I have decided to have some fun with this response. Here goes..........

Ready to start the adoption procedure?

But first you have to qualify. And here in North America, it is not such an easy thing to adopt. All of these children who are homeless, and they would rather keep them that way rather than allow a single mother, or father to adopt. They are too busy looking for what is perfect. They could do it on a temporary basis, sort of like a probation period. This way if the adoption doesn't work out all that well. . . . .

Which reminds me. I was, it was like, when they...how do I put this? I know, conversationally. I will just do it the other way. Now. The first thing is you. Is there anything you really enjoy and if given the chance you would stop now and do it? I mean, for me, there is this really silly hobby of building things using LEGO building blocks. What I like best is that my imagination can be best served in it's most active form. I start building one thing, and before I know it, what I am building is changing form. It is becoming something else. In this, there is really no need for rigidity. I can begin with one idea......

Now. I don't know about you, but me, well I kind of like having some kind of context in which I can explore things. I have my life, the one that is filled with all of the activities I have to do. And I only have to do them because they are a part of what I want to accomplish. But, some of these things I have to do wind up becoming mundane from time to time. In fact, they become so mundane, that I find myself drifting while doing them.

That is one of the things I have found wonderful about the unconscious mind. You can go to sleep and dream wild dreams. Hot and passionate dreams. Or dreams of some more personal nature. And the wonderful thing is, I do not have to consciously direct these dreams and they still take on a complete and interesting form of there own. But I often do wonder, if I am not directing them, then who is? I know it must be me, but not the same me who at times can actually have trouble doing some easy task. Or some difficult task.

I remember this one dream I had a long time ago. Yet when I think of it, it seems like only yesterday. Yet I do know better than that. Here I was, siting in a doctors waiting room, waiting for one of the staff members to finish up for the day. We had some plans to go out and play with a few very fast, racing go carts. These things could do over 100 miles and hour, and get to 60 in only 3.5 seconds. Now, to imagine gong that fast while only inches from the ground.

Well anyway, here I am sitting, waiting, and my mind begins to drift into this outrageous dream in which I am awake but having a dream that I can not get out of. And since the dream inside of that dream is so fantastic, I do not want to come out. Yet at the same time I have to. I can now see my friend walking down the corridor that leads to where I am sitting. And he is walking fast. So, in an all out effort, I open my eyes, realizing that only seconds had past, and it was all a dream. I reach over and pinch myself, and I don't feel a thing. I am still dreaming, as I have not even left my house to go and meet my friend. Talk about weird.

Now, in my mind, I se beliefs sort of like dreams. They too are not real, but can have an effect none the less. And, those beliefs that are less than useful, while still having a use in NLP as we can practice our reframing skills by either finding a positive intention, or simply by re-contextualize them so that they seem more useful.

I remember the first time I set out to deliberately install a new belief in myself. One way that came to mind was to plan for that day a set of experiences that, by the very nature of having gone through them, I would wind up on the other side having the belief those experiences and behavior would have supposed was there in the first place. But since beliefs are not real, I didn't wind up doing it that way, but instead, just built in that new belief.

Now. Just so you can take this one step at a time. Let us not install a new belief yet, or way of believing yet, but instead stop and consider what some possibilities might be. Knowing full well that you will not install anything here that is not fully in your own best interest. And I can tell you, I have in the past, and still do from time to time, find myself believing something that is far less useful than what I can believe, and allow to generate future behavior. Because that is what beliefs are attached to. When you consider the counter example, you will always find that human beings don't always live up the beliefs they have had. Only because that is an impossibility. Not only because beliefs are not real, but because beliefs are tools by which we organize aspects of our own behavior. And since behavior is fluid and open to continuous, feedback driven change. So to are the belief systems that go before the actual behavior. When what we are believing is no longer useful in a general sense, or in a more specified sense, we wind up finding ourselves believing something new. The just HAPPENS! And this process can be proven by looking back at some of the beliefs you have changed over the years, and realizing this is becoming one of them too. And when you find yourself in that context, the one in which you were having that former difficulty, you will either notice that your behavior has changed, and the things you were believing. Or you will not really notice at all, and simply begin realizing that more of you own outcomes are systematically falling right into place. Yet the important thing is not in the noticing. No not at all. But in taking the time to make certain that you discover more of your own good feelings, as you continue enjoying the changes as they occur in your life.

And, who knows? Maybe you too will discover that some dreams are not only worth dreaming, but they can also come true. And all that you thought about how quickly these things could happen, well who cares. That was then. This is now, and you have something else to think about now.

You see, it's not about adopting one new belief, or two. It's not even about beliefs at all. It is about you. About your own ability to trust that you have that ability to allow your unconscious mind to do these things for you, as you dream new dreams, and explore new realities.

Go well,

Carmine