Trust

As I read about the continuing economic ‘crisis’ – and I hesitate to use that word, because every time someone uses it, it just cements the idea that we should all panic -- a question keeps coming up for me:

How do you know whom to trust?

Here are 3 ways I know. I'll start with the personal, because that's easiest, and move on from there:

First, I have personal experience of someone over time, or at least a number of experiences with that person, and they generally

• tell the truth, and
• honor their agreements, i.e. do what they say they’ll do when they say they’ll do it, or
• tell you if they need to change an agreement, and
• are reasonably predictable

So with friends, it’s pretty easy. I know who tells me the truth to the best of his or her ability. Yes, people make mistakes – that’s okay. But telling me what they know to be false – that’s not okay.

I know who does what he says, when he says he will. I know that Rob is always on time. I know that Michael is reliably 10 minutes late. I don’t like it, but I can deal with it, because it’s so predictable (i bring a book or some work to do while I wait). I know that Jinny has a bad habit of canceling at the very last minute, like after I’m already at the restaurant for lunch. I no longer meet her anywhere but her house or mine – because she can’t not show up at her own house, and because if she doesn’t show at mine, hey, I’ve got lots of other things to do. And frankly, we don’t see each other all that much any more.

Second, the person or institution has a public (or at least verifiable) record of telling the truth, honoring their agreements, alerting me if they can’t, and being reasonably predictable.

This is how I hire contractors. I call at least 3 references and ask the references if they were happy with the contractor's work, and did the contractor do the work when they said they would, on time and on budget. If the contractor won’t give me references, I’m not interested. If the references aren’t 100%, unequivocally positive, I’m not interested. It works -- I’m generally very happy with the people I hire.

A variation on this is crowdsourcing, Yelp, for example. You get dozens, or even hundreds of reviews by other people -- and they can't ALL have an axe to grind. I use Yelp for restaurants, and have found it fairly reliable.

Third, an institution is regulated by, or perhaps insured by, some other institution that has a public record of telling the truth, and honoring their agreements.

This is why the SEC exists. It’s why public corporations are required to keep their books according to generally accepted accounting principles, and why those books are examined by independent auditors. It’s why the FDIC exits. All of these institutions, and many more, exist to ensure that we can trust the folks that hold our money.

What if an institution – or a lot of institutions – break our trust? This is precisely the problem now. Many of us now feel we can’t trust institutions we used to. The ‘financial crisis’ comes down to the fact that banks don’t even trust each other enough to lend to each other overnight! If they don't trust each other, whom do they trust? If they don’t trust each other, should we trust them? Well, that’s what the FDIC is for.

But after the appalling response to Hurricane Katrina and being lied into the Iraq war, to name just 2 instances, many of us don’t even trust our government. And it is the government who is supposed to be the ultimate guarantor of trust and safety.

So what we’re having is a (well-deserved) systemic crisis of trust in our institutions, which is only manifested in a financial one. The problem is that over time, we have been lied to so systematically by so many institutions that we no longer can reliably tell truth from lies, nor whom to trust. It's time to change that.

How do you resolve a crisis of trust?

Like everything else, trust starts at home. Here are a few ideas:

1. If you already have an accurate sense of what is trustworthy and what isn't, honor it. Maybe it's a feeling in your body, or some other sort of knowing.It doesn't matter how you get your information -- it only matters that you get it -- and that you trust yourself.
2. If that sense is not 100%, learn your lesson from each time your trust is breached -- and add that to your 'trust meter' (aka b**s**t detector).
3. Make sure your trust meter is on at all times. If it seems too good to be true, it is.
4. if you don't understand something, keep asking till you do. If you never do, walk away. If it doesn't make sense, walk away. (And if you can't read a balance sheet, please learn how. There's a decent article here.)
5. If you are not already the sort of person other people can trust, work very diligently to become that person and gain others' trust. Tell the truth, honor your agreements, or tell people up front when you can't. This is the single best way to improve your trust meter -- not to mention your relationships.

A BIG Problem for Psychics

In case you are new to m blog, let me define clairvoyant (which literally means seeing clearly) as one who gets their psychic/intuitive information in pictures. Similarly, a clairsentient is one who gets his/her information in feelings. If you've ever had a 'gut feeling' about something that turned out to be right, you're clairsentient. Things are usually a bit more clear for clairaudients, who 'hear' their information -- but not always.

Probably the biggest problem for clairvoyants and clairsentients is the problem of translating the picture or feeling into useful data in the real world. Here's an example I'm pondering now:

On December 9, 2000, when the Supreme Court prevented a full count of the Florida Presidential vote, I was very upset, and asked my guides for some insight. They gave me 2:

1) They showed me the inside of a Roman galley. As I watched, a new slave master took over, and the slaves stopped rowing out of defiance.

2) I heard the words, "There will be a looting of the Federal Treasury on a scale never before seen in the history of the human race." I remember these words clearly and distinctly, despite my poor auditory memory.

Now for the problem -- interpretation. At the time, I interpreted (1) to mean a recession, and shortly thereafter, the dot-com bubble burst. And (2) reminded me of the Resolution Trust Corp., the entity that was set up to buy the assets of failed savings and loans in the late 1980's, so I thought it was financial, but wasn't really clear.

Then when $8.8 billion went missing in Iraq, I figured that was what (2) had meant, especially in light of the $1 billion/week price tag of the occupation.

But what if they were talking about the proposed bailout of the world's financial system by the US taxpayer (i.e. you and me)? What if (1) is about events still to come?

I only get answers to questions that are asked -- and I was so shocked by what I 'saw' and 'heard' that it never occurred to me to ask the follow up questions about what when. where & how! So be careful what you ask -- be as complete as you can!

Q: What is the result of a completely free market?

A: Piracy

With no regulation and/or no enforcement of regulation, the pirates, those willing to lie, cheat and most especially steal, fleece everyone else with no consequences. And when it's clear there are no consequences, even those with some conscience will join in.

That's what got us into this financial crisis, IMHO. Start with the mortgage brokers who pressured the appraisers into inflated appraisals. Add in their lies to at least some of the borrowers, who didn't bother to read the fine print (okay, that's the stupidity of the borrowers). Then add in the fact that all those mortgages were packaged and sold and resold, so that the originators, as well as lots of middle men made money with no risk. Then add in the lack of regulation, lack of transparency, and lack of oversight on Wall Street.

The pirates looted the little guys at the individual level. Now they are so powerful that they are 'too big to fail' and they are looting the Treasury, i.e. We, the People, at the national, and in fact, international, level.

No sooner did I write this than I read at The Big Picture:

former SEC director, and he spits out the blunt truth: The current excess leverage now unwinding was the result of a purposeful SEC exemption given to five firms.

You read that right -- the events of the past year are not a mere accident, but are the results of a conscious and willful SEC decision to allow these firms to legally violate existing net capital rules that, in the past 30 years, had limited broker dealers debt-to-net capital ratio to 12-to-1.

Instead, the 2004 exemption -- given only to 5 firms -- allowed them to lever up 30 and even 40 to 1.

Who were the five that received this special exemption? You won't be surprised to learn that they were Goldman, Merrill, Lehman, Bear Stearns, and Morgan Stanley.

As Mr. Pickard points out that "The proof is in the pudding — three of the five broker-dealers have blown up."

So while the SEC runs around reinstating short selling rules, and clueless pension fund managers mindlessly point to the wrong issue, we learn that it was the SEC who was in large part responsible for the reckless leverage that led to the current crisis.

The News Diet & Your Inner Balance Sheet

You may not know that I'm sort of an economics wonk. I took LOTS of econ courses at Princeton, and then, of course, there is that Harvard MBA. So I follow the economy with great interest (for links to my favorite econoblogs -- which are way better than mainstream news sources -- see below).

Waking up Monday to the news that Lehman Brothers was filing Chapter 11 bankruptcy, and that Merrill's thundering herd was about to be put out to pasture in North Carolina as part of Bank of America was really shocking. (Do the bulls get more complacent with more room to roam? Or does the herd get culled?) Now the US government, i.e. We, the People, are becoming the world's largest insurer (AIG)... OMG! (For those of you who are being technical about it, We only bought 80% of the holding company, not the insurance companies, but still...)

It’s not just me, either. A client yesterday was pretty freaked out about it all, partly for personal reasons, but mostly because she was taking on the energy of the world. I understand that -- I do it, too. That's why my guides told me this summer that I had to go on a news diet for about 6 weeks.

I highly suggest a news diet. Limit yourself to a small amount of time per day, just enough so you know what's going on, even if not all the details. That is, you know Hurricane Ike happened, but you don't see the photos of the Bolivar peninsula becoming 3 islands. You'll be amazed at how much better you feel!

You'll also understand why most people don't get very freaked out about the bigger picture -- they're just not paying attention. (I actually think this may be a good thing, because people being oblivious and continuing to do what they've always done keeps things moving forward in a calm, orderly way.)

What I learned from the news diet is that I do NOT have to embody the world's problems. In fact, I function better from my own inner balance sheet than from the one denominated in dollars in my computer, the one that changes daily, based on the markets.

Your inner balance sheet, like a financial one, consists of assets and liabilities. From the longer term, i.e. multiple lifetime, perspective, any physical assets are short term assets. And financial assets, which at this point are really only electronic scorekeeping, are the shortest term of all. They can be wiped out instantly by an electrical failure! There's an old line that 'you can't take it with you'. Anything you can't take with you is a short term asset.

