2.2 Faith is an action

Faith is the action of believing something more real than your mind
– Dr. Brian Martin

Faith in this context has nothing to do with religion. Faith, power, acceptance, deserving are all the same thing. Everyone has been born with the ability to have and use the power of free will and faith. In the purest form faith means believing in something that has not been proven to your mind or believing in something more real than what your mind thinks. For instance you don't really need faith to believe 1 + 1 equals 2, but you may need faith to believe that one person added to another person can equal more than two. 

Many of us walk around with this sense or thinking that we are not lovable, valuable or deserving. We feel stuck trapped, powerless, and numb with the sensation that something is wrong with us or we are broken in some way. First things first………YOU ARE NOT BROKEN!! You have not been created to suffer and you are not alone. Those sensations are actually part of your minds protective programs and survival reflex we all learn in childhood, which we forget to update when we are adults. Those sensations are actually signals from deep inside our hearts that “something needs to happen”, the mind incorrectly interprets them as “something is missing”, and they really mean it’s time to move. Your cocoon of survival sleep is over, it’s time to wake and start your life, and it’s time to use your greatest gift of life, your free will. You are ready to thrive. That uneasiness or conflict you feel is between the force inside of you pushing you to awaken and your mind trying to stay protected and the same. Your heart wants to move and your minds want you to stay the same. Don’t worry that your mind temporarily still thinks those non-deserving things; even though it is powerful remember it is only a computer recycling the same information (I must protect and prevent any hurt) over and over. Try not to take your mind too seriously; after all it still thinks you are a powerless child that will die if it gets hurt…..what does it really know? Your mind still does not know yet that you even have free will, that is until you show and teach it. Just in case you were not sure……you are not that powerless child anymore and you are not your mind’s hurt either. You are now different than you were as a hurt child; you are an adult that can choose to create happiness, you can now ask for love if you get hurt, you can clean old hurts, all out of the power of your free will. You are now a person with the capacity to choose, you are now a person with an open slate of possible identities, you can even mix and match them, you can even change them regularly if you don’t like them. This is your life, it belongs to you, this is how much power you have, to begin you must awake and choose to accept it. If you can do this, you have done your first action of faith. Say I have free will and with my free will I choose to be happy.

One day my twelve year old daughter came up to me frustrated and crying, she said Daddy I don’t know what’s happening, I think I am losing my mind. I said Aleah you are not losing your mind, tell me what’s going on. She said, well I am thinking all of these things and I am feeling all of these things, and its making me crazy. I said Aleah, everyone has two parts to help them through life, you have a powerful mind that acts very much like a computer, it thinks and collects information and tries to protect you and help you survive. You also have a part of you that feels, that’s your heart, it is the part where new ideas come from; it is the part that is closest to a playful child and it is the one that connects you to all of the energy around you including love. When you where younger they never talked at the same time, if you ever got in trouble your mind would immediately shut you down to protect you. Now that you are older they are both talking at the same time and they are both saying different things. When this happens, it creates a lot of conflict and confusion. What’s happening is that they are waiting for you to pick which one to follow. You are now becoming conscious. Aleah they both work for you, but without you to guide them, they will both fight in their own way taking you and your body for the ride. My daughter said, that’s it…..all I have to do is pick which one I want to listen to? Yes…it is that simple. Within seconds she had picked, her crying was replaced with a smile and her frustration replaced with peace. This was her first act of free will; this was her first action of faith. 

Life is a buffet, and faith is your spoon  

That word “faith” can mean many different things, in this context faith means the power to create peace in times of uncertainly and despair. It is this faith that has the power to transform fear in to excitement, doubt into curiosity and conflict into peace. Faith gives you the power and freedom to move you past you safe comfort zones, to overcome any obstacle, clean any hurt and obtain all the peace, joy and love that you can. Life is a buffet and faith is your spoon. Faith is something that exists and can be used only in the present moment. With faith you can love as much as you can before you die, you can live to love and love to live. Faith is a thriving action involving feeling and a choice unlike the survival reflex which only uses thinking and reacting. In total, faith involves; awareness, feeling, and your unique power to choose. It is not something you just have by reading a book, understanding faith and actually using it are two different things. To have faith you must use it. 

Playful Faith

In times of conflict, faith guides us to the most efficient and fun way to connect to the force, energy and rhythm that is within us and connects all of us. In this context the term “Playful Faith” helps describe what faith is really used for. If you choose the most amount of “joy”, “peace”, “love” “gratitude” in every situation it would be through the action of faith. Faith is an intentional action; it is the action of choosing your hearts fun more than your minds fear, even when your mind has some really good arguments. It is basically the action of you seeing and choosing your heart’s direction. Faith uses the power of free will and choice to play through painful situations even those that are triggered by old hurts. Faith is knowing that LOVE is the strongest force, even in the presence of fear. Faith is the action that brings you closer to love, peace, joy, even when you feel lost, powerless, out of control, conflicted, full of shame, guilt or fear and every fiber of you wants to run. In fact, in a decision between love and hate or love and fear, it would be the action of faith that would give you the fastest route back to peace. Bottom line faith is the action of choosing your heart over your mind. 

