Includes The Powerful "I Already Have It, I Already Am It" Technique Unleash Your Inner Strength by Eric Falcon © 2010 Eric Falcon; All Rights Reserved. Please visit: www.UnleashYourInnerStrength.com Disclaimer: Please always remember to consult with your licensed healthcare professional for all medical and psychological conditions. This material is provided for informational purposes only, and is not meant to diagnose or treat any conditions. 1 © 2010 Eric Falcon Unleash Your Inner Strength! E-Book, First Edition Table of Contents PART I. Unleash Emotional Strength 1. Our Ultimate Quest: Empowering Emotions..................................................................................... 3 2. The "I Already Have It, I Already Am It" Technique........................................................................... 6 3. Our Inner Obstacles to Feeling Good................................................................................................ 10 PART II. Unleash Spiritual Strength 4. Rejuvenation and Renewal................................................................................................................ 16 5. Seeking the Inner Path...................................................................................................................... 18 2 © 2010 Eric Falcon Chapter One Our Ultimate Quest: Empowering Emotional States I have a question for you - What would your life look like if you could have everything exactly the way you desired it to be? What is your vision or dream of a perfect life? While everyone’s ideal life scenario is different, some desires that are common to most of us include a healthy and attractive body, a romantic partner and family that love and respect us, financial abundance, and a home in our favorite geographical location. Regarding work, the ultimate dream for some people is to own a successful business, while for others it's to have a fulfilling career making use of their artistic or musical talents, or making a major contribution toward important causes in the world like raising environmental awareness or ending social injustices. The dream of others is to be retired and free to travel the world, or else to play and relax on a beautiful tropical island, or perhaps in Las Vegas, for the remainder of their lives. Every one of us has aspirations and visions of our ideal life; and many of us are patiently working on bringing our goals and dreams to fruition and making them a reality. But here’s another question I’d like to ask – whenever any of our desires or wishes are fulfilled, what does this ultimately give us? In other words, what is the thing that we really seek at the deepest level by pursuing possessions, achievements, or desirable circumstances? The honest answer to this question is the same for everyone regardless of the specific desire or dream – what we really seek are emotional states, such as fulfillment, happiness, freedom, joy, etc. The ultimate value of any desirable achievement, possession, or circumstance is the emotional state which they bring us. The essential thing which everyone is striving for in life is a sustained feeling or emotion! With this in mind, let’s take a few moments for a closer look at the topic of emotions. Nearly always the various emotional states we experience throughout our lives occur for us in a ‘passive’ context. In other words, our emotions are not proactively chosen by us, but rather we mostly experience our emotions as subconscious reactions - either in response to an internal thought or a memory that occurs to us passively, or to an external event or circumstance. The sudden memory that occurs in our minds of a past trauma makes us feel depressed or distracted…we become intimidated or anxious at the thought of an upcoming exam…a compliment we hear from someone makes us feel proud…we feel grateful when we receive a gift from a loved one…the championship victory of our favorite team makes us joyful and we 3 © 2010 Eric Falcon feel like celebrating. These common situations are all examples of the ‘passive’ context for experiencing emotions – the type of context which we are most familiar with. But an alternative context for experiencing emotions exists, which rarely gets considered by most people – the ‘proactive’ context. Emotions occur in a proactive context by us actively creating or invoking them inside of ourselves. Here’s a quick demonstration of this: Wherever you are right now, take five seconds to stop and invoke an emotion of gratitude within yourself. Actively feel inside yourself a deep-seated feeling of thankfulness to your Creator, for some happy experience that you can remember from your past, or for a desirable person or circumstance in your life now. Notice how quickly and easily you were able to create an emotional state – assisted by choosing a particular object of focus. In this case, I asked you to focus on something that you were grateful for. This is a basic psychological principle - what we focus on determines how we feel. Besides our object of focus, there are two other major factors which determine our emotional state. One is the state of our physical bodies and the other is the language we use to label the circumstances and events in our lives. The state of our physical bodies includes our posture, breathing, and facial expressions, as well our nutrition status, hydration status, and level of rest, among other factors. A change in any of these factors can noticeably affect our emotional condition at any given moment. Try this and see – the next time you feel a bit stressed, do the following: Take a deep breath in and let it out. Straighten your spine, bring your shoulders back and down, and lift your head and gaze up slightly. Continue breathing deeply and fully. Notice the difference in how this makes you feel. Most people experience increased feelings of calmness and confidence, by making the small changes in their physical state that I just described. A third factor which determines our emotional state is the language which we use to describe and label our experiences and life circumstances. Actually the words and labels we use are less consequential than the meanings beneath those words. For example, you’re sitting on a plane at the departure gate waiting to take off when the pilot announces there’ll be a one hour delay due to a recently discovered mechanical problem. Your initial thoughts center on the inconvenience and boredom that the delay will mean to you. “This is pitiful,” you pronounce to yourself, as feelings of anger and humiliation begin to set in. A few moments later, however, it occurs to you that the delay could actually be a blessing in