So an inner balance sheet would look like this:

ASSETS

Short Term

Financial Assets (money, CDs, stocks & bonds, etc.)
External Physical Assets (car, consumer durables, house)
Physical Body

Long Term

Positive Traits, like

- dependability,
- curiosity,
- endurance,
- intelligence
- a loving heart
- willingness to work hard
- willingness to share
- ability to flow with change
- ability to hold a positive vision for yourself and the world
- ability to access your own inner guidance

Skills -- not just workplace skills, but also life skills, like

- cooking yummy, healthy food
- fixing a running toilet
- driving a car
- making people laugh
- coaxing green things from the earth
- comforting a scared child or a heartsick adult

Good Relationships (yes, these carry over from lifetime to lifetime)

LIABILITIES

Short Term

Financial Debt
- consumer loans
- credit card balances
- mortgages
Personal Debt
- favors, books & tools not returned

Long Term

Negative Attitudes (like selfishness, laziness, or intolerance)
Bad Habits, including negative thought patterns
Addictions


In times of turmoil, it's important to remember all of these things.

You do have to pay attention to short term assets, but our society encourages us to pay attention ONLY to short term assets, and ignore the long term ones. The long term assets are important -- maybe more important -- because they will stay with you no matter what happens in the outside world, in this lifetime, as well as others. In some sense, your long term assets create your short term ones.

Take a few moments right now to take stock of your inner assets. And if you’d like some help decreasing those long term liabilities, call me at 888-4-hollis (888-446-5547).

For my favorite econoblogs, see below.

My Favorite Econoblogs

The Big Picture (Barry Ritholz)

Calculated Risk

Paul Krugman's blog

Floyd Norris' blog

CEO Economic Uupdate

Infectious Greed (Paul Kedrosky)

Dr. Housing Bubble blog

Freakonomics

I read a lot of real estate ones, too, but figured this was enough for one day!

Mathematical Intuition

The article is interesting -- but the real fun is in the self-test. Dots flash quickly on the screen, and you get to decide, based on the flash, whether there are nore blue or yellow ones. This is the very line between perception and intuition. You do see them, but they flash by so fast that you can't count them. You must use some non-rational part of your brain to make the decision.

PS - I was very average -- see if you can do better! :)

Basics - Gut Instinct’s Surprising Role in Math - NYTimes.com

Our friends followed us home!

When we were at the (somewhat grandly, but also aptly, named) Ambassador to the Universe training, Steve Greer kept telling us to 'take some ETs home' with us, and to try to contact them from home. He emphasized that we don't need him, we can do this ourselves. Though I must say, at home, I don't have 45 pairs of eyes to scan the sky, let alone a night scope. Hell, I don't even have binoculars. I've never seen anything when I've been out with a small local group, either. So although I understood his point, I really wasn't sure I'd ever be able to do it.

On the way home from Mt. Shasta, Kosta and I were talking about what location to use to try to contact our star brothers and sisters. I kept saying that it would be pretty easy to do it from Pacifica, partly because of the coast and the hills and bluffs overlooking it, but also because it would be pretty easy to show them where to go, using our minds. I just thought about showing them San Francisco and then the coast slightly south of it.

It was hot when we got home, so after unloading the car, Kosta and I went for a walk this evening on Linda Mar beach in Pacifica. We were walking north(ish) along the beach at about 7:10PM. It was still broad daylight, and the sun was probably 15 – 25 degrees above the horizon. I saw a bright white light about 15 degrees above the horizon, out over the Pacific, about 25 degrees north of where the sun was sinking.

It occurred to me that this couldn’t be a star (it was in the west, and the sun hadn't set yet), so I asked it to blink off and on to show me that it was really a craft. It waited a while, then slowly blinked out, and then slowly came back on, just as bright and in the same location! It stayed for a while, and then slowly blinked out again. The whole encounter was probably 3 minutes.

We were so excited that we called a friend about half an hour later to tell her, and as we spoke, another appeared! It hung in the darkening western sky for a while, and again, I wasn't sure what it was, so I asked it to blink off and on. It blinked off, slowly. I 'got' that "this materializing and dematerialzing is harder than you think", because i was getting impatient, waiting for it to blink on again.

It did eventually blink on again, though in a slightly more southerly location. It hung there in the sky, bright white. As we watched it, we both saw a second light blink on! Both hung there for a while, and then one began to move to the east. Eventually, that one began to have red blinks, kind of like a terrestrial aircraft, but not quite. It moved across the sky for a while and then disappeared. The other one was still hanging over the Pacific, but eventually, it, too, began to move east, and then to blink.

It had now been 1 1/4 hours since we saw the first UFO, and we got in the car and went home.

The Psychophysiology of Fear - Science Column - David Ewing Duncan - Natural Selection - Portfolio.com

Interesting piece about anxiety -- enjoy!
Hollis

The Psychophysiology of Fear - Science Column - David Ewing Duncan - Natural Selection - Portfolio.com

About last night...

The triangular craft came back! It must have been a bit farther away, because it was a bit smaller, and also a bit tilted, because the equilateral triangle wasn't quite even. But all the rest was there. This time, it only stayed about a minute or so, but all 45 of us saw it again.

While it was up in the sky, most of us saw a white streak that headed down towards Mt. Shasta.

Shortly after that, someone with night vision goggles announced that he could see lights on Mt. Shasta -- in a place that is above the tree line and much too steep to have anything on it. The group has a video camera with night vision that has a large viewfinder, and many of us crowded around that so we could see what was going on. There were indeed 6 large lights arranged sort of parallel to each other. One towards the middle was taller than the rest. Occasionally, it would shoot out energy sideways along the mountain.

None of this was visible with the naked eye -- you had to have night vision equipment, which reads infrared light. But with that equipment, it was definitely there.

We were all milling about, using various pieces of equipment to see what we could see for about 45 minutes. I'm pretty sure some of our star brothers/sisters were with us, and when I said that, I heard a few assents, one of which came from Steve. And I'm pretty sure I heard someone say telepathically that "they're very primitive! Very sweet, but very primitive." Later, I 'heard' someone wondering why we needed all this equipment. I answered, "Because we can't see everything you can!" somewhat indignantly, and the other being though, "oh...", like that had not occurred to him/her. It was actually kind of funny, and I don't think I'm making it up, because it would never have occurred to me to wonder that.

And now for something completely different...

Just reading this while drinking my coffee this AM:

Mind - Spot on Popularity Scale Speaks to the Future; Middle Has Its Rewards - NYTimes.com

Mind - Spot on Popularity Scale Speaks to the Future; Middle Has Its Rewards - NYTimes.com

Our friends followed us home!

When we were at the (somewhat grandly, but also aptly, named) Ambassador to the Universe training, Steve Greer kept telling us to 'take some ETs home' with us, and to try to contact them from home. He emphasized that we don't need him, we can do this ourselves. Though I must say, at home, I don't have 45 pairs of eyes to scan the sky, let alone a night scope. Hell, I don't even have binoculars. I've never seen anything when I've been out with a small local group, either. So although I understood his point, I really wasn't sure I'd ever be able to do it.

On the way home from Mt. Shasta, Kosta and I were talking about what location to use to try to contact our star brothers and sisters. I kept saying that it would be pretty easy to do it from Pacifica, partly because of the coast and the hills and bluffs overlooking it, but also because it would be pretty easy to show them where to go, using our minds. I just thought about showing them San Francisco and then the coast slightly south of it.

It was hot when we got home, so after unloading the car, Kosta and I went for a walk this evening on Linda Mar beach in Pacifica. We were walking north(ish) along the beach at about 7:10PM. It was still broad daylight, and the sun was probably 15 – 25 degrees above the horizon. I saw a bright white light about 15 degrees above the horizon, out over the Pacific, about 25 degrees north of where the sun was sinking.

It occurred to me that this couldn’t be a star (it was in the west, and the sun hadn't set yet), so I asked it to blink off and on to show me that it was really a craft. It waited a while, then slowly blinked out, and then slowly came back on, just as bright and in the same location! It stayed for a while, and then slowly blinked out again. The whole encounter was probably 3 minutes.

We were so excited that we called a friend about half an hour later to tell her, and as we spoke, another appeared! It hung in the darkening western sky for a while, and again, I wasn't sure what it was, so I asked it to blink off and on. It blinked off, slowly. I 'got' that "this materializing and dematerialzing is harder than you think", because i was getting impatient, waiting for it to blink on again.

It did eventually blink on again, though in a slightly more southerly location. It hung there in the sky, bright white. As we watched it, we both saw a second light blink on! Both hung there for a while, and then one began to move to the east. Eventually, that one began to have red blinks, kind of like a terrestrial aircraft, but not quite. It moved across the sky for a while and then disappeared. The other one was still hanging over the Pacific, but eventually, it, too, began to move east, and then to blink.

It had now been 1 1/4 hours since we saw the first UFO, and we got in the car and went home.

Swimming to save the earth

Yesterday morning, despite being completely exhausted from lack of sleep, I had the sense that I just had to go swim in Lake Siskiyou.

