There are background attitudes and skills that increase the effectiveness of Consciousness Focusing. This chapter will discuss practical things that will help you to use this Method to reprogram addictions. But first let’s review the four steps of Consciousness Focusing:
Bearing in mind these steps, here are ways you can improve your effectiveness as you use this Fifth Method:
Welcome the people and situations that can help you become clearly and strongly aware of your addictions.
Usually you carefully protect yourself from people you just can’t stand. You run the other way when life gives you a relationship that worries you. When you begin to work on yourself through the Method of Consciousness Focusing, you try never again to retreat from any person or any life situation as long as it makes you aware of your addictions. You welcome and honor that situation, for it provides you with a continuous input from the outside world that makes you aware of emotional programming you must change in order to uplevel your consciousness. The Method of Consciousness Focusing cannot be used when you are peaceful, serene and loving. It can only be used effectively at those moments when your existing emotional programming is creating in you feelings of duality and separateness and destroying your capacity to love.
Whatever you tell yourself at this time is absolutely crucial. So be sure to blame all of your uptightness on your addictive programming.
You must change the way you talk to yourself about your life situations so that you no longer imply that anything outside of you is the immediate cause of your unhappiness. Instead of saying, Joe makes me mad, say, I make myself mad when I’m around Joe. Instead of saying, Mary irritates me when she is late, say, By not showing up on time, Mary continually reminds me that I’m addicted to punctuality. This enables you to use the Method of Consciousness Focusing to gradually get rid of that part of your programming that makes you uptight when something does not conform to your expectations.
It is important to be very specific and accurate when you use Consciousness Focusing to reprogram your unconscious levels. Whatever you tell yourself when you are emotionally upset will play a part in the programming that you will have to live with in the future. If you make the conventional mistake of blaming the outside world, you will simply strengthen your addictions. If you say things that separate you from the outside world such as, Men are terrible, Women are awful, you will be programming yourself in a way that will alienate you rather than unite you with the world. If you keep talking to yourself like that, you may develop a cancerous cynicism — and that certainly is not working toward love and oneness. The world is what it is — why make yourself upset about it? Instead of saying, The cities are horrible, tell yourself, I must release myself from that part of my emotional programming that makes me upset when I experience certain things in cities. In other words, you must stop telling yourself that the reason for your uptightness and unhappiness is out there — when the truth of the matter is that it is simply your inside programming that continually keeps you uptight. When you have reprogrammed the addiction, then you can choose to put your energy into changing things in the most effective way — and stop putting energy into things which you cannot change.
What you feelingly tell yourself at this crucial time when you are emotionally disturbed is the essence of Consciousness Focusing. Everything you tell yourself when you are emotionally upset is vital in programming. You could program yourself to hate everyone by repeatedly telling yourself when you are upset, Everyone is out to get me. You can program this in your mind so tightly that it will alter your perception of everyone you see. If you want to love people, you can use this opportunity to put in love programming. Just tell yourself, I’m tired of being outside of it all. I want to learn to love everyone — no more duality and separateness for me. I’ve got to learn how to love unconditionally — without demands.
When people are emotionally upset and they continually tell themselves alienating things, they program themselves directly into neurosis or psychosis. When you are emotionally upset and use this opportunity to program yourself with the positive ways of Living Love, you wipe out vulnerabilities you programmed in the past.
To summarize: when you are upset, it is vital that you be extremely precise in putting the blame for your unhappiness exactly where it belongs. Your problems are not in the outside world. They are an interaction between your inside programming and the here and now realities of your body, mind and the people and situations outside you. Since the outside realities are only minimally changeable by you, your happiness depends on your concentrating on changing what you can change — your emotional programming that automatically makes you uptight when the world does not live up to your expectations. Seize every moment of anger, resentment, worry, frustration, anxiety, jealousy, or fear as a precious opportunity to start talking straight to yourself, so that you will no longer get uptight no matter what happens in the world around you.
Find the phrases and thoughts that generate the strongest emotions when you are upset.
If you wish to use the Method of Consciousness Focusing to get free for your lifetime from an addictive program, it is important to search for all of the phrases and thoughts that intensify your turbulent feelings. Force yourself to experience your emotions in the strongest way. Tell yourself, for example, I’m sick and tired of getting angry all the time. It’s hell to be an automatic robot that stupidly triggers these silly emotional binges. I want to be free of all this idiocy. It’s silly for me to be smothered by all this.
Be specific. For example, if jealousy is your problem, tell yourself, I don’t want to be trapped in jealous feelings ever again. Get into the trapped feeling and keep hunting for phrases that trigger strong feelings. When you find a phrase that intensifies your feelings and makes you cry, keep repeating it over and over until it no longer brings a response. Find other phrases and wear them out. Then go back to test again their ability to trigger strong emotions.
