Finding H.O.P.E. - Becoming a HOPE Guide
Ken Hamilton, MD started guiding groups as part of his surgical practice. In 1987 Ken guided a group that created H.O.P.E. (Healing of Persons Exceptional). Ken passed away in 2022. This blog will provide the necessary information for individuals to learn the H.O.P.E. process - and become a H.O.P.E. Group Guide. ZOOM meetings will be held to help understand the process and to understand that each H.O.P.E. Group starts with "We are a H.O.P.E. Group."
Crossing the Bridge of Time: Cherokee Prophecy and Genesis 3
Crossing the
Cherokee prophecy and Genesis 3
© 2003 Ken Hamilton
In 1994, a Cherokee spiritual leader addressed a group of
people of which I was a part. This person spoke about the nature of the time in
which we live today and said that an old Cherokee prophecy would be realized in
this time. The prophecy, as I remembered it, went like this: Sometime after the
turn of the century, either in 2002 or 2012, a spiritual bridge would open for
those who had intended the spiritual path by 1992. The bridge would never be
closed to anyone but the longer one waited before intending the spiritual path,
the harder it would be to find the bridge. This person described the bridge as
a bridge in time that would take a person ahead the equivalent of 400 years.
This person went on to say that it was as if time had a
wave function and over this past century the frequency and amplitude of the
wave had been increasing geometrically. It would reach a point where the
equivalent of a wave-function collapse would take place… two adjacent peaks in
time would come together over a trough representing the equivalent of 400 years
of linear time. The bridge would last for ten years before falling apart. At
that point, the presentation ended... and no one asked, "And what happens
next?" We all simply went our own merry ways.
I, for one, liked what I had heard. After all, I had
become fully aware of the nature of my spiritual path in 1987 so I was
certainly destined for salvation! (Who says? Read on.) However, the question of
what lay at the end of the bridge began to dog my thoughts. Was there going to
be a separation of worlds somewhat similar to what Philip Wylie described in
his book, The Disappearance (Lightyear;
December 1993. ISBN: 0899684157)? Would those who crossed the bridge acquire a
higher energetic vibration that made them invisible to those who did not cross
the bridge, much like the ninth prophecy in Jim Redfield's The Celestine Prophecy (Warner
Books; January 1995. ISBN: 044651862X)? Every answer I arrived at seemed
inadequate. However, I have learned to be patient and to state the intention to
receive the answer at the right time—a time not of my own choosing.
I meditated on the question. I ruminated on the question.
I dialogued on the question. I waited. I wondered. It seemed that crossing the
bridge was a form of realization—awakening—Christ/Buddha-becoming. Then I
considered that these Beings might return—as Jesus/Bodhisattvas—to stand at the
edge of the pool of human suffering to lend a hand to those who reached the
surface and called for help… more wondering…more meditating.
I was talking about this prophecy and its questions and
implications in a H.O.P.E. Group meeting in February 2003, and the answer
came... I remembered that crossing the bridge was the "equivalent" of
moving forward 400 years in time. I saw that crossing the bridge would get the
spiritually minded individual a picture of the spiritually developed world in
2403, and that person would return to the twenty-first century and set in
motion a ripple that would direct the course of history over the next 400
years.... The Christ/Buddhas did, indeed, return as Jesus/Bodhisattvas!
I had previously held an image of myself as a
"doorman" to the bridge for as long as I had had known about the
bridge. I had a sense that when the time was right, I, too, would cross the
bridge into the future and join the others. With this new image of visiting the
future and returning, but without destroying the image of "doorman,"
I wondered if I had already crossed the bridge and returned with an image. Over
the next two or three days, it became clear that I had…. I had developed a point of childhood knowledge into a field of adult understanding when I
wrote Soul Circling: The Journey to the
Who ©2002! Let me explain….
At this time in our history, a significant number of
adults are aware that children often seem to have some wisdom-knowledge that all
too often confuses adults who then make significant efforts to belittle it. These
children want to talk about the things they know but when they get belittled
for their efforts, they find it simpler to avoid the adults who do not want to listen but want to teach.
My family of origin was no exception; there was
significant spirituality that was all too often colored by religion. My mother
was the Episcopal daughter of an allopathic general practitioner, and she had
healing hands that were every bit as powerful as the prayers of my father's
Christian Scientist family. However, she was ruled by her physical senses,
confused by intuition, and unwilling to accept the healing power in her large,
graceful, artist-musician's hands.
My father's mother was a great teacher of biblical lore in
my very early childhood, but she took the Bible literally. As a Christian
Scientist, my grandmother said repeatedly that love was synonymous with God.
However, when she first read me the third chapter of the book of Genesis, I
"knew" it was "wrong" because God showed no love for His
children—angrily and hatefully banishing them for their childish, immature
disobedience. That was anything but loving! I brought it up to her and, later,
to others, but no one was open to a discussion; they looked at my knowledge as
"a figment of (my) imagination." The outstanding exception was the
only self-professed atheist in the bunch—she knew how to listen!
When I was eleven years old, I was having a discussion
with my mother that turned into an argument. At one point I said something that
I “knew” with an enthusiasm appropriate for my age and my mother looked at me
with a thunder-struck expression and said, "Dear, how can you say that if
you love me?" That hurt! I did a right face, stuffed my hands in my
pockets, and slouched out of the living room saying to myself, "Gosh, I
don't think Mom knows what love is, and maybe I don't either, but someday I'll
find out!"
Well, it would be many years before I could say with any
degree of surety that I was coming close to realizing that intention. As I look
back over my life, I see how I have been graced with a gift of loving
relationships that I had to work with
and equally graced with a gift of anger that I had to work through. I have not finished the work on either the love or the anger,
but both projects are well developed. In 1987 I started a support group for
people who had cancer in my surgical practice that they called H.O.P.E. Love was
an essential component of the process. The following year, I studied A Course in Miracles (Foundation for
Inner Peace; 2nd edition [1975], ISBN: 0960638881) for the first time, and accepted the principal of the course that
was to teach love without trying to define it.
