Choices and Illusions opens with a story of the chicken and the eagle. The story imparts the indelible signature that imprinting can leave on all of us. In the story a female eagle is raised as a chicken and when another eagle attempts to convince her that she is really an eagle, she tricks him and runs safely back to the chicken house where all the chickens reward her with praise. This story all too often unfortunately typifies people who limit their own experiences and expectations based on the teachings of their personal “chicken yard.”
Recently I shared the story with a radio audience and following the show I received a nice note from Cynthia Brian, author of “Be The Star You Are!” regarding the interview. Included with the note was the following gosling story that I believe delivers the point of the power of belief like a razor sharp hunting arrow.
“Having raised poultry since I was 8, I have witnessed this first hand several times. Once a turkey and a chicken shared nesting on a goose egg. The gosling hatched and of course was imprinted with the turkey/chicken mentality. At four months old the little goose fell into a small bowl of water and drowned, not realizing that it was a goose who could swim. Very emotional lesson.”
Think about those beliefs that instruct you in ways that betray your true potential. Remember the chicken and the eagle and the gosling story. Indeed, the next time you think things are tough, think of this. What would you do if you fell down and had no arms or legs to get up? Impossible? Take a look at this video and you might never again hesitate when an obstacle comes your way. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MnlhZyW959k
Here’s to your best and thanks for the read,
Eldon
Friday, January 30, 2009
Tuesday, January 6, 2009
Mind Power--Mind Tricks
Mind Power—Mind Tricks
In my book, Choices and Illusions, a good deal of time is spent developing the hows and whys one’s mind often delivers false or incomplete information to them. The fact is, the mind simply makes up or fills in missing information on a regular basis to all of us. Being diligent about our mental shortcuts, our intellectual habits, and the very choices one makes can seem to be a full time job.
One of my favorite examples of mind power and mind tricks is exhibited below:
I cdnuolt blveiee taht I cluod aulaclty uesdnatnrd waht I was rdanieg The phaonmneal pweor of the hmuan mnid! Aoccdrnig to a rscheearch at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it deosn't mttaer inwaht oredr the ltteers in a wrod are, the olny iprmoatnt tihng is taht the frist and lsat ltteer be in the rghit pclae. The rset can be a taotl mses and you can sitll raed it wouthit a porbelm. Tihs is bcuseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey lteter by istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe. Amzanig huh? Yaeh, and I awlyas thought slpeling was ipmorantt.
Researchers have learned that so long as the first and last letter of a word are in place, the mind seems to be able to sort the rest out. Unfortunately, our choices do not seem to follow this schema. Where the power of the mind can make sense out of nonsense, some of our human choices appear to be locked into no-win nonsense. The result is that for many, “same-old, same-old” describes their reality in truth. In a circular fashion one loops yesterday into today, failing to make a new choice.
Mind traps set limitations—or more precisely, are limitations. When one fails to find alternative choices that promote health, happiness and helpfulness, one is addicted or habituated to limitation. For the best example I have ever been able to work out regarding this illusion of limitation on choice, take a look at the “Flower Pot Story” now on YouTube. Go here: http://www.youtube.com/progressiveawareness
In my opinion, destiny is largely a matter of the accumulation of our choices.
Thanks for the read and I love to hear your viewpoint,
Eldon
In my book, Choices and Illusions, a good deal of time is spent developing the hows and whys one’s mind often delivers false or incomplete information to them. The fact is, the mind simply makes up or fills in missing information on a regular basis to all of us. Being diligent about our mental shortcuts, our intellectual habits, and the very choices one makes can seem to be a full time job.
One of my favorite examples of mind power and mind tricks is exhibited below:
I cdnuolt blveiee taht I cluod aulaclty uesdnatnrd waht I was rdanieg The phaonmneal pweor of the hmuan mnid! Aoccdrnig to a rscheearch at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it deosn't mttaer inwaht oredr the ltteers in a wrod are, the olny iprmoatnt tihng is taht the frist and lsat ltteer be in the rghit pclae. The rset can be a taotl mses and you can sitll raed it wouthit a porbelm. Tihs is bcuseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey lteter by istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe. Amzanig huh? Yaeh, and I awlyas thought slpeling was ipmorantt.
