“Unripened” is defined as not fully developed or mature as in unripened fruit. We all get that it needs more time to come to fruition.

Humans need more than time to fully mature. We need recognition – recognition of what I define as the 4 Signs of Immaturity.

How many of these warning signs do you have?

It occurred to me that 4 things stunt our growth on the trail to maturity and here they are:

1. A Polarity Response.
2. Failure to take responsibility for your actions.
3. Failure to apologize.
4. When you’re upset, you’re upset with everyone.

Anyone who has raised children recognizes these signs as teenage behavior but we don’t normally recognize the behavior in ourselves. Most of us outgrow teenage behaviors; some of us never fully mature. Let’s look more closely at the 4 Signs of Immaturity.

POLARITY RESPONSE The easiest way to define it is, “I say white and you say black.” The word “oppositional” comes to mind. This person is quick to disagree. We all have polarity to something; these folks have it to almost everything. Their first inkling is to go the other way or to make you wrong. My experience is that someone in their formative years made them wrong.

FAILURE TO TAKE RESPONSIBILITY Nothing is ever their fault. Even if they believe it’s their fault, they can’t admit it because in doing so it would crack the image that they want the world to see. For them, that’s a fate worse than death.

FAILURE TO APOLOGIZE The words “I’m sorry” may leave their lips but it’s immediately followed by a justification. The justification often takes the form of “You made me do that.” Another justification is a mindset they own that says “I do so much good that you ought to overlook this transgression.” That would be like a philanthropist who donates millions of dollars to the hospital but exposes himself one time in the nurse’s lounge. He thinks no apology is necessary. A true apology would mean they were wrong, and wrong is not a feeling they can tolerate.

UPSET WITH EVERYONE These folks cannot compartmentalize upset. That means that you’ll get the same snarly behavior from them that the offending party receives. They don’t recognize that you had nothing to do with their upset but they want you to also pay the price. That’s called “selfish.”

How mature are you?

If you have one of these signs, you can easily label yourself as 75% mature, two of them 50%, three of them 25%, and if you have all four, you definitely don’t play well with others.

Recognition is the key to fruition. Notice and act on these warning signs and you’ll age to perfection.

All the best,

John

LOSE WEIGHT & KEEP IT OFF
STOP SMOKING FOREVER
SLEEP THROUGH THE NIGHT EVERY NIGHT
IMPROVE YOUR SELF CONFIDENCE
RELAX IN 2 MINUTES

Here’s a new concept on enemies – You’ll always have them.

One thing we learned from the three movies that made up THE GODFATHER Trilogy is this: After you wipe out all of your enemies, there will be new ones waiting on the horizon.

An old remedy works in this situation – If you can’t beat them, join them.

Many people treat their patterns of behavior as enemies. For example, people who can’t lose weight, treat their body as an enemy. It’s a “me against them” strategy that rarely works, and when it does, it’s short-lived, like the results of a new diet.

Your patterns of behavior are not enemies – just parts of you that aren’t working anymore. If you ever examined one of these patterned behaviors more closely, you would recognize that it was formed for a purpose – a purpose that was in your best interest at the time.

Reminds me of a story I tell at my seminars . . .

I had a client years ago who was afraid of the water. Her husband was doing well and wanted to buy a summer home on the beach for the family to enjoy. She objected due to her deathly fear of water. It seems that when she was a few years old, her brother pushed her into a wave and she went under, swallowed a mouthful of water, and from that point forward she was visibly shaken at the mere thought of the ocean.

She had sought out several forms of counseling to help her over this hump but was unsuccessful in diluting this fear. When we met, I listened to her story which was well documented and then pointed out what a wonderful thing her mind did for her. It protected her from further harm by exhibiting fear and keeping her away from the ocean.

I commiserated about how fearful it must have been for a little girl to experience such an event. I also pointed out that she had grown since then into an older, wiser person. The difficulty is her pattern hadn’t grown up. It was still responding as though she was a little girl. It was still protecting her from the big, bad ocean.

The pattern was perceived as an enemy and we turned it into a friend by letting her know it was acting in her best interest at the time. Now our job was to update the pattern so that it served her best interests, today. This reframing of events was the jump off point for our session which was very productive.

She consented to buying the beach house and reported enjoying her new found freedom in and around the water.

