The Lefkoe Institute

When I first developed the Lefkoe Belief process to eliminate limiting beliefs almost 28 years ago, very few people talked about the importance of beliefs. Today most people in the personal growth field acknowledge that permanent change is really impos...

As I started to get dressed this morning it hit me.  “It” was this overwhelming feeling of unhappiness, heaviness, and upset.  I felt miserable.  I did not want to go to work.  I hadn’t felt this badly in many months. (http://www.mortylefkoe.com/wp-content/uploads/bigstock-Misery-crop-300x265.jpg)I hadn’t felt this way when I had awakened a couple of hours earlier.  I had jumped out of bed when the alarm went off after getting plenty of sleep.  I had put on my robe and gone down to my desk as I always do to spend about 45 minutes answering emails and preparing my schedule for the day.  Then still feeling fine, I had a good breakfast of eggs and toast.  It was when I went to the bathroom to start getting ready for the day that this horrible feeling seemed to spring up from out of nowhere. For a few minutes I felt overwhelmed by it.  Then I started to use some of the techniques I’ve developed and written about to try to get myself out from underneath this ominous black cloud.  After a few minutes the thought occurred to me: “This is a great opportunity to notice everything I am doing to overcome this heavy, dismal feeling, so I can write about it in this week’s blog post.  Instead of writing an article with suggestions on how to overcome suffering, I’ll write an article about what I actually did.  I’ll dictate my thoughts into my pocket recorder and transcribe them later.” I felt really terrible So here are my thoughts and feelings from earlier today. The first thoughts I recorded were: “It’s hard for me to think; it’s hard to concentrate. I just don’t want to be here. This is really painful.” I used to have this type of feeling at least once a week for most of my life.  As I eliminated beliefs and conditionings, these attacks became less and less frequent.  I think the last episode was about a year ago. It only took a couple of minutes of focusing on what I was feeling before I noticed a big difference between my experience of painful feelings today and my experience of similar feelings years ago. In the past Morty had been upset.  The upset had been inside me and all around me at the same time.  There had been no part of me that wasn’t upset.  This morning was very different: “I” could detach from the upset and watch myself being upset. It was almost as if there was a separate “I” who was watching Morty be upset.  Moreover, I knew I was only having a “feeling”; it wasn’t who I was.  I knew it would pass soon no matter what I did or didn’t do.  This little exercise didn’t make the feeling go away, but it did create a slight distance between the upset and ME.  As a result I didn’t feel totally overwhelmed by the feeling, as I had been years ago. Looking for the source of the feeling Once I had gotten some distance from the “black hole” I seemed to be in, I asked myself: “Where did this feeling come from?  What is causing it?” I thought of everything that was going on in my life.  Both of my daughters have been going through difficult times recently and I felt that neither have allowed me to help them the way I wanted.  They have been talking to my wife Shelly a lot more than they have been talking to me.  Had I given that any meaning?  I realized that I had given it meaning when I first noticed it, but I had dissolved it quickly.  This morning it was clear to me that my relationship with the two of them had nothing to do with the lousy way I was feeling. At this point I noticed that some part of me wanted to hold on to the upset.  I had reverted to feeling that Morty was upset.  I was so identified with the upset that not having it seemed like an invalidation of me somehow.  As soon as I noticed this, I again focused on observing myself having the feeling.  As soon as I was able to separate myself from the feeling and watch myself having it, the resistance to finding a way to get rid of it disappeared and the feeling itself diminished in intensity. Then,

