Core Beliefs, how much is really you?

Core beliefs

Core beliefs include the rules, obligations, principles, and values that govern our behavior. Core beliefs are attached to our survival. They are the rules that give structure to our sense of identity and govern much of our behaviour, with or without our conscious awareness. 

This strong attachment is made through our life experiences as a child. In fact, what we typically refer to as the ego is really how a person's mind is taught to express core beliefs.

Core beliefs are the childhood “goodie bag” that everyone gets, some are positive, while others can be detrimental to a person’s overall health and happiness.

This is how why you may have acquired several core beliefs that currently do not serve you. As children, we did not have the tools or freewill to determine which of these beliefs would be helpful to us in our life journey. As a result, we accepted them all.

As an adult, you gain the gift of free will and choice, and it is perfectly okay to question and decide which rules you want to keep and which ones you want to replace or, in some cases, discard completely.

Your Core beliefs may not be yours.

An often overlooked point about core beliefs is that these internal rules that govern how you currently live, love and operate in the world did not come from you. They were your emotional inheritance paid from your childhood training and experiences. For instance, you may have learned that you should feel guilty for taking care of yourself.

Sandra described a belief she had — the "I have to always be doing something, not allowed to rest" program. When Sandra was growing up, her parents taught her that in order to be valuable she always had to be doing something. She was not praised for her ability to just rest or be peaceful. This conditioning established a 45-year program that never allowed her to relax in peace or to feel okay at rest. It also made any accomplishments seem less than spectacular, and since there was no time to peacefully enjoy them, they never seemed good enough. Today, she is able to recognize the little girl within who learned to judge herself negatively and, through the process of letting in love; she has now given herself permission to rest.

For 20 years, Betty hated going to a job where she was belittled, made to feel small, and told she was never good enough.When I asked her why she stayed in the job so long, she said,” Well, I didn’t want to leave the job without being able to find another, and after being in that environment, my self-esteem became so low that I didn’t think I could get another job”. Of course, this belief only reinforced her negative cycle. When I asked where she had learned not to quit, she replied, “My father said, ‘never quit anything’”. We can see how early learned childhood experiences can affect the present.

Standing up for your beliefs

Of course it is okay to stand up for what you believe in, as long as the beliefs you are defending and sometimes willing to sacrifice time and energy for, are, in fact, yours.

All you need do is to add choice, or the ability to choose. It’s your life. You get to decide which beliefs you want—ones that can make you smile when looking at yourself in a mirror. This is efficient, since by choosing beliefs that you want, you may automatically let go of those you unconsciously or unwillingly learned which do not work for you.

In other words, it is okay to stand up for a certain belief as an adult, even if that belief is one that you were taught as a child — as long as, of course, it does not make you miserable. After all, any set of rules that creates more stress or unhappiness most likely is not yours.

It is your life, so your opinions and choices matter; otherwise your life is not based on free will. In other words, it is okay to stand up for a certain belief as an adult, even if that belief is one that you were taught as a child — as long as you have decided it supports you. 

How much of you is really you?

Most of us underestimate how much of our day to day personality, identity and what we think we are, was decided without our input. If we take the example of a person that avoids or does not like conflict, we could guess that they may have learned this in their childhood by seeing their parents fight destructively or not seeing their parents fight at all. The end result would likely be an adult with a belief system and identity that is not really of their choosing. They would not know how to express themselves fully in a conflict.

Examining and choosing appropriate core beliefs allows you to live your own genuine path rather than automatically supporting or modeling someone else’s life, rules, and beliefs.  

Most of us think "freedom"

How free can you be, if your past hurts and conditioning controls your present day actions, how much of your life is yours and how free can you really be? This truth as painful as it sounds is if your mind is controlling you without your permission than you are very much like a robot. You will be as happy as your mind's rules allow you to.

Most people live and die without ever questioning what and why they believe what they believe. Where did you get your rules of life from and do they in fact serve me now? It is very common for people to say; that's just me, or I am a type A personality, that’s the way I was brought up, I am a control person, or I don't like conflict. No matter what the personality trait we must ask ourselves how much of our identity has been decided by us, how much of what I have been brought up to be is really me? It turns out, not as much as we would like to believe, this may not sound so good at first, but the realization of this fact is the beginning of amazing new levels of power and freedom.

Changing your Core Beliefs

To begin you must have the awareness to know the difference between your mind and your heart, the acceptance that you are more than just reflex and that you are a person of free will.

