Set a Precedent

Transcript

I’d like to talk to you about setting the precedent.

I was thinking about this principle from Neurolinguistic programming. They call it go first and the idea is if you want someone to feel an emotion or a certain way. Say if you’re a motivational speaker for example and you want people to get excited or get focus, the first thing you do is become excited or focused yourself.

Naturally other people will sort of follow, its a sort of neuroresponse, a contagious energy like we used to say in direct sales, why do we smile?

Smiles are contagious.

If someone smiles at you it’s gonna feel pretty natural to smile back. If someone feels good about meeting you, its natural you will also feel good about meeting them.

Sometimes I think about forgiveness or healing.

There’s a theory from Rupert Sheldrake, the biologist. He has a hypothesis called morphogenetic fields. One of the ideas of this hypothesis is that the universe has habits like a human has habits.

If the universe does things over and over they are more likely to happen again.

If something happens for the first time it’s much likely to happen again.

So if you read his books, he gets into examples talking about rats getting their way through mazes in the University of Melbourne I think. It tends to happen the same breed of rat gets through the same maze in different part of the world but quicker.

Or the example of crystals forming in one location and the first time a chemical is synthesized and forms a crystal it forms slowly. The second or third time it grows quicker. According to Sheldrake the reason is because of these universal habits. When something happens once, it’s more likely to happen again.

Think about it on a personal level.

Imagine like many of us you probably have done things you still judge yourself for, things you regret perhaps intensely.

It’s difficult to forgive yourself for that and perhaps when you interact with other people you might in the back of your mind think they are judging you for it.

And of course you can’t escape that thought when you are around certain people.

You still believe that they have that impression of you and naturally it colors a lot of things you do, colors your perspective.

Of course once you forgive yourself, you might put that out of your mind.
You might not think about that around other people and you might not believe they are judging you.

In fact, perhaps these things were a big deal for other people maybe not.

A lot of times when we think of bad things we’ve done to other people then it’s easy.

When we try to think about bad things others have done a lot of times they slip away. If those people are still our friends we are able to move past them.

Maybe those things aren’t such a big deal. Just by forgiving ourselves we can change our whole world because we change the perception of our world. We move past it and so our perception of the world reflects.

What if it goes beyond that? What if it is like Rupert Sheldrake talks about and in fact we are creating a precedent in the universe.

The first time we do something or forgive ourselves for something or perhaps we forgive someone in our family. A deep family secret, a trauma perhaps one that has lasted for generations.

Perhaps we can go back and forgive that in our minds and meditations and as a result we begin to heal.

Maybe you don’t buy into Sheldrake’s morphogenic field stuff, that’s fine. It’s in some ways a far out idea but of course these things apply even if you don’t believe in that.

If we go back and begin to forgive our past, our parents and grandparents the way that we were treated. Forgive ourselves for the way we treated ourselves and others. To begin to heal the hurts, our heartbreak.

Even if it doesn’t echo out into the entire universe it definitely goes within our actions and the ways we interact with other people. If we can heal our familiar wounds of course for our own children, for our own nephews or young people we interact with or we serve as role models.

Of course that’s going to affect their actions, belief and mentality in the long run.

Why not begin, begin where we are? Of course we can’t start anywhere else, begin where we are. Begin today.

Sometimes I say to my clients “what’s something you could do today to implement this?”

Right now, after the podcast perhaps, what could you do to make that real for yourself?

What could you do to forgive yourself, heal yourself and set that precedent?

To begin to let the echoes of that healing shine an internal light and come out. As wise man once said no one would put a lantern under a table or blanket, no one could see it.

Put the lantern clearly in the center of the room so it illuminates, so it shines out.

So it is with our own healing.

Soon, soon enough the effects of our healing will shine out brightly. That is why we set the precedent.

Thank you for listening, thanks for taking the time to breathe into emotional wounds.

Take a moment to forgive yourself, perhaps you will practice Ho’oponopono and learn to move past the past. Learn to open up a brighter future.

I’ll talk to you soon.