Researchers have learned that so long as the first and last letter of a word are in place, the mind seems to be able to sort the rest out. Unfortunately, our choices do not seem to follow this schema. Where the power of the mind can make sense out of nonsense, some of our human choices appear to be locked into no-win nonsense. The result is that for many, “same-old, same-old” describes their reality in truth. In a circular fashion one loops yesterday into today, failing to make a new choice.
Mind traps set limitations—or more precisely, are limitations. When one fails to find alternative choices that promote health, happiness and helpfulness, one is addicted or habituated to limitation. For the best example I have ever been able to work out regarding this illusion of limitation on choice, take a look at the “Flower Pot Story” now on YouTube. Go here: http://www.youtube.com/progressiveawareness
In my opinion, destiny is largely a matter of the accumulation of our choices.
Thanks for the read and I love to hear your viewpoint,
Eldon
Saturday, January 3, 2009
Animal Consciousness
What Kind of Intelligence
I recently viewed a PETA commercial that compared a family with pets. Designed to be a satire, the message was one of “sure—breed all you want and we will dispose or perhaps keep and love some of the newborns.” I found this message cute as a satire but distasteful. The point PETA was attempting to make is valid however. What is it that gives us as humans the prerogative of life and death over the animal world? Is it our so-called right of dominion spoken of in the religious texts?
It might surprise you but the 1936 Kentucky Derby winner, Ferdinand, was later slaughtered for food. Apparently gaining even the fortune and fame that comes with winning the Kentucky Derby is insufficient protection against winding up dead at the whim and will of some human. What does this say about being human?
There was a time that I raised horses and cattle. I owned an all breed stallion station and racing stable. We had a number of stallions for breeding including several that were mine. Naturally we handled hundreds of mares every year that belonged to other people who brought their horses to us for breeding.
One day my Foreman came to me about a customer who was delivering his mare for breeding. The mare did not have the required health papers that I insisted on before entering our facility. I went with him to meet the customer myself.
I saw the mare standing in front of the barn offices as I approached. She was obviously wormy--boney with long course hair. There was a new filly sucking on her. After the amenities I told the owner that he would have to come back when the mare hit her thirty-day heat (he had brought her in foal heat which means the filly was only a few days old). In the meantime, he should worm the mare, give her inoculations and get health papers on her. The owner was quite upset about this inconvenience. He insisted that we should take the mare. I tried to explain to him that the mare was not in the best of health for breeding and that to protect his investment he should worm her lightly with a paste wormer before tube worming her. Too good a kill on the worms could send too many dead worms down her digestive track and this is known to colic and kill horses.
The owner insisted that he had made arrangements to bring the mare to us in foal heat and that he had paid the stallion fee and therefore wanted the mare bred now. I refused finally pointing out the breeding contract required the mare come to us with current health papers. The owner drove away mad.
He went straight to a vet who gladly tube wormed his horse, gave the mare her shots and hung health papers on her. This vet and I did not see eye to eye so I was not surprised to see his name on the health papers when the owner returned with the mare and foal. We had no contractual choice at that point but to take the mare and do our best.
Two days later the mare was in trouble. I received the phone call at home during dinner. I instructed that our farm vet be phoned immediately as well as the mare owner and they were to keep the mare up and walking—she had colic and that was discovered during early evening watering and checks. (For those of you who don’t know, colic is an attack of acute abdominal pain localized in a hollow organ and often caused by spasm, obstruction, or twisting, and it is the number one killer of horses. What kills them is that they distend or twist their intestines and die of peritonitis).
When I arrived at the ranch the vet was already there. Soon thereafter the owner and his entire family arrived. It was a large family with seven or eight children. The night drug on. My Foreman and I took turns walking the mare. We had done everything that we could do. The mare was given drugs to relax her and minimize the pain and we had oiled her stomach. The vet and I chatted when he left at around 11:30 pm that evening, both of us knew the odds were against saving the mare. She had laid down and now refused to get back up.