To start simply begin asking yourself the questions of awareness. Knowing that every action has an intention behind it and knowing that it is either to avoid pain out of reflex or to accept more love out of choice.

We are all connected to a force that guides us to the choices in our lives; this is a working relationship where even though the inspiration and opportunities may come from within you, the choice to accept what to do is uniquely yours, it's your life and your gift.

Whenever you are in a conflicted or uncomfortable situation, ask yourself the following

·         Am I doing this to avoid pain or to seek love?

·         What do I really want?

·         How do I feel, happy or sad?

·         Does this personality trait serve me,

·         Does it create happiness?

·         Is this something that I would choose?

·         What would I gain by updating it?

·         Do I want to change it?

A powerful visual and awareness exercise is the Balanced Balance Wheel (aka the happiness wheel) contains different aspects of a persons life (relationship, spiritual, health, fun, family, home, career, financial) and then have the person go through each section and ask the questions - what are my beliefs around this, where did I get those, do they serve me, do they create happiness, does if cause me more pain, would I choose that rule, would you teach a child the same? This can help sort out which belief you want to evolve and can start to remove the obstruction that block so many of us from our purpose.

3. The Minds Survival Reflex

In this context the survival reflex is an automatic protective response contained in everyone that is triggered in childhood by any perceived danger and associated with a core hurt. Another name for this is the ego. Humans along with every living creature that has ever lived have one thing in common, the genetic reflex or protection to survive.

This survival reflex as the name implies is fast, automatic, universal to all living creatures and is there to protect us when we are not able to protect ourselves. This survival reflex is our autopilot and our life preserver. The “life preserver” role is simple, to preserve life, yours. Its mode of action is also simple, move away physically and emotionally as fast as possible from any perceived danger. This reflex is not focused on "winning" or the "best or most loving" action, it is setup to be focused on "not losing" or "not dying", which means it evaluates, compares and in a choice between two separate actions will picks the one that harms you the least.

The survival reflex is strong and begins to form even while in the womb, we know that even during fetal development the mother’s reaction to stress is communicated to fetus through circulating stress hormones. In other words the growing fetus experiences the stresses of the mother. Understanding that the body does not do anything without purpose and the primary purpose being survival the need for this is to prime the baby for the environment that it will be born into. This could help explain why we see children that are more “sensitive” to conflict or stress.

The body and mind have an innate wisdom and intelligence, the smallest actions have purpose. At the start of life that purpose is simple, keep the body alive under any circumstance, protect survival. In the event of continual triggering (lots of hurt) the survival reflex ends up creating even deeper protective behaviors or habits. Example of this is child abuse, sexual abuse. To a child especially this is a massive amount of trauma, sadness, unknown, powerlessness and confusion to process, the fast efficient survival reflex takes over and diverts and shuts down any pain and hurt away from the child. This is great in the moment but if left unchecked in adulthood leads to deeper problems related to feeling safe, self esteem and the ability to trust and love.

This survival reflex is meant to be used for a short time only, and only under extreme emergencies. A reflex without guidance or choice creates a prison of thought and action. A protective reflex is great when you’re a child without any real power, freedom or choice but not so good when you are an adult. For example a reflex to kill is great in war time, but not so good in peace time; a person trained by their environment to be a soldier can be left totally unequipped to be "peaceful in peace" and even innocent actions can be interptrted as threats.

The thriving reflex

Most of us have a well tuned survival reflex but a untuned thriving reflex. The making of a thriving reflex comes from using all of your information from your heart (feelings) and your mind (thinking) and then actively choosing with the gift and power of free will. This process starts and repeats itself as ; first awakening, then creating awarness, followed by action and then feeling more alive.

1. Awaken
2. Awarness
3. Action, acceptance, choice
4. Alive and more awakened

3. The Evolution of the word EGO, its time to add a little love.

There is no such thing as the ego, at least not how we have come to know it. The term ego was classically used to describe the part of a person that experiences and reacts to the outside world to ensure survival. In other words their minds, experience trained survival reflex. The term ego helped with labelling a person with a mental disease, in the beginning of understanding how and why people behave it was assumed to be important to label the part of us that seem to cause or be related to a person unhappiness, commonly still called a condition or disease. It seemed that this part contained within us had the ability to block or protect us from being happy, open and the best we could be. This was the birth of the term ego. Ego was meant to describe the core beliefs gone wrong, your survival reflex attacking itself, your mind attacking your heart, or the piece that seems to act detrimentally without needing your permission. The ego is the part of us that is programmed for survival set in play by the person experiences.