The Course
emphasized how dangerous the ego could be and I could see that in my life. I
set out to try to erase my ego, but it would not put up with my efforts. I then
decided to accept my ego lovingly and show my appreciation for the hard work it
had done for my whole life. As it accepted love, my ego softened its grasp on
things it held dear. As I began this revolutionary approach to my fearful,
judgmental self, I began learning about the soul, and I could begin to see that
I had two inner directors: one secular and one spiritual. About this time, I
heard Matthew Fox say in public that he had observed that Roman Catholicism
seemed to pay less attention to the soul than it appeared to merit, so he had
explored his Roman Catholic traditions to see if the soul had ever been a more
prominent part of the church's teachings. He found that it had been an
important way of thinking about ourselves until the beginning of the Age of
Reason, 300 years ago. At that time, the thinkers of the day put the soul in
the mind because its existence could not be scientifically proven. Fox got my attention,
and the nature of soul fascinated me. Its eternal, spiritual nature became
clear to me as I read the growing wealth of literature about near-death
out-of-body experiences. Coincidentally, I was directly exposed to some of
these experiences in my surgical practice and in the H.O.P.E. support groups
that I had started in 1987.
I took a past life regression training course with Brian
Weiss, MD, and he told us that the past life experiences of one of his patients
caused him to study his Jewish traditions to see if they had once held a belief
in reincarnation—necessitating a belief in the existence of the soul. He found
that they did—until 300 years ago. He then looked at Christian history and
found that Christians, too, had believed in reincarnation until 300 years ago.
He then examined Islam and found the same thing for that third and youngest of
the Faith Family religions!
As I, a soul, was coming to terms with my body's ego, I
heard a tape by Wayne Dyer in which he said that the Garden of Eden legend in
the third chapter of the book of Genesis was the story of the ego. It made
perfect sense! The legend was written some 2700 years ago, having likely been a
part of our oral tradition for many hundreds of years before that. It was clear
to me that the legend was an attempt to explain why we had perpetuated so much
egregious harm on each other for so many thousands of years. To the mind-set of
that day, it was inconceivable that God could have given us knowledge because
we had done so much harm with it. We still believe to this day that we had to
have obtained it by some other means than as a divine gift. So we created the
serpent to blame for stealing God's knowledge and giving it to us. Furthermore,
men blamed women for being suckered by this snake! In short, “somebody's wrong
and it sure as hell ain't me!” This shame-blame-guilt thinking is pure
ego-work.
In 12-step recovery circles, "ego" is an acronym
for "ease God out". As Genesis 3 can be seen as the story of the ego,
God's admonition to His children about not eating of the fruit of His tree of
knowledge of good and evil has every hallmark of the behavior of a drunk and his
stash of booze! Every good drunk tells his children that they had better not
touch his whiskey! When they do, which is almost inevitable, he brutalizes
them. So God, as the alcoholic angry parent, banishes His own children from His
household and tells them never to come back. Once they are out of the gate, He fixes
it so that they can never get back in. Please be aware… knowledge can be just
as addictively dangerous as whiskey!
No! God is not a drunk! We, His children, are not
disobedient—just immature—with a perfect parent. God gave us knowledge, knowing
that all the time we were using it
beautifully we were misusing it
egregiously—and judge ourselves horribly for that misuse. The God that is
synonymous with love has no fear-based hatred and It looks at Its children with
soft, kind eyes, knowing that every misuse of knowledge contains a lesson in its
right use.
The world of 2403 is a world in which we have recognized
and acknowledged the ego for its resourceful skills, all of which are written
in our genetic code. In this new time, we have taught it to devote its strength
and energy to the service of the soul's intent. The soul is a manifest
holographic fragment of the Spirit that comes with a core passion to create a
one-of-a-kind work of art that is a single volume in a marvelous, wondrous
encyclopedia of the universal experience of Being. The world of 2403 is a
beautiful world of Being devoted to its experience of God. It is a world in
which almost all communication is telepathic, including travel. It is a world
that knows that mind-travel is virtually instantaneous. It knows how to star-travel.
The
I am not alone in this awareness. Last year I received an
e-mail from a dear friend that contained the following message:
To my fellow swimmers:
There is a river flowing
now very fast. It is so great and swift that there are those who will be
afraid. They will try to hold on to the shore, they will feel they are being
torn apart and will suffer greatly. Know that the river has its destination. The
elders say we must let go of the shore, push off into the middle of the river,
keep our eyes open and our heads above the water.
And I say: see who is
there with you and celebrate. At this time in history, we are to take nothing
personally, least of all ourselves, for the moment that we do, our spiritual
growth and journey come to a halt. The time of the lone wolf is over.
Gather yourselves. Banish
the word "struggle" from your attitude and vocabulary. All that we do
now must be done in a sacred manner and in celebration. We are the ones we have
been waiting for.
(The person responsible
for this beautiful message does not wish to be identified with any other name
than Human.)
In the week of
…. I urge you, ask you,
gentle you, to please not spend your spirit dry by bewailing these difficult
times. Especially do not lose hope. Most particularly because, the fact is–we
were made for these times. Yes. For years, we have been learning, practicing,
been in training for and just waiting to meet on this exact plain of
engagement...
I grew up on the
We have been in training
for a dark time such as this, since the day we assented to come to Earth. For
many decades, worldwide, souls just like us have been felled and left for dead
in so many ways over and over brought down by naiveté, by lack of love, by
being ambushed and assaulted by various cultural and personal shocks in the
extreme. We have a history of being gutted, and yet remember this especially–we
have also, of necessity, perfected the knack of resurrection. Over and over
again we have been the living proof that that which has been exiled, lost, or
foundered can be restored to life again….