disguise, since the timely discovery may have averted a potential crash and the death of everyone on board. You take in a deep breath and let it out as a silent sigh; now feeling grateful and relieved. You then recline in your seat and pull out a novel or get some much needed rest. 4 © 2010 Eric Falcon Notice how the same event can lead to two very different emotional states, merely based upon the type of meaning that we give to it. Luckily, the meaning of any and all circumstances in our lives is solely ours to determine. For example, the choice is up to us to define whether any unpleasant or difficult situation we encounter is either a curse…or a gift. And the decision that we make then markedly influences how we feel about it; for example, either defeated and discouraged…or empowered and hopeful. Returning to my earlier statement, what humans seek above all else are emotional states - happiness, fulfillment, fun, joy, etc. The good news is that we can chose to actively invoke these emotional states inside of ourselves at will - by making simple changes in our focus, our physical state, or our language, as I have just discussed. Here are a few suggestions for applying this insight to your everyday life: a. Everyone has down time during the week - driving in a car, waiting in a line, relaxing on the couch at home, etc. Use some of your down time to begin to practice invoking empowering emotions inside of yourself, whenever can you think of it. For example, use the exercise I gave above to periodically invoke the feeling of gratitude within yourself - it's a very healing and rejuvenating emotional state, for your body, mind, and spirit. b. If you observe a daily period of prayer or meditation, devote a few extra minutes of your quiet time to practice invoking feelings of inner joy or confidence. You could, for example, spend a few minutes focusing on a memory of a time when you felt especially happy or confident - perhaps in childhood, or later. This exercise is great for developing the character qualities of resiliency and inner strength, if you're in need of these, which I think we all are! c. Celebrate - for no good reason! Whenever you receive good news of any kind, regardless of how small or big, invoke feelings of exaggerated happiness within yourself. Even celebrate outlandishly, whenever you have the energy for it. Do it when you're alone, of course - if the risk of being hauled off to the funny farm concerns you! An exaggerated expression of celebration, such as physically jumping for joy, shouting, or doing a crazy victory dance, floods the body with endorphins - which is one of the best things you can do for your emotional and mental health. When you let yourself celebrate periodically at the slightest provocation - you'll realize, as I have, that this practice raises your overall baseline level of inner happiness and contentment. As a result, you'll discover that figuring out successful solutions to the various problems that come along in life is much easier, compared to when your habitual emotional state is characterized by chronic boredom, anxiety, or aggravation. 5 © 2010 Eric Falcon Chapter Two The "I Already Have It, I Already Am It" Technique What are your most important one or two goals or desires at the present time? Well, whatever your desires may be, here's a unique psychological tool that can help you acquire them, which you probably haven't heard of before: Celebrate your victories in advance! What do I mean by this? Begin to practice feeling in your body the way you would feel if you had the circumstances or personal qualities which you desire or wish for already. I call this the "I Already Have It, I Already Am It" mentality or technique. Here's a brief exercise to help you implement this: Use your imagination to travel ahead out into the future - travel far enough out so that you can come to a stop just beyond the point in time when what you desire has already occurred or has already been achieved. From this future vantage point in time, turn around now and look back, behind you, in your mind's eye; see that the outcome or goal which you had been desperately seeking has already come to pass. Now here's the most valuable step. Cultivate inside of yourself the feeling of knowing that you already have the outcome or goal which you desire! How happy would you be knowing that you have attained your goal? Feel that happiness now ahead of time inside yourself…How grateful would you be knowing that you have achieved your outcome? Feel that gratitude now ahead of time…How much elation and exhilaration would you feel knowing that you now have what you desire? Feel that elation and exhilaration inside your body now…How excited would you be and how much would you celebrate? Feel that excitement now and celebrate like that now… At this point, if you're still reading this article, you must be saying to yourself "This sounds a little nutty; why should I even bother to try any of this?" That's a legitimate question - I'm aware of how unconventional what I'm discussing is. So, I owe you a list of benefits: Firstly, from a medical perspective, engaging in an imagination practice like 'feeling as if you already have what you want' and the resulting feelings of joy and gratitude that can accompany it, are associated with the release of endorphins in your body. Endorphins are chemicals made in the brain that are natural pain and stress fighters; increasing their release by the brain is one of the best things that you can do for your emotional and mental health. A second benefit of the technique of 'feeling as if you already have what you want' is that it helps to foster what I call an 'abundance mentality', about the things that are the most important to us in life; namely, feelings of emotional and spiritual fulfillment. The realization that we can actively invoke emotions of joy and fulfillment within ourselves at any time, dispels the false notion that we need to wait until we've crossed some imaginary goal line in order to 6 © 2010 Eric Falcon experience these feelings. That paradigm is fine in the world of games and sports - the winner of a race feels elated and gets to celebrate, while the loser feels discouraged and dejected. The problem occurs for us in the real world when we unconsciously begin to believe that joy and elation are in short supply somehow, and therefore we should only get to experience these feelings under certain conditions - such as when we've received something special or done something deserving. This is the 'scarcity mentality', which lies at the opposite end of the spectrum of the 'abundance mentality', and which relies upon a limited and distorted