Where is the most cluttered place in your home? If you just moved, the answer won’t be that revealing.

Is it your living room, bedroom, bathroom, kitchen, dining room, den, attic or garage? Or someplace else?

Even if you’re an inveterate slob, there’s one place that’s more cluttered than another. My guess is that most people would select attic, garage, or crawl space because we seem to treat those places like the miscellaneous file. If we can’t figure out what to do with it, we usually stuff it there. So, let’s take them out of consideration and concentrate on the main rooms in your living space.

Which area is perpetually covered over? Or maybe it’s just a piece of furniture or section of that room that’s hidden - a counter top, a desk, a sofa, a bed, etc.

Imagine that place in your mind. Sense all the clutter that’s in this room or strewn across a piece of furniture or piled up in a specific corner.

Now, mentally clean up that space. Use your imagination and see and sense yourself cleaning that area. Do it from top to bottom and take as little or as much time as your imagination needs to unclutter this space. More on this in a moment . . .

My sense is that space corresponds to an area that is cluttered in your life. Perhaps an example would be helpful . . .

Suppose it’s your desk. My guess is that your work is clogged up – not going that well or you have bills you can’t pay. Suppose it’s your bed. My guess is your sex life or sleeping patterns may be challenged. Could a consistently cluttered living room indicate cluttered health? What about the kitchen? Is your food consumption all out of whack? What could a cluttered bathroom indicate?

I invite you to get curious about this idea because I believe there is a correlation. I have no way to validate this claim other than through my own experience but I think the application is universal.

Yes, there are sloppy housekeepers, but this goes deeper than that. There is someplace, even in the neatest of homes that is not getting attention. Is there something to this or is it just a whacky idea? Don’t judge it in your head; do the mental exercise a few times and notice the results.

It would be easy to say, just clean up the space and see what happens. That would be working from the outside in, which has short-term results. Mentally clean that space in your mind. Make that space fully functional in your mind and notice the corresponding dysfunction in your life begin to clean up.

The side benefit is that after doing this exercise a few times, you quite naturally create the desire to voluntarily clean up that actual space.

I wonder if they give awards for mental good housekeeping.

All the best,

John

http://JohnMorganHypnosis.com

http://GrasshopperNotes.com

http://cdbaby.com/cd/johnmorgan

http://www.cafepress.com/grasshoppernote/3580301

I could never warm up to the phrase, “I know how you feel” simply because it’s impossible to know how another feels even if you experienced the same set of circumstances. I’ve always considered the phrase a self serving, bald face lie. But now, I’m beginning to see a glimmer of truth, not so much in the expression, but in the experiencing of it.

Let me explain. In the past, when someone told me about their pain (emotional or physical), I would express sympathy but could offer no empathy. I was like the stereotypical model of the treating physician. Remain uninvolved in the emotion and you’ll provide a quicker, clearer diagnosis and treatment. Experience has taught me that that’s an unbalanced, outdated model.

I’ve seen people offer empathy and less sound advice than I would offer and get better results. It got me curious. What is it about this thing called empathy that can have less skilled people garner more effective results? Why do some highly trained, experienced doctors fail where a rookie nurse practitioner succeeds giving the same advice? One touched them and the other didn’t.

This isn’t a rant on physicians, only the model that most of them use.

When you lack empathy, this is what you communicate: I refuse to know what it’s like to be you, but I demand that you know what it’s like to be me. That’s a prescription for failure.

I also found out why I haven’t gone to critically acclaimed, yet depressing movies. My logical explanation was hard to argue with – “Who wants to spend money to get depressed?” Underneath the cover of that logic is a fear of feeling the emotions the actors so capably display on the screen. The truth is if you cannot feel the full spectrum of emotions, you will be diminished in your helping of another, and you’ll wear the cloak of stoic isolation for yourself.

