Well, today is big day for me and I am really excited! I am finally releasing the eBook version of The Woodstock Bridge. I invited the talents of Calvin Ki, my “jeti master of design”, to create the eBook and it looks so awesome and beautiful. The magnificent breakthroughs that clients experience here in Sedona started from the ideas described in The Woodstock Bridge...

In just minutes, using eBook download,you will have secrets to connect you deeper to your true self! I am still awed by these little computer miracles!  For more information or to order, please click here

“I read it cover to cover. I was inspired!”
- JOSEPH BAILEY, author of Slowing Down to the Speed of Life and other books

“I didn’t put the book down until it was finished! My feeling was, it gave respect and honor to the Great Native American cultures. It’s a fine book and very worthwhile reading.”
- GORDON BIRD, Musician - Mandan-Hidatsa-Arickara Nation

Click here to order or for more information!

**This little story is dedicated to S.H. Thank you for your praise. I am truly honored. A Ho

Well, I did it! I am talking a vacation! Today is the first day and I have to admit I had a great time. Things just seem to flow. I went furniture shopping and I found the most incredible wood table and chairs for the new office. I have looked every where and was so excited about finally finding it. I even got the sales lady excited with my happiness! The PC crashed big time so I did want to be responsible and catch up with the column, so I decided to write about this breakthrough.

How I got this vacation started is what I want to talk about. I was really stressing about what to do with myself for 6 days. “Should I go to Vegas?” or “Should I go to Mexico”. First, I am bored with gambling-so that’s out. And Mexico-yes that might be cool but too hot. What I “got” yesterday was the very first thing I needed to do what stop stressing! And just point myself towards a nice feeling. That nice feeling was going furniture shopping. And as soon as I did that-the world started flowing towards me. People were nice to me. When I was driving I got all green lights. A few problems got solved. And I had some good insights about projects.

Remember, all insight, which is sight from within, comes via a good feeling. This is a spiritual fact, it can be debated. You will never think yourself to an insight or to your wisdom. My book, The Woodstock Bridge, is about this theme.

Why was I reluctant to go on vacation? It was simple, the thought of going alone just felt sad to me-”It’s no fun alone”. Every time, I paid attention to the many variations of that thought, I would get really down and going away felt horrible. As my clients know, a big theme in my work is-”you’re paying to much attention to your thoughts-that’s why you feel negative-that’s all that’s going on right now.”

The prospect of going on vacation alone was the one thought I guess I thought was an exception! But this past week, after telling clients a dozen times-”There are no exceptions! It’s all thought!” I finally got it a little deeper myself! It’s interesting because even though I have been teaching the principle of thought for a while, I have never phrased it quite like that till the last few weeks. My spirit was shouting up at me with my own words! Your own spirit is so smart.

So, I am going to ride the wave of the good feeling and see what tomorrow brings. I will wake up and say, “What will feel like a nice thing to do today?” Maybe I will go visit the white buffalo in Flagstaff that I have heard so much about. I hear they have a very special feeling. If I go, I will remember to bring some tobacco to offer them as a little gift in the old way.

If you come to the Magic Kingdom and sit across from me on Sedona Retreat, you will know that the beautiful table you are leaning on was the doorway to a small personal breakthrough. I hope you find your table!

A Ho,

Greg

On the radio I just heard an author named Joan (unfortunately, I didn’t catch her full name or the name of the book) discussing her new book about suicide. Apparently her father tragically had committed suicide after being unhappy his entire life. Also recently I heard about a U.S. General Social Survey conducted by Davis and Smith in 2005 of the National Opinion Research Center that found less than 1/3 of Americans consider themselves “very happy,” and not counting those who grew up in the Great Depression baby-boomers are generally the least “very happy” group of all (28%). I don’t have time to dig into what percentage of people call themselves “unhappy,” but this at least means that more than 2/3 of Americans do not call themselves “very happy.”

The obvious question is why? Why isn’t everyone very happy? What is the cause of unhappiness? A study comparing happiness rates of different countries (for which I also can’t find the citing) states, “The most important determinant of happiness…is the extent to which people have free choice in how to live their lives.” I am not denying this statement is true, but a reasonably close look at these data show the survey only asked questions about effects on happiness from the external world. I offer an alternative view.

I suggest the two primary reasons for unhappiness are: 1) people believing their thoughts are reality; 2) people not realizing that at their essence they are already pure happiness and joy and love and peace, and the only way they cannot experience happiness is through # 1.

Let’s see how this plays out in an e-mail conversation I am in the process of having with someone I’ll call Paul, from Scotland. Paul wrote to me.

P: I received your book Somebody Should Have Told Us as a gift from a fiend. I have read it and although it makes sense I am finding it hard to put into place/

action the theory. I have been suffering from Anxiety/Agoraphobia for a number of years and I have done Hypnosis, NLP, EFT, TFT, all to no avail. I am 53 yrs old Ex Alcoholic (13yrs) Ex Smoker (10yrs) and yet I cannot get over theses feelings of I am going to suffocate/I can’t breath…I seem to be stuck and its very, very frustrating. Its like it’s ok for them but why does nothing seem to work with me? Well apart from scaring the living daylight out off myself. Any advice would be most welcomed.

