Pirate Therapy – Simple and Powerful

Eye patching – sometimes referred to as “Pirate Therapy” has been in the RET therapist’s bag of therapeutic tools for some time. And as a whole therapy model, it is fantastic – and easy. To do eye patching, simply purchase a good eye patch – one that allows one to keep the eye open while it is patched, and use the patch as often as you can.

In this article, I want to delve a little deeper into the mysteries of eye patching – and show you a simple, yet powerful technique you can use on yourself and others to jump start change – assisting you and them in achieving therapeutic goals quicker and with a whole lot less effort. RET is already nearly effortless for the client – the following technique will put the RET into overdrive right off the bat. You can do this process on yourself, too – although I recommend doing it with someone else.

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Taking Appropriate Action Gets Results

Cause-effect relationship #1 - because you have come this far in life, you can achieve ANYTHING - poverty or riches, heavy or light, health or illness, whatever you truly wanted you have achieved.

Cause-effect relationship #1 – because you have come this far in life, you can achieve ANYTHING – poverty or riches, heavy or light, health or illness, whatever you truly wanted you have achieved.

Maybe you made some new year resolutions – expressing ways in which you would like to see your life change for the better. Maybe this will be the year you quit smoking, or get that raise, or lose that weight. Whatever it is, your first action is to NAME the change you want to make. This is the action part of the manifestation formula. You have done this part so often that you maybe now take it for granted – meaning you have become oblivious to it.

You are already taking action on what it is you really want – it’s automatic – you do it unconsciously. Based on your beliefs, you take action that is appropriate with what you accept as true – your beliefs. You don’t even have to think about or plan anything – you do it automatically. You don’t have to take specific action – just recognize that you already are [taking action].

Why, then, do you not get what you want? The truth is – you mostly DO get what you want (or at least are satisfied with). You just don’t recognize it – because you are so used to getting what you want from life.

If you continue to act (behaving) as you have acted in the past – based on what you believed to be true in the past – you will tend to continue to get what you have always gotten in the past. You’ll continue to take the appropriate action to achieve whatever it is that you have gotten in the past – you do those actions so well  by now that you are unconscious of them – you’re a master at doing whatever it is that you do to achieve what you are currently experiencing. How about that, boys and girls?!

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Success and Failure

What if you could be guaranteed of success at ANYTHING you did? What would you do differently?

First, let’s take a moment to consider the relationship between success and failure.

You are always successful at everything you actually DO. AND – you are always successful in NOT doing what you don’t do.

You are ALWAYS succeeding at something.

What you do may not match your desire. And, your environment may give you the impression that you have failed at something. Yet, because you have actually DONE SOMETHING, you have succeeded in doing that something, whatever it is. Likewise, for those things you do not do, you have succeeded in not doing them.

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10 Cognitive Thinking Errors

One of 10 Cognitive Thinking Errors?

One of 10 Cognitive Thinking Errors?

And what to do about them. Based on the work of Aaron Beck and others, in Feeling Good: The New Mood Therapy, David Burns outlines 10 common mistakes in thinking, which he calls cognitive distortions.

  1. ALL-OR-NOTHING THINKING – Also called Black and White Thinking – Thinking of things in absolute terms, like “always”, “every” or “never”. For example, if your performance falls short of perfect, you see yourself as a total failure. Few aspects of human behavior are so absolute. Nothing is 100%. No one is all bad, or all good, we all have grades. To beat this cognitive distortion:
    • Ask yourself, “Has there ever been a time when it was NOT that way?” (all or nothing thinking does not allow exceptions so if even one exception can be found, it’s no longer “all” or “nothing”)
    • Ask yourself, “Never?” or “Always?” (depending upon what you are thinking)
    • Investigate the Best-Case vs Worst-Case Scenario NLP Meta program Continue reading

Memory Restructuring

Research is showing that sleep seems to reorganize memories, picking out the emotional details and reconfiguring the memories.

Research is showing that sleep seems to reorganize memories, picking out the emotional details and reconfiguring the memories.

“Sleep is making memories stronger,” says Jessica D. Payne of the University of Notre Dame. “It also seems to be doing something which I think is so much more interesting, and that is reorganizing and restructuring memories.”

Wait a minute! Did she just say what I think I heard her say? That memories are “reorganized” and “restructured”? And here I thought memories were true and accurate recordings of events! Ok, if you’re a long-time reader you know I’ve written about false memory syndrome before; and this is yet another study confirming my belief that memories are far from accurate.

Knowing that memories are fallible and subject to errors, maybe I can reconfirm that memories may be manipulated – molded to help support how I want to feel today. Remember that someone who did you wrong? Yeah? Well, maybe you can change the details of your memories of that person to support a new you – perhaps rehearsing the memory with you WINNING instead of coming out the victim. Especially, say the study authors, sleeping on a memory can change it – so why not reconsider your memories of the day just as you’re drifting off to sleep? Reconsider in a way that supports a stronger emotional you. It’s called reframing – or “spinning” memories. If politicians can get away with it, why not me, too?!

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