The good words we say and
the good deeds we do are not ours: They are the words and deeds of the One who
brought us here. In that spirit, I hope you will write this on your wall: When
a great ship is in harbor and moored, it is safe, there can be no doubt. But
that is not what great ships are built for.
This comes with much love
and prayer that you remember who you came from, and why you came to this
beautiful, needful Earth, Clarissa Pinkola Estes, Ph.D. ©2003
http://www.mavenproductions.com/esteswindow4.html
There is a field beyond all polarities that we reach when
we suspend judgment. It is equally and vitally important that we look at our
egos and our souls with the soft eyes of compassion. Our egos are born in our DNA. Our souls come here borne by our DNA. Our egos can wonder
far afield and create all sorts of havoc if they have no spiritual home. Our
souls are adrift if they have no physical home. They need each other and God
made it so. Each of us is a ship of life of which the ego is the navigator, and
the soul is the captain that came here with "earth orders".
The true story of the Garden of Eden is that we left God’s
Garden in our own shame for all the harm we had done. We went far afield and
survived incredible insults. We have begun to wonder if there is not a better
way. Some of us have begun to look up in the sky instead of down at the ground
in front of our tired and shameful feet. A regular flicker of light comes from
the horizon behind us, and those of us who have already begun to follow its
call are standing on the horizon calling and beckoning us to turn and go to
them. Their messages tell us that there is a beautiful arch on their horizon
with a shining beacon on it that we thought when we left was a spinning sword
to kill us if we ever came back. They tell us that there are a couple of
outposts at the arch calling them
back home. They tell us that there is a beautiful city on the other side of the
arch, with stairs arching up from every rooftop. Our ears pick up the distant,
clear call, “Come home!”
As we come home over the next 400 years, keep in mind that
everything is divine, and time is only a metaphor for the Life of Being. Give yourself permission to be aware that out beyond
all old ideas of wrong doing and right doing, there is a field. There we shall
meet and discover why God made us. We will know that that field has been
promised us since the beginning of Time.
Kind, blessing, and loving thoughts come.
Posted by Stephen D. Thompson
HOPE's Gifts --
I want to list for you some of
our gifts in order to remind you of the fact that HOPE is given us. It is not
something that was an idle thought of a tired, bored, fearful ego:
1.
Earl Nightingale brought the knowledge of the centuries
of how to be a success, which is how to create one's future, and thus create
one’s present. The key to all success¾the progressive realization
of a worthy ideal¾is
one’s chosen attitude.
2.
Brian Tracy gave us the Psychology of Achievement that
describes the way to maximize one’s potential.
3.
Barry Wood, MD, gave Ken Karen Horney’s concepts of
relationships, and his own experience of living with many pathological
conditions, including his own cancers.
4.
Through his own cancer, Barry introduced Ken to Bernie
Siegel, MD.
5.
Bernie taught Ken about great value of group process
for seriously ill people and the function of drawings and guided imagery to
help the individuals in the group.
6.
Bernie gave us the acronym, HOPE, because he could not
develop a name for it.
7.
Sharon Williams, RN, named the acronym “Healing Of
Persons Exceptional”.
8.
Jerry Jampolsky, MD, gave us the Principles of
Attitudinal Healing for groups to use as affirmations.
9.
Jerry and Bernie’s people showed us what facilitators
are, from which we have developed the definition of a HOPE “guide.”
10. Murad
Sayen, skilled facilitator and spiritualist of the Sufi tradition, came at
precisely the right instant to facilitate. He reinforced again and again that
we are a center for attitudinal healing.
11. Joan
Murphy, high level intuitive, and student of Susan Trout’s work, started the
facilitator trainings, based on Trout’s work with the Principles of Attitudinal
Healing.
12. Key
Trust came to us with the Ripley house.
13. Ripple (The Grateful Dead) came in
precisely at the right time to be the focus of a personal peak experience for
me, without which I would not have had the trust and awareness to follow HOPE's
path.
14. Deb Sanborn came with the
emphasis on self-esteem; showing us that this is, indeed, a profound human
issue. She reinforced the awareness of HOPE’s esteeming nature.
15. I share with you my mystical
insight into the divine nature of the human being, and the awareness that the
practical component of attitudinal healing is to replace fear with hope.
16. I also share with you my
knowledge that HOPE is about helping humankind discover its spiritual nature,
and thus lead to the healing of ourselves and the planet.
17. Our present ego-directed
condition gives us the precise awareness that this is the time when HOPE is
most needed.
18.
The
psychology of achievement includes the practice of finding parking spaces.
There is one for HOPE. We need but visualize it, and it is ours. It is today
ever more visible, a shimmering image of HOPE’s potential. It will be given;
for it already exists. It is another gift. It comes from our intention. Let us
be grateful for it now.
An Introduction to Guided Imagery
Note: This post provides a brief introduction to Guided Imagery by Ken Hamilton. More posts on this topic will be created.
Titling on guided imagery
What is guided imagery
Guided imagery is a healing practice wherein the
practitioner sets up an altered state of consciousness that involves both the
practitioner and the individual for whom a "guided imagery" is
created. The alteration of state of consciousness can, and does, very widely
from a very light state in which the participant actively participates to a
deep state in which the participant may have no memory of the process. Because
it is about "imagery" it is about images and imagination.
Why is guided imagery
That it is guided implies that the practitioner somehow
serves as a guide to an imaginary process of imagination directed towards an
outcome that is beneficial for the participant.
Imagery and the mind
It is the author's experience that the brain is an organ
that the mind finds useful and it is not the source of the mind. The mind is a
field of consciousness that involves the entire body. The brain is an organ of
memory reason and communication. It also includes specialized clusters of cells
that set up an attitudinal tone in the entire body through either direct connection
with the central nervous system or indirectly through the bloodstream. The mind
can tap into much broader -- virtually infinite -- patterns of thought that
comprise a virtual Library of patterns of thought that we can well call images
-- pictures, sounds, movement and position sensations, smells, emotions. The
ability of the mind to combine these makes the range from the simple to the complex.