I've done this lots of times before, and it is spectacular! I bring swim fins and a kickboard, and swim distance (literally a mile or more) in the lake. Because I can go so far from where cars come in, no one else can swim where I'm swimming. Because it's after Labor Day, there aren't even any kayaks or row boats with people fishing, so I am all alone in the quiet with the water, the birds, the trees, the sky, and the most amazing view of Mt. Shasta, which seems to rise from the lake, framed by evergreens. (Wish I could take a camera in the lake with me, but I just have to use the mind camera!)

So yesterday's swim was a swimming meditation, because I was supposed to meditate for an hour. I began the mantra again. An enormous gold ring appeared around me, probably over a hundred yards radius. It had that counter-clockwise rotation. I was aware that the trees could feel it, too, and that they knew from this that at least one human cared about them and the earth. This was BIG for them!

And then I remembered my experience with the tree in Santa Cruz, which showed me a beam of light from its top, and explained to me that trees use these beams to communicate with each other.

So I asked the trees to tell their friends of this experience! and to hold on -- to know that we support them, and to do their best to hang in there while humanity gets its act together.

Then I 'heard' the words 'boreal forest', and so I think that they can spread the word far and wide.

Yes, one person (you!) can save the earth

Every day, we are supposed to meditate in the morning for an hour. I'm not good at sitting still to do that, so a couple of days ago, I went for a walking meditation. In my mind, I sung a mantra pretty much the entire time, walking up a mountain road.

Now, this mantra is really powerful -- it is the one that I use which brings star visitors to heal people's physical ailments.

At one point, my guides directed me out onto some land (with a great view!), and showed me the effects of doing this meditation outside. A counter-clockwise vortex of golden light emanates from this meditation, and helps to heal the earth. So if I do the mantra as I walk, I am healing the earth. As I walked back down the hill, the soles of my feet seemed to have suction cups to the ground. This made it a bit harder to walk, but I could 'see' the trail of golden light behind me.

You can do this, too! Focus on a mantra as you hike.

Up in the sky, it's...

a (star visitor's) craft! No joke. HUGE.

We were sitting up on the mountain in our circle last night, when one woman pointed out 3 points of light, in an equilateral triangle, that were moving together!

I could actually see lines between the points and lines that went from the points to the center of the triangle. To me, they appeared only faintly, but others with night vision equipment said they could see them quite plainly. And the craft blocked out the stars behind it! (Actually, the folks with night vision goggles said that they bent the light, rather than blocking it entirely.)

Steve, who borrowed the night vision goggles, said that this was one side of a huge craft which housed representatives from over 1,000 different civilizations. (He talks about having viewed it remotely.) He also said, based upon calculations he's done, that it is probably hundreds of miles across, and was outside our solar system.

The triangle proceeded slowly across the night sky from west to east, to the north of us, for 3 minutes! Think about that, that's a long time. Then it grew fainter and fainter and literally disappeared.

Steve also said that the last time this had appeared, several years ago, it had been seen from Vancouver, BC to LA.

Up on Mt. Shasta again

The evening started out quite warm, and with incredible numbers of anomalous activities in the sky. Fastwalkers, lights in the trees that could not have been from electricity, because there is none, flashbulbs going off in the sky! There were even two lights moving quickly and simulataneously in the sky, parallel to each other.

After a while, we did a mediation in silence, where we were asked to invite the star visitors in our individual ways. So I did what I do. It was really bright inside, so I thought perhaps something was bright outside (a craft?), but when I opened my eyes, I was shocked by how dark it was outside! Anyway, I closed my eyes again, until something told me to open them and look up at about 45 degrees from the horizon.

OMG! There was this thing in the sky, like a hologram, that kept shifting and changing its shape. It was never the same twice, and either it was HUGE or it was pretty close. I saw this with my physical eyes, not my clairvoyance. The hologram was mostly green, although occasionally it turned orange. And it stayed there for minutes, until eventually it faded out.

During a group discussion, I had the impulse to put my hand out in front of me, palm up. When I did, I felt this odd electrical feeling, not like static electricity, but more like pinpricks of electricity happening randomly and quickly over my palm. I wondered if I were making it up, so I put out my left palm the same way, and nothing. So I asked whatever was doing that to please stop doing it to my right hand and do it to my left instead -- and it did! And then I asked to shift it to my right again, and it did that! And then both, and it did that! And then I had to ask it to stop, because I was so tired... I almost fell asleep, which is not easy at 40 degrees.

Later on, the entire group saw this one light that moved quickly across the sky from East to West, blinking on and off as it went.

Then in our last meditation, we were holding hands in the circle. Something began to send jolts of energy into me, sometimes from my feet, but more often from seemingly random points in the lower half of my body. This was NOT kundalini, as it was not going up my spine. I'd just get this jolt and jump. It was so bad that felt I had to apologize to those on either side of me afterwards. Both noticed my repeated jumping. One guy across the circle said that he saw a red light going up through people's feet. I don't think that was what this was happening to me, but maybe.

The Rose Quartz Sphere, Part 2

Yesterday afternoon, in the restaurant room where we were meeting, Steve passed the rose quartz sphere around the group again. When it got to me, it said immediately that it had a message for me, and then it showed my an array of crystals. But since there was a group discussion going on, I couldn’t get any more.

So at the break, I asked Steve if I could borrow the crystal and meditate with it. He agreed, and so I spend the second half of the afternoon session with the crystal instead of the group. First it showed me the crystal array that it wants me to build, though actually, it's going to look like a necklace. I think it will be some sort of communication device, like the crystal sphere itself. Then i held it over different chakras for healing, including the back of my 3rd eye, and it did some work opening my 3rd eye, which I've wanted.

Then it wanted me to take it outside! So of course I did, partly because I couldn't figure out how to walk back into this big circle of people an hour late, and not feel stupid (Steve tends to ridicule people who show up late, and I really wanted to avoid that. Plus there was no way to get in without walking through the middle of the circle.)

WOW! Grass glowed, trees glowed. Something said that there is no blade of grass that does not matter. And I got that this crystal sphere was associated with what Steve would call God-consciousness beings. Then wind began to play in a spruce tree, and the sphere said to me, "What you see as the wind in a tree, we see as the interaction of conscious beings", and very briefly, I saw it that way. Then the crystal wanted me to hold it in my left hand and touch things with my right. So I began with a leaf, then a flower, then another leaf on another plant, then a rock, then a spruce branch, then a feather, and on and on and on. I could feel a different tone with each item I touched, a different vibration in a different part of my body. The crystal said "We are attuning to Earth."

More from Mt. Shasta

Monday night, it was a few degrees warmer, and I had an extra pair of socks on. So mostly I was warm enough to concentrate.

Things blink on and off in the sky. They move and then change direction abruptly. Satellites can't do that. And one of the volunteers has a satellite chart, so we know when one of the 'fastwalkers' in the sky is man-made.

Other lights seem to disappear into Mt. Shasta, the outline of which you can see, despite it being the dark of the moon. Or colored lights appear in the trees, and just stay, or blink on and off. Remember, we are up on a mountain, at the end of a dirt road in a national forest, miles from anywhere, so these are NOT house lights, or car lights. In the center of our circle, were wavy lines that kept changing, someone else said they looked like something was boiling, and that's a good way to put it. Oh, did I mention how much fun it is to be with people, a few of whom 'see' more than I do?

The really amazing thing was a rose quartz crystal that Steve Greer passed around. When I held it in my hands, I could feel a vibration running up my left arm through my heart and down my right arm. The crystal was much warmer than it had any right to be at 40 degrees outside. Perhaps that was just he warmth from people's hands? Other people said it was warm, or cold on one side and warm on the other. People's reports of how heavy it was varied as well.

At the end of the evening, we walked up into a grove of trees, and did a standing meditation in a circle, holding hands. I don't remember why, but Steve pulled the crystal from his pocket (it had been in a pocket over his heart), and looked at it. He sank to the ground and said 'oh my god, it's spinning off worlds and galaxies!" So we rushed around him. I was standing right behind him, and got a good look at it over his shoulder. With my eyes, no psychic anything involved, you could see points of colored light floating off the crystal sphere. Some were individual, some were in groups, one group seemed to rotate -- it was like looking at the Milky Way, if it were rotating! Lots of us saw this, and one guy with night vision goggles saw it through those. NO making this up.

Greetings from Mt. Shasta

I'm up here for a CSETI training. We meet in the afternoons in a restaurant conference room, and then go up on the mountain at night to communicate with all sorts of non-human beings. (If you are skeptical, think of it this way: with billions of stars out there, any or all of which may have planets, how likely is it that we are the only intelligent life in the universe? Not bloody likely, IMHO. And if we can communicate telepathically, which I certainly can, why wouldn't we be able to communicate with them?)

Sunday night, the first night was mostly COLD. We were up on the mountain for 4 hours, mostly sitting, and it was in the 30s. I wore every layer I had, and was teetering on the edge of cold, except my toes, which were like icicles. Hard to meditate like that, but I did fall asleep briefly! (That's because I normally go to bed 10-ish and get up at 5AM or so, while here, we go out from 8:30PM to 12:30 or 1AM. The hours are so different!) And actually, it was warmer in the circle than elsewhere on the mountain, because we were inside some sort of energetic dome that I and some others could see. That protected us from the worst of it. And inside the circle, it was absolutely still... not even a hint of a breeze.

