The Path: Chapter 2

Stephen Sideroff  00:01

Welcome to the resilient longevity podcast. I'm your host, Dr. Stephen Sideroff and I'm joined by my co host, Dr. Rob Lufkin. Rob.

Robert Lufkin  00:12

Thanks, Steve. It's great to be here. Today's world is an obstacle course of stresses, hassles and worries that challenge our ability to cope. The result is an epidemic of chronic illnesses trauma and burnout. The path by Dr. Steven Sideroff is a comprehensive program for dealing with stress and achieving optimal living. Based on years of research and clinical work, it illustrates the author's proven method of resilience in an easy to follow in strategically laid out step by step guide to one's optimal personal journey. Two months ago we are a few weeks ago, he looked at chapter one of the book on this podcast and based on the response, we're now going to release the second chapter of this remarkable book. Although the video version does include some figures from the book, for those who are more visually inclined, please give us feedback. If you'd like to continue with more chapters from this book or from other books that might be of interest to you. We appreciate it. And now, please enjoy chapter two of the path,

Narrator 01:22

chapter two, the path and guiding you on to it. Imagine that your journey through live follows a path you are on that path right now. Most of the time, however, this path is unplanned and unmarked. Typically you are not aware of the path you are on. That's because your unconscious habit patterns lead you on an automatic path. As a result, you frequently find yourself where you don't want to be, which creates unnecessary stress, distraction, and wasted energy. And this is true, even for the most successful of you. I encounter those who believe that because they have goals, they have created the path they are following. But this is belied by all the successful executives who approached me for counseling when their successes leave them short of happiness, or suffering from sleepless nights, nagging physical symptoms, and unfulfilled relationships. Your path is made up of successive moments in time that placed end to end comprise your journey through life. Now, you may ask if I'm talking about your physical path, say, growing up in Cleveland and moving to Los Angeles, or you might conceive of this as your career path through schools and into business or some profession. While these are the concrete results you can point to in your life, I'm referring to a psychological concept, an emotional, mental, spiritual and physical state of being that you experience on route to the goals or destinations of your life. It is more of the how and the why than the what of your life. In fact, it reflects your quality of life, and your effectiveness in it. The path, the one we are creating in this program is described by a string of successive moments lived optimally, when I refer to the path I'm referring to and defining your optimal functioning at any moment based on the nine pillars underlying resilience. This is the path that results in a sense of joy, wholeness, optimal aging, and all dimensions of success. Once you learn to identify the path, and the signposts that let you know, if you are on or off it, you will feel a sense of reassurance. Those who don't have this path, wander around, they suffer, they don't know where to go or how to make the best choices or decisions. When they take time off, they may feel uncomfortable, like they should be doing something more productive. By identifying what it takes to be on the path you have a way. If you can adopt this path, it will give you faith, trust and confidence in what you are doing. You will be very happy that you have a path. This is liberating. It can infuse you with a sense of power to know that you are going in the right direction and doing the right thing. This also removes considerable uncertainty in your life, your actions and your decisions further reassuring you and reducing your anxiety and worry, your life will flow more smoothly. In addition, others will begin to feel this power and reassurance this faith you have in yourself. A snowball effect will occur in which your ability to be on the path and your result in confidence will be projected out and have a ripple effect, you will begin to note how others respond positively to you. You can generate the sense of power every day in your life, every time you are present with the path. In other words, your recognition that you chose the path will lead you to this sense of power. The optimal path. When I refer to the path, I'm not referring to one path that everyone should take the path does not in any way suggest a specific way for you to live or lead your life. The path as I'm referring to it addresses how you are in the world and how you engage with the world. We can refer to this in a different way by identifying your contact boundary, in fact, to contact boundaries, the one where you and the outside world meet, and the one where you connect with your inner world. The