Effortless Evolution Book Main

EFFORTLESS EVOLUTIONA NEW PARADIGM FOR PERSONAL CHANGE

- Introduction When we experience our own desire for transformation, we are feeling the universe evolving through us. - Barbara Marx Hubbard However beautiful the strategy, you should occasionally look at the results. - Winston Churchill

I know what it's like... You're scanning the cover of the latest personal development, spirituality or business book as you turn it over in your hands, and you have THE HOPE. We've all had THE HOPE, and some of us have had it dozens or even hundreds of times. THE HOPE is a feeling, with a soundtrack that goes something like this... Maybe this is it, the answer, the thing that's really going to work. Maybe this is the solution I've been looking for all these years, the big one, the thing that finally going to get me there. Maybe, just maybe, if I read it all the way through, and do all the exercises, and somehow find the discipline to follow the plans it gives me - maybe if I do it right this time, then maybe, just maybe it's going to work... And why do we have THE HOPE? We have it because we're convinced that there's somewhere to get to, and that there is better than here. And there comes in a variety of tantalising flavours that look something like this:

Jamie Smart 2011Effortless Evolution: A New Paradigm for Personal Change

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I'll be [happy / secure / fulfilled / peaceful / better / successful / ok] when I ... get the money / the car / the yacht / the house - the there of stuff. find the right work / hobby / exercise / pastime - the there of doing. have the right partner / friends / children the there of people and relationships. write the book / start the business / learn the language - the there of accomplishment. can take a year off / travel the world / eat at the best restaurants. The there of lifestyle. achieve time-freedom / financial freedom / social freedom the there of freedom. lose the weight / stop smoking / start going to the gym - the there of self-improvement. change my thinking / my limiting beliefs / do my affirmations - the there of psychology. meditate properly / find the right practice / get enlightened - the there of spirituality. accept myself / love myself / just let go the there of surrender.

You may have tried none, some or all of the above. You may have made big changes and improved your life in a variety of ways. Or maybe not. At times, you may have felt like you're nearly there, like you're very close, like the pot of gold's just around the corner. And yet... No matter how close you get, doesn't it always seems like there's a little more you need to do? A little further to go? Just a little bit more to fix, change or heal? Or a LOT more? I know, because I've done it everything on this list and more. I got value from many of my efforts, but sooner or later, after a week or a month or a year, I'd find myself feeling like I was back where I started, feeling like there was something missing, something wrong, something I couldn't quite put my finger on... Jamie Smart 2011Effortless Evolution: A New Paradigm for Personal Change 3 www.saladltd.co.uk

As it turns out, the story behind that sense of something missing doesn't just stop you from enjoying your life to the full it actually stands in the way of you having the life you really want. And it's not your fault. You see, as strange as it may sound, you've fallen into a trap. And it's a trap that's so subtle, you've probably never even noticed it. Subtle, powerful and all-pervasive. But I'm getting ahead of myself. These days, I spend most of the time living there, but I didn't get here in the way you might expect. In brief: I grew up in an alcoholic household and started drinking heavily when I was 12 years old. At age 19 I was a scholarship engineering student and a full-blown alcoholic. The alcohol was like rocket fuel for my life I got jobs, was promoted rapidly, and started experiencing many of the trappings of success: expense accounts, foreign travel, luxurious surroundings. But on the inside, I was falling apart. Then, at the age of 30 I got married. A month later, her bags were packed so I decided to stop drinking in order to save my marriage. Oh yeah I missed one. I'll be happy when I get a cigarette / a drink / a line of coke the there of addiction. That was in 1996, and I haven't had a drink since. Today I live a happy, fulfilling life that's beyond anything I dreamed was possible for me, but how I got here is a story of struggle, frustration and heartbreak (much of which I could have avoided if I'd known what you're going to be discovering in this book). Just to give you an idea, in the time-period from 1996 to 2008 I... Felt like I was a fraud and worried constantly that I'd be found out Moved to London Attended my first personal development training Quit my job and became a consultant Began a spiritual journey Read hundreds of personal development books4 www.saladltd.co.uk


Started a business with a friend Was terrified of having to get a job again Overcame my fear of public speaking (mainly by doing lots of public speaking) Lost weight, gained weight, lost weight, gained weight, lost weight, gained weight Experienced depression, anxiety and obsession Spent countless hours talking to a Freudian psychoanalyst Participated in various addiction recovery programmes Learned NLP, got certified as an NLP Trainer and started teaching others Had two children (Matilda and Tallulah) Went on dozens of personal development courses Got dumped by my wife and almost fell apart Went on a journey of awakening my masculinity and learning more about women and relationships Struggled with worry, anxiety and suicidal thoughts Was paralysed by a combination of fear of failure and fear of success Built a successful training and educational product company (Salad www.saladltd.co.uk) Tried my hand at stand-up comedy Learned Krav Maga, the Israeli martial art Built a tribe of tens of thousands of people who follow my work Had numerous false horizons, thinking I'd finally got it, only to find myself back where I started

By the end of 2008, I was unhappy, stressed-out and at the end of my tether. I felt like I'd been giving it everything I had for over a decade, and while some areas of my life were better than ever, in many ways I felt like I'd been running on the spot. It was shit or bust. I was on the verge of giving up. Then I was introduced to the understanding you're going to be discovering in this book. It's nearly three years later, and they've been the best three years of my life. I'm experiencing a sense of peace, security and aliveness unlike anything I've had before. And as my sense of wellbeing and clarity has continued to increase, my external circumstances have been improving too. Jamie Smart 2011Effortless Evolution: A New Paradigm for Personal Change 5 www.saladltd.co.uk

The good news is, it can be replicated - the clients I work with are getting similar results. Here are a few examples...