Larry said at the start of a Skype session with me, “You’ve helped me get rid of a bunch of self-esteem beliefs and I feel much better, but I still can’t seem to move forward on the things that are most important in my life.” (http://www.mortylefkoe.com/wp-content/uploads/bigstock-Guy-With-Thought-Bubble-9404831-178x300.jpg) I replied, “If some things in your life are improving, then beliefs clearly are being eliminated. Now we need to find the additional beliefs that are causing your continuing resistance.” In that session he eliminated a few more relevant beliefs, such as, what happens in my life is outside my control, I’m deeply flawed, and I don’t work. At our next session Larry seemed puzzled. “Every time we eliminate beliefs I feel better, but the problem doesn’t seem to go away. Moreover, the words of the beliefs we’ve worked on don’t seem true, but something about them does feel true.” When you’ve eliminated all the beliefs you can think of that could explain a given problem and when the beliefs that have been eliminated somehow still feel true, the problem is probably being caused by a conditioned “sense.” A sense is not a cognitive statement like a belief; it exists as a feeling. If you try to communicate to someone what that sense feels like, you might use colors (like dark), physical sensations (like heavy), metaphors (like I’m being stopped by a wall), short phrases (like can’t move forward), etc. You can have a sense of many things, but the most common three senses are of yourself, of people, and of life. Larry’s sense of self I decided to check Larry’s sense of self to see if that explained why his resistance to taking action was still there after eliminating all the beliefs we could find. When I asked him to close his eyes and get in touch with his sense of self—and then describe it with whatever words came closest to what he was feeling—here’s what he said: “total mismatch for life; not really functional enough for life; out of control; overwhelmed; the world seems totally uncontrollable; things coming at me all around; I don’t have the computing power to cope with the world; and I have no capability to react adequately.” What is a sense? Your sense of yourself feels like who you really are; it feels like you were born this way; this feeling is you. A sense of people feels like who people really are; people are inherently this way; they always were and always will be this way. And a sense of life feels like the way life really is; life is always this way, no matter what. These three senses can be positive or negative. If they are positive, leave them alone. If they are negative and adversely affecting your life, de-condition them with the process I provide at the end of this post. (See also an earlier post that discussed the Lefkoe Sense Process, http://www.mortylefkoe.com/rid-negative-senses/ (http://www.mortylefkoe.com/rid-negative-senses/)) Where do these senses come from? Our senses are the result of conditioning specific feelings, as I’ll explain below. But where do the feelings come from? In order for us to be able to experience a feeling, there must be an event stimulating the feeling. But that is not sufficient. Except for stimuli that are explicit threats to our physical survival, like the experience of drowning, stimuli themselves do not have inherent meaning for adults. The meaning adults give to events is what triggers emotions. On the other hand, certain events can have inherent meaning for children. Because young children realize their survival depends on adults, especially their parents, being yelled at or punished inherently means to them they are not loved, which means they might be abandoned, which means they could die. Obviously similar events (such as being yelled at by a spouse, friend or boss) don’t have the same inherent meaning for adults. If we experience similar meanings repeatedly, obviously we will have the same feelings over and over.

“What is your understanding of the Law of Attraction?” I asked Joe Vitale.  He has become a good friend who I really love and admire.  He and his wife Nerissa had traveled from their home in Texas to visit my wife Shelly and me for the weekend.  Over dinner one night we talked about a wide variety of topics, including Internet marketing, spirituality, and relationships. I asked this specific question because I knew that Joe had written extensively on the Law of Attraction (LOA) and I wanted to hear his thoughts.  Over the years I have gone from totally believing in the LOA to thinking it is absolute nonsense.  I thought it was time to finally resolve my position on the issue. (http://www.mortylefkoe.com/wp-content/uploads/Morty-and-Joe-V-at-Muir-Woods-102112-298x300.jpg) Joe started by explaining that he did not accept what many LOA teachers claim, which is that all you need to do is focus on what you want with enough emotion and it will “show up” in your life.  Joe contended that merely sitting in a room focusing on a goal would not produce results; action was required. Moreover, he argued, your intention can be totally stopped if you have beliefs in the way.  I agreed wholeheartedly and added that getting rid of beliefs actually opens up possibilities that hadn’t existed before. After a fascinating give and take, I think Joe agrees with me on the essentials, but he is going to write a blog post today on his version of what happened.  I can’t wait to read his post and see if we do fully agree on what the LOA actually is and is not. Here’s my current position that resulted from our discussion.  The following description of how the LOA works makes more sense to me than any I’ve ever seen. Create a clear vision of what you want First, create a vision.  In order to have an effective vision you need to distinguish between a vision and a goal.  A goal is something specific you want to have happen; it is measurable.  A vision is like a direction you want to go in; it is a process; it is never ending.  Wanting to teach something specific to 100 people in a workshop is an example of a goal. Wanting to help as many people as possible improve their lives in any way you can, is a vision.  You can achieve a vision and still have more to do the next day.  Once a goal is achieved, there is nothing more to do. Be passionate about your vision Second, you need to be passionate about your vision.  You have to be so excited about your vision that you constantly look for ways to achieve it. You need a vision that you really are passionate about having or doing or being.  This is not the same as holding a vision strongly and with emotion, as some teachers have recommended.  As you will see in a moment, it’s not having emotion as such that is important, it is about really caring about your vision. Get rid of beliefs that will sabotage your vision Third, eliminate any beliefs that are inconsistent with your vision.  If you don’t, the beliefs will likely foreclose the possibility of getting what you want.  For example, if you focus on the vision of having a great relationship (as distinct from the goal of having a relationship with a specific person) and you believe Relationships don’t work, I’m not loveable, and Men/women can’t be trusted, you probably will find it difficult to have a good, long term, nurturing relationship. Here’s why.  Our beliefs are the primary determinant for the meaning we give events moment to moment, and that meaning determines our behavior and emotions. For example, assume you had the beliefs I just listed above.  You now meet someone you like and a relationship is forming.  The meaning you give to everything your new girl/boyfriend does and says is directly affected by these beliefs. Imagine your girl/boyfriend doesn’t call when promised.  Given these three and other similar beliefs his/her behavior will likely occur to you as: He/she has probably just been stringing me along.