optimal path or being on the path means that you engage with your external and internal world with complete awareness and response ability. By response ability, I mean that your presence is not impaired by past wounding or future worries. These cause a distraction that interferes with your ability to fully respond. Being on the path means that you are fully able to notice and respond to any demand placed upon you. It also means you engage in the most appropriate management of your personal energy, or what I refer to as your life force. If I am defining the path as the ultimate route, then most of the time you are somewhere off this path and on another, going in a less than optimal direction, or simply wandering in the wilderness, metaphorically speaking. Let me give you some examples of what I'm referring to. If you have insecurities, you might awaken in the morning and worry about your day or a specific event such as a meeting later in the day. This worry results in physical tension, nervousness and the activation of your body's stress response. It also distracts from your present moment, the only place where real living and joy take place. As I find with many of my clients, you may walk into your kitchen where family members want to be with you and talk with you. Instead, your preoccupations interfere with his contact, leaving your family feeling neglected and possibly rejected. Thus you are off the path again defined as the optimal way of being in the moment. Another example is engaging in catastrophic thinking by imagining the worst possible outcome and focusing on it. This can lead to procrastination and avoidance. It not only creates fear, but also triggers your body's stress response. It sends adrenaline through your body, tensing muscles and raising heart rate and blood pressure. This creates unnecessary wear and tear on your body, you age more quickly and become fatigued way too fast. Thus, once again, you are off the path. Now you might be saying, wait a minute, I'm not a Pollyanna. Life can be dangerous, and I must always be prepared for what can happen. What can go wrong, this point is well taken. Life is full of uncertainty. We don't know exactly what to expect, and bad things can happen. It is important to anticipate and plan for future problems. Here the operative word is plan. However, once you have done the appropriate planning, going over the plan again and again can be termed worry and obsessive thinking. I find that even when things are going well. Our tendency is to worry about what might go wrong. We sacrifice enjoying success or happiness in the moment in order to be prepared for something that might go wrong in the future. Beyond planning, additional time and energy devoted to worry is counterproductive and takes you off the path. This point was continually demonstrated during the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver. The athletes took risks every time they competed. In fact, in order to have any shot at a metal athletes must go all out and completely put out of their heads the possibility of falling or making a mistake, even though this is an ongoing possibility. When asked one Olympic athlete Julia man cuzzo said You can't be scared. In fact, this is what makes man Cousteau and her peers truly Olympic athletes that ability to put fear and danger out of their minds. The danger exists, but focusing on the danger serves no purpose and in fact, impairs performance. We can use these peak performers as exemplary models. The lesson is that optimal performance comes from being totally in the moment despite the danger, not because the danger isn't real, but because focusing on the danger creates tension and ambivalence and has no constructive benefit. Thus, the other lesson is that optimum performance or optimal functioning for the rest of us begins with the ability to let go of everything, but what's right in front of us. learning this lesson will be addressed in the fifth pillar of resilience, mental balance and mastery, as well as in the seventh pillar, presence. These are all part of being on the path. The impact of childhood experience, primitive Gestalt, the path you are on is the result of what you learn during your early childhood experience. It is your reaction and conditioning to the rewards and punishments you received from others. Early on, it's mostly from your primary caregivers, mother and father. In other words, the path you take is determined by the rules laid down in your childhood environment. These are the rules most likely to maintain approval or avoid pain and punishment. They may be useful and important in your childhood environment, but they are not the best strategies for Optimal Living as an adult. In fact, much of the time the path you take is an effort to avoid emotional pain and rejection while trying to win approval. This creates unnecessary physical, emotional and mental strain. That lowers your level of resilience. It also inhibits your behavior causing you to shrink from new possibilities that make you uncomfortable.