One of the main problems with ego is the way it is viewed. When you hear the word ego, do you think of a positive, neutral or potential negative quality or part of us? When you use the word "ego" do you take the word in a good context, a positive context, a loving context? Do you see the ego as a beautiful powerful tool here to help us, or this thing that within us that needs to be watched out for? Far too often the ego is thought to be a part of us that controls us instead of an amazing gift that we have at our disposal that we aim and lead. Its unfortunate the word ego and having an ego has become associated to be mostly a negative thing. The term ego has become this scary dark part that we have to protect from, watch out for and even block out. How many times have you heard someone say, hey that person is in his ego and not meant it as a compliment?

Have you been created with a piece of you that is negative?
Most of us have been taught that the ego is something detrimental. Does it really make sense that you would be born with a part of you aimed to hurt you or sabotage you? The main problem with the term ego is the way the word has been used, it implies a judgment. How can we fully love ourselves if we assume some part of us is "bad" or "can hurt us" in some way? Whenever we judge something as good or bad, it makes it almost impossible to love it.  If I judge a piece of myself as bad, then I have made it difficult for me to fully love all parts of myself.  I am going to be walking on eggshells in my own head, telling myself to be very quiet, the 'egos' sleeping – we don't want to wake it up. I mean how can you really love yourself if you automatically think that a part of you is "bad or negative" in some way.

The problems with concept of the Ego

• It attaches a negative association to a part of us
• It gives power to the word not the person
• Does not give any power of choice to change or teach
• It is a label used the same as a disease

The ego is just the mind
I think it's about time we start reassessing the word and the function of this part used to describe a persons behavior. Let's assume for a second there is no such thing as the ego, at least not the way it has come to be known. There is no doubt the existence of a piece of us that has a powerful effect on our behavior but rather than label it attached to a potentially judgmental meaning, lets update the word to see it for what it really is. The ego is the thinking computer like part of us that stores memories, and operates the reflex to survive until you take over and aim it. In other words, the ego is just the mind, not the person. The simple term "mind" instead of ego allows one understand that this is a neutral piece of us, not to be feared but to be understood and taught, the mind works for us.

You are not your mind
You should be beginning to understand that your ego or mind is not you. You are not your mind. Your mind is the fast computer part of you responsible for your survival. The mind is the part that kept you safe and protected until you could take over. Your mind has been so much a part of you for so long that it is common to believe you and the mind are the same.  

Your mind works for you.
Does it make more sense that you would be born with parts of you aimed to help or hurt you? Why would we be born with this thing that hurts us that we have to watch out for or shut off? We would not. We all have amazing tools and gifts that first have to be accepted. With the gift of free will, you can choose to believe that every part of us is here to help create happiness. It is your mind (previously termed the ego), it works for you, you don't work for it.

You can decide how to view it and use it.

Is your mind here to hurt you or serve you; is it your enemy or friend? With your free will, choose to see your mind as a gift; with this choice you not only create a powerful friend that has already proved its loyalty, but also a more peace state to create in. Your mind needs you to teach it, your mind needs you to show it wisdom and love, your mind needs a job and a project, make that project your happiness. When you accept that your mind is a powerful friend that needs your help and direction, peace replace conflict.

Training the Mind
Your many names for mind; ego, computer, survival reflex, and trained starting program, that you did not personally program, can be reprogrammed starting with your free will. Remember the mind is operating on a reflex that you did not program. In other words even your core beliefs may not always be yours. How much freedom and power can one really have if any you are controlled by reflex or a program that you did not create? With your gift of free you can update your mind with your new goals, your new beliefs and your new personal program. Conflict for instance, is what you feel when you are in a battle between what your mind is thinking and what you are feeling, these are perfect opportunities to use your free will to choose your heart which automatically shows and teaches your mind. This is your life and your gift, its time you start programming your minds speedy reflex to work where you aim it.

You and your mind have to be introduced
Your mind is your survival reflex that does not even know you even exist.  The mind is always doing the best job it can to survive, but it is on autopilot, that is until, you the pilot takes over. Now, just like a pilot may know the autopilot exists, the autopilot doesn't know that the pilot exists. So just because I know that my ego or mind exists, my ego or mind doesn't know I exist.  I have to introduce myself.  We had to get to know each other; a mind is there for the purpose that I choose. The simplest way introduce your mind to you is through the action of gratitude.

