Editor's Note: I asked Alex to write something light and fluffy because it's the end of the summer but he decided to get us thinking in an interesting direction - discovering how unique we each are. Dave shares his renovations in paradise with us (they turned out very well!) and Rehana tells an amusing story which also incorporates using EFT. Tom continues with his series on Energy Medicine exercises which are helping all of us get fit, and I write about our new on-line venture which will be ready soon. Hope you enjoy the mix in this newsletter! You are Unique! Part 1 by Dr. Alexander R. Lees Each of us is unique. Now I'm sure that you have heard that statement uttered countless times, and therefore it may no longer have much impact. In this article, I propose we unpack it a little bit, just to see what it's all about. The three major pieces of the skeleton sketch are: An individual's take or translation, of any event. The environment they experienced, and are experiencing. Genetics. I use the word skeleton because it's a great word, metaphorically, to use in describing the basic foundation. Once we begin to flesh it out, however, things begin to get interesting. You are the unique blend of two specific people's DNA. At the same time, since only one sperm is sufficient (of the many millions that tried) to fertilize the egg (everyone else gets to see the "Sorry, we're closed" sign) then your uniqueness becomes even more apparent. If we look back through time - say 20 generations or so, then this process of uniqueness must have occurred over and over, in just the right way, at just the right time, with just the right people, with just the right sperm doing a better breast stroke, each and every time - so that you could magically appear one day on the planet. Now, that's pretty unique. Upcoming Seminars As of Oct. 1/08 we will be calling our EFT workshops: EFT - The Basics EFT - Intermediate EFT - Advanced EFT Approved Level 1 (After Oct. 1/08 it will be called The Basics) Sept. 20, 2008 View flyer for details EFT - Intermediate Workshop (Used to be Level 2) October 4 & 5, 2008 View flyer for details EFT - Advanced Workshop (Used to be Level 3) November 15 & 16, 2008 View flyer for details Let's take it one step further. Take the case of identical twins. The genetic material is the same, yet somehow, two unique personalities emerge over time. Granted, one can always point out the similarities, and of course, they will be there as well. As a matter of fact, we all share similarities at a genetic level as well, fully 99+ per cent of our genes are similar. The uniqueness is in the .01 per cent. Does this infinitesimal difference in our genes account for the sometimes extra-ordinary difference in personalities; that is, our uniqueness? Or, are there other factors at play? As I mentioned earlier, there are three major pieces of the skeleton sketch. Most of us understand and accept that genetics play a role in inherited characteristics of behaviour, habits and physical characteristics. And it isn't a great stretch to first realize and then accept environment helps shape a personality as well. For those that wish to know more about the environmental influence on shaping a personality, there are tons of books readily available, so what I'd like to do in this article is to bring your attention to the first item in the list above - the individual's take on any event - and how that take or interpretation contributes to the uniqueness of the personality. Once you understand the basics of how your response to the environment happens, how your response shapes your mental perception, you will then understand why it is so important to learn how to adjust that perception. After all, it is that perception that makes things the way they are. To get you started I'll give you a synopsis of how your perceptions are formed, and create a mental map of how things are. You experience the world around you - and every event, circumstance and situation, via your five senses. This is referred to as sensory based data (see, hear, feel, smell and touch). You then, for the most part instantaneously - need to categorize that data. You do so by conveniently carrying around in your head, little boxes. Let's call them meaning boxes. Once the information enters your head via one or more of your senses, your brain immediately drops the data into one of the boxes. The data then has meaning, for we have now made sense of it. You could call this part of the process assigning meaning, translating, interpreting, or choose from a whole host of words... None the less, You then file #2, as if it were really #1, as a memory. And now you will act upon #2, as if it were #1, and further build your model of the world, and... This process is a strategic part of what makes you so unique - your interpretation of each and every experience. You may be asking yourself, "Why is this important for me to know and understand? Once you realize there are two pieces here - call it a situation, event, or circumstance; and there is a translation aspect as well, then you can begin to understand that much of the discomfort, sadness or pain you might be experiencing - may be due to a translatory aspect. Once that is established, you may then want to consider translating in a different way, in a way that feels somewhat better for you. At this point, you may well ask yourself if there are methods or tools to assist you, should you decide to change the meaning, and the answer is, "Of course." Now, I don't want to overload you, so in the meantime you may want to start paying attention to how you interpret stuff coming at you all day, every day, and which of your meaning boxes these experiences are filed