Love the World at Large

It seems apparent to many that the world is less stable than it was, and in these austere times the power of the Western family of nations to shape world events is sharply diminished. To some it is a good thing that military budgets are being slashed, to others of old-fashioned European thinking it does not bode well.

These days it is China that is stepping up defence spending (and space missions) rather than the America, and the United Arab Emirates is set to field more advanced combat aircraft than the United Kingdom.

Some look at the bigger picture and see this as a natural progression. Some experts believe that the Earth's rotation affects civilisation, and every dominant society is in sync with something called the technological arc.

Technology is said to begin in China in 5,000 BC with the discovery of literature and architecture (and other inventions like pasta, alcoholic beverages and fireworks). For centuries this technological arc has moved through the Middle East, Egypt, Greece, Rome, the Ottomans, Florence, Europe and the Americas until it goes back to the Pacific Rim, always travelling west. (The Aztec people are usually given as an example why their advancements are never recognised, because they were at the wrong apex of the technological world arc - they were off it by 2,000 years.)

But our vision narrows when we're in a tight spot. Today, the political consequences of the global recession feeds into nationalism or extremism, and some fear that there might be mass rearmament, with the tension between austerity and trying to retain some kind of military role in an unstable world seeming hardly more starker. And some want to believe this, because they are attracted to the dark side of life. But we ignore history and the science of nature at our peril.

Countries around the world are in states if civil war, and people are warring with each other even when they come together to play sport - marring what should be a unifying event of friendly competition. Meanwhile, the youth follow by example. While reports reveal that young people in custody are almost 10 times more likely than adults to get involved in a fight or serious assault behind bars, it's shocking to discover popular online games for children are littered with very sexual, perverse, pornographic violent chat-rooms. Children are convicted of murder; teachers show pupils videos of murders in class. Internet bullying has become a fact of life.

New technology enables even smarter gadgets, but does it makes us smarter? We video chat with strangers and act so irresponsibly under the thin guise of anonymity online, but in real life we are still draconian enough in the west to outlaw same-sex marriages between consenting, responsible adults.

And some say civilisation seems at the mercy of not just human nature, but Mother Nature. As the Earth's rotation affects human events, some say that so, too, is it no coincidence we're also struggling with climate issues. With the world's own health in crisis thanks to humankind's footprint on the planet, the nations of the world are at odds with each other even on the issue of sustainable development.

No one can agree on exactly what to do, or even what the dangers are. While some models suggest that temperatures could rise by 3C by 2050, other studies suggest that global temperatures could be less sensitive to changing atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) levels than previously thought.

Aside from natural and political climates, the day-to-day weather's influence has often been crucial in key historical events, too. Hitler's invasion of Russia might have succeeded if there'd been a late autumn. It's likely JFK would not have won the presidency if polling day had been sunny. And a "little ice age" during medieval times led women to be accused of witchcraft for changing the weather.

Today, we're going from drought warnings to flash floods of rain, and no one's getting burnt at the stake for it, because science plays a larger part in our lives in the twenty-first century. Maybe too large a part, say some. Men who want to become fathers follow scientific studies to try and get the best quality of sperm. Women try even new fad that comes along purporting to be the latest fountain of youth, while hoping scientists will find a way to reverse ageing.

It gets confusing, because lifestyle advice given is always changing with every new study that comes along, with scientists researching every aspect of our lives. It's all about delving into the mysteries of life and death, but life on Earth may be on the way to an irreversible "tipping point".

The storm before the calm

The future is uncertain, but if we fall or stand, it will be together - that's a no brainer. We're all connected, and we all need to realise that every thought, every action causes ripples in our lives, and the lives of others. But in the certainty we all start to ask those big questions - what does it take to make life work?

In the actual experience of life itself, sometimes we can feel like a ship without a compass.

What does emerge from the questions we have about life, is that we are all unified by the growing sense of deep apprehension that life on the planet is doomed to an inexorable countdown to finality. There are even theories that say this is going to happen at the end of 2012 - the Mayan Long Countdown is one such popular theory.