When to use the power of faith

In this context active or playful faith as I like to call it, is not needed in peacetime or when you are in a state of gratitude, remember in gratitude you are already connected to love and peace. The ability to be grateful however in times of conflict and stress is definitely guided by the action of faith. Faith is only used or needed in times of conflict, faith is not really needed to stay the same or suffer. For example you don't need faith to stay conflicted, stuck, sick or depressed. You do not need faith to be the best “miserable” person or to become unhappy. Faith is reserved for those actions that align or increase your; ability to feel (awareness), healing, gratitude, peace and happiness. In fact in life it is impossible to be happy, peaceful or experience deep love through life unless you have faith. Faith allows you to see the present moment as safe, the future as good, and the unknown as exciting. With faith you feel confident and powerful. Faith allows you to feel grounded even when you have thoughts of being out of control.

Faith is a Friend

Faith is just like having a true friend; true friends celebrate you in the wonderful times and also shine to guide you through times of conflict. Do you call upon your friend faith even in the times when you feel all alone, conflicted, sad, helpless and out of control or do you suffer alone? Well you should, because that is what faith is the best at? Your action of free will to call upon your friend faith to help you also starts to reprogram or teach your mind how to be peaceful. The action of faith teaches your mind that the unknown is not always scary. Faith eventually tells your mind that even if you don’t understand something you can still move. Once you start to use faith, you will start to feel the inner peace even “assumed” worst of times, you become more awakened, more aware and more likely to have new levels of faith. Consistent use of faith becomes simpler even though the obstacles appear on the outside to be more difficult. Having faith sets in motions the opportunity to have different degree of being more and more open. With each new opportunity for faith comes even greater awareness, openness, love and connection. These are also known as “jumping points” or “leaps of faith”. These “Leaps of faith” or jumping points are opportunities. These however if you are still stuck, numb or the unaware are also known as; confusion, conflict, anxiety and even depression. 

Purpose of Faith – Faith guides you, protects you and cleans hurt

There is no shortage of love or faith; and there is more than enough love and faith available to clean any hurt, accomplish any goal or create any life you want. Using faith is designed to build self esteem, peace, create joy and clean past hurts change unlovable and numb to lovable and alive. With faith you are not focused on the problems or the many hurts. With faith you are not focused on always “stopping hurt” or “letting go”. Faith is the action of choosing or “letting in” the most love, peace, light, happiness, joy, playful, fun, openness, god, in any given difficult situation. The action of faith and “letting in” love is efficient, automatically “letting go” as it cleans and heals. Through faith you light areas that used to seem scary and dark. Initially your own hurts give you plenty of opportunities to have faith. Once used, faith immediately uncovers new peace, inner power and possibilities, allowing you to move to the next moment with increased awareness and self-esteem. With every unknown or powerless sensation comes the opportunity to have faith and with every application of faith arises more self-esteem, confidence and peace. You start to recognize the pattern, its Fear, Faith, and then Fun. So, it’s always open, then conflict, then more faith, then more peace. Just like a step, until you’re finally clean. Clean means as if you’ve never been hurt. The more your survival reflex wants to distract, shut down or run away the more your faith is needed. You start to increase your faith muscle, you become stronger and faster. You may even start to seek out your fears, using them as a opportunities with use and increase your peace, gratitude and faith. Through the action and application of faith you become a love seeker. 

Results of the action of faith.  

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  Trusting you’ll be ok even when your mind says the opposite
  
  
  
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  Surrendering to “what is” as opposed to “why it is
  
  
  
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  A sense of peace even if hurt still exists in the world
  
  
  
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  Sense of being connected and not alone
  
  
  
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  An Increase in self esteem
  
  
  
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  Increase of awareness
  
  
  
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  The increasing ability to see the love, joy, peace, opportunity in every situation 
  
  
  

Triggers are opportunities for Growth

Your mind’s survival reflex is not going to let you consciously remember every one of your childhood hurts and traumas. In fact because pain is painful, unless triggered a past hurt and the corresponding protective mechanisms (closed, non trusting, afraid of the unknown) will continue to exist. The downside of waiting for time and suffering to push you into an awakening, or the longer the childhood hurt is left unresolved or unloved the more elaborate the walls fears and protections. The action of faith brings your hurt to you; the action of faith allows you move beyond your hurt and kiss-your own boo-boos. 

