Neuro Enhancement

Written by Jeff Schoener

Making assumptions. Failing to recognize the expectations of others. Being oblivious to how people respond to subtleties. These will enrage and encourage people to flee. By understanding what it takes in order to affect others, we begin to build solid foundations for any type of relationship.

When a customer walks away from your business, usually in apparent silence, a friend or family forces a smile and walks away, you can bet big dollars that once out of your earshot they do not remain silent for long. They are busy letting each and every person that will listen just how wrong you were. Their perceptions are such all because while they were on the outside of you, while you remained on the inside.

It’s a small thing that we can do yet many of us are too busy being perfectionists, or holding to our policy of being right. By coming out of our own experience, and ‘stepping’ into the experience of the other, we can now gain greater understanding just who these people are, why they are around us and how we may help them. Is this a radical idea? No. This is a simple way touching people on a level few others will. Your service to them may expand as their levels of trust in you grow. As this appreciation and trust grows, these folks will be speaking of you with gratitude and praise. Building solid relationships, be they clients family and friends do not simply happen. How’s that for a bottom line? April 2005 All Rights Reserved

Written by Jeff Schoener

Abuse of sex, celibacy, alcohol, drugs or religious convictions are becoming society’s norm. Video games, shopping, television and food, each to excess, while more socially acceptable, are in many ways the same. All feed our egos and each will distract us from many of the more important aspects life. True, many of these distractions may be fun. Yet, when fun overshadows other areas of life we easily move out of balance. When we feed our ego, we feel better and we choose comfort. We feed on what others will call addictions. Caffeine and tobacco—physical attachments will last only a few days, and yet few people want the physical discomfort of being without. They choose comfort and justify this comfort by saying it’s an addiction, and addictions are hard. The more immediately our egos are fed, the faster our comfort.

The other side of this coin is when we procrastinate. We keep putting off until we are forced to deal with what we have been avoiding all along. This generally will become larger in form and more difficult to handle. In the moments that we give considerations to these aspects of avoidance, we also feel discomfort, and so the cycle begins. We find ourselves drawn in further.

If free will is our birthright, why aren’t we free? We hold many beliefs that are so limiting in scope, yet we do not even wish to investigate the whys and how’s of those beliefs. The largest test of free will is our individual faith. The greatest test of faith is our ability to question. Make no mistake, each action within each subject mentioned in their own way are mind altering. In fact whenever we choose, we are making decisions. Will we still comfortably fit into our society? Being a part of a group is one of the strongest motivations that we hold. If we change, how will others react? Will we be embarrassed or ostracized?
How will we hold onto the convictions of our decisions? Pressure to fit in will usually drive what and how we do things. This is comfortable. Humans are uncomfortable with discomfort. How many of us are strong enough to make decisions and hold these convictions in the face of what others believe? For any religious or political figures to set up probations for any of these should be an insult. When we act as adults and take full responsibility for our actions, we deserve to be treated as adults. Our governments and our Holy men want to treat us as children. Worse still is the fact that many adults hate to make decisions and on some level want to be taken care of as children. These are patterns that we as children develop.

Few people will truly dig for more information. It may seem like too much trouble. It just doesn’t seem important enough. How many people listen to sound bytes and then fill the rest in with emotional rationalizations? Ask them what they know and soon they become defensive because they do not know. How many people do you know that are so involved with the drama of the cycle, are victim to the cycle, hate the cycle, and believe that it is too much trouble to let go of the cycle that causes them discomfort and dis-ease.

Life doesn’t have to be hard, certain of life’s choices may be. While it may not be obvious, each aspect in all of the above-mentioned requires decisions. Attached to those decisions are societal judgments, or more specifically what we believe to be judgments. What makes these decisions more difficult is that many of these are mainly outside of our conscious awareness. What is worse, many would like to keep it there. Why? It’s comfortable. Just as it is comforting to commiserate. How many times have you heard someone’s tale of woe within minutes of meeting? These people get insulted when you ignore their personal dramas. Some even feel cheated. They find comfort in the commiserations and their ego is fed. This is the reason that many adults are out of balance. Many of these adults by wall clock standards are in many ways, emotional children. On a side note, they have children and teach them how to become limited adults.

