Lately I’ve been hearing a lot about different approaches and methodologies for living especially with the recent publishing of my book, The Common Thread, on what living correctly means in our modern world. These approaches include anything from a belief system to the common proverb. How does one sort through all of these ideas to come up with something truthful? In The Common Thread I detail a methodology of understanding and pursuing what’s important to you, but I want to speak here about the rational approach for absorbing information.

Thinking rationally is not always easy and not always fun, but the results it yields are far greater than any alternative. The proverbs and approaches frequently quoted to me by people I encounter are often blindly adopted without considering what the person was actually saying. Did the person live a few hundred years ago? Have we made advancements since then? Is it necessary to update their thinking for the modern age? Are they even someone you should listen to in the first place? Is it a requirement to buy a product to achieve what they’re talking about? Did the thousands of people who achieved it before the product existed require that product?

It’s imperative to develop a rational foundation on which to build all other ideas. If you don’t have this foundation, then how could your opinion be worth anything? Would you trust a doctor who simply decided to walk into the hospital without any kind of medical training? We do that all the time in day to day life with our most valuable opinions on living itself. We adopt anything that anyone tells us in sources ranging from a self-help book to a guy on the street without any consideration for whether what they’re saying has any real merit. Someone’s opinion is taken into account without any consideration for whether anything stands behind it. A foundation of rational thinking and understanding is not developed to compare all other statements against.

It’s deemed necessary to gain a full foundation in math, science, history, language, and so on and so forth to even typically be allowed into the work world. However the requirement of learning to think isn’t even considered. Everyone learns how to do basic arithmetic in school, but does anyone get taught why it exists in the first place? Teachers are questioned as to why concepts exist, and many of them tell their students that it’s just “because.”

Why is it that you’re taught in elementary school the basics of nearly every field of thought known to man, but no one looks at the nature of questioning or thought in itself? In the United States children grow up knowing rhymes about Columbus. This is a guy who did nothing except accidentally stumble onto a landmass that Western Europe didn’t yet know was there. Does anyone grow up knowing about Socrates, Euclid, Pythagoras, or Aristotle? Thinking is so often discouraged that those names alone will inspire trepidation and feelings of inferiority in people who have never so much as investigated who they are or what they did.

So why is rational thinking and the teaching of thought so imperative? There were tribes in Africa who would spit their own urine at storms to make them go away and would run out with swords to swordfight dust devils because they believed the dust devils were possessed by attacking demons. This sounds ridiculous to us, but why did practices like this continue for so long? They were adopted by entire tribes and passed down from generation to generation. The simple answer is that not enough people questioned whether this was actually going to help anything.

The people sword fighting the dust devils did not wonder about the fact that none of their swordplay ever seemed to make so much as a mild impression, and the people who spit their own urine at coming storms were the same. The people who watched these customs take place observed them with blind belief. No one was taught to question if things worked the way leaders claimed they did. No one was taught to think for themselves, develop their own foundations, or formulate their own real opinions.

It’s easy to laugh at or scoff about it now, but are we really so different? Are we making changes so that people three hundred years from now are not going to laugh at and scoff about us in the same way? I’m not just talking about fringe cults that you hear about on the news, or the strange tribal customs existing on some island that no one from the outside worlds visits. I’m talking about in the every day lives of people living in modern civilizations. These are civilizations that often look on themselves as the pinnacles of human advancement.

These are civilizations where political debates are reduced to minor issues barely worth a footnote in the pages of history if they would show up at all. These are civilizations where the average education aims to teach mindless repetition rather than genuine thought. These are civilizations where the works of the greatest thinkers are reduced to the deepest nostalgia of dusty libraries. These are civilizations where Fun with Dick and Jane is re-imagined every five years, but no one ever re-imagines Plato. These are civilizations where there are problems without ideas, moral quandaries without value systems, where the average citizen has no idea what advancements in thinking are being made around the world, and where a dog escaping a burning building is considered more newsworthy than the latest advancements in teleportation. How many people reading this even knew they’ve made any?

