Podcast: Play in new window | Download
Remember last December I wrote that I was about to have a breakthrough? Well, I did.
On February 16, 2010 nineteen people and I began the Lefkoe Freedom Experiment (LFE). Before we started I promised the participants:
“You will learn how to transform the way you experience your life. No matter what the circumstances. Twenty-four hours a day, 365 days a year.”
Actually, I had never taught anyone to do that before, but I like to promise things I’ve never done before. That’s the exciting part: Figuring out how to do things after I’ve promised to do them.
The LFE was created after I noticed (and blogged about in three posts last December) that most people usually are not aware of the distinction between reality and how reality occurs for them. And because we are not aware of this distinction, we act as if the way reality occurs for us is the way reality “really is,” which is rarely true.
So the LFE was designed to determine if we could notice that distinction all the time and, even more importantly, dissolve the way reality occurs for us and be left with nothing but reality. Or as some gurus describe it, live totally in the present, without the past and future intruding.
We succeeded brilliantly! We met in a webinar for an hour once a week for ten weeks. Virtually everyone in the class who did their weekly assignment ended the experiment able to easily notice the distinction between “reality” and the way reality occurred for them at any given moment, and then quickly and easily dissolve the “occurring,” so that they were left either with only reality (without any meaning) or with a positive “occurring” that they choose.
Let me give you an example. Your investments lose a lot of their value. That is reality. That might occur for you as “a disaster, years of savings and struggle down the drain, how will we ever recoup our losses, etc.” That “occurring” would seem like “a fact,” “the way it really is,” and would result in you feeling upset, despondent, anxious, sad, etc. If you dissolve the “occurring” and observe only the reality—namely, the decline in value of your investment—the negative feelings would disappear. At which point you would have a choice to deal with “reality” and determine what you can learn from the experience and what you are going to do to replace the money. Or you even could create a positive meaning, such as “This is an opportunity to realize that my happiness is not dependent on material things and to grow as a spiritual being.” Giving that meaning to the events would result in positive feelings, such as pleasure and satisfaction.
Here are some more details of what we learned.
At any given moment we might have positive or negative emotions—joy and excitement, or anger, sadness, anxiety, and upset. Because events in reality have no inherent meaning (we have this profound realization when we eliminate a belief using the Lefkoe Belief Process), the events themselves can’t cause the emotion. What does?
The meaning we have given the events. And that meaning results in reality occurring for us in a specific way. So dissolving the meaning/the occurring immediately eliminates the feelings it caused.
Imagine that! Being able to eliminate any negative feeling you have in just moments by being able to eliminate the meaning you gave the events. This means that if you are in the middle of an argument with your relationship partner and you are getting angry, all you have to do is identify what meaning you are giving the situation and eliminate it, and the anger will stop.
“You’ve got to be kidding,” I hear many of you thinking. “Do you really expect me to believe this?” Yes, I do. I know many of you are skeptical. “I’ve heard outrageous claims before but this is just too much.” Nonetheless, I personally have now done this many times and several people in the experiment did it also.
As Michael Scheibe, one of the participants put it: “The tools I learned in this experiment have transformed how I experience my life on a daily basis.
“Previous things that used to frequently upset me no longer do because through this course I truly got that my experience of life comes from the meaning I’m giving everything in the moment, and that meaning is not the same as what’s actually happening in the real world, and now I can also change that meaning whenever I want to something else I’d enjoy more.”
If my audacious claim really is true (and it is), you can understand why I think what we learned can totally transform how people experience their lives.
There is one caveat. Because how something occurs for us is primarily the result of prior beliefs and conditionings, as long as they continue to exist similar situations will continue to occur for us the same way. Ultimately, in order to be able to prevent negative occurrings, we have to eliminate the beliefs and conditionings that cause them.
We probably will offer another webinar like the last one shortly. Most of the participants in the experiment thought that the group participation was very helpful in being able to produce the result, but not absolutely necessary. So I need to find a way to teach the Lefkoe Occurring Process to everyone who wants the benefits it has to offer at a price everyone can afford, which means I’ll have to find a way to offer a training on CDs or DVDs, without group participation and without me having to be personally involved in every training. And because the weekly practice is so crucial, I need to find a way to get people to practice if they are not going to be showing up for a webinar with me weekly, where I am going to be asking about their weekly practice.
