You Are In Integrity

“You are in integrity when the life you live is an authentic expression of who you are.” — Alan Cohen

 

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For Every Person and Unhealed Relationship

 

 

“For every person in your past with whom you feel unhealed but unable to go back and resolve, there is someone standing before you offering you the opportunity to practice the healing you believe you missed.” — Alan Cohen

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The Silva Method: Mental Housekeeping

“What you think about expands” – Alan Cohen

 

To learn something new and apply it to one’s life, it is often necessary to do a “mental housekeeping” of sorts beforehand.  Our minds often seem to have tapes playing – some with positive messages or affirmations and others with negative, oppositional messages.  Positive thinking means thinking and talking about the things we want and not the things we don’t want.  Negative thinking is thinking and talking about the things we don’t want.

“I can’t…” or “I don’t want…” indicate negative thinking; thoughts that provoke the exact opposite of what is desired.  Negative thinking is like a photographic negative; just the opposite of the outcome hoped for.  Try avoiding phrases like, “That makes me sick,” “I can’t see that,” “He gives me a headache,” “A pain in the neck,” and the like.  These phrases create pictures in the mind of what we don’t want.

But what to do when negative thoughts are evoked and the negative tape is playing?  Jose Silva found the “cancel, cancel” technique to be effective and began teaching it to students before teaching them how to relax and get to alpha level.  The way the “cancel, cancel” technique works is, when a negative statement is made, say or think right away, “cancel, cancel.”  Think of as pressing the “delete” key on your keyboard.  Immediately replace the “cancelled” statement or thought with a positive statement or positive mental image of your desired goal.

Use positive statements about being healthy, being in control or being blessed.  Try counting your blessings.  Jose Silva believed the phrase “Better and better” triggers the mind to count our blessings and keep thinking about our goals and the outcomes we want.  The “Cancel, cancel” and “Better and better” techniques that have made big differences in my life.  The “Cancel, cancel” technique always seems to be one that people around me notice in our conversations and I always find myself grinning when I hear someone else in my life pick up its use.

Faith is another concept that Silva training defines as it applies to their techniques.  The word “faith” for many evokes thoughts of religion or religious beliefs.  For the purpose of learning the Silva techniques, faith is made up of want, belief and expectancy.

Desire is the motive force, the force that pushes us toward our goals.  Desire, being a pushing, motivating force is of the physical dimension. Without want, one would never even begin a project.  To increase the strength of one’s want, students learning the Silva technique are encouraged to repeat mentally or verbally what it is that is desired, along with the reasons for wanting that particular success.  Once able to enter the alpha level of consciousness more desire and reasons for success are manifested.  Why?  Both hemispheres of the brain are functioning and working together giving twice the results.

Belief is what sustains between want and expectancy; from the driving force and the goal already created in the mind.  Believe in yourself and your right to what you seek.  Believe it is possible; avoid setting goals you cannot believe you can do.  Anything your mind can conceive and believe and your heart desires can be achieved.  Expectancy is of the alpha, the subjective, and the dimensional.  It is the goal.  If want is the propelling force, then expectancy is the target in sight.

 

 

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Affirmations Create Positive Energy

“What you think about expands”   — Alan Cohen

What we think, our attachment to and interpretation of our thoughts yields the result.  Affirmations are positive, personal statements that enhance self-esteem and a healthy attitude.  Focusing our attention on an affirmation creates energy for the positive to develop.  It also breaks the pattern of fear-based thoughts and self-defeating rumination.

Unfortunately, by reciting an affirmation, one des not magically bring forth the desired outcome.  The reading of affirmations is one of many tools to help one’s self in the deep exploration of the true self.  Affirmations are best used along with conscious awareness, self-honesty, truthful living, love, forgiveness and acceptance of one’s self and others.

Many years ago, a dear friend presented me with an affirmation jar.  Inside are 1″x6″ strips of paper in a bright display of primary colors: yellow, blue, green, purple, pink and red.  Each strip of paper has a unique affirmation that goes something like:

“I unconditionally nurture myself today”

“Lightheartedness is an part of all that I am”

“I trust in the Universal good and release my need to control”

“I am an enthusiastic participant in the process of co-creation”

“I willingly release harbored emotions, forgiving myself and others”

I don’t know how many originally came with the jar from my dear friend, but there seem to be hundreds! Many have been added over the years, either by myself or from friends along the way.  I like to begin each day by pulling an affirmation.  I’ll clip it to my calendar for the day, or place it on my computer monitor if I’m going to be doing a lot of writing.  Just as long as it is somewhere that keeps that thought in my mind.  Some days, I’ll use the affirmation that I pulled as the basis of my journaling, or even my blogging.  I try to repeat my affirmation several times to reinforce its strength.

Gratitude for the abundance that is mine and that is to come is always heartfelt, just like the gratitude I shall always have for my dear friend Lois who gave me one more tool to manifest wholeness and inner peace.

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“All Conflict Ending in Love” This Time More Answers Than Questions

 

In December, 2007 I blogged about a quote I had just then read from Alan Cohen, “All conflict ends in love.” I wondered at first, “Is this stated as an affirmation?” No, some lofty, spiritual, existential ideal I was willing to bet after dedicating the quote only minimal brain power.