Do you experience mental pain and suffering from time to time?  Most of us have those unpleasant experiences far more often than we’d like, so we search for a way to get rid of them.  Here are several possible approaches. (http://www.mortylefkoe.com/wp-content/uploads/Photo-for-101612-blog-post-suffering-300x300.jpg)First, we can try to suppress them.  If we aren’t aware of them, they can’t hurt us.  We aren’t necessarily consciously aware of shutting down and numbing ourselves to our internal state, but doing this is a common approach to stopping our experience of unpleasant feelings.  Unfortunately, no matter how hard we try, it is very difficult to suppress pain and suffering constantly.  It’s like holding a beach ball filled with air underwater.  With enough effort and concentration you can do it for a while, but eventually you will forget and the ball will pop to the surface.  As a result this is probably the least effective approach. Second, we can cover them with some type of addiction.  Addictions to alcohol, drugs, gambling, sex, etc. are all attempts either to deaden ourselves in order to stop feeling pain or to increase our endorphins so we feel good.  Addictions can sometimes cover up our pain in the short run, but the long-term consequences of an addiction are usually far worse than the pain could ever be. Third, we can try psychotherapy.  Although there are many different forms of psychotherapy and most are very different from each other, almost all of them assume that pain and suffering are inevitable.  As a result their goal is to teach you how to deal with them as effectively as possible.  Luckily, some therapies can be very effective in helping us deal with our pain and suffering. Fourth, we can turn to spirituality.  A spiritual path has a lot of important benefits, but trying to transcend one’s pain and suffering to avoid dealing with it can be a trap.  Being in a non-dual state is a powerful experience, but it does not necessarily change one’s experience as a “creation.” Jack Kornfield, an American who spent years meditating in the East, writes how he experienced dissolving into white light and being at one with the universe and yet when he got home had the same relationship problems he left with. If you don’t use spirituality as an escape from your pain and suffering, it can be extremely valuable.  Realizing that you are something more than your body, thoughts, and feelings can be very liberating.  Recognizing that you are a manifestation of something bigger than yourself can be very empowering.  A spiritual practice only becomes a problem when you use it to pretend that it is sufficient to deal with the concerns of your “creation,” including pain and suffering. As the philosopher Ken Wilber has pointed out, a spiritual practice is not a substitute for dealing with our day to day psychological problems. Fifth, we can acknowledge that pain and suffering are not inevitable.  They are the result of the meaning we give events.  Once we realize that, we can dissolve the meaning, thereby eliminating our pain and suffering, instead of assuming they are inevitable and trying to cope with them. As I’ve explained many times in this blog, events have no inherent meaning.  As a result, events cannot make us feel anything.  And if they can’t make us feel anything, events can’t produce mental pain and suffering.  So where do our pain and suffering come from?  The meaning we give both internal and external events as they happen. For example, imagine you lose your job.  It seems as if that event is causing you pain and suffering.  It is not.  If we experience pain and suffering it is the result of giving the event the meaning: This is a disaster.  I will have a hard time getting another comparable job.  That meaning would inevitably lead to pain and suffering.  On the other hand, if you gave the same event the meaning: This is an opportunity to start my own business,

