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John Hawkins reports from the front lines of "You Create Your Own Reality".

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  • The Birth of Belief Negotiation

    The idea of belief negotiation has taken hold and I am posting here a couple of pieces on this topic from other forums. Just to keep everybody informed. The first piece is from an email to some friends describing my present embarrassment of riches within consciousness. The second piece is from my new website devoted entirely to belief negotiation [beliefnegotiator.com]. This is an idea whose time has come.

    - - - - -

    My own situation is that I have learned so much lately that I haven't been able to put all of it into practice. I find myself noticing some daily travail or bad habit and just throwing up my hands in consciousness and letting it go. I know how to address these things but there's only so much time in a day. Because of this embarrassment of riches, I am starting to trust organic priorities to show up and force my hand, so to speak, and more and more willing to let things that maybe I thought 'should' be happening, slide a bit.

    I am reminded of an old joke from my days growing up in Owen Sound. The agricultural representative (a much maligned and belittled government employee], came around to see the old farmer to show him all the modern new ways of farming, and the old farmer dismisses him impatiently, "I already know how to farm much better than what I'm doing now!"

    What I fantasize about is a machine that uses artificial intelligence, hypnosis, and perhaps sensory probes [grin], to assess the belief structures and habitual expressions influencing the reality creation mechanisms of any particular individual, and then gives them ready access to the resources and imagery needed to redress any untoward situations in their lives.

    I am seriously thinking of getting the url "Belief Negotiator" because I think a living could be made, and a very valuable service offered, by someone who was willing to engage the belief structures of their clients convincingly, and then suggest and facilitate immediately helpful adjustments and accommodations. More and more people are realizing that beliefs are the tools we use to formulate our behavior and experiences. Anyone offering effective help rearranging a person's beliefs is going to become a busy and sought-after person

    - - - - -

    Why Belief Negotiation?

    I am sure there are a few things about your life you’d like to change. Everybody would like to make some changes in their reality, even if it’s only boiling the kettle faster or finding missing socks.

    For most of us the alterations we have in mind are much more aggressive and significant; more money, less hassle, a new job, car, house, good health, a beautiful body, a beautiful mate... The list goes on.

    Information is emerging that shows how important our beliefs are in forming our reality. It turns out that what we believe is a sort of lens through which we shine our reality creation energy. What comes out the other side - the realities we create - is enormously influenced by the beliefs we hold.

    This can get right down to the nitty-gritty. Deepak Chopra tells a story about flying in a plane with his mother over India. They had planned to avoid stopping over in a particular city because his mother broke out in hives whenever she was in this city. She blamed the pollution as well as other qualities of this particular city for her painful skin reaction.

    Deepak and his family had planned the route to avoid this city but after his mother went to sleep, the pilot came on and announced that bad weather was forcing them to make an unplanned stop in the city in question.

    When Deepak woke his mother she was feeling fine, assuming they were at their intended destination. Within seconds of telling her about the bad weather and where she really was, an astonished Deepak watched hives appear on his mother's arms and face.

    This illustrates the power and immediacy of the influence of our beliefs on the realities we create for ourselves moment-to-moment. One minute this woman believed she was in Pondicherri and she felt fine, the next minute she realizes she is in Bangalore and she is covered in itchy hives. Such a dramatic change in her physical reality, and the only thing that has changed is her beliefs.

    When we experience the impact of our own beliefs on the experiences we create for ourselves, the first thing everybody does is try to kill the bad beliefs. If we can simply get rid of these bad and limiting beliefs, everything will be just fine.

    But think back to the illustration above. We need beliefs as the lens or filter through which we express our reality creation energy. Without beliefs we can’t create realities so the point is not to get rid of beliefs, but to either negotiate a better influence, or move our concentration to another belief.

    This is where a Belief Negotiator comes in very handy. In the same way that every writer needs an editor because we can’t see our own typos, most people need help from other people to be able to notice their own beliefs.

    A savy and well trained belief negotiator can quickly identify the hidden beliefs that are creating what we don’t want, and address them directly either in the waking state, engaging the conscious intellect, or in a hypnotic state engaging the sub-conscious. Often what we think of as a belief is only one of countless possible influences of an underlying core belief we hardly ever think about but have always just assumed to be true.

