Who hasn’t experienced pain? It’s a staple of the human condition. Some seem to experience it more than others but we all know what it feels like for us.

I got to wondering about the causes for pain, physical and emotional. It seems the physical has more of an evidence trail but sometimes we are still clueless about its origins. Emotional pain also leaves clues but sometimes it is buried so deep that it escapes investigation.

Walking Snuffy the black nosed beagle is a wonderful spiritual practice for me. I get so many ideas while absorbed in this ritual. This morning the word “Pain” came to mind. I immediately knew it was an acronym – P.A.I.N.

A few steps later the acronym had meaning – Past Actions I‘ve Negated.

It may not explain the cause for all of our pain but it’s a useful place to start.

The elephant in the room is not your behavior. That’s the elephant dung.

The cause of your behavior is the problematic pachyderm.

The cause of your pain is what needs to be addressed and it can be addressed more fully when you bring the focus away from others and on to yourself.

Let’s suppose that you develop diabetes. Your physician may ask if it runs in your family. If the answer is “Yes,” you have found your cause, or have you? Or did you negate the lifestyle you lead that lead to your disease? I have a different view of heredity and disease. This is it. “If you do what they did, you get what they got.”

Have you noticed that false teeth are not as common today as they were in the 40’s and 50’s? That’s because most people have better dental hygiene than they had then. I’m sure there was some explanation of heredity given to adults of that generation when their gums became inflamed causing them to lose their teeth.

Long term emotional pain has a cause. What past action are you negating? As long as you take no responsibility for your pain, it will endure. You can try and cover it over with self medicating of some sort but that just leads to a life of shoveling elephant shit from one pile to another.

We keep our pain alive when we cover over its cause. Again, if you are looking past your part in this painful ordeal, you are emotionally myopic.

Past actions don’t have a statute of limitations. They follow you more closely than your shadow.

What do you continue to lie to yourself about? That’s a question that reveals a pain alleviating answer. Once you stop negating the cause, you bring it up for exploration and you can then begin the process of moving through the pain. (Read about that process here).

If you continue to pooh-pooh your past actions, you’ll postpone your prescription and remain in pain.

Take time to address the P.A.I.N. and learn one of life’s best magic tricks – how to make the elephant disappear.

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

P.S. If you are Irish or come from Irish roots or have Irish friends, you must visit the SAVE THE IRISH Shop I have set up on Café Press. It is loaded with all sorts of products that celebrate the amazing self-deprecating humor of the Irish.

From T-Shirts to Mugs, Caps to Keepsakes, Baby Bibs to Beer Steins, Coaster Tiles to Thongs, it’s all there with two fun designs to choose from. (See below)

If you are looking for that one of a kind gift for an Irish relative or friend, check out my SAVE THE IRISH Shop on Café Press.

I was treated to another unseasonably cool May day in New England when I awakened this morning. I’ve lived here for 29 years and I cannot remember a May that was as cool and wet as this one. It’s a rare occurance to turn on the heat in May but the house needed warming this morning.

It got me to wondering about another type of warming – personal warming.

Have you ever said, “I can’t warm up to that person”? What you are actually describing is restricted blood flow in your body. That person is a stimulus and coolness is the response.

Coolness doesn’t add to communication. It makes you shiver and shut down.

I now have “Global Warming” in a new frame. How can you warm up to the entire global populace if you can’t warm up to one?

Personal warmth is about being open with all you come in contact with. How often have we let our conditioning shut us down and turn off the heat?

The quickest way to numbing cool is judgement. The minute we let judgement go on for more than a few seconds, the quicker we encounter a snow squall. We have to de-ice our wings or this plane is going nowhere.

We begin to warm up when we allow our judgements to pass.

The benefit of this action is twofold:

1. You warm up.
2. You distribute your heat.

So this works for narcissists and altruists alike.

People can feel another’s warmth. When you are in that warm environment, it’s easier to interact.

Coolness is a tactic that has its place. When it becomes your life’s strategy, you will spend a lot of time in ice-o-lation.

Other people are our resources and we theirs. When we continue to affix labels and the attendant judgements that go with them to others, our chances of warming up just moved to Siberia and so did any chance for mutual benefit.

If you are having a hard time warming up to people, take a look at your judgements. They are conditioned patterns that could use some thawing out.

Here’s an experiment to validate this notion in your own world: Put your judgements away for a day and witness your warmth come out to play.

Now that’s cool!