Time magazine this week reported that 19 states still allow teachers to paddle students in schools.  What is even more alarming is that adult acceptance of spanking, while lower than it was 50 years ago, was still approved of by 71% in 2004. The article made me realize that a blog post I wrote a couple of years ago is as relevant as ever.  So I’m reprinting it this week with some editing to bring it up to date.  If you didn’t read it, please read it now.  If you did read it when it was originally published, please read it again.  There is an important exercise at the end for everyone, even if you aren’t a parent or your children are grown and out of the house. There was a time in America when some people were treated as property, forced to do whatever other people wanted, abused without any ability to respond, and unable to obtain their freedom.  Such behavior was legal and considered appropriate by the people practicing it. When we look at the people who exhibited that behavior we think with repulsion, “What could they possibly have been thinking?” I’m not referring to slavery 150 years ago.  I’m referring to the abuse heaped upon millions of children daily by well-meaning parents who don’t realize the long-term damage being done by spanking and other forms of punishment. Corporal punishment doesn’t work (http://www.mortylefkoe.com/wp-content/uploads/bigstock-Portrait-Of-Frightened-Daughte-16858613-200x300.jpg) Research has shown that corporal (physical) punishment not only doesn’t stop the behavior it was intended to stop, it produces a host of negative consequences.  These studies have linked corporal punishment to adverse physical, psychological and educational outcomes. Researcher Elizabeth Gershoff, Ph.D., in a 2002 meta-analytic study that combined 60 years of research on corporal punishment, found that the only positive outcome of corporal punishment was immediate compliance; however, corporal punishment was associated with less long-term compliance.  Corporal punishment was linked with nine other negative outcomes, including increased rates of aggression, delinquency, mental health problems, problems in relationships with their parents, and likelihood of being physically abused.  Time several years ago described a new study published in Pediatrics that confirms the results of many earlier studies, “As five-year-olds, the children who had been spanked were more likely than the non-spanked to be defiant, demand immediate satisfaction of their wants and needs, become frustrated easily, have temper tantrums and lash out physically against other people or animals.” (Emphasis added.) We’ve discovered from our one-on-one sessions with over 13,000 clients that most self-esteem beliefs are formed from interactions with parents during the first six years of life.  Spanking produces the dysfunctional behavior described in the studies quoted above because it leads to such beliefs as: I’m powerless. I’m bad. If I do something wrong, I deserve to be punished. There’s something wrong with me. The way to be safe is to have power over others.  Violence is an acceptable way to handle disagreements.  The way to keep from being punished is to not get caught. I’m not good enough. Here’s what’s interesting: Most parents would be upset if they realized that their children were forming most of these negative beliefs, but they actually want their children to conclude one of these beliefs as a result of the punishment, namely I have done something bad.  They think that knowing they have done something “bad” will prevent their children from doing it again.  But if a child thinks over and over that he has done something bad, what is he likely to conclude after a while: I am bad.  Imagine the consequences of growing up and living with the sense of yourself that you are a bad person? Despite all the evidence showing the negative consequences of spanking, many people still argue that it is a useful and appropriate tool for parents.

Knowing what to do rarely changes your life.  Taking action often does.  Transforming the way you experience your life—eliminating beliefs, getting rid of conditionings, and dissolving your occurrings—almost always results in profound positive change. (http://www.mortylefkoe.com/wp-content/uploads/bigstock-Time-For-Action-Clock-67490041-300x239.jpg) I’ve been writing posts for this blog for over three years and recently decided to turn the best of the posts into a book.  As I tried to figure out how to make the book as valuable as possible, I thought about the three-part statement I started today’s post with.  So I asked myself: How could I help you translate the information in the posts into action that would make a noticeable improvement in your life?  Even better, how could I help you use the posts to transform how you experience your life? Here’s what I decided to do.  At the end of each post in the book I am adding a short assignment, suggesting a way to use the information in the post to improve your life.  As I started writing these assignments for the old posts in the book I had this further thought: Why don’t I start doing that with my weekly posts from now on?  Why don’t I suggest a way to use the information in my weekly posts that will improve the quality of your life? I liked that idea so much that I intend to implement it from now on. To get you a sense of how valuable these weekly exercises will be for you, try it now.  Here is a link to one of my favorite posts from a couple of months ago that describes how to get rid of the negative feelings that plague us by dissolving the meaning that gives rise to them.  http://www.mortylefkoe.com/important-improve-life/# (http://www.mortylefkoe.com/important-improve-life/#) Read the post and then complete this assignment As I acknowledged in the post, merely understanding the information I present won’t change anything.  So to start dramatically improving the quality of your life, for the next seven days notice each time you experience any anxiety or fear at all.  Then ask yourself what meaning you just gave what happened that could have produced those emotions. For example, imagine you notice anxiety and realize you were just thinking about starting a new project.  Ask yourself: What meaning did I give starting the new project that could have made me anxious?  In most cases it will be something like: I can’t do it.  I’ll probably fail.  People will laugh at my failure.  Can you see that if the event occurs to you this way you would feel anxious? Then make a clear distinction between the event and the meaning, in other words, make real to yourself that the meaning is not inherent in the event—that the event is in the world and you can see it—while the meaning is in your mind and you can’t see it.  For example, you can see that you have a new project that should be started.  That is a fact.  But that you can’t do it and that you’ll fail and that others will laugh is not in the world—it is not a fact—it exists only in your mind! There are only three simple steps: 1. Notice the negative feeling you are having. 2. Identify the meaning that is producing the feeling. 3. Make a clear distinction between the meaning and what actually happened. When you make a clear distinction between the event and how the event occurred to you, your occurring will dissolve along with the emotion it had caused. If you do this exercise for seven days you will notice that both your sense of victimization and your negative feelings will be significantly reduced.  And you will experience being a lot happier. What do you think about adding exercises like this each week?  Will you do them? If not, why not? Please comment both on this post and on your results from the exercise. Your comments and questions increase the value we all receive.  I read them all and respond to as many as I can. If you found this post useful,