I went to the mare and took her lead line from my Foreman. I sat down on the wood shavings that covered the indoor alleyway and arena the mare was lying in. I lifted her head to clear her eye of the shavings and after brushing the eyelid and lash clean, laid her head in my lap. She was a beautiful young mare and she just looked at me as I gently stroked her about the head and neck.
Her foal was free in the alleyway not far from us. Some members of the owner’s family were around the foal talking and petting and the remaining people in the barn were standing near the entrance to our coffee lounge speaking to each other. For a moment the mare and I were alone, eye-to-eye, sharing only the deep sadness of the moment.
The barn was full. The alleyway separated the stalls on each side of the barn that was 303 feet long and 60 feet wide. The stalls on both sides were 12 foot by 12 foot and the horses in the fifty plus stall barn were all turned away from the lights that lit the alleyway and entrance to the barn. It was midnight and the well past their bedtime.
I stroked the mare and heard her filly neigh. I saw her eye roll some toward the filly and I thought of how sad she might feel if she were human, and I wondered if she was. I spoke softly to her reassuring her that I would see the foal was taken care of. She looked at me and the breath left her body. Still and dead, her head lay in my lap and only I knew that—at least as far as the humans present were concerned. For just as her breath left her every horse in the barn turned and came forward, leaning their heads over the stall door into the alleyway and, as though on cue, they all began neighing, whinnying and otherwise setting up a vocal ruckus. Somehow the horses knew.
My Foreman asked, “What’s wrong with the horses?” I simply told him that the mare had passed.
I will never forget that evening. How is it possible that the horses knew this mare died at exactly the moment she passed? She made no sounds. I made no announcements. How did this information pass to them? What is there about animals that we do not know? How can we arrogate so much special-ness to our human species and no so little about others?
I don’t claim to have the answer, but I am certain that whatever we do with animals we should do it with respect.
Thanks for the read and I love to hear your viewpoint,
Eldon
I recently viewed a PETA commercial that compared a family with pets. Designed to be a satire, the message was one of “sure—breed all you want and we will dispose or perhaps keep and love some of the newborns.” I found this message cute as a satire but distasteful. The point PETA was attempting to make is valid however. What is it that gives us as humans the prerogative of life and death over the animal world? Is it our so-called right of dominion spoken of in the religious texts?
It might surprise you but the 1936 Kentucky Derby winner, Ferdinand, was later slaughtered for food. Apparently gaining even the fortune and fame that comes with winning the Kentucky Derby is insufficient protection against winding up dead at the whim and will of some human. What does this say about being human?
There was a time that I raised horses and cattle. I owned an all breed stallion station and racing stable. We had a number of stallions for breeding including several that were mine. Naturally we handled hundreds of mares every year that belonged to other people who brought their horses to us for breeding.
One day my Foreman came to me about a customer who was delivering his mare for breeding. The mare did not have the required health papers that I insisted on before entering our facility. I went with him to meet the customer myself.
I saw the mare standing in front of the barn offices as I approached. She was obviously wormy--boney with long course hair. There was a new filly sucking on her. After the amenities I told the owner that he would have to come back when the mare hit her thirty-day heat (he had brought her in foal heat which means the filly was only a few days old). In the meantime, he should worm the mare, give her inoculations and get health papers on her. The owner was quite upset about this inconvenience. He insisted that we should take the mare. I tried to explain to him that the mare was not in the best of health for breeding and that to protect his investment he should worm her lightly with a paste wormer before tube worming her. Too good a kill on the worms could send too many dead worms down her digestive track and this is known to colic and kill horses.
The owner insisted that he had made arrangements to bring the mare to us in foal heat and that he had paid the stallion fee and therefore wanted the mare bred now. I refused finally pointing out the breeding contract required the mare come to us with current health papers. The owner drove away mad.
He went straight to a vet who gladly tube wormed his horse, gave the mare her shots and hung health papers on her. This vet and I did not see eye to eye so I was not surprised to see his name on the health papers when the owner returned with the mare and foal. We had no contractual choice at that point but to take the mare and do our best.