Building the Faith Muscle

In the emotionally awakened person (someone who has started to feel) past hurts are often triggered up to the present moment. These “triggers” when combined with faith can actually assist movement and change. These are personalized faith building exercises. I mean, you really would have to have faith to see the most amount of peace and love when you are stressed, lost and sad…..right? These events can be triggered by a situation, triggered by a person, class, lecture, or they are “open ends” which are opportunities to create your goals. If you have written some goals or have asked the universe for something expect these “triggers”, “open ends” opportunities to come up more often. This is especially true if any of your previous hurt is getting in the way of your future happiness. These prepare and groom you for the new you. In other words be careful or be ready for what you ask for because you going to get it. Faith is the action that redirects and reprograms the minds perception; faith shows the mind that; vulnerability is not the same as weakness but rather strength, our openness is a better protection than our closed walls, our fears as opportunities for growth. Repetitive use of faith has the added benefit of retraining or reprogramming the survival reflex into a thriving reflex. Making choices from faith also known as following your heart allows even your own mind to witness the outcome. Your own mind does what a mind does best, it gathers proof. Eventually even your own mind learns that faith beats fear and that the only way through fear is faith. The mind will never understand the force that leads or guides faith, it may never be able to comprehend the unknown, but it does learn to trust the action that you do called faith. Like a good computer gathering data, the mind learns that having faith allows its survival when it is trapped in the unknown and freaking out trying to find the answer that it now has a friend in faith. You mind has become friends with your heart. At this stage your mind even starts to help you, so instead of your mind conflicting with the heart they now share a common way to remind you to have faith. Having faith becomes your new protection. Faith directs us to be purposeful, peaceful and grateful.  

In the spiritual sense faith is the act of using your free will to move towards god. The ability to have faith is a human gift, it’s something you use while you’re alive, and it’s not something you would use once you are dead? It is one thing to have faith; it is another thing to use it when you need it the most. Anyone can have faith when everything is going well; it’s the action of faith when your mind thinks you are in trouble that gives faith the power to move anyone at anytime from surviving to thriving. Your greatest challenge is not going to be finding faith, it is contained in everyone. Your greatest challenge will be more around the acceptance that you are in fact that loved and given such an amazing power. The power of faith, allows every soul a uniquely human and spiritual work of art. It has the power to create childlike adults with playful expression and unpredictable purpose and joy. Even though every one of us has the power to have faith, you still have to accept it and use it, which in itself is your first action of faith. Faith has to be used, it cannot be on a shelf, it has to be claimed and aimed. Conflict in the mind creates conflict in the body, which manifests as more suffering, disease and lost time and potential. We all have built into us a reflex to survive but we also have the choice through faith to thrive. Faith is here to help you. Faith does not abandon you, you have to abandon faith. Faith is a true friend, are you a true friend to faith? 

With faith you can change 

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  Surviving into Thriving
  
  
  
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  Feeling out of control into to Freedom
  
  
  
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  Past Hurt Reflex into Current Love Reflex
  
  
  
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  Avoiding pain into Seeking love
  
  
  
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  Constant Conflict into Consistent Peace
  
  
  
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  Protective and Closed into Open and Adventurous
  
  
  
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  Fear into Excitement
  
  
  
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  Doubt into Curiosity
  
  
  
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  Mind and Heart conflicted into the Mind helping the Heart
  
  
  
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  Powerless into Choice
  
  
  
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  Numbness into alive 
  
  
  

Conclusion

We are free to be powerful in this life when we are alive. When we die, the earthly version of you is gone along with your ability to choose in this life. The ability to have choice is what makes up the power to have faith. Faith is choice put into action, and not just any action it’s an action that leads you directly to see the joy, happiness, love, peace, childlike, god in every situation. Even though we all have free will, why would we ever use it to move away from something good? If you have free will why would you use your free will to move away from the light, love, peace or joy? Faith is not needed to feel alone, stuck, resistance, fearful. Even after we are awakened and aware we can still operate from our childhood survival reflex, we can still be triggered and distract, run and push away. As amazing as the survival reflex is to protect us and help us to survive our childhood, it fails quite miserably when we are adults trying to live without the action of faith.

1. How did the words God, Love and Faith become bad?

When I do good, I feel good; when I do bad, I feel bad. That's my religion - Abraham Lincoln

I commonly ask patients are you religious or are you spiritual? Do you believe in something? What words do you use to describe what you believe? Do you use the word God? I commonly see patients that have a huge aversion to the word “God”. Even the words “FAITH” and “LOVE” are purposely avoided. How did we and our own minds come to believe that three of the most powerful and originally beautiful words are bad?