This is not to say that you put your systematic approach aside. It’s simply more prudent to balance out that model by attempting to sense what another is experiencing. Empathy has 2 immediate benefits:

1. It allows you to more ably assist another.
2. It allows you to be more of a human being and become more approachable.

Why could we tell our mother but not our father (or vice-versa) about a painful situation in our life? One provided empathy and the other provided just a strategy alone.

Feeling empathy has been a difficult transition for me and it remains a work in progress. It’s probably why I would have never been a great actor. I didn’t take the time to personally explore emotions that I had a fear of feeling. Great actors dig within themselves to find that feeling. That’s why they give such relatable, superb performances and touch hidden places within us.

If empathy is not in your kit, get curious about it. Try on the role and see what great results you can get for yourself and others.

All the best,

John

P.S. I invite you to explore my websites.

http://JohnMorganHypnosis.com

http://GrasshopperNotes.com

http://cdbaby.com/cd/johnmorgan

http://www.cafepress.com/grasshoppernote/3580301

Robert Schuller said,

“You will suddenly realize that the reason you never changed before was because you didn’t want to.”

What a profound statement.

Change is generally defined as putting into motion a set of actions that leads to a measurable result. The downside of that definition is that those actions don’t usually produce lasting results. That’s because the change most people seek is exterior change. You only have to look at the dieting industry to validate that fact.

Internal change is the one that garners lasting results, but we resist it. Seems we are looking for a separate set of rules that allows us to keep our current mindset and still get the lasting changes we desire. It will never happen that way. That’s why people lose and gain substantial amounts of weight over and over again.

The thinking goes like this: Once I reach my goal, I can go back to my old way of doing things. That’s also why some big lottery winners blow through all their money. Their counter-productive spending habits were already formed and they never outgrew them because they didn’t want to.

Who doesn’t know a smoker who quit or an admitted alcohol abuser who says, “I can just have one”? It’s just more evidence that they didn’t want to.

There is no pocket full of fairy dust for change. Change happens from the inside out. Doing it the other way around is just putting a coat of paint on termite infested siding.

Find someone who has genuinely changed something in their life. You will find a different person on the inside than existed before. They really wanted to change and they were willing to do what was necessary.

Yes, you can look at and emulate their determination and true grit, but if you stay focused on that for too long, you will miss the secret of their lasting success – they cleaned house from the inside out. They took a deep look in the mirror and got honesty reflected back.

I think mirrors are highly misused. They can certainly let us know that we look “hot” for our age or not, but their biggest gift is this: They have no agenda and reflect back only that which is there.

Our “cake and eat it too” thinking is the vanity use of the mirror. It keeps us stuck with yo-yo results. A deeper gaze into the looking glass reveals what’s really there and what needs to be changed.

The mirror will not lie, only our thinking will.

The real courage necessary for change is the willingness to go deeper than our façade and to be as honest with ourselves as the mirror is. This approach will home in on what really needs to be worked on for us to get the lasting change we desire.

You can hold on to that which isn’t working, and you can tell yourself that you tried, but the truth is you lied. You never changed because you didn’t want to.

“Wanting to” requires the courage to let go of something forever. If you can’t get yourself to that point, save your breath and your efforts because you will ultimately fail, quite simply, because you don’t want to.

Letting go of something that isn’t working is one of the tallest tasks any human being can take on. It begins with the recognition of what is keeping you from your goal. Once you recognize your road block, dedicate your quiet time to providing you with a strategy or solution to get past it. The answer you eventually receive will be unmistakable in clarity.

But don’t follow those instructions unless you want to.

All the best,

John

http://JohnMorganHypnosis.com

http://GrasshopperNotes.com

http://cdbaby.com/cd/johnmorgan

http://www.cafepress.com/grasshoppernote/3580301

I had a dream Friday night questioning the difference between two similar sounding words – Incite and Insight.

Incite means “stimulate or prompt to action” and Insight is defined as “appreciating the true nature of something.”

I got to wondering.