In my life, in my writing, and in my interactions with others, I aim to encourage the development of thought and subsequently the development of humanity beyond mindless beliefs and customs. The Common Thread was written with precisely that intention for the personal reader to discover something of themselves and what’s important to them in their own lives regardless of what others think. However one book or internet blog posting is not going to do it. What is necessary is a call to arms. Not the physical arms and weaponry of which there are plenty already. The mental faculties and abilities that each of us have available to us. They are our greatest assets, our greatest weapons, and our greatest achievements, and they have been far too much forgotten.

Avi Love is the author of The Common Thread, an investigation into what living “correctly” means in today’s modern world. You can view or purchase The Common Thread here: https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/7494

Don’t Forget To Follow PickTheBrain on Twitter!

Related Articles:

Overcoming A Loss Of Motivation

Free Audio Books For Motivation

What is your purpose? Your destiny? Have you known for some time what you are meant to do for a career, but you just aren’t sure how to transfer it to real life? Are you still searching for that path you can call your very own? Everyone was blessed with certain gifts, talents and personality traits that can be transferred into a fulfilling, satisfying and financially prosperous line of work. Some people know from the get-go what they want to be when they grow up. Others, like me, find their purpose through an evolvement of life’s experiences and challenges. Either way, you come to find that it is perfectly right for you.

I truly believe that you have the full potential to pinpoint, develop and achieve your dream career. Yes, you! One of the things that really saddens me is when I see someone with such potential for greatness, who is not allowing themselves to step into it and fully own it. I can share with you the important do’s and don’ts and give you valuable tools and support; however, you need to be the one to take that first step.

As you set out to find your purpose, or first commit to living a life of purpose, what drives you may still feel a bit elusive. Many people have no idea if they have a real purpose on earth. Ask a friend randomly what their life purpose is, and they may take a long pause before answering, “Good question. I’m not sure.” Well, I’m here to tell you (and them) that you do have a purpose and it’s probably not as mysterious as you think. Most likely it’s right under your nose. Maybe your purpose is to feed hungry children, build a gigantic bridge, love your children, or just be in the moment. Your life purpose is most likely connected to the areas that create passion and meaning in your life. Here are some simple steps for accessing your life purpose.

• Get in touch with what really matters to you in the world and in your life. What do you get passionate talking about, reading or exploring? Before taking impulsive action steps toward a new career, business opportunity, or new relationship, ponder what gives you that inner surge of excitement. This could be the most important key for long-term staying power and success.

• Gather your thoughts and focus your energy toward these ideas. Find a way to involve yourself in this activity.

• Explore several possibilities before settling on one. However, if one really moves you, then go for it!

• Connect with other people on a regular basis who are passionate about these ideals or activities.

• See how you feel in this new arena. Does it stir your passionate energy? This is what we call “alignment,” or “being congruent.” When we are expressing our true inner thoughts, beliefs and ideals through external actions that match those thoughts, beliefs and ideals, we are operating in harmony rather than in conflict. The “practice-what-you-preach” philosophy.

• Not doing what you love could be very harmful to your health and

your prosperity. Most people think that doing what you love is a luxury, so they settle for something they don’t enjoy. Someone who loves your career more than you do will no doubt perform the job better than you. This person will eventually be greatly rewarded because this work matters to them. Part of what you’ll get from being out of alignment in your work is dissatisfaction and burnout.

I know you can do it. After all, it’s your greatness I am talking about.

Allison Maslan, HHP, CCH is an author, entrepreneur, life and business coach, homeopathic physician and international speaker. Allison’s new book, Blast Off! The Surefire Success Plan To Launch Your Dreams Into Reality, is being released on January 19^th on Amazon and all major booksellers. www.myblastoff.com/booklaunch.

Don’t Forget To Follow PickTheBrain on Twitter!

Related Articles:

A Smarter Approach To Time Management

Tips For Breaking Bad Habits and Developing Good Habits

In my last piece I outlined the place that the sale of fear is taking in our life. I noted the role fear plays in creating illness. I highlighted the major role of particularly guilty industries: the pharmaceutical companies, politicians, insurance companies and the news and advertising media, to name just five. These are entities that go out of their way to create a culture of fear to sell their products.