Narrator 12:12

Some typical lessons learned in childhood include the world is unsafe. It's not okay to be angry. Men shouldn't cry, always be on guard. It's not okay to make mistakes. You are responsible for the feelings of others. Don't accept compliments because you may become too cocky. You are not okay. You are flawed. You can't get anything right. You are prone to making mistakes. You make bad decisions. You must be productive all the time. You will never be successful. You are not lovable. You don't deserve. These early childhood lessons shaped the development of your brain as well as your behavior. It is during this early stage of life that brain circuits, sometimes referred to as cell assemblies are reinforced, that is become associated with success, getting your needs met or avoiding punishment and pain. These cell assemblies gain strength and those circuits and brain cells that are not reinforced, disappear. In other words, your developing brain is a reflection of the world in which you grew up. Once established early in life, these patterns become more and more difficult to shift. After all, they were learned during your earliest survival efforts and are literally imprinted in your brain. Furthermore, the development of these patterns began before you were able to verbalize the lessons. Thus they sit in your body as feelings, making them even more difficult to recognize. I refer to these patterns which have a neuro anatomical Foundation, as primitive Gestalt. Gestalt is a German word that means whole or complete, we can use the analogy of atoms, atoms have protons in the center which carry a positive charge, and electrons circling the center, which carry a negative charge. And atom requires an equal number of electrons and protons to be in balance. When an atom has fewer electrons than protons, it is unstable. We can say that it is in need of additional electrons. It will then have a tendency to combine with another atom such that the combination produces a molecule in which there are equal number of electrons and protons. In other words, there is an equal positive and negative charge that prevents the loss or gain of additional electrons or protons. The molecule we say is in balance. and thus resistant to further change. Similarly, your primitive gestalts feel complete because they have given you needed survival answers and solutions. They feel right. That's because you're observing self your eye is embedded in the primitive Gestalt. When you go inside to check if something is right or not, you are comparing with the lessons and feelings of your childhood. Remember, this is an unconscious process, so you probably don't even know you were doing it. Thus, if the lesson was that getting close to another person is not safe. If you experienced abuse or even excessive criticism as a child, then as soon as you find yourself getting close in a relationship, it starts to feel uncomfortable. This discomfort leads to some action, such as finding something to argue about that creates distance in the relationship. Even though this is destructive, it feels right. You might even come up with a judgment about the actions of the other person to validate and reinforce the triggered feeling. Let's look at an example. Take the case of Edie, not his real name, whose parents got divorced when he was nine years old, with a father leaving and having minimal contact after that this loss was traumatic and painful. In an attempt to minimize the chances of suffering another loss of this magnitude and the expectation that people close to you may leave, he made the decision never to get so close to another person that he or she could hurt him by leaving or rejecting him. A similar decision can also come about because of an abusive or overly critical parent. There were two lifelong consequences of this decision. First, whenever he had stayed in a relationship, he became more and more uncomfortable. His tendency was to cause conflict or do something to end the relationship before he got rejected. Second, he learned unconsciously that the way not to notice this discomfort was to numb himself emotionally. One of the ways he did this was by developing a shallow and constricted breathing pattern. This resulted in him taking less oxygen into his body. by depriving every cell in his body of its normal supply of oxygen, he was partially deadening his body. This successfully created a numbing which throughout his life he experienced as depression. Again, here we see a person living off the path, primitive Gestalt lock in ways of thinking and behaving. In your early attempts at security and survival, they create answers to immediate needs. Fritz Perls, who helped found the Gestalt therapeutic approach noted that as children, we swallow messages from parents and society whole, without chewing or tasting, you make these rules of living your own, like the rules identified above, the conclusion is your rage interfere with growth. As a result, primitive assaults and their neuro anatomical representations interfere with you getting your true needs met, and achieving true completion. We might also say that they limit your ability to adapt or learn new lessons, a key to resilience. Another client, let's call her Jane demonstrates another common pattern. Jane's mother was very critical and unloving. She sometimes was angry at Jane for no apparent reason. No matter what this client did, there was no change in her mother's behavior. When she came home from school with a report card that was almost perfect, the mother complained about the single B on the card. Even all A's did not achieve the love and connection Jane's so desired. What were the consequences of this experience? Jane's first response was to try to anticipate her mother's every reaction and emotion. Through this process, she became very sensitive to the slightest expressions of others and felt responsible for them. Second, she tried to get everything right, so she wouldn't be criticized. When her behavior didn't get the response she wanted. No matter what she did. She simply tried to do more and do it better. Of course, assuming there was something wrong with her, not with her mother. This pattern set the client off on an approach to life in which she always needed to be perfect and productive. Related to this is the type a person who only feels as good as his or her last accomplishment in both of these cases and adult is still trying to receive the acceptance and approval that were elusive during childhood. The lack of such approval as a child left the adult with a sense of not being okay and not being deserving. These paths and their consequences as described are incompatible with resiliency, we can therefore say these individuals are off the path. In this program, I want you to begin identifying what would be the path for you to distinguish or discriminate when you are on the path versus the familiar path that you have been on and are programmed to continue. Part of this process is to begin labeling aspects of your current path as being inappropriate and the result of your primitive Gestalt pattern. Even when you are successful, say in business, you may still be operating off the path, I see many successful executives who are living unhappy or unfulfilled, stressful lives. The patterns developed early in life to survive and get by become fixed neuro psychological patterns. Think of a big field filled with thick bushes, except for the path you keep taking this path because it is heavily traveled and heavily used is beaten down and easy to walk on. So even though you may feel unhappy or overwhelmed by life, and even though this path isn't taking you where you want to go, you continue to take it because it's easy, familiar, comfortable, and automatic. And you aren't sure Another way would be better, because there is no other clear path.

