Oprah Doesn't Get It

I am late-ish with the post because I have been v. busy with John Morgan Seminars. I'm booking our weight-loss & smoking cessation seminars around the country. T'is the season to get healthy!

What about Oprah? you ask. Well. I was reading O Magazine about her weight. Again with the weight. No matter what other accomplishments, it is her lifelong challenge. [Side note here: A couple years ago, I was actually heavier than Oprah. It gave me a kick into gear. Really? I'm bigger than Oprah? How can this be? Oh, it be. But not anymore.]

This is what I notice: there is no attention paid to the subconscious, or Other-Than-Conscious, as Dave Dobson calls it. It's the part of us that drives our behaviour. Wouldn't you want to get in rapport with that part of you? Wouldn't you want to work WITH your subconscious instead of trying to strong arm it with "willpower." Dave used to say that it was like holding a beach ball under water. Eventually, it will pop back up. What if every part of you was in alignment for your highest and best good? What if all parts of you--your beliefs, your body, your feelings were all congruently working together? Wouldn't it be nice to stop fighting with yourself?


We could hallucinate all sorts of reasons WHY Oprah is fat again. She has. Reasons can keep us stuck where we are. As long as she fights her body, she will continue the struggle. John says that 95% of the women in his programs come up to him and say, "I hate my body." If you had someone in your life that you were openly hostile to and more than that, told anyone who would listen how much you detested that person, how receptive would your enemy be to a request? That's what's going on with your body when you hate it and fight with it and create a weight struggle.

So here's my prescription for Oprah:

Perhaps she'll get this part: acceptance. Really, it's very Eckhart Tolle. And John is a huge Eckhart fan. My wish for Oprah is that she finds some peace within herself, and that she discovers a new, easier way not to lose weight, but to create balance, harmony, and health for the new year.

Protect Our Children

Tiddly-pum

All that is necessary for evil to triumph is for good people to stand by and do nothing.

Hundreds of thousands of children are victims of sexual abuse each year. Due to the sheer lack of resources, law enforcement is unable to follow up on the majority of leads they have.The PROTECT Our Children Act will:
Authorize over $320 million over the next five years in desperately needed funding for law enforcement to investigate child exploitation.
Mandate that child rescue be a top priority for law enforcement receiving federal funding.
Allocate funds for high-tech computer software that can track down Internet predators.

This information comes from Oprah's website. She has provided all the information you need to contact your senators. I live in a county that once had the dubious honour of being known as "the incest capital of the country." If you think that most children are abused by strangers, think again. Most children are abused by someone they know: a family friend, a neighbor, an uncle, or their own fathers. Let's get this passed before they recess on Sept. 26th.

XM Radio Guys

View off my front porch. Still raining.

Two of my favourite people are on XM today:

The first is CELEBRATED cell biologist, Bruce Lipton. He's talking to Bob Greene, Oprah's trainer. O.M.G. So I just realized I've had another Blonde Moment with the Time Zone Math. *sigh* He's on at 11 a.m. PST = 2 p.m. EST, right? Yikes & duh. OK, check out Bruce Lipton...and tell Oprah you want him on her show...now, moving on...

The second person is XM Radio Guy, Bill Hutton. Here's what it says on the XM site about him:

Bill Hutton, Program Director

Bill Hutton is the incompetent seat filler behind Lucy - XM 54. Born to a poor sharecropper in the Dust Bowl of the '30s, he learned to fake his own death for insurance money by the time he was 10. Hutton began working in radio as a way to steal records in 1967. By showing no talent whatsoever, he was immediately promoted to general manager and developed such forgetful radio gimmicks as "Thirsty Mondays," "Soiled Gym Socks For Seniors," and "Guess What I Just Swallowed." In 2001, Hutton was given a job at XM as part of a settlement with XM's parent company.

Hahahaha! But seriously, I kid. At first glance, you may think these two have nothing in common. Here is the common thread in both: they have a committment to living a life of JOY. And they are both v. funny people. If you're a fan of alternative music, and even if you're not, you can check out The Bill Hutton Show tonight on XM 54 at 9 p.m. EST.

P.S. No, really, that's the right time!

A Serving of Eckhart

One of my favourite diners in WV on Rt. 340--awesome sweet potato fries! Food-related photo explained below because one always thinks of diners when pondering consciousness in the world of Eckhart Tolle.

Last night was Eckhart's last webinar with Oprah. He was talking about being present in whatever you're doing and he used the example of a waiter. It sparked a memory of my first lunch with John Morgan. We were at Applebee's (or Crapplebee's as my brother says) and John asked the waitress for a napkin. When she returned to the table, she tossed the napkin at him and had turned around before it hit the table. He did a v. funny imitation of her, which of course she missed. She did all the waitress things: she took our orders, served our drinks, brought our food. All without any lifeforce behind it. It was a glorious illustration of lack of presence. Conversely, on our way to St. Johnsbury, we stopped at a v. quaint trolley-car-turned-restaurant and had a whole happy dining experience. The food was just regular food, but the waitress was SO nice; we laughed & swapped from-a-big-family stories. She was there.

I see why Eckhart calls it The Power of Now. In our culture of multi-tasking, our attention is divided and our energy dispersed. When you pull your energy from the past and future, you have ALL of it for the present moment. In that moment, you find stillness and are connected to the Source. And then you allow that lifeforce to live through you instead of struggling to force things to happen.