    Once the foundational belief has been identified, it is comparatively easy in most cases to negotiate a new influence of the belief that allows us to create a much better outcome. This loosening of the hold of particular influences is often facilitated by aligning our present intent with the original intent of the core belief in question.

    One of the ways we stop beating ourselves up is to realize that every belief we have chosen has been for a reason, and our enduring intentions for ourselves have always been overwhelmingly positive, wholesome and compassionate.

  • What Are Prime Beliefs?

    What Are Prime Beliefs?

    In describing prime beliefs we are not talking about the ideas that we entertain in our heads on a day-to-day basis. We are talking about assumptions and expectations that we might never think about consciously or even notice, because they are foundational to the construction of our experiences in this dimension.

    Even gravity and blue skys are not prime beliefs, but acquired beliefs in these terms, because we have created a reality that does not involve either - space travel. Prime beliefs are rarely brought to conscious attention because they are the basic underpinings of how we think about all these other ideas. [Think of a fish not noticing the water he’s swimming in.]

    This means there is a prime belief that straddles these two realities - an underlying belief that supports both possibilities. What kind of belief supports both gravity and weightlessness, and blue skies or starry blackness?

    Some kind of belief in the inherent and extensible responsiveness of the whole Universe, that supports us in being whoever we think we are, both on this planet and off it!

    Scientists have often mentioned the huge number of things that have to be just right for our species to inhabit this planet. Everything is exactly right for us to flourish on this planet! One could be forgiven the feeling that it is our own requirements as human beings that inform the blueprints for just about everything else in the known universe. [Turns out anthropocentric and anthropomorphic ideas are perfectly reasonable.]

    It is also significant that the number of decimal places we can perceive going bigger - light years and exploding stars - is about the same as the number of decimal places we can perceive going smaller; milli-microns, quarks and electrons. We can ‘see’ about the same distance in either direction which suggests that we are smack dab in the perceptual and conceptual centre of our universe.

    [The universe emanates from us equally in every conceivable direction because each of us is the centre of their universe. Put another way our perception, through our senses, reaches equally far in whatever direction we point it.]

    Kris identified a beginning list of four prime beliefs and challenges us to get more from our neo-conscious minds.

    The first four are as follows…

    1 - I am who I AM - identity, individuality, point of awareness, unique perspective. [The “I” in the storm of realities we perceive swirling around us.]

    2 - My energies will sustain who I AM - whatever is required to express who I believe myself to be, will be automatically and effortlessly provided by the universe I perceive around and within me.

    3 - Value fulfillment is a done deal - Fulfilling the values of expanding who we are, along with enjoyment, pleasure and fun are all at the heart of our being here. [Our lives here are not a chore but a choice.]

    4 - The Grid of Perception - Patterns of choices we make about the values and perspectives we are activating - meanwhile veiling others - in order to express the experiences we want within this dimension. Other species such as whales or insects, choose other points on this grid of perception and consequently are aware of - and not aware of - a different set of perceptions.

    - - - - -

    Acquired Beliefs

    As you can see, these first four prime beliefs are not the everyday concerns of most people. In fact it turns out that the everyday thoughts of most people are being used to manipulate another category of influences Kris calls ‘acquired beliefs’.

    The prime belief might be that the body consciousness will do everything it can to support our expression here. The acquired belief, supported by Official Reality, is that we are doomed to decay with age, and it’s only a matter of where and when.

    This can be confusing for people who look to the outside world for their understanding, because the outside world will seem to prove this idea as our bodies start to show signs of this acquired belief in aging. This is a confirmation though, of our powers to create our own reality, not proof that what we believe and see the confirmation of, is a universal truth.

    If we look carefully, we can see the prime belief behind this acquired belief, “my body consciousness will sustain who I think I am”. In this case though, ‘who I think I am’ is a decaying oldster and so that is what my body produces for me to experience.

    This has more to do with our divine abilities to generate realities according to our beliefs, than objective proof that these beliefs are universally true.

