Welcome!
In this edition you will find helpful ideas and activities to help you build the mind-body connection to achieving success.
In this issue:
(1) Feature Article: Embody the Success You Desire
(2) Being, Incorporated™
(3) Upcoming Events
(4) Resources & Offers
(5) In Closing
(1) Feature Article: Embody the Success You Desire
January is a time we often set goals for the new year. February is a great time to practice new habits for achieving those goals. I’d like to share with you about empowering your goals through your mind-body connection. Read on, and I’ll also give you some practices that will help you truly embody the success you desire.
What is it that successful people do to attain what they want? They create a 3-dimensional experience of success even before they get what they really want. It’s as though they energize what they want by letting their body and mind have a full taste of the experience, so they can magnetically attract whatever resources are necessary to make it happen.
Research by Steven DeVore supports the mind-body connection in achieving success. DeVore is the creator of Sybervision, a company that offers tapes for learning languages as well as a performance enhancement learning series called The Neuropsychology of Achievement. DeVore studied high achievers and discovered that the main characteristic of both historical and contemporary high achievers is what he terms a ‘sensory orientation.’
DeVore found that when you ask high achievers to talk about their hopes and aspirations, they do with three-dimensional sensory detail. Their words paint a vivid picture for you, so that you would feel as though you were there with them. These high achievers use language that tells you how they feel, from the inside out! This includes what they notice about their senses of smell, taste, touch, sight, and sound. It could also include their posture, their inner sense of movement, and any sensations, such as feeling fluttering in their stomach, warmth around their heart, or perhaps chills along their spine.
For example, before asking a key client to buy a major piece of equipment, a high achiever might envision herself making eye contact with the client, feeling a smile shine on her face, sensing tingling in her shoulders, noticing the fresh smell of peppermint that she associates with simplicity, hearing herself in her mind saying, “I’d really like to make a great deal for you,” and imaging the customer enthusiastically grasping and shaking her hand to informally close the deal.
When you ask these same high achievers about their so-called failures, their descriptions take on a one-dimensional quality. The words become abstract and devoid of real meaning. They might say they “felt bad” or were “out of it.” Do those paint a picture for you? I find such words pretty flat.
Then, when you talk to this group of successful people about what they learned from their so-called failures, once again, you would be treated to a rich, three-dimensional, sensory-loaded picture. The achievers would use descriptive words from the five senses, making statements like, “I noticed that when I tuned out on the customer I was trying to attract, my lower back became tight, my vision narrowed, my breathing was shallow, and I had a lump in my throat.”
Another researcher also discovered the power of the mind-body connection in performance breakthroughs. Psychologist Eugene Gendlin, author of the book Focusing, was attempting to determine what helps clients to change. He found that client success was not based on the school of philosophy of therapy to which their therapist subscribed. In fact, he found that client success was largely based on the client’s own ability to feel and describe what was happening in their bodies.
So, in a session, when the therapist asked a question, the client might start answering with his mind and mental abilities, but would shift to talking about his body. This might happen with a little patience, and the client would say something like “Hmm, this issue about being frustrated with my boss seems to make me feel a tightness in my head. Let me just see…hmm, what do I feel? Oh, yes, there’s a twitch between my eyes…oh, it reminds me that my father used to hit me right between the eyes with the morning newspaper and tell me to stop goofing off.”
To achieve positive performance shifts, Gendlin explains that people need to be willing to notice and ‘follow’ their ‘felt sense,’ the physical ‘aha’ moments that come with a new awareness or intuition. Moment to moment, such clients were able to pay attention to their bodies and the sensations they felt.
As you follow your dreams and goals, I invite you to incorporate body awareness in all its richness. Become an expert on how you want your future to feel, taste, smell, sound, look, and move. Create your 3-D picture of success. I would be happy to assist you in building your inner awareness. Ask me how I can help you attain your goals and dreams. And use the exploration below to embody your success.
(2) Being, Incorporated™
I invite you to adopt a practice that allows you to feel your success deeply in your body. Start by setting aside a time of day when you can take at least 10 – 15 minutes to embody your goals, dreams, and desires.
Start by envisioning something you want to create or have. Perhaps you want to find success in a new job. Maybe you hope to have a romantic or business partnership. How about delivering a major presentation at work. Whatever it is, visualize it as thought it is taking place right now. You may find this exploration easier if read the directions fully, and then you close your eyes and follow them. Or, perhaps record your voice speaking the words, and play them back for yourself.
What can you see of this moment or achievement you want? Relax, breathe deeply, and let the picture come to you. Release any effort. Trust that whatever you can see is perfect.