All the best,

John

http://JohnMorganHypnosis.com

http://GrasshopperNotes.com

http://cdbaby.com/cd/johnmorgan

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

http://HypnosisForDogs.com

Can you remember a time you saw a baby walk for the first time? It’s quite the experience to witness. It’s a joyous moment with lots of hoopla.

We seem to forget how to celebrate baby steps.

It seems we now need to have lengthy leaps before we even consider celebrating, and they don’t happen that often. That gives us less to celebrate and less to feel good about.

We also fail to remember that it was the baby step that launched our walking career. We forget the foundational and focus entirely on fruition. If you can only feel good when the job’s complete, you’ll spend many days, weeks, months, years or decades without celebrating.

There’s an old song whose title says it all – LITTLE THINGS MEAN A LOT.

We as a society look for sweeping changes. We don’t notice that when a sweeping change comes, the tipping point was caused by a baby step that preceded it.

Reminds me of a story . . .

About 7 years ago I was attending a workshop conducted by Jerry Stocking. There was a woman in the room who had expressive eyebrows. Jerry noticed and asked her to focus on doing something different with her eyebrows over the next few days. He said much of who you currently perceive yourself to be is tied up in the little eyebrow pattern you run. Her only assignment was to work on the eyebrow routine. Within a day, people started to notice a shift in her behavior. By the end of the week, it was like night and day.

It was a little thing.

What little thing can you adjust? What baby step can you take now?

Reminds me of another story . . .

I noticed that I became agitated when I saw the kitchen trash container didn’t have a plastic bag inside. That meant that I or someone else had taken the trash out and neglected to replace the bag. It would be at least a 3 to 5 minute rant in my head about the bag not being replaced. The day the pattern shifted is when I noticed a little thing. The little thing I noticed was that it took 12 seconds to replace the bag. Once this came into my awareness, I did an assessment. Do I do 5 minutes of destructive diatribe or do I take a 12 second action?

I outgrew the trash can rant by noticing a little thing.

Small changes seem to cause a chain reaction. Large changes don’t seem to last. I’m sure there are exceptions to the contrary, but I don’t think there are many.

I think of dieting. There are lots of large changes that go along with dieting and you see the results – lose/gain. But suppose you notice that you don’t completely chew your food while eating. Then you take a baby step to focus on the act of chewing. Let’s say you bring that new focus to your eating for 21 days. You now have automated that new behavior. Without doing anything else, you would lose some weight and keep it off. It’s a little thing.

Don’t get caught up in the idea that the change has to be important. After all, how important are expressive eyebrows? Find some little thing that you do and go to work on it. Think of it as a spiritual practice. What you will notice is that other shifts will automatically happen as a result of completing this one tiny baby step.

Take a baby step today and notice how soon you are off and running in a new direction.

All the best,

John

http://JohnMorganHypnosis.com

http://GrasshopperNotes.com

http://cdbaby.com/cd/johnmorgan

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

http://HypnosisForDogs.com

I’m sure you’ve noticed that words have different meanings when they are said in a different tone. That’s one of the reasons that emails are not really a highly effective form of communication. The written or typed word leaves lots of room for interpretation.

The spoken word is catching up. I’ve noticed the word “interesting” is one of the words that contains myriad meanings in speech. It’s a catch-all word that people are using with increasing frequency.

For example, if someone asks you if you like something, you can respond with “that’s quite interesting.” It says nothing but it covers the base and you dodge the question.

Someone posits an idea and you say, “how interesting.” You may think it’s the dumbest idea you have ever heard, but “interesting” let’s you contribute without contributing. It’s sort of like charitable deductions on your taxes. If they ever added up the money people claimed they gave to charity, the churches and organizations listed would never need another dime.

People are using “interesting” to get off the commitment hook. They don’t have to engage when they use it and it keeps them on the sidelines of the conversation. It’s a great tool when used sparingly.

The genuine use of the word “interesting” is incomplete as well. When we authentically say something is interesting, it’s as though we are stating a fact. We aren’t. We’re stating an opinion.

I have a recommendation. I suggest that when you state that something is interesting, that you add the words “to me” to the end. This completes the word interesting and references it to you.

I don’t think anyone will ever define the word “interesting” because it is one of the most fluffy, elastic words in our language. But referencing it to you keeps it out of the world of fact and into the realm of opinion, where it truly belongs.

Many words can use a “to me” addendum. Here are a few to consider: Boring, ugly, pompous, selfish, funny, and sexy. The list is endless.

The telltale clue that you need “to me” is when you are about to make an assertion about someone or something. “He’s . . .” She’s . . .” “It’s . . .