    Kris is quick to point out that while we cannot do away with prime beliefs and continue to express ourselves in this dimension, we can choose different acquired beliefs, and this freedom provides more than enough leeway for unlimited explorations and value fulfillment.

    Thus we can freely exchange our ideas about decaying as we age, for ideas much more in harmony with our new vision of ourselves. Ideas about improving with age like a fine wine or a good pair of shoes. [Lots of things get better with maturity, apples for instance!]

    In a recent session, Kris offered a powerful new vision of our potentials in maturity. The difference in our life-skills as we age is not just quantitative - due to being around longer - it is qualitative! A mature person in their 50’s or 60’s can manifest things in this world in a way that differs in quality from the manifestations of a 20-year-old.

    [Let me be the first to admit that the rapid bursts of energy manifested by a 20-year-old have their own charm, but are qualitatively different from the sustained, strategic expressions and patient knowingness of maturity.]

    - - - - -

    Let’s Expand Our List of Prime Beliefs

    There have to be a fair number of prime beliefs, although Kris has indicated that their number is finite. My suggestion is that we take up this challenge and come up with a list of prime beliefs we can all share.

    Sort of like distributed processing, taking advantage of unused cycles of millions of people’s computers, and turning that unused potential into a super-computer.

    [I see a website where people can enter their troubling acquired beliefs and be led to the likely underlying prime beliefs. Then they are offered a range of alternate acquired beliefs - and supporting media - more in line with their preferences.]

    Here is my first attempt to formulate some prime beliefs to add to our list.

    The Circle of Life / Cycles of Life

    There has to be something about rhythmic changes that is inherent in our reality, like waves washing onto a beach for instance. I am thinking here of day and night, the seasons, and the whole “circle of life” thing. There is a natural pulsation about reality that must be related to a prime belief. Our daily patterns of waking, sleeping, and dreaming fit in here too.

    Body Consciousness Supports Perception via 5 Senses, ergo all of Physical Reality

    Certainly something about the body consciousness supporting our reality creation activities, although this may be a subset of point two. Taking it back a layer or two, maybe the prime belief is that the body will correctly interpret our energy and generate an appropriate external reality that metaphorically out-pictures our inner representations.

    Reality Is Always a Meaningful, Metaphorical Abstraction of Self

    After all, any particular external reality we create for ourselves must ultimately involve a lot of arbitrary choices - within appropriate parameters of course. Each now is a unique arrangement of units of consciousness, produced for us, by us in that moment.

    Just that particular blue of the sky, that particular feeling in our stomach, in short the whole unending sequence of effortless, immaculate creativity we engage in. The whole ‘serendipitous happenstance’ that we think of as our lives, as it rolls out endlessly before us.

    JOHN: I do have a question but it kind of changes the topic, but I guess we’re ready for that. You said recently that it would pay us very, very handsomely to do a little bit of a study of what prime beliefs were as opposed to acquired beliefs. And I’m picking up the gauntlet there and I’m saying, “Yes!” I’m going to make a list. I threatened to do this at the time, if you recall!

    MARK: (Chuckling) Yep! I do.

    JOHN: So prime beliefs, I’m starting to get a feeling of what they are as opposed to acquired beliefs and I just wondered if you were willing to help with that a little bit.

    KRIS: Do feel free to continue.

    JOHN: I want a list of the prime beliefs!

    (Group laughter)

    MARK: In alphabetical order!

    MYRNA: And are you ready to write?

    JOHN: I’ll start you out: one of them is that I shall have a functioning physical body that operates autonomically for the most part. There’s one prime belief.

    KRIS: We would say that the first prime belief is that you are who you are.

    JOHN: Ah. All right.

    KRIS: Without this, your sense of self would be scattered and excessively fragmented.

    JOHN: Sure, you need some kind of a place to put all of this.

    MARK: A reference point.

    JOHN: There you go!

    KRIS: Indeed! That particular point of attention. Secondly: And just as — and this is not in order of importance, because this is AS important as believing who you are — is that your energies will manufacture all of the necessary ingredients to sustain, maintain and nurture the experiences of who you are. Thus, all of physical reality in the way it is experienced in classic terms belongs to that category. Without the notion of a reality to sustain who you are, who you are may not necessarily unfold. So it is part of your energies. We have referred, often, to your material energies.