In every case, one a participant can call up an image and associate a feeling
with it. This can bear on memories of experience and feeling that are stored in
specific areas of the brain almost from childbirth on. These remembered events
and the associated feelings can be damaging. Indeed, they can occur in patterns
that can easily be identified with a certain disease state. Using guided
imagery new experiences and their feelings can be integrated in the same
regions of the brain where they can displace the old ones.
Accessing memories
Guided imagery can help in accessing old memories, both
pleasant and ugly. Here, it is vitally important that the practitioner be fully
aware of the possibility of implanting a memory that has no basis in past
history. And there was a period of time towards the end of the last century
where it had become popular to blame all dysfunctional behaviors on repressed
memories, believing that the recovery of the memory would heal the dysfunction.
The ability of the mind to create images is so powerful that a false image of
trauma could create a real physical response!
Intro
What is Guided Imagery
Accessing the power of imagination
Healing is not necessarily curing
Images
Create an imagery with a HOPE stone as an anchor
Create Life stages imagery
to get a future orientation that
makes sense to the person.
Create a safe place in which to meet a guiding
person
A bench by a lake with an old
friend advisor
Imagery and Healing
Healing imagery
for the author, healing is becoming whole... the restoration
of integrity. Helping the participant to recognize the wound as an effect
without identifying the cause creates the possibility of opportunity to
interactively take the participant through the participant's images that would
restore integrity where it had been lost. With that focus, the participant may
well identify a detail of the clothes that had been previously repressed.
Without focusing much mental energy on the personalities in the cause, offering
a suggestion of compassion to be the will means for looking at the situation in
such a way that it is possible to cut one's attachments to the elements of the
clones, which is true forgiveness the author experienced a trawler and early
childhood in which he tried to dig clams from a rocky bottom at high tide with
a garden he fully 100 yards from the clam flat where he is to go and talk with
the clamors. His hand, who was supposed to look out for him, missed him when he
first started off on his childish pursuit of the bivalves come but, realizing
that he had disappeared, conducted a frantic search and saw them disappear
under the water where he was perfectly safe in his mind but not in hers. Her
rescue was quite violent and terrifying. However, the recovery of the memory
some 50 years after the incident was blessed by an immediate presence of
compassion for both himself and his terrified aunt which effected an
instantaneous release of the bond that had held them together all those years
-- a release called forgiveness. The effect of this release and recovery of
memory was freedom from a repetitive stupid behavior that was related to her
shout, "You stupid little boy!" Because of his experience, the author
feels strongly that the recovery of any true repressed memory results in compassion
and forgiveness towards the perpetrator and an elimination of the dysfunctional
behavior. If that does not happen, then the memory is invalid.
Healing words and phrases
The most important concept here is that of using subjunctive
words and phrases. The subjunctive is a tense of word usage that is not direct,
implying instructive or corrective, but indirect, implying suggestion. It is a
tense that we use all too little in our present way of living, but is very well
exemplified by the following: "If I were to...," "Should you
happen to...," "Could you
possibly develop an image of...," or "What do you think it might feel
like to...." all of this as a matter of offering, which makes it possible
for the participant's subconscious to make the ultimate decision. A simple word
that is kind and gentle is "consider". It is gently instructive, but
it's not attached to any particular outcome. The encouragement here is to be
comfortable in your own skin and at the same time be humble. After all, you,
don't have the answers; the answers lie within the participant with whom you
are working.
Brain chemistry
Creating a guided imagery
What goes on in your mind when you create one
rationale for the metaphor
explain
Three stages
Induction
Body
Return
What do you do when you return?
Dialogue
Journaling
Group work
Meditate
Get counsel
Variables
The use of music
my use of the Extended Version of the Pachelbel Canon
Helen Bonney's Guided Imagery to Music
Delivery
Attitude
Voice
Environment
From the Ken Hamilton Archive -- Posted by Stephen D. Thompson
The Primary Function of a H.O.P.E. Guide
GENERAL:
The primary
function of a H.O.P.E. Guide shall be to relate to H.O.P.E. participants in a
manner which is in harmony with the mission and goals of H.O.P.E.
A
H.O.P.E. Guide*:
1. conducts a meeting using the
format of The Golden Book.
2. is a “focus person” for each
meeting, and knows how to assign the responsibility for focusing to others.
3. creates a safe and caring
community at each meeting.
4. offers support and models
non-judgmental listening.
5. offers all participants the
opportunity to share.
6. works in partnership** with
H.O.P.E. participants.
7. engages in her/his own dynamic
healing process by sharing experiences and feelings, and thereby encouraging
others to find their own inner healer.
8. is developing skills in the use
of guided imagery, relaxation techniques and other tools for group and
individual processes.
9. nurtures his/her group(s) by
understanding the need to network (communicate) outside the meeting time
framework.
10. works in partnership with other
H.O.P.E. Guides by attending H.O.P.E. Guide workshops and support meetings.
11. is a link to additional H.O.P.E.
and community resources.
* One
who serves as a model and coach for others that their paths of life become
easier.
** A
harmonious, dynamically balanced relationship between individuals or groups
that is characterized by mutual cooperation and responsibility.
From the Archives of Ken Hamilton -- Posted by Stephen D. Thompson
The Principles of Attitudinal Healing in the Context of Developing Personal Health
*The Principles of Attitudinal Healing in the
Context of Developing Personal Health
Introduction:
The twelve Principles of
Attitudinal Healing come to us from Tiburon, California and the work of the
child psychiatrist, Gerald G. Jampolsky, MD. Jerry was struggling with the
challenge of living with profound dyslexia, and he knew he was not the “dummy”
that his schoolmates and his own family called him. His reading disability made
him appear to be a “dummy” because he could not make enough sense out of the
patterns of written language to get much more than a “D” in any subject in high
school. (The story of how he managed to get past the disability and get
accepted to medical school is fascinating. It gives us an insight into the life
of a man discriminated against because of a disability).