Narrator 21:50

asking one question. Staying with this analogy, the direction that ultimately will lead to true success and happiness. Because it is a new path is typically a thicket that requires effort to make progress and get through the thicket to the other side. You were thus inclined not to take it because it is more difficult, unfamiliar or more precisely, because it is unknown. To help you through this thicket, we need to make it less formidable by giving you the tools to cut the thicket to make the unknown known, and to show you that it isn't as dangerous as you might imagine. Furthermore, I want to give you the hope and expectation that taking this new path will more likely lead you to your true goals in life and to true happiness. And finally, once you are on this path, you will discover that it actually makes your life much easier. This is sometimes referred to as being quote in the flow. This will be illustrated shortly as you are asked to take the steps that puts you onto the path where it will actually be easier to move forward in your life. The path is a simple perceptual and emotional mechanism to help you move forward in your life in an optimal manner. Because it simplifies the process to asking one question at any moment, am I on the path or off the path no matter what is going on in your life by focusing in on the present moment, and deciding if right now you're either on or off the path, you have the opportunity to let go of your myriad problems. These problems intruding into your awareness simply serve to distract and impair performance and thinking. If you discover that you are off the path, this book will help you get back on this optimal path I'm referring to is something that needs to be learned and cultivated. You will also need continual reminders, because your tendency will be to fall back into the old habitual behaviors and path. In fact, we can say that your existing path or pattern has a gravitational pull. Even when you try to move away from it. It is always exerting strings of attachment. There is a name for this in scientific theory about how the world works. It's called an attractor state. When an existing pattern has a strong poll and you're continually attracted to and pulled back to it. Success is often measured by the bottom line, a step up the corporate ladder and more money in the bank. In my resilience model of life and Optimal Living however, those accomplishments represent only one aspect of success and of being on the path. For example, in pillar number three, you will learn that your relationship with something greater helps create a sense of wholeness and connection in your life. This is the opposite of the sense of isolation many of us feel, even with a big bank account. Remember, this is not a program to help you become successful in business, make a lot of money, get the big house, or improve your image, even though following the path will achieve all these goals as well. This is the resilient path, the path of Optimal Living. This path has broader values and goals that take into account physical health, emotional balance, relationships, and mental strength. The path leads you away from a life in which you discard happiness in order to get ahead, no matter how much you need to get done to resolve finish, etc. It all starts with this very moment. When you determine Am I on the path or off the path and then you take the steps to get back on it if you need to. Throughout this book, the focus will be on helping you identify when you are on and when you are off the path. Thus, there will always be a simple discrimination that needs to be made. That is whether you are in your old pattern operating out of your primitive Gestalt, the automatic habitual pattern of your existing path, or whether you are consciously choosing new healthy behaviors and a more positive constructive path. Learning to discriminate between the two paths will coincide with the development of a new healthier pattern, which I can assure you is underpinned by new brain development, and my nine component model of resilience. You are now ready to step onto the path. On this path, you will begin taking more effective steps in your life and in your daily actions. And important points in the discussion, I will direct you onto the path to address each step along the way. And then you will return to the explanations and continue. Preparing to step onto the path. Your first true step. Here is your decision and your choice. Ask yourself these questions. Do I want to live in a more optimal fashion? Do I want to get unstuck? Do I want to handle stress more effectively and feel healthier? Do I want to be able to adapt and handle new situations effectively? Do I want to get my personal development process into high gear? Be more aware, more awake and more connected? Do I want to attract more positive results in my life? Do I want to have more satisfying relationships? Do I want to be more successful and resilient? Do I want to be happy and feel good about myself? If you answered yes to these questions, here is the more difficult question to ask yourself. Am I willing to expend time, effort and attention in order to achieve these results? If I give you a surefire path will you commit to exerting effort in order to achieve these positive changes? Your effort is the price you pay for becoming resilient and achieving success and your life goals. Keep in mind that when you are off the path you will be less efficient and less effective in life. So even though you may not realize it, you will waste much more energy with less positive results. If you are willing to make an effort, you are ready to continue with this book and the path let me introduce you to the path. Many years ago I went up to the frigid north to be an assistant professor at McGill University in Montreal had the good fortune to get there just before Donald Hebb retired, and even better got to know him. hembre one of the seminal books in the field of neuroscience, the organization of behavior. From this came his most paraphrased statement, quote, neurons that fire together, wire together, unquote. It is commonly referred to as hebbs law. This concept, which has been validated in many ways in recent years illustrates the importance of making statements or thinking thoughts that we want to become reality. By making the statements we create and then reinforce connections that they represent in the brain that makes them more likely to occur in real life. This is what you are going to do in this first step on the path Step one, declaring I want to be resilient and successful, and take the steps necessary for my greater development. This first step is your creation of written affirmations. To support your decision to live a more resilient and optimal life, and to make the necessary effort to achieve resilience success. Affirmations are statements that acknowledge beliefs you either hold to be true, or want to believe are true. Affirmations are statements written as if they are already true. You then speak these messages to yourself on a regular basis. As you constantly repeat these messages, your brain will lay down neural circuitry based on the statements. As a result, your brain will experience them as real and already taking place. They are a foregone conclusion, you are engaging in a dress rehearsal for Optimal Living. Here are suggested affirmations for step one. Use these or create similar statements that are a better fit for you. Write them on small index cards that you keep with you at all times. Look at them when you awaken when you go to sleep, and at your three daily meals. I am living in more resilient and optimal life. I am making the necessary effort to be more resilient and function optimally. I am willing to make an effort and take actions to become resilient and successful.