in. I'll pick up it up from here next month. A Volcano meets Lightning Two of nature's most spectacular forces produced an Click image to enlarge incredible brew in the skies of Chile as a volcanic eruption met a lightning storm. Tons of dust and ash from the eruption of the Chaitén volcano poured into the night sky just as an electric storm passed overhead. The resulting collision created a spectacular sight as lightning flickered around the dust cloud amid the orange glow of the volcano. The eruption was all the more spectacular because the Chaitén volcano, 800 miles (1,290km) south of Santiago, has been dormant for hundreds - if not thousands of years. The Patagonian volcano's 12-mile-high plume has left vast tracts of land coated with a layer of ash. Contributing Columnist Dave Marshall is retired and lives in Spain. Before his retirement he was in the corporate world in the UK, and also taught NLP (he's an NLP Master Trainer). Visit his website at www.nlpman.eu which has a ton of free information on NLP and lots of other good stuff. _______________________________________ Our Spanish Paradise....Part 2 by David Marshall Last month I wrote about our move to Spain in July of 1997, and the condition of our house, which needed some major renovations. After a couple of months (it was now September and our Dutch builder, Andre, was very keen to get started. We discussed the new layout of the house and the fact that we wanted to put another floor on top of the old house. Using a computer package, I drew out the rough plan of what we wanted, which he then took to an architect who, for a suitable fee, would produce official drawings and obtain the right approvals. We had quickly learned not to question these processes! This was the way things were done and so we followed the customary practices. We were lucky that a friend of ours had a vacant villa on the coast which they were pleased for us to live in while our house was being rebuilt. The storeroom/workshop was built and looked wonderful, and we stacked our furniture in there. This had to go on top of all our furniture from England which had already been delivered (and that was another saga). Literally, the store room was filled to the roof and there was one small space to walk along one side. So the house was now empty and we moved out to the coast and handed it over to the builders. The following week we drove up from the coast to see how things were going. We were amazed! Our lovely house looked like a bombed ruin. It was a demolished wreck. The roof had gone, there were bricks and rubble all around, and it looked like a derelict shell. And so, with gritted teeth, we went back to the coast and paid weekly visits to our little house in the country. As the weeks went by work progressed but to our unaccustomed eyes it did not look like progress at all. There were rickety planks on makeshift scaffolding, bricks, sand, cement, dust and rubble all around. The garden was ruined but we were assured everything was going fine. Then after a few weeks there were no workers. Andre had fired them, the quality of their work was fine but unfortunately their work speed was not up to Dutch standards. So Andre had to find a new team of builders. He proceeded to find the workers in the time honoured tradition which meant going to village fiestas, drinking in the bars, and finding out who's available for work. What Andre didn't realise was that it was now November and, because most of the local builders also have farms and olive groves, they don't work in November because they are picking olives. This goes on into December, which is then Christmas, followed by New Year, which means all building stops until the middle of January! Andre offered to pay them more money but they said no, we have to pick our olives! And so one learns to be patient - although we were getting concerned! The house was supposed to be finished in October, and we had friends arriving in February to stay with us, so we had to arrange more accommodation. Also, the villa we were staying in was needed by our friends in February, so we had to leave that anyway. Luckily we were offered a house just down the track from ours where we could stay for a couple of weeks and so we did. When the middle of January arrived so did the builders - in droves! There were laborers, bricklayers, plasterers and an electrician all working like mad! Again we were amazed. That winter was also the wettest for many years and one fitter who came to fit our air conditioning took one look at the track to our house and refused to drive down it in his car! He said he would come back when it had dried out. As with all building work, of course, the estimates got larger every week. One of the problems was if we ask for a price, say to tile the patio, the builders would have finished before Andre had given us the price - bit too late we thought. Anyway, work progressed very quickly and we discovered many interesting things about doing business in Spain. For example, we searched for some floor tiles, which took us several days and many trips, but eventually we decided which ones to have. And so we told Andre and gave him the details. A few weeks later, Andre went to the tile shop to get them only to discover there was a three month ordering time. And so we had to go and find some more. And as the Spanish say, "Señor, this is Spain - it is a different!" The house was nearing completion when Andre came with the final bill. To our astonishment it was 25 per cent more than our budget. It took us days to recover from the shock and then we had a negotiating meeting to see how we could get the price down. We got the price down to something more affordable by agreeing to