The Power of Faking It Until You Make It
March 5, 2009 by rosie
Filed under Fitness & Exercise, Life & Relationships, Yoga
I have a Baron Baptiste DVD which I use occasionally to yoga do. He’s one of the great teachers of Power Yoga and emphasizes finding strength within.
One of his favourite lines is ‘Fake it until you make it’.
I love this saying because it’s a way to unlock everything you want to be. If you decide to ‘fake’ being strong and brave by taking brave and strong actions… you will trigger feelings of bravery and strength within you and discover that you’re not faking it anymore
So often in life we allow our feelings to create our thoughts about a situation, and then those thoughts create our experience of the situation. This is a reactive way to live – your feelings are in control and you’re merely reacting to them.
If instead you decide how you WANT to feel in the experience, and then intend to act as if you ALREADY feel that way – faking it until you make it – you will find that those actions CREATE the feelings inside you. Brave action creates brave feeling. This is consciously creating your life.
It’s an active, participatory way of living, and it takes work – i.e. you need to observe yourself and be conscious of what you are feeling, thinking and doing. But the pay-offs are worth it.
If a situation or experience has been driving you crazy in your life, you can use these techniques to change what’s happening. It’s not about controlling and manipulating the external factors, like other people or situations. It’s about being conscious of how you feel, NOT reacting to it, and instead deciding what you want to create. It’s about changing your internal Self.
Yesterday I used this technique to address a situation that had really begun to really get me down.
After a week of dreading getting on my yoga mat, of experiencing fear and resistance when I did, I resolved to stop sitting in that fear and resistance and just do it. I stepped on to my mat with the intention of flowing through Astanga Series I with no cop outs. And I did. The amazing thing was that instead of feeling weak and pathetic and awful – like I had all week – I felt strong and confident and filled with courage. Plus my right hip, which had seized up in the last four days, loosened off considerably by the time I finished my practice.
This experience highlights how our thoughts really do create our experience. When I step on to the mat fearful of what I may encounter, and allow my fear to overwhelm me, I experience a weak, pathetic and awful practice. It’s not that that particular practice was there waiting for me on my mat -no, I took it on with me.
When I step on to the mat determined to face whatever comes up with courage and work through it, then I am filled with confidence and strength, and I feel great, no matter what I may encounter.
I know this intellectually, but I still get so caught up in my feelings, reacting to them and letting them control my life. Then I wonder why everything is so hard. Sometimes it just takes a reminder, like stumbling across Baron Baptiste’s website yesterday.
So next time life is overwhelming you, take a moment to be conscious of what YOU are creating. Observe your feelings for what they are, CONSCIOUSLY think about how you WANT to feel and then fake it.
Take the actions you would take if you already had those feelings.
And if you’re thinking right now that this won’t work, well, put yourself into scientist mode, intend to give it a good go and experiment with the technique. Play around with it, have fun. And then report back to me, let me know if it works as well for you as it does for me.
Author: Kara-Leah Grant, once a Queenstown-based yoga teacher, now teaches in Wellington where she’s discovered the joy of Prana Flow Yoga. Read more of her articles on yoga and the art of living at Prana Flow NZ.
The Happy Millionaire
January 14, 2009 by rosie
Filed under Healthy Business, Holistic Wellbeing
Short of cash? Don’t blame the economy. It seems like a lack of money leads to stress. But it’s really the other way around. Unconscious stress causes financial self-sabotage.
A Dutch training and business consulting company has researched this pattern over the past 12 years, and the solution is surprising.
“If you are worried about money then the first thing to do is find the internal cause and correct it quickly,” says Jacob Korthuis, president of the PMA Institute and the author of The Happy Millionaire. “The solution is not to go and find another job, or start a side business, the solution is first to remove your internal block to making money.”
“Most people say that they want to be rich, but then act in ways that sabotage themselves,” Mr. Korthuis explains. “That’s because a lifetime of accumulated data is stored in their brains linking pain to making money.”
Mr Korthuis offers talks on dealing with financial stress by dealing with the underlying stresses that cause people to fail financially.
In addition to explaining the root causes of financial lack, he will also show your audience a series of techniques they can use at home to help find and correct their own limits around money, including…
* Why it’s literally never too late to become rich.
* Why luck is not a factor, and why some people seem “lucky” when it comes to money.
* Why “positive thinking” or an “attitude of gratitude” will actually keep you broke – no matter what Oprah tells you.
* Why two children from the exact same upbringing can have completely different financial lives – one can literally be a millionaire while another child slaves at minimum wage.
* Why many successful people fail repeatedly before they make it, and why you don’t have to.
* “Bad clusters” in your mind. How your brain produces them, and how they literally stop you from making the money you want.
Author: Jacob Korthuis (pron.: Korthouse) is a fun, fast-paced interview who has been featured radio and print in Europe. He is located in Orlando, Florida. To interview Jacob, call (321) 948-5811.
For more information and books about this subject, please visit the website www.pmainstitute.com