Two days later the mare was in trouble. I received the phone call at home during dinner. I instructed that our farm vet be phoned immediately as well as the mare owner and they were to keep the mare up and walking—she had colic and that was discovered during early evening watering and checks. (For those of you who don’t know, colic is an attack of acute abdominal pain localized in a hollow organ and often caused by spasm, obstruction, or twisting, and it is the number one killer of horses. What kills them is that they distend or twist their intestines and die of peritonitis).
When I arrived at the ranch the vet was already there. Soon thereafter the owner and his entire family arrived. It was a large family with seven or eight children. The night drug on. My Foreman and I took turns walking the mare. We had done everything that we could do. The mare was given drugs to relax her and minimize the pain and we had oiled her stomach. The vet and I chatted when he left at around 11:30 pm that evening, both of us knew the odds were against saving the mare. She had laid down and now refused to get back up.
I went to the mare and took her lead line from my Foreman. I sat down on the wood shavings that covered the indoor alleyway and arena the mare was lying in. I lifted her head to clear her eye of the shavings and after brushing the eyelid and lash clean, laid her head in my lap. She was a beautiful young mare and she just looked at me as I gently stroked her about the head and neck.
Her foal was free in the alleyway not far from us. Some members of the owner’s family were around the foal talking and petting and the remaining people in the barn were standing near the entrance to our coffee lounge speaking to each other. For a moment the mare and I were alone, eye-to-eye, sharing only the deep sadness of the moment.
The barn was full. The alleyway separated the stalls on each side of the barn that was 303 feet long and 60 feet wide. The stalls on both sides were 12 foot by 12 foot and the horses in the fifty plus stall barn were all turned away from the lights that lit the alleyway and entrance to the barn. It was midnight and the well past their bedtime.
I stroked the mare and heard her filly neigh. I saw her eye roll some toward the filly and I thought of how sad she might feel if she were human, and I wondered if she was. I spoke softly to her reassuring her that I would see the foal was taken care of. She looked at me and the breath left her body. Still and dead, her head lay in my lap and only I knew that—at least as far as the humans present were concerned. For just as her breath left her every horse in the barn turned and came forward, leaning their heads over the stall door into the alleyway and, as though on cue, they all began neighing, whinnying and otherwise setting up a vocal ruckus. Somehow the horses knew.
My Foreman asked, “What’s wrong with the horses?” I simply told him that the mare had passed.
I will never forget that evening. How is it possible that the horses knew this mare died at exactly the moment she passed? She made no sounds. I made no announcements. How did this information pass to them? What is there about animals that we do not know? How can we arrogate so much special-ness to our human species and no so little about others?
I don’t claim to have the answer, but I am certain that whatever we do with animals we should do it with respect.
Thanks for the read and I love to hear your viewpoint,
Eldon
Thursday, January 1, 2009
Happy New Year and Resolutions
Why It's So Easy to Fail at Our Resolutions
The New Year is upon us and if you are like so many, you made some resolutions and already have relented or let go of some of your ambitions. Every year millions of people do just that. There is such hope in the approach of a new beginning and yet it is so easy to just let that hope slip into forgotten dreams of the past.
I have spoken with many people that do not remember their New Year resolutions from years past. If you think about it for a moment, do you remember your resolutions from five years ago, from two years ago, indeed, from last year? Why is it we forget so quickly? First we resign ourselves to relenting and then we forget what we relented--is that instructional? I think so.
We are all familiar with "wishful thinking." Yet, most make their resolutions in much the same way. We can imagine an internal dialog deciding on the New Year's resolutions: In this next year I will stop getting angry! I will use my spare time in wiser ways. I will save money. I will get fit. And so forth. The problem should be obvious. Let's think of it framed in the same context, an internal dialog but one that promises success with the resolutions: In this next year I will stop getting angry. How will you do this? Good question--what triggers my anger? I know when I get upset and it comes from frustration. So, how do we control the frustration and get to what's behind it?