For the most part, I’ve always had “incite” as a negative word in my head, like inciting a riot. Yet there is ample evidence that it has positive connotations such as inciting one’s passion, say to read.

I found my true passion from the insight in that dream – inciting myself and others to appreciate the true nature of things.

It seems we function like lost puppies for much of our lives. Yes, we have careers, relationships, families and dreams, and the joys and sorrows that go along with them. But there comes a point where we aimlessly wander. We may appear to function well, yet we suffer. That could easily be dismissed as being human but that wouldn’t provide all the insight that’s necessary.

What are we wandering to or from?

Seems we incite ourselves to wander towards all the earthly rewards and away from the source of all gifts – insight.

We attempt to figure life out as though it’s a puzzle. That strategy will only get you so far. The difficulty is that some of the puzzle pieces are not on the board, so we consume our life with thinking and activities geared towards looking for something that’s not there. That’s wandering.

When we look outside ourselves for the answer, we always remain hungry for carrots. We keep inciting ourselves to do better, be better, attain more, and spend little time “insighting” ourselves.

The interesting part is that once you take some regular mind quieting time, you begin to discover lost puzzle pieces that fit nicely into the mosaic of your earthly desires without making them the focal point of life.

It would be like heading out to a store with a very specific thing in mind that you needed. Once you arrived at the store, they offered a free demonstration of this mind quieting recording that you could listen to with headphones in a comfortable, reclining chair. After listening, you were refreshed and recharged and all of a sudden discovered that what you really needed was something other than what you came for. This new thing fit more precisely in your life than anything you could have consciously conjured up. That’s the benefit of insight.

Here is a secret I will share with you. When you quiet your mind, you discover this: Insight incites you.

Fuel yourself with insight and you’ll wonder where the wander went.

All the best,

John

P.S. I request that you check out my websites.

http://JohnMorganHypnosis.com

http://GrasshopperNotes.com

http://cdbaby.com/cd/johnmorgan

http://www.cafepress.com/grasshoppernote/3580301

Sometimes when a point of view is expressed by another, the best strategy is to say nothing. Quoting the Dalai Lama,

“Sometimes one creates a dynamic impression by saying something, and sometimes one creates as significant an impression by remaining silent.”

There must be a reason the proverb, “Silence is Golden” has remained alive for so long. In the communication Olympics, the silver tongue always takes second place.

Sometimes saying nothing is stuffing back your opinion because it will add nothing to the situation other than deaf ears and hardened feelings. Other times some use this as a strategy to politely nod their heads and tune out. But the most effective benefit of saying nothing is the silence it provides. It seems counter-intuitive but many conversations could benefit by the space of silence. It’s out of this space that inspiring thoughts can spring.

The bevy of pat answers we carry around in our head seem to jump out and break the silence. It has the same effect as breaking wind in church. Sometimes a pat answer may be the only answer, and that’s when it’s most effective. Does the sun rise in the East or West? Give a pat answer. On the witness stand, stick with the facts and give a pat answer.

How bored are you when you have a conversation filled with pre-fabricated answers? They have no communicative energy attached. They are dead words and you are stiff as a corpse when you deliver them.

Give this a go today. When conversing with someone, notice your pat answer coming up and then enter your place of silence. Don’t speak until something fresh presents itself. Sometimes when it’s your turn to talk, the communication can benefit greatly by you remaining silent.

Don’t confuse saying nothing with not having anything to say and saying it anyway. One will keep you in the superficial strata and the other will plunge you into inspiring silence.

All the best,

John

P.S. Check out my websites.

http://JohnMorganHypnosis.com

http://GrasshopperNotes.com

http://cdbaby.com/cd/johnmorgan

http://www.cafepress.com/grasshoppernote/3580301

20 some years ago I was on a cruise and one of the ports of call was Ocho Rios on the north coast of Jamaica. While walking around the island city, I noticed a sign that read: Sleeping Policeman Ahead. It made me smile and got me curious.