But we will find a way and it won’t be long before tens of thousands of people are able to dissolve negative feelings like anger, anxiety and unhappiness as they occur. Finding a way to help people do that is a goal worth getting out of bed for every morning.
If you find this post useful, please click on the Digg button below, which will make tens of thousands of people aware of it. Thanks for helping us to help others.
We are now turning these weekly blog posts into podcasts. Sign up for the RSS feed to get the podcasts sent to you weekly.
If you haven’t yet eliminated at least one of your limiting self-esteem beliefs using the Lefkoe Belief Process, go to http://www.recreateyourlife.com/free where you can eliminate one limiting belief free.
Please share my blog posts by providing a link from your own website or blog to https://mortylefkoe.com.
To purchase DVD programs that we guarantee to eliminate eight of the most common daily problems people face, go to http://www.recreateyourlife.com/store.
Follow me on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/mortylefkoe and join our fan page on Facebook (http://www.facebook.com/recreateyourlife) where I answer your questions about the role of beliefs in our lives.
Finally, to receive notice of new blog posts, please fill out the following form.
copyright ©2010 Morty Lefkoe
[…] dieses Jahr gekommen bin, möchte ich das, was ich gerade geschrieben habe, ein wenig anpassen [hier findet Ihr den Originalartikel, in dem Morty Lefkoe sein Experiment […]
I am responding to an email about entering something about myself I’d like to address.
I suffer from PTSD. I have since childhood. I deal pretty well with it except I cannot seem to stay put in a job. I don’t have trouble staying employed I just never seem to keep a job long. I also have the itchy feet syndrome. Always on the go. I have been meditating for a number of years and that helps. However, my past actions in the job market are very stressful on my spouse.
Hi GM,
Unfortunately we do not have a DVD package that deals with PTSD, but we can help you get rid of that in our one-on-one phone or Skype sessions.
If you’d like to find out more about how you can get rid of your PTSD for good, please call us at (415) 506-4472.
Regards, Morty
Hello Morty,
I really enjoyed your post. I would love to participate in your next webinar. I think that I have pretty much overcome my unworkable belief patterns but what if I haven’t? I still attract ‘stuff’ into my life that I don’t like. Maybe I am fooling myself still.
Thanks Morty for your hard work.
Janet
Hi Janet,
We’ll be announcing details of the next occurring webinar in a few weeks. Love to have you in the course. I promise a major breakthrough.
Regards, Morty
Another great post, thanks Morty!
Kristin
Hi Kristin,
Thanks for taking the time to comment. Glad you like it.
Regards, Morty
What about if you have a negative pattern in your life, such as getting into abusive relationships or bad business deals? You might tell yourself “I’m not going to feel bad because I learned something,” but if the same kind of thing has happened over and over, maybe you didn’t “learn” how to stop it from happening. Putting a positive spin on things that have already happened seems to me to be a different process than finding what beliefs are causing your problem pattern. If you put negative occurrences into a positive light, you may be opening yourself up even more to the same thing happening again. After all, you consider them positive–so why stop them from happening? More important, I think, to identify and CHANGE patterns.
Hi Barb,
I agree with you totally that in the long run the best and most effective thing is to identify and eliminate the beliefs.
But in the moment, if you are giving a situation a meaning that is producing anger, fear, upset, sadness, etc., you can dissolve that meaning, thereby stopping those negative feelings. Then you can figure out what beliefs caused you to give the situation that particular meaning.
Thanks for the dialogue.
Regards, Morty
It’s easy as well as dificult in the sense if U can control UR self U can do it & successfully live UR life. How U control. Salim
Hi Salim,
You don’t have to “control yourself.” Just change the meaning you are giving reality. Trying to control your feelings and behavior without changing the meaning is very difficult if not impossible.
Thanks for writing.
Regards, Morty
Ethan: The entire reason I clicked over to the blog was to find out exactly “what” worked. I liked the subject line because of the intrigue it created.