When you dialog a resolution in this manner, it becomes easy to see why most resolutions fail. That is, there is always an underlying cause and at least one, if not a set of emotional triggers that are incorporated in and around any and all of our so-called behaviors. What is more, some emotional "need," at least a perceived need (belief), is satisfied as a result of our existing behavior. As such, we fail to make the change we desire until and unless we redefine the context in which our beliefs rest so we can effectively alter our "needs."
I spend a good deal of time in Choices and Illusions on how we get these beliefs that fail to serve our highest best. I also discuss how the context behind our beliefs frames and specifically delimits our choices. Recently I had a conversation with a talk radio host and it occurred to me that one of Ellen Langer's ideas might help everyone understand just how powerful this context stuff is. I use this metaphor for many things but in particular for smokers and I do know something about that addiction having smoked three packs of cigarettes a day for over thirty years. So here is the metaphor, think about the saliva in your mouth. Move it around and taste it. It may surprise some, but it actually tastes good and we are glad we have it. Now think of spitting some saliva into a clear glass and then imagine picking the glass up and drinking the spit. Something changed--didn't it. When smokers realize that the context they hold cigarettes in must fundamentally shift from the saliva in their mouth to spit in the glass, they get it. All of us have a context to our beliefs and sometimes the context both betrays common sense and ourselves.
One of the powers people experience with our InnerTalk programs is a new internal dialog that leads to a shift in context and follows with the desired change. In my book, Choices and Illusions, you will find many other ways to alter old self-sabotaging beliefs and replace them with powerful new convictions that truly do empower you to realize your highest best.
To your success in 2009!
Thank you, Eldon
The New Year is upon us and if you are like so many, you made some resolutions and already have relented or let go of some of your ambitions. Every year millions of people do just that. There is such hope in the approach of a new beginning and yet it is so easy to just let that hope slip into forgotten dreams of the past.
I have spoken with many people that do not remember their New Year resolutions from years past. If you think about it for a moment, do you remember your resolutions from five years ago, from two years ago, indeed, from last year? Why is it we forget so quickly? First we resign ourselves to relenting and then we forget what we relented--is that instructional? I think so.
We are all familiar with "wishful thinking." Yet, most make their resolutions in much the same way. We can imagine an internal dialog deciding on the New Year's resolutions: In this next year I will stop getting angry! I will use my spare time in wiser ways. I will save money. I will get fit. And so forth. The problem should be obvious. Let's think of it framed in the same context, an internal dialog but one that promises success with the resolutions: In this next year I will stop getting angry. How will you do this? Good question--what triggers my anger? I know when I get upset and it comes from frustration. So, how do we control the frustration and get to what's behind it?
When you dialog a resolution in this manner, it becomes easy to see why most resolutions fail. That is, there is always an underlying cause and at least one, if not a set of emotional triggers that are incorporated in and around any and all of our so-called behaviors. What is more, some emotional "need," at least a perceived need (belief), is satisfied as a result of our existing behavior. As such, we fail to make the change we desire until and unless we redefine the context in which our beliefs rest so we can effectively alter our "needs."
I spend a good deal of time in Choices and Illusions on how we get these beliefs that fail to serve our highest best. I also discuss how the context behind our beliefs frames and specifically delimits our choices. Recently I had a conversation with a talk radio host and it occurred to me that one of Ellen Langer's ideas might help everyone understand just how powerful this context stuff is. I use this metaphor for many things but in particular for smokers and I do know something about that addiction having smoked three packs of cigarettes a day for over thirty years. So here is the metaphor, think about the saliva in your mouth. Move it around and taste it. It may surprise some, but it actually tastes good and we are glad we have it. Now think of spitting some saliva into a clear glass and then imagine picking the glass up and drinking the spit. Something changed--didn't it. When smokers realize that the context they hold cigarettes in must fundamentally shift from the saliva in their mouth to spit in the glass, they get it. All of us have a context to our beliefs and sometimes the context both betrays common sense and ourselves.
One of the powers people experience with our InnerTalk programs is a new internal dialog that leads to a shift in context and follows with the desired change. In my book, Choices and Illusions, you will find many other ways to alter old self-sabotaging beliefs and replace them with powerful new convictions that truly do empower you to realize your highest best.
To your success in 2009!
Thank you, Eldon
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