    JOHN: Yes.

    KRIS: That is a prime belief.

    JOHN: Okay. That’s excellent.

    KRIS: Now what else do you think belongs there? Taking into consideration these two elements.

    JOHN: “I am who I am” and “my energies will sustain who I am.”

    KRIS: Indeed. That second one, sustaining who you are of course includes what you call Earth, the galaxies, everything about life as you experience it through your senses.

    MYRNA: The belief that it will all be there and it will sustain. I have it.

    KRIS: Indeed.

    JOHN: I think that the third one for me would be that as I change and allow who I am to change, then that will be confirmed. In other words, this is static, but there is a process going on here and as who I am changes, then the material reflection of that changes.

    KRIS: Indeed, therefore as your physical expression grows, matures and transforms through various stages and states of life, the whole of material reality, physical reality, meets your challenge and growth and provides the elements to stimulate that growth.

    JOHN: Right, now I’m not sure that’s getting to be terribly different from the second one, is it?

    KRIS: A slight variation.

    BARBARA: I have one I think: In the “Heal the Broken Heart” workshop you were saying that we all have the right to be happy. Would that be another?

    KRIS: Indeed.

    JOHN: Value fulfillment.

    KRIS: All of these, which comprise as you have said, value fulfillment, happiness, joy, love and so on and so forth.

    JOHN: Excellent. Okay, so we’re making real progress here!

    KRIS: Indeed. These are often referred to as your heritage, your birthright.

    JOHN: These prime beliefs?

    KRIS: Indeed.

    JOHN: Okay, so shall we proceed?

    KRIS: Indeed. Now, all of these and many more or interwoven into what you call “the Grid.”

    JOHN: This is what we call it?

    KRIS: It has been referred to as “the Grid.” You are familiar with this: the Grid of Perception.

    —Kris - Political Storms - September 14, 2008

  • Changing Acquired Beliefs / Choosing New Influences

    Changing Acquired Beliefs / Choosing New Influences

    Elias has been saying for years that we don't change our beliefs, we accept them. For a long time I thought he was cautioning us not to fight our beliefs - which only gives them energy - thereby neutralizing their hold on us [or our hold on them]. Then they would go away and stop bothering me! In other words, I thought he was saying the way to change my beliefs was to accept them rather than resisting them. Not so, it turns out. Apparently we usually keep to the same basic beliefs and what we are changing is the influence of those beliefs.

    It was only after several sessions with Kris on beliefs that I began to understand what Elias was really saying. Kris has created two categories of beliefs he calls 'prime' beliefs and 'acquired' beliefs. Prime beliefs are part of the blueprint of this dimension and are a necessary part of our participation here. Prime beliefs include things like gravity, sunrise, air, and ‘I will continue to breath and digest my dinner even when I sleep'.

    Acquired beliefs are part of our conditioning in any particular family and culture, and we can change them by simply releasing our concentration on them and moving our attention to something we prefer. We can change acquired beliefs. They are easy to recognize because they usually come with value judgements; I am a loser, blonds have more fun, oysters are delicious whereas insect larvae are gross, life is hard, etc.

    On the surface this looks like big difference between Kris, who says we can change beliefs and Elias, who says we cannot. In my view, this turns out to be merely a mixup of definitions.

    Elias says that we have comparatively few beliefs and many, many influences of each belief. He gives the example of our prime belief in changing as we age, as it could be applied by a baseball player.

    One influence might be that as the player gets older, her abilities to play are reduced because of degraded physical abilities, associated with aging. [influence - as we age our bodies decline in vitality]

    Another influence might be that as the player gets older her abilities increase because of more experience and understanding, also associated with aging. [influence - as we age we experience an increase in wisdom]

    There are many other possible influences of this belief in aging. Which influence we choose to focus on is up to us as individuals with free choice. The point being that the different influences we choose to concentrate on, instruct our reality creation mechanisms to produce very different kinds of realities, and very different kinds of experiences.

    [It seems clear now that what Kris calls prime beliefs are equivalent to Elias' beliefs. And what Elias calls influences are equivalent to Kris' acquired beliefs.]

