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Giving Up the Old Ways

By Bill Harris

Today I'm going to write about something crucially important for any person who is interested in ending suffering, unhappiness, emotional problems, lack of prosperity, or lack of purpose in life. In fact, it's also crucial for anyone who wants to make any kind of positive change in their life. If you do not handle this one thing, you will have little or no success in improving your life. It is a stumbling block for many people, and ironically, the greater the need for change, the greater the suffering, the more likely you will be to be stymied by it.

I'm talking about the fact that in order to make any kind of change - particularly mental, emotional, or spiritual changes - you must be willing to give up the old way of thinking, acting, and being and try on a new and different way of doing things.

This way of thinking is called resiliency. Sometimes it's called flexibility, or brain plasticity. Whatever you want to call it, if you want to be happy and fulfilled, you need it.

Duh, you say. Yet most people act as if they can keep doing what they are doing but somehow get different results. The fact is, you are getting certain results in your life because of the way your internal map of reality is constructed. It isn't luck or lack of luck, it isn't by accident, and it isn't because of your outer circumstances that you are having a certain experience of life and enjoying (or not enjoying) certain outcomes.

You have certain beliefs, certain values, certain internal strategies, certain ways you sort, delete, distort, and generalize information and other stimuli as it comes to you, certain ways of assigning meaning to what happens, and all of this (and a few other things I have not listed) combine to create your experience of life and the outcomes you get.

I have written extensively about each of these aspects of your internal map of reality, and you can find these articles, should you care to review them (available at the trans4mind Holosync site).

That this internal map of reality creates your experience and results in your life, is a clear cause and effect relationship. Your brain operates in a certain way, and you get certain results. To get different results, you must change the way your brain operates. Let me be really clear about this: there is no other way to get different results. None, nada, zip, zero. As long as you continue to operate in the same way as you are now, you will continue to get the same results.

This is obvious, you say. Tell me something I don't know. Well, it may be obvious, but it isn't always easy to do. Why? Two reasons.

First, 99% of all of the activity going on in your internal map of reality - all the stuff that operates in you to create your reality and your experience of life - is happening UNconsciously and out of your awareness. It runs on automatic, churning out the circumstances of your life. It attracts you to situations that confirm that your internal world is accurate. This means that if your internal world includes anxiety, unhappiness, depression, conflict, lack of love, that is the world you will create on the outside. You will act in such a way, and attract the people and situations that will allow you to live in that world.

On the other hand, if your internal world is one of riches, love, support, fulfillment, ease of accomplishment, and happiness, you will act in such a way and attract the people and situations that will bring that kind of world to life. The fact that the part of your brain that creates all of this runs automatically and unconsciously makes it SEEM as if whatever is happening is "just happening" to you, that it is coming from outside circumstances instead of from inside of you.

This, of course, makes it seem as if there isn't much you can do about it. It also makes it very difficult for you to see how each part works to create what happens -something you might want to know if you're going to change how it works. It's like needing to get under the hood to work on your car, but you can't open the hood, or if you do get it open, the part you want to change is behind something else and you don't know how to get to it. This is part of the reason why I have written about each part of your map of reality in detail, and created my online courses, so as to help you understand better how all of this works.

The second reason changing your internal map of reality is not always easy is that you constructed it with one main goal: to be safe in your family while growing up. When faced with decisions about what to notice or not to notice, what to believe or not believe, what to value or not value, what parts of you to show to others and what parts to hide, what methods to use in making decisions, and so on, you picked a combination of these things that created the greatest feeling of safety in your family.

The more unsafe your situation was, the more safety becomes important, and the more you will cling to keeping your internal map the way it is. Everyone, however, had many things that were not safe in their family, so everyone, to one degree or another, protects their internal map of reality from change - because at a very deep level, it FEELS as if it would not be safe to let it change.

Consciously you may want the changes. You may even desperately want them. But a part of you, unconsciously, is saying: "What? Change that? No way. That is what has kept me safe." It may be a strategy, a belief, or a way of seeing yourself or others that continually causes you trouble in your life. But regardless of the consequences, that unconscious "inner child" part of you will fight to keep it from changing.