Uncover your passions - Two clients (a couple) who recently relocated to the UK didn't want to fall into the 9 to 5 grind, but anything else felt unobtainable. Nine months after discovering the principles you're going to be reading about in this book, living a life they love has become their day-to-day reality. They've discovered new passions, and in the next few months they're moving to the South of France to live their dream of making organic soaps and skin care products. Overcome fears and obstacles - I introduced one of my clients to these principles over lunch one day. When I checked in with her a week later, she revealed that a lifelong fear of public speaking had disappeared, and that she'd given a presentation to her team at work. The amazing thing is that I didn't even KNOW she had a fear of public speaking until she told me it had gone. Her fear vanished once she got an understanding of what you're going to be learning in this book. (It's been a similar story with clients suffering from a range of fears, worries and anxieties). Beat stress and start living from wisdom - Another client, a successful businessman, has had the stress of running multiple businesses replaced with a sense of calm that allows him to make great decisions and enjoy his life more. For him, the principles you're going to be discovering have translated into better business and big increases in revenue, but he says that the changes in his life are worth far more than money. Live a life you love - A young entrepreneur has made his dreams of passive income and living his purpose a reality a reality that's translated into international travel and spending his days doing what he wants to do at just 27 years of age. The things you're going to be learning in this book have enabled him to shake off his limiting beliefs and create a life he loves. Make a difference - A coach who wanted to create a successful business helping others has done just that, attracting numerous clients within months of learning the principles in this book. A year later, not only is his coaching business thriving, but his family life is better than ever, and he has a sense of confidence and self-belief beyond anything he'd previously experienced.

While the circumstances in these stories are great examples of the power Jamie Smart 2011Effortless Evolution: A New Paradigm for Personal Change 6 www.saladltd.co.uk

of what you're going to be learning to make a real difference in people's lives, there's a deeper story that's both more subtle and more powerful... This deeper story relates to your EXPERIENCE of life. Again and again, my clients and the other people I know who are learning these principles are reporting radical changes in their experience of life... Security and wellbeing - You start to feel an increasing sense of wellbeing, security and peace of mind that comes from within. The very qualities that people have been trying to get from outside of them start to show up from the inside! Richer relationships - You notice your relationships with family, friends and loved ones getting deeper and more connected. Even relationships with clients and colleagues start getting richer and more enjoyably real. Innate wisdom - You start to get in touch with your innate guidance and natural wisdom, leading to better decisions. Your experience of life starts to take on an effortless quality. It's not that you don't ever work hard at anything, but it's with an increasing sense of engagement and enjoyment. Increasing confidence - You start to notice self-doubt fading away, to be replaced by a sense of increasing confidence and willingness to take action. In fact, people often start taking inspired action on projects they'd been trying in vain to make progress on for years. Sense of purpose - You start to feel a sense of purpose, and really being part of life. Often there's a sense of gratitude and happiness that seems to be for no reason at all, other than the enjoyment of being alive. Helping others You start to notice that you're making a real difference in the lives of other people, able to help in situations that used to seem baffling (coaches, therapists and change-workers find themselves suddenly able to make quantum leaps in the impact they can have with their clients using the insights you're going to be getting throughout this book).

These stories are echoed over and over again by my other clients, and by the other people I know who are working with the principles you're going to be discovering. The discoveries you're going to be experiencing for yourself as you read this book have been used to transform people's lives in incredibly diverse areas:



Working with gang members in maximum security jail in the USA (I've sat and talked with convicts who say they've never felt so happy and peaceful in their lives since learning what you'll be reading about. In fact, some of them even had their sentences reduced when the parole board saw how much they'd changed). Consulting with large organisations, including Blue-chip companies, advertising agencies, sales forces and even the US Army. They've harnessed the power of what you're going to be learning in this book, and the results they've seen in terms of employee engagement, results and profitability have confounded what people thought was possible. Helping heal people with serious clinical diagnoses like clinical depression, paranoid schizophrenia and psychosis. The principles you're going to be learning have been tried and tested with some of the most severe of mental problems and personality disorders. Transforming inner-city housing projects that were labelled as police no go areas, with high levels of truancy, addiction and abuse. When they saw the same principles you're going to be pointed towards, the people in those projects grew into a community with high levels of mental health, and associated changes in behaviour. Healing alcoholism, drug addictions and eating disorders. The impact of what you're going to be learning about in this book is profound and lasting for human beings in all walks of life (even those who have been pronounced incurable). Working with couples and mediating a wide variety of relationships (often in seemingly intractable positions). The principles you're going to be learning have created harmony, connection and shared perspective where it was thought there was none.

