CORE CONNECTING TO THE. Steven Burns. Rediscover your true nature using focused thought and attention

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1 CONNECTING TO THE CORE Redscover your true nature usng focused thought and attenton A Scottsh Centre of NLP Ebook Scottsh Centre of NLP 2013 Steven Burns

2 A Scottsh Centre of NLP Ebook by Steven Burns Scottsh Centre of NLP 2013 For more nformaton on our range of courses and tranngs, go to 2

3 Have you ever consdered that there s a place on the nsde where your problems smply can t exst? A natural, beautful place flled wth feelngs of blss, happness and peace that, by vrtue of ts purty, smply won t allow your problems to be. Knd of lke walkng nto a ptch black room and turnng on the lght...as soon as you flp that swtch the darkness nstantly ceases to be. It doesn t have a choce...the presence of the lght smply won t allow t. What f ths place also enabled you to massvely ncrease your productvty? Increase your sense of clarty, effcency and overall effectveness? If there was such a place, wouldn t t be wonderful to learn how to go there more often? What f you could learn to flp that swtch? On top of all that, what f your own nner lght of blss, happness, peace and all thngs pure actually already exsts nsde you (and always has) and throughout the years you ve merely just lost touch wth t? If that were true wouldn t t make perfect sense to practce becomng re-acquanted? Sure, you may not get the stage where you feel t every mnute of every day but wouldn t t be great just to know t s there and perhaps go out for a coffee wth t every now and agan? If the dea of that floats your boat then please read on. I ll be explanng more about ths place and what I consder to one of the bggest llusons of lfe that stops us from naturally enterng t. I ve also desgned for you a very specal medtatve audo process on mp3 you can download to help you become more and more re-acquanted wth t as each day passes. 3

4 The bggest lluson of lfe... There s a phrase we use n NLP (Neuro Lngustc Programmng) that says - everyone has everythng already nsde them to resolve ther problems and be happy. I ve sad ths many tmes to clents and delegates on our NLP tranng courses and, for some reason, the dea s massvely dffcult for some people to accept. The noton that we already have a deep reservor of blss, happness and peace nsde us can seem almost alen to someone who s fraught wth anxetes, angst s and worres and sometmes even more so by those who are ntensely goal drven. There s the popular western opnon that the only real paths to experencng those types of feelngs are by ether achevng all our goals on the outsde or by talkng about our chldhood and balancng our bran chemstry wth prescrpton drugs (or of course the favourtes alcohol, smokng and recreatonal drugs). Psychatry and therapy n general have certanly came a long way over the last decade but t s stll hangng on to the myth that we are n some way broken and need to be fxed...that there s some monster nsde of us that needs to be slan or conquered. Sure, we all have problems, some more destructve than others and NLP has lots of extremely effectve ways to resolve them but there really s no-one else n there other than you! You haven t been taken over by some werd alen entty and deep down (albet usually unconscously) you re the one that s mantanng the problem and decdng to stay that way. On the other path, achevng our goals s obvously a wonderful and worthwhle way to feel good about ourselves. If you also frame the game n the rght way you can feel good n the pursut of your goals n addton to feelng good when you acheve them. It s effectve and t works. What I m hopng to get across to you though s that, goal gettng, really s only one small element of the whole happness 4

5 package...lke a sde order of a much taster and wholesome dsh. Most of us at some pont fall nto the trap of belevng t s the entre meal when t s not. We assume that the pursut and acquston of goals s a PRE-REQUISITE to happness and not just a helpful catalyst. We do ourselves a MASSIVE njustce by belevng we don t ALREADY have huge amounts of pure feelngs lke peace, oneness, happness and blss by default. Ths s THE BIGGEST ILLUSION OF LIFE... When we become convnced that pure states lke peace, blss, oneness, happness and love aren t already nsde us as our brth rght. In NLP we call these Core states because they seem to exst somewhere deep wthn us. We can become dsconnected from them and forget they exst but t s an lluson...they re there alrght and t s about tme you became re-acquanted. We are Hard-Wred for Blss... Neurologst, Nobel peace prze wnner and author of the excellent book Molecules of emoton Candace Pert sad As human bengs we are HARD WIRED FOR BLISS. There are lots of scentfc evdence that backs ths up (whch she talks about n her book) but you really only have to look at a baby or young chld to be convnced that we enter the world wth our neurology frmly set up for happness. The sense of fun, exploraton and euphora sn t somethng a young chld needs to learn. Babes don t need therapsts or coaches to feel happy! They don t need to put affrmatons on the frdge tellng them 5