Love your mind
Waiting for your mind to tell you that the coast is clear is not the same as you telling your mind that the coast is clear. You have to commnicate with your mind, your voice is the only one that your mind will listen above all others. We need to spend the time nurturing and teaching our mind through the repeated actions of following our hearts. The mind is built to watch and learn and your heart is built to love. As you continually follow your heart, your mind will learn, adapt and assist in attracting happiness while peacefully moving you through any unknowns.

Those that have come to live in a consistent increasing state of gratitude have a working relationship with their mind, heart and body, they have not separated them or shut them off. With the mind they have trained it, encouraged it and loved it. They have trained and taught the mind to focus on love, peace, joy and gratitude. In other words they have trained the mind to serve the heart. They use their mind as a gift; their mind does not use them.

5. Learning Efficient Happiness

Efficient Happiness

Is a method of guidance that teaches people how to be happy, it’s a simple concept but one that is missed in almost every person. Happy people tend to be less depressed, how many happy depressed people do you know? Not many, so when someone comes in with a diagnosis of depression, that terminology is quickly re-labeled to “not happy”, this terminolgy gives power back and allows you to take action. It is only after that can we see the person as an open slate ready to learn. Just to clarify, there are many life lessons that teach us to close off emotionally, not to trust, and to overprotect ourselves, all of these are attempts to avoid pain, however avoiding pain is not the same as creating and being happy. Most people have just never been taught how to be happy, have you been taught? When we are growing up, there are no classes that teach us how to use our hurts to create peace, or ask for extra love when we are going through pain, there is no training in emotional and spiritual awareness, there are no classes in how to use our free will and how to feel or how to be in the moment.

There is an Indian Belief that everyone is in a house of four rooms:

A physical, a mental, an emotional and a spiritual

Most of us tend to live in one room most of the time, but unless we go into every room everyday, even if only to keep it aired, we are not complete.

-Rumer Godden (House of Four Rooms)

Efficient Happiness Training

To begin efficient happiness training you must first understand the gifts and tools that you have been born with. First you have an amazing self-healing body capable of carrying you through all your life, next you have a creative part of you that exists in the present moment that you feel with (heart), then you have a part of you that calculates, plans and thinks (mind) and then you have, “you” (soul or witness), the driver of your life that gets to pick and choose how to work and merge all of these parts together. Most people are unaware of the simplest truths that we have these unique and amazing parts given to help us create an amazing life. In relationship to the mind and heart, many people don't realize that these two are distinctly different. Now it must be stated that I am not dividing these to separate them, but rather to allow a wonderful contrast so one can see how to merge and use them together. This would be the same an artist learning the difference between the canvas of the mind and the paint of the heart. The mind and heart, along with your body and soul are all meant to communicate, be friends and work together. One confusion for people is that they have been brought up to assume there is only thing inside of us that just talks alot, instead of recognizing that there are two distinct and unique voices.  The mind for instance has all the characteristics and qualities of a computer, it is fast, stores information, attaches and associates for speed, plans, calculates, and judges threats to assist in your survival and avoid pain. The heart is the opposite it is the creative feeling part of you with all of the characteristics and qualities connected to a sparkly eyed child that has never been hurt and is seeking love in a constistant open state of gratitude. If we used the word god, your heart would be your doorway or connection to god, truth and wisdom.

Are you aware of the these distinct parts of you or do you believe that they were all just one? Do you know the differences between the part that you think with called your mind, and the part that you feel with called your heart? Which is your dominate state, which one is the boss, in other words are you more of a avoid-a-painer or a seek-a-lover? Which one do you believe guides you towards happiness, your head or your heart?

Next, consider accepting these certain simple truths:

• That we are all born clean and good, in other words that you are not broken built to suffer
• That no part of you has be created with the intention to hurt you or cause you to suffer, every part of you is here to help create happiness.
• That force of love is stronger than fear or hate, the world is evolving everyday.
• That we are all connected and part of this force.
• That life is a gift.
• It is okay to be happy
• That your heart is your connection to your feelings and what is true for you.
• That you are not your mind, you have a mind to serve you.
• That your mind looks to you for guidance.
• That you are born with free will.