    - - - - -

    Here is an example from my own experience of having the same belief but changing influences. When I was a young man, I thought I had the correct way of seeing the world. I had total faith in my view of the universe and how it worked. I more than freely shared this viewpoint with others and given the opportunity, would cheerfully correct other people's points-of-view.

    This attitude extended to my physical vision, which I unthinkingly regarded as giving me an accurate view of the real world. [As a visual artist, this was crucial in my understanding of my art.]

    Paradoxically, while the intervening journey has taken me to many wonderful places since my 20s - I am now 58 - I still have essentially the same idea about my infallibility as the adjudicator of my reality as I had when I was young.

    My current view is that mine IS the only way of seeing the world because it's the only way MY world can ever be seen - by me. This understood flows from quite a different influence of the underlying belief. I tell myself quite a different story now, about who I am, and how the world works, and why I am the centre of my universe.

    Since I create my own universe with my own perceptions, which are utterly unique to me and can only be experienced by me, it follows that I must be the ultimate expert and authority on what is happening in my universe! As everyone else is in theirs too. So the basic belief, that I am the sovereign lord of my reality, is the same.

    What has definitely changed though, is the influence of this belief. In the first case, I thought I was a smart-ass young man with perfect eyesight - apart from wearing glasses since age 10 - with a wonderful intellectual grasp of how the world worked. Some of the behaviors inspired by this perspective were not very helpful, like going around all the time thinking very seriously about everything, and sometimes heatedly correcting other people's ideas about how the world worked.

    The new influence I have chosen progressively over the last ten years or so, is to accept and engage my reality as my creation, flowing from much deeper and broader aspects of myself, always motivated by my own best interests, and, in fact, always working proactively on my behalf.

    In terms of changed behavior, this is all about acknowledging and accepting myself, and being willing to engage my whole, unknown but trusted, self, and taking responsibility for this broader self's amazing creativity. The changes inspired by this new influence can be seen in almost every aspect of my everyday life and thought.

    There is nothing in these ideas to motivate me to do some of the uncomfortable things I used to do. Like always thinking so much, and constantly justifying and defending my views. And happily, I no longer feel compelled to correct other people's unfortunate misunderstandings about how things work.

    These new ideas about who I am and how the world works result in greater and greater allowing of my own expressions - the reality I create - to simply unfold naturally before my appreciative eyes. [No need to meddle, criticize, compare, correct or fix. Even understanding is an option!]

    It is no coincidence that my life these days is filled with confirmations of these influences - actual objective experiences that are completely in line with these ideas and this way of thinking. This is the power of the influence of our beliefs on our reality creation mechanisms.

    - - - - -

    Elias has said it is very rare, though not unheard of, for someone to actually change their beliefs. It is within our power to do this but we cannot drop beliefs altogether. The reason we cannot eliminate beliefs is they are essential building blocks of this dimension.

    Our primary beliefs about who we are, and how reality works, are very deeply embedded in our awareness at layers where our conscious mind rarely travels, and changing them involves altering the foundational building blocks of our reality - no small undertaking. But there is a much simpler way to 'change' our beliefs.

    Our freedom lies in the myriad different influences of whatever beliefs we have engaged, and how we interpret these influences in our inner dialog, thoughts, feelings and action. [there are so many possible influences of a belief, that you can basically assume that given enough leeway, you could identify an influence of ANY belief that gets you where you want to go.]

    In fact I put out this challenge. I am prepared, as the "Belief-inator", to debate anyone, on any belief whatsoever. Together we will invariably come up with an influence of this very same belief, that lets the person move their reality in whatever direction they choose.

    [Keep in mind that what most people think of as a belief is actually an influence. The way you know you have peeled back the influences to the actual belief is when it becomes neutral - no positive or negative associations. That's when you know you are dealing with the mother-belief.]

    "I am fat!"
    is not a belief but the influence of a primary belief, "How we think, feel and act affects the functioning of our physical body." This seemingly self-evident truth is the belief behind the influence chosen to be fat. The actual belief is neutral, while the influence chosen may be loaded with duplicity and value judgements.

