Category Archives: Emotional Freedom

Zebra Crossing

The Biggest Risk Of All

I was driving somewhere the other day with an Australian friend.

We were going to some restaurant, she knew where it was, I didn’t, so she was giving me directions.

She said, “turn left up there after the zebra crossing.”

And I immediately thought, “What? I don’t see any zebras?”

See in the states, where I’m from, we call them “cross walks” or “pedestrian crossing.”

And if you’re driving in the mountains you might see a warning sign that says, “Deer crossing.”

So when she said “zebra crossing,” it sounded like a place where zebras cross the street.

Of course, a second later I realized that the “zebra” was a description of what it LOOKED LIKE, rather than a description of what it was USED FOR.

The old, “form” vs. “function” argument.

Some things are described by how they look, others are described by what they do.

In Japan, they say that “every meal is enjoyed twice.”

Once when you look at it, and once when you eat it. This means when they prepare meals, the PRESENTATION is just as important as the TASTE. Sometimes more so.

Now, personally, I’m the type of guy who’d rather pay ONLY for taste. I don’t really care what it looks like. But that’s just me.

I’m NOT the kind of guy who takes photos of his meal before he eats. In fact, I’m usually FINISHED before everyone else has started! (But I digress…)

The point is that if you spend TOO MUCH time worried about what you LOOK LIKE, you’ll impact what you are able to DO.

Form is fantastic, so long as it doesn’t impede function.

Now, what is the FUNCTION of your life, you may ask?

The truth is that YOU are the ONLY ONE who can answer that question.

Of course, since very few people take the time to determine the purpose of their own lives, it generally gets decided by others.

Bosses, spouses, kids, parents, TV commercials.

It seems that people are desperate to find meaning ANYWHERE but within themselves.

The problem is if you look OUTSIDE yourself for meaning, YOU, and YOUR LIFE will eventually be DEFINED by those outside sources.

Not yourself.

And since this happens very slowly, you run a HUGE RISK.

And that is you’ll get to the end of your life and wonder what the heck just happened!

And guess what? Why do people look OUTSIDE themselves for answers?

They are AFRAID of choosing on their own. And making a mistake. And having to “do over.”

So instead of living through several “short term” and “low consequence” risks, they leave ALL THE RISK to the end of their lives.

Hoping it will end up OK!

Well, I don’t know about you, but screw that noise!

Of course, living ON PURPOSE requires courageous introspection. You MUST be willing to question things about yourself most are too scared to.

But if you do, you’ll get things MOST NEVER KNOW.

Learn How:

Emotional Freedom

De-Hypnotize Yourself

How To Un Hypnotize Yourself

They say the best defense is a good offense.

Meaning if you can score a kajillion points, you don’t need to worry so much about the other team.

However, what happens if you’re playing a team that believes the opposite?

That the best offense is a good defense?

Meaning THEIR offense can take it easy if they allow ZERO points?

Naturally, there are many ways of looking at things.

Since our brains are necessarily constrained, at least our conscious brains, what we see is HEAVILY filtered.

So it’s pretty impossible to “get” something that we have a predisposition to “not get.”

Psychologists call this “confirmation bias.” We only see what we want to see.

We all are walking around with TONS of filters.

Many of these are unconscious.

You may know somebody who ALWAYS gets into relationships with the same type of person, for example.

Or they find themselves in the same types of situations, for example.

It’s VERY EASY, and VERY COMMON to imagine that it’s “the world” out there that is doing it.

But it’s really our filters that are predisposing us to get into those situations.

We have a conscious brain, and an unconscious brain. The ratio of what’s REALLY out there is about 25,000 to one.

Our “pre-conscious” filter has to sort everything before we see it or experience.

Based on those filters.

Here’s an interesting concept. Take a minute to let it sink in.

We would rather be able to MAKE SENSE of the world, AND have a crappy life, than to see things that don’t make sense.

Meaning the idea that we are living in a nonsensical world, (where up is down and left is right, etc) is WORSE than always ending up in crappy relationships, jobs, situations.

So even though somebody HATES their life, living in a world that DOES NOT MAKE SENSE is far, far worse.

Because then it’s off to the looney bin.

What’s the answer?

Well, since we can’t FORCE ourselves to see things our pre-conscious filter is trying to protect us from, we’ve got to get creative.

We simply need to change our filters.

From the inside out. The bottom up.

This is why this sometimes SEEMS like magic.

Imagine if you were super thirsty, and in a room filled with glasses of ice water. But you couldn’t see them, because you’d been hypnotized to NOT see them.

Once you de-hypnotized yourself, you’d see water EVERYWHERE, where there was nothing before.

This is what happens when you go through and CHANGE YOUR FILTERS.

You’ll suddenly find yourself in better situations. Better relationships. Better jobs.

It will SEEM like magic, but you’ll know the truth.

Get Started:

Emotional Freedom

How To Communicate Clearly

Are You A Secret Agent Dog Catcher?

I took this acting class once.

I heard it was a good idea for a lot of reasons.

Kind of like going to Toastmasters.

You build self-confidence, develop communication skills, and meet some pretty interesting people.

We did a lot of goofy exercises. A lot more than I’d anticipated.

One was where we each had this slip of paper with a made up profession.

Not normal ones, but out of the ordinary ones.

Dog catcher, coffee taster, toy tester, etc.

Anyway, we had to walk around pretending we were at a cocktail party.

We had to talk about our jobs, but only without saying anything that would give a clue of we do.

The purpose was to convey meaning without giving any specifics. Kind of how like actors are supposed to convey complex emotions while saying simple sentences.

It was fun, but it was also frustrating.

Like you wanted to say, “I drive around all day and catch people’s pets,” but you weren’t allowed.

It was much more difficult than most people realized.

Unfortunately, a lot of us live our lives like that.

There’s certain things we want to say, we need to say, but we just can’t say them.

We hope somebody “guesses” what we really mean.

What’s worse, when they don’t correctly “guess” what we mean, we get angry.

As if they are supposed to be psychic or something.

Of course, this has a lot to do with the difficult and LONG process of transforming from childhood thinking to adult thinking.

Children are just given what they need.

Adults have to verbalize what they need, often times more than once, and often times to a lot of people.

This can be tough. Especially when your “inner child” is expecting to be handed stuff “just because.”

If life were only as simple as walking up the counter and telling the staff what kind of sandwich you want!

Luckily, it can be.

You can learn to speak more effectively, more confidently, and more assertively.

You don’t need to overcompensate with aggression or overwhelming dominance.

And one of the amazing things you’ll realize is that no matter WHAT you want, when you just casually express it like it’s no big deal, everybody else will think it’s no big deal as well.

This requires you do some digging.

Into your emotions. To find out WHY some things are difficult to express.

This necessarily involves going back into your personal history and viewing things a little differently.

When you view those childhood incidents with your adult mind, it’s a lot easier to leave childhood thinking behind for good.

Learn How:

Emotional Freedom