I just LOVE frameworks, models, and processes for change!

One of my favorites is the Scale of Human Conscious by renowned psychiatrist Dr. David R. Hawkins, in his book Power vs. Force. Hawkins wondered if maybe, emotions aren’t just “good” or “bad” as we think, but they are connected together, literally.

He came up with the scale you see an example of here. He postulated that emotions were actually levels of energy, one greater than the other. The lower half can be thought of as “Force” emotions (struggle) and the upper half as emotions of true “Power” (ability to act creatively).

How can you actually USE this scale in your daily life.

1. Notice what emotion you are feeling or you notice in a friend. (Better: ask your friend what emotion they’re feeling.)
2. Find that emotion on the scale.
3. Recognize the emotions just below that emotion. The current emotion may just be a way of staying out of the lower emotion beneath what they think is happening.
4. Recognize the next highest emotion and connect with that energy.

Here’s an example:

You notice a friend is “angry”. Telling them “you shouldn’t be angry” is a judgment, it’s shaming, and is actually telling them, “go down to the lower level of consciousness & energy”. In the case of anger, they may actually be “fighting off” thwarted desire, fear, grief of loss, or even apathy. Recognizing that, and allowing them the space to relieve that emotion, can release the stuck energy. Now, you can also ask them about the next higher level.

In the case of anger, “pride” & “courage” are the next levels up in energy. You could ask them, “What would you LIKE to do about the situation, if you could?” or “What have you done about this in the past that worked for you?” These kinds of questions can have them remember what they are proud of doing, times they had courage to face this kind of obstacle.

Remember, a key here is we can’t PUSH people into our desired level. We can only ask them questions that have them consider their levels and move themselves in levels of energy to face life valiantly.

If you’ve seen the movie The Secret, you’ve also seen another suggestion for this scale from Esther Hicks. Different level names but what I find useful is the revolutionary suggestion that “emotions are all connected”, not just random storms of the brain from stimulus.

Please try this framework for change out and post a comment about what you discover!

Psychology researchers have now demonstrated scientifically that the human mind has a Negativity Bias (see my previous article). To recap, our mind has a bias (prejudice in favor of one thing) for the most negative things in life. If you recall, young Anakin focused all his mind on the negative things that happened to him and he became Darth Vader. Star Wars is the most successful film story of all time because it uses the model for the Hero’s Journey, with life lessons for every one of us on the journey. Each of us is on a Hero’s Journey and what we focus on determines if our life is mostly Light or Darkness. AND, I know this from PERSONAL experience and it’s what lead me on the path of becoming a life coach, or life guide, to pass on what I can like master Qui Gon.

There’s lots of ways we’ve heard of this lesson: the Law of Attraction, the truth that “what you focus on expands”, or simply the neuroscientific fact that your Reticular Activating System targets and acquires whatever it is repetitively shown as a target.

Notice what you are FOCUSING on! Is it the desires you wish to cause or is it the negativity and problems of the animal mind bias. Just look at your RESULTS for the answer my friend.

In 1990, Congress designated the first week in October every year as “National Mental Health Awareness Week.”

It seems each day we hear of someone that has a cold or flu, an injury, or maybe something worse, and we have so much compassion for them. As we say, “If you don’t have your health, you don’t have anything.

But, when it comes to “mental health”, it might not be a stretch to suggest most people become afraid. Why the difference in our attitudes about body health vs. brain health? That’s the reason for this years campaign by NAMI is called #IAmStigmaFree.

If you’re like me, “health” is one of your highest values in life. I run on the beach most days then have a salad for lunch. I like to hit the gym on the weekends to build muscle. And, besides supplements to make up for our poor farming strategies today, I work to keep my mind in peace and harmony, not letting most things generate stress… a leading cause of illness.

So where does the stigma of speaking about mind health come from? Well, since we’re basically conditioned hairless monkeys, taught to follow culture… we only need look back a hundred years to see that for CENTURIES, anyone that was even sad for an extended period of time might have been attacked for being posed by a demon, or worse, a danger to everyone that should be killed. We’re not too far from a barbaric past that still may be creating a superstition that seeking assistance to ensure our mind is running at optimal performance could get us fired from a job, banished from friends, lose a marriage, or worse.

