Creative World Way  
Newsletter No2. - June 2006

I've had the great opportunity of being interviewed by Barry Eaton on his net-radio site www.radiooutthere.com Have a listen now, if you wish. There's also a link in our website. www.creativeworldway.com

This newsletter has a new Lie Tip and I think you will benefit from the Member Questions and answers. If you have a bit more time for reading, I am including the excerpt on Harmony and adding some comments. I could see in Melbourne just how powerful a tool this can be.

It is really important that if you like what is happening here, to forward this to friends, family and those you think might benefit. The only way that an idea survives is if it spreads. Also, keep sending in your contributions. That is how the newsletter will thrive and stay interesting. Don't be shy. contributions.

And now to announce our first giveaway...

The SPECIAL GIVEAWAY happens in September, but in the meantime we have lots of goodies to share.

Today we are giving away a Body Care pack from Mancine. These are just gorgeous products which are not available in shops, only through professional centres. They have been kindly donated by The Davis Health Centre where I have my counselling practice and my wife, Susie, heads her team of remedial massage therapists www.davishealthcentre.com.au

The pack consists of a hand a & body lotion, a botanical body butter and a body wash. Yum! This has a value of around $60 and we'll post this out soon. Remember, you need to have registered your email on the form here or on the website. Many of you may not be registered and don't worry about registering twice. I can fix duplications. Better twice than not at all. register here

Our first happy recipient is: Hania Trzaskowski in Melbourne. Yippee!

                                SPECIAL GIVEAWAY IN SEPTEMBER!

A weekend's accommodation in Leura, The Blue Mountains, for up to 8 people staying at "Craigend on Leura Mall" which is a beautiful 4 bedroom Federation house just 200 metres down from the famous Leura Mall shops. If you are unable to travel to the Blue Mountains you are welcome to give it to someone else or even onsell the gift voucher. This has a value of over $1100. Have a closer look at Craigend on Leura Mall. Forward this opportunity to a friend and they are welcome to join in.

To be included in this opportunity simply send your email and contact details here (only once) or register your details from the web site. Notification of the 'Craigend' giveaway will be in the September Newsletter and the lucky recipients will receive confirmation by email and/or phone.

Groucho Marx

send a great quote

Life Tip

There are Life Tips on the web site, but we'll put more here.
It might be on the site, it might not. Check it out.

                                                                LAUGHTER

           Do you laugh much? I like a good laugh, but maybe life isn't so funny.
           It's full of struggles, hassels and hurt. Surely not many laughs there? But
           frankly, I find life really funny. Kids are funny; seagulls; chickens
           trying to fly. Tall buildings filling up in the morning and emptying at
           night, like ants predicting rain. Lush lawns that you can't walk on;
           lollies that kids can't touch on supermarket bottom shelves. We fight to
           solve problems and when we fall in love we create problems. But laughing really
           gives us something. It gives us a happier view; changes the worst circumstances
           into bearable; relieves depression and helps cure illness. When we laugh we
           produce chemicals called endomophins that make us feel relaxed and happy.
           Laughter strengthens your immune system. On top of that it's infectious.
           Just be around others who are laughing and away you go. Laughter could
           change the world. Try having a negative, destructive thought while you are
           laughing. Maybe we should get rid of the pomp from Parliament and have a good
           comic. Maybe then we'll build a brighter way of life and create a happier world
           to live in.

                                                Members Questions:

From Lucy: Where do you get your energy? When I get tired it seems harder to be creative and easier to just give in.

Energy is a difficult thing. As I describe in the book in the energy equation, the resistance that winner/loser world thinking creates can tire us out. In the creative world way it is possible to benefit from the productive energy of the things and especially from the other people involved. Like in the Laughter lifetip - the infectious nature of laughter tends to make you feel more energetic. The technical reason is due to a positive change in levels of dopamine (positive anticipation) and norepinephrin (energetis preparation). These things are great, but they need the natural elements of the body to make it all work. If you don't eat well and/or don't get enough sleep etc etc, then all the energising neurotransmitters in the world aren't able to manufacture energy out of nothing.

Part of the energetic increase when your experience is moving in a harmonious direction is the pleasure of it, also the excitement of what is new and different and the feeling that you are a part of something that is more than just yourself. This is what Ernest Rossi tells us are the essential foundations to putting the body into a healing state of being.

It may take some time of practicing the creative world way before the benefits, like feeling more energetic, become strong. In a world that tends to demand the instant fix, this may seem a disappointment, but the 'instant fixes' almost always turn out to be temporary. That is the difference with the Creative World Way.

send your question

                                                What's Coming Up.
Events - lectures, workshops etc.

I'll be speaking to 2 Probus clubs this month. These clubs are for retired people who are still active and seek to find connection and friendship. Just my sort of people! I'm speaking at the Association of Massage Therapists 40th Anniversary Conference in Sydney in October. I will also be back at the Mind Body Spirit festival in Sydney from Thursday, 16th November till Sunday 19th November (more on those later).

invite Richard to speak to your group

Here's where we can share comments about my book, but also about other books that are giving inspiration to you and might be of benefit to others.
send a review
I haven't received any written reviews from anyone yet. Lots of lovely comments coming in though, which is very encouraging. Some have asked for some time because they want read the book again. Maybe that's a positive review in itself. I look forward to getting some input over the next month.