Because it is not a one-way street, however, this is not the whole story. Here in FEAR II, I outline the role we play in putting our self at the mercy of fear and dread and the personal responsibility we must own to manage these feelings. If you are interested, I explain this in greater detail, with clinical examples, in my book.

The first difficult and complex reality is that fear and dread are a very large and significant part of being human. These feelings and others, like a sense of doom, are essential elements of the human experience. Repeat this to yourself: “If I want to be fully human then I accept that fear and dread are a part of what I am.” Only by accepting this can you utilize your essential inner energy and at the same time ward off salesmen selling you more fear. You already have a plentiful supply.

The second reality is inherently more difficult to acknowledge. This is because most of us spend so much time trying to rid ourselves of fear or trying to avoid fear all together. In doing this we are denying the reality that it is quite normal to feel profoundly scared every day. If you have no sense of this you are likely cutting yourself off from your feelings and the vital energy and creativity that goes with them.

The third part, the hardest, is to realize how much it is in your interest to look into your own doom enclosed as you are as a physical entity. Close your eyes and stare into the abyss, the dark, the nothingness, the end, the loneliness, the abandonment, the sense of fading away, the terror that is in you. It is here, often to your shock, that you will find the light and source of energy that shines most brightly.

When, shaking with fear, you accept your fear the next step is to look it in the eye. Allowing your self this experience several times a day will ease your being at the mercy of your lower consciousness feelings. Doing this is only useful, of course, if you otherwise get on with what you WON’T and what you WILL do each day while accepting this experience as only one important part of feeling alive as you live. This practice frees you from being manipulated by the authoritarian voices in your own head or the voices outside who would encourage you to not feel, to look away, to seek safety and security, or conversely to attack, seek revenge, or retaliate against yourself or others.

Remember, finally, this decision, is a choice: to LOVE and BE WELL, or act out on your feelings as if you are a separate, isolated, strange specter alone with your ghoulish thoughts and fears. This you will recognize is the essence of all vampire, monster, horror and slasher books and films. This is commonly known as evil.

To know it, our fears and our dread, so we may contain it within ourselves, is to not inflict it on others, but instead to put it into the world in art or symbols of art, narratives or images. This allows us to then take it back inside our self in a more refined and less terrifying version. Here we may know our feelings and our self with comfort again.

This all, of course, depends on our having had a necessary amount of affectionate holding by parents or parent substitutes. If you have not had this amount of holding a therapist may be able to help you develop a sense of safety inside yourself. If you did have security as a child and you follow the practice outlined you will see that you think you are afraid of the forest, the dark and nothingness but you are really afraid of ‘nothing’. And, of course how can ‘nothing’ be fearful, except in the sense Augustine and Nietzsche said evil is ‘no-thing’.

As words are also not things, the words you choose will determine the thoughts that lead to your actions; this in turn will lead to consequences in terms of your peace of mind and your overall health and creativity.

If you choose to LOVE and BE WELL, then each day, morning and night, take a moment, close your eyes, let yourself relax, breath in and out, then say:

I WON’T deny my fears.

I WON’T let others project fear into me.

I WILL accept my doubts and fears.

I WILL extend love to the world.

I AM light and energy and LOVE in the midst of all darkness.

Dr. Clark Falconer is a Guest Blogger for PickTheBrain. He is a practicing Psychiatrist from Vancouver, Canada and the author of the new, critically acclaimed book The Three Word Truth About Love And Being Well. To receive daily tips on the power of words follow Clark on Twitter.

Don’t Forget To Follow PickTheBrain of Twitter!

Related Articles:

Words That Overcome Fear and Dread

Words That Heal and Empower

Is there an ‘essential key’ to personal development? One without which the ‘unlocking’ of your potential might be difficult if not impossible?

If we define personal development as growth involving the mind and the body, then ‘yes’ – I think there is.

Without this ‘key’ personal growth is slow, and sluggish. Without learning how to tap into this essential human ‘tool’, change will be sporadic or imposed from the outside.

And I believe the really important part is this: without developing this function of consciousness, all deep change will be difficult.

It does not matter what courses you buy, which ‘gurus’ you listen to, how many self-growth seminars you take. Because this is one thing you cannot do without.

The ability to self-observe, what some people call self-awareness.