I came to find out that
Sleeping Policeman comes to us from the British. It’s what we commonly call a “speed bump” designed to slow down our speed.

I was reminded of that term this morning when I saw an SUV going a bit too fast as I was out walking the dog. It got me wondering about the rush to nowhere that goes on unimpeded in our lives.

I guessed that the driver of the SUV was probably running behind schedule or maybe he just liked to drive fast. Either way, it pointed up how oblivious we are to our natural rhythms. Our natural rhythm is not perpetual pedal to the metal, but you would never guess that by looking around.

Seems we’re all in a rush to get somewhere other than where we are. We miss a lot when we do that. Firstly, we miss the richness the present moment has to offer and then we miss the natural rhythm of our body.

Did you ever notice that your mind wants to run at full speed? Thank goodness your body is incapable of keeping up. It wants to run at a different pace but we continually override the desires of our body with the go-go-go instructions from our mind.

There is an eventual price to pay for this mind activity – a rebellion from your body.

Your body will send you a slow down signal. At first, it may be aches and pains and if we ignore them too often, they eventually graduate to full blown diseases. This is your body’s reaction to the mental stress you constantly keep it under.

Cell Biologist, Dr. Bruce Lipton tells us that we are either in a state of fear and protection, OR in a state of joy/love & growth. You can’t be in both at the same time. According to Bruce, chronic stress is the biggest obstruction to our health and is related to most illnesses.  So activities that promote relaxation also promote our health & well-being.

Dr. Lipton is just one of many Sleeping Policemen who are encouraging us to slow down and save lives – mainly our own.

There is no one who is too busy to take a look at the direction of their life or to adopt a practice that slows them down a bit so that they get the therapeutic effects and can recharge. Most people are already attempting to slow themselves down but with methods that only hasten their deterioration – excessive alcohol, drugs, food, etc.

Your mission today is to find your Sleeping Policeman. There are so many to choose from. The step that’s necessary before you find one is to recognize that you need one. If you notice that your mind is going full speed ahead, that’s all the recognition you need to find a helpful way of slowing down.

My CD RELAX IN 2 MINUTES is one of the many ways you can begin this practice right away.

The road sign “Speed Kills” can easily be replaced by one that reads: “Sleeping Policeman.”

All the best,

John

http://JohnMorganHypnosis.com

http://GrasshopperNotes.com

http://cdbaby.com/cd/johnmorgan

http://www.cafepress.com/grasshoppernote/3580301

Biblically speaking, we have heard that the term “I AM” is a reference to the name that God gave Himself in Exodus 3:14

Many who teach the Law of Attraction say that the “I AM” part of you is the divine part, the creator.

The Grasshopper checked in with two nips of nectar on “I AM” – one recently, and one from a few years back. In March of 2008, He said,

“I AM is a statement of creation. Be mindful of what follows I AM. Interrupt yourself when you are attributing something limiting to I AM. A more useful statement is he/she is – where he or she refers to the conditioned you.”

In November of 2005, The Grasshopper said this:

“A new perspective on affirmations: When you affirm, affirm what is undeniable – meaning affirm I AM is _____________. (fill in affirmation).

The Affirmation is about the consciousness that is you – not about the conditioned you. You are affirming what is already true, possible and present for the unmanifest right now. When you affirm that, it seeps through to your life experience.”

One thought seems to be a warning and the other is a new strategy for affirmations.

The warning is be careful what you reinforce. “I AM not a people person” is an affirmation that will keep you out of Dale Carnegie classes. “I AM a klutz” keeps you out of the juggling hall of fame. “I AM a failure” will have you continue living that script.

The difficulty I have with affirmations in general is this: We don’t believe the positive ones. You can say, “I AM a good dancer” as often as you like, but if you are truly a lousy dancer the conditioned you will never believe it. There is too much evidence to the contrary.

The new affirmation strategy given to me by The Grasshopper has more believability.