The word God unfortunately has been associated to religion, and many religions now have unfortunately been associated to corruption, guilt, shame, mistrust, unworthiness. There are many different variations of religion, many different variations of Christians, Catholics, Buddhists, Muslims, etc, and many different variations of spiritual leaders. I do not really believe that one particular religion or philosophy is better than another, what makes something positive or negative has more to do with the awareness of each individual. Also the way each person consciously or subconsciously interprets it. In other words, the philosophy of a religion can be misunderstood if the person’s perception and reality. Do they see through the eyes of fear or through love? For instance using the bible as an example, how many different times has that single book been used to manipulate fear or inspire love? If asked to sum up the bible in one word, would you say that it is more a book of “love” or is it a book on “hate”? It is these misinterpretations that ultimately cause the message, action and real meaning of “Love” and “God” to be taken away from what was intended.

Throughout time there is a genuine desire to believe in something. No matter when or where we look, we do see the consistent wanting or desire of people to want to believe in a good power or God. We want to believe in a positive force, in loving energy or power that we are part of and connected to. That desire to be connected to a good god is stronger than ever, we want to believe in a force that is not necessarily above us or below but inside of us. It is this inside force that needs attention, this is called our feelings and it is using these feelings as a guide that makes someone spiritual. In the past people where born into their religion, if your family was catholic you where catholic, very few people actually sat down as an adult and decided what set of values and moral they wanted. Instead those were taught to them. Many religions satisfied parts of what we want but we were fed other pieces that did not fit, unfortunately when you are not using your feelings to guide you, the truth can get mixed in with the un-truth and be still served up together.

One example of forgetting to use feeling with trained thinking is when I have asked several religious patients, “If you had to go against your religion to follow God would you? It’s a tricky question, it is amazing how many times people say, “no I would follow my religion”. Let me get this straight, if you had a voice inside of you (called feelings) that you knew was connected to that force that created us or God, you would still follow your religion? Shouldn’t your religion be aligned with your feelings? Those that chose to be religious can be spiritual as well; no teaching should be more real than your own feeling. You can be both.

We know throughout time many people have killed in the name of GOD, I am pretty sure that it was not Gods intent to kill, even when death is mentioned in the books like the bible. If you are not sure, say this to yourself…..GOD gave life to kill it……does that feel right? Now try this, GOD gave life to live it, how does that feel? It’s important to have the freedom to feel and the freedom to choose from that information. Whatever force created us, has given us this life as a gift and with that life the freedom to choose. Misinterpretations of some religions have made God less loving and more fearful.

There was a time in my life that if I saw anything with the word God or Love in it, I would immediately throw it down and walk away. The words God and Love became untrusting dirty words to me. GOD meant guilt and LOVE meant hurt, and of course Faith meant just reading a book over and over, it did not have any action to it. I like so many people purposely avoided the words and if needed made up new more safe and pleasant words. God become mother earth, faith became trust, and love became a word without any deep meaning. I realized that I was avoiding these word because they were associated to religion, guilt and distrust, they were also associated to my childhood, my parents, my upbringing my hurt. I asked myself why such powerful words should not be used purposefully. Just because someone in my past affected the meaning of these words, does not mean that I should let their “crap”, their hurt, their numbness affect me. This unfortunately keeps us locked into a set of values that we have learned solely due to the fact those beliefs, values and morals are connected and attached to our childhood and our survival reflex. Those values called “starter values” or “survival values” create our base identity and are strongly attached to our parents and our first sense of safety or home, even if the home was not that safe. This survival attachment is so strong in fact that any challenge or attempt to change or upgrade them can actually feel like you are going to die, or lose your whole identity (see moving past the comfort zone). We all have values, principal, guidelines, judgments and morals that we adopt that do not always create, health, peace and joy in our life, and those are the ones that we did not have any input to create. Believing or not questioning anything beyond what we have been programmed to believe through our childhood creates massive amounts of stress, conflict and resistance. This resistance overtime can lead to physical and emotional disruptions and disease. This can be difficult to break through without suffering, and even though you can never underestimate the power of suffering to move someone to change, do you always have to move and change by suffering? It is important to know that this is your life and your gift, and realize that some or all of those survival values may not even be yours. It may be time to upgrade them using your feelings.

What is faith, love and what is God? It’s time to reconnect those words to a more playful meaning. In this context, if I use the word God, I mean anything that did exist, that will exist, that connects you to me and us to everything. In this context “faith” is the action that brings you closer to “god”, and love is what you feel when you are connected.

Related to the words GOD, FAITH and LOVE, I like using them now, their meaning is all mine, they are not tainted by someone else’s hurt. I have been able to use my free will to create the meaning and values that I wanted to have, most of them closely mimic how an open and playful child would act, see and use these words. To do this is a process called awareness, this is also known as “feeling” and it’s the ability to “feel your feelings” which allows you to know what is truth for you. When we are operating primarily within our survival reflex, we are numb to our own feelings, our own inner guidance, and our own connection to whatever version of God YOU want to believe in.