What is actually going to happen? What is going to become of us? Well, some believe that this is a final overhaul of humanity, prior to an age of peace - not destruction. It's not the collapse, but the rebuilding of humanity, we civilisation is being rewired to work more efficiently that ever before in a future were we all unify our differences for our common goals of survival. It's a rewriting of humanity's cultural history on Earth.

It doesn't take a great leap of imagination to realise that to create peace in the world, we first have to be peaceful within our own selves. Peace will become the language of human beings, once we eradicate the errant fears we have through the fearful ego.

It's all about perspective, and it's so easy to paint a black picture from recent events. The positive aspect to this is that the opposite is also true - if we want we can look, and walk, on the bright side of life. The upheaval we see today could be viewed as the dissembling of the old way of life into a brighter future, where humanity is more coalesced and sharing ideas more freely than ever before.

We've come upon a great crossroads where we have the chance to reconstruct our entire cultural story in the next decades to reflect a whole different way of co-existing with each other. An entirely new definition of what it means to be human, in all the areas that are currently in upheaval - religion, sexuality, spirituality, education, politics - and all the way we interact and interconnect.

In this way, some believe that a new human manifesto is coming, in all areas of human endeavour, to get us to all engage in self-exploration - to ask questions and search for the answers inside ourselves.

Who am I? Where am I? Why am I where I am? And what do I intend to do about that? And finding answers that will show us a new way to be human, rather than be defined by the accumulation of outside glitter (i.e., who has the most toys in this game of life), to instead shine with the internal glitter of the love that resides in our minds for ourselves, our loved ones, and the world at large.

This isn't about putting a hold on rushing about in your daily life, and painting on that smiling "all is well" face for the world around you when you're not well at all. It's about a deep positive mindset that acts as a corrective to the negative output of the challenges and tasks that face us in the coming years. And a grasp of the fundamental understanding of the positive - that it has the power to change your life.

Brains react to positive imagery so well that a study has shown only after four sessions of a therapy known as neurofeedback, participants have seen significant improvements in their depression. Sensors are placed on the scalp to measure activity, with measurements displayed using video displays or sound.

Brain training is about breaking down emotional barriers to your success, and can help with much more than depression. It's about creating an outlook on life, a new way of engaging with you brain, where you control aspects of your brain activity to at last help your fully realise and reach your potential.

Unfulfilled potential is a terrible thing. Imagine the days that approach New Year - in the dying breath of the passing time, do you feel that another year has gone by without you having accomplished anything? You have nothing stellar to show for the year passed, except for the rising trend of statistics of how many days were spent sleeping, watching TV, video chats, or being "social" online?

If you stop to think about it, New Year is totally arbitrary. It's a random spot in the Earth's orbit. The Earth makes one orbit around the Sun right back to a random point, and the man who came up with this calendar thought the Earth was flat! But for many of us, this random spot on the calendar is the epitome of wasted potential.

As the bell tolls another year, the past is lost and gone to face the end that races so inexorably towards us.

Or is that the way we should see it? We could put a positive spin on it. The minute the clock strikes midnight on that day, it's literally a new year, filled with potential. Visualising it this way can help lift the vast weight of negativity off your shoulders. The New Year is an endless horizon, rich with possibility - where we can all become new people, and shut the door against the old.

When we refuse to shackle ourselves by the draconian restrictions of society, and our own negative thoughts, we discover our horizons are unlimited. It's an amazing feeling, but it can be scary, too - because it will mean you bungee jumping off the edge of your comfort zone.

Breaking down barriers

Don't waste your potential. If you can envision greater success and happiness in any and all aspects of your life, if you can just feel the potential of it in your core, it already exists. It IS real. And it is already yours.

If you feel out of alignment with the life you are currently living versus the life you just know from your core you are meant to live - then take action.