    "I am skinny, fit, muscular, underweight, run down, 'in the pink', ..."
    are other influences of this belief. How we choose to affect our bodies with our thoughts, feelings and actions is where our freedom lies, because once we stop fighting influences we don't like, and recognize and accept the neutral, underlying belief, we can easily choose any other influence that suits our fancy.

    Choosing a new influence is as easy as noticing and suspending actions that reinforce the old influence, and choosing new behaviors and self talk to line up with the desired influence.

    - - - - -

    The issues around my vision resonate well with these ideas. As discussed above, I used to think it was my way or the highway when it came to how I saw the world around me. I recall getting into huffy arguments with people who saw things differently, about how things happened, or who said what to whom.

    In recent years my left eye has changed appreciably, and I actually see a slightly different sized world [smaller] and a slightly warmer color gamut through that eye, not to mention lots of floaters and general blurriness in both eyes based on multi-focal glasses, [these glasses promised that everything would be in focus, when in reality nothing is in focus, but I digress.]

    So now, even in objective terms, I know that how I see the world is totally unique to me, and indeed can change by the hour depending on how tired I am, and how much I've had to drink... [As a visual artist, this continues to be crucial to my understanding of my art.]

    For these reasons we have graciously set aside, for the time being, telling other people how they see the world is wrong!

    - - - - -

    The more I understand how unique and creative we are, the more I admire the fact that we understand each other at all. Because you're in your universe, and I'm in mine, and the level of agreement between our universes is totally up to us. One could understand that this requires deep layers of intimate exchange to work out all the details of how our interactions will transpire.

    It takes lots of planning, so to speak, to spin off all the necessary shared probabilities, while giving appropriate due to everybody's potential, and also meshing everybody's needs and preferences into a ‘single' shared event. [imagine doing the math!]

    Observe a busy intersection downtown if you want an astonishing expression of this intricate confluence of layered intent. Everybody going off in their own direction for their own reasons, and still playing their part in the grand flow of the intersection herself. A mind boggling display of individual and collective consciousness doing a ‘reality dance' right there in front of our eyes.

    - - - -

    ELIAS: Yes. And let me also express to you, remember, you are not eliminating beliefs, but you are widening your awareness, and you are moving into an acceptance of beliefs

    Now; in that acceptance, you recognize that you incorporate certain beliefs and that they are expressed, but every belief incorporates many influences, and therein lies your freedom. For regardless of what beliefs you incorporate as expressed beliefs, they do not incorporate merely one influence. Therefore, they do not incorporate merely one choice. —Elias #1641

    - - - - -

    KRIS: Now there are therefore prime beliefs that are absolutely necessary to your physical experience in time and space. And then there are those acquired beliefs that you utilize to limit your experience of self. And though many individuals would like to do away with beliefs entirely, we have spoken on this subject many times. There are many people who misunderstand the notion of beliefs. It is important to understand that in order to be whom and what you think you are today, now, in this hour, in this moment, you literally believe yourself to be who you are now. Of that there can be no question. Otherwise you would not be in this here and now.

    These particular prime beliefs are of such significant importance that a study of them would grant you much awareness and wisdom, especially in the field of being more than what you were before, in line with value fulfillment. Thus by paying attention to, or noticing, that there are prime and acquired beliefs, it can be easy to bridge the notions of your limited enterprise of self to such a point where being whom and what you are is not the issue. But learning to become more than what you were then becomes truly the game that you play.

    JOHN: Ah. So it’s not a matter of identifying or defining yourself, it’s a matter of going beyond whatever that might be.

    KRIS: Indeed. Going beyond can be a very big word. Suffice it to say that for the most part, as we have expressed before, you have a collective tendency to always think too small, primarily due to fears that harbor and keep close to your heart. But if you give yourselves the opportunity, and perhaps even as yourself what it would be like if you could become more than what you are tomorrow than what you were yesterday, what would that lead to? Who would you be? Does that make sense to you?

    MARK: Yes.

    KRIS: Indeed. Then for the moment, think what it would be like to have a very nice break.

    JOHN: All right.

    MARK: Indeed.

    BREAK

    —Kris Radio, Communication, Aug. 7, 2008

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