The amazing thing is that all of the things you've read about above have been achieved without the things we're usually told we need... without the use of techniques, tactics and interventions without needing to stress, struggle or strive without resorting to regimes, discipline or pressure Without having to remember, reframe or manage your thinking



It may sound extreme, but the understanding you're going to be exposed to has earned the label Effortless Evolution. Best of all, the changes that you can expect from your deepening understanding of the material in this book share three important qualities: Your transformations will be NATURAL. The insights and transformations you're going to experience are a perfect fit for you and your life. They're going to be a natural expression of who you are, rather than trying to fit yourself into someone else's model. Your transformations will be SUSTAINABLE. Because the transformations take no effort to implement, and because they're such a natural fit for who you are, they're easily sustainable. It's time to wave goodbye to struggle and backsliding. Your transformations will be GENERATIVE. This means that the positive impact of what you'll be learning will show up in many different aspects of your life, without you having to make it happen. The reason I'm writing this book is to save you the decade or more of searching, struggling and unnecessary suffering that I went through. Because that's the good news you don't have to go through any of what I've done. You can cut to the chase, and take a shortcut that gets you to the same place in a fraction of the time. You don't have to wait. You can start living the life you desire sooner than you think! But first, a question: Q: If you're caught in a trap, what's the one thing you have to do before you can escape? A: You have to realise that you've been caught in a trap.

Until you realise you've been caught in a trap, you're very unlikely to get out of it. But once you know about the trap, and you can see how it works, then escape is pretty straightforward. Especially if other people have escaped from the same trap, and can show you how. So in the first chapter, I'm going to show you the trap, how it works, and why you've been caught in it until now. But before I do, I need to share something very important with you something you may never have thought about before...



- An Unsuspected Power (How to get MAXIMUM value from this book)

It's a challenge to hear something new in something that sounds like something you already know. - Aaron Turner

We cannot teach people anything; we can only help them discover it within themselves. - Galileo Galilei

Don't take this the wrong way, but you're not a very good listener... This sentence caught me by surprise. The person who was coaching me didn't know it, but I was renowned for my listening skills. I had been trained to notice fine distinctions in voice tone and body language, and could unpack the deep structures of what a person was saying, moment to moment. The idea that I wasn't a good listener seemed preposterous to me. But I was curious, so I asked him what he meant. The explanation he shared with me has turned out to be one of the most valuable distinctions I've ever learned, and is of crucial importance if you want to really get the most from this book. More importantly, the distinction you'll discover in this pre-chapter is going to be an essential key for your escape from the I'll be happy when... trap you're going to be uncovering in Chapter One. My coach explained to me very gently that when I was listening, it seemed like I had a lot on my mind. I was doing listening; it was something I was working at. He said that listening in this way was OK for getting an intellectual understanding of something, but it wasn't going to help me have the realisations and insights that could transform my life. As I reflected on it, I realised that this is how we've all been taught to listen. It's how we've been taught to read. It's how we've been taught to learn. But it used to be different. Jamie Smart 2011Effortless Evolution: A New Paradigm for Personal Change 10 www.saladltd.co.uk

You were born a learner and a listener. It's thanks to your natural ability to listen and learn that you can walk and talk today. You knew how to listen long before anyone ever taught you how to think, before you knew how to analyse and judge, before you were taught that analysis and judgement even had any value. If you're anything like me, you were taught to read, listen and learn for an intellectual understanding, and that's fine as far as it goes. But if you want to awaken an unsuspected power to transform your life and the lives of others, it's time to remember a different way to read, listen and learn... Reading for insight...

DISTINCTION: Reading for Agreement VS Reading for Insight When most people read, they're trying to fit what they're reading into what they already know, seeing how the new information can fit into their existing cognitive structure. This is called reading for agreement. But there's another way of reading. You can read in a way that creates a space for the innate knowledge that's already there within your consciousness to emerge more fully into your awareness. This is called reading for insight.

Reading for AgreementMost of us have been taught to read for agreement. We think about what we're reading as we're reading it, and make decisions about... Whether or not we agree with it Where it fits into our existing cognitive structures If it doesn't fit, why not? Whether to accept or reject it etc

Just check - you may be doing this as you're reading this passage, saying That makes sense, That's nonsense or somewhere in between. That's OK. Reading for agreement is useful for evaluating information, and making decisions about its validity, but it doesn't create great conditions for having an insight. A person who's reading for agreement has a lot on their mind, so the mind isn't as free to do what it does best generate new thought.



Reading for InsightReading for insight is reading with nothing on your mind. When you read for an insight, you put your existing conceptual models to one side (to whatever extent that's possible) and allow yourself to be touched by what you're reading.