Even if those niggling thoughts only occur in your quietest moments - even if you share them with no one else - those thoughts and feelings from your core about the success and happiness you KNOW you are meant to achieve are not pipe dreams. You are not hallucinating. You cannot see and feel what is not there. You are NOT being unrealistic. Never, ever, EVER let anyone (including yourself) convince you otherwise.

But it's not a matter of struggling even harder to conquer dragons in the external world, nor of course is it a matter of buying more material goods, in order to experience your greater success, happiness and inner-peace. (Though most people waste tremendous amounts of energy, and bury themselves deeper in ruts of stress, worry, depression, feeling overwhelmed, and debt, in the mistaken belief that it is.)

Instead it is a matter of clearing through the emotional barriers inside of you that barricade you from experiencing the success in your relationships, career, health, and other areas of life that you feel deep inside should be yours - and that therefore really are yours.

Some experts call these emotional barriers "rust and crust”, because you can envision living according to your truth and purpose - living according to who you really are - like a pipe between your gut, heart and head.

The more that emotions like guilt, self-doubt, worry, anger, fear, envy, confusion and depression have gone misunderstood and untended, the more rust and crust that develops in your pipe - and the more therefore your daily thoughts and actions are barricaded from and out of alignment with your deepest knowledge and truths.

And THAT, of course, creates the barriers to the greater success and happiness that should be yours, and will be yours, because in the truest sense they are already yours.

Plus, these untended emotions, this "rust and crust", is also believed to be THE cause of today's most prevalent chronic diseases like cancer, heart disease, chronic back and neck problems, and stroke, and the physical pain that comes with them.

We, along with our world, suffer from the rust and crust of barriers, but we have the potential to cleanse ourselves, for happiness and success. You see, you lack for nothing.

I know many people in our marketing-saturated culture have been trained to find that hard to believe, which is why they work to utter weariness and death and endlessly blow hard-earned money on illusions like pills, paint-by-number self-help programmes, and get-rich-quick schemes.

They've been brainwashed into believing they LACK certain external things that will make them healthier, wealthier, more satisfied in love, more successful in their careers, and happier overall.

They waste tremendous amounts of energy - and drive themselves deeper into anxiety, depression, feeling overwhelmed and empty and all the rest - and they frankly destroy their life in the endless pursuit of that next something they believe they lack.

But as long as you are alive, you lack for nothing. You DO have all you need right there inside of you to achieve the success you feel you should have in your health, wealth, career, relationships, artistic and athletic pursuits and every important aspect of life.

It is instead a matter of becoming aware of and then clearing away the emotional barriers, the rust and crust, inside you, versus getting some illusionary something that is the answer, and so I invite you to start experiencing today what will inevitably be the most positively transforming and informative journeys of your life.

It won't transform you into someone you're not. By busting through those stubborn emotional barriers built from years of not-completely-recognized and therefore untended emotions - your "rust and crust" - it will be one of the most powerful steps you ever take to transform you into who you know deep inside you really are, and ELIMINATE pain and protect you against physical disease in the process. It is the REAL answer to the question, "How to be happy?"

You can do this with my 90 day mind healing programme, where you'll be able to take this powerful and unique journey from anywhere you can listen to audio training, on your computer or your iPod or mp3 player, in your car or home stereo, and at your own pace.

Turn off the poison valves in your life

But to bring significant change to your life, you will have to take action, too - to stop up those poison values and stop those energy vampires that surround you sucking your positive energy dry, and zapping your productivity - so you're not acting in your best interests or those of your loved ones.

Here's the first step to using this incredible science of positivity to achieve what YOU want: Make a list of all those people you come into contact with, do it from your gut, don't feel guilty about it. Ask yourself of each person on your list, "Do I generally feel some negative emotion after engaging with him/her?" Don't focus on one particular bad spot, but notice if this is rising trend - and understand that an energy vampire isn't necessarily a bad person. It's just that their negativity is adversely affecting you, too.