6 n baby speak that each and every day they ll feel happer and healther! Sure they get upset and cry every now and agan but once they settle they drft back to ther natural place of blss. They haven t been told how to but somehow they stll manage t. They haven t yet bought nto the lluson that they can t so they smply fall back nto t. I thnk one of the man pleasures of playng wth young kds s that we get a strong remnder of what t s lke to exst from a place of such purty. It remnds us of how t used to be...t remnds us of ths pure lght of blss, happness and oneness nsde. It remnds us of our core states. The wonderful thng s ths lght stll exsts. You mght need to do a bt of searchng to fnd the swtch but t s there and t has an nfnte power supply. I know t sometmes feels lke t but the lght hasn t went out... The bggest lluson of lfe tres to convnce us otherwse but these natural default feelngs don t actually go away. They just snk further and further nto the background the more pre-occuped we become wth the troubles of lfe. There s only so much space n our conscousness so when we become pre-occuped wth our worres, anxetes and angst s ths natural blss becomes de-focused and falls away nto the background. Through tme t can become so de-focused we become seduced nto thnkng t s not there at all. It s not true though, t s there all rght! You just need to pay attenton to t more. Belevng that our core states dsappear s a bt lke belevng the sun physcally vanshes just because t s cloudy. Sure, you mght 6

7 not be able to experence t fully but t s there and f you go outsde you can stll feel ts rays. Our core states of blss are lke ths. They re watng n the background of our mnd desperate to be re-dscovered. We don t often realse t when t s happenng but unhappness s merely just the process of gvng ourselves massve amnesa for our own natural state of blss. We ve forgotten how to re-connect wth t but now t s tme to remember...tme to re-focus... It s tme to Re-focus... So t s tme to re-focus...you really have been watng too long. It s tme to start the process of becomng re-acquanted wth your core states...your sense of blss, happness, peace and all thngs pure. For some of you ths wll be easy and for others t ll take a bt of tme and exploraton. I know for me, when I frst started dong NLP, I was so nvested n the noton that I was n some way broken and had to be fxed that the concept of a core, base level of happness exstng wthn me was a dstant one. Irrespectve of your stuaton I d recommend you lsten to the medtatve audo process frequently. It s easy to be sucked back nto the bggest lluson of lfe so t ll act as a nce remnder and you re apprecaton of t wll deepen through tme. Ths process s about re-focusng. It s a medtatve process that helps you become re-acquanted wth your own core states. You mght have your own words to descrbe these and you mght even fnd that to descrbe them wth words doesn t do t any justce. It could be just a feelng you get. For me labels lke peace, blss, oneness, love, beng, wholeness are pretty good approxmatons and generally resonate wth most people so I ll be usng them durng the recordng. We ll be gong deep...it s gong to be a wonderful experence and 7

8 one m sure you ll enjoy mmensely. Quck Paper and Pen Exercse... Essentally we ll be focusng on two man areas so t s useful to do ths pen and paper exercse before you start. It s not essental but t certanly amplfes the experence consderably. Exercse One 1. Pck a tme where you acheved somethng and you felt good. 2. Go back to that tme and remember t Wrte down what you see, hear and feel n the memory. What feelng dd t gve you? What does achevng t gve you emotonally? 3. As you feel ths feelng ask yourself What am I attemptng to get that s even more mportant? (notce where your mnd naturally goes when you fully consder the queston) 4. An alternatve queston you can ask yourself s By havng ths feelng what does that then gve me emotonally that s even more mportant? 5. Repeat the two varatons of the questons as you move to hgher and hgher levels states. (see below for my own example) 6. Enjoy ths hgher state for a whle...t s your core state and t s always been there you just ddn t realse t. My own example... One of the thngs I love to do most n lfe s run NLP Practtoner tranngs wth my busness partner Bran Costello. I fnd ths 7 day tranng course wthout doubt one of the most powerful ways to postvely affect a person s lfe n almost every respect. When ask myself the queston What does achevng ths gve me emotonally the answer get back s A sense of contrbuton. 8