More to the point, there was a LOT of anomalous activity, which augured well, because it was only the first night, and the group energy was still forming. We sat in a circle, and I had my back to much of the activity, but I saw a lot, as well. I’ve been working with some star visitors since last summer, and it was interesting how familiar it felt.

How to Lasso Lady Luck!

Did you know there is a structure to luck? Or that you do actually make you own luck, and it's not by hard work?

There are several principles to lassoing luck, and one of them is to have a network, and cast your net wide.

Last week's column (scroll down 5 entries) did that -- without any intention on my part. Gina, a long-time acquaintance, answered my email with this:

"... I want to attend the Slow Food Nation conference at Fort Mason over Labor Day weekend. In my dreams, I want to stay in the Marina district in a small studio, ride my bike in to the event, hear some great music on the lawn at the concert, and fill myself with all kinds of ideas to bring people back to the conservation of green growing things for their soul.

"Booking that studio has been on my to do list. Booking that expensive hotel room....I just can't click on $180 per night. I know I need to get on with it or I'll miss the whole event. And then this idea came to me as I was reading your last newsletter about divinely inspired procrastination and was so amused.

"Would you happen to know anyone who would need house sitting/pet sitting in the San Fran area with safe parking? I'm the woman to do the job!"

Well, as it happens, I'm leaving this weekend for Mt. Shasta! So I got Gina as a house sitter (and although we had the cat feeding minimally covered, I had given up on someone watering the plants), and Gina got a free place to stay.

We both used our networks, and we both got lucky!

To learn how to be both luckier, happier and more successful, click here.

Comments on "Divinely Inspired Procrastination"

"I've put off many things, or begrudgingly gone thru with it, and discovered that:

1. The cost was less because I waited
2. A valuable person came along that was instrumental in the experience being wonderful
3. When I explored my dissatisfaction and went thru with it with resistance (but did it anyway from integrity), I realized
it wasn't fulfulling and I had made up all kinds of stories about it. (is that dysfunctional expectation-ism?)"


- posted by Gina

"Great stories. I've found this to be the case almost any time I have that problem.

Divine Order rocks!"


- posted by Annie

Life on Planet Earth

It's 6:30PM on Sunday evening. I'm lounging on my bed (with laptop, of course), a cat at my side. She purrs when I pet her, saying 'I love you' in cat, to my love for her.

Outside the open window, a breeze plays with the evergreen branches, and the slanting light sparkles. The whoosh of the breeze competes with the creak of the evergreens and bird calls for my attention.

I've been reading a good book ("Who We'll Be", by John Zogby), sipping a glass of 2-buck chuck. There is nowhere I have to be, nothing I have to do. I can just be.

So aside from wishing my body weighed a little less, life is damn near perfect. I am truly lucky to have a body on planet Earth. And if I ever complain, remind me about this evening, okay?

Top Ten Online Psychology Experiments - World of Psychology

Top Ten Online Psychology Experiments - World of Psychology

For those of you who answered the questionnaire

Thank you, thank you, thank you. I learned a lot. I will be offering a psychic development class, taking your responses into account (details to come). And probably a month or two free as an intro.

Second, I learned about the limits of the software, and what NOT to do.

First, I learned that none of the responses were correlated with emails, so I have no idea who said what. Which is a good thing, if you think about it. But it means that I can't answer you personally. And to whomever wrote me saying that (s)he had written after the 7/27 Intuition Development Class -- I never got your email. Please write to me at hollis@888-4-hollis.com . (I've been finding that I don't get a fair number of emails. Don't know how that happens.)

Second, I learned that asking what time of day was preferable, without correlating that with time zone is pretty useless.

Third, that I forgot to ask about the day of the week!

But hey, what I got was waaay better than not asking at all.

When I can't make myself do something...

... it usually doesn't need to be done.

A few months ago, I was planning a trip to a peace conference in Sydney. I wanted the trip to be self-supporting, and I have contacts there who could set me up to give workshops and readings, so it was really possible to make the trip pay for itself. But I just couldn't make myself make all the necessary arrangements to do that. I kept putting it off, and putting it off, and feeling guiltier than all get out. And then the conference was canceled!

A month ago, I was invited to speak at the first-ever Wellness Coordinators' Conference (65 people applied to speak, they accepted 15, so it was kind of an honor). It's a business development opportunity, not one where they're paying, not even paying expenses. (Okay, maybe I shouldn't do it at all, but appearances usually pay for themselves in follow on business.)

I couldn't make myself buy the air tickets to Phoenix. Just couldn't do it. Every day it was on my 'to do' list. Every day, I'd carefully work around that particular item. It didn't help that when my husband and I went to book tickets to the Midwest to see his Mom at Christmas, the tickets were literally 3 times what we'd paid a couple of years ago, and this was for red eye flights, with 2 stops, compared to day flights last time!

Finally, it occurred to me to call the conference organizer to ask if the conference was still on, before I booked the tickets. But I couldn't make myself do that, either! Every day, for 6 business days, it was on my 'to do' list. Every day, I'd carefully work around that particular item.

I just now called the conference organizer. He said, "It's a good thing you called -- we've decided to postpone the conference till March. And actually, we decided that this morning."

So procrastination, especially if you're not typically a procrastinator, can be a good thing!

(Think about this a bit. If you can't get yourself to do something, and can't come up with a reason why, maybe it doesn't need to be done.)

The News Diet

A couple of weeks ago, my guides insisted I go on a 'news diet'. That is, I needed to avoid the news as much as possible, so that I could create what I choose in my life, and in my world, without allowing 'what is' to tyrannize my vision.

I've done that, with 2 results.

First, I'm much more peaceful. (You should try the news diet!)

Second, I've learned something:

When I 'look' at the future, I always 'see' that things will continue on, much as they've been going, with gradual shifts, rather than huge shocks (with the exception of weather-related ones). Now I understand why. It's because most people don't really follow the news in the (more or less obsessive) way I've been doing since the theft of the 2000 US Presidential election. That means they go along their usual way, assuming things will be the same, and so they continue to act the same, until something like the change in the price of gasoline intrudes. So things do stay more or less the same; change is generally gradual.

Belief creates reality -- expectation is a form of belief, so expectation creates reality. (Oh, right, the Law of Attraction, in mass form.)

Surpassing Nature, Scientists Bend Light Backward - NYTimes.com

"There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio,
Than are dreamt of in your philosophy."

William Shakespeare

Surpassing Nature, Scientists Bend Light Backward - NYTimes.com

Can you spare 30 seconds to help me out?

I really need your help

For years, people have been asking me for distance learning to support the development of their psychic/intuitive skills. I have wracked my brain for a way to do this -- and finally came up with a solution!

I'm thinking of offering an on-going twice monthly teleclass in intuition/psychic development. In one class per month you'd learn a new technique, or learn from someone with a different specialty (e.g. a medium or a pet psychic). The second class each month would be a group coaching call, where you could ask questions, be coached on technique, and share your 'wins'.

The calls would be recorded in a downloadable format, so that you could listen to a class you missed, or could listen to a particularly useful class multiple times.

You'd also have access to a private group forum for members, so that you can support each other -- intuition development is MUCH more fun, and much faster, with group support. I'd also answer questions applicable to all.

I really value your opinion -- it'll only take about 30 seconds -- so please, please click the link below:

http://app.icontact.com/icp/sub/survey/start?sid=2942&cid=267144


Thanks!

The Psychic Cat Alarm

Sunday morning, I had to get up at 5:30 AM (don't ask). As my husband didn't, he wisely chose to sleep in another room, meaning that I was all alone, but with a cat. The window was wide open, and the other cat was outside.

I didn't set an alarm, as it's on his side of the bed, and set to a time he normally needs. I didn't want to change it, and as I get up early anyway (the internal alarm), I was a little concerned, but just figured I'd wake up.

At 5:30 AM exactly, both the indoor cat and the outdoor cat, who was sitting directly under my window, commenced caterwauling. (I just then realized where the term originated.) "Poor, poor pitiful me -- feed me", they cried, loudly and in stereo, despite having been fed less than 8 hours before.

I was amazed and grateful -- they'd awakened me right on time! Do you suppose they telepathically knew what I needed? Just asking...

My Brilliant Beast

Okay, slightly off topic, but I just had to share.

One of my cats, Beast, is a beautiful, regal tuxedo cat, and is probably the largest house cat you've ever seen, with the possible exception of some Maine coons. He is a huge chow hound, plus he eats whatever he can catch. The vet insists that I keep him on a diet, and so Beast is always hungry, always begging, and has learned how to really work Kosta, my husband (who is admittedly a soft touch) for food, even when I've already fed him. But the schedule is that Beast is fed twice a day, once when I get up in the morning (anywhere from 4:30 to 6:30 AM) and at 6PM, and Beast knows this.

Today, Kosta and I had an appointment out of the house in the late afternoon, and so were leaving at 4:00. As we left, we locked up the house, which includes closing the back door, which is basically left open (except for the screen door) all summer, whenever I'm home. Beast was lounging out on the back deck, and when he heard us, he came running for the door Kosta held open for him.

"He thinks he's gonna get fed," said Kosta as Beast trotted through the door.

I replied, "He's not gonna," as I locked a nearby window.

And Beast literally made a U turn and trotted back out the still open door!