(http://www.mortylefkoe.com/wp-content/uploads/bigstock-Master-and-her-obedient-rhode-16437014-248x300.jpg) During the past two years I’ve written several blog posts about emotional eating and its causes.  As I learned more about emotional eating fr...

Perhaps the most frequent question I get from readers of this blog is:  You’ve convinced me that the behaviors and emotions I want to change are caused mainly by my beliefs.  But how do I identify the specific beliefs that cause the problems? (http://www.mortylefkoe.com/wp-content/uploads/messagepart-300x200.jpg) For a full answer to that question you are going to have to wait until the second part of the Lefkoe Method Training is complete early next year.  It will take almost 20 hours to teach you everything we know about how to find all the beliefs that cause any given problem.  (For information about the next Lefkoe Method Training, Part 1, where you will learn how to eliminate your own and the beliefs of others, visit http://lefkoeuniversity.com (http://lefkoeuniversity.com).) Nonetheless, there is one tip I can give you right now that will be very useful in identifying many of the relevant beliefs. Our occurrings are the direct cause of our behavior and emotions A few months ago I realized that, contrary to popular opinion, beliefs don’t affect our behavior and emotions directly.  How events occur to us—in other words, the meaning we unconsciously and automatically give meaningless events—are the immediate cause of our emotions and behavior.  Beliefs affect us indirectly by being the main source of our occurrings. For example, imagine you are about to start a project and it occurs to you as: I’m going to fail.  People are going to think I’m stupid when I don’t succeed. Can you get how that meaning would inhibit you from taking action?  On the other hand, if you had given the event the meaning that this project is going to be a total success and people will acknowledge you for the quality of the project, you would not be afraid to take action.  You would move right ahead. Beliefs cause your occurrings So why would you give the event (the need to take action on the project) that particular negative meaning rather than any other meaning? The probable source is beliefs such as Mistakes and failure are bad, If I make a mistake or fail I’ll be rejected, I’m stupid, and What makes me good enough or important is having people think well of me. I said that our occurrings are the source of both behavior and emotions.  If we look further at the event I just mentioned (starting a new project) and if you have the occurring I stated above (I’m going to fail), can you see that you probably would experience fear when you thought about starting the project?  The fear is not caused by the event itself and is not directly caused by the beliefs.  It is caused by the meaning you gave to wanting to start the project, namely, I’m going to fail. So if you wanted to identify the beliefs that ultimately caused the feeling of fear, first identify your occurrings and then ask yourself: What beliefs would cause these occurrings? Use your occurrings to find your beliefs Because our occurrings determine our behavior and feelings and because our beliefs are the major source of our occurrings, the best way to identify the beliefs that ultimately cause our behavior and feelings is to identify the occurrings that immediately precede the action or feeling and then ask yourself: What would I have to believe to give that specific meaning? Try it and then let my readers and me know what happens.  Your comments increase the value we all receive.  I read all comments and respond to as many as I can. If you found this post useful, please tell your friends and followers by using the buttons at the top of this post. If you would like information about having a Certified Lefkoe Method Facilitator help you permanently eliminate any behavioral or emotional problem in your life, please call us at 415-884-0552. If you haven’t yet eliminated at least one of your limiting self-esteem beliefs using the Lefkoe Belief Process, go to http://recreateyourlife.com/free