9 It s not an answer I have to fgure out logcally t s a descrpton of the amazng feelng I get when I thnk about achevng t. Ths feelng resonates deeply nsde because t s so hugely mportant to me. When I then ask What am I attemptng to get that s even more mportant than A sense of contrbuton? or the alternatve queston By havng ths feelng what does that then gve me emotonally that s even more mportant? the feelng and answer I get s A sense that I m makng a dfference, a sense of worthwhle. Now these are obvously my descrptons and are unque to me. Your ones wll more than lkely vary and you ll have your own keywords and ways of descrbng your emotonal path towards your core states. When ask the questons agan I get Deep satsfacton. When ask agan the answer and feelng I get s Oneness. Ths s my core state. If I keep askng the questons agan I mght get other varatons of the descrpton but t doesn t feel lke I m gong to a place that s any more powerful and pure than oneness. So my own personal chan goes lke ths Goal g Runnng an NLP Tranng Course (What does that gve me emotonally?) A sense of contrbuton (What does that gve me emotonally that s even more mportant?) I am makng a dfference, a sense of worthwhle (What does that gve me emotonally that s even more mportant?) Deep Satsfacton 9

10 (What does that gve me emotonally that s even more mportant?) Oneness Make sense? Ths s my own personal path to become re-acquanted wth one of my core states of blss. Unpeelng the onon... It s a bt lke unpeelng an onon. The best and most jucy part of the onon s rght at the centre. When the onon s whole you can t see the centre but you know t s there. To experence t s jucness n all ts glory you have to do a bt of unpeelng. At the same tme sn t t wonderful just to know that t s there, hdng behnd all the layers. Movng through your emotonal chan s a way of unpeelng the onon to become re-acquanted wth your core states of blss. You can always feel a base level of t just by knowng t s there but to experence ts full energy t s useful to unpeel and re-connect. 10

11 Exercse Two - The second exercse or path to become reconnected wth your core way of beng s by fully consderng the followng queston Who are you when you re at your best? Now here s the mportant thng...ths s not a logcal answer. The key s to fully gve yourself permsson to explore the concept and allow what naturally comes up to materalze. Ths can sometmes take a bt of tme and s worth dong regularly. It s a bt lke when you go for a sports massage. You can only go so deep wth the frst touch. As you contnue to massage an area though you can reach deeper and more useful parts of the muscle and deep tssue. Another key to ths s to allow your mnd to explore the three man nternal representatonal systems Vsual, audtory and Feelngs. In other words, as you ask the queston you want to notce what you normally see, hear and feel when you are truly at your best. Places of Peak performances... When you explore ths queston you are essentally remndng yourself on the nsde what thngs are lke for you when you are n a place of peak performance. Athletes experence ths and call t beng n the zone but you don t have to be an athlete to go nto a peak performance state. Most people descrbe these states as wonderful places to be... that t can be lke, all of a sudden, the world feels an effortless place to be n...lke tme stops and you re just beng and exstng rather than strvng and tryng. Old school personal development thnkng says that our peak states are somethng we have to buld and mantan. What s closer to the truth s that they are somethng we let go nto and reconnect wth. Because when you really examne t peak states are merely just tmes when we get a glmpse of one of our core states of blss that already exst n the background. 11

12 I know ths sound lke a small dstncton but t s the crucal one. Our core states are NOT somethng we BUILD FROM SCRATCH they are somethng we UNCOVER and RE-CONNECT wth. Makng ths dstncton cuts out a heck of a lot of work and just makes so much sense. Lke I ve prevously sad...we are all hard wred for blss. It s our default settng so why should t be a case that we have to start from scratch. So just to flesh thngs out a bt here s a full lst of questons you can reflect on. I also found t VERY useful to wrte a descrpton of my answers and where my mnd went when I answered them. 1. Who are you at your best? 2. What do you see, hear, feel, taste, smell and do? 3. When are you at your best? 4. When have you naturally been at your best? What s t lke when you thnk about that now? What do you see, hear and feel? Closng Story... (Apologes n advance f you ve never seen the flm the matrx or you hate Sc F!) One of my favourte flms s The Matrx starrng Keanu Reeves. Reeves plays the character Thomas Anderson (AKA Neo), a frustrated offce worker who spends most of hs spare tme as an underground computer hacker. For years Neo has felt somethng str on the nsde. A feelng of restlessness he can t qute descrbe. A sense that somethng about the world just sn t qute rght. Whle tryng to fgure out the cryptc matrx messages he fnds on hs computer he meets wth Trnty (an nfamous hacker) who tells hm that a man named Morpheus knows the secret to The Matrx. He meets wth Morpheus who tells hm that the secret of the Matrx s far deeper than he ever magned and that he has a choce. He can swallow the red pll and fnd out the truth or he can swallow the blue pll and return back to hs normal, everyday 12

