Planning and goal-setting are highly recommended techniques for life success. We offer a different view. The ability to have a successful experience of life is intrinsic to all human beings; it is recognizing and following our wisdom instead of getting locked into our personal thinking about what should happen and then struggling to make it work out. It makes sense to have a direction, an intention, for life -- the work or activities or people that attract you. The intention opens you to recogni...
Apr 18, 2022•25 min•Ep. 75
We started "Psychology Has It Backwards: The Program" to give people who follow our podcasts an opportunity to meet with us and explore their questions and ideas more deeply. We wanted to help therapists understand our work; help people who are trying to find ease in life get experience with the ideas and interact with others who are finding more peace; and show people learning to work with the Principles how it looks to interact with clients/learners from this perspective. It has turned out to ...
Apr 09, 2022•23 min•Ep. 74
Disagreements are a head-on collision of thoughts. When two people (or groups, organizations, nations) who see the world differently confront each other's ideas, the result is often misunderstanding (or anger, alienation, war). Without understanding, thoughts look not only real, but clearly right, to us. The Principles bring us back to our common humanity with the understanding that thinking is a spiritual gift that all people share; we experience our reality as we think and become aware of our ...
Apr 03, 2022•25 min•Ep. 73
Think of the intellect, our personal mind, as our individual library, collections of everything we've learned or thought about, representing all we know so far. It is what allows us to study and learn, to do our work, to remember how to get around places, to recall people we know, to enjoy reminiscing, and also to scare ourselves with recollections of our difficulties or bad experiences. We depend on our intellect, and we can become so attached to it and enamored of what we know that we lose sig...
Mar 11, 2022•25 min•Ep. 72
We talk about Innate Health as fundamental to the effect of the Principles. It's good to stop to appreciate what a gift it is to mankind. Innate Health is the spiritual core of well-being that cannot be touched by the circumstances of our life. It is our intuitive knowing that we're OK, deep-down, and we can rise above our problems. It's the resource that allows us to survive and thrive. It is our default setting that renews our resilience once we quiet down in the midst of turmoil; we naturally...
Mar 06, 2022•23 min•Ep. 71
Many people think it is important to love yourself to understand love. We would say trying to love yourself involves a lot of thinking about yourself, and dealing with judgments. When we connect with the spiritual nature of Mind, Consciousness and Thought, the life power before the formation of ideas and judgments, the FEELING of love, a universal, non-contingent contentment and appreciation for life itself -- pure love -- fills us up and we feel a connection deeper than personal love. In that d...
Feb 27, 2022•24 min•Ep. 70
Mental Health approaches often contain "toolboxes," collections of tips and techniques to help you get through various psychological situations. From the standpoint of the 3P, we are born with the only tool we need to regain and sustain our well-being and peace of mind: the power of Thought. Once we understand and own that power and realize that we are the creators of our own experiences, we recognize our changing states of mind as the guide to the quality of our thinking and we exercise our own...
Feb 20, 2022•24 min•Ep. 69
Some treatments for those who have experienced trauma assume that past trauma manifests in people's bodies, and creates chronic pain or discomfort. From a 3P perspective, trauma is not a "thing" or a "condition;" it is a memory, images carried forward through time which come to life as feelings via consciousness when the thought is present. The brain and the body and our physical feelings are all part of the world of form; our thinking is a spiritual power, our way of using the formless energy o...
Feb 14, 2022•25 min•Ep. 68
Mental illness diagnoses are actually snapshots of times when someone is caught up in dysfunctional thinking, not descriptions of their character or being. People can become frightened by a diagnosis, as if it was a truth about them, and feel hopeless. As people realize their power to think and experience their thinking as real, they understand when to take thoughts to heart and when to allow them to pass. They see how quieting their minds allows wisdom to restore equilibrium. They know their in...
Feb 05, 2022•24 min•Ep. 67
Many therapy approaches are focused on trauma, based on the assumption that people who have experienced trauma must come to peace and move on in life. Three Principles practitioners assume people can realize that past trauma is a memory, a ghostly image from the past recalled in the present and re-experienced via Consciousness. It has no power but the power people give it as it comes to mind. We focus on understanding the nature of thought that allows us to recall memories and see them for what ...