Narrator 31:58

Step two, addressing yourself sabotage. Your success requires the full alignment of motivations, which can be expressed as a sense of deserving, as you will learn you frequently carry around a part of yourself that is self critical, might even consider itself destructive and undermining. This is the part that says I am not good enough or that continually reminds you of past mistakes. It is part of your primitive Gestalt. Consciously you might say you are only trying to hold yourself accountable. But in fact, you are only holding yourself back. continually reminding yourself of past mistakes thinking of yourself as bad, incompetent or incapable sends one message I don't deserve. self critical thoughts or comments are like digging the dirt out from under your foot after you work hard to take a step up the mountain. No matter how hard you work. These thoughts will interfere with forward progress. You must come from a place of I deserve. This step therefore helps you with your ownership of I deserve. This is important in order to eliminate any internal conflict and self sabotage. Acknowledging that you deserve doesn't mean that you are perfect or without problems. Deserving is a natural right of everyone. The only thing it requires is intention and making a strong effort at personal improvement. Right now, are you able to make the statement I deserve to be resilient and successful in my life. Notice how you feel when you say this. If you feel any discomfort, resistance or lack of conviction, it's important to explore what's causing this. For many this is a common stumbling block. It is due to messages of not being okay or of inadequacy that you are holding on to from your childhood. These messages are a constant companion through your own internalization process and development of your internal voice. Some of you are aware of these messages. For others. This is a new concept, but they are a factor in everyone's life. So let's take a moment right now to explore the messages you give yourself. Step two on the path takes you through a process to uncover your hidden or not so hidden interference. I take step two of the process from my work in Gestalt therapy. We use an empty chair to create a dialogue between two parts of yourself. Normally the voice of your primitive Gestalt is the only voice you hear. It has the power. It might be abusive, saying you don't deserve or it might be subtle or even sneaky, saying well, you would deserve if you didn't make so many mistakes. or you would deserve if you worked a little harder, it can make itself very reasonable. But in truth, the message is you don't deserve. This voice of your primitive Gestalt will sit in one chair, in the other is your healthy voice heard less often. When you stay in the familiar voice, it masks or drowns out the other your familiar voice represents and supports the old pattern. By creating this dialogue, you get to hear the new voice, that you want to support and strengthen the voice that truly wants good things for you. Go to step two to be guided through this process.

