Volume 12, No. 3 April 2005 Don't, Can't and Shouldn'ts Upcoming Seminars "Security" is an odd password Memory Aid EFT eBook Available Berit's Corner The Funeral Procession

"Don't, Can't and Shouldn'ts" by Dr. Alexander R. Lees Much has been written about the differences in conscious processes and unconscious processes. One of those differences concerns linguistic negations (don't, can't, shouldn't, etc.), and the way we process them within the conscious, and the unconscious, minds. First of all, let's be quite clear about something - There is no physical division between the conscious mind and the unconscious mind. There are, however, occurrences within our mental world that we are aware of, and respond to. There are also decisions being made,. Choices of response enacted, and behavioural and attitudinal biases that seem to resist all our efforts to change. These are referred to as unconscious in origin; that is, we don't know why we do "it," we just do it anyway. There are two categorical ways of wording; we can speak about what we do want, or we can word it so the listener hears what we don't want. Person A might say, "I want to be well." Person B, with exactly the same affliction, might say, "I don't want to be sick." The experts tell us that the unconscious mind deletes linguistic negations, and so the way we word things is an important part of changework.

For some people, simply pointing out that they "have to" change the wording, to state what they do want, as opposed to what they don't want, is paramount to change. Let's site an example: "Don't think of a blue tree." What happened? For most of us, we realize we just When someone describes a problem, or issue, using linguistic negations, they are actually focused on the very thing they wish to be rid of. thought of a blue tree, the very thing we are not supposed to think about! Since the unconscious mind deletes the "don't," all it hears is "think of a blue tree." In this way, the books tell us, we continue to focus on, and therefore get to keep, our problem. So, the books say, you must change the wording. For example: Instead of "I don't want to be sick," say "I want to be well." Instead of "I don't want to be afraid," say "I want to be confident." UPCOMING SEMINARS Special Advanced EFT Workshop April 23, 2005 view flyer for details NLP & EFT Combined! New series of seminars combining the art of NLP with EFT May 14, 2005 view flyer for details Steve Wells & Dr. David Lake Self Acceptance and Peak Performance Workshops June 3 thru 7, 2005 Dr. Alex Lees The Mind/Body Connection June 4, 2005 view flyer for details   EFT Level 1 Approved Workshop June 18, 2005 view flyer for details - That little insight works well for some people. For others, the use of negations, that is explaining what they don't want, is deeply ingrained and therefore is such a natural way of expressing themselves that they quickly slip back into these kind of word patterns. The theoretical aspects are: The person is focussed on the problem, not on the solution. So far, so good. Now, let's go a little further, shall we? When someone describes a problem, or issue, using linguistic negations, they are actually focussed on the very thing they wish to be rid of. For example: "I don't want to be sick." "I don't want to be afraid." "I shouldn't express my opinion." So, how do you help them? Rather than insisting that they drop the "negative" way of talking, my suggestion is that one way you can help them change is in how the negation is used. For example, if you have a basic understanding of EFT, you could start by tapping the PR point as you say, "Even though I am not confident (name situation or circumstance), I deeply and completely accept myself." You could then tap the rest of the points using a reminder phrase, such as, "This lack of confidence in (name the situation or circumstance).." Voila! The unconscious simply deletes the linguistic negation, and since you have bypassed various filtering systems (interference) the lack of confidence (example only) will work equally well on other issues For example: "Even though I am not healthy at the moment," or "Even though my stomach isn't working right," The problem is now being addressed in a way referred to as solution oriented. This may sound a tad strange at first, but give it a try anyway, and surprise and delight yourself with affecting change in ways that support you more usefully. "Security" is an odd password by Hugh Anderson/CanWest News Service "Open sesame" worked for Ali Baba. In the Arabian Nights tale he used it to open the door to the vault in the rock that contained the treasure of the 40 thieves. But is would be a very poor password in today's cyberspace. It's a phrase familiar to most of us, and it is made up of words that can be found in any standard dictionary. Now, 'fess up. How many of the passwords you use routinely to protect your online banking information, your company's financial accounts, your investment portfolio or your customers' list are proper words such as your daughter's name, your date of birth, the name of your first love? How many are scrawled on a Post-It note kept handy in your unlocked desk drawer, or even stuck on your computer monitor in plain view? This sort of thing is equivalent not just to leaving your front door unlocked when you go out, but to leaving it wide open. Yet human nature makes us do it. An ideal password is a long string of letters, numbers and punctuation marks that makes no sense to a reader and can't be found in any known dictionary. Memory Aid to help you select a password: Here’s a trick to remember a long string of seemingly random letters. Because most of us have a line from a poem or a song in our memory, you can use the first or last letters of those words, add a couple of punctuation characters, and have a password that will be hard to guess. Older users can choose a line from a song most young computer nerds will never have heard of! Inevitably, it's also virtually impossible for ordinary mortals to remember, without a trick or two. That's why security consultants frequently find the word "password" being used as a password when they audit business computer systems. Another common find is that people are still using a