Jerry’s friends, Judy and Bob
Skutch, asked him to critically read excerpts on mental health from the
spiritual text, A Course in Miracles.
At first, he refused because he considered himself an atheist. He finally
yielded to his friends’ request, and it moved him profoundly. He saw it as his
“way home”. He quickly learned that he could accept himself and others without
judgment or criticism. He saw that he had been living a life of fearful,
“attack” thoughts that kept him from seeing the truth in himself and others. He
learned to see all people as gifted and capable. He learned to find these gifts
in himself and he helped others find their own gifts for themselves. He learned
that miracles are simply a matter of timeless possibilities accessible through
attitudes. He found he had the power to change his own attitudes, and helped
others find that same power in themselves.
The focus on attitude as the ultimate determinant of human behavior and development is one hundred years
old. In the end of the nineteenth century, William James, the American
psychologist and pragmatist philosopher, said, “The greatest discovery of my
generation is that human beings, by changing the inner attitudes of their
minds, can change the outer aspects of their lives. It is too bad that more
people will not accept this tremendous discovery and begin living it.”
Alfred Adler, the Austrian
psychiatrist who rejected Sigmund Freud's emphasis on sexuality as the basis
for neurotic behavior, believed that such behavior rose from feelings of
inferiority; an attitude, to be sure. Further, he felt that attitudes were the
ultimate determinant of human behavior. Our genes implied the behavior and our
environment influenced it but, what mattered above all were the attitudes with
which we approached life.
In this century, Viktor
Frankl, MD, out of the hell of Nazi extermination camps, said, “The last of the
human freedoms is to choose one’s attitude in a given set of circumstances; to
choose one’s way. It is this spiritual freedom that cannot be taken away that
makes life meaningful and purposeful.” He also said of happiness that those who
aim directly at happiness do not find it; those whose lives have meaning or
purpose apart from their own happiness find happiness as well. This is a
paraphrase of the eighteenth century British philosopher, David Hume. Its
clearness is an essential concept about happiness that keeps it free of
hedonistic undertones.
The radio personality and
entrepreneur, Earl Nightingale, believed that attitude is the key to the vast reserves of the mind,
which, in turn, is the sole resource from which all success springs.
Nightingale, undeniably the world’s greatest authority on success, began his
study of its essence when he was but
twelve years old. It was in the time of the Great Depression, and his broken
family had not the resources to send him to school beyond public high school.
Determined to go into business and be a success at it, young Earl went to the
local library and told the librarian what he wanted. She responded in a
profoundly caring and nurturing way, and in no time he had his own table
covered with books that he devoured at a prodigious rate. He spent no less than
twelve hours a week at his studies. He went on to prove the accuracy of his
discovery a thousand times over… with a goal in mind and the clear intention to
achieve it, the results are guaranteed.
Attitudes determine our
relationship to our environment. There can be no more powerful idea than the
timeless awareness that one need only be true to one’s own self, and that truth
shall make one free. Only attitudes have the power to lead us to the truth. We
hear today an anecdotal parable of this: The Tale of Two Travelers.
Two men,
unknown to each other, and but a few miles apart, were on the same road leading
them into a new area where they could set up their businesses. As the first man
came over a hill, he saw an attractive town in the valley. There was a house
nearby with a man out front, tending the garden. The traveler stopped and
waited until he had the other’s attention. He said he was from away and was
interested in the town he saw, and asked what kind of people lived in that
town. The man asked, “And what is the nature of people in the town from which
you come, friend?” The traveler answered, “They are a miserable lot… thieves,
robbers, lazy louts and all the town officials are corrupt.” Well,” said the
man, “the people in this town are just like that; a lazy, corrupt bunch of
thieves that would as soon steal your purse as look at you.” “Thank you,” said
the traveler, and turned back the way he had come.
Not much
later, the second traveler crested the hill, saw the town, and the man tending
his garden. He stood and waited until he had the man’s attention, and asked, “I
am from away, and seeking an attractive place in which to settle and bring my
business. Do you know the people of this town? What are they like?” Again came
the question, “And what is the nature of the people in the town from which you
come, sir?” The traveler’s reply: “They are good people; all of them. They are
friendly, industrious, and always ready to help out a stranger.” The homeowner
said, “And those are the people you will find in that town down there.” The
traveler thanked him and continued on his way down into the valley.
The attitudinal work is as
simple as that parable would have us believe. Some might say that the first man
was a realist and the second was an idealist. Rather, the man by the side of
the road was the realist, and the other two were the idealists. They each had
his own idea of what life was like, and the realist knew that such an idea is
always reflected back at us from the environment wherever we are. Our attitudes
determine the way our ideals look to
us, and we select those elements of our environment that fit our ideas and
ideals. In this way, we prove that we were right all along, and make it
possible to say, “I told you so.” Our attitudes make our reality, and if we do not
like our reality, we can change our attitudes… even if we are in a
concentration camp. Frankl found that the survivors of these camps shared
common attitudes, the most powerful of which was hope. Evelyn McDonald, RN, in
her study of survival among people with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, a
progressive, commonly fatal paralysis, found that attitude was the sole
variable in determining the course of the disease. All other variables such as
age, gender, race, job, environment and general health had no effect on
outcome.
Since the nature of our minds
and bodies is extremely complex, it is not appropriate to feel that our
attitudes can cure us of our diseases. However, they can have a great impact on
the course of a disease. With attitudes of hope and courage, coupled with an
intent to achieve a goal, we can force disease and illness to take a second
place to our will. The same type of attitudinal strength influences outcomes in
athletic events. It also determines the success of businesses. What matters is
that an individual, either alone or in community with others, clarifies her or
his image of what they want to have happen, and couples it with the intent to
have it happen. When anyone does this they always seem to get the desired
result. Whether that person is George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, Julius
Caesar, Adolph Hitler or Nelson Rockefeller makes no difference. They all got
the where they wanted through their ideas, their ideals and the intention
behind them.