perception of reality. But let's admit it - there exists an abundance of joy, elation, gratitude, fulfillment and all other empowering emotions inside of us - which are freely available to us anytime we choose to invoke these feelings within ourselves. So when we cultivate an 'abundance mentality' about this matter, we're simply aligning our beliefs with what is actually true. We need not go through life any longer with the false idea that we have to wait to experience fulfillment until after we've achieved certain specific personal qualities, possessions, or external circumstances. Another important benefit of the practice of celebrating our victories in advance is that it has direct effects in the real world. The habitual emotional states and beliefs which we harbor play a direct role in influencing the experiences in our lives. Here's what I mean: our long- standing feelings and beliefs tend to draw to us the kinds of circumstances and events that are in resonance with our inner states of being. The person who believes there are opportunities to be found in every one of life's obstacles usually experiences a far more satisfying and rewarding quality of life in the long run, compared to the person who believes there are mainly obstacles to be found in each of his life's opportunities. This phenomenon I'm referring to has been summed up in the common phrase "like attracts like." Everything in the universe is made up of energy, including our thoughts and feelings. The energies of the thoughts and feelings inside of us, according to something known as 'the law of attraction', tend to attract into our lives the energies that are their equivalents outside of us - in the form of events and experiences. This is why some psychologists believe that people with a chronically negative attitude towards life tend to draw to themselves predominately negative experiences over time, or at least they find the negatives in all their positive circumstances. Conversely, people with a chronically positive attitude towards life tend to draw to themselves predominately positive experiences over time, or else they find the positives in any negative circumstances that occur to them. Of course there may be huge ups or downs in anyone's life, but this describes the overall picture - wouldn't you agree? "The law of attraction" is both a metaphysical and a spiritual principle that has been studied and written about for ages, as well as taught by many spiritual teachers and scholars. Put 7 © 2010 Eric Falcon simply, our thoughts, beliefs, and feelings affect our surroundings and affect our lives; but feelings have the potential for the greatest effects by far among these three, hence they're the major focus of my writings. Feelings arise from, and reside, within us at a deeper level than many of our thoughts and beliefs. Feelings, therefore, can be a much stronger and persistent form of energy than either of these two. Many of our thoughts tend to be superficial as well as fleeting, in nature. And while beliefs are considered more enduring than thoughts - the beliefs that we hold within us which are the strongest, reside inside of us in the form of feelings. In addition, feelings are directly related to our strong intentions and prayers. It has been speculated that when people pray, it's the feelings that accompany our prayers which ultimately communicate our intentions to the Divine, and which also potentiate the effects of our prayers. With all of this in mind, let's return to the technique that I've been discussing since the outset - that of 'feeling as if you already have what you want.' Speaking in the book of Mark, Jesus teaches, "Therefore I tell you, whatever you ask for in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours" (11:24, NIV). Notice that the past tense is used in the phrase "believe that you have received it [italics mine]," conveying that our perspective should be one of looking back on the desired event or circumstance, in our imagination, as if it has already occurred. Gregg Braden, the author of The Divine Matrix and The Spontaneous Healing of Belief, has extensively investigated the effects of people's chronic emotional states upon the results and outcomes of their prayers and intentions. Braden's findings have verified his core teaching and claim that to be the most effective at receiving our desired results and outcomes we must "...feel a clear and powerful feeling as if our prayers have already been answered." Finally, it must be acknowledged that, in a world of innumerable variables and interacting forces and wills, sometimes we may not get precisely the thing that we desire or aim for, at the time that we want it. This is where the skill of flexibility is important. When we place the development of our spirit and our character as the highest priority in our lives, not the attainment of any particular possession, achievement, or circumstance, it gives us the flexibility to find value in any outcome that we end up with - even if it's not the exact thing that we aimed for or wished for. Spiritual growth, maturity, and life lessons are just a few of the many valuable benefits that we can derive from any experience, if we're determined to, regardless of how unexpected, undesirable, or possibly even painful the experience may initially be. And at some point afterwards, with the help of grace we'll be able to smile, feel joy, and express gratitude towards our Creator for what we've learned and for how much we've grown from the experience. So, with properly ordered priorities in life, our final degree of fulfillment 8 © 2010 Eric Falcon and happiness can always be the same regardless of whether we achieve the specific outcome that we initially aimed for, or not! It's important to be aware that what we really seek at the deepest level in our pursuit of possessions, achievements, and desirable circumstances are the emotional states that we believe these things will bring us: emotions such as fulfillment, happiness, freedom, joy, etc. It's also important to realize that we don't need to wait until we've achieved any particular possession or circumstance in order to be able to experience empowering emotional states. We can experience these empowering emotions now, merely by invoking them within ourselves. So remember to celebrate your victories in advance...and keep doing so all along your journey towards your desires and goals. And even if you don't always attain the precise external outcomes that you initially desired or wished for, in the end you will have experienced an abundance of the good feelings and emotions that you were really seeking underneath it all, anyway! 9 © 2010 Eric Falcon