The Magic Eye Back in the 1990s, evolving technology led to the creation of magic eye images. At first glance, a magic-eye image looks like a repeating, two-dimensional pattern, but if you look through the image, with a soft-eyed, relaxed gaze, something amazing happens. A 3-dimensional figure suddenly leaps into your awareness, a figure that was totally invisible when you first looked at the image. People often sat staring at the 2D images, trying hard to see the 3D image hidden within it, but nothing happened until they relaxed and allowed the image to emerge.

Reading for an insight is the reading equivalent of looking at a magic eye picture. You don't really need to think about what you're reading you just need to relax and allow yourself to be impacted by the words. Another example is poetry. When a person reads good poetry, they're not trying to decide whether they agree with it or not they're reading to be impacted. When you're reading for insight, you get a feel for what you're reading, seeing beyond the written word to what the author's really trying to convey. You allow the innate knowledge to come from deep within your consciousness and step more fully into your awareness. As you read this book, stay in touch with your feelings. Read when you feel inspired to read, and pause when you feel like pausing. The value you'll get from this book won't come from the information on the pages the value will come from deep inside you. So make the space for that to happen. Any understandings you already have will still be there when you get to the end of the book, so I invite you to put them to one side and allow yourself to be even more deeply impacted. The reality is that every person has wisdom. You have everything you need to transform your life already within you. No matter what's happened to you, or what you've been through, you can have a beautiful life. The power to transform your life is going to come from within your consciousness. As you continue reading this book for an insight, you may occasionally find yourself feeling particularly calm and peaceful. Those Jamie Smart 2011Effortless Evolution: A New Paradigm for Personal Change 12 www.saladltd.co.uk

beautiful feelings can be one of the signs that you're being impacted, so enjoy them when they come and relax when they don't.

And what's so great about insight?Insightful understanding doesn't come from the words on the page it comes from within you. It often arrives suddenly, but can continue serving and informing you for years to come. Insightful understanding is a natural function of the human mind, and has the power to transform your life. Insight is the Unsuspected Power mentioned in the title of this prechapter. When you listen for agreement, the intellectual understanding you get is like a written instruction manual. It's good as far as it goes, but it takes effort to put it into practice. That's why people often say I understand that intellectually, but... Insightful understanding is more like an iPhone app once it gets downloaded, it starts working immediately, because... Insightful understanding is powered up and ready to go! When you have an insight, it comes with its own source of motivation. You don't need to get yourself to do it - You naturally find your behaviour changing in ways that serve you. When you have an insight, it's perfectly tailored to you. You don't have to figure it out or try and adjust it to your needs it already fits perfectly. Insightful understanding is context sensitive, and can adjust to your changing circumstances, even taking account of things you're not consciously aware of. Intellectual understandings can get stale over time, but insightful understandings stay fresh, and can keep updating your system for years to come.

When a person says I understand that intellectually but... what they're really saying is I've received information (from outside myself) and built intellectual structures relating to this, but I haven't had the deeper realisations and insights (from inside myself) that I need for it to make a difference in my life. But those situations where you just know what to do, and can't explain why... That's the polar opposite of the I understand that intellectually, but... phenomenon. When someone says I just know, but I don't know why what they're really saying is I've had some realisations and Jamie Smart 2011Effortless Evolution: A New Paradigm for Personal Change 13 www.saladltd.co.uk

insights that are making a difference in my life (from inside myself) but I haven't yet built intellectual structures relating to it.

The great news is that insights start making a difference to you whether they make sense intellectually or not!

A Sudden Insight In the 1990s I was employed as a project manager. I wanted to leave my job and become a contractor. My friends told me I could do it easily, and while I understood that intellectually, I knew that I couldn't do it. Then in 1998 I attended my first NLP training, a 2-day introductory programme. During the weekend, I had an insight: I suddenly knew that I could leave my job and become a contractor, with all the freedom, possibilities and rewards that entailed. I quit my job two weeks later, started working for myself and created the time and money to attend lots of NLP training. I can trace the life I have today back to that one insight, and can still feel the sense of freedom and possibility it carried with it.

While the example above was massively transformative for me, insightful understanding is an everyday phenomenon. In fact, as you start to become more and more aware of it, you'll begin to find yourself relying on insights and your natural wisdom to guide you on a day-to-day basis. Everyone's had the experience of making a decision, having it turn out badly, then saying I knew I should have done it the other way, but I didn't listen to myself. Many people also have examples of just knowing the right thing to do, even though it doesn't seem logical at the time. The knowing they're referring to is an example of insightful understanding. People have many ways of referring to it: The gut feeling that lets you know to take a certain decision. The common sense that saves the day in a difficult situation. The intuition that leads you to an unexpected success. The sudden realisation that makes a big difference in your life. The knowing that has you ask just the right question. The insight that solves a problem that looked like it was impossible.14 www.saladltd.co.uk


The creative leap that takes things in a whole new direction. The moment of clarity that turns an addict's life around. The inspiration that gives you fresh energy and inner motivation. The wisdom that guides you in situations where your old maps and ideas no longer apply.