Remember, you must really want to do it. When you reprogram, don’t hesitate to yell to yourself, to beat a pillow, to clench your fists and teeth, to pound on a bed or table, or do anything else that gives notice to your ego and your rational mind that you are firmly determined to change your programming. Remember that many of these addictions have been operating in your biocomputer for ten, twenty, thirty or more years and it is going to take a lot of determination and work on your part to get them reprogrammed so that you are no longer automatically irritated by certain situations.
It is important to use reprogramming phrases which feel right to you. Reprogramming phrases should represent new insights you have gained while examining yourself and the situation which you found upsetting. By using the Pathways or the Centers of Consciousness, you may come to realize, for instance, that being criticized is not really a threat to you or harmful in any way. You may begin to perceive criticism as valuable feedback which may help you improve your performance. To reinforce this new attitude toward criticism and make it a permanent part of your programming, it is valuable to reprogram yourself with such phrases as Criticism is really useful, not harmful or I can welcome criticism or I don’t need to get defensive when someone criticizes me.
If you use reprogramming phrases that don’t feel right or that you do not consciously believe, you may find yourself experiencing increased resistance as you use the phrase. Instead of feeling relieved, free and more confident as you reprogram yourself, you may feel increasingly tense and upset. If so, it is best to listen to the arguments your mind is coming up with in opposition to the reprogramming phrase and use the other methods or repeat the lifesaver procedure to get additional insights. It may be you are not ready to drop a certain demand. You might change the reprogramming phrase slightly into one that feels more appropriate to you. Thus if I don’t have to have a lover doesn’t feel right, you might try I don’t need so-and-so to be happy or I don’t need to feel hurt when I’m not with so-and-so.
Don’t get ahead of yourself into a phony space. Wait until you really feel ready to drop a demand or an unconstructive way of reacting to a situation. When you realize you don’t really need something you thought you needed, you will find it easier to drop the addictive demand for it. When you have clearly seen the absurdity of your old programming, effective reprogramming phrases will spontaneously come to you.
Here are some sample reprogramming instructions to your biocomputer that you may find helpful: Life is my teacher. I am not my addictive programming. I am loveable. I am the master of my life. I don’t need to control people. I can accept what is. I don’t need other people’s approval. It’s okay to make a mistake. It’s okay to be me. I don’t need to hide. I have nothing to fear. I can let go and just be. I love myself. It’s okay to make a fool of myself in public. Rational mind — stop sending me that stuff. I am enough. I accept my here and now. I don’t have to reject myself when I (whichever applies) am angry, make a mistake, feel jealous, am not loving. It’s OK to be right where I am. I am getting free. I don’t have to be a robot. I don’t have to be uptight when this happens. I don’t have to get caught up in his/her programming. I can love him/her just the way he/she is. It’s all US. I don’t need (whichever applies) outside acceptance, approval, respect, love, special attention, romantic love, close relationships, to control, to manipulate, to be addicted, to be afraid.
Make up your own phrases to fit your situation. As you become expert in reprogramming, you may be surprised by its effectiveness. With persistence and determination, you can reprogram all of your addictions — no matter how long-standing or how strong they are.
In one Consciousness Focusing session you cannot wipe out all your undesired programming from the past years because you are usually upset about only one thing at a time. You can only reprogram that which is making you upset here and now. So talk specifically to yourself only about the problem that is making you feel bad right now. Suppose you relied on someone to help you and he forgot to do what he had agreed to do. You have made yourself angry. Now talk to yourself specifically about that situation: I don’t have to feel angry when I feel people aren’t meeting agreements. I don’t need to put myself through all of this turmoil. People don’t have to live up to my models. I can enjoy what I do have.
Talk very precisely to yourself, for the feelings you experience when you are upset are the feelings that will be programmed in some degree into your future. Say things like, I can reprogram this addiction. I don’t need to get uptight over this situation. It’s just my programming that is making me uptight. I can change that programming. That programming doesn’t serve me in any way. I don’t need it for anything. I don’t need to hold on to that emotional reaction. Love is more important. I am creating this suffering in my mind. It’s all in my mind.
As a way of exploring your suffering (Step 1), you may wish to consciously play out your old programming.
It is helpful to distinguish between discharging old programming and creating new programming. When you consciously relive a disturbing situation and scream, I hate you, I hate you! with the full intention of getting rid of such garbage from your mind, you are not reinforcing negative programming; you are freeing yourself from it. Whenever your ego and rational mind automatically justify a negative emotion, you tend to perpetuate it. But when you re-live a disturbing situation and consciously discharge the emotions for the purpose of getting rid of them, you help free yourself from the addictive programming. Your biocomputer may receive new, constructive programming more readily when the old programming has been consciously run through and seen as unnecessary. The conscious discharge of addictive programming can generate energy that may be useful in getting ready for Consciousness Focusing.
It may be helpful to re-experience what you were telling yourself that caused you to generate these separating emotions. You might have created fear by telling yourself, It would be terrible if I failed this exam. Sorrow might have been created by telling yourself, I can’t bear to live without Jane. I feel all alone. Anger is generated by thoughts like, He has no right to treat me that way. Who does he think I am? You can fully re-live the situation by expressing all these emotion generating statements with full intensity while at the same time clearly realizing that you are merely discharging old programming (like dumping out the garbage). The game is to see through it and develop new and better ways of responding to such situations.
