continued to work on the computer.

She played a bit more, and then asked, “Daddy, how about we watch a show on TV.”

I said, “You can watch, but I have work to do.”

I looked at the clock, saw that it was after eight, and finally said, “No, Ava…It’s late.  You need to get to bed.  Go to bed.”

She put down her toys, and without saying anything, she went to bed.  Ava’s a good girl who listens very well without arguments.

With my head down in my computer, I continued to work, and then, it hit me.  It was a sinking feeling…A “worried” feeling.  It was a feeling of anxiety over everything on my plate.  I started to grow frustrated and think about the drastic measures I had to take to just lift some time off of my “to do” list.  I felt like a nervous wreck.  I know I was tired, and that was 90 percent of it, but still, I was not feeling good about life in general at that moment.

As I thought about my feelings for a moment, I realized exactly why I started to feel the way I was feeling.  It was because I allowed my “to do” list to stand in between what my heart wanted.  I let my work get in between me and my time with Ava.  I put work before family.

That’s not okay with me.

Going to bed with a heavy heart was not enjoyable.  Some may call it guilt; I just call it being “pissed off and regretful” at the same time.

The next evening, I made sure that I was available even if work was calling.  The work can always be done, well after Ava has trailed off to sleep.

Since that evening, there have been a couple of times when I had an evening visitor.  My lap is always open now.  Even today, when I had a few hours in the middle of the day before going off to work for the evening, I took advantage of the opportunity to spend some quality time with Ava, watching some shows she enjoys.

No longer will I let a “million things” get between me and what is really important.  My family always comes first, and now I make sure I remind myself of that.  Time doesn’t move backwards.  Brianna and Ava will only be young once.  The “work” will never age; it will always be there.  My heart knows where I need to be.

What are some things you refuse to let a “million things” keep from you?  I’d like to hear what you value the most!

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Have you ever been perplexed?  Have you ever asked a question for which there was no answer?  Have you ever needed to come up with an answer, only to find that nothing is coming?  I know I have been there so many times, and I still end up there multiple times per day.  Some questions are “bigger” than others; some are “tiny” questions, but they still need answering!

I think back to my younger days, when I enjoyed “dabbling” in electronics, specifically audio media.  I loved to play around with making audio recordings, manipulating audio, and other experimentations.  Sometimes I knew what I wanted to do with the audio, but I couldn’t figure out how to make it happen, especially with the limited resources I possessed.  However, I learned early on that many times I would receive absolute clarity on the exact answer to my question in that short time between wakefulness and sleep at night.  Over and over, it would happen again and again.  I had a question and it would be answered as I was dozing off.  The only problem was that many times I would not write anything down, so I had to struggle the next day to try to recall exactly what the answer was!

As I have matured, I have found other ways to bring out the answers to these questions, such as running, or doing any other sort of rather “mindless” activity.  It appears that the key is just that — not pressuring yourself into finding an answer — rather, just letting the answer find you.  What is it about “mindless” activity, or the period right before we fall asleep, that puts us in a position supremely “primed” to come across answers to such perplexing questions?

In his book Psychocybernetics, author Maxwell Maltz discusses this idea of coming up with answers to questions we cannot answer.  He says, “when we set out to find a new idea, or the answer to a problem, we must assume that the answer exists already—somewhere, and set out to find it.” By setting the wheels in motion of assuming that the idea already exists, we enter a place mentally where we are priming the subconscious mind to grab onto it if it happens to pass through sometime in the future.

He goes on to say this: “If you really mean business, have an intense desire, and begin to think intensely about all angles of the problem—your creative mechanism goes to work — and the ‘scanner’ we spoke of earlier begins to scan back through stored information, or ‘grope’ its way to an answer. It selects an idea here, a fact there, a series of former experiences, and relates them—or ‘ties them together’ into a meaningful whole which will ‘fill out’ the incompleted portion of your situation, complete your equation, or ‘solve’ your problem. When this solution is served up to your consciousness—often at an unguarded moment when you are thinking of something else—or perhaps even as a dream while your consciousness is asleep—something ‘clicks’ and you at once ‘recognize’ this as the answer you have been searching for.”

But still, something has to be said about a person’s state of mind when they receive this sort of inspiration.  What can be said about a person’s state of mind or consciousness when they get hit with the answer or inspiration?  Thomas Edison famously took cat naps so that when dozing off he could find inspiration.  I think the key here is what the conscious mind is doing (or not doing).  It appears that if the conscious mind is active, it’s too “noisy” to allow the workings of the subconscious to rise to the surface.  If we’re consciously concerned about this or worried about that, we are engaging in too much “forebrain” activity.

Maltz discusses this as well in his book, saying, “creative ideas are not consciously thought out by forebrain thinking, but come automatically, spontaneously, and somewhat like a bolt out of the blue, when the conscious mind has let go of the problem and is engaged in thinking of something else. These creative ideas do not come willy nilly without some preliminary conscious thought about the problem. All the evidence points to the conclusion that in order to receive an “inspiration” or a “hunch,” the person must first of all be intensely interested in solving a particular problem, or securing a particular answer. He must think about it consciously, gather all the information he can on the subject, consider all the possible courses of action. And above all, he must have a burning desire to solve the problem. But, after he has defined the problem, sees in his imagination the desired end result, secured all the information and facts that he can, then additional struggling, fretting and worrying over it do not help, but seem to hinder the solution.”