Everyone has examples of insightful understanding, but most people don't realise how powerful it is when it comes to transforming your life. And while this book is full of ideas that you may find interesting and informative, its real power is in creating a context where the innate knowledge that's already there within you can emerge more fully into your awareness and make a real difference in your life. In fact, the essential difference between this and most other books is in its ability to act as a catalyst for your own insights to transform your life.

Exercise: Stop for a moment and identify two or three of your own examples of insights, big or small, that have made (or are making) a difference in your life. 1. _________________________________________________________ 2. _________________________________________________________ 3. _________________________________________________________

If no insights came to mind right away in this exercise, you can relax. They'll occur to you later when you're not trying or thinking about it! Insightful understanding comes from your innate ability to have fresh new thinking at any moment. When you stop and think about it, everything a person perceives as limiting them is a reflection of their intellectual understanding (what they already know), while the fresh, new perceptions that can transform your life can only ever emerge from what you don't yet know, through insightful understanding. Once again, insightful understanding comes from deep within your consciousness, and shows up in a way that can transform your life in a heartbeat. And you put yourself in a great position to have one when Jamie Smart 2011Effortless Evolution: A New Paradigm for Personal Change 15 www.saladltd.co.uk

you're reading for insight instead of reading for agreement. In the introduction, I described the I'll be happy when... phenomenon, and explained that the first thing you have to do before you can escape from a trap is realise that you've been caught in it. So I invite you to read for an insight as I reveal the trap that's ensnared millions of people (including yours truly), a trap that I call...



CHAPTER 1 - THE HIDDEN HAMSTER WHEEL None are more hopelessly enslaved than those who falsely believe they are free. - Goethe

We don't know who discovered water, but we know it wasn't the fish. - Marshall McLuhan

An addict is someone who's trying to use a VISIBLE solution to solve an INVISIBLE problem. You got addicted without even realising it! I was no stranger to addiction when I heard this. I started drinking when I was 12 years old and didn't stop for good until I was 30. In the process of recovering from alcoholism, I explored a variety of approaches ranging from the spiritual to the material and all points in between. I found value in much of what I discovered, and my life improved in ways that I didn't even imagine were possible. But in the process, I discovered an even deeper addiction, one that sits at the very heart of modern culture; an addiction that's so subtle it's almost INVISIBLE; an addictive, superstitious and life-eroding trap that has hooked countless millions of people; the trap I call the Hidden Hamster Wheel.

The Hidden Hamster Wheel The hidden hamster wheel is based in a superstition; a superstition that's taken to be obviously true by most of modern society. It's so subtle and pervasive that it shows up in everything from children's books to personal development programmes; from movies to marketing campaigns.

When a person deeply believes in a superstition, the superstition informs everything they believe, everything they do, and how they do it. When a society believes in a superstition, it gets reinforced from all sides.



The Power of Superstition In the 1800s, it was widely accepted that illnesses such as cholera and the plague were caused by bad air (also known as miasmas). At the time, huge numbers of people were moving to Soho in London, with an associated increase in sewage. The government of the day decided to pump the excess waste into the River Thames, unknowingly contaminating the water supply. The impact was felt in 1854 when the Broad Street cholera outbreak claimed the lives of 618 Soho residents in just a few weeks. The physician John Snow was skeptical of the miasma theory, and managed to trace the epidemic to a water-pump in Broad Street. His analysis of the outbreak pattern was compelling enough that the local council removed the pump handle and the epidemic ended. The miasma theory was a superstition that was seen as fact. As a result, the decision to pump sewage into the water supply was taken from within that superstition. While you and I know it's crazy to let human waste anywhere near your water supply, that's because we have a deeper understanding, an understanding that wasn't available to the people trapped within the miasma superstition. John Snow, Ignatz Semmelweis and many others had insights that allowed them to see beyond the superstitions of the time, leading to the creation of germ theory and modern medicine. As a result, millions of people are alive today that wouldn't be if we were still living in the superstitious miasma-theory paradigm.

Belief in a superstition can lead to needless misery, suffering and even death. But as soon as people get a clearer understanding of the nature of reality as it already is, there can be a massive and widespread improvement in quality of life. A Thought Experiment Imagine this: it's 1853, you live in Soho, London. It's a crowded city, with only rudimentary sanitation. The air is full of strong odours, so you're in the habit of carrying a small bunch of flowers to protect you from illness. Everyone you know does the same thing, and the posy industry is big business. Then one day you meet a professor who's convinced that diseases aren't caused by bad smells. He tells you that disease is actually transmitted by tiny invisible creatures, but when you ask for evidence, he explains that we don't currently have microscopes that can show you the little creatures (or germs and bacteria as he calls them). He tells you Jamie Smart 2011Effortless Evolution: A New Paradigm for Personal Change 18 www.saladltd.co.uk