Napoleon Hill, commissioned
by Andrew Carnegie to define the process of the successful life, found that
every one of the hundreds of successful people he interviewed were aware that
they achieved their dreams by aligning their ideas, ideals and intention with a
power greater than themselves. When they did this alignment and coupled it with
attitudes of power and possibility, they were given what they had set out to
find. Hill, in his seminal text, Think
and Grow Rich, formulates a law that amplifies the law of returns (what you
sow you reap) “Our rewards in life are always
in exact proportion to the level and degree of our service.”
Each of us defines our
rewards in terms of our own value systems. For one, the rewards may be
monetary; for another, emotional. In any case, service is the essential aspect of a life of rewards. These rewards
always come in the process of serving
the ideal… and so do success and happiness.
This formula of success
applies not only to individuals but communities of individuals. And the
communities can be of any size at
all. The application of the formula takes place within a frame of attitudes.
The attitudes are either fear or love. All other attitudes are handmaidens of either of these
fundamental attitudes. Nightingale emphasized that all attitudes are chosen. He
was fond of saying, “I may not be able to change my mind, but I can change my
attitude. Give me about five minutes.”
The twelve principles of
attitudinal healing are powerful working affirmations that empower us to be
able to make these choices. They are means by which we can say to each other,
“May the force be with you!” and encourage and empower ourselves and others to
reach new and greater heights in the level and degree of our service to each
other.
In the following pages, we
shall examine each of the twelve principles of attitudinal healing and their
application in the context of personal health.
PRINCIPLE 1. the
essence of our being is love.
“Essence”
is that which is “essential” or “at the core of” our “Being”. It is not just
our body. After all, we replace the atoms in our body every fourteen months or
so. There must be a blueprint that tells us all how to do it. Our being is more
than our mind. The wisdom of the world tells us about the existence of a
“higher self” that we can find if we get our thoughts out of the way. A word
coming into greater use today that may help us here is “soul”. Many people are
coming to sense that our soul is what we truly are, and that love is essential
to it.
Love is an over-used and misused word. We describe our
feelings with it as in, “I love French fries.” We make a place of it when we
say we “fall in love”. We use it to describe our sexual relationships as in,
“We made love.” We describe our friendships with it as, “I love you to pieces.”
In short, it is a much overused word that we often confuse with passion, lust,
desire, affection or physical sensations. Love, A Course in Miracles tells us, can not be defined, but it is clear
that it has a lot to do with relationships.
Even the misapplications of love mentioned above pertain to relationships, and
it is possible to examine any of them in the light of relationships. Wherever
we see love in the great spiritual traditions, it is always beneficial. It is
always powerful and creative. In A Course
in Miracles the action of love is always one of extending or receiving,
never one of attacking or grasping.
Love in its purest sense can have no opposite. It can
not be destroyed or neutralized. It can not be defiled. Its power is behind the
teachings of the Christ and the Buddha. Hate only indicates the absence of
love; it is not love’s “opposite”. Hate always yields to the power of love, and
never does love yield to hatred.
Hate is the product of fear and anger. Fear uses time
to create situations that do not exist. Fear always projects itself into the
future with but one bias, “Something bad is going to happen.” One of the great
philosophers of our time, J. Krishnamurti, said that fear is but the product of
time and thought, and when any situation is examined in the clear light of the
present moment, fear ceases to exist. Whenever we let ourselves be drawn into
the fearful future, we tragically lose our ability to exercise the creative
mind that is our birthright, and we can not respond appropriately to the
challenge of the present situation.
The response to the worry born of fearful projection is
the mounting of an offense. Such action is always called anger, out of which we create a justification for the attack
feelings and actions that arise from it. The range of reactions, and they are
always re-actions, is from discrimination to nuclear holocausts. No matter how
petty or grand, they all arise in anger that always seems to be “justified” or “righteous”. No matter how much
of either, the cause is always fear. The action is projection. The effect is
separation and loss, and is only temporary.
The benefit of love is just the opposite. Love is never
projected, only extended. It never separates; only joins. In joining, love
makes possible both giving and receiving. Sharing and cooperation become the
way of a life lived in love. To love and be loved is to experience joy, the
benefits of which we are just beginning to appreciate. Love extended with
strings attached is not love, but fear in a clever disguise. This “love” is not
real, for it threatens and suffers from threat. Nothing real can be threatened.
Love extended cleanly, clearly and honestly acknowledges only truth. It sees
the truth in each one to whom it is extended, and thereby gives the giver the
opportunity to see the truth in every situation. To see the truth makes
possible the most appropriate response. Love says of everything, “You are as
you are, and liking or not-liking are not a necessary part of loving you.”
Imagine the power in this attitude; for love is more an
attitude, than an emotion. The power is so great that the only response to any
person or situation is appreciation.
Out of appreciation grows discernment.
Discernment clears our perception, and it is no longer necessary to judge or
criticize another. Now we are free to acquire knowledge. Out of knowledge come right thinking and right action.
Right thinking and right action are truth in our minds and bodies. We are now
free.
As we learn to love, our appreciation of self and
others grows beyond our imaginings. We discern the greatness of every person’s
gift of life and we give ourselves permission to receive this greatness. In
this way community develops without effort. Community is a natural extension of
love.
PRINCIPLE 2. health
is inner peace. healing is letting go of fear.
Health, contrary to our current way of thinking, is a
vastly different condition than simply having no disease or illness. It is also
far more than taking vitamins, eating low fat meals, and exercising regularly.
It is a condition of wholeness in
which there is an implication of holiness.
All of these words; health, heal, whole, and holy come
from the same old, old Sanskrit word that is pronounced hale. Indeed, the English word, “hale”, has the same connotation
and source. If this word has such a broad meaning, it must apply to more than
just the condition of our bodies. It must also include the mind, the home of our thoughts, and
how we use them. It must include the attitudes
of the mind that frame our thoughts.