Morty: Here’s evidence of your genius and the answer to everyone’s skepticism: “most people usually are not aware of the distinction between reality and how reality occurs for them. And because we are not aware of this distinction, we act as if the way reality occurs for us is the way reality “really is,” which is rarely true.”
Again: Just because you see reality one way doesn’t mean the whole world sees it the same way.
Hi Jessica,
Glad that the headline attracted you. And thanks for the compliment.
Have a great day.
Regards, Morty
awesome Morty, recently i have been thinking along the same lines. its only our perception that makes our situation good or bad. when I wake up its as if i choose this is a good day/bad day . like when we all were kids you would tell yourself your bored and it just shuts off your imagination. then you tell yourself thats interesting and your imagination is switched back on. I just want to learn how to be in full control of my experience of life and make every rainy day an extaordinary day.
Hi Aaron,
Thanks for taking the time to comment on my post. I really appreciate the dialogue.
Regards, Morty
Morty – Consider giving a more descriptive title to your blog posts. When they show up on Digg with a title liked “It Worked”, nobody is going to have any idea about the topic of the article, and are likely to have no reason to read it. What you’re doing is incredible and I want it to have every chance of getting out there to everyone.
Hio Ethan,
Thanks for the suggestion.
I have been following some rules I learned from a bunch of courses in headline writing. The sole purpose of a headline is to get people to read the first sentence, not to inform people about the contents of the article.
I’ll keep working at it.
Regards, Morty
This is terrific, Morty. Your process really does work amazingly well, and I agree that it needs to get out to the entire world.
Hi Ethan,
Thanks for your comment and support.
Have a great day.
Regards, Morty
That all sounds wonderful. I wonder about feelings that arise without a cause I can see. For example I wake up in the morning and – maybe because of dreams I do not remember – feel very anxious, maybe for the rest of the day. Do you think you could help with these feelings, too?
Hi Michael,
My sense is that life is occurring to you in a particular way every morning based on your beliefs and conditionings. For example, if you believed life is difficult and I’ll never get what I want, the meaning you would give each day might be: Another day of effort and struggle with nothing to show for it. That meaning could have you awake with anxiety that continues though the day.
No way to know for sure without talking to you.
Regards, Morty
Hi Morty,
I love the way you keep pushing the limits even after you have already discovered a very effective method (TLM).
When do you expect to have turned this new development into a product like a DVD and/or CDROM?
Hi Ronald,
I think I will offer one more course that I lead. Then base don what I learn from it, we will try to offer either an on-line course without me or a CD product.
Thanks for your interest.
Regards, Morty
Sounds quite unreal. How can you change a perception of situation from anger to happiness? In some cases maybe, but can you give an example on the situation when I discover that I was cheated by another person who I used to believe before? How can I be happy about this??? What kind of another reality behind such situation???
Hi Igor,
Until you’ve actually done it it can be hard to imagine.
But events don’t cause feelings, the meaning we give the events does. What is the meaning you are giving the situation you describe? Something like: I am powerless. Anger is always caused by a sense of being powerless.
Someone else might give the same event a different meaning: This is an opportunity to learn how to be a better judge of people. Or, this was a small price to pay for an important life lesson. Those meanings wouldn’t cause anger.
Regards, Morty
Very interesting, you could set up a forum, where people can enter, read the “lesson”, watch videos, do the exercises, and comment.
I partecipated at one course online once, and it worked wonderfully.
Hi Alessandra,
I think I will offer one more webinar that I lead and then try to find a way to offer the material without me.
Thanks for the suggestions.
Regards, Morty
This is the evidence of how things occur, reading your article I saw seminar, not webinar, hence my comment.
Now I can choose between calling me an idiot, or accepting this as a lesson.
I have to read better the next time. ;)
Thanks.
You aren’t an idiot. I understood what you suggested: a way for people to listen to or watch me deliver a lesson, then do exercises, then post responses, etc.
I’m not quite sure how to make that work yet but I think I will find a way at some point. And it can either be on-line as you suggest on on CDs.
But I want to learn a little more about what it takes to make sure everyone in the course learns how to use the Lefkoe Occurring Process so I probably will offer one more course that I lead personally for 10 weeks.
Have a great day.
Regards, Morty