however that he can show you phenomena that can only be explained by the existence of these invisible creatures. Would you believe it? Maybe, maybe not. Most people would probably say Don't be silly everybody KNOWS that illness is caused by bad smells. It's obvious... My guess is that until I had some compelling evidence to the contrary, I'd keep buying posies, and so would you. Here's a quick question... Q - If you were to be presented with the evidence that one of the most widely-held beliefs of modern society was in fact a superstition, would you be able to listen with an open mind? The fact that you're reading this means that the answer is probably Yes, so here goes... The life-damaging superstition that I call The Hidden Hamster Wheel is the mistaken idea that our Core Feelings of wellbeing, security, peace, love and joy can be provided by our circumstances, by something visible. The I'll be happy when... trap described in the Introduction is an example most people can identify with. The core feelings and circumstances vary, but the basic structure of the superstition is the same: I'll be [Core Feeling] when I have [Circumstance] It's based on an even simpler structure: [Cirumstance] gives me [Core Feeling] And like pieces of lego, this simple structure can be used to assemble all kinds of larger structures: I couldn't be [Core Feeling] if I lost [Circumstance] I'm [Core Feeling] because of [Circumstance] I can't be [Core Feeling] because I don't have [Circumstance] I was [Core Feeling] until I lost [Circumstance] I'm convinced that [Core Feeling] comes from [Circumstance]



They can take a variety of shapes, but at heart they're all based on the idea that our core feelings come from our circumstances, from something relatively visible. But wait! I hear you say. I've seen studies that show that feelings of wellbeing and high self-esteem come from accomplishments, or from doing vocational work, or from meditating. That's all an example of the superstition in action. When I use the word circumstance, I'm using it in the widest possible way, to refer to pretty much anything you can imagine, including: Physical environment (eg. Home, holiday destination, working environment) What a person does (eg. Work, hobbies, exercise) Techniques (eg. Meditation, NLP state-change, EFT tapping) Stuff [eg. Houses, boats, cars) Status [eg. Job title, position, medals) Material wealth [eg. Money, shares, income] People [eg. Partners, friends, children] etc.

The idea that our core feelings are at least to some degree the result of our circumstances seems so obvious to people that calling it into question can seem ridiculous at first. And while many people who have explored the domains of brain-change (through NLP, spirituality, personal development, meditation etc) would say that they know that their core feelings don't come from their circumstances, they often continue to act as though they don't really know it (I know that intellectually but...)



In fact, many people in the world of personal development replace one set of circumstances with a higher level version of the same thing... I'll be happy when I change my limiting beliefs. I'll feel fulfilled when I know that I'm on-purpose and doing what I love. I'll be peaceful when I learn to meditate properly. I'll feel secure when I'm generating passive income. I'll feel a sense of freedom when I have the lifestyle I want. I'll be OK when I go on the next course / read the book / do the exercises etc.

The circumstances may be different but the superstitious structure is still in place: [Cirumstance] gives me [Core Feeling]. Once again: We've been conditioned into the superstitious thinking that our wellbeing comes from outside of us, that there's somewhere to get to, and that there is better than here. Don't be silly!, I hear you say. Everybody knows that circumstances give us feelings. I'll give you some examples right now! My sense of security comes from the fact that I've got money in the bank. I feel a sense of love and connection because I've found the right partner. I feel stressed out because I've got a stressful job. I feel peaceful when I go for a walk in the park. I feel relaxed when I go on holiday

Are you really trying to tell me that these examples are just a superstition? That my job doesn't actually stress me out? That my security doesn't come from money? That I don't feel love because of my partner? That I don't like going on holiday? Yes and no.



Your examples of your experience are real for you. I'm sure you can identify numerous circumstances where you experience certain feelings. I'm not saying that you don't enjoy the things you enjoy, or that you shouldn't want the things that you want. What I'm saying is that the feelings aren't coming from the circumstances - they're coming from somewhere else. And as you start to understand where they're coming from and how the system works, some wonderful things can start to happen. Because a superstition is really just a misunderstanding, based on a piece of flawed logic. And this simple misunderstanding often leads to unnecessary... Stress Unhappiness Addiction Mental illness Conflict Criminal behaviour Violence War Relationship problems Depression Neediness Struggle etc

But the great news is that as an individual starts to see through the misunderstanding, the superstition starts to fall away, and their quality of experience starts to get better and better. And what happens when a society starts to see through the misunderstanding? I don't know yet, but I'm excited to find out! So how do you escape from this addictive, life-damaging trap? Jamie Smart 2011Effortless Evolution: A New Paradigm for Personal Change 22 www.saladltd.co.uk

How do you start seeing through the misunderstanding, and start experiencing an enormous increase in your quality of life (even if it's already great)? We're going to begin by looking at a phenomenon that's very strange, entirely counterintuitive and still one of the most SHOCKING things I've ever encountered...



CHAPTER 2 - THE GREATEST SHOW ON EARTH -

The crowning intellectual accomplishment of the brain is the real world. - George Miller

Thought creates the world then says 'I didn't do it' - David Bohm

In a dream your mind continuously creates and perceives a world simultaneously... So well that you don't feel your brain doing the creating.