It must include the emotions that
medical science knows connect our thoughts and our bodies. It must also include
our spirit that connects our whole
being to the sacred source of all being.
A universal experience of peace comes to those who
become aware of the wholeness of
relationship that is given to us. This peace comes not from outside us. It is
an inner peace.
There is but one attitude and its associated emotion
that can prevent us from experiencing the feeling of knowing that peace… fear.
It is an attitude and an emotion. The attitude separates us from each other,
building barriers of not knowing that give rise to the lonely feelings of
hopelessness and despair that we come to identify with fear. When we let go of
the fear, we give ourselves permission to experience the peace, and in that
moment we heal.
In working with others, we share our peacefulness
without effort or cost. When two or more people come together in the greatness
and power of that peace, community rises from its fertile ground. Without that
peace, the barriers go up, and we are no longer whole. When we let go of the
fear, peace returns and community grows again out of our wholeness.
PRINCIPLE 3. giving
and receiving are the same.
This principle comes from an extremely practical source
that Earl Nightingale called The Law of
Returns. In one of its oldest forms it says, “What ye sow; so shall ye
reap.” Today, we are more likely to hear, “What goes ‘round, comes ‘round.” The
law has been with us for thousands of years. We have all heard it repeated
hundreds of times, and yet we most often pay it the scantiest lip service. We
continually act as if the law does not exist.
The law is saying that if any one of us projects fear
or anger, we shall get it back. Why are we so surprised when others tell us of
our anger? Usually the ones we listen to are those who can speak from that core
of inner peace. Being angry, when another says something like, “Well haven’t
you got an attitude!” we feel our hackles rise, and do or say something that
fuels the fire of anger. It is a difficult lesson that most of us are asked to
repeat many times over before we finally “get it”.
Out of fear we avoid giving each other feedback about
our attitudes that frame our actions and words. In so doing, we continue to
deny the law’s existence. We have created a major separation of gender with our
denial. Men are allowed to get angry; women are not. Women are allowed to get
fearful; men are not. This insane dance keeps us from nurturing each other
through our common fears and our complex reactions to them. Because we do select the inner attitudes of our
minds, we can become aware of the attitude we are using in the present
situation and change it at will. We can always give what we want to receive; so
we can love rather than fear. Someday, somewhere, we shall choose to give only
peace, and peace shall flow back to us in that wonderful instant.
PRINCIPLE 4. we
can let go of the past and of the future.
By the time we reach adulthood, we come to believe we
have learned many lessons, and we try to remember them all so we can use them
in future situations. We believe that those old lessons can help us to control
the fearful things that can happen to us in the future. When we were children,
we responded to the present in the present, and often with much creative
imagination. However, we were hurt sometimes, and out of those painful
memories, comes our fear. It takes a terrible toll to spend so much life energy
in times that are not in the present, and really do not exist.
The past contains both success and failure. As much as
we would like to use the past lessons to help us manage our present challenges,
the newcomer is not perfectly like the old. It does take a new strategy to cope
with and learn from the new situation; so let us learn to approach this present
time with a fresh and open outlook. Let us come to the present moment with the
mind of a child, fresh and clear.
We often create our images of tomorrow out of the
experiences of the past. Thus we freeze ourselves in our past over and over
again. Thus frozen, we have little power or control over what is happening… the
fearful future has returned to rule our lives.
Let us learn to look at
time in this way:
The past is history.
The future
is a mystery.
Today is a
gift
And that’s
why
they
call it
the
present.
(Attributed
to Isabelle Clark).
PRINCIPLE 5. now
is the only time there is and each instant is for giving.
Here we combine the last two principles. Let us
continually remind ourselves that what we give, we receive; so let us choose to
give that which we would receive… whether
we have received it yet or not! Please do not let your ability to give be
conditioned on having received something. An old man once got a bad case of
frostbite from sitting in front of his stove telling it to get warm, and then
he would light it! Of course he had Alzheimer’s disease; so his thought and
actions can be forgiven. The action of giving is never tomorrow or yesterday.
It is only today, and, indeed, only in this instant here and now. Only by being
in the present moment can our minds be fresh so we can take appropriate action.
It is only in giving that we can receive. It is only in
serving that we can be given our rewards that are always, as Napoleon Hill said
so clearly, “in exact proportion to the level and degree of our service.” By
nurturing ourselves, we nurture others (A variant of Principle 3). By even
thinking about our contribution we can begin to receive its benefits; so let us
only consider our product… our service, and we shall instantly become richer.
Please consider reading Napoleon Hill’s classic text on
success, Think and Grow Rich
(Northbrook, IL: The Napoleon Hill Foundation, 1937), whenever you encounter
the word, “rich”. In his book, Hill makes it clear that the definition of
“rich” is however each one of us defines it. In terms of attitudes, “rich” is
that which swells the heart and brings peace to the mind. For some it might be
money; for others, song.
Andrew Carnegie commissioned Hill to study the lives of
the most successful people of the United States. Hill wavered when Carnegie
told him that he would have to commit to surpassing Carnegie, himself. He
reassured Hill that is it in the nature of human beings to surpass each other,
and that Hill would have to adopt just such an attitude before Carnegie could
give him the commission. Hill “got it”, and through Carnegie’s gift, went on to
create tens of thousands of millionaires through his work. Carnegie, in his
lifetime, only created a dozen or so).
Hill introduced us to the concept of the mastermind. This is a group of persons
who bring their minds together in
order to achieve a common goal. Such a group experiences what is known as synergy; the condition in which the
creativity of the whole is greater than the sum of its individual parts.
PRINCIPLE 6. we
can learn to love ourselves and others by forgiving rather than judging.
