Motivation/Election

One of the things you learn first in NLP Practitioner training is the difference between motivation 'towards' and motivation 'away from'.

Both are useful. Towards' motivation moves you to act for something you desire, like a great relationship or a new car. 'Away from' motivation gets you moving away from something, like a tiger bounding towards you, or a rampaging boss.

Have you noticed that when you are motivated towards something, you tend to be happier than when you are motivated away from something?

This played out in the Presidential campaigns. Obama showed people a picture of how things could be better, while McCain campaigned on fear, mostly 'away from' Obama -- those were the attack ads. And that is probably why everyone with whom I've spoken in the last day or so says, "I finally have hope" and feels better.

What you focus on, expands. For the last 8 years, we have focused on the negative, on what we're afraid of, and things got steadily worse. Now we will begin to focus on the positive, as a country, as a people, and things will slowly begin to get better.

But remember the laws of thermodynamics, which say that things tend towards entropy, and it takes work to reverse that. So what it took 8 years to destroy (due to intentional destruction, along with the forces of entropy), it could take many more years to build back up.

Free Congress

In the spring of 2007, when Nancy Pelosi ‘took impeachment off the table’ and John Conyers did not follow through on his promise to hold impeachment hearings, I ‘saw’ that the first FISA violations were against Congress, and that the illegally gained information was being used to blackmail Congress. It was so obvious to me that I couldn’t understand why other people didn’t see it.

Each person to whom I said this, said, 'Of course! That makes so much sense!' Those people included Katrine van den Heuvel of "The Nation", whom I met at Princeton reunions, and with whom I spoke about my 'knowing'. But of course, she didn't really know me, so I didn't have much credibility.

In the spring of 2008, I had lunch with a friend, who is very well connected politically, and who told me that one of her contacts “deep in the bowels of Capitol Hill” told her that he had information that confirms the blackmail. According to my friend, her contact was willing to talk.

I wanted very badly to get this out to the media. Of course, I tried van den Heuvel, but I couldn't get past her gatekeeper. Then I tried a business school contact at TIME, to no avail. Then I tried a friend, who has been a statewide elected official in California, and knows absolutely everyone. He was gracious, but in the end, his press secretary said he could not be connected to this information in any way, as he was a co-chair of Obama's campaign. At this point, I was about out of options, and desperate.

A few days earlier, I had agreed to support a friend at a sales pitch for Humanity Unites Brilliance. I wasn't particularly interested, but just wanted to support my friend. She told me that the meeting was at the home of Barbara Marx Hubbard's sister, but that meant very little to me.

Turns out that BMH's sister is Patricia Marx Ellsberg, that is, she is married to whistle-blower extraordinaire, Daniel Ellsberg! So I wrote down everything I knew, hoping to speak with him, figuring that in the worst case, I could at least leave him my letter.

Patricia answered the door, welcomed my husband, Kosta, and me into her home, and poured us tea. As we stood in the kitchen, sipping mugs of steaming tea, Kosta somehow brought up what we'd been told. I asked if Dan might be around for me to talk with later, and as I did, he walked into the kitchen, and came straight over to us! At which point, I began my story again, asking him if he'd follow up.

He said he could see how desperate I was, said this was 'his beat', and promised not only to follow up, but to let me know when he had. And he was as good as his word. Unfortunately, the potential whistleblower lost his nerve, which is why you heard it here first (sadly). However, at a rally in Oakland some months later, Kosta heard Dan Ellsberg talk about this on stage to a few thousand people with some conviction.

So now, with a new administration, we should have a free Congress, who may have free congress, the ability to meet without being spied upon.

Quote of the Week

“... Government of the people, by the people, for the people did not perish from the face of the earth.”

Barak Obama
11/4/08

(emphasis mine – H)

Gratitude Journal, 11/4/08

As part of "Be Happier Now", participants are strongly encouraged to keep a daily journal of things for which they are grateful and/or things at which they succeeded. There is statistical evidence to support that it works. Try it -- you'll see how much happier you are!

Part of the reason I teach the course is to force me to walk my talk and keep mine up! Here is my entry for Tuesday:

1. I had the privilege of voting. Every time I vote, I remember that my grandmothers were born into an America where women did not have that right.
2. I cast an informed vote.
   
3. It looks (at least at first glance) like a fair election. [My biggest fear was another stolen election. We all owe a debt of gratitude to Bob Fitrakis & Harvey Wasserman (www.freepress.org), Bev Harris (www.blackboxvoting.org), Steven Spoonamore, who told the truth, and thousands of others who worked to ensure the voter rolls were not purged of legitimate voters, or that elections have a paper trail. Our work is not done, but at least the candidate who was winning in the polls won the election.]
4. When I went to my local polling place to drop my absentee ballot in the locked box, there were twice as many cars in the parking lot as I had ever seen before, and 4 times as many as a 'normal' election. "We the People" means all of us voting!
   
5. Obama won! As a species, we turned toward hope, caring for each other and the planet, acknowledging that we're all in this together. A great weight is lifted off my chest -- I can breathe again.

Election Humor

Hat tip to 'kaputt' on MarketWatch:

And then there was the politician who died at went to heaven. St Peter met him at the gate and told him that there were special rules for politicians. They had to spend 3 days in h*** and 3 days in Heaven and then decide. The man protested telling the St Peter how he had gone to church every day and Mass on Sundays, but rules are rules and couldn't be broken Finally the man agreed and went down to h***. It was great. All his old buddies were there. Wine, women, song, lobbyist-the whole nine yards. After three great days St. Peter came and they went to Heaven. He was given a harp and just drifted among the clouds for 3 boring days with others who rarely spoke to him. After 3 days the gate keeper came and asked him what he wanted. The politician said, I thought I would never want this but I want to be in h***. Poof-Fire, Brimstone, Ashes everything he had been warned over appeared. What happened the bewildered guy asked. All of a sudden Satan appeared and told him, The first time we were campaining, now you voted.

Whom do you trust?

I just finished watching the third & last Obama-McCain debate. A few thoughts:

- A few times there, I thought McCain was going to pop a vein. And he looked a lot like Pres. Chimpy, smugly mugging his superiority for the camera. Overall, though, the main effect was his radiation of anger. (I'm very sensitive to it, having grown up around it.)

- Bob Schiefer, the moderator, asked them both to repudiate the negative tactics of their campaigns. Neither did. McCain brought up a Congressman (I've blanked on his name), who apparently called Palin out on her tolerance of people at her rallies calling Obama a traitor, a terrorist, and yelling "Kill him!" Obama repudiated this Congressman's remarks, and said that the Congressman had repudiated them as well. Then McCain said he was "proud of the people at his rallies". So you support those racists, John?

- McCain regularly mischaracterized Obama's positions on things. Once, Obama corrected him on it, and he did it again.

- Schiefer asked both of them if abortion would be a litmus test for the next Supreme Court appointment. Both said no. McCain, however said he would favor a Federalist, once who supports states' rights (including on abortion), and strict interpretation of the Constitution... and then said he'd know if someone was a strict interpreter of the Constitution by the fact that they thought abortion was unconstitutional. (I wonder if anyone but me caught that?)

At the end, McCain had the audacity to ask us to vote for whomever we felt we could trust more. Or maybe that was just stupidity. Because after letting his true feelings slip out, I had to wonder if that would happen in a negotiation with, say, Ahmedinajad. I don't trust you to keep your cool, John.

And what really shocked me was that at the end, when each could look into the camera and make a prepared statement, neither one asked for my vote.