“Facts,” even if they are baseless, bring up counter facts and off to the races you go – facting each other.

When you add “to me,” you take ownership of the assessment and don’t imply that everyone has to agree with you.

When you stop stating facts and start offering opinions, there is a lot more wiggle room in the conversation – room for something new to develop, rather than the same old stimulus/response that “facts” bring up.

Isn’t this interesting? It is to me.

All the best,

John

http://JohnMorganHypnosis.com

http://GrasshopperNotes.com

http://cdbaby.com/cd/johnmorgan

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

http://HypnosisForDogs.com

“You don’t have to pay tuition to get intuition” is the phrase The Grasshopper opined this morning.

I had to wonder about it a little before some ideas started to surface.

We all have intuition. It’s difficult to define which is why many discard its existence.

Who hasn’t had an idea come from out of the blue to answer something you had been wrestling with or pondering?

Poof, there it was.

Intuition isn’t smarts, at least the way we define intelligence. Everybody has intuition no matter what the level of the IQ.

In fact, the amount of intuition one receives is proportional to the lack of thoughts going on in their head. You can’t think your way to intuition no matter how smart you are. Reminds me of a story . . .

My grandmother lived with us for a couple of years when I was in elementary school. I had this friend, Al who I had recently made friends with. One day my grandmother said, “Johnnie, I don’t like you hanging around with that boy. He’s bad news.” I went on to defend my new friend and asked why she didn’t like him. She just said she didn’t get a good feeling when he was around.

A couple of days later, Al and I were out and about and playing up near the railroad tracks. There was a place where they parked empty box cars near the tracks. We began to play inside the box car. Then all of a sudden Al gathered some straw that was on the floor of the train car and piled it in one corner. The next thing I knew he pulled a lighter out of his pocket and lit the straw on fire. We ran.

The good news is the fire must have burned itself out with no damage because when I went by the next day, the car was intact. I stopped hanging around with Al. A couple of years later we heard that Al was off at reform school.

Where did that piece of information my grandmother offered come from? It was intuition. She didn’t take a class at the local high school. It just showed up and she knew she could trust it.

Jerry Stocking is fond of saying that enlightenment is closer than your next thought. I think you can substitute the word intuition into his sentence and have the same level of accuracy. It seems that intuition is our first glimpse of enlightenment.

We have the tendency to dismiss it as coincidence. Dr. Wayne Dyer has a different definition of coincidence. He says, “The word coincidence does not describe luck or mistakes. It describes that which fits together perfectly.”

Intuition is perfect. It’s raw and unrefined. In fact, it’s in the refinement process that we pollute it. Intuition doesn’t require thought. It requires recognition, which comes from a different place than our thoughts. Intuition is always a sensation. Begin to recognize that sensation and nurture it. Too much discussion about it waters it down. Just feel it and trust it.

Pay attention to what your body is communicating. It’s contains a separate intelligence known as intuition. It’s quite adept at putting out fires before they start.

All the best,

John

http://JohnMorganHypnosis.com

http://GrasshopperNotes.com

http://cdbaby.com/cd/johnmorgan

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

http://HypnosisForDogs.com

These are the three words that delay happiness – If, When and Then.

We all use them and stall happiness each time we do.

“If such and such would happen, then I’d be happy.”

“When I (fill in the blank), then I’ll be happy.”

Three little words – If, When and Then.

All these words are future based which is why you can’t be happy now.

Your language betrays you and you keep putting happiness off for another time.

If, When and Then are traps. They trap you into believing that action happens in the future, not now.

That’s because we have been conditioned to attach happiness to other people’s actions, circumstances and events. We always have to wait for those conditions to be in place before we can be happy. That can turn into a lifetime of waiting and lots of missed happy moments.

Happiness is ever present. It can show up whenever we notice that we can be happy independent of circumstances. We just have to get happiness back into the present by negating the talk of it in the future.

NOTE: No one is perpetually happy and thank God. They would never have a reference for what happiness is if they were always happy and would not enjoy how special it is.

“How can I be happy now?” is a question worth asking, especially in times of unhappiness.

“What can I be happy about this minute?” You may not get an answer each time, but it’s still worth asking the question for the times that you do get an answer.

What’s guaranteed is that no answer will come if you keep putting your happiness off to a time that doesn’t exist now – the future.

Those who keep gratitude journals seem to be a happier lot. They get themselves in the habit of noticing things to be grateful for now. This engenders more happy moments.

