you, walk out on it, and feel it wobble as it bends under your weight.
Feel your toes curl over the end of the board. Then jump off and feel
yourself plunge into the water far below. Give yourself several moments
to really feel the feelings.
Now notice your emotions about what you just experienced. How in-
tense 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?
Almost without exception, people report far more intense feelings with
the second experience. Why is this? In both cases, some part of your mind
is aware that you are reading a book. The difference between the two ex-
periences is your point of view, or your perception.
The first time you imagined you were watching the event; the second
time you imagined you were in it. The emotional intensity changed be-
cause your perception changed. The first time you experienced the event
from the observer or dissociated position. The dissociated position typi-
cally reduces emotional intensity. The second time you imagined that you
were the person climbing the ladder and jumping into the water. You saw
the event through your own eyes or from the associated position.
EMOTIONALRESOLUTIONMETHOD
Let’s move on to practical ways for using our power of perception to aid
wealth accumulation.
On a separate sheet of paper, make a list of past negative experiences
about money. These could include instances when you spent money fool-
ishly, when you lost money in an investment, job loss, when someone stole
from you or failed to pay you as agreed. It doesn’t matter whether the
event occurred very recently or when you were a small child. Write them
all down. Also, include negative experiences about money from your orig-
inal family because, as a child, you were dependent on your parents for fi-
nancial security.
Now picture yourself in each of these experiences. Make sure you see
yourself in each event as you remember it, rather than seeing it through
your adult eyes. Seeing yourself in the event is the way to be sure that you
are dissociated.
Now make a second list of positive experiences with money, extending
from the recent past back to childhood. These may include accomplishment
of an important goal, the promotion of one of your parents at work, a sig-
nificant increase in income, or a successful investment, for example.
Now let yourself see each of these events, one at a time, from the as-
sociated position, through your own eyes, as if they were happening now.
If you see yourself in any of the memories, this means you are not associ-
ated. Change this by stepping into yourself and seeing each event through
your own eyes.
Money and Emotions 109