Is there any doubt in your mind that Beast understands human language?

What to do to create ease and flow in your life

When I was a kid, and I didn't want to do something that really needed to be done, like homework, my Dad would say, "That's why they call it work." The implication, of course, was that if it was easy, and/or I wanted to do it, then it wasn't work, and somehow, wasn't worthwhile.

Think about that. The societal programming probably runs about as deep for you as it does for me. Do you really appreciate that which comes easily to you? The ease with which you read a map or cook a meal? Or do you value more the things (or skills) for which you have struggled? Do you ever say, "That was too easy!", as if the ease with which something happened depreciates its value -- down to practically nothing? (Instead, try saying, 'that was just easy enough!' Feels better, doesn't it?)

On the other hand, perhaps you say that you choose to have ease and flow in your life. And you know about the Law of Attraction -- focus on what you want, sensualize it really well (visualize, hear, feel, smell and taste it in your imagination), and it... will... just... come to you. So if, say, you sensualize your work going easily and just flowing, then it should begin to do just that. How often does that actually happen for you? if you're like I used to be, not too often.

Do you get the contradiction here? On one hand, you value that which is difficult, and on the other, you say you prefer ease and flow. And of course, things move in fits and starts, flowing now, then stuck, then flowing, then stuck again.

I truly believe that 'you create your reality according to your beliefs', especially those beliefs of which you are unaware. So if you have a deeply held belief that 'hard work is good', the ease and flow... won't flow easily.

Simply being aware of the deeply held belief does begin to loosen it. You might try a new affirmation, something like, 'I prefer that my life flows easily', or perhaps 'my life flows easily'. Then be attentive to all the 'stuff' that comes up around it, and deal with it (and call me if I can help with this -- helping people change their beliefs is among my favorite things, and can usually be done very quickly).

This is what I've done, and it's making a huge difference in my life and work. I probably am doing about as much, but I'm not stressing about what isn't getting done. I'm enjoying life much more, and business has actually improved.

Now just relax... breathe... and enjoy being in the flow...

One reader's experience with Flickr divination

"
Originally, he wrote:

"I have been wanting to know what to do about my job and future employment so I put in Job and employment and got things like wow I got it and my job sucks and various things that indicated I shouldn’t be working and to the right an advertisement from the Greek National tourist organization advertising of all things Greece. [His ancestry is Greek - Ed.]

Ironically enough I would like my future to be financially secure to live life leisurely. Seems the above indicates that’s what I should be doing too.

I put in “when” and the first picture I was of a fortune from a fortune cookie that said “when you are doing the right thing”. I believe I am doing the right things so I did not ask further on that.

So then I put in where is the money coming from and it gave me a variety of things not all relevant to money but 2 indicated the name of one of my guardian angels who has sent me good things before. SOOOO cool.

Then, of course me be the patient person I am, (NOT), I typed in when is the money coming and one of the pictures has a note next to it that said day 214 Which is the julian date for August 1st and further down a picture of a graduation tassel highlighting the year 2008."

I did wonder if 'day 214' was 214 days from when he did the divination...

Today I received the following email:

"Oh well. I am still here and not lying on the beautiful beaches of Greece. August 1st did not bring me a fortune. I may go back and ask what is the right thing now."

Basics - Mirrors Used to Explore How the Brain Interprets Information - NYTimes.com

Basics - Mirrors Used to Explore How the Brain Interprets Information - NYTimes.com

Cool new FREE divination tool!

Today a client asked me how she might get more of her own information, and I 'got' that she was supposed to use Flickr -- no joke! -- and look at images related to her question and see what they had to tell her.

(Flickr is a very cool photo sharing site. The photos are so awesome that Getty Images, the world’s largest distributor of pictures and video, is about to scour it to find photos to sell.)

Here's what to do:

- Go to Flickr

- Type a quality, or whatever you're thinking about into the search box, and

- Look at the issues it serves up to you. Try sorting by 'most interesting' -- because it is a lot more strange than 'most relevant'. What do the images have in common? What keeps coming up over and over? Does a particular image speak to you? What do the images 'say' to you?

I tried it right after I got off the phone. First I tried 'rest & vacation' and all I got was beaches. I do know that I need to go to the beach. But of course, vacation and beach are synonymous for lots of people. So then I tried 'writing' because I felt I had nothing to say today. And it came up all beaches again! Guess what I'm doing tomorrow? :)

Let me know what happens when you try it, okay?

Cyborgs Prove Telepathy Is Desirable

That headline is a little tongue in cheek, but here's what I mean:

When wireless headsets for cell phones were new, I began to see people having very animated conversations with... no one... on street corners all over the country. I thought perhaps we had a burgeoning epidemic of psychotics! And then I realized that they had these gadgets on, and they were using technology to talk to very real other people, who were not physically present.

Hmmm.... talking to beings that are not physically present... that reminds me of something... oh, right, telepathy. Telepathy is direct mind to mind communication with another physical being. (Mind to mind communication with a non-physical being is called channeling.)

Somehow, telepathy is the psychic ability that freaks people out, even when others, like clairvoyance, and even channeling, don't. I think everyone is afraid of other people really knowing what they think. Honestly, if everyone was telepathic, one of two things would happen. Either society would become very compassionate, because all people would instantly know other people's pain, or people would clean up their thoughts in a hurry! And since thoughts are things and influence physical reality, reality would get a lot nicer in either case. So if you're one of those people who is freaked out by telepathy, would you please just let that fear go? But I digress.

I don't know about you, but seeing odd metallic growths coming out of people's skulls just above their ears, makes me think of Star Trek. Didn't they call those part human, part machine beings, cyborgs?

Here's what I think. I think we all come from one consciousness, and in non-physical reality, we are telepathic. And part of us remembers this when we take on bodies, and that's why we feel so lonely here on earth, where it seems we are separate. So we all aspire to telepathy, even as we fear it. And we aspire to it so much that we resort to being cyborgs, wearing wireless ear pieces for our wireless phones to communicate with other very real beings.

One day, if each of us accepts our abilities, maybe we won't need the phones!

Bulletin: I actually like writing!

When I was a kid, my Dad read all my 'compositions' for English class, to make sure they were okay. (He was a part time professional writer, with a syndicated newspaper column and eventually, 2 books, so he had cred). He didn't stint with the red pencil, either, and I hated writing.

It didn't get a lot better after that. He wasn't around, but I still had the hangover of all that criticism. I think I was an engineering major in college partly because I wouldn't have to write too many papers.

But it's decades later, and after sending out my Thhursday emails for several years now, I can actually say that I enjoy writing them. Sometimes, I know exactly what I'm going to say, and sometimes, like today, I just had this very vague idea. But when I write, or more accurately, as I move my ideas around electronically, the ideas begin to coalesce into sense that I didn't know I had, and I learn something. This is actually fun!

Everybody’s Business - Lessons in Love, by Way of Economics - NYTimes.com

I don't usually write about things economic, but I'm fascinated by them, and have been since I was in college (this explains all those macro- and micro-economics courses and the statistics and game theory). So here is an article by Ben Stein (love him or hate him, at least he's an original thinker) that combines the 'people' side of things with his training in economics:

Everybody’s Business - Lessons in Love, by Way of Economics - NYTimes.com

Psst... your 'green friends' have something to tell you!

My talk at the West Coast Dowsers’ Conference was called “How to Listen so Nature will Speak to You”, and was about how to connect in a particular way to anything, so that you could get psychic information from it. Actually, it was more of an experience than a talk, because I really believe that people learn by doing, not by listening. I did it twice. In each talk, the participants practiced first with each other, because people are so unsubtle, shared their experiences, and then went outside to listen to the plants. Did we get an earful!

The first time, about 35 people went out (I couldn’t because I was holding the space for all those people). When they came back, several people shared that the plant they spoke with was confused (What am I doing here? I don’t belong here. What is that hard stuff (asphalt)?) or that the plant said it was in the wrong environment, getting the wrong kind of water, or not enough water, or not getting the water in the way that it needed it. A couple of people reported that the trees were really angry — especially about the fires, because they knew about them. One reported that a redwood had told her it lost friends. (This talk was audio recorded, and when I get it, I’ll try to put it up on my website.) Someone reported that her plant really wanted us to wake up to what we’re doing!

The second time was much smaller (6 people) because I filled in at the last moment for someone who had a family emergency, and it was only announced once. But because it was smaller, I got to play, too, if only for a couple of minutes. When I went outside to ‘listen’ to a tree (definitely not a redwood,I think some kind of maple), I was surprised when it showed me flickering yellow and orange, and then red. Then I realized that what I was seeing was flames, so it clearly knew about the fires. It seemed concerned, but not particularly angry. I wondered how it knew this, and it showed me a beam of white light that went up from the top of the tree. Somehow it uses this to communicate with other trees. (I wasn’t there long enough to find out more.)

So next time you’re in nature, slow down, pick a tree or another plant to connect to, ad see what it has to say. You may be surprised!

Paul Kedrosky's Infectious Greed

Paul Kedrosky's Infectious Greed: "Money Makes People Stupid, Parts XXVII

Some interesting results in a new study into how people behave in the presence of money. The gist: When money is visible and supervision intermittent, people change their participation for the worst in a hurry.