If you consider “I AM” to be the creative part of you, there is no trouble in believing that rhythmic dancing is available to the all knowing.

The subtle shift is that you are affirming what is possible for your caldron of creativity, not the egoic you.

My contention is that with this type of affirmation, you sidestep the conscious filter of disbelief and allow this intention to gain entry to the creative part of you. With practice, you will begin to notice more and more evidence of the intention showing up.

It seems that most affirmations are about health and wealth. Rather than affirming “I AM healthy,” add a verb. Affirm “I AM is healthy.” You are saying the creative, godly part of you is healthy. There can be little argument about that. It’s easy to believe.

This intention, once believed, will begin to bubble up into consciousness where you will receive ideas to act on which will lead you towards your intention.

I could have made this all up. In fact, I did. That doesn’t prevent you from using this strategy to see how soon you’ll get better results than with traditional affirming.

I AM is doing something new.

All the best,

John

http://JohnMorganHypnosis.com

http://GrasshopperNotes.com

http://cdbaby.com/cd/johnmorgan

http://www.cafepress.com/grasshoppernote/3580301

I’m not a big fan of tattoos, never have been. Well, that’s not completely true. When I was a boy, we would get transferable tattoos in our bubble gum wrappers and I would put them on my arm. Reminds me of a story . . .

I was on a cruise 23 years ago and was doing a workout in the gym. The guy working out next to me had a large tattoo on his arm. So, I asked him what his mother said when he arrived home with it. He said, “She didn’t say anything but my father went nuts and told me, in Italian, to ‘wash it off’.”

Tattoo removal is becoming a big business designed to erase youthful indiscretions and lovers that weren’t as indelible as the ink.

The Grasshopper gave me some perspective on tattoos. He said,

“The personality is a tattoo that covers your original self. The biggest misconception being bought into is that it’s not removable.”

We cover ourselves is metaphorical tattoos and define ourselves as the image we display. The truth is it’s only skin deep.

Our personality is a cover. It attempts to cover what we are missing. Even the most well adjusted people come to a point in their life where they sense something is missing. The biggest error we usually make at that time is to look for the missing piece outside of ourselves. It’s not at the tattoo parlor.

The missing piece is inside you, several layers down. To get there, you have to begin the process of removing layers to get to the real you. It’s like removing decades of wallpaper. Each layer represents something you added to cover up the feeling of missing something.

Some people are not ready for removal. They’re too busy to stop and notice the unsettling feeling of missing something within. When they do come to a halt, they will experience that sensation first hand. The temptation is to chase it away. That only has it come back another day.

If you’ve come to the point in life that you know something is missing, summon your bravery and stop diverting your attention from that which needs tending to. Allow yourself the freedom and opportunity to allow this empty feeling to have its day. Spend time with it. This sensation in your body will lead you, by the hand, down through the layers and into your deepest self.

How will you know when you get there? The empty feeling is replaced by the peace that passes all understanding. This peaceful you needs no barrier between you and the world.

You remove the tattoo that could never define you.

All the best,

John

http://JohnMorganHypnosis.com

http://GrasshopperNotes.com

http://cdbaby.com/cd/johnmorgan

http://www.cafepress.com/grasshoppernote/3580301

I am not an authority on the topic but I have a perspective. It’s more of an offshoot, really – same life reincarnation.

Reincarnation can happen or not in a single lifetime. If we repeat the conditioned patterns we have acquired, we will get the same life day after day ala the movie, Groundhog Day. If we outgrow patterns that are causing us an unwelcome sameness, we become reincarnated in this lifetime. You don’t even have to read one ancient Hindu text to discover this.

“Born again” is such an accurate description of this same life reincarnation process. Too bad it’s already taken by a wing of Christianity.

Think of all the conditioning we receive from newborn to age 4 and how it stays with us for a lifetime whether useful or not. Most of it we had nothing to do with but are living with the results. Yes, you could complain about it and blame your parents and other early care givers but it does nothing to help get another life.

