One participant in a Training session commented, “These money
issues are visceral. They are about survival.”
Uncomfortable feelings often relate to some unpleasant event
in your personal history. If you broke your leg at age six, you
probably have unpleasant suppressed feelings associated with
that experience. But remembering the event and the suppressed
feelings associated with it cannot hurt you. The event is over. Not
only can the associated feelings not hurt you, they cannot be as
intense as they were when your leg was actually broken, simply
because it isn’t broken anymore. Obviously, any remembered
pain will be less intense. Associated with the actual broken leg
would be fear about how it would turn out—specifically whether
you would walk again. Remembering the event from today’s per-
spective, you know how it turned out. The uncertainty has been
resolved by the passage of time, so the fear that you feel with the
memory is less intense.POWER OFPERCEPTIONMETHOD
We explained in Chapter 4 how a person’s experience is determined by
the perception he or she holds of it. Next you will learn to apply this power
of perception with a natural and very rapid method for resolving the pain
of past financial upsets so they no longer slow your progress. Do this now
rather than skipping ahead.
First, a brief warm-up exercise so you can understand the power
available in changing your perception.
Imagine you are sitting near a swimming pool. Feel the sun,
see the sparkling water and the diving board high atop its ladder and plat-
form. Watch as a person climbs the ladder to the top of the platform high
above the water, walks on to the board, and jumps into the pool. Give
yourself a minute to really get the picture clear and bright in your mind.
Now, notice your emotions about what you just saw. How intense are
they? How would you rate their intensity on a scale from 0 to 10, where 0
is neutral and 10 is intense emotional overload?
Now imagine yourself at the same swimming pool. Give yourself a
minute to get back there to feel the sun and see the water, platform, and
diving board. Now imagine it is you climbing the ladder to the platform.
As you do this, feel the metal railings in your hands, the alternating flex-
ing of your leg muscles as you climb, and the rough wooden rungs of the
ladder beneath your feet. When you reach the top, look down at the
people sitting around the pool and notice how small they look from your
new vantage point high above the water. See the diving board in front of108 Stop Wasting Your Energy