The Abundance Effect: Unethical Behavior in the Presence of Wealth

Abstract:
Three laboratory studies investigate the hypothesis that the presence of wealth may influence people's propensity to engage in unethical behavior. In the experiments, participants are given the opportunity to cheat by overstating their performance or by stealing money. In each study, one group is stimulated by the visible proximity of wealth. We find that the presence of abundant wealth leads to more frequent cheating than an environment of scarcity. Our third experiment also investigates the potential mechanisms behind this effect. Our results show that feelings of envy towards wealthy others lead to unethical behavior. Our findings offer insights into when and why people engage in unethical behavior.

More here.

Anyone who has ever worked on a trading floor won't be surprised. Part of the cause of rogue traders is abundant visible wealth, and only on-again, off-again supervision."

Unboxed - If You’re Open to Growth, You Tend to Grow - NYTimes.com

Unboxed - If You’re Open to Growth, You Tend to Grow - NYTimes.com

How Lies Live and Grow in the Brain - Op-Ed - NYTimes.com

Apparently, if you repeat a lie enough times, it becomes true -- at least in the mind of the person who heard it. This is why you should never counter a lie, just reiterate the truth.

Op-Ed Contributor - How Lies Live and Grow in the Brain - Op-Ed - NYTimes.com

So if I mention the purple elephant in the corner enough times, maybe you'll begin to believe it's there? :)

How do you know when to say 'no'?

Maybe you didn’t notice, but you didn’t hear from me last week. That’s because I

- did a TV taping in Sacramento on Monday (coming to YouTube soon!)
- did energy healing in San Jose on Thursday for a group of healers (at least one spontaneous physical healing)
- taught my One Day Breakthrough in San Francisco on Saturday (with the expected amazing results)

plus, of course, my usual private clients, squeezed in around all of this.

Each of those events wipes me out for a day or two -- heck, even the travel can wipe me out -- so I found it impossible to write. In fact, I spent Friday in bed, feeling like something the cat didn’t drag in (Beast brings me lovely animal trophies, in perfect condition — but the ones he mauls, he leaves in the garden to decompose), wondering how in the world I was going to mange Saturday.

I walked around for a couple of days, saying to myself and to friends, “Remind me never to do THAT again!”

Driving over to Oakland yesterday to teach intuition development (4 appearances in 10 days, in 4 locations), I began to think about ‘just saying no’.

Here’s the thing — mostly when people talk about learning to say no, they’re talking about learning to say no to other people wanting you to do things you don’t actually want to do. It’s all about valuing yourself and standing up for yourself.

But I’m talking about something different. How do you learn to say no to things you do want to do? I jumped at the opportunity for another TV interview, was thrilled when I was asked to do energy channeling, happily accepted the teaching date in SF, and the one in Oakland. My regret is only that those things were so close together.

So here are the questions I’ve come up with, to be answered from your deepest knowing:

1) Is it in my long term highest good to do this?
2) Is is in my short term highest good to do this?

If the answer to (1) is no, great, say no.

If the answer (1) is yes, then you have to ask the second question. This is the question I discovered yesterday!

What if it is in my long term highest good to do something, and not in my short term highest good to do it? This is where I was last week. It most definitely was in my long term highest good to do all those things, but it was not in my short term highest good to do them all at the same time.

Here is where creativity and the art of negotiation come into play. What can you rearrange in your schedule, with the consent of others, so that what is in your short term highest good lines up with your long term highest good? I could have had different dates for at least two of the events, and should have postponed them. More is not always better.

Good luck in your negotiations! :)

Remind Me Never to Do THAT again!

It's been really quiet here because last week, I

- drove to Sacramento and back for a TV taping (which will be up on YouTube in a while) on Monday
- did energy healing on Thursday for a group of healers
- taught my One Day Breakthrough (with the expected amazing results) on Saturday

plus, of course, my usual private clients, squeezed in around this all.

Each of those events wipes me out for a day or two, so I found it impossible to write. Lots of clients today, so more writing Wednesday.

Reality Creation for the Not-So-Dumb

A couple of weeks ago, in a meditation, I actually ‘saw’ how physical reality is created!

I’m going to describe what I saw today, doing my best to explain it without the diagrams and scientific backup that it truly needs. I’m doing the ‘short version’ because this information really wants to be out there — I don’t seem to be able to write about anything else. I intend to do this in greater detail (and more accurately!) in the future, so if you have questions, please send them along, I’ll try to answer them, and use them to help guide version 2. Okay, here goes:

All of physical reality, at its heart, is electromagnetic, from the smallest sub-atomic particles, to atoms, molecules, cellular structures (like DNA and cell walls), cells, organs, bodies, etc. One part of the electromagnetic spectrum, physical light, has been shown to behave variously like waves and particles, depending on the situation. Apparently, by itself, electromagnetic radiation behaves as waves, but an observer can interact with them to create particles (the simplest versions of physical things), which is to say that the observer, the human consciousness is creating reality through just the interaction of observation. Let’s assume that other parts of the electromagnetic spectrum work the same way.

Do you remember the concept of a ‘standing wave’ from high school physics? A standing wave is created by the interaction of 2 or more waves (which have to move constantly, that’s what waves do), which combine in such a way as to make it look like there is wave that is standing still — the standing wave.

Quick seeming-change-of-subject: imagine that non-physical reality is the ocean. Imagine that anything above the surface of the ocean is physical reality.

Our consciousness interacts with electromagnetic, non-physical reality to make standing waves that get so big, in some sense, that they pierce the surface of the ocean, and create physical reality.

In order to create a standing wave, you have to focus on the same intentions, clearly, constantly and without any competing focuses. Think of it this way:

Waves are additive. If you have a standard sine wave (again, remember high school trigonometry? Even vaguely?), and a second one that is identical (e.g. two identical thoughts), then the resulting wave has the same length (and frequency), but twice the amplitude, that is, it’s twice as big. If you have ten waves that are identical (e.g. ten identical thoughts), the resulting wave is ten times as big. This is why affirmations work. It’s why getting others to pray for you works.

If you have a standard sine wave, and then you have another sine wave that is 180 degrees out of phase, but otherwise identical, that is, one goes up exactly opposite to the amount the other goes down, and in the same timing, they cancel each other out. Nothing happens at all.

But there can be any number of combinations of waves, and some of them make pretty funky combinations, with pieces chopped off the top, or every wave looking different. This what normally happens — how we normally create, which is why physical reality is kind of messy.

So if each thought is an electromagnetic wave, you have to be very careful not only of what your intentions are, but also of all your thoughts, even your wonderings, random musings and creeping doubts — because you want the pure standing wave of your clear intention to breach the surface of the ocean of non-physical reality, like an island rising up from the sea floor.

Emotions matter, too, because they send out waves. Emotions are created in response to beliefs, which are generally a type of thought that lies beneath the surface of our conscious awareness, which is part of the non-physical reality sea.

Maybe you remember harmonic resonance, too? You know, where a tuning fork that plays a particular note (i.e. vibrates at a specific frequency), and you put another tuning fork which is crafted for the same frequency right next to it, and it begins to vibrate, even though you never tap it on anything to make it vibrate. It just vibrates because its vibrations match that of the first fork. The Law of Attraction is just harmonic resonance!

Further, what really powers these standing waves, what increases their amplitude (how tall they are) is emotion. The folks from “The Secret” and lots of other people talk about how emotion powers intention, but I suspect it’s not any sort of emotion, but rather a very specific, non-attached heart coherence — more about that another time.

Should I Vacation more?

Yesterday, working in the garden, I began to think about vacation -- specifically, about how little of it I've scheduled for the year (6 days in September). Since I'm self-employed, and I don't yet have any passive income going from this business, if I don't work, I don't eat, so to speak. Plus I work at home, so the lines between work and, well, not work are pretty blurry. I try to have one day a week on which I do no 'work' -- though that mostly means I cook and work in the garden. Maybe I sit and read for an hour or two. This morning I read this:

Shortcuts - Vacations Are Good for You, Medically Speaking - NYTimes.com

Maybe I really should schedule another week!

How do you psychically read people you've never met?

"Only this life of yours which you are living is not merely a piece of the entire existence, but is, in a certain sense, the whole; only this whole is not so constituted that it can be surveyed in one single glance."

Erwin Schroedinger

People ask me that question, "how do you read people you don't meet?" all the time, and I usually just answer that in the 'real' reality, which is the deeper, non-physical reality that gives rise to the physical world, we're all one, anyway. Quantum physics supports that idea, as well.

"Virtually everything in our immediate physical environment is made up of quanta [packets of energy] that have been interacting with other quanta in this manner from the big bang to the present... the universe on a very basic level could be a vast web of particles, which remain in contact with one another over any distance in "no time" in the absence of the transfer of energy or information. this suggests... that all of physical reality is a single quantum system that responds together to further interactions."

from "The Non-Local Universe" by Menas Kefatos & Robert Nadeau

Many years ago, after I'd been working on the world's largest 900 psychic line for about 6 months, doing over 100 readings a week, I went to listen to a healer speak at a private home in San Francisco. She was from out of town (Cleveland, I think), and traveled to the Bay Area regularly to do hands-on healing sessions. This particular talk, on angels, was to introduce her to more people.