If they're a loved one, get them on the programme, too. You can both support each other. Otherwise, you have to act tough and distance yourself from the energy vampires in your life.

Another list to make are those outer media influences - those toxic experiences created by other people - that you are letting into your brain (like junk food into your body) to sabotage your health and happiness. Just because you might like a certain TV show (like you might like a tasty hamburger) it doesn't mean it is good for you. So, list all those TV shows, radio shows, websites, books and other media you ROUTINELY expose yourself to and then go through the same gut check analysis you perform with your energy vampires.

Ask yourself, "During or after this show do I feel upbeat, educated, inspired or at peace - or do I generally feel drained of energy, paranoid about other people and the world, worried, down, stressed, helpless, angry and some other negative emotion?" Namely, Is this media experience a poison valve for me?

You might be surprised to discover that some of your favourite shows and pastimes are contributing to your emotional barriers and pain. Similarly, you might like smoking, but that doesn't mean it's good for you.

Likewise, make a list of the places you go, restaurants, family homes, supermarkets, parks, vacations - and then do a gut check analysis to see if they are a positive or negative effect on your life.

And finally, perform this poison valve analysis on the things in your home and workplace, and anywhere you spend a significant amount of time. Things like decorations, pictures, even kitchen appliances - because as some Far Eastern cultures know very well - every object in your home carries a story personal to you, and can impact you powerfully in subconscious ways.

Click here to rewire your mindset for success!

These can be ways you are not even remotely aware of - for instance a close friend, when she did this poison valve analysis of objects in her home, realised that the clothes she had bought with her ex-boyfriend were making her sick and tired when she wore them. She would feel depressed when she wore those clothes on those days, and immediately felt better after she discarded them for good.

So make those lists and identify the poison valves in your life - the people, places, media and things that are sucking the energy out of you and promoting stress, worry, fear, oppression, anger and other such emotions.

Even just becoming aware of these poison valves is part of the cure, as you are now in control rather than these things controlling you.

Now sometimes you can't just stop and get rid of these poison valves - for example energy vampires that are close to you, but the awareness you now have is key. You are now in control of how you respond. And how you respond will be down to your mindset, which you can rewire for success with my mind healing programme.

For example, if you have a negative mother-in-law, you can pro-actively shield yourself from her negative influences, by preparing yourself to not allow her negativity penetrate your mind, and thus your being.

Just by being kind and practising selective listening for example (called responding versus reacting) can help you overcome the negativity of any energy vampire that happens to be in your life, and which you can't get rid of because of relationship or blood ties. You can plan for any engagement with the energy vampire people, reduce your time with them, if not eliminate it altogether.

You can shut off the poison value TV or radio show (even if you like them) made from the toxic minds of others, and switch to something else instead that makes you feel good and fills you with positive energy for life.

In the same way, you can stay away from the toxic places on your list, and you can certainly throw out, or give away, the "poisoned" objects in your home and replace them with positive ones.

Get motivated for change

Once you have cleansed your life of these toxins, then the second step is to decide what kind of stuff you're actually motivated BY. What actually motivates you to do stuff? Let me break it down for you a little bit here.

There are two things that motivate people toward success: inspiration and desperation. There is "away from" motivation, and there is "toward" motivation. People who are "away from" motivated tend to be excellent problem solvers. They see the PROBLEMS inherent in things. They're motivated by the AVOIDANCE of unpleasant sensations like pain, stress, and anxiety.

For example, to motivate themselves to get a rust patch on their car fixed, they wouldn't think about how great their car would look with a fresh coat of paint. They'd be motivated by how BAD it would be if they let the rust spread. They're motivated by a desire to AVOID certain things.

People who are "toward" motivated are motivated by POSITIVE things, like pleasure, goals, and rewards.

They tend to respond well to perks and incentives - for example, an office worker who's motivated by 'toward' results would do well in their job if their boss offered bonuses and rewards schemes.

Knowing which kind of end result drives you is a BIG part of motivating yourself to achieving what you want.