Point: Let’s wake up into the 21st Century and abandon all superstition. Your brain is an organ like any other and DESERVES to be performing at optimal health levels! 

If you knee continually hurt when you went running, wouldn’t it be great to find out why and the solution for it? It’s same thing for your mind! When the organ of our brain is not functioning optimally, life it just harder than it needs to be. Keeping our mind in optimal health doesn’t come from just come from will power.

For example, studies show that alcoholics could keep from relapsing, but supplementing with EPA oil, because it helps replenish the fatty oils of the brain that when depleted, have us be more angry and agitated. Many alcoholics us trying to use alcohol as medicine because they won’t seek any other kind of mental health help. Some times mind health shows up in a simpler way in that an entrepreneur has a slight adult ADHD and that’s the real reason why she keeps voraciously learning how to be successful but can’t seem to translate that into success. Many hugely successful entrepreneurs, like Sir Richard Branson, are are aware of their ADHD and that awareness helps them.

How can you check out your levels of mind health? Here’s a short quiz I discovered years ago when consulting for some dating coaches. We were dreaming of a day when everyone would first want to get their mind in optimal health, before dating, to have the best experience. Check out the quiz here: www.sanityscore.com

For those afraid of the word “sanity”, it doesn’t mean “not crazy”. It means “healthy condition” from the Middle French word sanité meaning “health“. The quiz is a health score for your mental health with insights into key things to look at that, if addressed, could make life happier, peaceful, and more like the success you dream about.

To your health! Mind and body health!

A contributor to Forbes Magazine has interviewed over 200 billionaires, Olympians, straight-A students and entrepreneurs and found this out: NONE of them use “to-do” lists.

He lists three key reasons a to-do list is a fail:

1. TIME is not accounted for
2. It doesn’t distinguish between URGENT and IMPORTANT tasks
3. It contributes to STRESS

What people tend to do with these lists is cherry pick the easy items and never complete all the tasks.

So what do these highly successful (and Highly Effective) people do: THEY USE A CALENDAR. They actually schedule tasks into their day and let the calendar tell them what to do, rather than their mind & emotions when they look over a pile of tasks.

Here’s the article: Forbes Magazine article July, 10 2015

As Cooper says in the opening, mindfulness helps us get around the stresses of daily life. It means, “being aware of your thoughts, physical sensations, and surroundings”, as he puts it. This may sound trivial until you look carefully to the sentence. Most people are completely unaware of their thoughts, their true present-moment sensations (not just pains or emotions), and what is really happening in the present moment.

Cooper was very skeptical going in. He had a profound experience and said it has changed his life.

13-minute 60 Minutes video (watch in browser):

To put it simply, your mind and body are in this present moment, rather than lost somewhere else in distraction. The most common distraction being the incessant running commentary of thinking or problem solving. Why is that important? You can only ACT in the present moment. You cannot act in the story in the head, being lost in the past, future, or projections of the mind. That’s like trying to take action in a dream. Indeed, many people are stuck in their own dream rather than participating in this moment.

There are also three additional short video segments on the CBS site to view: http://www.cbsnews.com/news/mindfulness-anderson-cooper-60-minutes/

There are literally thousands of forms of meditation. What gives mindfulness the edge is that it’s been scientifically proven in countless studies over 40 years to eliminate depression, anxiety, and stress. Even medications typically just mask symptoms, create side effects, but still don’t eliminate the problem. Mindfulness is being taught at Google and other cutting-edge profitable corporations as well as taught in hospitals to cancer patients.

Mindfulness is something we can see at the highest levels of peak performance as well. Watch the Seattle Seahawks play football and you notice they’re a different kind of team. Pete Carroll, the head coach, has created a training system that has the players be mindful in the chaos of a big game.

If it works for all these people, maybe it will work for you to create a little more peace in your busy day? You are worth trying it out for yourself!