Jan 28, 2022•27 min•Ep. 66
We talk a lot about Insight; it is a truly remarkable gift, always available to all of us. We can't say enough about the freedom and depth we gain from living from insight, rather than chasing beliefs. The source of beliefs is the intellect, the already known. Beliefs are ideas we generate from reorganizing our memory -- our bank of knowledge -- to try to understand or decide things in the present. Insights arise out of the blue, from Wisdom, always relevant to our present-moment situations. Whe...
Jan 21, 2022•27 min•Ep. 65
People have asked us whether it's arrogant to talk about the Principles as spiritual truths, rather than as someone's theory. Principles, in every field of endeavor, once discovered, explain everything, no exceptions. The Principles of Mind, Consciousness and Thought explain how the experience of life is created, why it is changeable, and why as long as we are alive, we have the power to change. It explains where beliefs and theories come from -- the power of Thought. Without Principles, there w...
Jan 15, 2022•24 min•Ep. 64
A term used in Psychology for people who have an optimistic outlook is "toxic positivity." The idea is that people who embrace life in good spirits regardless of external events are burying or denying reality, or refusing to "process" serious problems. A common misunderstanding among people learning about the Principles is that those who "get it" are relentlessly positive and dismissive of negative feelings. The Principles describe how life works; they do not prescribe how we will work out our o...
Jan 08, 2022•23 min•Ep. 63
This is the time of year when most of us come up with a list of things we must commit to do in the New Year. It has become a source of wry humor that most of us compare notes in February and realize we haven't kept up or aren't really committed to our "resolutions." For some, that's amusing, for others, it sets off negative, judgmental thinking. Yet, when we understand how thought works, it makes sense. We don't change because we "should" or we feel pressure. Change comes from moments of inspira...
Dec 28, 2021•26 min•Ep. 62
Most of us take for granted that quiet arises from shutting off the outside noise in our lives, turning off the music or the TV, going to a quiet, peaceful space free from traffic noise or busy people talking, settling down without distraction. Finding quietude is much deeper than that; it is turning away from our personal minds and the thinking and analyzing they always produce, and turning towards nothingness, towards not knowing and wondering. External activity has nothing to do with that kin...
Dec 17, 2021•25 min•Ep. 61
The most fulfilling aspect of living and working from an understanding of the Principles is that it offers infinite deepening of our understanding, and thus our mental well-being. Sydney Banks said "There is no end or limitation, nor are there boundaries, to the human mind." He pointed us to continually remain open to wisdom, the fresh thoughts that arise in a quiet mind directly from the formless energy of life. As we quiet down and gain insights our faith in wisdom grows. Our work always point...
Dec 10, 2021•26 min•Ep. 60
(This is a rerun of Episode 2.) Psychology has been treating all the outcomes of insecure, misunderstood thinking as though they were the problems. The one underlying problem is what creates insecurity. Support the show
Dec 03, 2021•17 min•Ep. 59
The usual reason people seek therapy is to solve their problems, or try to fix what's wrong with them. In this regard, particularly, Principles practitioners are entirely different. We see the goal of therapy as assisting people to reconnect with their innate mental well-being, find their own common sense and peace of mind, and realize they are naturally whole and resilient. No one is broken, and everyone is able to solve their own problems once they understand that answers are always available ...
Nov 19, 2021•24 min•Ep. 58
Recognizing stress in ourselves is a matter of awareness of the feeling state we are in and which way we are going. If we are feeling more and more tense, that is a signal that we are taking negative, stressful thinking seriously and trying to analyze it or fight it. The antidote to stress is becoming aware of our changing feeling states and having the intention to turn away from tension and agitation. Rather than arguing with ourselves or trying to talk ourselves out of "stress," we learn to qu...
Nov 12, 2021•26 min•Ep. 57
Most of us are taught that modern life is full of "stressors" and we are bound to get stressed out by things that happen in life — from traffic to trauma. We are told to develop coping mechanisms to help us deal with the stress we have to face. The Principles explain that stress is not thrust upon us by events, but created by the way we think about life events. Everyone responds to the whole range of life events in their own way. That's actually good news because, with an understanding of how th...