I can’t prove that god does exists also I cannot prove the opposite. The simplest message and the first truth that I learned is this, if you do something that makes you feel good, you're close to God or whatever version of God. If you do something that makes you feel bad, you're not. It does not really matter what form of religion or spirituality you believe in, as long as it is your choice to believe it and it brings you closer to peace and joy. It is common to unknowingly adopt beliefs and values through what you learned as a child. So check in with yourself, use your feelings, all values are not valuable. If you find yourself unhappy, full of anger, stuck or numb, entertain the possibility that you’re current belief system and values may need to be upgraded, altered or even overhauled. A belief system that is based on what is true and followed in a truthful way automatically creates a feeling of peace and happiness. This is of course, unless you believe that you are doing everything right and truthful and that’s why you are feeling bad, conflicted, stressed, physically exhausted or numb? Entertain the possibility that any value, moral, principal, guideline or obligation that causes you to be consistently un-peaceful, unhappy, or in disharmony may not be yours and may not be the ones you want to have. How can you really be free if you not even following your own rules. Remember life has some suffering, but you have not been given this great gift of life, and the power of free will to have a life full of suffering. It maybe now time to think and feel in a different way, even in a total opposite way. Ask yourself, is it you time for your awakening, are you ready?

2.3 The Patients Ah-ha Moments - What I have Learned

Julie - 75 Year Grandmother - Moving past the "comfort zone"

It's clear to me now, that all that I do is really for me, this is a huge switch from thinking I have to take care of others...its okay to speak out to make myself heard even if that means fighting to Love.

I really understand that Love is always worth fighting for. I see now in my marriage that I have not trusted my husband. I have without knowing conditioning my husband to believe that I was unreachable, that is how protected myself, I distanced myself rather than risk getting hurt /rejected.

I know that its time to move, its time to reach out and I am scared of failing, I am scared of giving up as I have done many times with the excuse that he does't hear me (physically) and he is too preoccupied to listen.

I will now stretch beyond my past conditioning and behavior and use faith to go beyond what my mind would tell me. God Bless me I need help and trust here to do and go where I have not ventured before. Thank you Dr. Martin for today, I am so Grateful, In Loving and Light

55 year old single mother

I learned that I am doing a "box step" around the leap of faith, probably because my life has not been so bad that there is no place to go but up. I have become accustomed to suffering and am afraid of being vulnerable. What there is to do is to be open – take a leap of faith – be vulnerable – experience more love. My mission is to become a love seeker as opposed to a pain avoider.

I learned how fear based my life has been, how confined and restricted I have been. One ray of light here is that as I write this, it feel good that I am not being judgmental, I am just seeing it for what it is.

It feels like I have been shaken to the core (I was actually physically shaking as I left the office shaking inside and outside) and I still have some of that right now hours later. It was devastating to me to realize that even my meditation practice was unconnected / disconnected from God. I feel lost and right at the beginning....a beginning I trust....to start from ground zero. I learned that what I lack most is faith, and that faith is action that makes me believe something beyond what my mind would tell me. I also learned, that if I can be happy....and express happiness...it will permeate everything that I do and those that I encounter.

Thank you for staying with me and not pulling any punches doc.

2.1 Awakenings - Your Doorways to Change

Tme is a great motivator to wake up

We all die in time. The thing about this life is once you start living, you become connected to time, which as we all know moves in only one direction, forward. Time is going by whether you like it or not, whether you’re happy or not. There’s really only one thing you have control over and that’s how much life, fun, joy, purpose will you pack in this time. There is an ocean of time and possibilities, so learning to swim or surf is not only life saving and keeps you from drowning but it is simply more fun. Do you really believe that you have been given this great gift of life to suffer? You are not broken, you can snap out of it, or you can snap into it, but its your life and it now your time to move, wake up to your life, it’s okay….ready.....set.....awake. 

“Your vision will become clear only when you look into your heart. Who looks outside, dreams. Who looks inside, awakens.” - Carl Jung.

"The truth mayset you free, but first it will piss you off". Amelia aheart

Your Awakening

Why is it that instead of seeing a happy person excited to start a new day smiling back at you every morning, you avoid making eye contact with the less than happy face reflected in the bathroom mirror? You know that something has to change. This is the process called awakening. Simply stated awakenings are times or pivotal points of increased clarity, wisdom and awareness. They are times that you see yourself like never before. They are a point in someone’s life when enough time and suffering has passed to motivate change. They are a slap across the souls face, a spank on the soul’s newborn bottom saying, it’s time to wake up, the coast is clear, it’s safe, it’s time to move, groove and celebrate. It indicates an opportunity and need in a person’s life for movement, change and action. It’s a jumping point where positive growth and change are the most possible and likely. Its signals new beginnings, a new perception about ones position in life. It is exactly the time where things and the way you see yourself and the world around you will never be the same. It is that time where your soul awakens to its new surroundings and potential.