To forgive is extraordinarily simple, and at the same
time equally difficult. (Simple does not mean “easy”). Literally speaking,
“for”-“give” means to give over or let go of something. It is an exquisitely
personal process that opens the door to love. If someone does something that
hurts another, it is the other who
carries the pain of that injury, and it is only the injured party that can put
down the pain she or he is carrying. The “perpetrator” may, in his or her
own mind, be completely free of that pain, either from ignorance or denial. Any
judgment of the perpetrator reinforces the pain, either from guilt over
injuring the ignorant person, through further injury by the perpetrator in
response to the accusation or from the suffering cause by bitterness and
resentment over the perceived insult or injury. Forgiveness is always of self,
and it opens the door to love.
The law of returns says that resentment breeds
resentment and love breeds love. If the injured one is to heal, she or he must
choose that way of love, and extend it if she or he is to receive love. To
judge is to hold a fearful attitude, no matter how “justified” one may feel in
so doing. It is of utmost importance the we know that forgiving does not make
the action of the perpetrator “right”. It is equally important to know that
when we decide that something is “right” in such circumstances, we are being just
as judging as when we judge something to be “wrong”. It is certain that the
correct action is the one that simply lets go of the fear and guilt, anger and
grief that are tied up in the action. The act of forgiving that does this
allows the painful attitudes to fall away to make room for love to replace
them.
It is important
to move away from extremes when we consider judging and forgiving. It is far
more common to judge another for many perceived “small” wrongs, and the result
is worse than if one only looks at the “major” wrongs. The accumulation of
resentment subtly distorts perception so that barriers silently grow, and
relationships fragment and scatter without being at all aware of what made it
happen.
The beginning of a healing relationship come when one
person chooses to let go of painful perceptions. The instant this happens, the
past disappears along with the criticism, judgment, bitterness and resentment.
With the disappearance of these blocks to love, the most creative power of all,
community becomes real and people immediately experience the effect of the
mastermind.
PRINCIPLE 7. we
can become love finders rather than fault finders.
This principle brings action to Principle 6. The
obvious action word is “finding”. It is synonymous with “discovering”. It is
clearly a choice that we can bring into our lives. Let us choose to see the
relationships that exist between us rather than the blocks that separate us.
Let us choose and direct ourselves to respond to the awareness of a “block”
with right action and thought that lead us past it. If it seems that there are
only blocks, then we can decide that there is something we have been attached to
fearfully that keeps these blocks in place. In such a circumstance, we must
direct our focus on ourselves with love and forgiveness in order to see that
which stands in our way. Then, and only then, can we free ourselves to come
into harmonious relationship with each other.
PRINCIPLE 8. we
can choose and direct ourselves to be peaceful inside regardless of what is
happening outside.
Here again we are reminded of the power of the freedom
of choice. Remember what Nightingale said about the little amount of time he
needed to change his attitude and how hard it was to change his mind. What
mattered was where he could find the ability to exercise choice. Frankl spoke of the freedom to choose an attitude. We all
have the power to choose love rather than fear. We choose to return to inner peace and find health as promised in
Principle 1. Now we understand the great power of forgiveness and living in the
present moment that helps us attain the state of mind that Frankl was able to
attain in the hell in which the Nazis tried to hold him for three years. He
chose peace. It kept his mind clear. He describes it in his classic, Man’s Search for Meaning.
Any individual that chooses and directs itself to move
toward that state of inner peace returns to live in its own time. It discovers
the power to describe and achieve its vision. It comes to learn that its vision
belongs to it alone, and that it holds itself in a constructive, cooperative
relationship with the other individuals who see life in this same, peaceful and
loving way. The person discovers its power and restores its creative ability
with a strength never before imagined possible.
PRINCIPLE 9. we
are students and teachers to each other.
When we open ourselves to each other, extending the
benefits we have received from life, we develop an immediate exchange with
others who are similarly open. Even those who are not yet open, see the
strength and creative power of our community; so they shift towards our way of
life. Synergy flows. We free ourselves from judgment and criticism as we see
another application of the law of returns that makes us equal to all others. We
thus free ourselves of fear and become whole. We are a true community of people
serving and supporting each other in what we now call the “win-win” model of
competition.
PRINCIPLE 10. we
can focus on the whole of life rather than the fragments.
We already know how to do this. We need but intend our
wholeness, our healing, in order to achieve this state. In this way we learn to
put away all that comes from the fear that fragmented us. There is an immediate
bonding of all the pieces that fear held separate. The wholeness prevails and
what we can teach and learn, give and receive, becomes total and without limit.
This focus guarantees synergy at any level at which it is practiced. Begin with
the one, and include the many. The movement of information is unimpeded.
Education flows effortlessly. The creative ability of the individual expands
without limit. Everyone now benefits.
PRINCIPLE 11. since
love is eternal, death need not be viewed as fearful.
Return to Principles One, Two and Five. Use these
principles to help you orient your life. As it is today, we all die. Our
fearful thoughts of death can drastically alter our perceptions of each other,
the world, and all living things. They can create immense blocks that fearfully
separate us from each other. We have already chosen to move beyond such blocks
and find only love, for that is, indeed, what we are. We learn to focus on
life… simple but not easy. The life of the individual now reaches beyond time.
PRINCIPLE 12. we
can either perceive others as extending love or giving a call for help.
We have learned the inherent wisdom of bringing love
into our relationships. It bonds us and heightens our creativity. It helps us
find our direction and purpose as a person. We no longer condemn those who
resist being in relationship with us. We know that their presence has an effect
on us, and we on them. Instead we extend love, encouraging them to come and
share their feelings and beliefs with us. We choose to share loving
relationships that bring us together over fearful relationships that would fragment
us. And because of our own healing experience, we welcome them, knowing they
seek the health we sought but a moment ago.
From the Archives of Ken Hamilton - Posted by Stephen D. Thompson
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Crossing the Bridge of Time : Cherokee prophecy and Genesis 3 © 2003 Ken Hamilton In 1994, a Cherokee spiritual leader addressed a ...
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*The Principles of Attitudinal Healing in the Context of Developing Personal Health Introduction: The twelve Principles of Attitudinal...