It’s amusing if we discover that we hang the toilet paper in the same direction our mother did, but it can be downright depressing if we’re repeating a preference they gave us which isn’t working. Discovering your patterns is only one end of the same life reincarnation equation. The other part is making an effort to outgrow the behavior(s).

Many people when they discover something they got by accident, use it as a justification to continue the pattern and claim helplessness. They will not reincarnate in this lifetime. Some deny that the behavior is present. They will also live the same life they have now.

We have all been stuck. If you investigate “stuckness,” you will notice it’s driven by some underlying pattern of behavior. And chances are you had no say in getting this particular behavior. That recognition does not cause it to disappear, but it’s a starting point.

Spiritual teacher, Eckhart Tolle tells us the ego exhibits wanting, thwarted wanting, and indifference. It’s the indifference piece that keeps most of us stuck in the same lifetime. This indifference, in many cases, can lead to isolation. The thinking goes something like this: “As long as I am apart from the ‘unwashed,’ I won’t have some numbskull eliciting my patterned behavior and I won’t have to deal with their criticisms.”

Other people help you discover yourself, flaws and all. The world is a research laboratory filled with these creatures of discovery. You won’t find them watching reruns of “Law & Order.”

My mantra for me and you is “Risk.”

Risk discovering yourself through others. You’ll find out the good, the bad and the ugly about yourself. If you then choose to go to work on the bothersome behaviors, you get a new life in this lifetime. If you don’t, you can always pray for a better life the next time around.

All the best,

John

http://JohnMorganHypnosis.com

http://GrasshopperNotes.com

http://cdbaby.com/cd/johnmorgan

http://www.cafepress.com/grasshoppernote/3580301

Reincarnation picture was taken from Wikipedia at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reincarnation

Got an interesting perspective from The Grasshopper last week. He said, “Emotions will either fuel you or consume you.” I got to wondering.

In our culture, emotions have been tucked away in a corner as the evil stepsister we have to put up with. “Let’s not get emotional” is the often heard mantra when these thought triggered sensations show up. I have to admit that a good portion of my life has been spent suppressing emotions. I was pretty accomplished at it – world class, but it doesn’t work.

Stuffing things down just saves them for another day, kind of like the laundry.

When you consistently hold back on your emotions, they have a way of hardening you. No matter how well intentioned you may be, you present a prickly exterior that people have a hard time getting close to. Relatively few will attempt to get past the thorns to see who is really home.

The emotions, when kept at bay, begin to consume you. They chew at your soul and then they gnaw on your body no matter how spiritual or physically fit you may be.

Please don’t consider this a license to lash out and go on a rant. Think of it more as permission to allow yourself to be human.

Emotions are part of the human package and we may as well put them to work for us. Again, if you mistake this as doling out drama, I haven’t been too clear. Drama is keeping an emotion alive that has already been expressed and expressed, and expressed again. It’s telling yourself a story to revive an emotion that already had it platform. Drama is giving life support to that which has already lived.

This is not to say you cannot express the same emotion, just don’t artificially revive it by telling yourself a story to conjure it up. Emotions will show up in ample supply on their own.

I was talking with Jerry Stocking recently and he was saying that he hadn’t thought of emotions as commodities in the past. He looks at emotions as a fuel that powers us.

He says that true happiness is on the other side of any emotion. You just have to move through it to get there.

Begin to recognize the power of an emotion. Just like with any other power source, be careful how you use it. It’s often been said that electricity can be used to power a city or to electrocute the careless.

Recognize and express your emotions. This has two immediate benefits:

1. You get to find out what’s on the other side of them.
2. You feel better and become a lot more approachable.

All the best,

John

http://JohnMorganHypnosis.com

http://GrasshopperNotes.com

http://cdbaby.com/cd/johnmorgan

http://www.cafepress.com/grasshoppernote/3580301