JP: The answer your question is very simple, but not easy. Plus, I would have to “deep listen” to you for a while to know where exactly you needed to go, and obviously I don’t have that luxury right now. So I can only answer generally, and I’m not sure how much help it will be. The key is to see that what you are calling anxiety and agoraphobia is really just your own thinking–not reality…The idea is to see and realize that with our incredible power of Thought, with which we can come up with anything, we are creating our own anxiety, our own agoraphobia, our own misery. We create the thoughts and then we believe them and then we feel them. It’s so innocent. But it’s the only way we can ever feel the anxiety: by thinking it up and by believing it. Otherwise we wouldn’t feel it…

P: Because this problem is very debilitating, it is hard for me to change or accept it. I know that I am doing this to myself. I don’t fear the outside I fear the loss of control, the fear that I cannot escape. When I read your email and you said: The answer to question is simple, but not easy. I went, “That is right…. I know it’s not easy,” and that was a sense off relief… What I mean is if it was easy I will not be able to do it and it being hard means its ok and acceptance. Good God, Jack I don’t believe I just wrote that……It makes me think that I don’t want to get rid of this problem.

JP: [I checked in with him a month later to see how he was doing]

P: Nothing has changed. Well apart from thinking my life is crap. Whooops I am not suicidal, Jack. Just thinking about going for a walk, and all the other things I cannot do. With this belief I just cannot seem to change the way I think and thinking is the catalysts for the panic attacks. The thought is compounded with the feelings and vice-versa … I am so frustrated and confused…Thanks for asking

JP: There is only one problem here: You believe your thinking! You don’t realize these thoughts that jump into your head don’t mean anything, that they’re lies, that it’s your mind playing tricks on you, and you’re falling for it. (But you’re not alone–we all do!) Did you see the movie, A Beautiful Mind? If you have, watch it again. See the moment when John Nash realized it was all his own creation because the girl he kept seeing wasn’t getting any older over the years. That girl (and all the rest) looked so real to him that no one could have talked him out of it. Until he realized it himself. But it’s the same thing with you and me and everyone else in the world. It’s just a matter of degrees; Nash’s was extreme, yours is powerful, mine trips me up more often than I would like when I forget. Consciousness makes everything we think look like absolute reality. But the mind with its ego wants to protect itself–that’s its job–so it pulls out all stops to make it all look like reality. But it isn’t reality. It’s something we’re seeing and we’re the see-er. But who is the you who is the see-er? Who is the person doing the seeing in the first place? The misery is being seen but it’s after the fact. Who is the one seeing the misery before the misery comes to exist? That You is your essence. That You is perfect peace, love and wisdom. That You is everything you’re looking for. The rest is trickery. The only thing standing between the real You (what you’re looking for) and your misery is the belief you have that what you’re thinking is true.

And guess what? You’re the one who has the free will to decide which one to believe: the real You or the thoughts it generates about yourself. And the kicker is, whichever you pick is the feeling you get to live with. You don’t have to change the way you think. You can’t think differently from the level of consciousness you’re at. None of us can. You can only see how it really works within you, and if you really see it, your thinking will change on its own because you will have jumped levels of consciousness.

P: When [my friend] first came to see me he suggested that I take 15 mins maybe twice a day on my own and just let what thoughts come into my head and just say “Its not real they are only thoughts”. He said he [and his mentor] got brilliant results. I think that’s wonderful for their clients but it seems to do nothing for me I can see what they mean but seeing it doesn’t change it.

JP: What [your friend] suggested with I’m sure the best of intentions is a technique. Techniques are not the answer. All answers lie within, via realization. …And unless thinking actually changes, no change is possible.

Underneath all that is a larger question. It almost seems as if you have a vested interest in staying stuck. There must be something you are getting out of that. Ask yourself what’s been the benefit for you for you to stay stuck. Don’t try to figure it out; after you ask that of yourself (or the universe or God), then just get quiet and go about your business, and see what comes. Then if you see the reason, the reality of that reason is what needs to be called into question. Is this reason really true? I think the reason why what your friend suggested didn’t work is you’ve got some thinking that’s driving the whole mess that you don’t even realize you’re having. So how can you ask if something is real when you don’t even know what it is?

In an earlier e-mail you said, “I fear the loss of control, the fear that I cannot escape.” The important thing to realize about that is control, too, is an illusion, and fear of loss of control is also an illusion. Both are created in our own minds. That you can’t escape is another illusion. It’s all illusion. But for some reason you want to hold onto it as reality instead. I don’t know why–yet.

To Be Continued.

For further information, contact Jack Pransky, Center for Inside-Out Understanding, P.O. Box 1392, Montpelier, VT 05601 ~ (802) 229-5871; e-mail: jack@healthrealize.com