Narrator 35:57

Step two, addressing self sabotage, I'd like you to engage in a dialogue with yourself, it might help to actually shift chairs, placing the two parts of yourself in different chairs. Let's identify these two parts. One is your healthy part, which bought this book and wants to become more resilient and successful. The second part of yourself is the part that can be critical, punitive, and even abusive at times. This is the part that uses more negative than positive adjectives to describe you. Or it will quickly add a bud after any phrase. Yes, but anyone could have done it. Yes, but I was lucky. It is the part of yourself that may not feel that you are okay. In fact, it might still be blaming you for childhood mistakes, and thinking that you are defective. Now start off by giving the positive part of you a voice and say, I deserve to be resilient, successful and happy. Notice how you feel as you say this next, shift to the other chair, become the part that can be critical and give this part a voice. This part might find something about you that is not okay. You don't try hard enough. You aren't organized enough, you aren't nice enough, you're not focused enough, you're too lazy. Have this second part of yourself respond. Continue with his dialogue, switching chairs and voices. Notice any tendency to undermine your feelings of deserving notice also any feelings coming up toward the undermining voice. We will return to this dialogue process and take it further in chapter seven. When we address your relationship to yourself. At this point, it is important simply to be aware that these two parts of you exist. Also, at this point, we need to be able to stand on the side of I deserve to be resilient and successful despite our ambivalence.

Narrator 38:31

Step three. I deserve to facilitate the belief that you deserve there must be the concept of acceptance. In this context, acceptance is the opposite of denial. We are in denial much of the time, every time we are upset with ourselves for making a mistake. We are in denial. Every time you tell yourself you should be better than you are. You're coming from a place of denial. Let me explain the laws of physics accepting quantum physics which we'll discuss later say that you can only be in one place at a time. Typically you get upset at where you are on your developmental path, your life's journey, you feel you should be further along. Every time you say I should have done better, you are saying you should be further along in your development. You should be better this is denial. It is denying where you actually are on your path and saying that you should be further along. Acceptance is simply agreeing with and living by the basic principle that you can only be in one place at a time. If right now you typically misplace items such as your keys then, right now you are a person who does not pay attention and is absent minded. Step four. accepting your present circumstances is only accepting reality. In fact, every time you get angry with yourself for not performing better than you do, you undermine your growth, you are telling yourself that you are not okay? Not good enough. This hurts your credibility with yourself and makes you less sure of yourself, making it more difficult for you to try new behaviors. I'm not suggesting that acceptance means being satisfied with where you are, or that you are not going to get better or do better. It's simply an acknowledgement of fact. This is where I am right now, at this moment, with all my flaws, I do want to continue to grow and get better, but here is where I currently am. So if you keep making mistakes or keep losing or misplacing things, that is who you are, right at this moment, someone who has difficulty paying attention and being present. By coming from a place of acceptance, you are being most supportive of yourself, you are better able to consciously Look at yourself. When we don't like who we are, we have greater difficulty seeing ourselves. In fact, this is the shortest path for your optimal growth, and achieving all that you want to accomplish. Step four is the process of accepting yourself with all your warts. Right now, this is who I am. I want to achieve greater awareness, make fewer mistakes and generally function more optimally. But this is where I am right now. Another reason it's important to be accepting of yourself and your circumstances is that it helps you avoid getting overwhelmed by all of the problems you face, or the massive changes you feel you need to make in order to be successful. So many of the people I work with start out being discouraged by all the changes they feel they have to achieve before they can experience relief, or simply acceptance. The sense is that you're in a hole. Perhaps you even feel you have dug this hole yourself. This perspective has you putting life on hold until you get out of the hole. Accepting where you are is a helpful breather for the moment in time and place. It gives you the ability to gain a sense of progress. Even early in this process. Go to the path and take steps three and four now.