I'll leave Ernest Rossi's review of my book here for now.

“I am delighted with this remarkably clear and profound book for the general reader covering everything on the nature of the human mind - from Plato's ancient Parable of the Cave to our current neuroscience of ‘Mirror Neurons’. Pioneering thinkers and healers of Australia and the world will place it on their Top Ten List.”

Ernest Rossi PhD
author "The Psychobiology of Gene Expression"
and "A Discourse with Our Genes".

                        The Psychobiology of Mind-Body Healing by Ernest Rossi PhD.
                        submitted by Richard Hill

This is an earlier book. The second edition was published in 1993. This book may be a little more accessible to the interested reader, which is good. He lays the foundations for his later work here and some of his observations and conclusions are truly mind-blowing. His explanations of the 'mechanics' involved in the body's healing powers only add to the amazement and awe that we must accept about this big bag of bones we carry around the place. The mind is an integral and vital component to our body's healing mechanisms. Knowing something about this will empower you and help you maintain a positive state of healing in your life.

I shout his praises again and urge anyone with an interest in the difficult questions to read his books.
www.ernestrossi.com

Included below is the chapter on Harmony from the book for those that haven't read it or want to re-read it here.

The thing that I have found over the last few weeks is how useful a tool the 7 feelings of harmony can be (happy, able, receptive, mindful, open, nascent, yes). At first I called them the indicators, which is still a good name. For a little while I called them the 7 conditions of Harmony, but that is a bit ambiguous. As I was thinking of a title for this article I thought of them as the 7 FEELINGS of harmony.

This means that we can observe and notice our feeling to give us a very subtle and vitally aware sense that we are proceeding, or integrating, toward a harmonious outcome. These feeling become the indicators of when to adjust the 'rudder' of our direction.

The exciting thing about this idea is that you can quickly realise that you are not making the most of your experience or that you don't feel right about what you are doing because you feel a problem in one of the 7 feelings. These manifest as indicators that you need to pay attentiona and so something to adjust. It is almost that we can say to ourselves, 'Thank you for letting me notice that I am unhappy so that I can gently alter what I am doing or the direction I am taking." This is much better than waiting until you are totally miserable or depressed and having to make a massive adjustment to get back on track.

The idea of the Creative World Way is not to make your every living moment a blissful wonder. That is probably impossible, but is definitely not healthy. We need a healthy smattering of stressful events in our life. These events muster a host of mechanisms that not only deal with the issue, but maximise our inner healing mechanisms. It also allows us to discover what we can do with our potential talents and skills. It is not that we should look unhappiness in the face with a blissful grin, but with an aware determination to find the message (not the problem) and create the new you in the new world - knowing that this is the inevitable outcome of every new day.

Please send your comments and especially any practical experiences that we can share with everyone. What does this idea of mine create in you?

                                                HARMONY

THOUGHT: When elements interact they seek to integrate toward a state of harmony.

That sounds quite good, but is it true? Is it even pointing in the right direction? In Hollywood there is a banner more than 4 stories high that reads, "On the day when we can fully trust each other there will be peace on Earth - L Ron Hubbard". Sounds great and makes you feel good for a moment until you realise that if peace can only come when we are all able to trust each other permanently, then we are looking at a gloomy future. For a start, our ability to understand what we say to each other is full of frailties. It is not wise to fully trust any communication thoughtlessly because language is always less than perfect in conveying meaning.

So, what about my bold thought? Are we really inclined toward a state of harmony? What is a state of harmony? When things interact, do they integrate? Let's look at this statement and see if it is true or helpful. If it is, then this statement provides a solid foundation for the existence of the creative world. If we can know that we can connect with others and participate in our experience with confidence that the outcome will most likely be harmonious, then the creative world way will definitely be a satisfying experience

The origins of harmony come from the Latin harmonia 'joining, concord' and from Greek harmos 'joint'. Webster's Dictionary states: The just adaptation of parts to each other, in any system or combination of things, or in things, or things intended to form a connected whole.

The important words here are connected whole. This is where independent elements combine to produce something more. Something new has been created, something more than existed before. This could be something as simple as cup of white coffee, where white milk has blended with the black coffee to produce a new connected substance. It can also be as complicated as an orchestra combining the sounds of 50 or more instruments into a harmonious, connected whole. The opposite of harmony is twofold. The first is to be rigid, where interaction is resisted and any movement toward integration is halted. The other is to be chaotic, where elements are in such disarray that it seems impossible to control interaction. Rather than interaction it seems more like collisions on one hand and elements flying off out of control on the other.