default password such as "admin" on their systems because they never changed it after doing an installation, or that a blank password is in use. Suppose you are smart enough not to make that kind of mistake, but you do use real words in your passwords and keep them short so they are easy to remember? The problem is that you can face a so-called dictionary attack. Any one can now download computerized dictionaries from the Net that contain perhaps a million commonly used passwords. These include people's names, common pet names and huge vocabulary of ordinary words. Dictionaries containing the specialized vocabulary used by a specific type of business are available. So are attack tools that combine words together and add numbers and punctuation. The attacker uses software to run through as many potential passwords as possible. Some suggestions: One way to combat dictionary attacks is to set a limit on the number of failed attempts to log in that are allowed: 20 should be enough for any genuine user. Another is to require passwords to meet so-called complexity tests. They must be a least eight characters long, must not contain the username or any part of the username, and must use at least three of the four following types of characters including upper-case and lower-case letters, numbers and special characters such as % or &. Organizations using a network system can also require users to change their passwords after a certain amount of time, and bar them from using the same password time after time. They may also use a so-called "hashing" technique to store passwords. This is why, when you forget your password, you are often required to reset it instead of being supplied with the original password. It's because the system does not actually know your original password, believe it or not, which makes it easier to protect the password database. Hashing is a one-way process. Your password is mathematically massaged into unrecognizable form before being stored. When you enter the password to log in, the system performs the same hash as before and compares the result. If they match, you're in, like Ali Baba. If they don't, you're not. If you forget your password the system can only issue a new one. It can't reverse the hash and retrieve your original password.   Great News... our eBook is now available! Our book, Emotional Freedom Techniques - EFT - What is it and how does it work? has been selling steadily to people in many parts of the world. This eBook is the third edition of our book, and it has been revised and expanded to 240 pages!. We would appreciate hearing your feedback. To preview the book and view sample pages please click here Berit's Corner Spring has come early this year and it's wonderful! People have a spring in their step and a smile on their faces. It seems to be a time to get excited about many different things. It will soon be time to plant flowers in the garden, do some spring house cleaning and also get rid of some of those mental cobwebs accumulated during the long winter. Now is the time to get out there and do stuff! Many people in the past few months have recommended we see a movie called "What the bleep do we know?" Alex and I really wanted to see it in the theatre, but circumstances always seemed to get in the way and we didn't make it. Finally it came out on DVD and we saw it. It was great! Also, it was especially pleasing to see the subject of how thoughts and emotions affect people made into a major movie! One of the contributors in the movie, Dr. Candace Pert, is someone Alex has been referring to, and recommending for years. Dr. Pert is one of the "Resources" we list in our EFT book. This is a great time to be alive! More and more people are going to become aware of how important our thoughts are to our well-being. The more people that talk about this "stuff" the better because learning and knowing about the Mind/Body Connection helps us to lead healthier and happier lives. The movie really energized us and motivated us to get creative and do something we've been talking about for a while... that is... combine the teaching of NLP and EFT. So, Alex has created a new series of seminars and that's what we'll be teaching. People will learn EFT to edit their negative emotions and NLP to edit their thoughts and behaviours. We're really excited about this new adventure and look forward to seeing some of you at our upcoming seminars. Update on puppy - Ty is an absolute darling! Having Ty become a member of our family was the best thing we could have done. I'm sure Alex will be writing an article or two about Ty's amusing antics in future editions of Reflections... stay tuned. And, speaking of exciting things... next week we are off to Bellevue (Seattle) to attend Gary Craig's "EFT and Serious Diseases" workshop. About a dozen of our friends and colleagues from the Vancouver area will also be attending. And, our friend Jose Hernandez from Spain is coming to see us before hand for a couple of days, and then going down to Bellevue with us for the seminar. It will be great to see Jose again and hear all the news from Spain! I hope the Easter Bunny was good to all of you! Till next month, take care.   A woman was leaving a convenience store with her morning coffee when she noticed a most unusual funeral procession approaching the nearby cemetery. A long black hearse was followed by a second long black hearse about 50 feet behind the first one. Behind the second hearse was a solitary woman walking a pit bull on a leash. Behind her, a short distance back, were about 200 women walking single file. The woman couldn't stand her curiosity. She respectfully approached the woman walking the dog and said, "I am so sorry for your loss, and I know now is a bad time to disturb you, but I've never seen a funeral like this. "Whose funeral is it?" "My husband's." "What happened to him?" The woman replied, "My dog attacked and killed him." She inquired further, "Well, who is in the second hearse?" The woman answered, "My mother-in-law. She was trying to help my husband when the dog turned on her." A poignant and thoughtful moment of silence passed between the two women. "Can I borrow the dog?" "Get in line."

(C) 2005 - Dr. Alexander R. Lees & Associates Inc.