Narrator 42:34

Step three. I deserve this success. Suggested affirmations to write and repeat to yourself. I deserve to live a healthy and successful life. I deserve to feel good. I deserve to live without worry, or tension. Step four. I am accepting of myself. Create affirmations or self statements that support acceptance of yourself and where you are in your life. Here are some examples. Although it is difficult to look at myself and see myself with all my faults, I accept that this is where I'm at. As I begin the path. By accepting myself I am taking the shortest route the path to resilience and success. Although I make mistakes and I'm far from perfect, I completely and truly, except myself. self acceptance places me on the path.

Narrator 43:58

Step five. Stepping onto the path. Intention. Your fifth step. Here is where you bring in your intention. The part of you that wants something better the part of you that wants a healthier, happier and more successful life. This is an important step for many reasons. First, as noted above, there are parts of yourself that unconsciously interfere with your forward progress. You may be aware of your self sabotage, or you may have been blaming others or bad luck for being stuck. You have already taken the first step in a dialogue with a part of you that undermines intention is the countervailing force opposing the attractor state of the primitive Gestalt. It helps mobilize your power, your strength to be on the path. Let me make an even stronger statement about intentions. In quantum physics, there is the concept of a quantum leap. An electron for example, can jump from one atomic orbit to the next without moving through the intermediate space between electron orbits, one moment it's in one orbit, and in the next, it's in another orbit. It's a matter of physics. We say the process is discontinuous. On the human subjective level, I believe its intention that fuels your creative and developmental leaps. Furthermore, it is the active ingredient and loosening the hold your primitive Gestalt has on you. Here is another way of thinking about intentions. Your unconscious mind responds to the intentions of your conscious mind. When you have a clear intention and follow a practice step by step your conscious intention attracts the unconscious resources needed to change the state of your consciousness. Over time, the unconscious is impressed by conscious repetition. Right now, let's focus on your intention. Having an intention is having a driving purpose in your mind. This directs your mind giving it an aim and a powerful force. By setting your intention you align the forces of the universe to help ensure your success in following the path. Go to step five right now. And write these new affirmations. Share your intentions with one person who is close to you.

Narrator 46:34

Step five, declaring my intention. Self statement, I am declaring to myself and to others, my intention to do whatever is necessary to make the effort to get onto and stay on the path. The optimal way for me to live my life and be resilient. I will devote myself to greater awareness and living from a place of intention and purpose. I will root out my thinking and behaviors that are not supportive of my highest intentions. I will share my purpose with at least one close relationship in order to make this declaration public, and also to receive support in getting on and staying on the path. Step six. Remembering being on the path requires continually choosing, but most of the time you are acting out of habit and unaware, being on automatic results in following your old path and being unable to choose. As I mentioned, your old path your primitive Gestalt has a gravitational pull. This means plain and simple, that initially it has control. It is the default position. Without a consistent plan to remember to be on the path you will automatically revert to the primitive Gestalt path. If the field you are going through as a jungle with thickets all around except for this one path. Unless you make a conscious choice, your feet will do the walking down the existing and easy path. You're in your old world. So the challenge is remembering Gurdjieff, an early 20th century mystic referred to remembering oneself. This is where you are able to see what there is to see while noticing that you are seeing. It's a state of being self aware and being a witness to yourself. Ordinarily, when you're engaged in life, you lose your sense of AI. For this reason, the next step is remembering to notice whether you are on or off the path. In other words, awaken to the moment for as many moments in your day as possible. Ideally, this can occur during important choice points. On a deeper level. This is a process of recognizing that you have choices in life. Typically it is a choice between your old habitual behaviors and newer, intentional ones. In these moments of choice of remembering to notice, you can begin to observe how you are moving through your life. On the path is a new pattern and off the path is the old for example, the old pattern may be to say no to doing something because it would be uncomfortable or scary and short out of your comfort zone. But this old pattern keeps you stuck and unsatisfied. Instead, decide to say yes through Throughout this book methods will be identified for you to remember to notice if you are on or off the path. Part of this process will be to remember to take supportive actions that help you move forward on a path. Right now, go to Step six, and take action