I blogged about Alan Cohen’s quote and honestly, I took the easy way out. I asked my readers for their feedback and insights. You could have heard my “F4” key stick on my keyboard during the day, weeks and months following that post. Silence had fallen across the “blog lands” of WordPress, Blogger, and Yahoo and beyond. Does the concept of love as the end result of conflict seem so impossible to most of us? Or were we all just too burnt out to ponder such a topic in the midst of our hurried and harried holiday season?

Am I too late for Christmas in July then? No matter, I’m ready to share my thoughts on Alan Cohen’s quote, “All conflict ending in love.”

It has been said that “all conflicts are the result of unrealistic, uncommunicated or unmet expectations.” It is well understood by humankind that there are both good and bad means of solving conflict. The bad means of ending conflict includes avoidance, hurt, frustration and unresolved issues. The good means of coming to the end of a conflict enjoys greater trust, love, understanding and a mutually satisfactory resolution.

These are the tools I subscribe to, and those to which I make my best effort to use with the goal as such that “my conflict ends in love”

No harm to anyone involved. No physical or emotional hurt or abuse. This is non-negotiable. If a conflict can’t be discussed, argued or fought without hurt being waged against someone, there are more serious challenges within the relationship that must be addressed right away. Through counseling, a good therapist can get to the core problem causing the need to hurt one another and with the partners, find the tools to confront conflict in a healthy way.

Don’t make threats/ take the relationship off the bargaining table. Remove any old tools that may invoke one to say, “If you don’t do this I’m not going to stay here tonight” or, “If you can’t do this I’m leaving you.” Try to internalize that, individual rights are secondary to the overall health of the partnership. The generally accepted definition of” love” is, “A feeling of strong attachment, induced by that which delights or commands admiration; preeminent kindness or devotion to another; affection; tenderness; especially, devoted attachment to, or tender or passionate affection for, one’s chosen mate or partner in life. “ It has been suggested that a healthy relationship is one where both partners understand that they have essentially given up their individual rights in service of their partner or mate. As with most aspects of a relationship, this only works when both individuals are working under these same assumptions, constantly attempting to out-serve the other.

Don’t bring up the past. In the end and when love is at work, there is no one keeping score of the number of “transgressions” or wrongs against either party in a relationship. It has become quite commonplace for the covert score keeper of this game to hurl harsh words of accusation perhaps even time this verbal onslaught for a date in the future; simply to inflict as much emotional hurt as possible. Many of us have entered into committed relationships and there is a adage that it is best to enter into a relationship with our eyes wide open, and to commit to our partner with our eyes half shut.” Filter each situation or grievance with one’s partner on its own and without pouring upon one’s partner a deluge of accusations, confrontations or criticism.

Don’t attack the underpinning of the relationship. Beginning a confrontation about an overdrawn checking account by prefacing the argument with “you don’t trust me,” or worse yet, “you don’t love me,” inflates a common, every day type of issue and inflates it to a drama which attacks the basis of one’s relationship. It causes a flashpoint and the relationship may be consumed in firestorm of hurtful generalization.

Don’t attempt to build consensus or support from family or friends. A committed relationship provides our protection of our partner. That protection is not effectively demonstrated when one goes out to friends and/or family disclosing what should be the private details of a challenge; details that are for the ears of the partners involved, only. There should be no exception. When one or both partners seek out the support of friends and family they are attempting to create allies. Through careless disclosure and one’s attempt to build support as though the discord were a team sport, any potential support to the other partner in the future may be jeopardized or destroyed. It is possible that one’s sense of betrayal and humiliation may be so strong that the individual no longer feels safe within the friendships or family relationships and becomes isolated.

Find tools that work now: Get to work with your partner, finding the tools to have ready in your “emotional tool belt” that will help ensure that your conflict will end in love; that is, the outcome will be productive and safe. Let go any tools carried forward into adulthood from childhood that no longer are effective. Coping mechanisms that worked as children will most likely be unhealthy and hinder effective resolution of conflict. If one is aware of a tendency to interrupt or talk over one’s partner, employ the use of whatever means necessary to ensure that the partner talking has a safe, uninterrupted span of time to do so. Some therapists still use a “talking stick”; the individual holding the stick has “the floor.” The other person must sit silently and listen until they have the stick. If one partner needs 10 minutes of cool-down time before discussing the issue, make allowances for that.

Don’t exaggerate/polarize: Make every attempt not to use general terms such as “always” or “never,” which are seldom ever accurate and serve only to polarize the conversation. The tendency in any disagreement or argument is to take an extreme position to emphasize one’s point. The result of this, one partner then takes their position to the extreme opposite side, making it much harder to find any sort of middle ground.

Does my relationship with my partner imbibe this entire set of tools perfectly? Certainly not, as we are imperfect humans who with our best effort are attempting to be in a relationship with our partner. Hopefully that relationship has a healthy basis. To many, even to me, the thought or mere suggestion of conflict causes varying degrees of discomfort. From my experience however, I have come to know that if I am prepared with the proper and healthy tools, a situation involving conflict and grievance can result with both partners respecting and loving the other, possibly more than before.