Gaining Happiness
Most people at the start live their lives in a fairly automatic survival mode, waiting for life to start and reacting to every life situation as it comes up. The main growth, learning and change happens through life experience, painful and happy. This living style is what most people do; it is a survival program that does not use the fullest potential of the person’s gifts and tools and free will. The person is bound repeating patterns that were taught to them. This is painfully scenic way of changing and evolving and because the person is not really steering their own life, emotional and spiritual movement is gained more through lost time and suffering. Again this style still works; it is just not very efficient or as fun.  A person in this mode can still experience great moments of happiness and still evolve, it is just simply a life filled with more time surviving than thriving, and it is not as purposeful. This person can be happy they are just not as happy as they deserve to be. Its like old technology that needs to be updated.

Practicing Efficient Happiness

Efficient happiness is the understanding, attention and practice of the art of being happy through the use and merging of all your tools and gifts. It is living in a consistently increasing state of gratitude. It is the enlightenment that is attainable by all.

You can practice Efficient Happiness by using your tools and aiming them to any one or combinations of the following;

• Emulating others that are happy. If you decide to use this method remember do not take guidance from people more miserable than you. This only shows you what not to do; it does have some value but is quite different than knowing what to do.
• Actively involving or inducing yourself into specific circumstances that provoke and trigger you to feel and then choose. This can be a little scary at first, since you are actually using in some cases your fear to move you. This is excellent for triggering up past hurts that can become clean. Hang in there, after the fear and sadness, comes more love, gratitude and peace. This method is best to do in a relationship or with a close person.
• Directing, focusing and drawing attention to your mind through imagination on how to react before you are in a situation, in other words giving your mind the most loving answer before it asks what to do. This is very similar to a mantra or positive affirmations with the added benefit of attaching the feeling to the focus, in other words it is a confirmation. It is done the same way a child uses imagination, it has the excitement sensation as they bring the future to them without leaving the present moment. This is very powerful at re-attaching, re-associating and reprogramming your mind to be in the present moment and actually serve you.

5. Learning how to be Selfish from the heart - Self-full

Most of us have been trained or programmed to think it’s a bad thing to be selfish. Let’s really look at the meaning of the word selfish, in the classic sense “selfish” means to think of yourself and no one else, or worse yet disregard and push away others. It can also be the same as greed or entitlement.

When you hear the word selfish, do you think of person who just thinks of themselves and no one else, or do you think of someone who thinks of themselves along with everyone else? In the truthful sense, everyone is selfish, all actions in any part of the day have some sort of selfish intent.  There are actually two types of selfish. There is the type that is motivated by avoiding pain, and there is another type of selfish that is motivated by seeking love. The first one is a reflex of protection and survival and the next is a choice out of thriving. Which one are you most of the time?

Selfish from your mind – Survival and Avoiding Pain

Have you been in situations where you’ve done so much for other people only to be left unappreciated and upset off after? What was your real motivation, were you really doing those actions because you were thinking of them first or did you do those actions not to feel guilty, not to feel like a bad person or not to be rejected in some way. The only way to really know is ask yourself how I would have felt if I did not do those actions, if the answer is bad or guilty you may have been motivated by just trying not to feel guilty. Were you doing those actions because you where trying to avoid pain. This is the classic people pleaser, that goes to the extreme to make everyone happy while simultaneously burning themselves out it the process. My clinic is full of these patients, they are the classic mother and wife that has sacrificed everything for their family, mostly out of obligation and responsibility and once the kids have grown they abruptly come to the realization that they are alone, except now they are alone inside of a burned out, out of shape body, they present with chronic fatigue, depression, anxiety, diabetes and heart disease.

For instance, what if I was only being nice to you because I don’t want to get rejected, feel bad or because I needed something from you. You still get the nice act I guess, but I am only really doing it because I have to not because I really want to. I am motivated by not wanting to get hurt, or feel guilt. So I am just thinking of myself, that’s me trying to avoid pain, I’m not really thinking of the other person first or at all, I am motivated solely by my reflex needs to avoid pain, this is the ultimate and more detrimental version of selfish. This is also the version that causes the most amount of lost time, health, potential to the person and the world around them.

In the family setting, the meaning of this word has lost the essence of helping one another, we have made the word selfish automatically imply some responsibility to care for everyone else accept ourselves. Oddly enough if your do not care for everyone else first your told that you are being selfish, when it is actually more the person who is motivated by avoiding pain that is the one being selfish. Now I am not saying we should not help care for those unable to care for themselves, I am merely saying that we must learn to merge them together to ensure that we help and nurture ourselves first, or all we do is end up creating another sick person to take care of.

