Friday, January 20, 2012

Internal Representations

I rarely give up an entire post to someone else, but one of my "heroes" is Bill Harris, the founder and CEO of Centerpointe Research and the developer of the Holosync meditation system. His unique methodology has been employed by many of our bar review students as part of our Successful Test Application Resources ("STAR") with incredible success.
Bill recently sent out an email that I thought perfectly summed up the problem facing lots of bar students right now and so I want to quote it at length and encourage you to go to his website (or ours) for more information.
Take your time and read this (more than once if necessary). He's describing a basic truth about how we process information and act on it...based on something he calls "internal representations..."
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"Because the internal representations you make create your moment-to-moment feelings and other internal states, which then lead to your behaviors, the people and situations you attract or become attracted to, and what meanings you assign to the events of your life.
There are two basic categories of internal representations:
  • Those of what you want (or what you think is possible)…
  • Those of what you don’t want (or, what you’re worried about, afraid of, or want to avoid).
When you make internal representations about what you want, you feel good and things go pretty well. When you focus on it, you quite often get what you want. But when you make internal representations of what you don’t want…
you feel bad, and you
often end up with 
more of
what you don’t want.
When this distinction first occurred to me a number of years ago, an important question immediately popped into my mind. 
You’ve probably already thought of it: 
Why do some people continually make internal representations of what they don’t want when the consequences are so negative? In other words, why do some people focus so much on what they’re afraid of, what they’re worried about, or what they want to avoid—when doing so increases bad feelings and…
increases the possibility
that you’ll 
get what
you don’t want
?
Perhaps you do this—though I’d be willing to bet that you’re doing it a lot less now that you’re using Holosync.
People who focus a lot on what they don’t want, unfortunately, tend to attract or create more of it. The mind is a goal-seeking mechanism. And, you tell it what to seek by making internal representations of it.
Oops.
In fact, I’ll make a blanket statement here: if an area of your life that isn’t working very well, you can be sure that in that area of life you’re focusing on—in other words, making internal representations of…
what you don’t want.
And, you’re probably not aware that you’re doing it! What’s more, if you’re doing this outside your awareness, how much choice do you have about it?
None.
If you have trouble making money, you’re probably making internal representations of what you don’t want regarding money (not having enough of it). 
If you’re have trouble making friends, you’re probably (unconsciously) focusing on what you don’t want in that area (not having any, being alone, not being liked). 
In fact, any area of life that’s chronically problematic for you, if you’re curious enough (and aware enough) to look inside, you’ll find that when you think about that area of life, you’re focusing on what you don’t want. 
Amazing, don’t you think?
Here’s a crucially important rule about life:
Those who focus on what they want in any particular area of life tend to be successful in that area, all other things being equal. 
Those who focus on what they don’t want generally have trouble.
Another obvious and crucial question: 
What causes a person to
habitually focus on
what they don’t want?
I’m glad you asked.
If someone, experiences some sort of trauma, especially during childhood, that person will develop an underlying belief that something about the world is dangerous, or at least potentially dangerous. 
To avoid that danger, then, doesn’t it make sense that you would watch out for that danger, so as to avoid it? But, to do that…
you have to focus
on the danger!
In other words, you have to make internal representations of what you don’t want. And doing that creates two unfortunately outcomes:
  • It instantly creates some sort of bad feeling, and…
  • It gives your mind an instruction: figure out a way to create or attract MORE of it.
Let me now introduce another important principle:
You can create negative feelings and negative outcomes ONLY if you do so unconsciously. If, however, you focus on what you don’t want with awareness, you will clearly see how you are creating bad feelings and negative outcomes, and…
you won’t be able
to keep doing it.
Any motivation to keep doing it will dissolve.
To create negative outcomes, whether internal or external, the internal representations you make have to happen outside your awareness
Creating a feeling or a behavior has three steps:
  1. You have an experience. You see, hear, touch, taste, or smell something.
  1. You respond to that experience by making certain internal representations.
  1. Those internal representations cause you to feel something, which leads to a behavior, a response.
Where is the choice in these three steps? 
In the second step. You have some choice about what you experience, but not a lot. You do, however, have a choice about how you respond (i.e., what internal representations you make) to the experience…
IF you are aware of that step.
If you aren’t aware of it, it will happen automatically, based on your internal programming.
Once you become aware of what you are doing, once you actually see the internal representations you (unconsciously) make, and see the direct connection between these internal representations and what happens in your life, you’ll stop making them! 
As I said earlier, awareness gives you choice, and no one with a choice would…
choose to create bad feelings
or negative outcomes.
The key insight here is that your experiences, and certainly your response to your experiences, don’t “just happen” to you. Your experiences—how you feel in each moment, how you behave, and the people and situations you attract or become attracted to—are something you DO. 
So when you feel overwhelmed, over your threshold, ask yourself, “Okay, how am I DOING that? How do I DO feeling overwhelmed?” Overwhelm doesn’t “just happen”—there’s something you DO that creates it. 
You DO feeling overwhelmed by focusing, in some way, on something you don’t want. 
The way out of this is to develop the awareness that allows you to clearly see what you are doing inside that create the bad feelings, the negative behaviors, or that causes you to attract or become attracted to people and situations that don’t serve you.
This is exactly what happens to those who use Holosync regularly. Long time Holosync users universally report that over time…
they become amazingly
aware of HOW they’re
creating their lives.
Next, if you practice directing that awareness to the internal processes that directly create how you feel and behave, what seemed to be just happening becomes a choice."


Monday, January 16, 2012

Are you crazy yet?

I know, I know. There's less than 45 days until the Feb 2012 bar exam and no one understands what you're going through! Awful, isn't it? Fortunately, it doesn't have to be that way. Here's a video I recorded on that subject. I call it "Reality Sets In." I hope it helps!