Our bodies will naturally react to changing circumstances to maintain a stable, harmonious state. Emotionally we prefer to feel a sense of stability, but the reasons why we lose that emotional stability is more complex. Unlike the biological body which has a set of clear parameters to function within, our emotional stability has to deal with not only reality, but also our memories and our imagined concerns. It is quite easy create stress or fearfulness. It is not uncommon for us to respond to emotional imbalance with wildly fluctuating behaviours. We can 'freak out' - a chaotic response - or we can refuse to make any change or accept anything new - a rigid response. What we seek, however, is to feel good - to feel in harmony with who we are and what we are doing.

When the body gets too cold or too hot we begin a series of behaviours that act to remedy the problem. This can be anything from shivering to inventing air conditioning. The elements of the situation interact and produce productive responses by integrating the various elements into a connected and satisfying outcome. Satisfaction is when the outcome is harmonious. From the body perspective, that is when life is preserved and the organism is stable. From the emotional perspective, that is when we feel happy and stable.

Let's think about these compensating actions of the body. Are they a good thing or a bad thing? Certainly they can be uncomfortable and distressing at the time, but they can also be reassuring because we can feel that something is happening. When something is happening there is a possibility for change and improvement. What if we apply The Problem is a Message to these compensatory behaviours? From that perspective, shivering is telling us that we are cold; sweating is telling us that we are hot; and perhaps being unhappy is telling that we are doing something that is disturbing to our emotions.

We all know there is nothing to lose in shivering because you are cold, but, strangely, there is a social disapproval if you have something wrong with your emotions. We often either do nothing (rigid) or resist help and let things get out of control (chaos). Unhappiness is just a message to reconnect, to interact. All we need to do is to interact in some way. Interaction enables integration and integration seeks harmony. We know this because all the things that make us feel uncomfortable, painful or disturbed are when things are rigid and/or chaotic.

Dr Daniel Siegel has given a beautiful description of the harmonious state that we naturally seek. He has applied the research and theory from a number of disciplines including neuroscience and mathematical complexity theory to arrive at 5 conditions of a harmonious state. He uses the acronym F.A.C.E.S.

Flexibility - to be able to make adjustment
Adaptability - to adjust to new conditions
Coherence - to make sense of your experience
Energetic - to feel positive and productive
Stable - that conditions continue with manageable fluctuation

When we are behaving in the way of these 5 qualities, we know we are in a harmonious state. We know because we feel good about ourselves and happy about our lives. This is the feeling that persists in the creative world and these 5 qualities are the creative world way. If you look back at the 8 Differences you can see their reflection in Dr Siegel's FACES. The first time I heard him speak about this I had goose-bumps of excitement the size of basketballs, particularly because I had already written the text of the 8 Differences. It was an inspiring support for the creative world. Here is another acronym that depicts the feelings that come up in the harmonious state.

Happy - the contented satisfaction of feeling you are doing what you are meant to do.
Able - having the capacity and the capability to act.
Responsive - to be empathetically aware and sensitive in your reactions.
Mindful - having an awareness of the present moment, uninhibited by judgement.
Open - acting with unconditional positive regard
Nascent - sensing that something new is coming into existence.
Yes - having no barrier to what is being created.

I'd like to examine our thinking about harmony a little more. Harmony is important and relevant to a number of aspects of living:

* Harmony is found in the productive co-operation of your inner world and outer world. You have an innate sense of what is 'right for you' that encompasses your inherent dispositions - the qualities and potentials you were born with - PLUS the developed state of mind that comes from experience and your personal interaction with that experience - what your experiences in life bring out of you.

* Harmony can sometimes only be found by swinging between rigidity and chaos. This may feel like you are out of control and can be quite unsettling in the short term. What we now know is that it is very important for humans to encounter novel experience in order to develop the brain and therefore expand the mind and increase our capacity to function successfully. We learn as we go, not just from where we've been.

* The most important aspect of harmony is that it is a direct expression of interaction. Harmony is the relationships between your state of being, your environment and their interaction. The emotional indications that you are integrating in a harmonious direction are described in the 2 acronyms of FACES and HARMONY. If you are feeling the disturbing effects of the 7 Demons or any of the 8 Differences, then you are telling yourself that you are not moving toward harmony. So stop and change what you are doing by using any of the 6 Practices. It is as easy as that.

It may even be that conscious efforts to seek harmony are futile in the w/l world. I suggest that when we do find harmony in our lives it is because we are acting in the creative world way, but simply not aware of it or because we have found an island of relief from the winner/loser world. In the w/l world there is no uninhibited interaction. We transact instead. When you transact there is a desire to draw only the perceived benefits (not integration, but a merger with conditions) and this is in order to achieve a result that benefits one party at the expense of the other. This will distinguish the winner and the loser. Therefore, in the winner/loser world the opening thought would alter to:

When elements transact they seek to merge only with beneficial aspects in order to produce a winning result.

The unconditional positive regard required for creative interaction is compromised and therefore harmony remains elusive. The elusiveness of harmony expresses itself as unhappiness and unhappiness affects the whole body and all its systems. It drives us crazy.

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