Nobel developed nitroglycerine and then was able to harness that energy more safely in the form of his invention he called dynamite.  Nitroglycerine took the life of his brother Emil in the process.  At the age of 55 living in Paris, Nobel read the account of his own death in the newspaper’s obituary when in fact it was his brother Ludwig who had died with the newspaper confusing the two siblings’ names.  Alfred saw that the words used to describe him were “merchant of death” and “dynamite king”, which left a bitter taste in his mouth and forced him to reexamine what his true legacy would be.

At that moment, he saw that his life would be remembered for everything terrible so he set up a private will that established that his money would go to prizes in chemistry, physics, medicine, literature and peace (with the economics prize started in the 1960s) so today he is remembered as the father of the peace prize, the exact opposite of what his life and business stood for.

What will your obituary say about you?  What legacy will you be leaving behind when you pass away?  How will you be remembered?  What are you doing to secure that legacy in the hearts and minds of those around you?  Are you contributing to your legacy each and every day or are you leaving nothing behind?

I think we all can see a much larger vision for what we want in our lives.  I hope that the one word that will be associated with me will be “healing”.  I know I love my family and friends a lot.  I know that I am passionate to the point of being crazy about my work.  But my true work is in healing those individuals with whom I have the honor to come into contact.  I told a woman yesterday who came from Florida for my services and who had some bad eyelid surgery (3 in total) before me that I fixed with fat grafting, “Your journey has ended with me and it will now begin with me.”  The journey that ended concerned her plastic surgery; and the journey that began was her healing through my blogs.  I think these blogs are fundamentally about healing:  healing the wounds of those around me and also healing my own wounds.  So I close this week with the message that we opened it with, i.e., healing, and I look forward to commencing anew some wonderful blog adventures in the coming weeks, months, and years.

Namaste,

SML

I encourage all to read Psycho-Cybernetics, especially the new edition The New Psycho-Cybernetics by Dan Kennedy, that updates Maltz’s thoughts and uses relevant, contemporary examples to pull his classic text into the 21st century.  I have found such a wealth of information in it that it has greatly helped my life as well as my patients’ lives.  I have used it not quite daily but several times a week now to help my patients’ overcome their own battles with self image to liberate themselves and achieve a higher consciousness and thereby to affect their own servo-mechanism to flourish and succeed.

I particularly like the image of a man (or woman) that seeks self betterment (as we are all doing with these blogs) as a natural course for a human being to take, i.e., Maltz’s idea that we are like bicycles, moving we are stable and doing well but stopped, we fall over.  We need meaning in our lives and we need purpose.  I truly like the idea that we can move from struggling to go toward our purpose to just setting our purpose to move in the direction we want and allowing our guided missile of our unconscious mind to do much more powerful things.  Playing the mental imagery in our mind (Theatre of the Mind) of what we desire can be as vivid as if we already undertook it making the task or objective more easily realizable.  Like Jack Nicklaus selecting his golf clubs using his unconscious servo-mechanism or Greg Louganis playing out his dive 40 times before the jump, we all can control where we are going through this mental exercise that allows our more powerful unconscious mind to do the work.

Many people ask me how do I film all of these videos on facial plastic surgery subjects, doing several back to back with no script and no pre-planning?  The answer is that I don’t work on a conscious level.  I have a creative idea in my mind and then with only the germ of the idea and with no script and with no prethinking I let the cameras roll.  I have never thought of in the past how intuitive I work as a human but I truly work on a deep level of unconscious drive.  I don’t force a lot of things (remember the Tao verses on this subject) but allow my intention to carry me forward.  As a counterpoint to this, I also work with multiple accountability groups (see my previous blog on this subject too) to keep me directed where I should be.  They are my “bunkers”.  Remember that Maltz talked about keeping your eye on the green and knowing where the bunkers are.  We must all have a positive self image but one that is steeped in reality not a self-deluded lie.  We also must know where the bunkers are so that we can avoid these traps and “zig-zag” (as Maltz says) toward our goal through minor corrective maneuvers.

I hope all of you have been using Maltz’s plan as an action manual for your life rather than reading these blogs as merely provocative thinking. If not, we always can start today.