She could have kept this pattern as an enemy her whole life and would have paid a price for doing so. We all pay a price by treating our behaviors as enemies. They were formed for a purpose, a purpose we may not be able to figure out, but nevertheless our patterns are purposeful.

If you use “once purposeful” as a jump off point, it’s much easier to let go of the resistance we have towards our behaviors. This approach frees up the energy we used to use fighting our behaviors so it can be used as a catalyst for updating them.

It’s a tiny little shift in focus that turns enemies into friends. I wonder how soon you can make a new friend.

All the best,

John

LOSE WEIGHT & KEEP IT OFF
STOP SMOKING FOREVER
SLEEP THROUGH THE NIGHT EVERY NIGHT
IMPROVE YOUR SELF CONFIDENCE
RELAX IN 2 MINUTES

Is your basket empty or full?

I guess it depends on which basket you’re referring to.

We have a basket on the front porch and we have one that sits inside. If our only attempt is to keep the one on the porch full, the one on the inside remains empty.

It’s sort of like the teenage girl who’s covered in mounds of make-up attempting to cover up the empty self-esteem she has on the inside.

It’s the basket on the inside that nourishes you. The one we display on the porch is most often waxed fruit.

How do we get our priorities in balance so we have a better working relationship between what’s on the inside and outside and deliver more fruitful results?

The answer is to look to nature. Nature never demands a flower without first planting a seed. We’re looking to fill up only our outer basket with things that have no roots. It always leads to imbalance – mental and otherwise.

Our inner basket contains nutrient rich soil at the bottom and is self replenishing. The basket on the porch takes so much effort to keep filled from outside sources. It would be much simpler if we had our inner and outer baskets form a partnership and replenish what we have on the outside from our inexhaustible source on the inside.

That takes recognition. We must first recognize that we have a nutrient rich inner source ready for our seed in order to fully activate it. Once we recognize that we have an inner source that keeps the outer full, then we have the ease and confidence to pursue our dreams without spending time hoarding or conniving.

When we pay too much attention to outer appearances, it leads us to believe that a book is only its cover and the cover is the only thing worth pursuing. This behavior results in a superficial life that never fills up the hunger we feel for inner sustenance.

Practice calming your mind and take a look inside. I promise you you’ll find something no longer worth ignoring – your basket of bounty.

All the best,

John

LOSE WEIGHT & KEEP IT OFF
STOP SMOKING FOREVER
SLEEP THROUGH THE NIGHT EVERY NIGHT
IMPROVE YOUR SELF CONFIDENCE
RELAX IN 2 MINUTES

Are you a renter or an owner? Before you answer, this is not about housing.

This is about beliefs and behaviors.

What beliefs and behaviors do you rent and which ones do you have a deed to?

Many people claim they’re owners when, in fact, they only rent.

We all have beliefs and behaviors that we own – valuable and not so valuable. The ones that are serving us well deserve a place of high honor. When we recognize the ones that aren’t so revered, it’s time for some remodeling.

Those of us that rent beliefs are trying them on for size to see if they’re a fit.

Here’s the difficulty I’ve run into in the past and that you may be experiencing now – pretending.

When you continually pretend owning things that you actually rent, you build a reputation as someone who is a talker and not a do-er. People stop paying attention to you and tune you out.

It’s wonderful to be enthused about something new and want to talk about your new found discovery. It’s another thing to become a preacher of the practice while you’re in rent mode. You may get some followers the first few times you give your sermon, but the collection plate soon becomes filled with dust. Reminds me of a story . . .

Many years ago when all the boys were still at home, I was invited to a birthday party in Pennsylvania where a lot of the people I grew up with would be attending. It was about a 5 hour ride and the whole family was coming. We would visit and stay with relatives in the area and my wife and I could attend the party.

All five of us could have all fit in my Pontiac Grand-Am but it would have been a tight squeeze for such a long ride. I decided to rent a brand new Lincoln Town Car for the trip. It was big and roomy and it looked sweet! We had a smooth, comfortable ride down and back. It was during the party that things got bumpy.

The husband of one of my old classmates took notice of the car and engaged me in conversation about it. I made no effort to explain that I didn’t own it. I let the assumption of ownership hang in the air and started to talk about some of my accomplishments in hyperbolic terms. I was pretending and bragging. I should mention here that I dated his wife in high school. My chest was inflated and his ego had a giant pin prick in it.