I didn't know the area of SF where the house was, got lost on the way there (this was before MapQuest!), and therefore arrived late. I arrived so late, in fact, that I was seated not in the living room, where the bulk of the audience was, but behind a wing wall that lead to the entry hall. I had to peek around the wall to see the speaker, who was seated at the far end of the living room.

After most of her talk, someone suggested that she go around the room and name each person's guardian angel. She agreed that it would be good for each person to be on a first name basis with his/her guardian angel, but suggested that each person try to name his/her own guide first, and then she would say who she thought it was. When she got to me, I said that I thought I had 3 or 4 main ones. "Whew! I'm glad you said that," she replied, "because there are hundreds of them out there behind you."

I knew that, at some level, I'd made contact with the guides/angels of those people I'd been reading, and now, here was another clairvoyant telling me she saw it!

If we're all connected, why hundreds of guides, not millions or billions? There are two possibilities. First, it may be that in some sense we are 'closer' to those with whom we've had direct contact than to those with whom we have not had such contact. If you split a subatomic particle into two smaller particles, separate them physically, and spin one in one direction, the other one will simultaneously begin to spin in the opposite direction -- with absolutely no physical world communication possible between them -- they are always one, in perfect balance.

The other explanation is that while we're connected to all people (and their guides/angels), indeed all of reality, all the time, our minds are set up to screen out all but the information that is most important to us. This is important for our survival, because otherwise we would be constantly overwhelmed by the amount of information available to us. How do we decide what gets through? On an unconscious level, the people to whom we are physically and/or emotionally the closest would be the ones whose signals we would let through.

So I guess that when someone calls me for a psychic reading, I am very concerned about him or her, and let those signals get through that are in my client's highest good.

Precognition?

My Mom came to visit over Memorial Day weekend. I'd been looking forward to her Sunday and Monday visit, partly because we'd planned to go to a Merchant-Ivory movie, "Before the Rains" (I love their visually stunning movies, most of which are set in India) and then to have dinner at our favorite Indian buffet -- kind of an India themed outing. I knew nothing about the movie, other than its producers and its setting.

Strangely, Sunday morning, I began to be upset about something, dreading something. I was tired, though I'd had a good night's sleep. I couldn't figure out what I was so concerned about. I checked in with myself, checked in with my guides. It didn't seem to be about me, or Mom, or my husband, or... well, anything I could think of. I began to get a headache. It was bad enough that my husband asked if I even still wanted to go to the movie, and I replied that yes, I still wanted to see it.

But Mom came, and we drove down to Menlo Park to find the movie theater, early, of course, because Mom's like that. (Yes, that annoyed me a little, but hey, the point is to hang out together, and maybe it was better to hang out away from home, so it was really fine, except that my body just wanted to be sitting at home.) We had an hour to kill, so we just walked up and down the main street of the town, window shopping (Menlo Park the kind of town where most everything is closed on Sunday, anyway.) And though I really like being outside, and it was a perfect day, cool and sunny, and everyone was getting along famously, I just felt worse and worse.

Anyway, it finally came time to go to the theater, and we found seats. Now there was another 15 minutes to wait, this time in light too dim to read (and I always have a book for waiting times). Generally, I like dim light, but the dim fluorescence hurt my head so much that I had to keep my eyes closed to avoid the pain, which at this point almost made me feel nauseous.

The trailers began, and at least I could open my eyes, because the lights had gone out. The nausea dissipated, but my head still hurt. The movie began. About half an hour into the movie (and I'm not giving away a lot here, because the movie keeps you guessing long after this), one of the main characters, and a very sympathetic one at that, commits suicide. Immediately, I felt better! What was going on?

In a word, precognition. In his wonderful book, "Entangled Minds", Dean Radin describes both individual experiments and meta-analyses of many experiments on precognition -- and finds the odds against the existence of presentiment varying from greater than 320 to 1 down to 25 to 1, depending on the study.

Here's one study:

Dick Bierman, at the University of Amsterdam, used Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI) to study the blood flow in 10 adult volunteers, as follows:

"... participants located inside an fMRI were asked to look at computer-projected images. After each picture, they were asked to remain as calm as possible, to not think about the pictures they had already seen, and to avoid anticipating the upcoming pictures. the pictures in his test inclded 18 erotic, 18 violent, and 48 calm images. the pictures were selected at random on each sucessive trial. Each trial began with the participant looking at a fixed point on an otherwise blank screen for 4.2 seconds, then a picture appeared for 4.2 seconds, and then the picture disappeared and the trial continued with a blank screen for 8.4 seconds...

"When all the data were in, he examined the daya from males and females separately because he expected tat the responses to the emotional pictures might depend on gender...

"The results showed presentiment effects in most of the individual brains... For females there was a significant presentiment effect for erotic images (odds against chance of 25 to 1) and for violent images (odds of 50 to 1). For males, there was no difference for the violent images, bt there was for erotic images (odds of 50 to 1).

"Lest we forget what's going on in this experiment, it's useful to be reminded what these results mean: The brains of both men and women were activated in specific areas before erotic pictures appeared, even though no one knew in advance that those pictures were about to be selected. In oter words, the brain is responding to future events."

So next time you feel weird, or crummy, and can't point to something that relates to you to explain it, consider that you may be feeling the future!

20 minutes worth spending!

This is the video which is referenced by the NYT article below.

A Stroke Leads a Brain Scientist to a New Spirituality - NYTimes.com

A Stroke Leads a Brain Scientist to a New Spirituality - NYTimes.com

IHM Newsletter: Spring 2008 - Stress Can Impair Your Mental Processes

IHM Newsletter: Spring 2008 - Stress Can Impair Your Mental Processes

Memory Loss - Aging - Alzheimer's Disease - Aging Brains Take In More Information, Studies Show - Health - New York Times

Memory Loss - Aging - Alzheimer's Disease - Aging Brains Take In More Information, Studies Show - Health - New York Times

Loss as a spiritual path

I’ve been speaking with a lot of people about loss lately --

loss of net worth (values of homes are down nearly everywhere, values of some portfolios are down)
loss of projected sales (retail sales volume is off 2% or so in the last few months, year over year, and if you factor in inflation (supposedly running at 4% or so, but if you take out the fake adjustments of the Clinton and Bush administrations, really running at about 7.5%), actual sales are way down, and they affect many businesses
loss of a business (a few people have already thrown in the towel)
loss of a job (all those real estate, construction and finance jobs that grew with the bubble are going away)
loss of a home (we’ve all read about the subprime crisis, and the Alt-A one (those exploding payment loans to people with good credit, whose reset peak is scheduled for 2009) is still building, and will probably be worse)
loss of the nest (last child leaving home)
loss of a family member, friend or colleague (who left his or her body permanently)

And I’ve lost a few things, too — a good tenant, a good repairman (now gone flaky after 3 years of good work), and probably some 60 year old trees (to the Americans with Disabilities Act!). And of course, as a homeowner, I’ve got that loss of net worth thing going on, as well. So I got to feeling a little overwhelmed.

As I thought about myself and others, I realized that generally, two things are going on:

Feelings of loss for what you had and/or expected, and/or
Fear about the future

I don’t really want to talk about the fear today; I’ll do that another time. But let’s talk about the loss, and let go of it, so that you have more energy to deal with the fear and the action steps you need to take to create a life/home/business/job you love. Not to mention that negativity, including sadness, tends to shut out the very things you choose to create, so letting go of sadness will in itself help create what you choose.

When there is a loss, some people experience a loss; others experience devastation. Why the difference? And what do you do about these losses?

The important thing to focus on after acknowledging a loss (and losing something you dreamed of or expected, but never had, can still be a huge loss emotionally), is to appreciate what you still have:

The value of your house went down? You most likely still have the house. And even if you lose the house, you are probably still going to live somewhere. So appreciate where you live for its non-financial qualities.
Sales went down? Appreciate the sales and the customers you have, learn to work with what is working, and grow that — perhaps in a new, more satisfying direction.
Business or job loss? You still have useful and marketable skills, probably among other resources.
You’re a brand new empty nester? You still have a family, just in different locations.
Someone you’re close to left their body permanently? You still have a relationship with that person, although you may have a harder time perceiving it (see “Death is Another Country” at http://10minutesaday.blogspot.com/2008/03/death-is-another-country.html).

But sometimes, that appreciation just doesn’t cut it. What’s going on?

What’s going on is that you’ve identified with whatever it is that you’ve lost. I think this is what the Buddhists refer to as attachment (I’m not Buddhist, so if I’m wrong, would one of you please correct me?) How do you get non-attached? How do you shift?

First, you have to figure out exactly with what you’ve identified. So if the value of your house has gone down, are you identified with the house? The number that is your financial net worth? The fact that perhaps you’re not as good an investor as you had thought? Try these on as statements, that is, “I am my house”, or “I am the value of my house”, or “I am my net worth”, or “I am a bad investor”. Perhaps one of these will feel true, or perhaps you need to keep trying. That alone may shift your energy. If it doesn’t there are many modalities that can help you let go of the belief. I have a few I like to use with myself and clients, including EFT (www.emofree.com), which you can learn on your own.

Next, figure out what you’d like to believe instead, for example, “I am who I am”, regardless of the external.

Third, install this belief, including working with it as an affirmation, and using EFT or other energy techniques.