Imagine a lady with her young daughter on a plane. Imagine and remember the oxygen mask? In the event of an emergency who are you supposed to put the mask on first? You or the child? You always put the mask on yourself first and then the child, that’s because unless you help yourself you can’t help your child. That would be considered selfish in the way we’re taught. It is in fact very self full. It would be very costly for you to die and leave your daughter with the mask on without a mother. It is okay to love and pay yourself first.

Self-full from your heart - Paying yourself first

Selfish from the heart is totally different than selfish from the mind. Selfish from the heart means self-fully always thinking of yourself first. This self-full exists in nature. Think of a growing plant it grows and becomes beautiful, programmed and focused on itself. It exists in balance and harmony with the other “selfishly self-full” plants. It grabs all of the light, oxygen and nutrients, everything that it needs when it needs it without guilt. This plant would simply not grow if it was programmed to believe that it was not worthy. The plant would die if it had to fight inside and debate past guilt every time it needed something to grow. A withering dying plant or person does nothing to inspire others how to grow and does nothing to feed or nurture anyone around it. Everyone loses.

Does it make sense that you have been given your amazing gift of life to make everyone happy except yourself? How happy and healthy could you really be if your time and life is given in this way? How happy could an “unhappy you” make others see the value of life? Could you really be the best you could be if you are the last person valued? Does it not reason that if you are happy and healthy that you would not only have more energy to show love but you would also have more ability to inspire others and you would be purposeful to more people at the same time as yourself. Why does someone always have to loose, becoming selfish from your heart means more people win consistently. What if you could think of yourself and others at the same time and by being selfish and loving yourself first it actually served not only you but others around you. The days of being able to merge the two to create a selfish from the heart that serves yourself and other is what is know as Self-Full and is basically the act of paying yourself first.

Paying yourself first

What do you think it feels like when you do something solely for yourself, do you feel great, or do you feel remorse or guilty? We are taught that it is wrong to think of ourselves and it is better to think of others first. This common program to think of others first (and us last) is the same thing as I am not lovable or valuable enough to love myself first and everyone else is worth more than me. Thinking of yourself may seem like a hard concept to grasp at first but it is the most efficient way to love others, and the world around you. Loving and paying yourself first, leaves no emotional debt for someone else to pay, you are creating, maintaining and inspiring happiness in every action of every day. Loving yourself first also means thinking of your happiness first and in the context of the heart really means “self-full”.

Selfish from the heart or “self-full”, is different, it means that you’re naturally always thinking of yourself in the equation of giving and taking, you automatically treat yourself as a priority, you take care of yourself, you esteem and value yourself, and you know and accept that you are valuable, important and lovable. Selfish from the heart means you’re shining because you’re connected to the light and your goal is to be as beautiful as you can be. I don’t mean primarily aesthetically, I just mean alive, open and beautiful. This type of selfish naturally and automatically adds back to the world, and it does it with the least amount of energy and the most amount of playfulness. It is not a chore to help when you are happy. A self-full person does not add more regret and fear back to the world, they do not add more hate back to the world. A truly selfish person from the heart adds love and gratitude to every day and every person.

If you are “selfishly self-fully” taking care of yourself and becoming happier and healthier every day, how many people do you think you could really help in life? If you are selfish from your mind, the way of helping people is exhausting, and someone will always loose….you. How quickly do you think you would get burned out? It take enormous of energy, time, lost health and potential when everybody else comes first, second and third and you get the scraps left over. This is the difference between a “care giver” and a “giver of care”. It’s efficient, it takes minimal energy to show love or give care when you take care of yourself first. The person running primarily from selfish from their mind will never run out of people or problems to save or think of first, this is also known as a co-dependent relationship. This type of selfish seems okay on the outside but actually limits the persons potential and will always have someone’s else’s problems to distract from your own. It is important to balance yourself, it is important to love yourself first.