The party ended and eight of us continued to celebrate at a nearby bar. The guy I had been regaling with my accomplishments earlier engaged my wife in conversation and it eventually got around to the luxury car. She said, “Oh that thing, honey, it’s just a rental.” With that, this guy in a loud voice announced to our group, “The drinks are on me!”

The jig was up. I was exposed as a pretender.

Had I continued to make a practice of this sort of behavior, I would own the reputation of a renter and not an owner – a talker not a do-er. It was a lesson well learned.

People eventually tune talkers out, even when they have something valuable to say. It’s the boy who cried “Wolf” one too many times syndrome.

If your complaint is that people don’t take you seriously, take a look at your preaching track record. Were you putting out something you didn’t own? That’s called renting self-esteem – pretending.

A bible phrase says, “Don’t let your left hand know what your right hand is doing.” The interpretation is to do your good deeds in silence and you will be rewarded for them exponentially.

Silence the preaching of what you rent. No one is paying attention. When you own something of value, you no longer need to pretend and people will listen with rapt attention.

All the best,

John

http://JohnMorganHypnosis.com

http://GrasshopperNotes.com

http://cdbaby.com/cd/johnmorgan

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

http://HypnosisForDogs.com

SAVE THE IRISH

When I was a young boy my proper Swedish Grandmother corrected me when I said, “Excuse me” when I wanted to be pardoned.

Her lesson was you say, “Excuse me” when you want to leave the room and “Pardon me” when you want to be pardoned for offensive behavior, like belching loudly as young boys do.

So, fast forward to our teen and adult years . . . we begin using an excuse as a way to get pardoned. It rarely works.

Don’t most of us have the word “Excuse” filed in the non desirable category? We have to qualify it with the word “legitimate” in order to make it acceptable.

Excuses, by and large, don’t get us pardons but that doesn’t keep us from dropping them like confetti.

I wonder what would happen if we spent the same amount of time that we dedicate to crafting excuses to doing the thing we want to be pardoned for not doing. Novel idea!

Find your excuse and you find your problem.

Are you making excuses for someone else? That’s even deeper do-do!

What do we make excuses for? – Behavior.

Behavior is a measurable action. Excuses ask us not to take a measurement.

“Don’t judge me on my behavior, judge me on my intention” seems to be the plea of the Excusee.

The first cousin of an excuse is a justification – another pardon seeker.

If you can envision excuses as roadblocks, you have a general idea why we can’t move forward with them in place.

Here’s our collective assignment for today. Let’s find a long standing excuse that we issue over and over and commit to never using it again.

That doesn’t mean the behavior won’t show up again; it just means that we won’t prop it up with the inaction of an excuse.

When we stop making excuses, we become more focused on the behavior. It’s much easier to go to work on a behavior when it isn’t surrounded by an entourage of excuses.

I hope you’ll pardon me if I’ve offended you with this rather loud belch. I’m now excusing myself from the room.

All the best,

John

http://JohnMorganHypnosis.com

http://GrasshopperNotes.com

http://cdbaby.com/cd/johnmorgan

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

http://HypnosisForDogs.com

SAVE THE IRISH

We’ve all been exposed to enough bad TV to have heard this phrase during a robbery scene: “Your money or your life.”

If we are presented with this type of choice, the choice we make is to give up almost anything but our life.

The choice seems so clear cut, so obvious, yet it doesn’t play out that way in our everyday life.

On a daily basis we choose anything but our life.

We can easily see the logic of this crucial choice during a formal intervention where family members, close friends and counselors caucus to present this choice to someone taking dangerous amounts of drugs or washing their life away with alcohol – “Your drugs or your life!”

Life has two definitions – Your life story and the life force that animates you.

The life we hang on to is our life story and the one we give up is our animating force.

When you clutch your life story so tightly, you constrict the amount of life force that can flow through you.

When someone takes themselves below consciousness on a regular basis by acting stupidly with alcohol, they have chosen the justification of their life story over the force of life. Watch someone who drinks to the point of numbness transform before your very eyes. You witness their life force drain as they choose their life story again.

The real choice for all of us is this: Your story or your life!

What are you giving up your life for? Is it really worth it?

The only question you have to answer is: “Does the choice you make give you more life or less life?”