As I read your comments to last week’s post—in which I contended that forgiveness is never necessary because people’s behavior has no meaning—I could hear many of you thinking, “If events have no meaning, what’s the point of life?  Why do anything?  Why care about anything?  In fact, how can you possibly care about anything if nothing has meaning?” These are thoughtful questions that I will answer in today’s post.  (Please also take a look at my responses to last week’s comments at http://www.mortylefkoe.com/dont-forgive/# ( http://www.mortylefkoe.com/dont-forgive/#).) (http://www.mortylefkoe.com/wp-content/uploads/bigstock-Monopoly-300x225.jpg) The difference between consequences and meaning Events, including people’s behavior, usually have consequences.  In my case, for example, my mom had to work two jobs when I was young and I had to work full time while going to graduate business school as a result of my dad not providing financial support.  But his not giving us financial support had no meaning, by which I mean, I can’t draw any conclusion for sure from his behavior.  I don’t know anything I didn’t know before, from his behavior. We have had clients who had been sexually abused earlier in life.  The meaning they gave the abuse (the beliefs they formed) was that they were damaged goods, that men couldn’t be trusted, that life was dangerous, etc.  When they realized the event had horrific consequences but it had no inherent meaning, and when the beliefs had all disappeared, they experienced a freedom they couldn’t have imagined possible.  The event hadn’t been running their life; the meanings they had given the event had been. The role of values A belief is a statement about reality that feels true, but exists only in our mind.  It is the meaning we gave to a series of meaningless events.  We have beliefs about ourselves (e.g., I’m not good enough), people (e.g., people can’t be trusted), and life (e.g., life is difficult).  These are meanings we gave to events in our lives. A value is a belief about what we think is right and wrong, good and bad.  Examples include parents should (or shouldn’t) …, the function of government should be …, people should …, it is wrong to …. These and any other value statements are beliefs.  You can’t “see” in the world that they are true.  Many people would disagree with any value statement you make.  They exist only in your mind. If value statements are always a type of belief and beliefs are always meaning we make up to explain meaningless events, then value statements are arbitrary and cannot be absolute truth.  I’m not saying this is easy to accept, or that it doesn’t feel “wrong,” or that it seems to create many insolvable problems.  Maybe it does.  Wanting values to be objective and wanting your values to be the “right” values don’t make them so. Ken Wilber has summarized the conclusions of many people who study the development of consciousness.  They have demonstrated that society and individuals go through stages of consciousness, with each stage having its own unique worldview.  The three stages that exist in most third world counties today are Traditional (ethnocentric, family values, accepting religious dogma as absolute truth), Modern (world-centric, the Industrial Revolution, science, rationality) and Post Modern (pluralistic, civil rights for all, a concern for the well-being of all people and for the environment).  People in each stage of development think that their worldview is correct and the others are wrong. If you have any question about this, look at how conservatives (largely at the Traditional stage) and liberals (largely at the Post Modern stage) view each other.  (See almost any of Wilber’s many books for more information on stages of development.) You forgot your life is a game When you play a game, be it a sport like golf or tennis, or a card game like poker, or a board game like Clue or Monopoly,