Favourite Eckhart Quotes

Oprah's webinar with Eckhart is tonight (9 p.m. EST). Here are a coupla Chapter 2 quotes:

Even a stone, and more easily a flower or a bird, could show you the way back to God, to the Source, to yourself.

Life will give you whatever experience is most helpful for the evolution of your consciousness. How do you know this is the experience you need? Because this is the experience you are having at this moment.

Offended

I have had the occassion this week to offend a few people, especially with Monday's post. And in turn, I have been offended--sometimes in response to offending someone. But this a.m. I woke up thinking about all this. One of don miguel ruiz's 4 agreements is not to take anything personally. A person's behaviour is theirs, not yours. It is easier to look at a 2-year-old having a tantrum and recognize it as such, than to see it in an adult. Both behaviours are a pattern. As adults we get caught up in the content of a behaviour, instead of looking at the pattern. Cue Dave Dobson: At one time this pattern had a purpose and got a desired outcome. What worked for you at age 5, may not be a useful response as an adult. I wonder if you can get curious about updating those patterns....

Back to being offended: The question is, Who is being offended? Not the me that is connected to universal consciousness. It's the ego-me that needs to be right--and self-righteous. Even if I'm interpreting a behaviour as "mean," even if the intent from the person is to be mean, it doesn't matter. What matters is my response to the situation: how much emotional energy am I going to waste on this? How am I going to respond? Sometimes the best response, is no response. In that place of stillness, where there is no separation, what does it matter? It doesn't.

Eckhart Tolle said on Monday's webinar with Oprah that you can't force enlightenment on someone. You can fill-in-the-blank with enlightement. You can't force an opinion, a feeling, an idea. We all have our own lessons to learn. We all have our patterns to outgrow. Or not.

P.S. I am venturing out into the world this weekend so will most likely not be posting til Monday. Have a GREAT weekend!

P.P. S. Today is the LAST DAY to enter The Grasshopper's drawing for lots of cool *free* stuff from John Morgan! GO SEE.

Willpower . . . won't

Yesterday I watched Dr. Oz on Oprah. In the episode it followed the progress of 3 people who were quitting smoking. They all kept a video journal detailing the agony of willpowering themselves to quit. Willpower is like the bully forcing the Other-Than-Conscious mind to do something it doesn't want to do. It's kind of like blowing up a door with a stick of dynamite when you could have just used a key. Find the key.

Cigarettes are a very addictive drug. Who in this day and age doesn't know they're bad for you? And does knowing intellectually change the behaviour? I know an asthmatic who smokes. Think that's stupid? Wait--this person is also a doctor. John Morgan points out that it is not the intellect that got you to smoke in the first place, and it's not the intellect that will get you to stop. That goes for any habit or behaviour, really. So how do you find the key? You go to the source and work with it: that Other-Than-Conscious part of you that's driving your behaviour when you're not even aware of it.

There's one gal on the show, Wendie, who is set up to fail because her husband still smokes. So if she doesn't go back to it (which Dr. Oz suggested she would!) she will replace smoking with something else. For most women, it would be food. It pained me to watch those video diaries, not only because the quitters were in such distress, but because it was so unnecessary. I have personally witnessed a crowd full of smokers throw their cigarettes away AND CHEER at the end of a 2-hour Smoking Cessation seminar. They walk out of that room as non-smokers. We've had 3-pack-a-day-ers and smoked-for-40-year-ers, and they leave it behind.

So I wrote to Dr. Oz and suggested that we both have someone in common who could help with the smoking cessation: Doug O'Brien. Doug worked with Dr. Oz for 6 years, helping create the Dept. of Complementary Medicine at Columbia Presbyterian. Doug is also one of the hypnotherapists for John Morgan Seminars. It is what we do.

P.S. If you're reading this and have stopped smoking from our seminars, then I invite you drop Dr. Oz & Oprah a line. If you smoke and want to quit, get to a seminar or buy our DVD.

I've Joined . . .

Robbie's flowering cactus

Oprah's Bookclub for aN Eckhart Tolle webinar series based on the new book A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life's Purpose. I've started reading it and it's v. quotable and profound. Here's a nice stop-and-smell-the-roses quote:

Seeing beauty in a flower could awaken humans, however briefly, to the beauty that is an essential part of their own innermost being, their true nature. The first recognition of beauty was one of the most significant events in the evolution of human consciousness. The feelings of joy and love are intrinsically connected to that recognition.

For My Fellow Anatomy Nerds...

"The brains of a cell are not where the genes are, it's not the nucleus...the brains of the cell are in the membrane. The cell membrane lets us talk to each other." ~Dr. Mehmet Oz

WHO DOES THIS SOUND LIKE??? That's right: Bruce Lipton! And yet, go to any basic biology book--even an anatomy & phys. book, and it says that the brain of the cell is the nucleus. It was just a passing comment, but having been through Bruce's Biology of Belief seminar and reading his book--WOW! That was my excitement for the day. Now...let's get Bruce on Oprah!

It's really great to see holistic healing getting attention in mainstream America. And speaking of Brimhall... Dr. John says that health care in our country is really disease care. While we're at it, let's get Dr. Brimhall on Oprah! I want to see Oprah get lasered. Ah...cold-laser therapy....Have a FABULOUS day!

P.S. Awesome post from the Grasshopper on anger. Go see.