In the film Inception, the lead character Cobb (played by Leonardo DiCaprio) speaks these words while drawing a circle made of two arrows. He's explaining how dreams work, but his explanation isn't just an elegant description of the nature of dreaming; it also shines a light on the nature of our perceptions when we are awake. In our waking reality, our perception is generated in exactly the same way, albeit with a live data feed. To paraphrase Cobb, In your waking experience of reality, your mind continuously creates and perceives a world simultaneously... So well that you don't feel your brain doing the creating. When you stop and deeply consider the implications of this, it can be shocking. It means that 100% of your experience of the world outside of you is actually taking place inside your neurophysiology (including the bits that you see out there).



Your experience of the world out there is being generated from within you, based to a greater or lesser extent on data received by the senses, depending on your focus of attention. For example, a person can be sitting in a business meeting, but have their focus of attention entirely absorbed by a daydream about a holiday. Whether the data is arriving from their senses, their memories, or their imagination, the process used to generate a perceptual experience is the same. Our experience of reality is, quite literally, created from the stuff that dreams are made of.

Perceptual Adaptation The psychologist George Stratton performed a series of intriguing experiments in the 1890s using a pair of inversion glasses. These curious glasses presented the wearer's eyes with an inverted image of reality they turned everything upside-down! Stratton himself wore the glasses for 8 days straight. For the first 4 days, he was presented with an upside-down world, but when he woke up on the 5th day of wearing them, something extraordinary had happened; his perception had corrected itself, and he now perceived the world the right way up. Another surprise followed when he removed the glasses; he found that reality now looked upside-down when he wasn't wearing them. It was a few days before his sight returned to normal. This phenomenon (referred to as perceptual adaptation) highlights the creative role our minds play in generating our moment-to-moment perception of reality.

Stop for a moment. Have a look around you. Listen to any sounds you're aware of. Run your fingers over some objects in your environment.



It's seems to us as though we look out at the world out there through our eyes in much the same way as we look through the viewfinder of a camera, but that's not how it works. The truth of our perception is entirely different and far, far stranger... You see, your perception of reality is less like looking out at the world through the lens of a camera, and more like wearing a pair of virtual reality goggles. Have another look around you, and allow yourself to notice one or two objects in your immediate environment. 100% of your experience of those objects is being generated from within your neurophysiology. I know it looks as though the objects are out there (and for practical purposes they are out there) but your EXPERIENCE of the objects is being generated from within your consciousness. Your entire experience of out there is taking place inside of you (including the elements you experience as outside of you). The fabric of your perceptual reality is being generated by your mind. Reality Check: I'm NOT saying that you create your own reality; I'm saying that you create your own EXPERIENCE of reality, moment to moment, from within your consciousness. We live in a material world that is governed by inviolable laws (e.g. gravity, thermodynamics etc) that are not materially influenced by your perception. If you're driving down a road and don't realise that the bridge around the next corner has been washed away in a flood, you're not going to be able to drive over the nonexistent bridge just because you think it's still there. Gravity doesn't care what you think! The neuroanatomist and brain researcher, Dr Jill Bolte Taylor, put it this way during her TED.com talk: Information in the form of energy streams in simultaneously through all of our sensory systems. And then it explodes into this enormous collage of what this present moment looks like. What this present moment smells like and tastes like, what it feels like and what it sounds like. The energy flows into our senses as raw data, in much the same way data flows into a computer through a USB port. The mind then creates a model of what must be out there for me to be receiving this data. This model is then represented to us in consciousness. Once again: Your perception of reality is less like looking out at the world through the lens of a camera, and more like wearing a pair of virtual reality goggles. Jamie Smart 2011Effortless Evolution: A New Paradigm for Personal Change 26 www.saladltd.co.uk

We've all had the experience of seeing a friend in the street, waving to them, then realising it's not actually the person we thought it was. Yet a moment earlier, we could have sworn is was them. When we first saw them, what we actually saw was a perceptual guess. It was only when we looked more closely that a more accurate perception was created, based on fresh data. Our perception is constantly making these sorts of guesses, but we usually only become aware of the guessing process in situations like the example above, or when we look at an optical illusion. So how is this relevant? I'd like to share a metaphor with you...

The Pixels of Perception I'm writing this book using my beloved MacBook Air. As I write, I can see the words I'm typing appearing on the screen. At any point, I can watch a YouTube video, flick through my photo library, search for a quote using Google, post something on facebook or scroll through another document, but one thing remains constant... Everything you can see on the screen is created using pixels. Pixels are the tiny building blocks that are used to create the videos, the photographs, the letters in the documents, the images on the webpages... everything! It's ALL pixels. Similarly, our experience of reality is made of the perceptual equivalent of pixels; a power that I'm going to refer to as THOUGHT (I'll be referring to the power of THOUGHT in this typeface to distinguish it from the common understanding of the word thought.)