And if you need help, call me! :)

The Neural Buddhists - New York Times

The Neural Buddhists - New York Times

Can You Become a Creature of New Habits? - New York Times

Can You Become a Creature of New Habits? - New York Times

3 great books & 1 that's only okay

Lately, I’ve been finding myself telling people over and over again about a few books I’ve been reading, so I thought I’d share them with you:

1. Have you ever felt like you were living in the wrong place? Like you just don’t really belong where you are? Maybe the people are somehow fundamentally different from you, or maybe you just can’t get your career off the ground? There may very well be a good reason for this — it’s not necessarily you. In "Who’s Your City?", Richard Florida explains why where you live may be one of the most important choices in your life, with his reasoning in very clear graphic form. Some places are just where you have to be for certain professions. Face it — if you’re in finance, you’d better live in New York or London. And psychogeography really exists — people really are different in different locations. The book explained to me why I knew at a deep level, visiting as a child, that I had to move to the Bay Area. Turns out that my personality is much more sympatico with those here than in the New York metro area.

Florida also has a website, http://creativeclass.com/whos_your_city/, but it will make more sense after you’ve read the book.

2. "The Brain that Changes Itself", by Norman Doidge, M.D., describes how the brain changes in response to differing stimuli. It discusses, in no particular order, treatments for autism spectrum disorders, phantom limb pain, how to ward off age-related memory loss and much more.

The book discusses how incremental rewards work best to encourage practice -- and practice is generally how the brain changes. This convinced me to have the participants in my class last weekend check in with themselves after each exercise we did, and report the changes that happened on a subjective scale of 0-10. Wow! I don’t know how rewarding each check-in was for the participants, because they were experiencing the changes, but it was really rewarding and motivating for me! Because I wasn’t personally experiencing the changes, and because there were too many people for me to personally monitor them in the way that I would with a private client, I needed another sort of feedback. This was perfect! I watched as the group made progress from one exercise to the next even though each participant didn’t necessarily have positive results with each process. Not only did I want to keep going to see what would happen after the next exercise, but I also want to teach the training again — soon!

3. Want to convince your child to eat spinach? Or convince your company to adopt a new policy or procedure? "Made to Stick", by the brothers, Chip Heath and Dan Heath, one of whom is a professor at Stanford Business School, tells you how, in a simple, clear and entertaining fashion. They really practice what they preach! They say the key to writing convincing copy is

Simple
Unexpected
Concrete
Credible
Emotional
Stories

And back that up with lots of real world examples. I know I’m going to try it!

**********

I recommend getting these books from your local library (saves trees and money), but if you want to buy any of them, could you please do it from my website, which will send you to Amazon? Go to http://www.888-4-hollis.com pages/resources/recommended-readings.php, and just click on the title that interests you. Check out the other books, too while you’re there.

**********

Now for the book that’s only okay. Oprah has been leading internet classes that are reaching literally millions of people around the world 9whenaired and as downloads), with Eckhart Tolle. I applaud them for this. They even open each segment with a brief meditation. Imagine that, 700,000 people meditating together all over the world!

And there is a lot to recommend Tolle’s book, "A New Earth". For example, Tolle has a very cool way of getting people aware of their energy bodies — he asks you to feel the aliveness in your hand when it isn’t touching anything, and then expand that to your whole body. (Of course, he’s much more complete in his directions.) Try it now!

However, and this is why I am only rating this book so-so, he spends an entire chapter on what he calls the “pain-body”. Basically, he is agglomerating all of our less-than-helpful beliefs and memories (what we’d call parts in NLP), into one global “pain-body”, which “feeds on negativity” and “seeks more pain”. Yes, there is negativity in the world, some individual, some cultural and historical. But labeling it a “pain body” feels really disempowering to me, like there’s a demon living inside me that will be virtually impossible to eradicate (because what else do you do with a demon?). And when you make all the less-than-helpful beliefs into one giant entity, with a life of its own, you can’t ask what it’s positive intention is, without getting the answer that it wants what will help itself survive. So — chunk it down — deal with each individual issue as it comes up, as an indication of something to be healed.

Of course, Tolle suggests that the way out is awareness, in a very Buddhist way, which is fine. His first publisher, Marc Allen, describes Tolle as basically sitting on a park bench for a couple of years, non-functional, so I guess if you sit still long enough, just being aware, you’ll get to enlightenment. However, those of us on the “householders path” (an ancient and honored tradition of using our everyday lives as an expression and exploration of our spirituality), can’t sit still for a couple of years. We must use our jobs and relationships and experiences to get to enlightenment. Furthermore, I think there are much better and quicker tools for healing, including NLP, EFT, and hypnotherapy, among others.

Interview with the Psychic, Part 1

Interview with the Psychic, Part 2

MeMedia

Here's the link to recording of the teleclass I did on Thursday night:

http://www.thewisemind.com/audio/NLP.mp3

It includes some of the presuppositions of NLP, some history of NLP & a couple of very useful processes for changing how you feel about and in situations. The first, Changing the Soundtrack, will change how you feel about an incident from your past, and the second will give you a resource to use any time, anywhere in the future.

Have fun! And if you want a whole day of fun, it's next Sunday, 4/27 in Oakland, CA. For more info, look here:

http://www.hypnotherapycenter.com/work_main.html#nlp

Interview with the Psychic, Part 3

Maybe Money Does Buy Happiness After All - New York Times

Maybe Money Does Buy Happiness After All - New York Times

No Gremlins, No Demons, No Self-Sabotage!

I was teaching Hypnocoaching last weekend to a group in Oakland, when a student’s question started me on a rant about a pet peeve, which is the very concept of gremlins, demons, or self-sabotage. This is important, so I’m sharing it with you.

We all have emotional baggage -- internal things that get in the way of us creating what we want in our lives and businesses. Perhaps you’ve heard these referred to as ‘gremlins’ or ‘demons’.

And we’ve all had the experience of wanting something, and just as we get really close to achieving it, it slips away. Maybe you’ve had the experience more than once. And then you’ve wondered, “what’s wrong with me?” So someone handed you the idea that you could be sabotaging yourself. This sets up the idea that you could deliberately, intentionally be stopping yourself from getting what you want. Nothing could be further from the truth.

What’s actually happening in both these cases is that part of you just wants something different -- and perhaps incompatible.

Just labeling these admittedly less-than-helpful parts of ourselves in these negative ways is doing yourself a disservice. Why?

First, whatever is stopping you from getting what you choose is a part of you. And you don’t react particularly well to someone calling you a nasty name, do you? If I called you an idiot, would it make you want to cooperate with me? No. And calling these parts of yourself nasty names doesn’t make them want to cooperate, either. Making yourself wrong by saying ‘I’m sabotaging myself’, just makes you feel bad about yourself, which makes the situation worse, without offering a solution.

Let’s use my client, Stephanie, as an example. She desperately wants to “take her business to the next level”, but can’t make herself do any of the things that she knows will get here there. She had labeled the part of her that is stopping her a ‘gremlin’, which set up a struggle with it.

What do you do instead of using these destructive labels?

First, recognize that any part of you that is getting in the way of what you (think you) want actually has a positive purpose. Perhaps this part of you was created at another time, in other circumstances, to get you what you needed or wanted at the time, and has outlived its usefulness. Or perhaps it wants something good for you now, that you’re not aware of, or that seems to conflict with what you want consciously.

Some discussion uncovered that both of Stephanie’s parents were very successful — but they worked all the time, so that she felt ignored and unloved. So the part of her that was stopping her was created when she was about 5, and it was worried that if she were successful, she’d never have any time for herself or her family. So, of course, it wanted her to avoid business success, so that she could have a happy family life, and both she and her kids would feel loved.

Second, honor and thank that part of you for doing such a good job. If it were sleeping on the job, it wouldn’t have come up! And it’s much more likely to cooperate if you are respectful of it. Again, if I say to you, “I honor what a good job you’re doing, and could you please just do your job a little differently?”, you‘re more likely to work with me than if I call you a “pea-brained a**hole”, right?

Instead of calling this part of her a ‘gremlin’, Stephanie thanked this part of herself for doing such a good job.

Third, figure out what its positive purpose is, and then help it get that, in a way that works for the rest of you. This is often a sort of internal negotiation.

Stephanie told this part of her that she was grateful for its desire for her to take care of herself and spend plenty of time with her family. And then she explained that it really didn’t work for the rest of her, and in fact, was getting in the way of her taking care of her family — financially. It understood and relaxed. She promised it that she’d make sure to hire people to take some of the burden of a successful business away from her, so that she’d have time to relax alone and time to hang out with her husband and kids. In the end, the part of her agreed, and then also agreed to remind her with a particular feeling when she wasn’t keeping up her end of the agreement.

What parts of you are getting in your way? If you want help identifying, making friends with and working with the parts of you formerly known as ‘gremlins’, call me at 888-4-hollis! Stop the struggle! You can do this. With me as your guide, it’s quicker and easier than you think.

Cognitive Dissonance in Monkeys - The Monty Hall Problem - New York Times

Cognitive Dissonance in Monkeys - The Monty Hall Problem - New York Times

Names That Match Forge a Bond on the Internet - New York Times

Names That Match Forge a Bond on the Internet - New York Times

Tighten Your Belt, Strengthen Your Mind - New York Times

Tighten Your Belt, Strengthen Your Mind - New York Times