My wife Shelly really disliked my father.  Before he died over 20 years ago she was polite when we were with him, but when we were alone she made no secret of her disdain for him. (http://www.mortylefkoe.com/wp-content/uploads/bigstock-Forgive--300x200.jpg) Why Shelly disliked my father  She thought she had good reason for her resentment.  In her eyes he had treated me very badly: He had not helped me financially as a child, while I was working my way through college, or during my early adult years when I struggled.  Most people who knew about my relationship with my father agreed with her that my father was “cheap” and had treated me “badly.” My parents had divorced when I was three.  My dad provided my mom with virtually no child support ($15 a week) despite his ability to do much more.  He had little involvement in my upbringing.  When I was 14 he told me he was leaving town (we lived in Miami Beach at the time) because, he said, “Your mom is driving me out of town with her constant requests for money.”  By this time he was giving her $30 a week and she was working two jobs to make ends meet. He didn’t tell me where he was going when he left and the only way I could reach him was to give a letter to my aunt (his sister who still lived in Miami Beach) and she would mail it to him.  My dad didn’t help me financially with college (despite telling me hundreds of times how important it was to get a college education) and I saw him only three times in the next 27 years. I reestablished contact with my father After attending a workshop on completing your relationship with your parents, I tracked my dad down and reestablished contact.  I saw him once a year and talked every couple of months.  After I married Shelly we were in even closer contact.  He enjoyed spending time with my oldest daughter Blake during the first few years of her life. Although as a child I missed having a dad in my life and although I was upset as a child about how hard my mom had to work when my dad could have helped a lot more, by the time I married Shelly and had children, I held no resentment toward him. Shelly and I gave my father’s behavior different meanings You see, the meaning Shelly gave my father’s behavior is that he was a bad father who didn’t really care about his son.  The meaning I gave my father’s behavior is that he did the best he could do given his beliefs, especially his beliefs about money.  Because he lived through the depression, he was always worried about money, even after he accumulated over a million dollars. Moreover, my dad had never finished high school and was a “self-made” man.  He was a successful businessman who had never received assistance from anyone.  He told me shortly before he died that he was concerned that if he helped me financially in college and beyond, I would never know that I could make it on my own. Here’s the point of my story.  After Shelly learned how my father had treated my mom and me as I was growing up, she asked me how I could forgive my father.  I replied: “There is nothing to forgive.  Even though I wasn’t happy about what he did at the time, he did what he thought was best for me.” What I didn’t realize at the time and I do today is that events have no inherent meaning.  In order to forgive you need to have been wronged.  If events have no meaning, wrong exists only in your mind—it is a meaning you give to the other person’s behavior.  No meaning, no wrong.  No wrong, nothing to forgive. (I’m sure that some readers will think of situations that must have inherent meaning.  See two earlier blog posts that delve deeper into what I mean by events have no meaning and some of the implications of that fact.  http://www.mortylefkoe.com/why-create-meaning/# (http://www.mortylefkoe.com/why-create-meaning/#), http://www.mortylefkoe.com/real-meaning/# (http://www.mortylefkoe.com/real-meaning/#)) Here’s how someone else saw the same issue

The Lefkoe Method (TLM) is very different both from most personal growth techniques and most forms of psychotherapy. (http://www.mortylefkoe.com/wp-content/uploads/bigstock-psychologist-25758284-300x128.jpg) To begin with, TLM is not merely about p...

I can’t think of a single thing that can make as profound a difference in your life as being able to dissolve your “occurrings”—the meaning you unconsciously and automatically give events, which you think are The Truth. Our “occurrings” are * t...

Shortly after I married Shelly over 31 years ago people started to describe her as representing the heart in our relationship and me, the mind.  We were great leading workshops together because I taught distinctions and abstractions, and she told stories to illustrate my abstractions and usually created a better relationship with people in the class. (http://www.mortylefkoe.com/wp-content/uploads/bigstock-Group-of-red-people-forming-a-25536767-300x248.jpg)Even though expressing love was not one of my strong suits, I have always experienced a profound love for Shelly and our two girls, Blake and Brittany.  Over the past few years, however, that love has gotten so immense inside me that I am frustrated because I can’t find words to express it fully enough.  “I love you” just doesn’t adequately express my feelings. At the same time I have been experiencing so much love in general that I have just been looking for people to express it to.  It’s like “I love” and then I need people to direct that intense feeling toward. My first awareness I first started becoming aware this overpowering feeling of love at my semi-annual meetings of the Transformational Leadership Council, which I joined over eight years ago as a founding member.  I started to notice feeling love and directing it toward whoever showed up in front of me. I think the precipitating factor was being surrounded by so many people who shared my commitment to make a difference in people’s lives, which meant I really knew their essence and they really knew one of the most important things I valued about myself. So although I still see myself as a creative and committed person who is focused on getting The Lefkoe Method into the hands of as many people as possible and creating new processes to free people from their barriers to happiness, I have been experiencing myself more and more as someone who loves people a lot—as a truly loving person. My birthday party Then, a couple of months ago, Shelly threw me a surprise 75th birthday party.  There were about 30 of my friends there.  One of them, Dave Ellis, started a toast with a process he had done many time before.  He said to me: “What I love about you is everything.  And what I love about you is….  And what I love about you is ….”  He repeated this at least ten times, stating each time something different he loved about me.  Then each of the other people at the party did the same thing. The experience of hearing 30 people share what they loved about me was overwhelming.  It was one of the most profoundly special evenings of my life.  What made it especially meaningful was the fact that every person who described what they loved about me included how loving I was.  Yes, they mentioned my commitment, my relationship with Shelly and my daughters, and the difference I make in people’s lives … but every single person said they loved how loving I was. Because that’s how I’ve been seeing myself and I wasn’t sure others saw it, I felt more seen and “gotten” by more people that night than I ever have in my life. A very special gift And then last week I got a package from a close male friend.  In it was a note that read: “You are the most loving man I know.  I just wanted to say thank you.”  Enclosed was a very special gift.  That was the final straw that made real to me that my love for others was so palpable that others experienced it also. Where did this outpouring of love come from?  What got it started a few years ago and what allows me to express it so fully that all my friends experience it? I’m not sure, but here’s what I think.  I stopped judging others.  I stopped giving meaning to what others do. I allow people to be who and what they are.  They don’t have to be or do anything special for them to be okay with me.  (See my post http://www.mortylefkoe.com/love-unconditionally/# (http://www.mortylefkoe.com/love-unconditionally/#) regarding love for no reason.)

