Hello Again

Hi folks! It’s good to be back… Hopefully it lasts… I’ve been really busy since the new year started, and I’ve chosen to chill when not working. There’s lots to say, though, and I really love writing this blog, so hopefully that will even out in the future. I think it will. I had a cancellation just now, so I’m going to touch base and give you an update. And just say hi, too. Hi!

For one thing, I’ve been working a second job this year. In my private practice, I’ve had close to 35 new clients this year alone, which is pretty amazing. But they don’t hang around long! Which is what I want. You can see that I’m not the best at business… I’m trying to attract people who are close and who are ready to step up their game. What game? The game of living in a human body. I do a long first session, because it doesn’t feel right to me to be halfway done and say, “Come back in a week for the rest.” So they go out with a totally new perspective, practice life, and come back to discuss. It really works. Not for everyone, but for so many. This is a hilarious business plan, though. It should be fine in the long run, when there are enough satisfied customers telling their friends. Word of mouth has definitely been getting cranked up lately, but with this approach, I just need lots of new clients all the time. And that’s happening; this is what it looks like.

In the meantime, I’ve needed more income. And right on time, this guy I really like found my blog. About a year ago, he and some others started a really cool new substance abuse recovery center in nearby Gulf Breeze, FL called Gulf Breeze Recovery. Check out their website if you like (www.gulfbreezerecovery.com). It’s just across the three-mile bridge over Pensacola Bay from both my house and my office. He saw that I was doing basically the same thing as them – helping people to uncover their own innate wisdom that’s been there all along. They’re trying to become no less than the best recovery center in the whole world. They’re doing a pretty good job, too. They come from the perspective of what’s right with you as opposed to the “disease model” of what’s wrong with you. That works for some people, and that’s fine. This is different, though. And it’s made me a much better counselor and teacher of peace.

Gulf Breeze Recovery uses something called the Three Principles (3 P’s) to treat addiction. The 3 P’s are mind, consciousness, and thought, and this was coined by an enlightened Scottish guy named Sydney Banks. I won’t get into the details too much now, except to say that the emphasis is totally on thought in the moment. Feelings are just the flip side of a thought. So I’m literally feeling my thinking. Remember that phrase and use it. Test it out. I’m not feeling what happened; I’m feeling my thinking about what happened. There’s always that layer of thought, even if it’s buried or invisible. My feelings simply alert me to look at what I’m thinking about in that moment. See for yourself if this is true. And as far as what to think, I always say just stick to the facts. I’m not into positive or negative thinking; I’m into reality. Most of what we think would fall into the negative category, and most of it is just assumptions anyway. Bad plan… The facts are just fine. We will cover this in more detail soon enough.

At some point, I’ll be restructuring the core posts on this blog (the ones in the BEGIN HERE! category) to reflect this increased emphasis on thought in the moment. In the meantime, know that even if you’ve been in your head for the last six hours, days, years, or whatever, nothing has happened. Nobody even knows! And they don’t care, because they’re dealing with their own life. The earth is still spinning just fine. Nothing has happened, and that’s good news. Very good news. Just take a deep breath, relax your body, and resume what you were doing. Wash, rinse, repeat for the rest of your life and see what happens. You might find that you’ll experience more and more peace. And the voice in your head, which is your own voice, will essentially be neutered. Only you can give it power, and you’ll finally see this. After that, it can talk all day long and it won’t even matter. Because you know that it’s just chatter. No big deal.

Okay folks, that’s enough for now. I hereby pledge to continue this thought sooner rather than later, with more details. Once again, though, the tool is this: When you catch yourself in your head or when something disturbs your peace, go right to the breath and relax your body. Just let go for a few seconds and relax. This gets you out of your head. Take a break from thinking for a few seconds at least. When you do this, you create space. And the wisdom that 100% of us were born with, and that is always right there under the surface, can rise up and fill that space. And you have that intuition about the next thing to do. So cool, so cool. And so simple. And SO damn powerful! It’s good to be back…