So, in other words, to solve the question that has no answer, here are the keys:

1. Tell yourself with absolute certainty that the answer does exist.

2. Have an intense, burning desire to find the answer.

3. Think about and study the problem intently, from many different angles, for a dedicated amount of time, creating a picture of what the solution would look like in the end.

4. Let it go and wait for it to come back to you.

5. Relax and just enjoy life.

And then maybe…Just maybe…You’ll find that solution to the question which has no answer. 🙂

Have you experienced this yourself?  Have you been perplexed by a problem, only to have the answer strike you before sleep or “out of the blue?”  I’d love to hear about it!  Please share!

Photo source: freedigitalphotos.net

Facebook user? Click the “Like” button below for daily inspiration, and I’ll even throw in an electronic copy of my popular “Antidote” to the mediocre mind as a “thank you!” (And I’ll do a little happy dance when I see you’ve liked my page too) 🙂

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“All that spirits desire, spirits attain.” ~Khalil Gibran 

I remember back to my days as a chiropractic student and sometimes wonder how I got through it.  I recall the three sets of national board exams that we had to take to get licensed to practice. The whole process was intense — we had about 600 questions to answer per part, and if you didn’t pass one set, you had to re-take it before taking the next set. Thankfully, I passed each set the first time I attempted them, which saved me a lot of time, money, and grief.

About a year ago, my wife found out that she passed her national board certification process to become a National Board Certified Teacher. Having witnessed all she had to endure to get I couldn’t help but recall how closely her experiences and trials and tribulations mirrored those of mine as I worked to get through my own examinations.

One thing we shared in common was a certain mentality during the preparation phase — it was something that I believe can make the difference between failure and success. We both absolutely refused to accept failure as a viable option. We would not allow failure to be a possibility.

To sum it up best, we were filled with the magic ingredient of desire. Desire was the difference.

When you are faced with a situation in which you stand to succeed or fail, take a moment to gauge your level of true desire to succeed. Are you at all okay with not reaching your highest objective or goal, or are you going to only accept one possible outcome, which is to do whatever it takes to succeed?

Sometimes we leave that little “escape hatch” in the rear so we can bail out if things start to deteriorate — like it’s an “abort mission” type of mechanism we construct for ourselves.

How can you close that escape route? How can you increase your level of desire so that you know absolutely and for certain that you will only accept the highest objective as the outcome? If you can picture yourself having accomplished what you desire, and if you can feel the relief and joy and pure satisfaction of doing what you intended, you will be suggesting to your subconscious mind that it has happened, and that your body might as well react accordingly and go along with it.

Without desire, we always give ourselves an escape and excuse for failure to reach our wildest dreams. With desire, we solidify and strengthen our belief in ourselves that not only are we capable of achieving our objectives, but that we’re willing to do absolutely whatever is necessary to reach our goals. We give ourselves absolutely no other option.

Where have you utilized the power of desire to accomplish a tremendous task? When has your lack of desire allowed you to settle for less than your best?  Let me know.  I want to hear about it!

Photo source: freedigitalphotos.net

Facebook user? Click the “Like” button below for daily inspiration, and I’ll even throw in an electronic copy of my popular “Antidote” to the mediocre mind as a “thank you!” (And I’ll do a little happy dance when I see you’ve liked my page too) 🙂

 Did you get my book yet?  Grab your copy today!
Click on the book below to get yours! 🙂

Join me for this week’s interview on Monday, April 1 at 12 PM Central!

To listen to the interview, click HERE! I will be welcoming author Sandra Champlain to my radio show this week!

Can one person change the world?  My guest on my radio show today believes so, and she’s going to share why she believes that’s true!  I am thrilled to be welcoming back Sandra Champlain, Author of the book We Don’t Die: A Skeptic’s Discovery of Life After Death to my radio show this week!

I first had Sandra on my show earlier this year, and because the interview went so well, and because her book covered so many different topics, I asked her to come back so we could talk about some more things.  I was so happy that she obliged!

As I had mentioned, Sandra is the author of the book We Don’t Die – A Skeptic’s Discovery of Life After Death. She recorded the free audio “How to Survive Grief” which has now been heard by almost 3000 people in 15 countries. She is also a chef and travels the United States and Canada feeding race car teams and she owns a 21 year old business in Connecticut – Kent Coffee and Chocolate Company.

Her book is a great read, because, I believe, as opposed to what the name suggests, the book is not all about death.  I learned a lot about life!  Within the pages of the book is a story of greatness that we all possess, wonderful powers and abilities many of us can’t even begin to appreciate (until we try) and so many wonderful and free helpful resources sprinkled in throughout this awesome book!

Today we’re going to discuss the concept of one person changing the world, and whether it’s possible.  I am looking forward to hearing her take on the subject!  I want you to have a front row seat to her opinion, so listen in today at 12 PM Central!  As always, if you can’t listen live, you can still click on the microphone below, and listen to an archive of our talk!