Paying yourself first for the world
True selfishness in the not so positive sense really only exists in the mind and is based on the reflex to protect yourself from being hurt. Self full from the heart, the new version of selfish is something you do out of choice and has a positive effect on yourself, and those around you. If you’re going to do something do it because it makes you feel good not because it keeps you from feeling bad. Selfish from the mind avoids pain, selfish or self-full from the heart is done for the primary purpose to seek love, create peace and add more joy and happiness to yourself, your spouse, your family and the world. Whenever you help, love and value yourself first, you automatically ensure that you move positively through the world, while being less of a burden. You become efficient without society needed to take care of you. That means another person doesn’t have to help save you. Another benefit of not being a burden to anybody is that all of your energy is reserved for adding to this world. I believe that the religious context of guilt sometime takes us ways from the spiritual concept of helping others first through helping ourselves and then teaching others how to do the same. It was already assumed that if you have been given this amazing gift of life that you would choose to preserve it and help yourself first. What purpose and good are you really in the long run, and who will help you once you become sick. Help those by teaching them that their life is a gift. Help the world by showing them what joy looks like, in this way you can be purposeful and inspire those around you. There may be some truth to the expression the world helps those that help themselves.

Why is this world always thinking about debt instead of wealth? Why does this world have poverty, why does this world have war and disease? Entertain the possibility that people are taught the wrong version of selfish. Can you imagine if everybody actually took care of themselves? We would help those that are really are unable to help themselves, not the ones that are unable or been “enabled to be emotional disabled” because our survival programs have inadvertently taken their ability to feel, learn and make choices.

What a concept; being nice, loving and open because it feels good to you, can you think of any other reason to be nice, open and loving? This kind of selfish is positive, it is self-full and it rewards and pays you three times; it pays you and the people around you in the present moment, shines light into your past to clean any hurt and allows you to have an effect for your future. Being self-full makes you feel peaceful while allowing those around you to see your light.

Can you list all the advantages to becoming Self-full?

4. Are you stuck in the Numb Zone?

The NumbZone, is not a destination, thing or idea, it is a far too common state of not being fully alive. The NumbZone is the mind’s protective state; it protects us from feeling and living fully in the present moment. It is the part of our mind’s survival reflex that distracts us from any possible past hurts being recreated. This state exists by moving through life day-by-day without communicating or checking in with your own feelings.

You can even outwardly seem to be very emotional when in fact you’re true feelings are effectively blocked. A person trapped in the NumbZone is unaware that a deep survival reflex is constantly working in the background in a crude attempt to protect you from the reoccurrence of similar past hurts. The Numb Zone is a state of limited freedom and creativity where you are not really unhappy or happy. You may even identify this state as “being happy” or “being content” when in fact it is a state of just “not being miserable”. This NumbZone can become so much a part of your life that you spend your bank of time as though it had no value; months, days and hours pass where you are surviving rather than thriving. You may find yourself marking the days as though there was a severe shortage of love and happiness. Rather than living a life of direction and purpose, you wander through a maze of seemingly never-ending responsibilities, obstacles and diversions. You slave away at jobs that don't fulfill you and struggle with relationships that merely distract you from being alone rather than creating more love.

All in all, you've become increasingly protected, disconnected, stuck and shut down from the most precious thing of all: your very own living life. You have become comfortably numb. You have entered, mastered and become comfortable and safe in the NumbZone.

Feeling the NumbZone

One of the obvious problems with the being stuck in the NumbZone is that you cannot feel yourself in it, hence the word numb. You cannot feel yourself living or moving in either a positive or negative way. Even though you may have a sense of being stuck, out of control, trapped or powerless, you end up merely coping and surviving. You live your life without any significant contrast, and there is not enough energy left to promote change or even bring about awareness of the net in which you are entrapped.

To understand the purpose of a "feeling" for your life when it comes to position and direction, you must invite energy and awareness. Would you agree that if you followed a life of integrity or truth, you would have a higher chance of health, peace and happiness and your feelings would reflect that? Would you also agree that if you did the opposite you would have a higher chance of being unhealthy and unhappy? Feeling is the first part of awakening from the numbness, and you can begin today even if the feeling is only nameable as “numb”.

Awakening from the NumbZone

Never underestimate the power of suffering and adversity or a heart attack to move someone to change. You could spend years in the NumbZone until enough time, pain or suffering has past to push or awaken you from the numbzone. A breaking from the NumbZone is called an awakening and this happens when you have been unable to avoid and distract from your sadness, suffering or ill-health.  It is when you become aware of the troubled sense that your life should be different and you eventually come face-to-face with the fact that life, time and possibly health are slipping through your fingers. It is when you are unable to block the aloneness that lingers underneath when you look in the mirror with regret wondering where your life went. Awakening starts when you ask yourself the simple but challenging question, how do I feel?. 