13 lfe. Neo takes the red pll, falls asleep and abruptly wakes to fnd hmself attached to cables along wth a bllon other people connected n some complex elaborate electrcal network. He learns that what he thought was the real world (e hs offce job and lfe as an underground hacker n Amerca) s n fact and lluson created by machnes as a means of control. In the real world bllons of humans are n some knd of farm strapped to machnes beng used as an electrcal source to power the machnes. He s rescued by Morpheus and starts hs new lfe on the Nebuchadnezzar, a shp wth a crew who have also been freed from the Matrx. When I frst watched the Matrx I loved t. The more I thought about t though the more I realsed there was somethng about t that ddn t qute st rght. It s only recently I realsed what that was. They got the plot the wrong way round! The real world was dreadful! An appallng place where they ate dog food and battled aganst the constant threat of extncton. The Matrx on the other hand was a wonderful place. A place full of pleasure, opportunty and choce. You could be who you wanted and do pretty much whatever you lked. It was all an lluson created by machnes but t was an appealng one. Just magne for a moment that the plot was reversed...t would read a bt lke ths: Thomas Anderson (AKA Neo) lved hs lfe n what he beleved to be the real world. The real world was a constant struggle. He lved n a tme where human knd was engaged n an ntense battle for world domnaton wth the machnes. They had developed artfcal ntellgence to the extent that they 13

14 began to thnk for themselves and decded that beng a servant to human knd was beneath them. They decded to take over control of the planet and they were succeedng. The human populaton was decreasng by the day. They were forced to eat food that resembled dog food and they went day by day under the constant threat of extncton. For years Neo has felt somethng str on the nsde. A feelng of restlessness he can t qute descrbe...a sense that somethng about the world just sn t qute rght. Whle tryng to fgure out the cryptc matrx messages he fnds on hs computer he meets wth Trnty (an nfamous hacker) who tells hm that a man named Morpheus knows the secret to The Matrx. He meets wth Morpheus on the Nebuchadnezzar who tells hm that the secret of the Matrx s far deeper than he ever magned and that he has a choce. He can swallow the red pll and fnd out the truth or he can swallow the blue pll and return back to hs daly struggle n what he beleves to be the real world. Neo takes the red pll, falls asleep and abruptly wakes to fnd hmself attached to cables along wth lots of other people n a New York factory warehouse connected n some complex elaborate electrcal network. As he walks outsde he notces how beautful the cty s and how the opportuntes are endless. He breathes n the ar and the years of struggle suddenly fall away as he realses at last he s free. What he thought was the real world was actually an elaborate lluson created by the machnes. It s an ngenous lluson really as they ve notced that human bengs love to beleve lfe has to be a struggle. Even when they ve got many rches and opportuntes avalable to them they stll manage to thnk they have very lttle. They notce the tendency for humans to beleve lfe s much harder than t actually s so they create an lluson...the lluson that they are almost extnct and lve wth the constant struggle for survval. Every day s a battle for survval as they hde from super 14

15 powered machnes that are tryng to hunt them down. They have to eat dog food and spend most of ther tme fgurng out ways to just get through one more day. The humans take to ths lluson. It makes sense after all. Lfe has to be tough. Lfe has to be a struggle. The realty s they re wred to machnes n a warehouse. All the happness, opportunty and pleasure they need are rght outsde the door, only they can t see t because they re so fxed on the lluson. Hope you enjoyed the e-book and all the best for the future. Feel free to emal me wth your comments, feedback and stores at nfo@scottshcentreofnlp.com 15