finish the interior painting ourselves and not having guttering fitted and a few other minor things. This meant that we could move in to the bare building, with one cold tap, no toilet, no shower, not even a sink, and a camping stove. Which we did. The plumber was very good; he was waiting for the hot water boiler to be delivered (would you believe, the delay was caused by a fiesta in Seville). In the meantime he connected a temporary water heater and a gas bottle. That was how we started. Since then we have continually improved the property and now have a well for water, that means we are independent of the town's system which is very expensive, a swimming pool, a conservatory, solar water heating (very cheap to run) and some landscaping for the garden, which is basically a decorated cliff. We have now completed ten years of living in Spain and we have learnt one major thing - you must develop flexibility and patience, because, in the country at least, the old ways and the mañana principle are still very active. Even with all the trials and tribulations, we still think this is the nearest thing to paradise that we can afford. Although we may like to change some things, we do occasionally complain about other things, and we still get infuriated by even more things, we actually want to stay here for as long as possible. I don't suppose anywhere is perfect but where we are gets pretty close. Adiós!   Contributing Columnist Rehana Webster (in New Zealand) is an EFT Master and NLP Master Practitioner, and also conducts seminars/workshops internationally. You can contact Rehana at webstar@ps.gen.nz or visit her website at www.behaviourchanges.com There's a rooster crowing in my bag! by Rehana Webster I have a story to share with the use of EFT on every day anxiety causing situations. I have a cell/mobile phone which offers some interesting ring tones to choose from. Well, I always like to do things differently and pick something unusual and interesting from my point of view. I have chosen the crowing rooster ring tone because I can pick it out no matter where I am as it's so unmistakably different. Anyway, my Mum was getting ready for her annual overseas trip to Canada and I was the designated driver to the airport which is three hours drive from where I live and of course we have to check in two hours ahead of flight time. Going anywhere with my Mum is a drama! So we started on our circus trip to the airport, by driving over, filling in the mountains of forms, checking in the luggage and making sure it didn't exceed the limit. There were the dozens of bags that we had to take along to the airport; bags for discarding Mum's car shoes, car clothes, sandwich bags, her hand bag, her carry on bag, medicine bag and more bags. Did I leave out any bags??? I always get wheelchair attendance service which the airlines offer for her because she is 80 and it's a bit of a hike through the concourse and past customs carrying all those bags. We decided to get a coffee while we were filling out the customs forms. I asked her to hold on to my phone for a minute while I organized her bags under the table to make room for the coffees. I filled out the forms perfectly the first time and then grabbed her bags and headed for the designated meeting area for the wheelchair people. Got her loaded and away. Whew! Mission accomplished. Then I headed back to the car park and looked for my phone. Oh no, the phone was no where in sight. I did some serious tapping to remember where I might have left the phone. The fog didn't clear… and I took the car apart and still no phone. Desperate now, I raced back into the airport building and checked at the airline counters to see if I had left it somewhere. Back to the car I went. Some serious tapping followed. I've lost my phone I've dropped my phone My phone has been stolen I'll never remember any one's phone numbers What a lot of work this will be It will take me days to organize my list on another phone How did I lose the phone My sister will be sending me text messages about Mum's arrival and I won't have a clue What am I to do I feel like a twit How could I lose my phone I was definitely starting to feel removed from the anxiety of being phone-free! Anyway, I drove back home thinking about the phone. Upon arriving home I called my mobile phone number hoping that some one had picked it up and was waiting for the owner to claim it. No, the phone just rang and rang. More tapping followed. How would people get hold of me? How would I find out if Mum had arrived at her destination? How would my sister inform me? After all I had asked my sister to send me a text message when she picked Mum up from the airport. I tapped on all the issues and then finally felt a sense of calm descend on me. Or was it just tiredness? The next morning I waited till the appropriate time to call and find out if Mum had arrived and of course she answered the phone at my sister's house. Yes, she said and all went well except she had a terrible night because there was this rooster crowing in her bag! It kept her up all night and she couldn't figure out which bag it was in! Well, you guessed it, she had my phone in one of her bags. Now I had real reasons to tap! Thankfully the phone was mailed back to me and I'm now reunited with my phone.   