He sees some as rapid healers from sickness and those who linger in sickness due to an ill psyche.  He says those that retire from a job should not retire from life otherwise they will shortly die.  Maltz discusses how at the age of 61 he became a writer and lecturer for Psycho-Cybernetics and how others his age were “fossilizing”, he remained vibrant, energetic and youthful.  He sees the creative individual with an eager spirit to be the most blessed when it comes to this life force.  He says “Michaelangelo did some of his best painting when past 80; Goethe wrote Faust when past 80; Edison was still inventing at 90; Picasso, past 75, dominated the art world; Wright at 90 was still considered the most creative architect; Shaw was still writing plays at 90.”  We all can be creative in our own way and we all can live life creatively.  This does not necessarily mean that we must pick up a paintbrush but instead view the life force as a way to live life with abundant energy looking forward to create a bright future for ourselves.

Remember that a sense of self must be aimed somehow toward a sense of purpose.  We must all be moving toward a brighter future.  We have that innately within us.  Those who enjoy living and breathing will continue to live very full and long lives.  He talks about 2 types of widows.  Those who feel that their husband’s death is the beginning of the end for them and they retire from life.  Their hair begins to rapidly gray and their faces wither.  Then, there are those who begin to feel a sense of renewal either looking for a new husband or a new career or opportunities to explore their life in full.  I really think that plastic surgery (done with taste, discretion, and moderation) can bring about the renewed life force when one looks in the mirror and sees the congruity between external manifestation and the inner peace and vibrancy that abounds.

He recalls when he attended this funeral service for his friend and was shocked at the brother who hated his deceased sibling having poured forth a glowing eulogy.  When pressed about why he gave such a warm remembrance of his kin, the brother told Maltz, “I’m the kind of person who does not speak ill of the dead.”  The sentence that begins, “I’m the kind of person who…” is extremely powerful, notes Maltz.  It sets the emotional tone of where someone currently wants to be by self-perception and opens the flood gates for the servo-mechanism to act in a positive way toward the intended goal.  This deep level of positive affirmation can be the juice to propel one toward the end goal.  Today, try to find one or more sayings of “I’m the kind of person who…” that would help you shape your intention toward the envisioned goal.

Jimmy Carter finished his presidency and returned to Plains, Georgia with his tail between his legs.  But he has achieved remarkable renown for his Nobel Peace Prize in 2002, his worldwide humanitarian efforts, and his ability to draw bipartisan support for his endeavors.  He clearly has a had a great second act in his life.  Regis Philbin failed in his career for about 20 years until he hit it big again with his morning talk show and his “Who Wants to be a Millionaire?” show, drawing a reported $20 million contract with ABC.  Who remembers the time when he was a nobody?  Both of these men started their second acts much later in life. 

Whatever situation you are in life, you can have a second act no matter what age, gender, race, etc.  Take a risk today.  Live your dream.  Get your chance at a second act.  Remember when you set your target goal, your servo-mechanism will drive you to it.

We are in many respects like athletes.  We have certain clutch plays that we need to perform our best whether professionally or socially.  How do we do that well when the time comes?  First, a great suggestion is to shadow box.  To role play.  To go over in your mind’s theatre over and over the scenario so that when it happens it becomes almost second nature.  Why is it that when a real fire occurs, that it requires so much more travail to get out of the building whereas for those who practiced it calmly in the setting of a fire drill can walk out the right exit without a problem in the time of crisis because they practiced?  When one holds an empty gun, the hand can be raised and shoot at a target effortlessly.  But once the gun is full of live ammo, the hand shakes and misfires.  But with steady practice over and over, the hand steadies and there is no problem.

Besides shadow boxing, we can also convert our fear and anxiety over to a positive emotion, excitement.  Before Johnny Carson went on stage every night for the Tonight Show, he was petrified and “hyper”.  He got himself psyched up before going out.  Most individuals who are ready to perform on stage need a little butterflies to make the performance better, to make the mind clearer and the tongue sharper.  I myself use that trick before I make a public speech.  I really don’t get “nervous” anymore even in front of thousands of people but I do start to psych myself up before hitting the stage so that I am fully energized.  It brings me clarity of mind and purpose that comes to athletes and performers when the time of crisis hits them.  Practice shadow boxing before some major event you will be encountering and convert fear and anxiety into a deep excitement that you can leverage to your advantage.