Narrator 50:28

step six, creating a structure for remembering. Until you develop greater self awareness, you will need to create a structure for remembering. This will take the form of a series of three by five index cards, on which you place your responses to the first steps, your affirmations, your self statements, and your intentions. Place these cards next to your bed. So you will see them, read them and meditate on them. When you awaken in the morning, carry them with you during your day. Take them out and read them at breakfast and lunchtime. Take them out and read them at 3pm. Take them out and read them at dinner time. And finally, as you place them next to your bed when you go to sleep. Read them a final time. By reading these statements right before going to bed. You are taking them to sleep with you and helping them enter your unconscious mind.

51:43

Step seven. Ask yourself the question. Am I on the path? This is your ongoing question that establishes each moment as a moment for optimal functioning. A positive answer to this question will help you address any feelings of overwhelm in your life. Right now you may be saying to yourself, there is so much I need to accomplish in order to be resilient, I have to be more aware I have to be more focused, I have to make fewer mistakes, I have to be more punctual, and on and on. If you approach each moment of your life with multiple demands and multiple expectations, if you sit down to do one task with a head filled with all the other things you need to do in life, these distractions will only create more tension and less effectiveness. Resilience and peak performance begin with establishing a way to be completely present each and every moment of your life. This is the lesson behind the path. No matter where you are in your development in your progress. If you live this moment, optimally, you are considered to be on the path. And that is the best that you can do and needs to be appreciated. Go to step seven to complete this chapter.

Narrator 53:16

Step seven. Ask yourself the question. The beauty of this program and being on the path is that no matter where you are and your personal development, you can be on the path. Even if you're having difficulty managing your life, you can still be on the path. This is because the path is defined as being in the moment in the most optimal manner for you. For example, right now, the most optimal manner is simply following the first six steps of this chapter. So how do you know if you're on the path? If you have taken the first six steps as outlined above, you are definitely on the path. So ask yourself, Am I on the path or off the path? If you can say you are on the path? Great. If you can't say it, the solution is simple. You have the power and the ability to be on the path. Just follow the first six steps above. And then by saying I'm on the path. Move forward to the next chapter. And the next steps. assured that you will be taking the shortest route toward resilience and Optimal Living. The path chapter by chapter being On the path means developing a healthy, resilient way of being in the world and supporting your progress toward life goals. In this chapter, I've introduced you to your primitive Gestalt, your internal guide developed during childhood. It is represented by the voice you continually hear in your head, even when you don't notice it. This voice, the result of childhood training and survival, learning is typically inaccurate and inappropriate in your life as an adult, its presence 24/7 is primarily responsible for maintaining old behavioral, mental and emotional habits. One of the goals of the path is to recognize its inaccuracies and shift you away from your old internal guide to a healthier, more mature internal Guide, which is a voice that develops as you go further down the path. When a deeper knowing awareness or learning will occur, the path accomplishes two more important goals. Number one, with each step you take on the path, you will be learning to trust yourself. Thus, another benefit of the path is the fostering of self confidence. This occurs automatically when you do the right thing. And then acknowledge to yourself that you did so. In other words, you are learning that you can rely on yourself. This is at the heart of self confidence, one more step in the achievement of Optimal Living. Number two, the other goal you will achieve is improved awareness and consciousness. As you learn to focus and be more confident, you will have less reason to escape and thus be more capable of being in the present moment where all life takes place. signposts at the end of each chapter you will find signposts just like road markers, they let you know that you are truly on the path. They are clear demonstrations to yourself that you can do it that you are doing it. They are your signposts for being on the path. Here are the signposts for chapter two. These signs identify the important steps taken. As you move through this chapter. You have declared your desire to be resilient and successful. You have had a dialogue between the two parts of yourself. You have written an affirmation that you deserve to achieve success in this program, you have created a self statement that supports acceptance of yourself. You have created an intention to do whatever is necessary to get on to and stay on the path. You have created three by five cards to remember to engage in this program. You have asked yourself the question, Am I on the path or off the path.

Unknown Speaker 58:03

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