A person can experience many awakenings in their life, each one has potential to “let love in” thereby freeing or cleaning past hurt or traumas. Whether they are used efficiently depends on the ability to see them as opportunities or doorways for growth and efficiently act, decide or move into these doors.

These awakenings present as a sudden burst or in louder and louder waves. Once triggered they can seem to take you over. Awakenings are felt deep inside and are triggered by outside events, people, place, funerals, and especially calendars and mirrors. In the beginning awakenings are more painful for they bring into light the time lost and merge past hurt and experiences with the now so real present. They shine the truth into the protected past. They can be times of deep regret. They allow you to see lost potential, hidden regret and remorse. They can start with the statement “where has my life gone”, “this is not how I thought my life would be”. For instance the person who has worked their whole life to be responsible and at age fifty realizes that maybe life was not just about being responsible, another person that succeeded in everything that he was taught and thought to be valuable, job, house, money but never trusted or really loved someone. The mother who took care of everyone else except herself until her physical body gave out and created a cancer. It’s the classic case of Mr. Scrooge, or Jimmy Stewart in It’s a wonderful life”. It is the beginning is something new. Every awakening is personal and its timing is decided by how your life has been moving and your ability to accept, evolve or adjust your life. It is a time that pushes you to the potential of new actions and choice. It is a time that is yours to create a new way of being, a new personalized reflex. The more distant your path from the one that creates happiness the more likely you will feel one. In a spiritual sense, an awakening is GOD (by god I mean the force that we are all part of and connected to) pushing you to make your first action and accept your gift of life. Just as much as the nurturing soil may push the seed to the sun to grow.

At the beginning these doors themselves are can seem uncomfortable to feel, see and open, however the more a person delays, avoids, distracts the more energy required and the more uncomfortable they are. The least amount of effort is by moving through choice. The faster you choice the less suffering you go through. It is also becomes progressively more uncomfortable to see and open the next door. Still most of us are aware at some level of these painful points but not aware enough to know what they mean and what to do. They go by many names, lows, funks, anxiety, fear, breakdowns, depression. For most of us the thought of pain is so painful, that any sign of discomfort leads to the avoidance and distraction reflex. Without guidance, these pivotal points of growth are quickly protected, dismissed, resisted, blocked and purposely avoided with new intricate, diverse and complicated levels of distractions effectively numbing the person (numbzone) that is until enough time, life, potential, purpose and health have been lost to motivate the next awakening point. 

Even by reading this blog/book you may be starting to experience an awakening, you may have more awareness and see some tools for change. Life gives only opportunities to become even more alive. If you decide to reject, ignore, distract, numb or protect from these opportunities, then life and the universe or now GOD does not give up or abandon you, it just means it will knock even louder, which means more pain and suffering. In fact the further that you move away from the truth, the more time energy and resources it takes to awaken. The deeper the sleep the louder the scream or bump. What’s great about awakenings is that they are sustainable. The more awake you are, the less likely you can ever go back to sleep and wisdom is not something that you can forget, like knowledge. For example if someone was to show you what ‘light’ looks like it’s not like you can say to yourself, there is only dark, you can’t go backwards – it’s even more painful. Awakening gives you wisdom that gives way to more awareness and awareness gives opportunity to even more awakenings, you get the picture….its infinite, it’s a buffet of opportunities, possibilities and joy, all with more power and choice. The more power and choice you have the more in control you really are. So, now that your awakened a bit, you have to learn how to feel.

5. Doc's Three Agreements

"Watch your thoughts because they become your words.

Watch your words because they become your actions.

Watch your actions because they become your habits.

Watch your habits because they become your character.

Watch your character because it becomes your destiny.”

Freeman Hrabowski II

 The way you think effects the way you feel and heal.  

This is now proven scientific fact. We now have biochemical, physiological, and empirical evidence to support this, so when a patient comes to me and says, ‘Brian, do you really think that you can actually help someone live longer? Or better? Or do you really believe that you can change the way a person thinks and feels?’ I tell them, ‘Of course you can!’ It’s not a belief anymore; belief is reserved for religion and when you are not sure. In my clinical practice I have proved this true over and over again. The power inside you to feel good is amazing. Most people never ever use their power to feel good because they are too busy out of reflex trying to avoid feeling bad. Avoiding bad has nothing to do with feeling good. Feeling good means doing the actions that attract and make you feel good, hence making you not feel bad! These are the only really two actions that you have in every situation in every moment in your life: you can either act out of reflex to avoiding something bad (avoiding conflict, rejection, hurt) or you can act out of choice and do something to feel or attract good. 