Exercise: 1) Again, look around you at the environment you're in. As you notice the different elements in that environment, consider the fact that what you're seeing is actually a representation being generated by (and within) your amazing mind. Your experience of everything you can see is made of THOUGHT, the pixels of perception. 2) Now close your eyes and remember what you could see in your environment. Your memory of those things is also made of THOUGHT. Jamie Smart 2011Effortless Evolution: A New Paradigm for Personal Change 27 www.saladltd.co.uk

3) Imagine an event you're planning to enjoy in the future. This future memory is made of THOUGHT. When you're asleep and dreaming, those dreams are made of THOUGHT. Every experience you have in your entire life is generated using the power of THOUGHT, the pixels of perception. Of course, the power of THOUGHT isn't just limited to our visual experience. While we've used the visual metaphor of pixels for explanatory purposes, our experiences of sound, smell, taste, and touch are also constructed from THOUGHT. So are our feelings and emotions. THOUGHT is the power we human beings have to create a representation of absolutely anything and experience it as real. We each live in a psychological reality; our perceptual experience of reality is 100% mind-made, using the power of THOUGHT. Reality Check: The scientifically-inclined reader may be saying to themselves Hang on a second, our perception isn't made of pixels! It's made of synapses, neurons and electrical currents! Brain science is an incredibly valuable area of research, giving us a view of the mechanics of brain functioning. There's no doubt that there are ways of perceiving made possible by human brain structures that just aren't available to creatures who don't have these structures (for example, the fusiform gyrus, which we use for facial recognition). These brain structures allow us to use THOUGHT in ways that wouldn't be possible without them, but our subjective experience is still created by what I'm calling THOUGHT. In fact, the word THOUGHT itself is just a metaphor for this incredible power (even my description of it as an incredible power is just a metaphor for something that is utterly beyond description, for reasons we'll go into later in the book). It's relatively well-established that human beings use the same perceptual apparatus for dreaming and imagining as they do for experiencing their waking reality. Oft-quoted studies of sportspeople have shown that vividly imagining a certain throw, manoeuvre or shot can activate the same muscle groups as actually doing the activity being imagined. But here's where it starts to get wild... Human beings are literally able to think ANYTHING and experience it as real. The power of THOUGHT is so flexible that people can use it to create ANY perceptual reality: Two people watching the same movie can have two completely different experiences of it, thanks to the power of THOUGHT. Jamie Smart 2011Effortless Evolution: A New Paradigm for Personal Change 28 www.saladltd.co.uk

A person with a phobia can use the power of THOUGHT to create the experience of an imminent plane crash, a spider bite or a dog attack. A person doing a job can feel inspired and energised, while the person sitting next to them feels stressed and unhappy doing exactly the same work. Both of them create their experience using the power of THOUGHT. A person can become convinced that their partner is cheating on them, regardless of the reality of the situation. They create their perception using the power of THOUGHT, then experience it as real.

Someone can have a richly enjoyable experience, anticipating a holiday that they're planning to go on. The power of THOUGHT is making that enjoyable experience possible, even if the holiday ends up getting cancelled! I'm not saying that they're doing this deliberately or consciously; I'm merely pointing to the human capability to use the incredible power of THOUGHT to create any perception of reality, and then experience it as real. The reason this is SO relevant when it comes to escaping from the hidden hamster wheel is this: 100% of our experience of reality is mind-made. If a person THINKS they need X, Y or Z in order to feel A, B or C, then they will experience that thought as a reality. That's how powerful THOUGHT is. Do you remember the structure of the superstition from Chapter 1? [Circumstance] gives me [Core Feeling] THOUGHT has the power to bring each of the different permutations of this superstitious formula to life, and have a person experience it as a reality. As you start to get a deeper, more insightful understanding of the nature of THOUGHT, you'll start seeing through the superstitions that have been keeping the hidden hamster wheel in place until now. But there's something essential about the incredible power of THOUGHT that you may not have noticed... Because a person can think absolutely ANYTHING and experience it as real, their perception ALWAYS looks like a reality. Their THOUGHTgenerated reality looks as though it's an actual reality.



THOUGHT is like the special-effects department of a movie studio. Its job is to create a perceptual reality that looks real, regardless of the facts of the situation. But we can all think of times when we knew something to be true, then later discovered it was an illusion, because... You can't take your THOUGHT-generated reality at face-value. It ALWAYS looks real. That's its job. The sign of high quality special-effects is that you can't tell they're special effects; they look like the real thing. And THOUGHT is the best special-effects department in the world. As the renowned physicist David Bohm famously said, Thought creates the world then says 'I didn't do it'. So how do you know when to trust your THOUGHT-generated reality and when to be suspicious of it? Fortunately, there's a beautiful system we've each been given for doing exactly that. Please allow me to introduce you to...

Loving this book so far? Its one thing to read a great book or watch videos and get life changing information intellectually, its quite another to get that information embodied within you so you actually benefit from it and experience it in everyday life. So I'm running a two day workshop where I take everything I've learned and developed with my work on Effortless Evolution and guide you through the process, so you can immediately start to see the transformation then and there, towards a healthier, happier, more energised and ultimately more successful you. Check it out here: http://www.saladltd.co.uk/EE/effortless.php

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