If you knew that you where driving your car in the wrong way or direction would you change it? What if it was moving towards a cliff? What if people that you cared about were in the car? What would it take to alter your direction? Just like physically being awaken by your alarm, moving from the numbzone takes a shift or emotional bump to shake you to a feeling. To start the change in direction, you have to ask yourself the question, how do you feel, are you happy or sad? It is at that moment that you can clearly get an answer back, it is also at that moment that you can say, it is my time to change!!

4. This crazy thing called hurt

“Hurt” in this context, is an episode of childhood pain (physical and or emotional) significant enough to evoke your protective survival reflex. The reflex role is to protect the person from any repeat of the original hurt. The reflex is crude and has actions limited to shielding or moving away to prevent any future similar hurts. For a hurtful experience to alter your future behavior in a self protective way enough to detrimentally affect you, it had to be traumatic enough to feel any variation of rejected, abandoned, scared, powerless, out of control, alone, confused, sad, unwanted, unloved or unaccepted. These types of significant hurts that trigger a survival reflex are called factory or core hurts. A core hurt always as you can imagine involves a protective or survival reflex.

Core hurts represent a point in time when a child suffers without the proper love or understanding needed to process it. In other words, no one was there to “kiss the boo-boo or kiss it all better.” Ask yourself: if every time after experiencing a hurt, you also had received love and were told that everything would be okay; would the hurt have hurt so much? Would you have moved to an open more loving state faster?

It’s important to know that everyone experiences hurt and everyone has a core hurt. If you have lived you have been hurt and most likely the hurt was associated to someone that was supposed to love or protect you. For instance even if a child was hurt by a stranger, not only would the memory of the actual episode of hurt and the corresponding protections be there, but also the hurt of being rejected, abandoned, alone. The child would have not felt protected, safe or valued by the home and family. 

From person to person you really cannot compare hurts, whatever you’re greatest hurts is, it’s your greatest hurt. You hurt is yours, and your friend’s is your friends. It is true that our individual core hurts occurred in very different ways, but how we initially react to the event is the same. No matter what may have caused these feelings of powerlessness, rejection, abandonement, aloneness, out of control, fear and unworthiness, they all resulted in a protective survival reflex being activated. They also all resulted in the childhood version of unworthy or unlovable.

We all protected from hurt using our survival reflex to; stand still, attack or run away and hide. If left unresolved these protective reflexes become compounded with additional walls, fears and triggers. They can steal away time, freedom, creativity opportunities, health and our capacity to trust, experience optimal joy and to love. The first step is always the awakening that you are not your hurt, that you are not your mind and that the hurt and the corresponding survival reflex that leads your life is a reflex that can be changed.

5. Paying Yourself First

Hi Dr. Martin, - I have come across some really cool things today that others have said to me.  I really feel the need to pass it on to you this evening, well early morning. My life today has changed because of you.  I don’t really feel any change in me but others have seen and felt it.  This is a milestone in my life, thanks to God. I am amazed that one of my girl friends whom I’ve not seen in six months said to me this evening that I am “so beautiful” and that she has not seen me look so good­­.  I would not categorize myself as beautiful, but something has changed …… as I just wasn’t who I was before, the person that complained and looked unhappy all the time.  Well, just that’s not me anymore cause now I just embrace life, listen and accept.  It has served me well.  I am a different person in her eyes ……. wow. I really just feel more peaceful. I had a great evening connecting with people. That’s #1 of my Pay Myself First Lists that I just created with another girlfriend ……. A task that is a simple list of what brings joy into our life; I had no idea of what that may look like when it was mentioned a few days ago with her and it has ended up being something much more for me and will evolve over the next couple of weeks.  It’s amazing to me that the first thing on my list was about connecting, that brings joy? I somehow felt the need to put together this List as I really don’t know what brings me happiness, never really thought of it.  I’m inadvertently helping a friend, but really I’m doing it for myself, it’s all about sharing and communicating.  I can do it with my husband Rick, but he’s a guy and it’s different, he doesn’t get the conversation, and he doesn’t have to, we together do it anyway without a lengthy talk and I really want / need to connect with others cause there is just more than Rick out there. It’s all about being purposeful…..Ultimately bringing happiness into ones life…….Thanks for helping me through this journey …Y.

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.