Nov 05, 2021•23 min•Ep. 56
The intellect is our personal library, the collection of all the thoughts, experiences and knowledge we have had. It represents everything we already know. "Intelligence," on the other hand, is wisdom, insight, common sense — new knowledge that arises in response to present moment curiosity. When we "don't know" what to say or do or how to respond, going to the intellect to "figure it out," or ruminating about it, will not provide an answer. If we know the answer, we'll have it right away. If we...
Oct 29, 2021•24 min•Ep. 55
We've all been advised to "set boundaries" with others, or around our own behaviors. But does that mean that others will follow our "rules," or that we'll remember our own boundaries when we get insecure? We explain that boundaries that arise from insecurity are different from wisdom, or common sense insights, that occur to us in the moment and lead us to step away from situations, or step back from our own impulses or habitual thoughts and behaviors. We can "observe" boundaries without trying t...
Oct 22, 2021•25 min•Ep. 54
We frequently talk ourselves out of inspiration by trusting our insecure thinking. Then we can get caught up in analyzing an infinite number of reasons WHY we're doing what we're doing. In this episode, we bring it back to simplicity and discuss how learning to quiet down, listen to your wisdom, and trust the thinking that comes to you, helps you to follow through and get the things done that you really want to do. Support the show...
Oct 15, 2021•24 min•Ep. 53
Most of us have gone through a time in our life when we've had our heart broken or feelings hurt in relationships with friends and lovers. Misunderstanding of why things are happening comes from our own analysis of the events. We feel wronged and sometimes justified in holding onto grudges, feeling hateful, and obsessing about all the negative things that happened, but this only keeps us stuck in the past and personalizing everything. Finding peace and moving on comes not from analyzing the situ...
Oct 10, 2021•26 min•Ep. 52
People are told to fix what appears to be wrong with them in order to feel better and end up feeling hopeless, or broken because it doesn't help. Focusing on the problems we have or trying to change experiences we have already created does not bring us to mental well-being. "Trying" is a signal you are turned around and attempting to find happiness by managing thought or behavior. Turn around and look inside. Find the state of mind that provides security and let the answers come to you. It is so...
Oct 02, 2021•23 min•Ep. 51
We've all had the experience of variable feelings of our own pain — for example, forgetting about an aching back in the presence of a laughing baby or a playful puppy. The way we experience pain is through thought. What and how much we think about pain determines how it feels to us. As our state of mind falls into insecurity, we tend to focus on what's wrong and it feels much worse. When we are distracted or our spirits lift and our thinking changes, pain moves into the background and we experie...
Sep 24, 2021•26 min•Ep. 50
Everyone has stories to tell about "searching" for experts, wise people, gurus, geniuses... anyone perceived as having special, deep understanding of life. Many people search for years, often finding interesting and helpful ideas along the way. But searching does not bring us our own answers, or peace of mind. SEEING, that is gaining our own deep insights from our own wisdom, is the natural guide to our own lives, and wisdom is within all people, always accessible, but not always understood or a...
Sep 17, 2021•24 min•Ep. 49
Most people come to psychologists or counselors with the hope that they can get help dealing with their problems. In traditional psychology, problems are real, and various approaches help people to understand them, address them from a new perspective, re-frame them, re-direct their thinking about them. Three Principles practitioners understand problems as artifacts of our thinking in lower states of mind; "problems" look very different to us depending on our state of mind and understanding the r...
Sep 07, 2021•25 min•Ep. 48
When people hear "spiritual," they often think "oh, religion..." But spirituality, in the context of the Three Principles, refers to the formless energy of creation, the power of life itself, the pure feeling of being alive in the moment, without the intrusion of personal thought. Spirituality is to religion as electricity is to lights; it is the power behind reverence and appreciation that leads to religious thinking, but it is not the content of that thinking. Put another way, spirituality is ...
Aug 27, 2021•23 min•Ep. 47
Traditional mental health approaches deal with the outcomes of our thinking, and put attention on what we think, why our thinking is making us feel bad, why we think it, etc. Three Principles practitioners address the fact that we have the power to think, and we can use a stressful, or any negative state of mind as an internal signal that we are holding onto negative thinking. We draw clients into their natural, innate state that is peaceful, calm, loving. From that perspective, clients start to...
Aug 20, 2021•26 min•Ep. 46