The paradox is that the more we focus on the action the more we want to carry out the action and the harder it becomes to NOT focus on that action. This is an addictive cycle. Take any subject. We aretaught, or we recognize what we have been taught previously. We begin to build beliefs around this matter. The more we learn about this subject we reach either a chord or a discord. Which ever the direction, we build rationalizations and supports in order to more comfortably believe. The more unconscious we are about an issue, the greater our level of comfort. Become determined and more aware. These changes in our perception must come from within. For this is where true freedom begins. All Rights Reserved 2006

Written by Jeff Schoener

It has often been said that life is but a series of individual moments strung together. When one experiences each moment fully with all of our senses, this is commonly known as living in the ‘Now’, or present time. When we look upon them fondly, we call them memories. When we look upon them as a matter of fact they are history. When an individual relives a specific moment over again, they fall victims of that moment. What causes individuals to become victims of a moment?

Trauma of some sort allows one moment to be somehow, grander than another. Shock, surprise, confusion and negative disappointments all aid in allowing the individuals to dwell. When one is consumed with a particular moment, they feel that they must recreate it in order to fully understand or process that moment. It came upon them suddenly and they felt as if they had no resources but to become a victim. We all go through that. Not everyone has to relive that moment. Notice too, the secondary gains that come from this reliving. Sometimes there is a sense of comfort in replaying it within our minds, attempting to figure it out in hopes of releasing it. Other times there is an aspect of recreating it, almost as a stage play in order to gain perspective, or even the sympathy of others. Either way, they take on something that does not have to become their own. What about those who are too close to see, or too far from the issues? I have often asked of others do define what they want. All too often they define what they don’t want. (See ‘Maintain Your Brain™: What Keeps You Stuck?’ issue July 2007.) What about those who are so intimately involved in a situation where they have little or no personal time to consider a difference? I speak now of the people who are incarcerated, be they “guests” of the city, the state or prisoners within their own personal situation.

Just as there is amazing beauty in this world, there is also a tremendous amount of ugliness. It is easy to overlook the indifference, the neglect and the abuse. Those who are victims of the latter are in the most difficult place of all. They may feel and fear for their personal safety, as well as the safety of their loved ones. They are between a rock and a hard place. As for the rest of us, we are held unnecessarily as prisoners of a specific moment. Even we may gain perspective. Perspective – Close, Distant, Above, Beneath

Either way, it is our perspective to the issues(s). Consider those times when you heard stories of a friend or family member whom you are not so close to. We may easily realize the actual issues and are often frustrated in the fact that the individuals involved do not recognize the situation as crystal as you may and they may even say, “You don’t understand.”, or “Until you are in my situation, you will never know!” All because they are too close to the situation.

Situational awareness—this is why folks who are intuitive and outsiders may predict quite accurately. At the same time, the same individuals have difficulty in the consideration of their own life’s choices and what they deem important matters. We are told by others to rise above it, or put it behind you. Set that aside, we are speaking in terms of relationship. The perspective that we have on an issue within a moment may be changed within an instant. If your relative position is center, any issue or moment may be above you, beneath you, in front of you, beside you and behind you. The information you perceive is either too close to you, or too distant from you. Each position mentioned illustrates exactly where you store this specific information. What if you could take something that is too close and move it to your distant future? Would this issue feel the same to you? Would it have the same immediacy? Would it hold the same intensity? Take something you perceive as above you and for a moment place it behind you. Does it seem so lofty now? Take something that is beneath you and put it in front of you. Does it still seem as it did before?

The point of this, as we handle everything as something to be learned, in every situation, we do not have to label the moments, we do not have to be victims of them, we simply have to perceive them differently. With this new perspective, we may act more fully and in the moment. All Rights Reserved 2008.