In terms of the success that you can achieve, you're just as well off with EITHER type of motivation. You can achieve HUGE success with EITHER of these types, but actually retraining your mind to be motivated by positive things will also bring about all the benefits of positivity mentioned in this article.

There is a 1970s approach called neuro-linguistic programming (NLP) which focuses on communication, personal development, and psychotherapy. In changing patterns of behaviour, NLP experts use the example of a stock forecaster to illustrate the success of an "away from" motivated person. The forecaster's desire to NOT lose money and NOT "get hurt" by the stock exchange motivates him/her to amass a fortune, but "away from" motivated people need to be aware of 3 important things, so that they can make the most of their personality without suffering undue stress:

1. That the further away you get from the "threat" that's motivating you, the more your motivation may diminish. So let's say you're motivated by a fear of loneliness. You meet someone you fall in love with, so you're no longer lonely, but he/she may actually be completely wrong for you, and not suit your personality all that much. But because your primary threat - that of loneliness - has been neutralised, your motivation to get a more suitable partner isn't strong enough to change the status quo.
2. "Away from" motivators are more focused on what they're getting away FROM than what they're heading TOWARDS. This can prompt a kind of "out of the frying pan, into the fire" chain of results: they're too focused on what they DON'T want, so don't necessarily focus on getting somewhere they actually want to be.
3. Things like pain, anguish, anxiety, and discomfort are what prompt "away from" people to act. Sometimes, these people put up with too much stress and pain before they're motivated to change the situation. This is an unpleasant and ineffective way to operate.

In my "Let Love Shape Your Destiny" post I mention that you have to know what your core values are in order to motivate yourself to achieve them. They are what teaches you what you want, and what you DON'T want.

Then it's time to figure out how to use this knowledge to motivate yourself, in a way that you JUST CAN'T SAY NO TO into getting what you really want. And how can you overcome your natural discouragement, your fear of BAD things happening as a result of trying to achieve something? The trick to overcoming these discouragers is all in the DETAILS.

Practitioners of NLP call these details "submodalities". Submodalities are the "fine print" of any task, action, or item. For example, the submodalities of an image could be that it's three-dimensional or flat. It could be in colour, sepia, or black and white. It could be panoramic and seen right up close, or it could be small, faint, and far away. These details are all submodalities of that image.

Interestingly, the human brain uses certain submodalities when it's deciding whether something is attractive to you or not. Picture a drop-dead sexy person. Visualise him/her. Notice how detailed your mental image of him/her is. This makes perfect sense when you think about it - your brain knows that you like the idea of this man or woman, so it tries to please you by supplying you with as much detail as possible.

Now, take a deep breath to clear your mind. Visualise a person who you find very unattractive. Notice how much less detailed this mental image is! This is because the brain visualizes things that are unattractive to it as being very small, dim, distant, and dull.

In contrast, the person you found attractive was seen by your brain as being big, bright, detailed, and close up to you.

Here's why this is useful: because you can make things seem IRRESISTIBLY ATTRACTIVE to yourself simply by changing that thing's submodalities. In other words, you can trick your brain into being attracted to an idea, simply by changing the way your brain looks at it. It's all a matter of perspective.

Alter the submodalities, and you alter your desires.

So visualise what you want in clear, glossy, high-definition colour. Make this picture BIG, BRIGHT, and CLOSE UP. Visualise any discouragers as being very small, distant, indistinct, fuzzy, and poorly-coloured. Your brain will naturally be drawn towards that which is close, detailed, and high-resolution. Your motivation to achieve this end result automatically becomes stronger.

This is a good tip to use when you are customising visualisations to use with my 90 day system to rewire your mindset to help you attract everything your heart desires.

You can use it to develop a strong, fulfilling, and rewarding relationship, if that's what you wish, or just to create more love for the changing world at large. The Chinese say it's a curse to live through interesting times, but with the right mindset you can turn any curse into a blessing.

Yours in love,