Our guest Contributing Columnist is Tom Dorzab. Tom is a retired biologist from Kansas and now lives with his wife in Spain. Tom followed his passion and is now an energy medicine practitioner specializing in Eden Energy Medicine. You can contact Tom at tomdorzab@ya.com Energy Exercises for Everyday Living (Article 4 in the series) by Tom Dorzab Here's to your health This month we will learn more exercises that take very little time, but will help you to: Improve your memory. Increase your confidence. Balance all of your meridians. Stimulate your lymphatic system. The Crown Pull One of the principles of Energy Medicine is that energy wants to move. However, for it to move, it must have somewhere to move to. It must have space to move. Congested areas are one of the reasons we have energy imbalances and thus symptoms of disease. When energy collects at the top of your head and doesn't move out through your Crown Chakra, it becomes stagnant and creates a blockage. Doing the Crown Pull releases this stagnant energy. Since the Crown Chakra is also our connection to the higher spiritual energies, this exercise can also help us to be more connected to our spiritual side. When should you do the Crown Pull? When your head feels clogged. When you have a headache. When you want to improve your memory. When you want to strengthen your spiritual connection to the Universe. When you have pervasive negative thoughts. Place your fingertips in a vertical line on the center of your forehead starting just above the top of the nose (third eye) to begin this exercise. Press in and drag your fingertips from the center line, across your forehead and stopping just above the ears. Then repeat starting with the little fingers at the hair line. Continue the process, starting where the last pull stopped until you reach the depression in the middle of the back of the neck. The Zip Up For our purposes, the Central Meridian (sometimes called the Central Vessel) runs up the center of our bodies from the pubic bone to the bottom lip. This meridian governs our central nervous system and, if weak, causes us to be very vulnerable to other people's energies. It also connects to all the chakras. By keeping our Central Meridian strong, we will be better able to remain centered when discussing problems with a boss, an ex-lover an angry client or any difficult person. When should you Zip Up? When you need more confidence. When you need to protect yourself from negative energies around you. When you aren't thinking clearly. This exercise is done by placing the fingertips of both hands on your pubic bone, press in and drag your fingertips up the center of the front of your body stopping just below the lower lip on the lower jaw. When you reach the top point, using your imagination and finger movements, lock your central meridian. The Spinal Flush Our lymph systems are designed to help remove toxins from our bodies. Unlike our circulatory systems, our lymph systems have no pump to move the lymph along. Exercise, breathing and stretching are three ways to help move the lymph and remove toxins from our bodies. Lymph can also be moved by tapping or massaging our Neurolymphatic Reflex Points. Another function of these points is to regulate the flow of energy between our lymph systems and our meridians. Working these points not only stimulates our lymph systems, but it also helps to balance their associated meridians. When there is a blockage in the lymph system and toxins are building up, the associated Neurolymphatic Reflex points will tend to be sore. Massaging or tapping them normally relieves the tenderness eventually, although it will probably take more than one time. It's possible that a person could feel worse after the Neurolymphatic Reflex Points have been massaged. If this happens, you may want to massage fewer points the next time so that fewer toxins are released at one time. This will give your kidneys more time to remove the toxins and reduce the toxic load in your blood supply at any given time. When the Neurolymphatic Reflex points on the back are massaged, it's called a Spinal Flush. Unless if you have special equipment, the Spinal Flush requires a partner to reach all the points. When should you do a Spinal Flush? When you need more energy. When you are stressed. When you are too emotional. When you are sick. When your meridians are out-of-balance. When your body is overloaded with toxins. You need a helper for this one. Have your helper massage firmly on each side of your spinal column starting at the top of your neck continuing until you reach the lower sacrum. Be very careful if you have spinal problems. You need to be the judge of what is good or bad for you. Let your partner know. You're on a roll now! You're almost there. If you have been doing the exercises you have learned so far everyday (OK, almost everyday), you are building a habit field that will serve you for the rest of your life. Keep on keeping on.   Berit's Corner The summer turned out to be as relaxing and peaceful as I had hoped it would be. We did nothing as often as possible and really enjoyed ourselves. We watched our favourite shows on TV (British murder mysteries), saw a bit of the Olympics - weren't the opening and closing ceremonies spectacular?! I also tuned into the American presidential race to keep abreast of how events were unfolding in this historical race - lots of drama going on there. Amidst all the lounging around, we still worked; Alex saw clients and I was doing the necessary research for our new online adventure - we're going to have a blog! Neither Alex nor I knew anything about blogs, but both of us felt that it would be a fun thing for us to have. Apparently 125 million other people think the same way. Yes, there's 125 million blogs on the Internet and countless new ones are being created every day. According to my research, blogs will be (if they aren't already) more popular than websites. There's a very good reason for this, and it's because a blog provides a sense of community for like-minded folks where they can interact with each other. There are blogs on every