Now to join the previous blog of hitting the delay button and this one on hitting the erase button, try to visualize yourself when you have a moment with the telephone ringing and ringing and you remain completely calm in your mind.  You don’t rush to pick it up.  Picture your colleague at work screaming at you and you remain completely at peace and don’t fall into his anger rant.  Picture these scenarios and various ones like them over and over again like a well-wrought film.  Once you have firmly played out your calmness in the sea of storm, you will move through your busy day with calm because you have already previsualized it with your repeated mental movie, hit the erase and delay buttons so that when you encounter the real-life situation, you are already under the control of your automatic servo-mechanism.

Maltz has many interesting ideas on how to achieve this peaceful state in our life so that we can be in a position to allow ourselves to move our servo-mechanism to our desired target (our goals).  With the multitude of external stimuli that bombard us every day, we have to quiet our own voice so that we do not become drowned out.  Think for a moment when the telephone rings, you have an almost instinctual need to go to answer it in a Pavlovian response.  Maltz suggests that next time that the phone rings, delay your response and say, “I’ll get up in a few moments but not right now.”   Hitting the delay button will start to disconnect you from the rush of external stimuli that may be disturbing your peaceful state.

Maltz also uses the example of a woman who had intense agoraphobia so much so that she could not leave the house.  In crowded situations, she would panic and be lost for what to do.  Then she thought to herself when she was in a crowded situation, “Wait, I am not going to panic right now but I will in two minutes.”  Of course, she continued to practice this mental game of hitting the delay button until she overcame her fear.  

Even though we might not be able to completely extinguish all of the negative thoughts in our head, we can “hit the delay button” so that we might begin to let go of our unsavory connection with the bustle of external prodding.

Jennifer Capriati, once a 14-year-old tennis wunderkind, between 1990 to 1993 reached three Grand Slam semifinals and captured the 1992 Olympic gold medal in Barcelona.  But then her career took a nose dive.  She left the tour for 2 years and in 1994 was arrested for possession of drugs and for shoplifting.  Capriati traced her disillusionment to when she lost the Grand Slam semifinal to Monica Seles.  When she made her comeback, a journalist reported, “There seems to be two key reasons for Capriati’s renaissance — concluding it didn’t matter what people believed about her and learning to stop believing bad things about herself.”  In 2001, she beat Martina Hingis in the Australian Open finals and then defended her championship the next year as well as winning the 2001 French Open.  She has racked up 14 singles titles and 1 doubles title during her career.

Capriati’s comeback was based on finally forgetting whatever anyone else thought of her as well as what she thought of herself and just doing the job.  When our self image is finally liberated from the confines of how we fear other people will see us or how we will see ourselves, we can unleash a powerful new self image that in turn promotes a healthy and free unconscious servo-mechanism.  Our true personality can shine and we can be free.

Maltz says that we were all born to have a care-free attitude and unrestrained personality.  However, with ongoing negative criticism, we become more and more restrained in our social interactions and more timid as individuals.  Our servo-mechanism should act freely and not be restrained by conscious fear of a situation.

He uses the example of a stutterer and a deaf-mute.  Usually, a stutterer becomes increasingly self conscious of his behavior and cannot talk well.  However, an experiment was undertaken in which the stutterer had his voice recorded but during his speaking had a loud bell tone ringed into earphones during his speech.  Surprisingly, when played back, the stutterer was amazed that he was not stuttering.  His unconscious ability to speak was paralyzed by his conscious deliberation on his speech until that conscious layer was removed.  The opposite is true of someone born deaf.  Typically, they can’t speak at all.  That is due to the absence of feedback on one’s own speech so that individual never learns to speak.  We need aural feedback to what we say so that we know how to correct our speech.

The stutterer represents the person who is so inhibited by past negative comments that he or she cannot freely interact with others.  The deaf-mute is similarly an example of someone who never got any feedback and does not know how to move forward.

To unlock our true, real personality, we must begin to let go of this thick layer of conscious restrictions.  Tomorrow we will investigate poise and what that means to the unrestrained personality.