If you choose to hang on to anger, you have chosen anger over life. If you choose to hold on to a grudge, you have given up your life for a feeling of resentment. If you choose to add to the façade you show to the world, you have given up your life for superficiality.

In order for life to flow through you, you have to let go of your life story – the justification you make for choosing diminishment over the infusion of life.

Look at how life flows into your passion; watch how it drains from your addiction.

We become addicted to our life story, and by doing so, we keep our life force from flowing.

Allowing life to fully animate us is our life’s mission. We began our life that way and then lost our way. The trip back begins by letting go of our life’s story.

So the real life choice is this: “Your story or your life?”

I encourage you to pick quickly, because the choice becomes less obvious each day that you keep life away.

All the best,

John

http://JohnMorganHypnosis.com

http://GrasshopperNotes.com

http://cdbaby.com/cd/johnmorgan

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

http://HypnosisForDogs.com

SAVE THE IRISH

When we ask the question, “What am I missing?” we become aware of our failure to notice.

Some people have an uncanny knack for noticing things. They’re called detectives.

It’s time to hire a private eye if you keep asking yourself, “What am I missing?”

The good news is that sleuth is already on staff, we just don’t use them often enough.

Our personal Columbo becomes activated when we remember that we have a part of us that notices.

What this observant part of us notices best is what’s going on in the moment. It notices our behavior while it’s happening. The thing we most often miss is our own behavior. Behavior is what determines what happens in our life.

Behavior is what delivers results or lack thereof.

Our behavior is often hidden from our view. We have a tendency to project this hidden behavior onto others and make it their issue rather than our own. The reason we don’t see the behavior in ourselves is because we are not paying attention to what we do. We have completely given our focus to what others are doing.

Therapist and philosopher, Carl Jung said, “Until you make the unconscious conscious, it will direct your life, and you will call it fate.”

Jung was letting us know that we don’t notice our behavior and there’s a price for not doing so.

Most of what we do goes on outside of conscious awareness. We just don’t have the capacity to pay conscious attention to everything. Attempting to do so would overload our abilities and keep us playing catch up. That’s called control.

It’s not necessary to notice everything. It’s just necessary to notice that we have the ability to notice.

Every time we remember to apply our observational skills to ourselves, we shine the light of awareness on our behavior. The net effect is we notice the origin of what causes things to happen or not happen in our life. We now have something to work towards rather than mulling over the mystery of “What’s missing?”

It’s hard to work on a problem area in your life if you don’t notice it. Personal problems have behavior attached. Begin to activate your ability to notice your own behavior more often and watch the missing pieces of the puzzle start to jump out at you.

All the best,

John

http://JohnMorganHypnosis.com

http://GrasshopperNotes.com

http://cdbaby.com/cd/johnmorgan

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

http://HypnosisForDogs.com

SAVE THE IRISH

I watched with rapt interest last week as I witnessed people beginning to take sides on a slice of life that captivated the news.

The book title will probably be, “The Professor vs. The Police.”

Playing the part of a witness allowed me to see how taking sides is the precursor to a continental divide.

Each camp had ruffled feathers and their spokespersons had the stony appearance of being right.

If there is a force of evil, my guess is its motto would be “Divide and Conquer.” Pit one against the other and the focus will never be on a solution but on the perpetuation of the rift.

All parties contributed to the divide including the President of the United States.

Lao Tzu, the ancient Chinese philosopher reminded us all to “Do the difficult things when they are easy and do the great things when they are small.”

My son is a police officer and I called him on Friday to wish him “Happy Birthday!” We naturally discussed the story of the professor and the police. He gave me some insight into police procedures that I was unaware of and we talked about how the camps were forming.

We agreed that the continued formation of sides would do nothing to solve the problem and, in fact, contribute to its escalation. The Grasshopper injected himself into the conversation and said that one of two O’s was necessary to diffuse this controversy – Oprah or Obama.

The thought was that one of these two popular, influential people had to bring the sides together and make sure this issue didn’t take on a life of its own and nip it in the bud. Imagine my surprise when later that day one of those scenarios happened.

Props to the President . . . he made the overture to both aggrieved parties to come together before their situation became a linchpin for continued division.

Arguing for rightness after a certain point becomes drama. Drama makes solutions nearly impossible. The best piece of advice I ever heard on solving volatile situations was, “Shorten the storm.”