conceivable subject you can imagine and some that we've never thought of before. It's really an interesting phenomenon when you think about it. A blogger is usually one person, sitting at his or her computer writing his thoughts about whatever subject is of interest. Then the magic begins - the blogger presses the "submit" key and those very private thoughts are now shared with the whole world. Then in the blink of an eye people can read those thoughts and some of them will make comments. These comments then go out into cyberspace and suddenly there's a conversation happening, and it's with strangers. If the blogger writes well and the post is interesting, before he/she knows it, he's made new friends around the world. The misconception that computers would isolate people has proven to be just that - a misconception. Instead, we have millions of people interacting and learning from, and about, each other. They are sharing ideas and forming virtual communities. This shared experience will lead to each of us having a better understanding of different people and places. I think this is a great time to be alive and to be a part of something so exciting. Alex and I are really looking forward to being members of the blogosphere, and we're hoping to make many new friends. It's perfect for the two of us because two things we love to do are talk and write, and now with our very own blog we can do that to our heart's content. It will be interesting to see how our blog unfolds, but right now, we need to finish with the technical and design stuff, get the blog online and write some articles/posts for it. There is one other thing I'd like to mention, and it's something that happened because we got involved with a blog, but the same experience could happen with any subject matter. I got scammed! Alex and I had decided quite quickly who our target market would be for the blog and then set out to discover what was involved in setting one up. I researched the technical aspects and quickly came to the conclusion - that "stuff" is way beyond me. The other important step was the creative, fun part - the design. So, we needed a blog person to help. Someone was referred to us, but unfortunately luck was not on our side - the guy turned out to be a scam artist! He seemed so polite, with good manners and a sense of humour, and he also seemed qualified. So when he sent me an invoice, I paid it. Then the waiting game began. Suddenly he was not communicating. I sent him many emails over many days and finally he replied. He said, "Sorry for not getting back to you sooner, but my grandmother came for a surprise visit and I had to clean the house. She's just left so I'll get to work on your blog right away." Several more days went by and by now I was getting suspicious. More emails were sent by me over several days, asking what's going on. Finally he replied stating that friends from out of town arrived and, of course, he had to clean the house after they left. The light bulb went off in my head... finally! I did a search on his name and found many, many complaints about him on the Net. All with the same story as mine. I felt so stupid, but there was some comfort in knowing I wasn't the only one that got scammed! The only reason I've mentioned this is to remind all of you to be careful when making purchases of any kind on the Net. My search for a blog designer began anew and I'm happy to report that I found the perfect guy. We figure that we will have our blog online in a few weeks. Now, some of you may have noticed that I haven't mentioned what our blog is about. I purposefully didn't tell you now because I want to introduce the blog properly when it's ready. So, for now, it's still a secret. It's no fun to spill the beans when it's not finished yet. Besides, announcing that the blog is ready and online, and what it's about, will give me something to write about next month. Till next month, Take care. Photo by Maren Hartwell in France   . Women are Evil..... Sometimes A woman was in town on a shopping trip. She began her day finding the most perfect shoes in the first shop and a beautiful dress on sale in the second. In the third everything had just been reduced to a fiver when her mobile phone rang. It was a female doctor notifying her that her husband had just been in a terrible accident and was in critical condition and in the ICU. The woman told the doctor to inform her husband where she was and that she'd be there as soon as possible. As she hung up she realized she was leaving what was shaping up to be her best day ever in the shops. She decided to get in a couple of more shops before heading to the hospital. She ended up shopping the rest of the morning, finishing her trip with a cup of coffee and a beautiful cream slice complementary from the last shop. She was jubilant. Then she remembered her husband. Feeling guilty, she dashed to the hospital. She saw the doctor in the corridor and asked about her husband's condition. The lady doctor glared at her and shouted, "You went ahead and finished your shopping trip didn't you! I hope you're proud of yourself! While you were out for the past four hours enjoying yourself in town, your husband has been languishing in the Intensive Care Unit! It's just as well you went ahead and finished, because it will more than likely be the last shopping trip you ever take! For the rest of his life he will require round the clock care. And you'll now be his caregiver!" The woman was feeling so guilty she broke down and sobbed. The lady doctor then chuckled and said, "I'm just pulling your leg. He's dead. What did you buy?" - . Why not Forward this Newsletter to a friend?

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