The way your internal map of reality is constructed could be keeping you poor, lonely, depressed, anxious, shy, or could be causing a continuous trail of uncomfortable dramas to follow you everywhere you go, but if you unconsciously associate the way it is with your mental, emotional, and spiritual safety, you will fight to keep it that way even while consciously wanting it to change.

So, what do you do? Luckily, there are several things you can do, all of which are very effective.

First, you can have a talk with that part of you that feels unsafe changing. In Gestalt therapy, people actually have a part of themselves, in their imagination, come out and sit in a chair across from them and then have a talk with that part. You can do this, too. Ask the part what it needs to be safe in changing the parts of you that you want to change, and figure out a way to give the unsafe part what it needs. Reassure that part that it will be safe, and that you will help to make sure that this is so. As corny as this may sound, it can have a remarkable effect.

Second, you can dig into all the articles I have written about the various parts of your map of reality - or, better yet, take my online courses and commit yourself to investigating each part and how it works. This takes time and effort, but it is very interesting work, and it makes what was unconscious, conscious. Since you can only continue to do things that do not serve you if you do them unconsciously, making all of these processes conscious does a lot to create change.

Third, you can learn how to adopt the witness posture, the posture of that part of you that just watches what is happening with curiosity, but without any agenda as to what happens. I have also written extensively about how to do this. If resisting change is the poison, the witness is the antidote, and the more you practice just watching whatever is going on, internally and externally, the more the parts of you that do not serve you will fall away. The witness is the higher self many of you are searching for.

Finally, the most effective way, and one that accelerates the effectiveness of the other three, is to use the Centerpointe program, meditating with your Holosync soundtracks regularly. Holosync naturally develops the witness perspective without any effort on your part, and it also makes conscious what was unconscious and running on automatic. It also raises your threshold for what you can handle higher and higher, which calms the unconscious part of you that may feel unsafe changing. Using Holosync puts you in the fast lane of personal growth and change.

I see people everyday who desperately want to change, but vigorously defend the very beliefs and strategies that are creating the results they don't want. We all have an almost unlimited ability to come up with reasons why we have to do it the way we're doing it, which is just a way of saying that it doesn't feel safe to give up the way we're currently doing it and try something else. My main goal here it that you become very clear that there is no way that anyone can change their results without changing their internal map of reality, and that defending the old way, even though you may feel compelled by something inside to do so, just keeps you stuck.

In terms of the brain, this ability to change is reflected in what scientists call brain plasticity - the ability to change states at will and adapt to changing circumstances. Those with brain plasticity can intentionally create the pattern of brain waves necessary for any state they want to experience. Such people can let go of negative feelings instantly, in fact, often even before they arise. They can enter a state of accelerated learning when they want to learn. They are not at the mercy of outer circumstances. Instead, they adapt to them in such a way that they remain happy and peaceful regardless of what is happening. And, they seem to know just what to do in each situation.

Such people can enter a state of heightened creativity when they need to solve a problem or come up with a new idea. They can enter a state of peak performance whenever they need to make a speech, sell something, hit a good golf shot, calm an anxious child - or are faced with any other challenging task.

The fastest way I know of to create brain plasticity in yourself, to become more resilient - to gain control of how you create your internal and external reality - is to meditate with Holosync. If you add mastery of the material in my online courses, you further accelerate the process.

I have always contended that ANY person, regardless of past or present circumstances can be happy, peaceful, and successful. I believe we've found a way to make that come true. It doesn't happen overnight, but with Holosync and the online course information, it can be done. I did it, and there is nothing special about me. If I can do it, so can you.

It really is possible to create your reality in any way you like, but to do so, you must be willing give up the old way of being, thinking, and acting.

If you aren't a participant in the Holosync Solution program and my Life Principles Integration Process online courses, I urge you to get involved. I've made these programs as inexpensive as I possibly can, and both have a money-back guaranatee.

What's more, we give you so much support and education that any person who really wants the benefits of these programs is sure to get them - even people who have "tried everything, and nothing works."

Life is fun when you are on an upward spiral of growth and change. If you aren't participating yet, please give Holosync a try. If you are, please do remain committed to your daily Holosync meditation. I really do want you to have all the benefits it will bring you.

Be well.

Bill Harris, Director Centerpointe Research Institute

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