Self-awareness meaning the ability to become aware of what is going on in:

* Your mind’s eye (the cinema screen of your mind)

* Your inner ear (verbal self-talk, sounds, talk from other ‘parts’ of you)

* Your feelings (meaning tactile and visceral feelings inside and outside of your body)

* Your emotions (feelings that you have labelled as ‘emotions’)

* Intuition- literally ‘inner-knowing’

If you are not aware of what is going on inside YOU – what your perceptions are reporting to you on the inside, you lack access to vital information. It’s like sitting in a sport’s car without a key to the engine or being locked in first gear.

You can’t change what you’re not aware of.

According to Shelly Rose Charvet in Words that Change Minds x% of the population predominantly think using their visual system. But a common complaint for people learning technologies like Neuro-Linguistic Programming is: “I don’t see pictures”.

Actually, they do, they are just not aware of them.

But since so much of that field’s techniques use the questions: “Imagine that…” or “Remember a time when…” it is useful to understand some ways of accessing that information.

The most powerful way I have found (and I’ve been using it since at least 2001) is Image Streaming by Win Wenger.

This is a process of describing out-loud anything you are aware of in your mind, and numerous methods for kick-starting a ‘stream’ of images in your awareness.

I’ve found that people who ‘can’t see images’ report ‘break-throughs’ to ‘seeing’ in only a few minutes, thereby automatically increasing their access to their perceptions and self-insight (literally in-sight!)

My metaphor for using this technique is like clearing out a partially blocked drain.

At one end is the unconscious that wants to push answers and ideas through to the consciousness. But this conduit is blocked by rust (lack of use!) Image streaming allows you to receive more information from your incredibly powerful God-given unconscious mind.

Another way – if you already see blurry or indistinct images – is to use the snapshot method.

Quite simply, look at something like a rose or a car and ‘snapshot it’, close your eyes and describe as much of what you see in your minds eye as you can. Use only sensory words: I see…red, I hear birds warbling..I feel soft wool”. Then open your eyes and compare what you saw inside with what you see outside. This has the effect of sharpening your visual memory as well.

Benefits

Why would you put so much effort into becoming aware of your perceptions?

Well, if you like ancient advice the school of Socrates had ‘know thyself’ over the door. And if you have habits you want to change then you often need to find what’s making them tick.

The famous therapist Fritz Perls said “Awareness per se is curative”.

Think about it – have you ever realised something you didn’t know you thought, and exclaimed : “that’s stupid! I can’t believe I thought that” – and it was gone. That’s what he meant! The realisation can be the catalyst for the change!

An added bonus, however, is (and I saved the best for last) image streaming offers an increase in measurable intelligence.

Creator Win Wenger had tests of image streamers conducted by Charles P. Reinart at South West State University and the results found that there was nearly ½ point of measurable IQ increase for every hour of use and an average of 9 point increase after 20.5 hours of use (http://www.vth.biz/kb/html.php?category=10#category-10

- CTRL+F and search for ‘Reinert’).

Now, most of us know that nowadays intelligence is not considered to just be linguistic and mathematical abilities – Howard Gardner writes about Multiple Intelligences such as visio-spatial, musical and kinaesthetic.

But Image streaming can help with all of these.

I’ve personally used it to solve problems, get insights, create new techniques and improve as a coach.

In fact, Win Wenger has produced a kit with Paul Scheele of PhotoReading fame called The Genius Code: It has all the directions you need to tap into your ever-flowing unconscious yet brilliant Image Stream.

You can get it at by clicking here and searching for ‘Genius Code’.

If you are starting at the beginning I understand it can be frustrating to have to build little by little each day. But before long you will make a quantum leap and your self-awareness will show you things you never knew about yourself and your potential.

Douglas Cartwright is a meta-coach whose speciality is helping professionals who procrastinate get unstuck and start taking more action. Visit www.livingwords.net and get two free e-books and a presentation on coaching along with a bonus ebook on overcoming procrastination.

Don’t Forget To Follow PickTheBrain on Twitter!

Related Articles:

What is EQ and Why Should You Care?

Words That Heal And Empower

]]> http://www.pickthebrain.com/blog/personal-development-an-essential-key/feed/ 11