 

As an awareness exercise, as many times as possible throughout the day ask yourself: Am I doing this action right now to avoid feeling bad? Or am I doing this action because it makes me feel good?’ I’ll give you an example: My wife was considering visiting her parents. However, my wife at that time in her life did not get along with her parents. She felt guilty and obligated to see them because it was around Christmas time. I asked her, ‘Honey, are you going to see your parents because you really really want to and because you’re going to have a great time with them? Or are you going to see them because you don’t want to feel guilty for not seeing them? If the latter is what you are doing then that’s not the reason to see somebody. I don’t want you to come home to me because you feel guilty that you shouldn’t. I’d rather know that you come home to me because you love being here. That’s the difference.’ In this situation she choose not to go and even though she was a sad for a moment she still had more peace and power around it than the conflict and stress of trying to decide and make everyone happy.

Our reactions and our actions to our environment create stress or create happiness. Our bodies will respond to this. People will come to see me and say, ‘If you can just get my body feeling better, then I’ll be happy.’ My response to that is, ‘no we have to do both, you cannot take your head off your body and just treat your body, when we treat both the physical and the emotional as you become happier your body respond even faster.

We now know that only 20-30 percent of our health has to do with genetic, that menas you have up to 80% power over your health, over your life, and over your happiness. You have the power to enjoy a longer health span, to live a longer life, and the best time to make a positive lifestyle change is now. No one is here to take a persons  right to suffer away from them, but ask yourself do you really need more suffering to move and change, what would it take to make the "now" a little bit closer. How much time, health, happiness and peace does anyone really need to lose?

Doc Martins actions - If you remember these three things then you are well on your way to healthy change: 

• Follow your heart – Learn the difference between the part that you think with and the part you feel with, to start ask yourself if you are avoiding pain, or seeking love? The opposite rule also works, in a conflict the opposite of your mind at the beginning will be your heart. The B.I.T. Tool is also useful at his stage
• Life is a gift, yours – you are not broken, you have not been given this amazing gift of life to suffer. Every part of you has been created to help you. Start a graditude journal and list everyday what your are grateful for, this will focus your mind on how to help your heart.
• Pay yourself first - Create a list and vision board of what creates happiness or joy for you, start using and trusting your feelings again, they are a powerful tool especially when combined with the mind. Imagination combined with action creates real miracles.

2.2 Awakening your feeling

The first question I ask each patient is how happy are they on a scale of zero to ten – ten being the happiest. To clarify “being happy” is not the same as not feeling sad, it’s not the same as coping or surviving life. Your first task, ask yourself how happy are you? Then write that number down. Next I ask the question again, except this time I create a visual of what "happy" is, most people at the start are stuck, trapped or even numb and do not really know or have never seen what "happiness", "peace" or "love" is. I ask them to imagine a small child young enough to not be hurt playing in a park, a child around 5-6 years old. Do you know anyone that is happier than a playful child who has never been hurt? If the patient cannot remember their childhood (which is usually the case with trauma), think of a small child in a playground on the edge of a slide, a child playing in the park with little sparkling angel eyes. A child essence, innocence and inherent wisdom is what makes them sparkle. They play "playfully" in the playground without any effort. Playing and laughing is a child’s natural state. Before a child gets expose to any hurt, they do not choose to cover up pain, they’re totally vulnerable, totally open, they’re happy. They’re not thinking about something in the past or the future. They’re not thinking about who hurt them. They are not thinking about being judged for laughing or crying to loud. Their smile is not affected; they are not involved in the deep problems of the world. They are not protecting themselves – because they’ve never been hurt. The child is not thinking about a fear that leads to hurt, to a clean child "fear" is not even experienced as adult fear, and it is quite the opposite. Just like a little bird jumping out of a nest for the first time, or in this case like a small child just about to go down a slide for the first time. The fear is exciting – it says pay attention, things are happening. So before a child gets hurt and protected this "fearful unknown" is actually the "exciting unknown", fear is excitement. The child also communicates and exudes a form of simplicity, clarity or innate wisdom about life. The child is said to have innocence. There’s an inherent wisdom in children, they have not been talked out of their wisdom. That is until enough hurt or trauma activates their survival protections to take over.  A clean child, has not been trained to lie, expressing the truth freely and openly, this childhood truth is what we call the wisdom of a child. What would you rather have – wisdom or knowledge? Which one more?

So, now are you able to see and feel that child? I then ask again, how happy they are on a scale of 1-10, except this time we are comparing you to that clean child, with 10 being now the happiest child. In other words, how happy are they compared to a child that has never been hurt? The answers are quite different, what qualities and characteristics of that "clean" child have you lost? How many protections have you picked up, how much trust have you lost. Most of us when we are asked that question for the first time receive the answer from a part of us that evaluates hurt, called the mind. Hence the reflex of the mind does not really know what happy is, to the mind happy is "safe". So the first response to the question of, how happy are you on a scale of one to 10 when happiness has not been defined, is not even about happy, the first answer is more how "not miserable you are". With the help of the small child, this allows a reference point, most of us would agree that there are not too many better examples of what love, happiness looks like than a playful and open child that has never been hurt. Go through the qualities and characteristics of that playful and open small unhurt, unprotected, or "clean child"; the innocence, the excitement, the non-judgment, the ability to be in the present moment, the creativity, freedom, truth and simple wisdom that they have, the sparkling eyes, and the trust, the lack of fear.