Happiness is a habit, one that’s worth developing.

The time to invite happiness in is right now.

If you wait for the future when things will be better, then you have insured that you can’t be happy now.

All the best,

John

http://JohnMorganHypnosis.com

http://GrasshopperNotes.com

http://cdbaby.com/cd/johnmorgan

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

http://HypnosisForDogs.com

Did you ever look at something you did with new eyes or listen with new ears? What you wrote in someone’s high school year book may serve as a neat example. “Stay just the way you are” feels rather shallow compared to what you may write today.

We may now laugh or be shamefully embarrassed by the clothes we once wore or the ideological positions we once held but that was who we were then.

What happened between then and now?

Experience comes to mind.

We had new experiences that made us question our old views and served as a springboard towards growth.

Whoever said, “There is no substitute for experience” was a genius. Yet some people shield themselves from it. It’s usually some form of protectionism. They want to protect the status quo and not subject themselves to the reality that the world keeps evolving.

Go to any high school reunion. Notice the people who still embrace the faddish look they had back then. This is a surefire cue that what they wrote in your yearbook is probably the same thing they would write again today. These people are the easy examples.

Yet, we all have some sort of protectionism going on. They are called patterns.

We have patterned beliefs and behaviors on every topic. They run now just like they did the day they were formed. We haven’t evolved.

Patterns hate new experiences. Experience threatens their world and it threatens their life. Patterns glue you to more than an outdated hairdo. They freeze you in time to whomever you thought you were the day they started operating in your life.

This is not an invitation to get on an experience thrill ride. That just keeps you at the amusement park long after they close the doors, waiting for the sun to rise and the thrills to happen again. It’s a sugar high and keeps you going in loops.

Here’s a suggestion: Begin to notice what you resist. It’s your passport to evolution.

“What am I resisting?” is a great question to ask. Your answer will open the door to the experience that’s necessary for growth. It will be your challenge to step through.

Asking the question has the experience opportunity pick you, rather than you having to sift through all the available ones out there and being unsure as to what to pick.

Exploring your resistance gives you quite a bit of insight as to where you are stuck. Rather than doing an entire makeover, you can laser focus on the area that requires your attention. All it requires is asking the question and paying attention to what shows up.

Experience is what helps you outgrow the old way and grow into a new way. You may never find the experience you need to explore if you don’t know what you’re resisting.

You can either ask the question “What am I resisting?” or “Stay just the way you are.”

All the best,

John

http://JohnMorganHypnosis.com

http://GrasshopperNotes.com

http://cdbaby.com/cd/johnmorgan

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

http://HypnosisForDogs.com

We use something there is no evidence for every day to create evidence to live our lives by. We call it the mind.

“Don’t be ridiculous, we all have a mind; otherwise we wouldn’t be able to think our thoughts.”

The mind and the thoughts it produces are phantoms.

There is not one surgeon who has cut into a body and found a mind or a thought. There is also no surgeon who has found an acupuncture point either. This does not mean these phantoms can’t be useful.

I do believe in ghosts but not the ones that we have come to know through TV and movies.

The real ghost is our mind. It’s not real. It cannot be found yet we have conversations with it every day.

Are you starting to believe in ghosts?

So is this ghoul a friendly ghost or an evil one? Both.

It can create a puppy kiss scenario or Armageddon and everything else in between, with huge doses of personal compliments and criticisms, plus judgements of all sorts.

The part that is so spectacular is we think the creations of this phantom are real. They are no more real than any movie that we’ve seen on screen.

Thoughts aren’t real but actions are.

“It’s the thought that counts” is one of the biggest lies our ghost has ever told. There is no lying about the actions we produce. They are there for everyone’s consumption, including ours.

Funny, we rarely look at our actions and spend the bulk of our time thinking of justifications for them. Need a justification? Ask you ghost. They never run out of them and we continue to believe in them.

If you ever scoffed at children who had an imaginary friend, you may now have a finer appreciation that they were seeing the same ghost you listen to every day.

The problem most of us have is fighting with our ghost. It seems so silly to fight with something that isn’t there.

Here’s a plan of action to deal with your ghost. Let it have its say.

Don’t join the conversation; just observe the blathering. Treat it as though you are observing a thunderstorm that will eventually run out of steam. When you let it run on without opposition it runs out of places to run. It tires itself out and takes a nap. This, like any mother will tell you, is when you can get your work done.

The minute you oppose your ghost, it will throw a temper tantrum and kick its imaginary feet on the floor. If you treat it as real, you’ll join in the struggle and arm wrestle with an apparition.