I believe there is a lesson in this situation for all of us. The lesson is that if you hang on to being right, you will hang yourself out to dry.

All the best,

John

http://JohnMorganHypnosis.com

http://GrasshopperNotes.com

http://cdbaby.com/cd/johnmorgan

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

http://HypnosisForDogs.com

SAVE THE IRISH

Here is a reality based Mad Lib to play with and ponder over the weekend:

EVERYONE HAS THE (blank) THEY HAVE BECAUSE IT’S THE (blank) THEY HAVE.

Any person, place or thing can fill in the blank and you still have a working model of reality.

Let’s find some words to fill in the blanks.

Relationship, Job, Wealth, Health, Happiness, Satisfaction, Situation.

You can even personalize this reality Mad Lib for additional insight.

I HAVE THE (blank) I HAVE BECAUSE IT’S THE (blank) I HAVE.

The formula works every time.

This exercise gets you away from “Should” and immerses you in “Is.” “Should” can have many interpretations; “Is” is only one way.

As THE GRASSHOPPER said many moons ago, “Reality doesn’t have versions.”

“Should” keeps you scattered; “Is” keeps you focused.

Reality can only be the way it is right now. Reminds me of a story . . .

My business partner lives in a community where there are a lot of golf courses that are filled with people who have been playing golf for many years. He says you would be amazed at the number of people who write down the score they should have had instead of the one they got. This always causes problems when they enter a tournament when someone else is keeping score. That’s because when they are paired with people who have the same handicap (average score) as they do, they lose. This is due to the fact that they arrived at their handicap through the “Should Method.” It’s never a reflection of reality.

When you focus on what is, your choices are clear. Should occludes your vision with false choices that blindly take you down paths that lead to nowhere.

Noticing reality zeroes you in on what needs to be done in order to produce a new reality. Playing with should keeps you wandering in the woods and your new reality is a carbon copy of the old one. (Someone just asked, “What’s a carbon copy?”)

If you need help in finding reality, any mirror will do. Mirrors don’t lie and neither does reality.

You have the (blank) you have, PERIOD!

When you come to that realization, you have placed the first paving stone towards your new reality.

All the best,

John

http://JohnMorganHypnosis.com

http://GrasshopperNotes.com

http://cdbaby.com/cd/johnmorgan

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

http://HypnosisForDogs.com

SAVE THE IRISH

The surest way NOT to get what you want is to be an expert on what you DON’T want.

It’s a personal revelation for me that is eye opening.

If your accent of focus is on what you don’t want, where is your attention? It’s stuck on what you DON’T want and there’s little focus left for what you DO want.

It’s sort of like shopping in a discount store that features everyone’s overstocked merchandise. It takes a methodical search through the racks and bins to find something suitable. There’s a lot of dreck to sort through before finding anything of worth.

If we believe we can’t afford to shop in the name brand store, we form a pattern of sorting through all the things we don’t want in order to find what we desire. That’s a long and tedious process that has less than hit and miss results.

This is more than about shopping.

It’s about a mindset that can insidiously take you over and run your whole life – a life with a lot more misses than hits.

The eye opening revelation for me is that just a small shift in our angle of view is all that’s necessary to refocus ourselves.

It’s a strategy I intellectually preach that, in the past, I unknowingly didn’t practice. I could see it in others but missed it in myself.

I was a master at finding out what was wrong with people, places and things because that’s where my focus was. Yes, there is some benefit in that strategy by identifying problems, but if it’s your only strategy, it gets in the way of problem solving. It’s like being an expert in finding the 6 things missing in those pictures in the comics section of the newspaper and not noticing what’s missing from your life.

Listen to your words, they are a dead giveaway to your underlying “Don’t want, don’t get” pattern.

“I don’t want . . .”

“I can never see myself . . .”

“That’s not my dream . . .”

It just takes a small turn of a phrase to put you on the path towards getting what you do want.

“I do want . . .”

“I can see myself . . .”

“My dream is . . .”

There is no magic in the words. The magic is in the focus.

If you’ve been looking through the binoculars backwards, it may be time to turn them around and bring the things you DO want into focus. Then you’ll have something clear to shoot for.

All the best,

John

http://JohnMorganHypnosis.com

http://GrasshopperNotes.com

http://cdbaby.com/cd/johnmorgan

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

http://HypnosisForDogs.com

SAVE THE IRISH