To start, go to the mirror, and ask yourself and the child in you, how happy are you? If the answer does not come back with a warm, peaceful and sparkly eyed response, then ask it, what do you need to hear to be happy? That will start the awakening to your new self. 

Qualities of a child

• Open
• Playful
• Happy
• Adventurous
• Excited by life
• Easy to forget and forgive
• ager to love
• Non-judgment
• In the moment 
• Innate wisdom, connection to truth, they have an innocence
• Open without protection, no walls
• Sparkly eyes, loving
• Fear without being afraid, 
• The fear and unknown is exciting
• No guilt, no judgment
• Natural state is happy
• Present, in the now, happy in the moment, focused on the action or event in front of them.
• Trusting - Ability to see good 
• Not worried about being judged 
• Not focused in the past or future or unknown
• Self-full, self absorbed, creative
• Okay making mistakes, without know they have done anything wrong
• Integrity, show what they feel without delay 
• Peaceful

Awakenings cause you to "feel your feelings" again, which then leads to increased awareness. From this awareness you start to have power over your past hurts, fears, protections and conditioning. It is the consecutive rhythm of awakening, awareness, and your abilty to use free will  that creates your sustained levels of peace, health and happiness no matter what the outside environment.

1.0 The Head is connected to the Body

In my 15 years of practice I have had thousands of one to one patient visits, of those visits 90% percent have been with females between the ages of 35-55 years old. Two of the greatest things about seeing so many females are that they teach you how to feel and they ask questions. Both qualities are essential for uncovering happiness.

In the beginning most of my practice was centered on treating disease and dysfunction by improving a person’s overall physical health, using nutrition, diet, exercise, lifestyle, detoxification, repairing deficiencies and balancing and replacing hormone levels. This was a sound approach that worked very well except for one main thing, I found that over and over, the way a person thinks effected how a person feels and heals. I started noticing a pattern, I would help the patient with their grouping of symptoms or diagnosed diseases, we would lower and in many cases totally remove their medications, then send them off healthier and more informed only to see them back. Some I would see in as short as a couple months others a couple years later with the original condition or another manifestation of the same thing. This was great for return business but it was not great for my peace. It was like as soon as they regained their health back they slowly started to sabotage themselves until their suffering or severity of the disease was enough to cause them to change again. They had to be desperate every time to change; in fact no matter what the final outcome if they were not desperate enough or had not suffered enough they could not be motivated to change long enough to have an effect. For instance a heart attack is a great motivator to start taking care of yourself, but too often it was the second one that cemented the change, that is if they lived.

I started to ask patients about this “cycle” in their history and found out that this “suffering to change sabotage cycle” or "suffering box step"  (suffering, then life change, then health, then sabotage, then back to suffering) was present in almost every chronic patient. It was of course not their conscious choice, no one says, “when I grow up I want to be sick”, or “I just love suffering”, or “I want to lose life, time, health and happiness before I appreciate it. Why do so many of us we have to always learn by loosing something we love? I guess it works; it’s just a very long and painfully scenic way to do things. Life is a gift and it is too precious and purposeful to rely just on that method of change and growth. The core that tied all of these cases together was the inability to accept happiness. Consistent health is directly related to how happy a person is. Some at the beginning of their journey simply do not know how to be healthy and happy, many are unable to accept consistent health and peace, and many have a subconscious program that they don’t deserve to feel good, happy and peaceful. I found that all of us as some level have been taught or programmed from a young age that we are somehow not lovable, not valuable, not worthy, that we do not matter or we are not important. The chronic pattern of suffering and disease can draw a safe form of attention that is sadly a familiar state for many. At the same time the peaceful and healthy state are strangely more unfamiliar and unknown. In the words of the song writer George Michael -

“you look for your dreams in heaven, but what the hell are you supposed to do when they come true”.

Being “peaceful in peace” can be stressful to the emotionally unaware mind that thinks, “I am not deserving”. Too much health or happiness or even stillness, creates anxiety and fear mostly due to the perception that it could be taken away. It’s the memory of rejection that everyone of us has as a core hurt. We all at one time have been rejected by someone who was supposed to love us. This is what I have labelled "factory hurts".

Happy people tend to be less depressed (how many happy depressed people do you know?) and healthy people tend to be less sick and happy and healthy people can move and inspire the world. The answer became clear, start evoking and inspiring happiness in the person. Help the body, mind and the heart. The journey to happiness is not so much found through the mind but rather by waking up that feeling part of us all called the heart.

The you start and move by awakening feeling, feeding faith, finding love, enjoying the peace, living your awarness, being a purposeful being.