One way of using your mind is recognizing its phantom presence and allowing it to prattle on. If you don’t answer back, it eventually bothers you less and less.

Another way is to direct your mind, like a director in a movie. Set up a scenario that allows it to become busy with something to wonder about. While it’s busy playing its wondering role, you begin to get actionable data through it.

Wondering is the key to tricking your mind to give you a usable phantom idea that you can crystallize into form.

Get your mind to wondering. Ask questions like, “I wonder how I would go about (fill in the blank)? Since you talk to a ghost every day, you may as well put it to work for you.

Your mind may not be real but it can be useful.

So the only question left is: “Do I have a ghost of a chance of using my mind?” I wonder.

All the best,

John

http://JohnMorganHypnosis.com

http://GrasshopperNotes.com

http://cdbaby.com/cd/johnmorgan

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

http://HypnosisForDogs.com

I don’t know about you but I get a kick out of learning something new. It’s especially rewarding if the new learning is in an area I care about.

I am truly amazed about the amount of things I don’t know. I am even more amazed by the people who have this incredible knowledge. You wonder how they got so smart.

It’s not envy as much as it is amazement.

The things most of us rarely focus on are the amazing things we do that we take for granted. I think of a single parent who raises children to be wonderful citizens and finds a way to educate them all. They don’t think they have a special gift but they do. How did they get it? Perspiration and persistence come to mind but adaptation seems to be the secret.

They adapt well to changing circumstances and learn something new. They instinctively know that the way they have been doing something is outdated and only will get them so far. They risk and learn something new and soar to new heights.

The Grasshopper checked in on this about a year and a half ago and you can read about it here.

The quest for knowledge for knowledge’s sake is, for the most part, an egotistic endeavor. It’s one thing to be curious and quite another to have to be the smartest person on the planet. Those that regale you with their knowledge have trouble learning something new because they believe they know it all.

If you need an example of this, look at just about any successful man in his 30’s. There is no teaching them anything. They know it all. It’s amazing what new learning shows up when they turn 40.

Is there something new for you?

I truly hope so because it is the juice that keeps you curious, growing and younger than your years.

All the best,

John

http://JohnMorganHypnosis.com

http://GrasshopperNotes.com

http://cdbaby.com/cd/johnmorgan

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

http://HypnosisForDogs.com

I am amazed at the way people respond to requests.

I just placed an ad on a website looking for a webmaster. The ad was short, to the point, and listed 4 specific needs I have.

I have gotten 10 responses, only one of which addressed my needs. Guess who I’m going to call?

The content of the other 9 was strikingly similar. They all told me about their qualifications, who they worked for and links to examples of their work. They were so busy telling me how qualified they are that they forgot to address my needs.

This isn’t an isolated example. Back when I was in the broadcasting business, I interviewed hundreds of people for positions. The number of people who answered my questions specifically can be counted on less than one hand. They were so wrapped up in their rehearsed response that they responded poorly.

It was like interviewing politicians. Sometimes I had to be rude to get a specific answer.

Here’s a tip: If you’re going for a job interview, answer the question that’s asked. It will give you a leg up on 90% of the other applicants. People are so tangential with their responses that they miss the point and miss the opportunity.

Also, ask questions. Do some research on the place that’s going to provide your paycheck. Reminds me of a story . . .

Many years ago I interviewed for a radio job in Kansas City. I did a little research on the market and found out that a big name radio talent in Kansas City was off the air and was unavailable for 6 months due to his contract with his former employer.

During my interview, the general manager and the program director asked me many questions and I responded to the best of my ability. Then I asked them a question. I said, “Are you interested in hiring the big name talent who’s going to be available in 6 months?”

They were both taken aback by my question because no one else had asked it. If he was on their radar, this was going to be short term employment for me. I wasn’t going to commit to anything less than two years because it was a major move across country for me and my family.

There was only one job available there. When they called me back after the interview, they told me they had offered that job to someone else, but liked me so much that they were going to offer me a job in another time slot. I would have liked to believe that it was solely my on-air abilities that impressed them so much to create a job for me, but it was the question that made me stand out. They both mentioned it again the day they hired me.

When people ask you questions, respond to all that they ask. And then ask your questions. By doing so, you show interest and, who knows, you may open a door or two for yourself along the way.

All the best,

John

http://JohnMorganHypnosis.com

http://GrasshopperNotes.com

http://cdbaby.com/cd/johnmorgan

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

http://HypnosisForDogs.com