Build up the voltage of your emotional responses
The effective use of the Method of Consciousness Focusing requires you to generate the strongest emotions that you can. Do everything you can to increase the electrochemical voltage of your emotional response. Most of your addictions were programmed into you through suffering and pain. One way to reprogram them is to use the tension that is associated with your stronger feelings. You may be able to get rid of a strong lifetime addiction in a short time — if and only if, you can build up your emotional intensity. If you cannot get into your emotions strongly and continuously, it may take months or years to reprogram the addiction.
Cry as much as possible — for crying helps you to reprogram faster. Although crying is not essential, it may be the easiest way to build up the intensity needed for reprogramming rapidly. As you cry, keep telling yourself, I don’t have to hassle myself with this. I don’t need separating emotions. I can be free of this demand. I don’t have to hold on. The longer you cry and focus your consciousness on eliminating the addiction, the more you will be able to effectively eliminate the programming that makes you upset with that particular situation in your life.
It is not necessary to cry in order to reprogram, but it speeds up the process. Since much of your emotional programming was put into you through shock, pain, crying and suffering, remember that it helps to consciously build up your present pain, crying, and suffering so that you can rapidly wipe out this programming.
Don’t let any person or any of your thoughts cool you down. Stop only when you just can’t keep the emotion churning any longer. It could be helpful to have someone with you who quietly hears you, but says nothing. Most people when they are with someone who is crying will say, Everything will be all right. Let’s dry your tears, or they suggest some type of diversion. But this stops you from using the Consciousness Focusing Method to burn out the unconscious-level programming that is making you suffer. If you start doing things, you will be using your senses and rational mind to smother the problem. It will temporarily make you feel good but it will leave you in the grip of your automatic programming when similar situations come up in the future. Anyone who is with you should understand what you are doing. She or he should simply experience your vibrations and silently encourage you to cry. Do everything possible to build up your emotional intensity. For when you build up the emotional intensity, you have a great opportunity to reprogram an addiction so that you no longer get yourself emotionally upset when certain things happen in the outside world.
Develop the confidence that you can absolutely be the master of yourself.
Keep telling yourself that you programmed yourself many years ago and that you can reprogram that which you programmed. Remember that you did it all to yourself. You are not in the grip of forces beyond your control! It’s all in your mind. Through the Method of Consciousness Focusing, you can be the master of your mind. You are a perfect being — pure Conscious-awareness. Your only problem is that you are caught in the grip of too many things that you are telling yourself you must have to be happy. You are laying too many conditions on the outside world that it (and the people in it) cannot possibly meet. You are culture-bound. You have programmed yourself with all these addictions, demands and expectations — and you can reprogram yourself. When you have reprogrammed your addictions, you are free for a lifetime. All the happiness and the beauty of the world will then be yours.
It doesn’t matter if you feel that everything you have tried in life has failed. It doesn’t matter what particular hell you are in at this moment. If you are together enough to be reading a book on the Living Love Way to Higher Consciousness, you can use the Method of Consciousness Focusing. You have everything you need to work on yourself and you can positively reprogram yourself to eliminate all the hellish emotions that keep you from enjoying your life continuously.
Your emotion-backed addictions will not disappear the first time you use the Consciousness Focusing Method, but with each successive application of the Method you will gradually change an addiction to a preference. A complex addiction (such as an addiction to sex) has many different addictive triggers that will require separate sessions of Consciousness Focusing. Be patient and give yourself time to get results. It is not helpful to say or think at a disturbed moment, This reprogramming is not working. You could program your reprogramming not to work! Instead, say or think, Slowly, but surely, I am getting free of these emotional triggers. You put these neural connections in your head and with determination you can get them out.
The Living Love Way to Higher Consciousness thus offers you Five Methods that are designed to enable all types of people to reprogram all kinds and intensities of addictions. If you wish to accelerate your journey into higher consciousness, work hard to develop the maximum skill at using all of the Five Methods. You will then find that your biocomputer will automatically select the Method that is just perfect for each reprogramming problem.
At first you may be fascinated by understanding the workings of your consciousness from the vantage point of the Twelve Pathways, the Seven Centers and the Five Methods. You may then get into consciously using these tools in a minute-to-minute fashion. The purpose of these tools is to enable you to tune in to the nowness of life — free from the distortions caused by addictions. As they begin to work for you, your life will begin to smooth out.
Learn to enjoy your life! Just use the Methods when you are aware of some expectations in your life that are not in harmony with what is here and now. In other words, you use them for troubleshooting — and the rest of the time you are just right here enjoying doing your thing. The main purpose of these tools is to help you to stop doing these things that divide you from other people and the world around you — to accept and love one another and flow in that space where there is just us — right here — right now.
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