Next, ask the picture to get clearer. Imagine walking around the scene. Does it move or is it fixed? See if you can make it like a brief movie, where you notice the details.
Vision
In this scene of success, what do you see in front of you? Look to the sides – what’s there? What is above you? What is below you? How about behind you?
Sound
Now, turn up the volume on this scene. What do you hear? Voices? Noise? Music? Is it loud or soft? Clear or muffled? Equal in both ears or not? How does the sound affect the vibration in your body? Do you react to the rhythm? How does the rhythm impact your breathing?
Smell
Still immersed in your vision -- take a whiff. Smell your success. What is the atmosphere like? What associations do you make with the scents around you?
Taste
Check in with your mouth, even moving your tongue around and licking your lips, energizing this very sensitive part of your body. See if you can notice a taste in your mouth. What does your success taste like? Sweet? Salty? Tart? Tangy? Just notice.
Touch
Now, bring your awareness to the surface, to your sense of touch.
Other Body Awareness
As you envision your success – what happens to your body temperature? Do you find warm or hot spots? Cool or cold spots? How does energy move through your body? Where are areas of tension? Of ease?
Wrapping up
Give yourself some time to savor the experience, as though it happening in the present moment. Notice your emotional state. How does this inform you?
I recommend doing this body-centered visualization at least twice a day. For many, this will work well upon waking and before sleep, to energize your goals and dreams. You may wish to write or draw or dance or move or talk to someone about what this practice reveals.
As you experiment, what do you observe about how this practice works for you? Please drop me a line and let me know. I can also assist you with making this practice more potent and energizing in your life. Call or email me to discuss body-centered coaching for performance enhancement.
I'd be happy to give you a valuable resource for powering up your body-centered descriptive abilities. Click here or email me to receive your complimentary article Body Centered Success Vocabulary, and start enjoying the fruits of your inner awareness. Simple yet powerful!
(3) Upcoming Events
Friday, February 11, 12-1 pm PST
Free Teleclass: Energizing a Vision of Your Future
Clarify what you want from your career, and build a daily practice to turn your vision into reality. You will also...
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Learn how to "check-in" with your body to discover its wisdom messages
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Discover how to tune into your intuition
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Find out how to feel success, even when you are still working on getting the things you want
To sign up, go to: www.WorkFromWithin.com/teleclasses.html
Sunday, March 6, 2005
Informing Your Next Career or Life Move
Time: 10 am – 5 pm
Location: Upaya Center, Oakland, 478 Santa Clara Avenue, Suite 200, Oakland, CA 94610
In the midst of career or life transition, how do you inform your next move?
Bring a problem, 'stuck place', or frustration in your professional or personal life -- one you hope to change. Using a series of playful and experiential activities, we will explore the intuitive voice within each of us. By attuning to your body -- through movement, breath, gesture, metaphor, imagery, and sound -- you can gain clarity about what calls to you and discover your own wisdom about how to respond. You will leave the workshop with a set of tools and practices you can use anytime you want to tune into your intuition.
Cost: $69, includes materials and light snacks. Pay in full before February 25 and receive a 1-hour coaching session after the workshop. The workshop fills fast and is limited to 12 participants. For more details and to register, go to www.WorkFromWithin.com/events.html
(4) Resources & Offers
Resources
Feel your success from the inside out. These resources take your practice deeper:
Discover The Neuropsychology of Achievement
Get a copy of Eugene Gendlin’s book Focusing
Learn more about Focusing from the Focusing Institute.
Power up your body-centered descriptive abilities. Receive your complimentary copy of the article Body Centered Success Vocabulary .
Offers
To encourage and assist people who are in the midst of a job search, I am offering a 20% discount to for resume enhancement services and interview preparation sessions during the month of February, 2005. Please click this link to set up your discount.
(5) In Closing
I leave you with a favorite quote from Eugene Gendlin. May it help you to sense, feel, experience, and be present to each moment as it unfolds:
“What is split off, not felt, remains the same. When it is felt, it changes. Most people don't know this. They think that by not permitting the feeling of their negative ways they make themselves good. On the contrary, that keeps those negatives static, the same from year to year. A few moments of feeling it in your body allows it to change. If there is in you something bad or sick or unsound, let it inwardly be, and breathe. That's the only way it can evolve and change into the form it needs.”
— Eugene Gendlin, developer of Focusing
Feel your dreams!
-- Susan
Susan Bernstein, MBA MA
Transformation Partner
Work from Within
Career & life transformation from the inside out
www.WorkFromWithin.com
(415) 381-6381
© 2005, Susan L. Bernstein, MBA MA, All Rights Reserved.