Negative emotions like anxiety can be really painful.  I know because I felt anxiety and many other negative feelings intensely and frequently for most of my life. My depression seemed to take over my entire mind and body.  It seemed to envelope me so completely that I felt as if there were no way to escape it.  I also felt as if it would never end.  My anxiety and depression was so great in my 20s that I thought about ending my life on many occasions. (http://www.mortylefkoe.com/wp-content/uploads/bigstock-Negative-Emotion-25395314c1-300x221.jpg)Based upon the thousands of communications we’ve received in the past few years (and those we’ve read on several personal growth forums), it appears that many people are overwhelmed by negative feelings. Although I’ve written about negative emotions several times in the past, see  (http://www.mortylefkoe.com/neg-emotions/# (http://www.mortylefkoe.com/neg-emotions/#) and http://www.mortylefkoe.com/live-state-bliss/# (http://www.mortylefkoe.com/live-state-bliss/#)), today I want to discuss emotions in a slightly different way in order to help free you from any that may be running your life. Emotions seem justified Have you noticed that we usually think our emotions are communicating some information, for example, if we feel afraid to take action, the fear seems to be telling us that taking action is dangerous?  If we feel angry at something someone did, the anger seems to be telling us that that person did something to hurt us? This results in us both wanting to get rid of the emotion because it feels so bad and, at the same time, wanting to hold on to the emotion because it seems we are “right” to feel it given our appraisal of the events.  For example, did you ever notice that if you view doing something you’ve never done before as risky, it “makes sense” for you to feel anxiety?  It’s almost as if you “should” feel anxious in that situation.  If you think someone treated you unfairly, don’t you feel as if you “should” feel angry at them? You create your feelings If reality were really causing our emotions, this reaction would make perfect sense.  In fact, however, because events have no inherent meaning, events can’t cause us to feel anything.  Most feelings are the result of the meaning we attribute to events, not the events themselves. For example, losing a job has no inherent meaning.  It could mean we will never find another job and become destitute. It could mean it will take a lot of time and effort to find a job. It could mean we will find a better job where we will be much happier. It could mean we will change careers and discover we care more about the new career (and job) than we ever did about the old one.  What does losing your job really mean?  Until you give it a meaning, it has no inherent meaning. If you give losing your job the meaning that you will never find another good one, you will be incredibly anxious.  If you give it the meaning that you can now change careers to do what you always wanted to do and had been afraid to try, you will feel excited and turned on.  And if you give the event no meaning at all, you will feel nothing at all. Therefore, your feelings tell you nothing about yourself, life, reality, the future, etc.  Your feelings tell you only one thing:  That you have given meaning to an event.  No meaning, no feelings. And if your feelings are the result of the meaning you have given an event, then you create your feelings.  And that news is about as good as you can get.  Why? Because if you create your feelings, you can get rid of them. As I’ve explained in detail before, when you distinguish the meaning you give events from the events themselves, the meaning will literally dissolve.  And when the meaning dissolves, the emotions it causes will dissolve also.  (See a short video that introduces my occurring course that describes in detail how this process works.  http://occurringcourse.com (http://occurringcourse.com).